Everybody's Gone To The Rapture
I want to draw a little attention to this game. It's from the makers of Dear Esther, so if you like walking around mysterious settings, this is for you. The game actually takes place in an abandoned English town and the vibe is super creepy, with everything from ethereal light ghosts to numbers stations. A synopsis:
Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture™ tells the story of the inhabitants of a remote English valley who are caught up in world-shattering events beyond their control or understanding. Made by The Chinese Room – the studio responsible for the hauntingly beautiful Dear Esther – this tale of how people respond in the face of grave adversity is a non-linear, open-world experience that pushes innovative interactive storytelling to the next level.
Over the course of the game, the player slowly pieces together the fate of the valley from the fragmentary memories of the people who made it their home. By finding and interacting with the traces of these lost lives, the player gradually learns about the stories and relationships of the inhabitants – how they lived, and how they died. All this is accomplished through revolutionary environmental storytelling – what you see and hear in Rapture is just as important as what you do.
The trailer:
enter link description here
And if you're looking for gameplay, I recorded my first 45 minutes earlier on Twitch:
enter link description here
Comments
Is it just like dear ester? Because not interested if thats the case.
Alright, this appears to be something I might be interested in. I will be sure to check it out.
The game looks interesting but I like to wait and see the how long to beat stats before getting digital releases.
Look wise it reminds me of myst
I haven't played DE but it's the same creators. So.... lol.
General consensus is it's about 5 to 6 hours long.
GAMING TIPS
There are roughly five areas of town and each area has a new character it focuses on. Do NOT move on to the next section of town until the story concludes. You WILL know the story has concluded because an 'event' unique to that area occurs and the character's story reaches a natural end.
I CANNOT EXPRESS IN WORDS HOW FURIOUS THE ENDING OF THIS GAME MADE ME
It's not "just like DE", but they're similar in a sense since they have the same creators. This game is more of a sciencse fiction (and feels like one of the S.King's writings) but of course it's not an action game or anything like that.
So... is that a good thing or not? Cause I can't really tell from your comment.
It's a terrible ending whose implications undermine the philosophical considerations the game presents. In other words, the game undermines its own argument with its conclusion. It is simply put, one of the worst endings I have ever witnessed.
Hm, I dunno what you expected honestly... I personally though everything was leading to that. I can't even imagine some other way the game might've ended.
It's a sign of junior level philosophical understanding of their own premise. It's a terrible conclusion that reveals the writers didn't understand their own assertions and how the way the narrative unfolds undermines their previous assertions. You can't state a premise and then contradict it without essentially saying your story has no coherent philosophy.
Again, what do you think was gonna happen? You know you can just use a spoiler tag and say it because this explanation is very vague. But still, I don't think it even supposed to have 1 soild theme or explanation or whatever. I'm pretty sure each person who beat it has their own view on things, what happened there and what it all meant.
It's not about "what I think was going to happen". It's about the Chinese Room being bad at writing and making cohesive argumentation. The game explicitly says two things:
1.) Our lives are made more meaningful because of the impact we have on others
2.) That impact transcends death
However, the game undermines its premise by removing any potential observer. Since everyone is dead, the impact the games says we have is actually non-existent. There can be no light nor darkness without someone to observe that light, and all observers are now gone.
I'm trying to get through this. I'm close to the end. I feel like I've missed things even though I spend hours searching in each area. Sometimes I will find balls of light and I can't activate them with the controller tilt, so I have to leave them there even though when I approach it and tilt I will hear voices. The plot and mechanics are confusing- I always feel like I missed explanations for things. It's hard for me to attach myself to certain characters because I don't have as much information as I'd like to. The world is beautiful, but sometimes it feels too huge and it's easy to get lost. I wish there was more interactivity with it. Following the lights, checking phone calls, checking radios, and clicking on and off TV sets is very limited and almost a disservice to such a detailed world.
I'd probably estimate that I've spent around 10 hours on it so far, and I'm not even done yet. I can't chalk my confusion up to lack of attention to detail, since I've tried to be slow and thorough and take things in as I play. It's a really frustrating feeling to peek into people's lives but not understand their motivations or even what is going on. I'll still play to the end, but so far I'm kind of regretting spending $20 on this. I feel like I should be loving this game but maybe I'm just not perceptive or clever enough to grasp everything in it.
I would love to buy this game, as I enjoy all types of games. I just don't have the money right now.
I'll provide some tips: When it comes to the balls, some you have to tilt until you hear a strong response. Then do that again and again, like you're trying to jam down a door. Eventually the door breaks and the scene plays.
Two: Don't just follow the ball of light. When you see it vanish far away, take that opportunity to explore your immediate area before continuing to follow. There are missable scenes, and critical scenes. The critical scenes lead you to the end of that area's chapter. The missable scenes fill in a lot of details. Thing about critical scenes is that they occur wherever the ball of light leads you, and the ball will always come and get you to lead you to the next critical scene. BUT, if you walk PAST the critical scene, the ball will never lead you there again. It's completely possible to bypass a critical scene and be left wondering why the chapter isn't closing. This is particularly possible in the farmland chapter.
Just watched a bit of it and it seems terrible, a complicated narrative that you somehow have to remember the names of everyone as they dont have models for anyone, plus for me is just seems boring you just walk at a painfully slow pace and it just seems to be a pretty world that you listen to no interaction whatsoever
Hi i really enjoyed it. My theory was that peoples "physical" existence after they've been taken by the light was the little balls of light that you follow around. The Lizzie ball has a little ball moving around it suggesting it was Rebecca and the baby she was looking after being that light guide? So if you're playing as the light, peoples new form are guiding you around showing you the impact. This is my badly constructed and poorly explained theory anyway was just wanting to know what you thought.
Well i turned sub titles on which helps. There are 6 names that you need to remember. All the rest are support characters which might pop up a few times just to support the main narrative. But i can totally understand why some people would hate it! But i really enjoyed the world and figuring out (well trying) what was going on.
The designers of the game wanted it to be nonlinear narrative. It's definitely not everybody's cup of tea. I will say that the central characters do get names displayed in text when you see them, since every chapter follows their particular narrative arc. But yes it can still be difficult to follow, especially at the outset.
The game specifically says that the light is a collector of memories, so whatever we're seeing isn't a representation of what is (living people, in a new form of being) but a representation of what was (deceased people). At no point do you actually interact with those balls of light, they just open windows onto what happened in the past. And if I understood correctly, you're actually playing as Kate throughout the game, right before she decides to depart into the light. That's when the point of view switches to the light, at the very end, and you see Kate merging into it.
I didn't care for it. If you aren't into exploration you will miss details that flesh out the narrative and if you put the time in to fully explore I feel the narrative isn't worth it.
I thought the opposite you was playing as the light and then switched to Kate at the end!
ps4 damnit I only have ps3 and vita cant afford 4
No, the game opens up with her saying I am the only one left. Also notice, as the end of the game, she's no longer listening to radios or phones, she's actually using recorders to record her final messages. That's what all those tapes around the Observatory are. As Kate, you're taping your last words.
I think this has potential to be a really good game.
Two notes.
1.) Not that I get a lot of views on my Lets Play channel, but it's pretty apparent that at some point people skipped the middle of watching the game to just see the damn ending XD
2.) Even if you hate the game, the soundtrack is effing an emotional killer.
Yes so you're the light during the game and switch to Kate at then end? I think you got it backwards in your original post!
No even during the game you're Kate. The introduction line is you speaking into a recorder before stepping outside of the gates of the observatory. Then you walk around town. The radios have your voice because the Light is inside the radio waves and recorded everyone's voices. At the very end there are recording machines you use to record your final thoughts.
Then who was player?
The player plays as Kate.
Aaah OK I miss understood your post! Interesting theory could well be correct!
I'm pretty sure I'm right, but then again, I'm also pretty sure The Chinese Room left it intentionally vague so you could interpret it different ways.