Play Dead, Somerville, and walking to the right games

Old_Hunter_77

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Yahtzee likes to call these games "walking to the right" games. I'm talking about Limbo and Inside, Little Nightmares, and the latest Somerville. Just curious folks' thoughts on these.
Personally, this Kotaku review on Somerville captures my feelings on this whole subgenre:


Like, they're cool? But I realized I don't actually like playing them. I like.. seeing them, I guess.

I played Limbo and I dug the creepy vibes and theme and look, but the puzzle frustrate me. I made it like half-way through Inside before giving up trying to navigate clunky puzzles in the dark and just watched the rest on youtube. I enjoyed Little Nightmares but got so frustrated having to re-try chase sequences over and over to get the dumb timing exactly right that I was relieved to be done with it- and thrilled with the ending narratively and visually- and have had zero interest in playing the sequel.

So with Somerville I will likely just watch a play-through on youtube to appreciate the art, design, and story, because even though it's only a 5 hour game length, that means for me it will be a 15 hr game length of 5 cool hours and 10 hours of squinting and running into bushes.
 
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BrawlMan

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Inside and Limbo are great games, but they're not my stuff. I've played and beaten them once with my older brother. Now he's a big fan of both of those games and the genre itself.
 
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Dalisclock

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I love these type of games but I also agree they're totally not going to appeal to everyone and I can respect that. I think you do have to be a specific mindset for them to really work and if you aren't(or will never be), they aren't gonna work for you and that's cool.
 
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CriticalGaming

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I usually find myself bored with this type of game, because usually it's not deep enough either in story or in mechanics to hold my attention. Like I appreciate the art of it, but game wise I typically can't stick with it tbh.
 

Dalisclock

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I prefer my term for them Diorama Sidescrollers. Try out the FAR series of games, very good, atmospheric games of the genre, very relaxing.
That's a better term then I've heard and I did feel that Little Nightmares(which I find intensely creepy and yet love, maybe because of how creepy it is) felt like a big spoopy diaroma.

Can we make "Diorama Sidescrollers" a thing? I wanna make Diorama Sidescrollers a thing.
 
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