SOMA (Frictional Games)

[ds]

At least you can kill the zombie doggies in Overture and afaik they don't despawn - they even go fetch a friend if you damage them and then fail to keep them stunlocked (although that doesn't work in their favor as it gives you an opportunity to hide). Much more realistic monsters than whatever tightly controlled confrontations they are trying to create in their later games. It's a shame that Amnesia is what took off for Frictional - I would have much preferred them to iterate on Penumbra monsters and puzzle design rather than make s[tc]reamer-bait monsters over and over.

The narrative and world design in SOMA was really nice though so at least that's something I look forward too in their next story-focused game.

 

[SomeGuyWithAnOpinion]

After this I've checked to see if the monster was inside. And indeed it was, when I got close to the Medical Bay door my vision would start to glitch heavily. So yeah, it somehow respawned in the corridors. Some other member also mentioned monsters respawning in this thread.

Yes, Akers despawns after awhile. He spawns in, harasses the player and then just disappears, only to come back later. So if you lock him in a room, he will disappear as soon as you're far enough away.

An enemy (AI) that's rubber-banded to the player. That's even worse than what I was about to say.

I've come across games (and game mods) where there's a hard-to-kill/invincible critter that's constantly hunting you, and either stealth or outrunning it is the only option. In situations like these I look to the game engine and see if there are any restrictions that the critter plays by that I can use to my advantage, like whether it can ascend/descend between floors, open doors, etc.

In older games I've found that one can use the game engine to one's advantage. In newer games I've found that the devs try to block that by teleporting the critter around. I can be in a room with only one door, three floors up, knowing that the horror critter is doing its routine patrol route in the basement and can't reach me by any means. I flick one (plot-vital) switch in the room, and the horror critter is instantly teleported to just outside the room I'm currently in, hunting for me.

Such dickery from devs has become so bad now, that I don't bother trying to trap critters anymore, they always have a Get Out of Jail Free-card.

You say the AI cheats like it's a bad thing?

Horror games (ESPECIALLY walking sims like Soma) are at their most effective when the enemies are a threat. If you can lock a door and the scares are over, it doesn't make for a good horror experience.

There are already creatures within SOMA that can canonically teleport, namely the flesher, so adding it engine-wise to the rest of the enemies isn't too far fetched.

 

[Iucounu]

In older games I've found that one can use the game engine to one's advantage. In newer games I've found that the devs try to block that by teleporting the critter around.

It's the curse of story-driven gamedesign: if the player manages to trap a main character it will break the plot, which must be avoided at all cost (to avoid bad reviews from ignorant players).

So in general I agree that gameplay is much more interesting than story, but horror games seem like a special case:

You say the AI cheats like it's a bad thing?

Horror games (ESPECIALLY walking sims like Soma) are at their most effective when the enemies are a threat. If you can lock a door and the scares are over, it doesn't make for a good horror experience.

https://frictionalgames.com/2019-10-9-years-9-lessons-on-horror/ talks a bit about this. A few quotes:

"being scared is not a pleasant feeling. Therefore the players will try to optimize the feeling away, often unconsciously. In the end, the players will ruin the intended experience for themselves."​

"And the crazy thing is that the players complain when this happens! They probe the system for flaws and choose to exploit them, yet want the dogs to remain scary. So their behaviour ends up going against their will."​

Gameplay can also make the game too fun instead of scary:

"Let’s use Dead Space as an example. When I started playing it, I was really scared, walking around slowly and peeking around every corner. Then, about an hour in, I learned how to kill the monsters, and what tricks I needed to survive."​

"Not only did I get good at killing the monsters, I thought it was great fun! The things that used to terrify me now became a source of amusement."​

"The early designs of Amnesia: The Dark Descent included genre-typical weapons, and even guns. We also experimented with very elaborate puzzle set-ups, everything from swinging chandeliers to redirecting rays of light. All these caused the same issues as Dead Space. They were too fun, and took attention away from what mattered: getting scared."​

 

[duskvile]

Gameplay can also make the game too fun instead of scary:

"Let’s use Dead Space as an example. When I started playing it, I was really scared, walking around slowly and peeking around every corner. Then, about an hour in, I learned how to kill the monsters, and what tricks I needed to survive."​

I don't agree with this. I was so scared till the very end I had to breaks betwen play times.

 

[Silva]

Alternative Account Agree that when stealth "gameplay" boils down to "I hope the monster doesn't come to where I'm hiding," someone fucked up. It is indeed boring. I think that's why I never finished this, it got tiresome really fast.

If you played this as a "stealth game" in the first place, then who fucked up was you. This is a masterpiece, but not a stealth game.


But you have good taste Zombra, so I'll let it slide this time.

 

[Zombra]

Silva Well yeah, I didn't play it as a "stealth game" ... but there were stealth sections I had no choice but to get through somehow, and those sections were not only bad but required lots of reloads, and that was bad enough that I lost interest in the game entirely.

The ideal horror game makes you FEEL like you're about to get a game over but then you barely survive, or at worst you have to reload once or twice so you feel the edge while refining your strategy. But when there is no strategy and it's pure random chance, you have no levers to do better next time and you end up reloading a lot, it's just boring.

I found SOMA boring.

 

[Silva]

The ideal horror game makes you FEEL like you're about to get a game over but then you barely survive,

That's the ideal horror stealth game. For that, Alien Isolation exists.

SOMA is an existential horror adventure - what scares you is the choices you made and events you witnessed, and how they linger in your mind after you stop playing.

(also, safe mode exists for a reason)

 

[Zombra]

Yeah, but can't be scared in safe mode. Horror adventure is great too but .. if you put stealth in the game, don't make it suck.

 

[Iucounu]

when there is no strategy and it's pure random chance, you have no levers to do better next time and you end up reloading a lot, it's just boring.

I don't recognize any of that, neither lots of reloading nor random chance. Gameplay was not too difficult either, if anything the puzzles were often harder than avoiding monsters.

 

[Spukrian]

Each enemy in the game requires a different approach, a different type of stealth. Akers is blind but hears very well, disco dude can only attack you if you've lookied at him, etc. In other words there are rules that govern them. Tbh I don't actually know how exactly the tentacle face dude near the end works, he was quite a bit annoying.

First time I played SOMA I was very scared and the only place I remember dying and reloading a lot was the chase sequence after sabotaging the ship. That said, playing it again would probably not scare me much, since this a Frictional game and they tend to overly rely on scripted events.

 

[Iucounu]

Tbh I don't actually know how exactly the tentacle face dude near the end works, he was quite a bit annoying.

I recall you just had to circumvent him.

First time I played SOMA I was very scared and the only place I remember dying and reloading a lot was the chase sequence after sabotaging the ship.

Yeah that part was a bit hard since you needed to know the correct way. What I ended up doing was explore the ship just before the final chase, when the monster wasn't around to disturb you.

That said, playing it again would probably not scare me much, since this a Frictional game and they tend to overly rely on scripted events.

It still has the same creepy atmosphere though. The lore alone also makes it worth replaying.

 

[ds]

First time I played SOMA I was very scared and the only place I remember dying and reloading a lot was the chase sequence after sabotaging the ship.

Yeah that part was a bit hard since you needed to know the correct way. What I ended up doing was explore the ship just before the final chase, when the monster wasn't around to disturb you.

That part took me a while too because I completely forgot that you could sprint after being encouraged to sneak to avoid alerting the monsters before that. Tried so many different routes or hiding but nothing worked at normal walking speed. Eventually managed to clip through to environment and trap myself under the engine. Had to teak a break after that before I could immerse myself again - horror just stops being horror if you need to reload too often.

That said, playing it again would probably not scare me much, since this a Frictional game and they tend to overly rely on scripted events.

It still has the same creepy atmosphere though. The lore alone also makes it worth replaying.

Haven't replayed SOMA since they added safe mode but I agree that the atmosphere tends to be better than the actual monsters in Frictional games. I don't expect safe mode to be a lesser experience - perhaps it will even improve the game for me.

 

[Iucounu]

Eventually managed to clip through to environment and trap myself under the engine.

That reminded me that you can leave the playing area in the deep sea floor level (I recall I turned right somewhere near the corpse after the elevator) . Not sure if you can see anything interesting, will have to investigate that more.

I don't expect safe mode to be a lesser experience - perhaps it will even improve the game for me.

Absolutely. It's easy to dismiss it as being for cowards or retards, but it's the only way to read some of the lore in (relative) piece and quiet. I played normal mode first time, then replayed in safe mode, then replayed in normal mode again.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

One of the more detailed video essays...



Gosh, I can't wait what Thomas Grip is up to next.

 

[Iucounu]

One of the more detailed video essays...

That was a pretty ambitious video. A pity you can't show it to others without spoiling the game, and non-gamers should really play the game first-hand as well.

I didn't know there was an octopus in the game.

 

[Zlaja]

Gameplay can also make the game too fun instead of scary:

"Let’s use Dead Space as an example. When I started playing it, I was really scared, walking around slowly and peeking around every corner. Then, about an hour in, I learned how to kill the monsters, and what tricks I needed to survive."​

I don't agree with this. I was so scared till the very end I had to breaks betwen play times.

Yeah, I don't really get it when people argue that having fun and being scared can't co-exist. It only stops being scary if the gameplay turns into a total power fantasy where enemies barely pose any threat.

That part took me a while too because I completely forgot that you could sprint after being encouraged to sneak to avoid alerting the monsters before that

Same here. I thought the game glitched out when I couldn't get away from it.

 

[Gambler]

"being scared is not a pleasant feeling. Therefore the players will try to optimize the feeling away, often unconsciously. In the end, the players will ruin the intended experience for themselves."

This would make sense for a game where the most interesting aspects were firmly rooted in horror. I never felt SOMA is such a game. Exploration and reconstruction were the most interesting parts there (at least for me, but also, it seems, for most players). Horror elements were benefitting the game in some parts and dragging it down in others. Trapping one annoying critter in a room wouldn't ruin anything. In fact, I'd say given the technogenic setting, it would enhance the experience. As long as you didn't kill monsters directly.

I think the non-aggressive critters worked best in SOMA. The initial incomprehensibility of their behavior was much more fundamentally unnerving than playing hide-and-seek with some angry walking potato.

Once you designate something a "monster" you severely limit both the range of its possible behaviors and the range of the responses the player can react with. This is why I generally don't play pure horror games.

Spoiler

Besides, in some way the main character was a "monster" not unlike the monsters who occasionally attacked him. It was one of those clever things about SOMA. You were simultaneously a cliche "naive protagonist" with no understanding of the setting and an organic part of the setting.

 

[Iucounu]

"being scared is not a pleasant feeling. Therefore the players will try to optimize the feeling away, often unconsciously. In the end, the players will ruin the intended experience for themselves."

This would make sense for a game where the most interesting aspects were firmly rooted in horror. I never felt SOMA is such a game. Exploration and reconstruction were the most interesting parts there (at least for me, but also, it seems, for most players). Horror elements were benefitting the game in some parts and dragging it down in others.

Indeed I think the video above(?) mentioned that SOMA was not even intended to be a horror game at first, and they only added that because they thought it was expected from Frictional Games.

 

[Skinwalker]

This was a boring walking simulator, but it had one thing going for it, that put it far and above a great deal of highly popular modernturd sci fi series, including start wreck, westworld, altered carbon, and any other series that has transhumanists supposedly cheating death by "uploading their consciousness into digital storage and then back into a new body".

This shitty game that no one played was smart enough to realize that a copy is not the original, and that you have to be a raving lunatic to think that making a copy of your mind will somehow keep you from dying. Because it obviously won't. You'll be replaced by a very similar entity, but it won't really be you, and it's dishonest and deranged to pretend otherwise.

Somehow, all the big-budget pop-culture defining transhumanist-propaganda auteurs never managed to figure out this simple fact.

 

[Spukrian]

Altered Carbon does deal with this, but not particularly deep, the main character fights an earlier version of himself.

 

[Skinwalker]

Altered Carbon does deal with this, but not particularly deep, the main character fights an earlier version of himself.

Altered Carbon is what I had in mind for this, and it is one of the WORST offenders. All the rich and powerful people pay big bucks to install satellite uplinks, only to have themselves continuously replaced with digital clones, and nobody ever addresses the fact that this is not extending their lives at all.

 

[Iucounu]

Altered Carbon does deal with this, but not particularly deep, the main character fights an earlier version of himself.

Altered Carbon is what I had in mind for this, and it is one of the WORST offenders. All the rich and powerful people pay big bucks to install satellite uplinks, only to have themselves continuously replaced with digital clones, and nobody ever addresses the fact that this is not extending their lives at all.

Maybe it's akin to people building fancy grave monuments for themselves, even though they can't enjoy them once they're dead. Basically an attempt to create a legacy? I believe that's the motivation for at least Catherine in the game. The other characters just delude themselves out of desperation, just like when religious people in real convince themselves there's an afterlife.

 

[Skinwalker]

just like when religious people in real convince themselves there's an afterlife

But there is.

 

[Iucounu]

just like when religious people in real convince themselves there's an afterlife

But there is.

That may well be the case; but the objective existence of an afterlife isn't the issue here, but people's various reason's for believing in it. My impression is that people often believe more in these things when under stress.

 

[Skinwalker]

My impression is that people often believe more in these things when under stress.

Nah. Stress can just as easily cause people to lose heart and all hope in anything better than the current predicament. "Everything right now is so much awful than I had ever expected, I no longer have any faith or hope left" is just as likely of a reaction as "everything right now is awful, I now have high hopes for a bright future in heaven", if not more.

The funny thing about the SOMA cultists (the group of people who thought that if you kill yourself immediately after digitizing your brain, then your identity will carry over to the digital clone) is that, as deluded as they were, at least they acknowledged the existence of an identity crisis.

Most sci fi stories with a transhumanist bent either ignore it wholesale, or explain it away with vague bullshit that doesn't mean anything.