00:00So Joel has been playing Nightingale, it's currently in early access so we've got an
00:07early access review, there's no score of it but hopefully we'll give you a good idea about
00:11this game and if it's something you're interested in playing.
00:13Now the game itself from what we've talked about Joel, it really does want you to lose
00:17yourself in this world but there is one aspect which I found very funny and you found very
00:22funny as well which is actually kind of annoying.
00:24Can you give me a little bit of a taste of what is frustrating about Nightingale?
00:27Ah Nightingale, is it thus which thou be ranging in the mottled undergrowth with such
00:33lupine countenance for want of bearing witness to mine merited judgement?
00:37Forsooth I entreat thee, prithee spy upon yonder amble dappled horizons, tis a survival
00:43crafting game, touched by the fae yet thou shall stop.
00:47I think we've lost about half of the people that are currently watching and listening
00:50already.
00:51There's so much more of that that I wrote.
00:53So Joel's written preview version which you can read on the website starts with that because
00:58the game talks to you like that.
01:00Yeah, I mean not the whole game.
01:02Your primary support character Puck who's your Na'vi equivalent who walks you through
01:09it.
01:10I mean there are other characters who are a bit less verbose.
01:13But more importantly he gives you quests and he says you need to go and do this but he
01:17doesn't say you need to go and do this, he does it in that language so you're like what?
01:21Well that language is very atmospheric of what the game is which for those who don't
01:25know it's a survival crafting game set in a series of worlds that are meant to have
01:31a fairy tale midsummer night's dream kind of vibe.
01:34Victorian-esque.
01:35The fae realms.
01:36Oh right, yeah.
01:37So it's an alternate history where humanity had contact with this mythical realm and then
01:45something bad spilled over into humanity, it's not especially clear, and you are a refugee
01:51from our world who enters the fae realms and you're a kind of Victorian-esque explorer
01:58with pith hat and musket sort of vibes.
02:02So it's in keeping of the tone of the game which is fine.
02:07It makes sense but when it says, you know, prithee, crafter so and so and then a big
02:13tutorial box comes up and says make a pickaxe, I feel more is lost than gained by that.
02:19I wish the objectives were as interesting as the language was.
02:23There could have been a middle ground for both.
02:26The atmosphere is great, the world is actually gorgeous.
02:29It looks so good.
02:31It's good screenshot fodder.
02:32It all looks really nice which is why it sort of kills me that the game that you're playing
02:41isn't that fun.
02:42The mechanics are not as creative as the world and the environment and the creatures are,
02:49hence prithee sir turns to make a pickaxe, which I've done.
02:55I think I've done it several times this year.
02:57There was a lot of survival games and I think part of the problem with a lot of those games
03:00is the look.
03:01Say for example with Nightingale and Power World are perfect examples.
03:03They show you these amazing characters and beasts and you have these amazing miniguns
03:08and shotguns and all this kind of stuff, but then actually the majority of the game is
03:11you don't get the minigun or the shotgun or the blunderbuss for quite a while.
03:15It isn't for a while.
03:16The large majority of the game is you crafting and making pickaxes and doing more Minecrafty
03:21things which they don't really show you as the main selling point of the trailer.
03:25So it's kind of a bit of a miss sell, at least in the early game.
03:28Yeah, I mean I think that it's not that there is survival crafting in this survival crafting
03:33game that is the problem.
03:35It's the fact that it doesn't have that extra ingredient that makes the good ones interesting.
03:41Subnautica has the whole ocean exploration and sea monsters which does twist the core
03:48mechanics enough that it makes it fresh.
03:51Or Power World has Pokemon abuse.
03:53It's strange but God knows it keeps it interesting.
03:57And Nightingale, my big issue with it was that I was looking for that hook to go right
04:03this is more than just the survival crafting game template with a nice background and I
04:11never really found it.
04:12The closest you get is a system where you can go through portals to different biomes
04:18effectively and you can control what those biomes are like by putting special tarot cards
04:25in machines attached to the portal which is a neat idea but you're not doing it that often.
04:34You use it to create the biome and then once you're there it has those rules and then every
04:39biome has one machine in it that you can do minor modifications to it on like turn
04:45the difficulty up or the gravity down you know that kind of thing which is a cool idea.
04:51I kind of wish the game made more of it.
04:54I kind of wish I could just pull a tarot card at any point like a huckster in Deadlands
04:58and just go BAM effect.
05:00That never happened and it was a fairly blunt and bland combat engine of the swing the hammer
05:07till your stamina runs out variety and then later on you get muskets.
05:12I thought that the doorways and the cards were going to be much more of a like that's
05:16the main mechanic.
05:17It's not rare but it is also just you know at the end of the day it's what biome do you
05:23want to go to with a few twists on it.
05:26I mean early access maybe they make more out of it later before you can actually start
05:30getting many of those cards and going through many portals.
05:34They were rough.
05:36It was really just make a campfire make a pickaxe make a bed kill a deer cook some berries
05:42I'm like I've done this I've did this recently multiple times.
05:45So let's say once you've put a certain amount of hours into it and you've got a house or
05:49a base you know from the survival point of view you're kind of like you've hit that threshold
05:53of you're comfortable.
05:55What's the game mechanic then after that what is then pushing you to play more.
05:58So there is a story that threads you through it it's which is good.
06:03I think more survival crafting games need stories as a framework.
06:08It works.
06:09It takes you through it.
06:10It explains the main mechanics.
06:11I didn't feel hugely emotionally invested right.
06:15I'm still working through it at time of writing about 20 30 hours in.
06:19But at 20 30 hours well a long story isn't the problem.
06:23No I'm just trying to find whatever whatever is this next hook like is it building up a
06:27team of pals like in power I'm still looking for it as well so I mean I'm just kind of
06:31the problem.
06:32Yeah.
06:33The every biome you enter has challenges and temples that can be notionally interesting
06:40some of the boss fights some of them have puzzles that might be fun for someone.
06:46I thought they were kind of testing a lot of the time.
06:49There is some really good I don't I certainly don't dislike this game.
06:53I'm more mixed about it.
06:56There is some real skill here.
06:59Again it looks gorgeous.
07:00It's got the tone and atmosphere nailed and every now and then it does come together.
07:05The bit that kind of threw me was that at one point I was in my base and this 15 foot
07:13tall like elk spirits like something out of Princess Mononoke just walked through it didn't
07:19even notice me and I and it was a genuinely enchanting moment and my brain went oh it's
07:26the Fey Realms this is such a cool this feels authentic and some of the monster designs
07:30like that as well like a flock of hovering brass lanterns just wander past yeah just
07:36a storybook feel I go I have no idea what to make of that and that's great like do I
07:40attack it do I capture it do I run away yeah friend or foe and that that is something that
07:45the game needs to lean into more that sense of anything could happen and the variety that
07:51they can introduce with the Fey Realms like you can do anything you can like people should
07:54be able to expect anything.
07:55It is entirely possible that is all coming because this is another one again early access
07:59yeah that means a lot it means bugs it means server issues it also means this is not those
08:04were part and parcel but again you're basically paying 27 bucks I think it is you are investing
08:11in an early access game I would argue differently I would say you're a QA tester like it's this
08:17thing where people forget like early access means a lot of things so this could all of
08:22this is caveated with a lot could change when the game is quote fully released I certainly
08:27don't get the sense that anyone working on Nightingale is doing anything but incredibly
08:32hard work yeah and my only issue with it right now is that I want to see that hard work put
08:40into filling out that system into something more unique to it and making that sense I
08:48had of when ghost moose went walking through my camp of oh the wonder and whimsy that needs
08:54to be omnipresent not something that I just sort of remember now and again yeah as opposed
08:59to a lot of the time just going right time to feed twine into a spinning wheel to make
09:05refined twine oh which is I get yeah it's it's a survival game it's a survival game
09:12yeah but it wasn't thrilling even pal world gives you the option to make your pals do
09:17the crafting for you yeah I did miss that yeah it's fun it is like I could do this
09:23or yeah you could slave labor see a nightingale it shows a lot of promise it shows a lot of
09:30talent especially and give those environment artists a raise yeah okay so it shows promise
09:36they they have a great platform to start putting interesting things in like I don't mean that
09:42to sound as snarky as I do that's just my voice I do have resting bitch voice as it's
09:50been called I would not be thrilled if the next update came out and it's like it's the
09:55house building up yeah or we've you know more axes yeah exactly like that's not what this
10:02game needs to mark it out from the pack yeah it needs whimsy it needs a spell casting system
10:10is what I keep thinking yeah bring in some more unique enemies yeah I love when I do
10:16find a unique one but it wasn't a common experience or a lot of the times you can kind of tell
10:21when it's like a palette swap like his here's a deer okay you go to the next room along
10:27here's a deer with it with a flower growing out the side of its head which is does help
10:32sell the the visuals but is functionally mechanically you know akin to what you were doing before
10:40well for sooth sir I pretty the I can't do it no so hopefully for the hopefully it improves
10:49again early access is actually relatively cheap considering yeah you get it's priced
10:53quite well it's fantastic so fingers crossed nightingale add something different
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