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PaperclipPerfector  15d ago (text post)   2888 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 14, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I think the single thing I hate most about all games in the past 10 years is the pathological need to turn everything into a story. I don't care about the plot, I don't care about the NPCs, I don't care about voice actors or dialog or the poetry of the stars. I want decent mechanics and an interesting gameplay, maybe hidden stuff or puzzles.

I'm a story-fag at heart but I share this sentiment 100%; not because I dislike stories but because the writers are so incredibly dogshit. If your writing team is at best mediocre (it is) then please shut up or at least keep the narrative simple and minimalistic. Having narrative choices and reactivity for the player is great but the amount of useless prose and "lore" is getting completely out of control.

Have you played split fiction yet? If llms ever wrote that bad we'd have scrapped them. I can't believe the main characters are supposed to be writers! The fact it's getting tens across the board is just embarrassing for everyone involved.

While I haven't actually played SplitFiction since no friends, only saw some of the gameplay, the game itself seems decent and the schtick feels fairly novel. It's also co-op (couch co-op, granted), and IME co-op can salvage almost any garbage short of something virtually unplayable.

That said I fully agree that the writing (what I've seen of it) is garbage with zero redeeming qualities, and the people(?) who wrote that must be banned from anything resembling a writing implement. I try not to fall to the "everything I don't like is Reddit" mindset but this game really seems to be targeted at r*dditors/normies who run all latest blob updates, love Marvel-style quippy humor and aren't actually into videogames (which is probably why the friend pass is free so your gf/sibling can pester you into playing the cool game s/he heard about). Competently targeted too, if the rave reviews and flamewars in comments to negative reviews on Steam is anything to go by.

The game isn't terrible (hell I'm defending it) but it certainly isn't 10/10, the writing alone should take off like 4 points. I agree this is probably the ur-example of a game which would be substantially better if any attempts at "story" and "characterization" got mercilessly pruned.

After that ringing endorsement I can't say I'm chomping at the bit here...

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