Firewatch, Days 1 and 2
Mar. 11th, 2016 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI'm 2/5 of the way into Firewatch (probably), and so far I have three thoughts.
First, I'm not sure I've figured out what my main objective is. Based on what I can tell, the story is a "cabin in the woods" style mystery in which there is a creepy person in the wilderness threatening the protagonist, who is more or less cut off from civilization. On top of that, there seems to be some sort of relationship developing between Henry, the player character, and Delilah, his supervisor who communicates with him via a walkie-talkie radio. I'm not sure if romancing Delilah is supposed to be a goal, but I get the feeling she's just being friendly, and I've been treating her like a companion character in a Zelda game. I like her a lot, but I don't want to sleep with her; I'd rather figure out who's stalking around the national park and ransacking people's stuff.
Second, this game is overly obsessed with light effects. For some reason, it can't just be broad daylight when Henry is out and about. I spent what felt like most of the second day walking around at sunset, so everything was orange: the dirt was orange, the grass was orange, the underbrush was orange, and the path was orange too, meaning that I couldn't see where I was supposed to go and had to consult the map every twenty paces or so. I get that light effects are cool, but I think it might have been better if the more intense variations were saved for later in the story, after the player has a better sense of the visually based functionality of the world of the game.
Third, people have been saying they finished this game in two hours, which I don't understand. I haven't been taking that much time to explore, and I've already put in a bit more than two hours. Based on my rate of progress, I'm estimating that it's going to take me around five hours to make it all the way through. Granted, I'm not a skilled gamer, but I still don't get how Firewatch could be finished in two hours, even if the player never leaves the beaten path and skips all the conversations with Delilah. I suppose you could do a speedrun on your first playthrough, but what would be the point? And why would you brag about the amount of time it takes to finish a game like this?
First, I'm not sure I've figured out what my main objective is. Based on what I can tell, the story is a "cabin in the woods" style mystery in which there is a creepy person in the wilderness threatening the protagonist, who is more or less cut off from civilization. On top of that, there seems to be some sort of relationship developing between Henry, the player character, and Delilah, his supervisor who communicates with him via a walkie-talkie radio. I'm not sure if romancing Delilah is supposed to be a goal, but I get the feeling she's just being friendly, and I've been treating her like a companion character in a Zelda game. I like her a lot, but I don't want to sleep with her; I'd rather figure out who's stalking around the national park and ransacking people's stuff.
Second, this game is overly obsessed with light effects. For some reason, it can't just be broad daylight when Henry is out and about. I spent what felt like most of the second day walking around at sunset, so everything was orange: the dirt was orange, the grass was orange, the underbrush was orange, and the path was orange too, meaning that I couldn't see where I was supposed to go and had to consult the map every twenty paces or so. I get that light effects are cool, but I think it might have been better if the more intense variations were saved for later in the story, after the player has a better sense of the visually based functionality of the world of the game.
Third, people have been saying they finished this game in two hours, which I don't understand. I haven't been taking that much time to explore, and I've already put in a bit more than two hours. Based on my rate of progress, I'm estimating that it's going to take me around five hours to make it all the way through. Granted, I'm not a skilled gamer, but I still don't get how Firewatch could be finished in two hours, even if the player never leaves the beaten path and skips all the conversations with Delilah. I suppose you could do a speedrun on your first playthrough, but what would be the point? And why would you brag about the amount of time it takes to finish a game like this?
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Date: 2016-03-11 03:51 pm (UTC)I'm in the process of seeing how malleable the game really is. Someone said the game can feel radically different depending on how you RP Henry. On the second PT I have triggered a few different conversations, but I don't feel the narrative is particularly fluid TBH. A lot of conversations and events auto-fire no matter what you do.
On playtime, it took me five and change. Only fake gamer dudes "beat" it sub three IMNSHO.
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Date: 2016-03-11 07:53 pm (UTC)The two skinnydipping teenage girls are women after my own heart, and the way that Delilah in particular reacts to their shenanigans suggests so much about her character, like, maybe she was that sort of person herself not too long ago, and so she's suffering from secondhand embarrassment. Far from coming off as misogynistic, that particular element of these first two chapters – Delilah's cynicism – felt so real to me. Also, when Henry picks up one of the magazines at the girls' ruined camp site on the evening of the second day, and the voice actor says "I have entered the Teen Zone," all the stars aligned and for that tiny shining moment the universe was perfect.
I'm also enjoying the notes that the two bromosexual park rangers left for each other in the supply caches. I have no idea where that's leading, but I almost don't care, because those windows into their little world are so perfectly random.
I'm happy they released this game on Steam, because I'm really looking forward to reading more of your thoughts. I mean, no pressure, but.