Quick Look: Everybody's Gone to the Rapture

It's got stiiiiiiiiiiilleee

I actually beat this game last night in one sitting. I think there is confusion with the walking speed. You can't run during the "night" sections or indoors, that is a set speed. Also the fences with the X allows you to climb over.

Only opened the comments to make the very same joke. Keep up the good work!

I really loved Dear Esther, the narrator kept giving you the story and there was also story told via small things happening in the environment, and if you paid attention to those small things it paid off in a big way. I don't think watching glowy effects is having the same impact as the moments in Dear Esther, that and the walking speed being incredibly slow with no narrator to pull you along doesn't help, but man that's a really good looking England.

I'm a day late, because I walked here, but if you hold R2 you sprint

↑↑↓↓←→←→BA enables R2

I found Dear Esther to be quite powerful and novel in 2012, but The Chinese Room really needed to evolve this into something with a little more substance to get my attention in 2015.

@jeff the sun isn't holding down R2 the earth is.

I was really looking forward to this game but now I'm not so sure. Loved gone home and dear esther. ether one which had a bit more puzzle stuff than the others.

I think dans subtitle thing is just cause he cant tell british voices apart? I cant either cause those mother fuckers are impossible to understand(all british people).

Haha, thanks, yea can't believe no one else said it already!

You say that but on Twitter The Chinese Room have said they hope to do a PC version, so I'm guessing there is an exclusivity deal period.

I think this game looks really cool, but probably doesn't show real well when "put to the test" in QL form. I really seems like the way we watch videos like this isn't the mindset to be in when playing this kind of game. In fact it seems like the sort of game that would be very easy to make fun of in video form, and thankfully Jeff and Dan do show some restraint on this front for the most part. I mean, imagine trying to make an interesting video about looking at a Mondrian painting and how easily it could descend into jabs about limited shapes and color palettes. Will definitely pick this one up and try it for myself when I get a PS4.

@sessh: Sorry, but your perception of movement speed is just off. In this video Dan walks from the back door of a house, around the side to the front door in 11 seconds. Go outside, find a nice, two-story colonial, and time yourself walking around the outside from the front door to the back. If you walk at a normal pace, I guarantee it takes you at least twice as long.

2 miles per hour = 1 yard per second. If the character was walking 1mph, that would be a foot and a half per second. That would mean it would take about 45 seconds to a minute 15 to walk the 60-80 feet from front door to back door at 1.5 feet per second.

In conclusion: You don't have very good perception of realistic movement speed in videogames because our brains have been trained to recognize 10mph as the average walking speed.

I don't play these walking simulator type games, but I get the appeal. If you're being engaged in a story or puzzles then I get why people would be into that.

But then there's a Kickstarter for a game called Shape of the World which as far as I can tell is more like an interactive screensaver than a game. No narrative. No story. No dialogue. No puzzles. No interacting with the world other than moving around. The world just procedurally generates in an artistic style as you move around in it. It's basically a screensaver, but it got completely funded and the people that put money in find it fascinating. I don't know why that's a game.

Where's the "game" part?

@brad3000: Okay, fair enough. I really have been mistaken in my perception than.

Another game made exclusively for the games press.

@brad3000: 1.5feet is a short step and even cruising around furniture in my livingroom i do more than one step per second.

Where are C3PO and R2sprintbutton?

Now, I don't necessarily disagree with the gripes brought up in this QL, but did Dan really sign up to present this himself when he's on video very recently explaining how he hates "not being able to go as fast as he wants" in a given situation? I'm just playing, I know he's fair and all that.

On another note, hoo boy, there are QUITE a few people here who - judging by their phrasing - have not actually played the game, yet feel compelled to give their opinions. Yup. Guess what? You walk a lot in this game, you guys; it never pretended to deliver anything else. I mean, you don't like it? That's cool, I myself do like it. But man... Video games are not coming to a grinding halt because The Chinese Room released an artsy-fartsy, slow moving, plot heavy game. Settle down.

This is the first video game which has made me think of the Archers...that's something at least.

I could easily see this being "interesting" or "worth my time." People have different tastes and opinions, just because some are maybe more open doesn't mean they're pretentious.

Some people like Olives. I think they're terrible. I don't think those people are pretentious.

Mr Heavyfoot Goes to the Rapture

This game looks really good and I love the small things that make it feel like England. I didn't like Dear Esther and this looks like more of that.

Are stiles not common in the rural areas of the USA then?

All the pre-release talk was about how pretty it looks. And that's still true, it's a nice looking game. Too bad it doesn't hold up in any other area. Well, maybe the soundtrack?

Since (almost) nobody has said it (I seem to be a minority), I will. I really loved Dear Esther. I am not sure it's really a 'game', but ignoring semantics it's one of my favorite games of all time. And I actually played through it multiple times. Mainly for the atmosphere and the story (which yes, is not in your face, but it is there) and very sad conclusion.

As such I am really hopeful for this game. The negative comments of the QL and here probably won't stop me from trying it (once I finally get over my Bloodborne obsession :p). I know this type of 'game' is not for everybody and it's not as interactive as some other 'walking simulators'. But I think the people who liked Dear Esther probably did so for a different reason and apparently it's not something that appeals to most people. And looking through the comments I still saw something that really interests me. And still glad I watched the QL as Jeff and Dan where pretty funny in it and for both of their doing (esp. Dan) quite openminded for something I think is really far of from what they normally like.

Wow, I was really hoping this was gonna be good. Based on all I've heard and this Quick Look, it seem extremely underwhelming.

I played Dear Esther and for as limited as that game was, I think it's pace "worked" because you really weren't exploring an environment. You were walking along a track and some off kilter crazy dialogue happened and that was alright. I dug what it went for up to a point.

It seems for this game they opened up the environment but didn't adapt or evolve their pace to match it. So walk speed might be the problem but density of events another and somewhere in the middle is perhaps the solution.

This is the kind of stuff I find utterly fascinating about video games. Thinking about how all the parts fit together and using that to make sense of why it does or doesn't work. In this case it's how movement speed relates to other aspects of a game's design. Having more games of varying kinds come out makes for more new ways to think about the way they were put together. I don't see how that's anything but a good thing.

I played through the entire game the other night with a friend in two sittings. We only found the walking speed annoying during the penultimate chapter, when we weren't sure of where to go and got stuck backtracking. Otherwise, it seems paced perfectly to soak up all the atmosphere, chew over where the story bits mean, and regard the preposterously pretty graphics. Holy crap do those trees handle lighting well.

Watching Dan fail to climb over a stile was incredibly stressful. It seemed like he didn't even know what a stile was :(

EDIT: Oh, and Dan does not seem to recognise a letter box, either. C'mon Dan.

I really like how they've recreated a rural English town and it's something I want to see from more games. It makes environments feel so much more real to me seeing recognisable elements, I feel compelled to explore this area even though the gameplay does not seem very engaging. This game could have been so much better if the movement speed wasn't ludicrous and if they allowed you to interact with objects. It's essentially the end of the world so you should have free reign to do whatever you want in people's houses and ride that bicycle if you wanted to.

See people give Gone home a lot of crap for 'not being a game" where as, it is, it really is.

In that game you have puzzles to solve, by manipulating and exploring the environment to find either clues or solutions to barriers which block your forward progress until you can solve the issue at hand. Along with this you have story points, dialog and character development which feed into a narrative and give you a reason to continue to pursue the story and explore more or your surroundings. Yes, there is no 'I blow up the alien to unlock door 5" but there is plenty and plenty of "I have picked up key item 5, which unlocks the dialog I need to hear in order to unlock door 5".

So, its a game. Narrative to push the player forward, interactivity to make the player have some agency in that stories advancement, and a recreation of a time and place that you simply could not do in any other medium but video games to the effect.

This? This is just, as someone else said, hot garbage. This is what people who either have no taste for gone home, or decide to simply discount it out of hand, believe all 'walking simulators' to be. Hell even that title is misleading in that, even something like the Vanishing of Ethan Carter, has plenty of 'gamey' elements to lend player-driven agency to the story. You are not reading a book, you are not walking through an art-piece your failing to understand. You are interacting with and exploring the world in order to find a story, and solve the puzzles needed to unlock more content.

This...is everything people accuse those games of being. No interaction, just movement from point a to b. No player driven agency in advancing the story. Hell there isn't even any story to speak of if what people are saying are to be believed, and what they say in the QL (so no spoiler I guess I've not played it) but..no payoff. Just questions, lots of questions.

Which falls more or less in line with the developers failed philosophy for making games. Dear Esther is, IMO, not much of a game either. And it sitting as the first major thing of its kind gave the rest of people who came and did it better/right a bad name.

So again, Gone Home, great game. This? hot garbage. Major major differences.

@bladededge: That "hot garbage" game you admit to never playing is currently sitting at a 78 on Metacritic. Just so you know plenty of people who actually played it like this game just fine.

This does appear quite tedious. Loved Gone Home for the record. I'm not sure Tacoma sounds like much fun either, or Adrift and WHO KNOWS WHAT FIREWATCH IS!

I think the Walk'em up may need to go back in the 'genre vault' for awhile.

@dithre: I'll stand by my statement based on the reviews I have read and the gameplay I have seen.

I am glad to see other people disagree with me however, that makes for a good community in my opinion.

So yup, your right to take exception with my opinion if you find my choice of words, tone or the amount of dislike I show this game if you yourself view it differently.

As to my having not played it, I don't think I need to play through an entire piece to pass judgement on a thing, not when there are a number of people who have done so, whose opinions I trust, who share the opinion I have formed from the "game-play" I have watched and heard about.

This is a genre I adore. I have enjoyed every single game that's come out in it that I have played (and I've gone and sought them out when I learn of them)...except for Dear Esther and this. That first game I consider awful, and this company had a lot to prove to me..I though their first game awful, I thought the second bad and this, the third, worst then the first. Why, oh why, would I play it?

Mind you, and this is important. I said I didn't play through it on purpose, I defend it from the same. If you think that invalidates my opinion in swaying you one way or another, you have the right to know where its coming from. I'm not telling you how to think about this, I am expressing how I do.

I am not even saying that this thing is not what it is trying to be. I am not in the camp that this, or Dear Esther for that matter is not 'games as art'. That is exactly what this is, IMO. I just happen to think its extremely pretentious and full of itself, in the worst possible way. In the same way the hipster movement is. In the same way people who discount video games as devoid of any artistic value are.

I don't think this thing fails purely because it lacks basically any and all game-play. I'm saying its more art-piece then game, and like a heck of a lot of modern art...its garbage.

To put it crude and bluntly. Plenty of people will crap on the ground, and display it in an art gallery, and declare it a social commentary on the world around them. Lots of other people might applaud their creativity and vision. Me? I just see crap.

Haha, I had the exact same reaction - "It's got an X so you can't go that way"

This is my game, my exact kind of game. Set in an area I love and grew up walking in and an idealised image of the golden age of countryside on the Welsh border. I was one of the few to even enjoy Dear Esther, despite being more of a 'plodding' simulator, but it was still pretty unique for the time.

Unfortunately, while a fantastic looking game with fantastic music, this is a game where story and pacing is vital to its success. It just didn't get this right like Gone Home, I felt myself spending ages trudging along just to discover anything and it left the experience feeling rather hollow. I'm all for an open-ended story, but I don't think this ever really went anywhere, it never gave you any attempt to understand the situation or your character (are you even a character, or an observer?)

Really wanted to enjoy this more :(

I loved this experience. It's like an old-school British sci-fi radio play, in a 3D environment. It was strangely nostalgic experience, since I grew up with a lot of BBC shows, even though I'm not from there. The typical small town drama was very well done, and the acting first rate. I did not like Gone Home at all. But this was right up my alley.

Not sure if anyone already mentioned this about that ball of light in the caravan that Dan had issues tuning into. The door to the caravan needs to be open in order to active the scene.

Now the PC version has come out and I've played this and I feel they were unduly harsh about the game. I agree with them on the movement speed though; it is sometimes painfully slow.

P.S. Do they not have stiles in America? They seem completely baffled by them.