Post by Archeo Lumiere in Signs of the Sojourner comments

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Archeo Lumiere4 years ago (3 edits) (+3)(-1)

Honestly? It's about personal experience and psyche. It's not the game's fault, it's just that in real life the only people I've not had solid positive interactive with at least 90% of the time (aside from my mom, who I've had more conversations with than I can count, so ups and downs are expected) have simply been caustic people, so a game where learning to talk to more people could make it impossible to talk to someone you've known your whole life is abjectly terrifying to me. Meeting more people should make you better at communicating, not worse. :/ And I actually was being fairly rigid, as I was trying to maintain effective communication with the best friend, but even still it led to me being unable to meet my obligations to my village and the shop.

Maybe I'm just sheltered? It's worrying.

Pidge4 years ago

If this is something that you don't think is the game's fault, you probably shouldn't leave a negative review that initially makes new players believe it is. I'm halfway through my first playthrough now and have a great relationship with Elias (the childhood friend) while also meeting my shop obligations. It's definitely possible to do both in a lot of different ways, including when trying to accommodate to everyone (which is what I'm struggling to do - and is not the game's intention, because trying to accommodate to everyone definitely makes the game harder and more anxiety-inducing, just like in real life) or when picking and choosing who to talk to.

synasethic-feline4 years ago (1 edit)

It's a valid point of criticism?
Like I don't actually think this myself, since I like having interesting discussions, but...
"if you don't like this review, why did you leave a negative comment on it?"

purrsonally, I don't think it's about being better or being worse at talking to people, although I haven't played this game. One thing I have noticed in my actual real life is that often I just... grow as a person. And that people don't grow, sometimes, or they grow apart from you. I don't want to have to stagnate to maintain a friendship with someone. I don't want to have to copy someone else's personality to be friends with them.

I'm just annoyed and hoping you don't take it too personally -- it's okay to leave negative or mixed reviews on a game. No matter what game it is. It's okay to express your feelings even if you don't understand them or others find them disagreeable. That is why I am hoping you don't take this too personally -- your feelings are including when I say this: everyone's feelings matter.

That being said I am not one of those people who thinks everyone's feelings are automatically valid or like what the ... beep... ever.... sometimes your feelings are not valid i guess. i don't know you well enough to actually assess that so im just guessing.

also the part where you were like all "i have a great relationship with elias and im meeting all of my shop expectations. its definitely possible" came across as... how do i put this. dismissive? bragging, and not the fun kind?

also like it's okay to be sheltered. parents are... parents are supposed to do that. i figure if the world actually is cold and hard and cruel then like,,, your family and friends are supposed to be warm and soft and nice? to make up for it?

sheesh. sorry if i came across as scolding you in this reply. i don't know you well enough to do that. Oops. I was mostly just trying to express that this reply annoyed me.

(wow this got long. please reward yourself with a cookie if you actually took the time to read this. Yes, you!)

crispetynougat3 years ago(+1)

I know you left this review months ago, but I just wanted to let you know that I understand what you mean! I think this is an interesting, innovative game, but I agree that the conversation theme can have some unintended negative implications. In spite of all the complexity built into the system, it still has to depend on a reductive model of communication. That can't be helped, of course, because human communication is incredibly complicated, and it's a game, not real life--but I found I had to remind myself to keep a "this is just a game" mindset sometimes, because it doesn't feel great to be yelled at for no good reason, even by cartoon characters.

In my first play-through, I ended up acting like an insular, cowardly person (repeatedly going to the same places and buddying up to the same characters regardless of whether I liked them), not because that's who I wanted to be, but because I felt the system rewarded me for doing so. If I do another play-through, I'll lean even harder into "this is just a game" and just make the opposite choices I did before so that I can explore the rest of the map, even if it means acting like a jerk.

Basically, I think this is a fascinating game, but it's not always fun for me to play it. (Does a game have to be fun to be considered successful? Getting into game philosophy here...) So I just wanted to tell you, random stranger on the internet, that I hear where you're coming from!

itch.io

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