I’ve started playing Pathologic 2 – I don’t have much to say, but I thought I’d catalogue a few small thoughts on the game
To start, I really like the way the exploration of the world functions. You need to traverse in the quickest manner possible, but also desperately need new supplies, so you’re dealing with conflicting incentives to travel through better known areas vs to explore more broadly. It makes even travelling through familiar territory feel tense because in the back of your mind you have to cope with the fact: you’ve already looted this area! You’re wasting time! And if you starve as a result, it’s your own fault!
Another thing I wanted to mention was how I’ve so far received the harsh survival mechanics. I was familiar with some of the mechanics and good survival options going in (though the dramatists around do a good job of teaching you most of what I’d known from reading and watching dissections) so my initial approach was to try to minmax as much as possible while the game was still treating me somewhat leniently. And as the difficulty started to spike, I realised that it was much the same operation my brain was performing – the minmaxing is a constant worry about optimisation that creates anxiety on the behalf of a fictional potential future outcome (like trying to calculate the value vs inventory weight in a typical RPG) but once the pressure is on it brings to bear that activity on something far more visceral and engaging – actually trying to survive! So the sensation so many have complained about – constant fretting over survival bars – feels incredibly familiar, but so much more grounded.
That’s all for now, might post more soon.
the bottom rung 