I just got finished with beating Riven for the first time. I adored the way the game seeped into my real life with pages of notes about the world I was discovering. Are there any other games that can match this feeling? That really work best when you have a journal in hand?
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First and only game I was able to think of. Good stuff
I sketch out factory designs for Satisfactory
Same my friend, same. I’m starting my new factory on Friday and I’m getting ready for the math.
Btw if you’re not already, we’re here at [email protected]
I wasn’t already, but I am now.
The following games all typically do not hold the player’s hand. They are to varying degrees, some give you a map and/or journal, some do not.
- TES III Morrowind
- King’s Field 1-4
- Snatcher on SEGA CD
- Dark Souls 1-3, Demons Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring
- Ultima Underworld
- Silent Hill 1-4
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Tunic
- Super Metroid
- Hollow Knight
- Rain World
- System Shock 1,2
I love the Morrowind recommendation. Also, unlikely suggestion, but I had to get a pen and paper for The Great Crystal dungeon on Final Fantasy XII.
The Witness
Lots of diagrams
This. So many sketches and diagrams the month I played through this one.
I left my computer to go out with friends to have wings. I was thinking about the puzzle I left behind on the trip there. I was trying to draw the patterns on my phone while we waited. This game gets into your head.
I remember opening Paint to solve that incremental puzzle in the mountain only to realise there’s multiple symbols in the same space
Agree, I filled like half notebook with this game
Tunic!
The “final” puzzle took a whole page of paper. It was brilliant
I still smile whenever I stumble upon these pages of my college block
The loading page was some straight up bullshit though.
So many instances of…
“…no…nooo… NOOO”
Then it works
The last game I recall breaking out pen and paper for was Tunic. You can definitely beat the story without, but the later puzzles call for it.
Myst was my answer even before reading your post, so I would say the rest of the series. Also Quern, in the same genre. Maybe The Talos Principle if you like puzzles, though I don’t remember reaching for my notepad while playing.
Exile was pretty good, minus the pixel hunting on the forest level, but I’d say overall quality dropped off pretty quickly after that.
Animal Well.
I hear Lorelei and The Laser Eyes was specifically designed around the idea of the player using a physical notepad to help solve the puzzles. Recently released and reviewed strongly, you should check it out if not already on your radar.
It definitely does, and I’ll second the recommendation, but at least one set of puzzles only really requires the the notepad because they didn’t give you sufficient software tools in game, not because it couldn’t be done well in game.
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Her Story is a detective game that starts with you sitting at a computer, not even knowing what mystery you’re supposed to investigate. You have to search through the computer’s database for police interview footage to figure that out. Then you have to figure out the answer to the mystery you think you need to solve. The interview clips have a lot of details for you to track and link together. I had to make a big chunky note for this game and even had to implement a system to keep track of the likelihood of the statements.
If you want more point and click adventures, try the Submachine series, which was originally in Flash but now remastered as a ten-game compilation called Submachine: Legacy. The developer trained as an architect, so you get to admire intricate, hand-drawn architecture porn. It starts off as a typical 00s Flash room escape, until you realize it was all a… hallucination. You realize that you’re actually going to explore a vast, utterly lonely underground world as you try to track down the only person who seems to know how to get out. Teleportation and parallel universe travel come up a lot in the series, so keeping notes will be useful. Incredible dark ambient soundtrack, too.
It reads like it would be a game similar to “A normal lost phone” and "another lost phone“ - two of the best phone puzzle games I‘ve played.
I might give Her Story a try
I’m not familiar with the games you mentioned, so I went to check them out. And look what we have on the Steam store page!
Reviews
“It shares some of the feeling of Her Story, albeit featuring today’s technology and with less of a focus on the crime angle. But it has the same small moments of revelation, all of which come together to form a story in its own neat yet meandering way.” Rock Paper Shotgun
Guess that means you have to play it now.
Currently on sale on GOG for € 0.89 - got it
I usually wrote a lot of scribbles for Stardew Valley, at least when trying to go for perfection.
Heaven’s Vault feels like it should have its own journal, but it really didn’t.
Sid Meier’s Pirates! could use a notebook at points or at least scrap paper.
My most recent such games were Her Story and Return of the Obra Dinn.
During Her Story I ended up with an A5 sheet full of keyword ideas I wanted to search the recordings for.
Obra Dinn had me draw multiple iterations of a ship deck while trying to figure out who was likely to sleep in which hammock :D
Tunic
Elite Dangerous
Death Stranding
Tunic 💯💯
Why Death Stranding? I don’t understand this one…
I kept some paper logs of what was needed where. Mostly for building things, but also for deliveries. I was trying to be relatively efficient in hauling stuff around.
Honestly it was really handy to have a pen and paper around for Elden Ring for me. There was just so much I wanted to keep track of so that I could come back or to make connections. But it’s also a very acquired taste kind of game to go through!
Riven is one of my favorite games and IMO the best of the Myst series of games. My recommendation is Outer Wilds, which doesn’t necessarily require real life note taking although you could. However it is a fantastic puzzle/exploration game that is easily on par with Riven, and will hit that same vibe of learning more and more about the world and using that knowledge to progress. Trust me, its very worth it. Also get the DLC too!
Seconded, though I would advise getting the DLC after completing the main game.
