December Talking Meme: Day 11 - Tacoma
Dec. 11th, 2020 09:49 pmFrom here, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
flowersforgraves asked me how I'd pitch Tacoma to a non-gamer.
A good question! I think Fulbright's games are decent introductions for someone who's never played a modern 3D video game before, because they're what's called "walking simulators". Walking simulators are games focused on exploration and observation, and in the case of Fulbright's games, no combat or skill-based gameplay gating progress. All you have to master is walking (or sometimes floating, in Tacoma) your character around, and occasionally click on things to interact with them. Tacoma is also only two to three hours long.
So now that the question of mechanics is out of the way, let's talk about the story. You play Amy Ferrier, a contractor hired to retrieve the AI core of the evacuated space station Tacoma. While waiting for downloads to occur, you get to explore different sections of the station that have augmented reality (AR) recordings of the crew - it feels ridiculously immersive, because you can pause and replay the recordings as you wish, follow the crew as they move through rooms and have different side-conversations, even read their desktops when they open them to check their email. That's not even getting into the non-digital stuff you get to observe, like abandoned party supplies or what each person keeps in their room or written notes.
I enjoyed the crew's interactions and differences, from the botanist worrying about his husband's and son's futures to the medic who bonds with the AI to the f/f engineers couple. There's some interesting sci-fi world-building going on but I'm gonna stop here before I spoil the entire game. Anyway, I highly recommend giving it a shot!
(Last bonus fact: The devs were inspired by Sleep No More, which I totally see though I've never watched it myself.)
flowersforgraves asked me how I'd pitch Tacoma to a non-gamer.A good question! I think Fulbright's games are decent introductions for someone who's never played a modern 3D video game before, because they're what's called "walking simulators". Walking simulators are games focused on exploration and observation, and in the case of Fulbright's games, no combat or skill-based gameplay gating progress. All you have to master is walking (or sometimes floating, in Tacoma) your character around, and occasionally click on things to interact with them. Tacoma is also only two to three hours long.
So now that the question of mechanics is out of the way, let's talk about the story. You play Amy Ferrier, a contractor hired to retrieve the AI core of the evacuated space station Tacoma. While waiting for downloads to occur, you get to explore different sections of the station that have augmented reality (AR) recordings of the crew - it feels ridiculously immersive, because you can pause and replay the recordings as you wish, follow the crew as they move through rooms and have different side-conversations, even read their desktops when they open them to check their email. That's not even getting into the non-digital stuff you get to observe, like abandoned party supplies or what each person keeps in their room or written notes.
I enjoyed the crew's interactions and differences, from the botanist worrying about his husband's and son's futures to the medic who bonds with the AI to the f/f engineers couple. There's some interesting sci-fi world-building going on but I'm gonna stop here before I spoil the entire game. Anyway, I highly recommend giving it a shot!
(Last bonus fact: The devs were inspired by Sleep No More, which I totally see though I've never watched it myself.)