Designing the Powerful Loneliness of The Long Dark


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sums up why i love the game

i remember getting lost playing civilzation II or playing gothic (piranha bytes) and TlD is the only other game that gives you this feeling of lonelyness and feeling really connected to the world because of the missing map.

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It's so interesting to hear that Raph was partly inspired by wandering around the Fallout 3 map. I started playing The Long Dark not long after I stopped playing the DayZ mod for Arma 2, an experience that also featured a big map with no minimap. In retrospect, I realize I was already playing that game TLD-style: I would get the hell away from other players (and the clunky combat) on the crowded coast ASAP and push into the interior wilderness to be by myself.

Thank you to everyone at Hinterland for giving us a beautiful world to lose ourselves in.

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Guest jeffpeng

Two very important takeaways for me here.

For once: I am sort of a gamer, but actually more like an ex-gamer. I was a ferocious StarCraft player (the original one), I used to play WoW almost profesionally (being the Main Tank in a Top 20 European Guild at the time of The Burning Crusade), and I got as high as Diamond 2 back in Season 3 of LoL despite being in my early 30s at that time. But I left all of that behind me for a lot of reasons, mostly having an engaging job and a small but fine family I show a lot of commitment to. But for some reason The Long Dark appealed to me in a way all of those other games do not: It's not competitive as SC and LoL, and does not hold this appeal of completionism and achievement as WoW did. In fact it's the polar opposite of all of that, and the closer you look you realise that The Long Dark is sort of an anti-game in most respects:

There is very little permanent progress you can make, and you can even opt out of it by not using any feats (which I came to prefer). There is no way to "win" the game. You either die, or you finish it in a sort of "open ending" abondoning your save at some point in time. It is quasi-finite in that at a specific point in time you would have used all naturally occuring resources, and beachcombing as a mechanic is delibeterly designed to be unpleasant and unrewarding. It is just more fun to play a new story istead of writing in your log: "Day 1984: Found an old shoe on the beach. Got hypothermia again. Still don't have a new arrow. Sick of eating 5 rabbits a day."

So all in all I'm not surprised that non-gamers feel drawn to this game. It does a lot of things differently than the streamlined approach of meeting the popular demand games usually take. The Long Dark doesn't try to be loved. It wants to be loved, but not at the price of shedding its identity. The Long Dark is a tough love with a rough sense of humor, questionable manners and a devasting honesty you have to come to respect. You either love it the way it is or you don't. Sounds a lot like life to me.

The other one: Solitude is something rare these days, and I love how @Raphael van Lieroppoints out that it is easy to feel isolated, but hard to be alone. (Which in itself is a truth to think about thoroughly.) I always was one to flourish in solitude, and I still do my best work when I have the opportunity to lock myself inside my home office for a few days and disconnect the phone. I never missed anyone ever, and I rarely have the urge to communicate with someone before someone else has that urge to communicate with me. And while I wholeheartedly and vigorously love my son and wife and care for them with a fervor I seldomly observe in others, I cherish the days each year they visit my in-laws and leave me behind on my own accord. The Long Dark does that for me (as do other games like Minecraft and Subnautica do) for a few hours when I have the time to spend some quality time alone with just me, myself and I. 

I can see how this is therapeutic. People create problems, and getting away from those people for some time gives you time and space to reevaluate yourself and relationships to those people, get a new perspective on those problems - and maybe even lets you find a way to resolve them that eluded you before. Today most people that spend time alone spend it chatting, posting and reading on social media, or playing multiplayer games. All of that is just substituting one form of interpersonal interaction with another one. In The Long Dark it's just you and (simulated) nature. No chat windows, no competition, no relying on others or being relied on by others. Not even on or by virtual people. Just you.

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It's so funny that the same reason I started playing TLD is also reason they made it. I was also playing Fallout 3 and New Vegas a lot and 'roleplayed' it mostly as a grizzled survivor, and using mods to make it more about finding clean water, food and shelter from the harsh environment. Too much combat seemed to take away from that feeling and I wished I could just play a wandering survivalist instead of a warlord. I'm still grateful for this game because it's such a unique experience. The essence of escapism.

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This was great. I'd definitely consider myself a "non-gamer" (I dabble, but this is the only one I'm serious about), and the reasons it appealed to me were exactly what he described in creating it. I love exploration and survival games, but I can't stand survival-horror, and while I don't mind combat, I'd rather have the option of staying out of it. I feel that The Long Dark provides a perfect balance for players to choose how much combat they want to encounter. It really is a very meditative game, from the peaceful watercolor-like aesthetic, to the excellent sound editing, to the soft and haunting music. I'm glad this game exists, because even when I'm having a difficult time with a run, it's still my calm place.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I too was and still am, a fan of Fallout 3. It was the exploratory feel of the game that attracted me and always left me wanting to play more. I believe that Fallout 3 was revolutionary for it's time. There was nothing like it at the time - a nuclear destroyed, yet in way oddly beautiful and making you want to do nothing but explore it - kind of world. At the time it had this unique vibe that I didn't get from other games and on top of that the moral choices and consequences was also something I haven't experienced in games prior to that and I think they did it well for that period of time.
FO3 experiences seemed more environmental than the later Fallouts. Perhaps there was less enemies so there was more uninterrupted exploration.
The later Fallouts seem to be going more into an action-oriented direction of more enemies, more shooting, gun modifications ect. Though they are still good at world making IMO. But miss that old school, just dealing with environmental dangers, radiated puddles/barrels and occasional wildlife kind of vibe, with missions and goals.

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  • 2 months later...

I loved fallout 3 and Skyrim, Fallout NV, heavily modded, is the game I probably invested the most time in and I never once paid any attention to the story instead just heading off into the World to do my own thing.

 I always felt these games were lacking something that prevented me from being truly immersed in their Worlds without knowing what it was.

Then I played The Long Dark and I finally found a World that you could truly “live” in, where decisions actually matter and can’t be reversed with a quick reload. You can approach the game entirely on your own terms thanks to the brilliant customisation options.

It’s kinda ruined other games for me in a way. Red Dead Redemption has a beautiful World but it only feels skin deep. Props to Frontier Development for having the courage to create a World and leave people to decide what they want to do in it but Elite Dangerous starts to feel like work after a while. 
 

And no other game has ever terrified me the way getting mauled by a bear does.

 

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  • 3 months later...

It's cool how he describes how many 'non gamers' love this game. I've been a gamer all my life, but never drawn to hyper competitive games (other than a billion hours on Goldeneye with friends as a teen).... and I also share the complete love for Fallout - mainly the exploration and not so much the combat. In most games whether it's Bioshock, Fallout, Breath of the Wild.... that feeling of not knowing what's around the next bend... of seeing something I've never seen before. Of learning about this strange world I'm in... has always been the main draw for me in games. And I'm at my happiest when a game has deep, wide-open exploration combined with some level of challenge and small goals to achieve. TLD has all those things while not having much in the way of goals/quests... however I loved doing them in Wintermute and in Survival I just give myself goals to work toward.

Anyway.... wonderful game- hits a sweet spot for me. That interview was very eye-opening.

I really think that the game doesn't need much in the way of more 'features'. However a pack of new regions would be great - I'd even pay for it as a paid add-on because they must be hitting a saturation point for this game in terms of new sales. And I'd be happy to pay for new content.

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On 9/30/2019 at 11:14 PM, XAlaskan_420X said:

I too was and still am, a fan of Fallout 3. It was the exploratory feel of the game that attracted me and always left me wanting to play more. I believe that Fallout 3 was revolutionary for it's time. There was nothing like it at the time - a nuclear destroyed, yet in way oddly beautiful and making you want to do nothing but explore it - kind of world. At the time it had this unique vibe that I didn't get from other games and on top of that the moral choices and consequences was also something I haven't experienced in games prior to that and I think they did it well for that period of time.
FO3 experiences seemed more environmental than the later Fallouts. Perhaps there was less enemies so there was more uninterrupted exploration.
The later Fallouts seem to be going more into an action-oriented direction of more enemies, more shooting, gun modifications ect. Though they are still good at world making IMO. But miss that old school, just dealing with environmental dangers, radiated puddles/barrels and occasional wildlife kind of vibe, with missions and goals.

Totally agree. I find the newer Fallouts to be a bit too combat-dense.

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  • 2 months later...
9 hours ago, safra said:

I am one of those people who needed this game in my life for personal reasons. In 2016, the love of my life suddenly died from a pulmonary embolism at only 32. Everything felt surreal. I felt very much like I was going through the motions, like life didn't have a purpose anymore, and like the world was just this empty, dismal void. TLD really struck a powerful chord with me, because it was a world that perfectly reflected my inner state.

 

I'm very happy to hear that you have found a way to live your life again. And furthermore this proofs to me again that things like that (video games) would be considered childish, useless, waste of time and so on by people who didn't grew up with them are not. Like everything in life they have a purpose but it can't be seen by everybody and also not everything is true for everyone.

(I hope i used the english words in the correct sense 😅)

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I am one of those people who needed this game in my life for personal reasons. In 2016, the love of my life suddenly died from a pulmonary embolism at only 32. Everything felt surreal. I felt very much like I was going through the motions, like life didn't have a purpose anymore, and like the world was just this empty, dismal void. TLD really struck a powerful chord with me, because it was a world that perfectly reflected my inner state.

192.168.100.1 192.168.1.1 jpg to pdf

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  • 1 month later...
Guest jeffpeng
On 9/2/2020 at 10:43 AM, safra said:

I am one of those people who needed this game in my life for personal reasons. In 2016, the love of my life suddenly died from a pulmonary embolism at only 32. Everything felt surreal. I felt very much like I was going through the motions, like life didn't have a purpose anymore, and like the world was just this empty, dismal void. TLD really struck a powerful chord with me, because it was a world that perfectly reflected my inner state.

That's a very tough ticket to be dealt, but I'm happy you obviously are still around with us on Great Bear. 🙂

On 9/19/2019 at 10:10 PM, jeffpeng said:

Solitude is something rare these days

Reading this over a year later, with all that happened, is sort of ..... surreal in itself.

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