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(You should probably spoil the surprise, because few of the readers of your comment are going to track down & buy a 16-year-old RPG, and spend the necessary 10

by gwern 2y ago

(You should probably spoil the surprise, because few of the readers of your comment are going to track down & buy a 16-year-old RPG, and spend the necessary 10 or 40 hours to reach that point and learn what the surprise is and how it illustrates anything of interest about the Fable games.)

narism 2y ago
This goes into what happens: https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Winter_Lodge https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Winter_Lodge
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Found a video, it's a minor jump-scare when the player enters the front door. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IdL49GA3-Dk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IdL49GA3-Dk
  - underlipton 2y ago
    I feel like that's a bit reductive. The jump-scare is only effective because of the expectations set by previous experience. As the wiki article mentions, it at first seems like a winter version of https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Serenity_Farm https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Serenity_Farm. Once the illusion is broken and you begin to leave the area, you're forced to pass by and see how all of the cozy elements that built your initial impression were transformed. And then, of course, nothing is explained; you're just left to ponder what happened. Describing it, or even seeing it divorced from some amount of contextualizing gameplay, doesn't quite convey the quale of the moment. It sobered us up in a way that I can best compare to the feeling of walking out of the atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki. I appreciate when games are confident enough to play these sorts of tricks with players. I'm also reminded of the Pitioss Ruins in Final Fantasy XV, a secret dungeon that also messes with player expectations and emotions by using your understanding of the game's mechanics against you, while also using the environment as a monumental storytelling device (in this case, your journey through the ruins serving as a metaphor for the game world's lore).

by gwern 2y ago

narism 2y ago

This goes into what happens: https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Winter_Lodge https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Winter_Lodge

Terr_ 2y ago
Found a video, it's a minor jump-scare when the player enters the front door. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IdL49GA3-Dk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IdL49GA3-Dk
- underlipton 2y ago
  I feel like that's a bit reductive. The jump-scare is only effective because of the expectations set by previous experience. As the wiki article mentions, it at first seems like a winter version of https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Serenity_Farm https://fable.fandom.com/wiki/Serenity_Farm. Once the illusion is broken and you begin to leave the area, you're forced to pass by and see how all of the cozy elements that built your initial impression were transformed. And then, of course, nothing is explained; you're just left to ponder what happened. Describing it, or even seeing it divorced from some amount of contextualizing gameplay, doesn't quite convey the quale of the moment. It sobered us up in a way that I can best compare to the feeling of walking out of the atomic bomb museum in Nagasaki. I appreciate when games are confident enough to play these sorts of tricks with players. I'm also reminded of the Pitioss Ruins in Final Fantasy XV, a secret dungeon that also messes with player expectations and emotions by using your understanding of the game's mechanics against you, while also using the environment as a monumental storytelling device (in this case, your journey through the ruins serving as a metaphor for the game world's lore).