My favorite Rain World experience is when I literally walked into a full scale war between a tribe of scavengers and a group of lizards and vultures. I helped the scavengers kill the threat and they followed me and helped me get farther into the area, which was the industrial complex. Things like this really heighten the already amazing experience of playing Rain World.
For me whenever I help scavs kill ANYTHING that thretnes them they hunt me down for no reason even though they my global reputation was high and I have not speared one of em This gives me a deep bias against scavs sadly
Maybe if Mandalore or Sseth review it. Their playerbase would love this game. I see no other big audience reviewer giving this game a fair chance. Truth is, the first 10 hours of this game are frustrating as hell. Until you learn that the controls aren't janky. You need to time jumps and slides. Learn to roll, climb and swim without mindless button mashing, assess danger in a room before progressing and how long/short your current cycle is before travelling between zones. Most players either get lost or frustrated. They don't go past Industrial or worse go through Drainage which is the hardest level BY FAR (swiming past the cisterns for a new player is next to impossible because Shoreline is where the game teaches you the "flow" of swimming). Outskirts-Drainage should've been closed off until being attuned with Moon or FP or doing a second playthrough. It's a shame because anyone who manages to reach Looks-to-the-Moon is probably sold on how amazing this game really is. Much like Dark Souls with the Bells of Awakening or Stalker with reaching the Bar in Rostok. Other indies like Darkwood or Exanima also do this. If you beat their respective first zones you're gonna love them. It's just that people get filtered before reaching there. Rain World is not hard. Much like nature it's merciless. One mistake will cost you your life. In this game you can feel when death is coming. Jump into a pool of leeches, fail to notice something shining on a level connector or in the ceiling, fuck around weaponless with a lizard, running outside when there's a shadow overhead or battle music is still around, trying to skip a scavenger checkpoint.
1:03:07 You can actually tell if it's a death pit. Death pits have darker colors at the bottom of the screen. It's subtle but not impossible to discern.
Yes unless you're in chimmney cannopy where the jump brings you down a screen with nothing but walls as you slowly slide down into a now in view death pit.
1:03:11 There actually is a way to tell if a fall will kill you or not. If the fall is fatal, then the bottom of the screen will have a dark gradient, if it is a safe fall, it will have no gradient.
It's become one of my favorite games too over the past couple months. Exploring Pebbles and seeing the ending for the first time were especially mind blowing, even if I had no idea what was happening at the time. I think the game captures the spirit of what made super metroid so great: mysterious, connected environments that sometimes don't even have any enemies around to deal with. It lets you just explore and take in the world at your own pace (until you realize the rain is coming, at least). Also agreed on the death pits: the light gray at the bottom of screen can be really hard to notice. But even without that, the placement of some of the pits makes no sense when there's solid ground on the screen right below you.
My guess on illogical pit placement is that VC started designing creature AI and movement and other stuff around pipe transitions exclusively very early on, and didn't find it necessary to add a new type of room connections. Also, a very few rooms actually suffer from it. Right now I only recall Shoreline Tower and that room on bottom-east of Sky Island to have those unexplainable death falls, most vertically oriented spaces are aligned and separated properly.
I was trying to get batflies and one flew into the nest. A scavenger was next to me and it reached into the nest, grabbed the batfly, and handed it to me. Had no idea they could/would do that.
I think my favorite Rain World experience was when I first killed a king vulture. I was so hyped I told everyone, even the people that didn’t know about the game. That level of genuine excitement is hard to feel in games nowadays (even in some old games).
4:35 LMAO iggy literally says “STOP MOVING AROUND” Big sis moon does the same thing, if you jump around after returning to her while she’s talking, she goes “can you PLEASE stop jumping around for a minute”
what a well made video, i actually felt like i was watching some national geographic documentary! cant wait to see more content from you! just finished the game a couple of days ago, definitely one of my all time favorites and im not even done with it
Rain World is a piece of art that stabs, shoots, and backhands you for admiring it. If you can take that taste the pain this game deals to you, definitely consider checking it out.
Dude your soothing and intelligent narration combined with the long stretches of ambient gameplay really made this video a beautiful experience. (And also funny, which is just icing on an already delicious cake.)
I’m 100% sure that what this reviewer says they went through is impossible and that they are straight lying for the shock value. Cycles can last for an absolute maximum of around 16 minutes. There is absolutely no way that they could’ve lost hours of progress, because they HAVE to find a new shelter or reach their old one. Complete bullshit.
@@aarepelaa1142 That implies game reviewers are actually willing to play through the game long enough to reach five pebbles in the first place, instead of just giving up and whining about how they weren't hand-held to victory after dying to a noodlefly twenty minutes into the game.
Rain World in one of the best videogame I ever played in my entire life. It's not even a videogame, it's an experience to live. Eternal respect for the devellopers. Thank you for this guided tour that reminds me lots of memories.
Its always great to see someone talking about my favorite game! One thing I really appreciate about this videos is the pacing. The long breaks from narration are great for showing examples from the gameplay, and helps show off the superb sound effects / soundtrack in this game. Fantastic video overall!
karma gates are such an important inclusion despite the fact that a lot of people hate them. like you said it’s there as a skill check, but along the way they also force you to actually participate in a location’s ecosystem for a few cycles instead of just running through it. some of my most immersive moments with this game were cycles where i did nothing but venture out, find some food, and return home, and there would be no need for that kind of gameplay without karma gates.
It’s amazing! You should definitely buy it! There’s so much things to do, I’ve put 60+ hours into the game, and I’m no more than halfway through it! Probably the most beautiful game I’ve ever played :)
Some scavengers have other tendencies aswell, some might be more brave than others, being less likely to free themselves from predators as if sacrificing itself for the tribe. While others are more cowardly, literally jumping when something spooks it and always freeing itself from a predators grasp, the ones with larger mask/horns take lead, and always try to be the one in charge while the one with smaller mask/horns will follow stronger scavengers without question.
You're not alone in the fascination of this. In category of gaming, Rain World is perhaps the most beautiful and simple expression and made in parallell to one's (our) own existence and struggles. Simple in expression, complex in execution. Hated and also loved. It is a thing you have to live through to know it. That being but one expression of it of many. All will eventually and inevitably go through it in this place. And much in the tune of it, "so it is."
"there is no way to discern from a safe or unsafe fall" that actually isn't true! you can tell which falls are death pits based on whether or not there's a black fade at the bottom of the screen. at 1:03:04, you can see the screen has a slight black fade at the bottom, indicating a death pit. it's a very minute detail though, so newer players wouldn't recognize them as easily as an experienced or veteran player. another way to recognize a death pit from a regular fall is if there's an actual way to get down there other than taking a pipe. if there's no poles or vents leading downward, then it's most likely a death pit. in rooms such as the one at 1:03:13, you can see poles and vents that would bring you downward, and no black fade. falling is still death though, there's no floor at the bottom of this room. SLIGHT ENDGAME SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT! one outlier is the pitfall right before the entrance to the depths, there's no vents, pipes, or poles leading downward, however it isn't a death pit. it's just a long fall, but the fall damage does insta kill you because it's such a long fall. you have to cling to the side of the pit to make it down safely.
I gave up my very first run at Drainage System. A few weeks later, I gave up after reaching Looks to The Moon. I wasn't strong enough yet. After playing Outerwilds and really respecting what goes into a gripping environment, I knew I had to finish this ballache of a game. Started fresh, went a different way to Moon and eventually found FP, then wandered around. I got stuck for SO long until I found the entrance to Subterranean. I found the end. I love this game.
It's been a while and four days ago I finally started playing Rain World. Now after 27 hours in this wonderful world I can finally say the experience has been worth every second and every cent. This game is one of a kind. What a beautiful ride.
I'm one of the "lucky" few who *beat* the game before the updates. To this day I am filled with leftover spite, it poisoned my very soul. Later, just two small changes made it into a genuinely palatable experience. I still cannot recommend it to anyone whom I do not hate, but thankfully I hate all of you. Go play this game.
You've developed a great format for explaining a videogame. The majority of the video is a chronological walkthrough, but you have asides on controls, mechanics, backstory, etc. Your commentary and analysis is concise and has a point, and you let the game speak for itself for long stretches. Fantastic video.
I've been trying to play this game for years now. I love everything about it, the pixel graphics, the immersion, the difficulty, the mystery. Everything that is except actually playing it. Every time I do I get bored around the second checkpoint. I also love this channel and was holding off on this video but finally caved and started it. I'm glad I did. The videos on this channel carry the same kind of mesmerizing immersion that games like rain world do and I find I get sucked into a kind of 'machine zone' watching them. A great alternate way to enjoy the game. I regret nothing.
I bought Rain World almost 2 years ago and kept picking it up and putting it back down. I'm finally getting into it now. It takes time to really grow on you. Everybody I've seen talk about the game says the same thing. It takes a long time to get used to, but once you do it's hard to put it down again. Give it some time and try it again someday when you're bored.
After hearing a bit about this game (very late after its release), I was looking for exactly this kind of video and I'm so happy to have found it. I don't have the time to delve into any games right now. While I know that it is impossible to experience the feeling of a game without playing it, I wanted to experience what I could without watching a full multi-hour speed run or lets play. The short 10-30 minute reviews I found just didn't seem to capture the atmosphere of the game. Thank you for making this video. Your guided tour through this world was a treat.
Always a blessing to just randomly come across incredibly detailed, excellently presented, and in-depth videos like this, especially when its about things i've barely ever heard of. Pretty sure there should be a law about this level of quality deserving more views.
layouts are so carefully constructed it really sells its world. There is a good amount of unique art and visual flare that makes exploration an incentive in its own right. There was a single artist/system coder and a single level designer, both made an amazing job making sure assets and systems were deep, modular and varied enough, then making good use of all the features, although systems are so deep that it is imposible to communicate them to the player without wild experimentation, in this sense the broad modding community really fill the gaps.
I finally reached Five Pebble's core... This is the most affecting moment in my gaming life and one of the best experiences in my life. Games can be art when artists want to make games. Artists make art, regardless of the medium. Rain World is proof of that.
A great video for a great game.... Thank you for making such a wonderful tribute to a game that doesn't often get much praise (at least from big reviewers).
What's also cool that I hadn't noticed until a few playthroughs later is if you jump into the water after running around and jumping, the time you're able to hold your breath is shorter, since his heart is beating faster and using up more oxygen. However, if you stand still, and wait for his breathing to calm until he's not bobbing up and down, you can hold your breath for several seconds longer.
Well done, this is a majestic presentation I was very immersed with your documentary of the game and I like that you put clips of gameplay without saying a word and just letting the game speak for itself
Just came back to watch this for a second time, still just as amazing. Thank you for the wonderful video, hoping to have my second full playthrough of this game soon after nearly a year or two after the first.
I'd like to hazard a guess at why the exterior has such a nonsensical food web. It's because the Daddy Long Legs are an invasive species - they cannot be killed (except by a well placed explosive), are ravenous, tumor-like creatures, and have probably absorbed what rich life previously existed. Only the Dropwigs and White Lizards - both of which are stealth-oriented creatures - remain, as well as the grapple worms, which also make very little noise and probably fail to attract DLL attention.
Counterpoint: orange lizards Also grapple lizards make a lot of noise that you can hear yet which the DLLs cannot. Odd but the exterior is probably the most "videogamey" of regions.
@@Zorro9129 Solid points! The orange lizards set up their living spaces in contained, spherical "homes" tho which are almost impossible for a DLL to enter and are usually out of the way of them anyway. And honestly so do grapple worms, usually. And i'm reaching a bit, but the noise they make might sound like the noise DLLs themselves make when locomoting, which could fly under the radar. I'm aware that this is all an attempt to justify what is very clearly a game balance decision, but the ecosystem this game has constructed deserves it.
I'm coming back and watching this when I finish Rain World. David Lynch + RW is a combo I never thought I'd see in a video and it surely made me smile.
Jimmy mentioning that he went through the "start" of 5P really put into perspective just how different everyone's playthrough could be. On my very first playthrough I ended going through Shaded Citadel to The Leg and Underhang, then to The Wall and meeting 5P from above instead of climbing up from the bottom of 5P and Unfortunate Development. You can ALSO just entirely skip the Shaded Citadel by going through Chimney Canopy and again meeting 5P from above by climbing The Wall. This game is SO cool, man.
1:02:46 - Static screens are indeed a result of technical limitations. Creature AIs are complex and lots of stuff is physically rendered at any given time, and all levels are pre-rendered for the sake of performance.
I'm looking forward to the DLC Downpour, but I do think the original game seems much more focused on aesthetic and feeling while the DLC is more of a fun exploration of mechanics and lore. Which is totally cool, but it's a separate artistic experience.
I dunno, the DLC having 10 new regions (the original game has 12) and 5 new stories with 5 new playable slug cats seems like plenty of room for new feelings and aesthetics
Oh so thats what the random moon girl was about.. Yea on my first playthrough I was so confused by it that I ended up trying to do everything I could in the room and you can probably guess where that leads. A lot of stick throwing and eating her bugs. No wonder I was so confused about everything when my first reaction to things was ooga booga caveman throw spear.
it amazes me how radically different my playthrough turned out to be to yours, I felt like the directions I was getting form the helper were very inconsistent so I just ended up going wherever I felt which made me end up all the way down in subterranean (coming from shoreline) before I ever got to looks to the moon, got stuck there and gave up. After a restart and second try years later I finally ended up in the correct route to looks to the moon but then I ended down in filtration system and even got to the depths before I ever visited five pebbles. Btw do you see the very bright shine slugcat has in this video's subterranean section? I DID NOT HAVE THAT you unlock that on five pebbles so to navigate the filtration system I spammed the map button 24/7 to see corners and paths. Now frustrated as the depths had a very "this should be the end of the game" look I tried looking online where I should actually go trying not to spoil myself and after giving a brief skim I got that I was supposed to go to five pebbles which was in a more or less "top right" general direction, this made me go through a gruelingly hard route which was [filtration system (start) > drainage system > garbage wastes > shoreline > shaded citadel > memory crypts > the leg > the exterior > climb all the way up to the wall > five pebbles > recursive arrays > the exterior > chimney canopy > industrial complex > garbage wastes > drainage system > filtration system > the depths] Unlike the playthrough in this video not only I got to five pebbles through the wall and never even touched farm arrays but also looped and zipped around the map so many times I was on the brink of giving up more than once. When I reached the end of the game I had clocked in exactly 100 hours and 114 cycles on my second try. This was easily my hardest videogame experience that I've ever had but also the most immersive, as it's apparent from my route I have a very poor sense of direction and get a bit too distracted by deviating into other paths but this was because I went repeatedly with the mentality of "well there's no way I'm deviating too much right? This is an indie game, I doubt the map is that big" man oh man how much I suffered because of that. Despite (or maybe because) all of this now rain world is my favorite game of all time and I definitely resonate with the final sentiment of this video that art is greater than the sum of its parts, I really can't describe how much I love and am constantly fascinated by this game.
@AC oh yeah that almost happened to me. That bad ending idea seems like it would actually benefit the game but I do think the confusion it gives you is part of the game's identity.
Rain World has been one of my top favorite games for several years now. The controls are a bit difficult to learn at first, especially the complex ones but otherwise it’s a very beautiful game. The AI can be a bit tricky but I love that they integrated sight and sound to many of the creatures in this wonderful game. It truly makes the world feel alive in my opinion. Hands down, I would totally recommend this to my friends as this game is generally very interactive and throws you into an environment you can literally get lost in. The soundtrack is also very well made. The diversity of music fits this game extremely well.
1:02:50 you can actually tell because there's a dark gradient near the bottom of the screen if it will kill you, I think they should have made it more noticeable since new players won't really notice the gradient.
This mad lad really went the drainage system route to get to shoreline, great video btw just finished your one on the downpour dlc and came back to watch this one.
This video turned into a guilty pleasure of mine. I keep rewatching it and I always end up processing some new information I previously didn't notice, or flew right over my head... The writing/narration on this is phenomenal. A trully underrapreciated experience, kinda like the game itself :)
40:50 I will confirm this. It felt awesome to go from treating every lizard like an apex predator, to killing my first Green Lizard, and eventually seeing Lizards as less of an "oh god I need to get out of here" and more of a "I could kill this if I tried." To go from cowering in fear of a Green Lizard to being able to semi-consistently spot and kill White Lizards, or intercept and kill Cyan Lizards, is an awesome feeling that you can't get without playing the game yourself.
man the parts in subterranean with the light shining through look like you were playing minecraft then a shader suddenly enabled itself while you were playing
Coming back to this, I was reminded by how this game looked so similarly with Carrion, but then it hits me: Immersive worldbuilding. Same reason why I got hooked into Carrion and also Rain World. Have purchased it but never played it yet, this game deserved to be played on chill time. A moment best enjoyed at night, together with a cup of coffee.
I would argue that the exterior doesn't really need a food chain, especially when looking into the lore. Daddy Long Legs are a rot that intends to eat anything and everything, and given that they have found their way out into the exterior and made a home of it, the food chain is likely entirely destroyed with some creatures extinct now. There is a more present food chain in hunter too, with spitter spiders populating the place instead of daddly long legs, which adds a more present food chain as the lizards and spiders commonly fight and kill one another
Since we're on the subject of the rot and extinction, I'll share a theory. I think the hunter is the earliest slugcat in the timeline, so all these apex predators exclusive to them have died out, possibly eaten by the rot or just lost to time. We can tell they're the earliest because 1) there's less rot for the hunter compared to the other slugcats, which breaks the trend of hunter always having more predators, meaning this is for lore. 2) The monk actually has more rot than the survivor, which breaks the trend of monk always having less predators, so rot quantity is now definitely for lore. 3) All the colorful data pearls are busted for the monk, possibly broken by rain cycles or data loss, which is further evidence the monk is the last slugcat in the timeline, which is further evidence that rot population grows over time.
@@KingMako30 the hunter exclusive species can be encountered in survivor through the lineage system, so they can't be completely dead. but they are probably being fizzled out by the harsh world that the iterators created.
@@KingMako30 it's confirmed already that it's hunter -> surv -> monk the only thing now is there are more slugcats coming in dlc, and iirc spearmaster is the earliest and saint is the last
@@JimmyMcG33 I think what was the worst moment was when someone else made a rain world review without any spoiler warnings and literally showed some of the ending in the first 10 seconds of the video.
While I haven't played Rain World yet (only found out about it from Skurry), I can definitely say this video is a masterpiece. It's amazingly edited, the story explanations, gameplay clips and gameplay mechanic explanations all balance each other very well, and the narration is great. Sub for me, this is the kind of content that I love
One of my favorite moments in Rain World, whether it was intentional by the devs or not: The early game teaches you to do anything to get food and survive, so you try so put anything in your mouth just to get enough food. Because of that, once you get to Moon your first instinct is to grab those flying neurons and try to eat them. The first time I got there I did exactly just that, I didn't even realize Moon's attempt at communicating with body language and I just swallowed them like they were the most delicious thing in the universe and I walked away, I acted like a beast with no intelligence because I was a beast with no intelligence, the only thing on my mind was food. When I got to 5 pebbles, I realized I fucked up after getting the mark of communication. I wasn't just a beast anymore, I suddenly had a purpose greater than just shoving anything in my mouth
I remember from my teenage years, when my brother and I got the game X-Wing or X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter or such, he was simply shooting anything that moves and I facepalmed. Until that point he had had no concept of factional gameplay in video games, and he loved shooting gallery style games. I myself, though, got massively frustrated with Metal Gear because stealth gameplay was new to me.
TH-cam algorythm is weird, every time rainworld came back to my mind I always went back to youtube looking for a video like yours. And I only discovered it today, it is really good. I never finished rain world got softlocked in someplace and abandoned it there, thanks for the tour around.
One of these days I want someone to explain to me why any video on or of Rain World always puts me into sleepy time mode. I can go from wide awake and wired all to shit on coffee to nap time as soon as I hear the ambient noises of Rain World happening.
Game reviewers like the ones at IGN are 9-5 zombies (like most of us) if you truly have passion & skill & the brain to put it together, you make art like this game is, and this video about this game is. Thank you creator!
Your video and Wobbles' Rain World Retrospective blog post are my two favorite pieces of Rain World content. The game has been out a while and yet very few people have been able to understand and discuss the game in a way I find satisfying. I appreciate which parts of the game you chose to include here, and which aspects you chose deliberately to leave for the watcher to discover (or not) on their own. Rain World really is a masterpiece of a game. While it won't appeal to everyone, that fact actually propels it to higher heights. Thank you for taking the time to make this.
How does not appealing to everyone propel it to higher heights? There are valid criticisms against this game. It's not "not appealing to everyone" It had some questionable decisions/design that holded it back at launch and still has some of that today.
@@DivyeshVartha EDIT: I think I understand how you feel It might help to look at my unstated implications, "While it won't appeal to everyone, that fact actually propels it to higher heights [for those that appreciate what it does]." I would even change to "...allows it to be propelled..." but I try to keep judgement-y statements as simple as possible. The reason I believe this has a lot to do with how I view games as a medium for artistic expression. I am willing to forgive deviance from the norms when I feel like the work is enriched by those choices. My favourites aren't always "games with no flaws," or "games I can easily share with others" (though often they are), but are almost always "games that were intensely personal to me and offered me something unique." Did I get stuck in a death loop in filtration system on my first playthrough? Yeah. Did I think that was stupid and not my fault? Yeah. But for me to say "Beautiful, confusing, and difficult, 3 out of 5" is to miss all the things RW showed me and made me feel--that most games don't, or can't. And I'd like to think that the reason that's possible is owed, at least in part, to its "unpopular" design choices. With a more streamlined, more accessible, less frustrating Rain World, it becomes less special. Something that's endlessly fascinating about games is how they can resonate with you in a way that's difficult to describe. A game might be able to communicate something to you that you've never heard, or in a way you've never considered. Often, when you play a game like that, it can be hard to recommend it to others... unless you know a person well and understand their tastes deeper than surface-level. Even though I can't and won't recommend Rain World to my best friends, I think the people it does speak to find something unique and intensely personal. The way I see games makes that worth celebrating.
@@-swann I love Rain world's art and unique approach to a game. I loved it so much in fact that it absolutely pains me to think that this gem is not appreciated only due to some trivial design decisions. I feel like very small changes like making backtracking possible at any point in the game, a little more basic instructions and controls (like switching hands), a little more push towards the sticking to the "intended" route, maybe the leeches shouldn't be rng on the other end of the pipe, small things like this would've made it a lot better. I don't think these quality of life-like changes would retract anything from the game. If you paint a masterpiece would you show it off under candlelight? No you'd bring a huge torch. The fact that people won't appreciate it just because of some trivial accessibility issues saddens me. I love the game, I wanted it to be popular so others can get inspired and create more original games like this but I can't in good faith say that it is a well designed game. It is a work of art but as a game, it falls short. Which is a shame because when niche games succeed like undertale and papers please, it shows the world that there is a demand for original passion-filled games that break the norm. What was supposed to be a great game, to me, just feels like a tragedy that could've been avoided. And I hate it for that. Few other things evoke such strong yet mixed feeling for me. Before you, I criticised it and tomorrow I'll defend it. And that's how I feel. Reminds me of the success of Don Quixote. Everyone will read it and have a different opinion but most will enjoy the experience. Not all popular things are great but great things don't have to be unpopular. That's my counter-argument. The things that make rainworld great are not the same things that pushed people away.
Yeah I also love this article experiencedmachine.wordpress.com/2019/09/16/rain-world-reaching-enlightenment-through-unfairness-part-i/ You should really check it out
I have a very complicated relationship with Rain World. One unique to me I hope as I discovered it when it was new. It became a hyperfixation but at the time I didn't own a computer, so I adored a game I couldn't play. I was younger back then. I drew the slug cat and the lizards and ended up even founding the Rain World amino (which I have since only caused problems in and can't in good conscience show my face again on the site) It consumed a lot of my brain power during middle school (I am now graduated. I am young yes I know) and I still hadn't even played it despite what it meant to me. It's been years since I last really thought of this game. And having stumbled upon this video it brings back a lot of sweet memories and good times. I hope I'll think about it more. And appreciate it better now as a work of art. And I also hope I will, for once, actually play it.
I just tripped over this randomly-recommended video, probably because I am into a mixture of game design and mechanics, and oddball games with hidden depths like Noita, Pyre, or the old Creatures life-simulation games from the Windows 2000/XP days. I don't know, but it came to me unbidden, and I'm glad it did. I was skeptical about watching a whole 80 minute video on a game I'd never even heard of, at first... but this video, this game is almost hypnotic. I was planning to catch a quick nap before Thanksgiving dinner, but instead found myself watching through the whole thing, and knowing by about 10 minutes in I was going to buy this game and see it for myself. Thank you for sharing what looks to be a real hidden gem. It almost looks like a dark mirror of the Ori platformer games, but with much less explicitly given up front for the player. I'll keep an eye on your channel for other deep dives! Incidentally, Rain World is currently 30% off on steam for anyone else looking.
I think the moment I remember best from rain world is when you finally emerge from five pebbles and go across the top of the wall. something about that background and the sheer scope of it sticks with me. that was the moment that made me say "why the hell didn't anyone tell me about rain world?" masterful game
Going back to that moment, I find it interesting that the "faces" (?) of the ancient beings in these murals were scratched off. Like, they are already quite alien and almost abstract in their looks, I don't think seeing their faces would've made them look any more familiar... ...unless...
I can safely say this remains the de facto insight into what makes Rain World so special. A simple review without the tour would simply not have managed to express the 'organic' and ecological nature of the game. Thank you for the immense effort this project must have taken.
I like how scavenger emotions are conveyed in a way just human enough that you can tell if they're displaying negative or positive emotions, but also unique and alien enough that you need to study them to figure out what specific emotions they're conveying. I still kind of struggle with them sometimes, but I've interacted with them enough that I can figure out most of what they're telling me by looking at them. I mostly struggle to tell when they're just trying to greet me, or asking me to give them something. It's sometimes hard to tell when they're doing the "Look! A friend!" point and the "Look! Your spear! Gimme!" point lol
It's funny to me how much flew over my head. I am an animal putting pegs in holes until the game ends, and then I leave, unaware of most of its grander allure, content with the fact I played with levers until the black box reached an end state. The five desires, the echoes, the ancients' obsession, all of it was just backdrop for eating food and being food until somehow breaking out, more by raw persistence than any informed or inferred decision. Just like in Cultist simulator or Book of hours where most of the greater lore is lost to an animal brain following only what can be perceived with senses because higher thinking has checked out of trying to put it all together a while ago. Although I'm not so uncouth as not to appreciate paid professionals being negatively described as casual players.
I can't play this because I just don't have the manual dexterity for this kinda game, so this was a wonderful way to get a good look at it, thank you for the great vid! I especially appreciate allowing it to have long parts with no talking, to just absorb the atmosphere of the game between getting information about it.
If something grabs you and you don’t immediately die, there is a window to hit them and force them to release you. That’s how your friend escaped the purple lizard.
This is weird to me seeing your order of discoveries, because I went through the areas in a completely different order. Subterranean was my third area for example, there's a pathway through drainage system that leads into filtration. And I got into the depths right after exploring that. Realising that it's the final area and where I had to go right after speaking to Five Pebbles was an amazing moment for me, especially when I thought about what the lore behind the place actually was now that I knew it. Great video by the way! Glad to see Rain World getting some attention.
There's multiple paths to the game if i recall, and in a speedrun you can actually skip past 9 biomes or something to get to the filtration system immediately and get to the ending
Played the game, and I while I did enjoy it and what it trying to go for, I never finished it. The game, despite its good qualities, thoroughly tested my patience with its lack of direction and difficulty spikes until I decided I had enough. Specifically it was at the Drainage System and it bleeding water and leeches that had me go 'Fuck it, you win game! Have fun being abandoned! ' It was only AFTER I quit and started reading up and watching other peoples videos on it that on it that I fully began to appreciate it as a sort of 'outsiders art' sort of experience. And that is also what made me realize what the main problem with Rain World is, in my humble opinion: *conveyance* . It's all well and good to 'leave it to' the player to explore and learn things on their own after a brief tutoriel, but it starts to sour the more you go further and further to the extreme end of that design philosophy. If you're not going to give someone the full scoop on what they can do or what they're in for, then when they do get flatfooted it comes across more often than not unfair, obtuse, obscure, or some combination thereof to the average gamer, rather than an intriguing/thought provoking exercise that the devs intended. Failure with/without blind experimentation can be a strong teacher, especially if its painful, and it can all add to the experience of a retro style game like this one, but it is also *frustrating* if it happens to catch you off guard while you're trying to have fun and get through the game. Exponentially so if said failures happens FREQUENTLY , abruptly, and early on before much progress can be made. You need to balance out this lack of conveyance with something *else* , be it good gameplay, story, world design, whatever, and I feel that Rain World really doesn't do enough in this regard. Which leads me to my second and last point: The story and world building. Or the lack thereof, really, unless you're willing to do a LOT of aimless faffing about in game or going on a wiki hunt for the info. Even if the player can get past that, or can accept that things are going to be blurry going forward and only they can clear stuff up with their own smarts/wisdom, they'll probably end up being disappointed or left lost with the sheer lack of story or ANY plot at all beyond the vaguest notions of 'reuniting with your family through technology and Karma' . The game really leaves you to the wolves (or lizards and raptors, rather) in this regard, and only through a heck of a lot of diligence, brainstorming, and exploring the world will you only *begin* to piece together a coherent idea of what happened and what you're supposed to be doing. Problem with that is that with the aforementioned lack of conveyance and a rather punishing game play and learning loop, coupled with how BIG the world is and how labyrnthine it can get, you're fighting and uphill battle to get said information, let alone find any use for it. And when you're dying at lot and getting chewed up by the game, or getting lost in a bad way as you're trying to find SOME thread to follow to completion, that wears away at a person spirit, determination, and overall enjoyment with the game. Sometime to the point of getting tired of it entirely and quitting, as was in my case. Of course you CAN just look up everything relevant or otherwise on Rain World and chart your course with MUCH more clarity and MUCH less frustration, but not only does that fly right in the face of what the devs intended in a playthrough, it also takes a lot of mystery and wondering out of exploring the world itself. And the whole story, setting, and history of the game itself.....well, I consider it somewhat sad and damning that I only understood and enjoyed it all not through the game itself, but from media outside of it. When the average person can't make heads or tails of your story without that level of sigh posting and skulduggery, or even find it at all to begin with.....yikes that is a tragic mess to be had. For some they can get past this, that, and much more bugbears and bafflings to see this game as a gem worth mining for all its worth. For most who are used to the modern advancements and typical design philosophy that games employ now in days, however, I can't blame them for finding the game heavily wanting. To be clear I'm not saying Rain World is a bad game - it is NOT - but rather one that can't and won't appeal to most without some frame of reference to bounce off of, be it outside research of the game itself, a history of playing and enjoying games like or similar to R.W. , or a clear understanding and acceptance of what exactly you're getting yourself when you buy and play it. It's a poster boy for 'niche title' , and while that lends it a lot of charm and own brand of excitement, it doesn't make it all that accessible for newcomers to sink their teeth into and develop a appreciation for it unless it *clicks* with them. Overall.......Rain World is good, but a very specific kind of good. It pulls off its systems, gameplay, and world design excellently, but those very same things can be a turn-off or discouraging unless they appeal or one can accept the bad aspects as a part of the whole. The game offers an experience that is exceedingly rare, but it is not one I can recommend unless you do your research on it first (whatever kind that may be) before diving it.
Yeah when I first played I got stuck in Drainage too. It's almost a trap. Good players can get through it, but its literally the worst path you can take to start. You also never actually have to go through drainage to beat the game. Of course, the game doesn't tell you this.
This is the curse of all niche labors of love. VERY good and fun for people into it, but they can only be admired from a distance by people who aren't. Broad Appeal is often a necessary sacrifice.
42:20 You most likely already know this now, considering this video was legitimately two years ago. Just in case, I will tell you anyways!!! This is an intended mechanic as far as i know, where if you're quick enough, in the jaws of a lizard, you can throw something at them to to make them drop you. By a stroke of beginners luck, your friend seems to have accidentally done this and thrown it just at the right moment to stab the lizard in the neck.
My favorite Rain World experience is when I literally walked into a full scale war between a tribe of scavengers and a group of lizards and vultures. I helped the scavengers kill the threat and they followed me and helped me get farther into the area, which was the industrial complex. Things like this really heighten the already amazing experience of playing Rain World.
oh man if they made that type of experience more accessible that would be amazing
For me whenever I help scavs kill ANYTHING that thretnes them they hunt me down for no reason even though they my global reputation was high and I have not speared one of em
This gives me a deep bias against scavs sadly
@@tobyk5091
Making experiences "accessible" makes them bland and boring like every other game ever.
@@tobyk5091 git gud
@@servus_incognitus yep a thing based on luck of finding it is geting gud obviously smartass
I once accidentally saved a lizard from a vulture. They instantly became my best friend and followed me around everywhere.
on the next day, you gave him a funny look, so the lizzard ate you, end of the story.
@@BlackRainEntertainNope, they were very loyal till a couple cycles later another vulture ate them coz i was unable to defend them.
I have a strong feeling this game will get it's deserved fame by some random chance in the future.
Markiplier almost did a playthrough of it, but he stopped after the first episode for some reason :^[
@@davidthegreat He should probably revisit it after doing so many rage games.
I could see Jacob Geller liking it.
Maybe if Mandalore or Sseth review it. Their playerbase would love this game. I see no other big audience reviewer giving this game a fair chance. Truth is, the first 10 hours of this game are frustrating as hell. Until you learn that the controls aren't janky. You need to time jumps and slides. Learn to roll, climb and swim without mindless button mashing, assess danger in a room before progressing and how long/short your current cycle is before travelling between zones. Most players either get lost or frustrated. They don't go past Industrial or worse go through Drainage which is the hardest level BY FAR (swiming past the cisterns for a new player is next to impossible because Shoreline is where the game teaches you the "flow" of swimming). Outskirts-Drainage should've been closed off until being attuned with Moon or FP or doing a second playthrough.
It's a shame because anyone who manages to reach Looks-to-the-Moon is probably sold on how amazing this game really is. Much like Dark Souls with the Bells of Awakening or Stalker with reaching the Bar in Rostok. Other indies like Darkwood or Exanima also do this. If you beat their respective first zones you're gonna love them. It's just that people get filtered before reaching there.
Rain World is not hard. Much like nature it's merciless. One mistake will cost you your life. In this game you can feel when death is coming. Jump into a pool of leeches, fail to notice something shining on a level connector or in the ceiling, fuck around weaponless with a lizard, running outside when there's a shadow overhead or battle music is still around, trying to skip a scavenger checkpoint.
I hope
1:03:07 You can actually tell if it's a death pit. Death pits have darker colors at the bottom of the screen. It's subtle but not impossible to discern.
Ohhh! I didn't know that! I've been playing this game for 100+ hours and I've yet to notice that, lol.
If there is a pipe that leads down, it’s not safe to go down. If there is no pipe or arrow pipes, then it’s safe from my experience
Yes unless you're in chimmney cannopy where the jump brings you down a screen with nothing but walls as you slowly slide down into a now in view death pit.
1:03:11 There actually is a way to tell if a fall will kill you or not. If the fall is fatal, then the bottom of the screen will have a dark gradient, if it is a safe fall, it will have no gradient.
holy shit i never noticed that
There are a lot of mechanics that people don't notice, cause rain world trains you not to think about its world like a video game
This right here. This is the best video about Rain World on this website.
yes
I’m writing a critique of the game and this is what I aim to top though that of course is a high goal.
Mathewmatosis’ video too
is there othe websites for rain world videos? like uhhh, pornhub? wait a second, ill look it up.
yes
It's become one of my favorite games too over the past couple months. Exploring Pebbles and seeing the ending for the first time were especially mind blowing, even if I had no idea what was happening at the time. I think the game captures the spirit of what made super metroid so great: mysterious, connected environments that sometimes don't even have any enemies around to deal with. It lets you just explore and take in the world at your own pace (until you realize the rain is coming, at least).
Also agreed on the death pits: the light gray at the bottom of screen can be really hard to notice. But even without that, the placement of some of the pits makes no sense when there's solid ground on the screen right below you.
My guess on illogical pit placement is that VC started designing creature AI and movement and other stuff around pipe transitions exclusively very early on, and didn't find it necessary to add a new type of room connections. Also, a very few rooms actually suffer from it. Right now I only recall Shoreline Tower and that room on bottom-east of Sky Island to have those unexplainable death falls, most vertically oriented spaces are aligned and separated properly.
I was trying to get batflies and one flew into the nest. A scavenger was next to me and it reached into the nest, grabbed the batfly, and handed it to me. Had no idea they could/would do that.
That’s kinda cute honestly
I think my favorite Rain World experience was when I first killed a king vulture. I was so hyped I told everyone, even the people that didn’t know about the game. That level of genuine excitement is hard to feel in games nowadays (even in some old games).
4:35 LMAO iggy literally says “STOP MOVING AROUND”
Big sis moon does the same thing, if you jump around after returning to her while she’s talking, she goes “can you PLEASE stop jumping around for a minute”
what a well made video, i actually felt like i was watching some national geographic documentary! cant wait to see more content from you!
just finished the game a couple of days ago, definitely one of my all time favorites and im not even done with it
Rain World is a piece of art that stabs, shoots, and backhands you for admiring it. If you can take that taste the pain this game deals to you, definitely consider checking it out.
Rain world is just one of those games you wish you cold just replay without knowing anything
That's most games though
Dude your soothing and intelligent narration combined with the long stretches of ambient gameplay really made this video a beautiful experience. (And also funny, which is just icing on an already delicious cake.)
41:27 this implies that after playing for HOURS this reviewer hadnt found a single shelter, thats honestly incredible
I’m 100% sure that what this reviewer says they went through is impossible and that they are straight lying for the shock value.
Cycles can last for an absolute maximum of around 16 minutes. There is absolutely no way that they could’ve lost hours of progress, because they HAVE to find a new shelter or reach their old one. Complete bullshit.
@@bumblegoot1139 five pebbles.
@@aarepelaa1142 That implies game reviewers are actually willing to play through the game long enough to reach five pebbles in the first place, instead of just giving up and whining about how they weren't hand-held to victory after dying to a noodlefly twenty minutes into the game.
With the intro I thought it was gonna be that old man reviewing this game lol
"that old man" is David Lynch lmao
I didn't realize till I finished the downpour section, but the video being split into 10 different timestamped sections is such a fantastic detail.
Rain World in one of the best videogame I ever played in my entire life. It's not even a videogame, it's an experience to live.
Eternal respect for the devellopers.
Thank you for this guided tour that reminds me lots of memories.
Its always great to see someone talking about my favorite game!
One thing I really appreciate about this videos is the pacing. The long breaks from narration are great for showing examples from the gameplay, and helps show off the superb sound effects / soundtrack in this game. Fantastic video overall!
i agree 100% amazingly well put together video
karma gates are such an important inclusion despite the fact that a lot of people hate them. like you said it’s there as a skill check, but along the way they also force you to actually participate in a location’s ecosystem for a few cycles instead of just running through it. some of my most immersive moments with this game were cycles where i did nothing but venture out, find some food, and return home, and there would be no need for that kind of gameplay without karma gates.
This is a really unusual style of video, and I think it was really cool. I’m definitely considering buying the game now.
It’s amazing! You should definitely buy it! There’s so much things to do, I’ve put 60+ hours into the game, and I’m no more than halfway through it!
Probably the most beautiful game I’ve ever played :)
Some scavengers have other tendencies aswell, some might be more brave than others, being less likely to free themselves from predators as if sacrificing itself for the tribe.
While others are more cowardly, literally jumping when something spooks it and always freeing itself from a predators grasp, the ones with larger mask/horns take lead, and always try to be the one in charge while the one with smaller mask/horns will follow stronger scavengers without question.
You're not alone in the fascination of this.
In category of gaming, Rain World is perhaps the most beautiful and simple expression and made in parallell to one's (our) own existence and struggles. Simple in expression, complex in execution. Hated and also loved. It is a thing you have to live through to know it. That being but one expression of it of many.
All will eventually and inevitably go through it in this place. And much in the tune of it, "so it is."
"Great art escapes any attempt you make to describe it". What a brilliant and succinctly articulated observation.
"there is no way to discern from a safe or unsafe fall" that actually isn't true! you can tell which falls are death pits based on whether or not there's a black fade at the bottom of the screen. at 1:03:04, you can see the screen has a slight black fade at the bottom, indicating a death pit. it's a very minute detail though, so newer players wouldn't recognize them as easily as an experienced or veteran player. another way to recognize a death pit from a regular fall is if there's an actual way to get down there other than taking a pipe. if there's no poles or vents leading downward, then it's most likely a death pit. in rooms such as the one at 1:03:13, you can see poles and vents that would bring you downward, and no black fade. falling is still death though, there's no floor at the bottom of this room.
SLIGHT ENDGAME SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT!
one outlier is the pitfall right before the entrance to the depths, there's no vents, pipes, or poles leading downward, however it isn't a death pit. it's just a long fall, but the fall damage does insta kill you because it's such a long fall. you have to cling to the side of the pit to make it down safely.
I played this game blind in 2017, died about 5 times in 35 minutes, didn't know where to go and quit. Probably should try it again some time.
I like how you managed to separate the video into ten neat chapters, with each being represented by the karma symbols. Very nice tour!
I gave up my very first run at Drainage System. A few weeks later, I gave up after reaching Looks to The Moon. I wasn't strong enough yet. After playing Outerwilds and really respecting what goes into a gripping environment, I knew I had to finish this ballache of a game. Started fresh, went a different way to Moon and eventually found FP, then wandered around. I got stuck for SO long until I found the entrance to Subterranean. I found the end. I love this game.
I put Rain World on my wishlist and try to return to this video once I experienced it. People love it so much, now I want to play it myself.
It's been a while and four days ago I finally started playing Rain World. Now after 27 hours in this wonderful world I can finally say the experience has been worth every second and every cent. This game is one of a kind. What a beautiful ride.
@@DeathJerrieglad you liked it :)
I'm one of the "lucky" few who *beat* the game before the updates. To this day I am filled with leftover spite, it poisoned my very soul.
Later, just two small changes made it into a genuinely palatable experience. I still cannot recommend it to anyone whom I do not hate, but thankfully I hate all of you.
Go play this game.
thanks I hate you too
@@haydensmith4085 its easier basically
@@haydensmith4085 Im not really sure, but I do know that the most recent change was that maps dont reset after death
@@haydensmith4085 They also added a sign in the Underhang that points to a shelter because that one is easy to miss lol
You've developed a great format for explaining a videogame. The majority of the video is a chronological walkthrough, but you have asides on controls, mechanics, backstory, etc. Your commentary and analysis is concise and has a point, and you let the game speak for itself for long stretches. Fantastic video.
There are eggbugs, flying noodles, centipedes, other lizards, squidcadas leeches- Its less of a food chain more of a food web.
I've been trying to play this game for years now. I love everything about it, the pixel graphics, the immersion, the difficulty, the mystery. Everything that is except actually playing it. Every time I do I get bored around the second checkpoint.
I also love this channel and was holding off on this video but finally caved and started it. I'm glad I did. The videos on this channel carry the same kind of mesmerizing immersion that games like rain world do and I find I get sucked into a kind of 'machine zone' watching them. A great alternate way to enjoy the game.
I regret nothing.
I bought Rain World almost 2 years ago and kept picking it up and putting it back down. I'm finally getting into it now. It takes time to really grow on you. Everybody I've seen talk about the game says the same thing. It takes a long time to get used to, but once you do it's hard to put it down again. Give it some time and try it again someday when you're bored.
After hearing a bit about this game (very late after its release), I was looking for exactly this kind of video and I'm so happy to have found it. I don't have the time to delve into any games right now. While I know that it is impossible to experience the feeling of a game without playing it, I wanted to experience what I could without watching a full multi-hour speed run or lets play. The short 10-30 minute reviews I found just didn't seem to capture the atmosphere of the game. Thank you for making this video. Your guided tour through this world was a treat.
> alienating some casual players such as professional paid game reviewers
More savage than rain world.
Always a blessing to just randomly come across incredibly detailed, excellently presented, and in-depth videos like this, especially when its about things i've barely ever heard of. Pretty sure there should be a law about this level of quality deserving more views.
Lol... the subtle dig at Kotaku.
Over 1600 screens... My god.
Anyone who has done pixel art understands what a feat this is.
layouts are so carefully constructed it really sells its world. There is a good amount of unique art and visual flare that makes exploration an incentive in its own right. There was a single artist/system coder and a single level designer, both made an amazing job making sure assets and systems were deep, modular and varied enough, then making good use of all the features, although systems are so deep that it is imposible to communicate them to the player without wild experimentation, in this sense the broad modding community really fill the gaps.
Apparently they're adding over 1,000 more in the upcoming DLC too.
I finally reached Five Pebble's core... This is the most affecting moment in my gaming life and one of the best experiences in my life. Games can be art when artists want to make games. Artists make art, regardless of the medium. Rain World is proof of that.
A great video for a great game.... Thank you for making such a wonderful tribute to a game that doesn't often get much praise (at least from big reviewers).
What's also cool that I hadn't noticed until a few playthroughs later is if you jump into the water after running around and jumping, the time you're able to hold your breath is shorter, since his heart is beating faster and using up more oxygen. However, if you stand still, and wait for his breathing to calm until he's not bobbing up and down, you can hold your breath for several seconds longer.
Omg that's so cool :O
Well done, this is a majestic presentation I was very immersed with your documentary of the game and I like that you put clips of gameplay without saying a word and just letting the game speak for itself
Just came back to watch this for a second time, still just as amazing.
Thank you for the wonderful video, hoping to have my second full playthrough of this game soon after nearly a year or two after the first.
one of the most unique and affecting games i've ever played. hopefully it will reach cult hit status and not be forgotten
I'd like to hazard a guess at why the exterior has such a nonsensical food web. It's because the Daddy Long Legs are an invasive species - they cannot be killed (except by a well placed explosive), are ravenous, tumor-like creatures, and have probably absorbed what rich life previously existed. Only the Dropwigs and White Lizards - both of which are stealth-oriented creatures - remain, as well as the grapple worms, which also make very little noise and probably fail to attract DLL attention.
Counterpoint: orange lizards
Also grapple lizards make a lot of noise that you can hear yet which the DLLs cannot. Odd but the exterior is probably the most "videogamey" of regions.
@@Zorro9129 Solid points! The orange lizards set up their living spaces in contained, spherical "homes" tho which are almost impossible for a DLL to enter and are usually out of the way of them anyway. And honestly so do grapple worms, usually. And i'm reaching a bit, but the noise they make might sound like the noise DLLs themselves make when locomoting, which could fly under the radar.
I'm aware that this is all an attempt to justify what is very clearly a game balance decision, but the ecosystem this game has constructed deserves it.
(sidenote - almost nothing seems to want to eat grapple worms unless they're dead. maybe they're not nutritionally worth it?)
I'm coming back and watching this when I finish Rain World.
David Lynch + RW is a combo I never thought I'd see in a video and it surely made me smile.
Jimmy mentioning that he went through the "start" of 5P really put into perspective just how different everyone's playthrough could be.
On my very first playthrough I ended going through Shaded Citadel to The Leg and Underhang, then to The Wall and meeting 5P from above instead of climbing up from the bottom of 5P and Unfortunate Development.
You can ALSO just entirely skip the Shaded Citadel by going through Chimney Canopy and again meeting 5P from above by climbing The Wall.
This game is SO cool, man.
1:02:46 - Static screens are indeed a result of technical limitations. Creature AIs are complex and lots of stuff is physically rendered at any given time, and all levels are pre-rendered for the sake of performance.
I'm looking forward to the DLC Downpour, but I do think the original game seems much more focused on aesthetic and feeling while the DLC is more of a fun exploration of mechanics and lore. Which is totally cool, but it's a separate artistic experience.
I dunno, the DLC having 10 new regions (the original game has 12) and 5 new stories with 5 new playable slug cats seems like plenty of room for new feelings and aesthetics
Oh so thats what the random moon girl was about..
Yea on my first playthrough I was so confused by it that I ended up trying to do everything I could in the room and you can probably guess where that leads. A lot of stick throwing and eating her bugs. No wonder I was so confused about everything when my first reaction to things was ooga booga caveman throw spear.
yeah other games made me think that i have to do something seeing it was so anticipated, then you know what happens
29:02 AWWW. the scavenger came out of the nest to give you a lamp :(
as someone who has been playing this game for years, this video gives me so much happiness that the game has potential to reach a larger audience
it amazes me how radically different my playthrough turned out to be to yours, I felt like the directions I was getting form the helper were very inconsistent so I just ended up going wherever I felt which made me end up all the way down in subterranean (coming from shoreline) before I ever got to looks to the moon, got stuck there and gave up.
After a restart and second try years later I finally ended up in the correct route to looks to the moon but then I ended down in filtration system and even got to the depths before I ever visited five pebbles. Btw do you see the very bright shine slugcat has in this video's subterranean section? I DID NOT HAVE THAT you unlock that on five pebbles so to navigate the filtration system I spammed the map button 24/7 to see corners and paths. Now frustrated as the depths had a very "this should be the end of the game" look I tried looking online where I should actually go trying not to spoil myself and after giving a brief skim I got that I was supposed to go to five pebbles which was in a more or less "top right" general direction, this made me go through a gruelingly hard route which was [filtration system (start) > drainage system > garbage wastes > shoreline > shaded citadel > memory crypts > the leg > the exterior > climb all the way up to the wall > five pebbles > recursive arrays > the exterior > chimney canopy > industrial complex > garbage wastes > drainage system > filtration system > the depths]
Unlike the playthrough in this video not only I got to five pebbles through the wall and never even touched farm arrays but also looped and zipped around the map so many times I was on the brink of giving up more than once.
When I reached the end of the game I had clocked in exactly 100 hours and 114 cycles on my second try. This was easily my hardest videogame experience that I've ever had but also the most immersive, as it's apparent from my route I have a very poor sense of direction and get a bit too distracted by deviating into other paths but this was because I went repeatedly with the mentality of "well there's no way I'm deviating too much right? This is an indie game, I doubt the map is that big" man oh man how much I suffered because of that.
Despite (or maybe because) all of this now rain world is my favorite game of all time and I definitely resonate with the final sentiment of this video that art is greater than the sum of its parts, I really can't describe how much I love and am constantly fascinated by this game.
Wow our experiences were pretty similar. The immersion also put it at my favorite game as well
@AC oh yeah that almost happened to me. That bad ending idea seems like it would actually benefit the game but I do think the confusion it gives you is part of the game's identity.
For a second I thought the old guy at the beginning was the one who actually made the video
check out David Lynch he rocks.
Rain World has been one of my top favorite games for several years now. The controls are a bit difficult to learn at first, especially the complex ones but otherwise it’s a very beautiful game.
The AI can be a bit tricky but I love that they integrated sight and sound to many of the creatures in this wonderful game. It truly makes the world feel alive in my opinion. Hands down, I would totally recommend this to my friends as this game is generally very interactive and throws you into an environment you can literally get lost in. The soundtrack is also very well made. The diversity of music fits this game extremely well.
1:02:50 you can actually tell because there's a dark gradient near the bottom of the screen if it will kill you, I think they should have made it more noticeable since new players won't really notice the gradient.
@NomadSlaV yw (:
I would expect nothing else from someone with the rivulet as their pfp
yarh bro. I didnt noticed it until hunter cycle -2 qwq (and died because of it)
@@portablejea7014 you know me I'm not like other slugcats #quirky 🤪😜
It will have an option to make it more noticeable after the update
This mad lad really went the drainage system route to get to shoreline, great video btw just finished your one on the downpour dlc and came back to watch this one.
This video turned into a guilty pleasure of mine. I keep rewatching it and I always end up processing some new information I previously didn't notice, or flew right over my head... The writing/narration on this is phenomenal.
A trully underrapreciated experience, kinda like the game itself :)
40:50 I will confirm this. It felt awesome to go from treating every lizard like an apex predator, to killing my first Green Lizard, and eventually seeing Lizards as less of an "oh god I need to get out of here" and more of a "I could kill this if I tried."
To go from cowering in fear of a Green Lizard to being able to semi-consistently spot and kill White Lizards, or intercept and kill Cyan Lizards, is an awesome feeling that you can't get without playing the game yourself.
I had other plans. But I’m 30 minutes in.
Interesting style with the big gaps of gameplay. I like it, very good video.
rain world
I got the game because of this video. I’m on the Shorelines right now. Thanks for this.
I watched this video 10 times now and TH-cam keeps recommending it to me and I physically can't not watch the whole thing again
I watched the whole thing and it is awesome. But you are at next level
Yay , i play about 1~2 hour and cant compare with 15 min playtime in this video xD , lost pearl and die so much :((
@Tao aww. The Game is really hard. As long as you're having fun exploring and learning you'll definitely make progress
man the parts in subterranean with the light shining through look like you were playing minecraft then a shader suddenly enabled itself while you were playing
Coming back to this, I was reminded by how this game looked so similarly with Carrion, but then it hits me:
Immersive worldbuilding.
Same reason why I got hooked into Carrion and also Rain World.
Have purchased it but never played it yet, this game deserved to be played on chill time. A moment best enjoyed at night, together with a cup of coffee.
Good point. Carrion was awesome, Rain World's got a very different pace but I see the similarities for sure.
I would argue that the exterior doesn't really need a food chain, especially when looking into the lore. Daddy Long Legs are a rot that intends to eat anything and everything, and given that they have found their way out into the exterior and made a home of it, the food chain is likely entirely destroyed with some creatures extinct now. There is a more present food chain in hunter too, with spitter spiders populating the place instead of daddly long legs, which adds a more present food chain as the lizards and spiders commonly fight and kill one another
Since we're on the subject of the rot and extinction, I'll share a theory. I think the hunter is the earliest slugcat in the timeline, so all these apex predators exclusive to them have died out, possibly eaten by the rot or just lost to time.
We can tell they're the earliest because 1) there's less rot for the hunter compared to the other slugcats, which breaks the trend of hunter always having more predators, meaning this is for lore. 2) The monk actually has more rot than the survivor, which breaks the trend of monk always having less predators, so rot quantity is now definitely for lore. 3) All the colorful data pearls are busted for the monk, possibly broken by rain cycles or data loss, which is further evidence the monk is the last slugcat in the timeline, which is further evidence that rot population grows over time.
@@KingMako30 the hunter exclusive species can be encountered in survivor through the lineage system, so they can't be completely dead. but they are probably being fizzled out by the harsh world that the iterators created.
@@KingMako30 it's confirmed already that it's hunter -> surv -> monk
the only thing now is there are more slugcats coming in dlc,
and iirc spearmaster is the earliest and saint is the last
Thank you for not showing the ending. that is one part that REALLY needs to be experienced in the game.
The ending was what made everything in the game click for me, it would be criminal to spoil it even in this context. So good.
@@JimmyMcG33 I think what was the worst moment was when someone else made a rain world review without any spoiler warnings and literally showed some of the ending in the first 10 seconds of the video.
While I haven't played Rain World yet (only found out about it from Skurry), I can definitely say this video is a masterpiece. It's amazingly edited, the story explanations, gameplay clips and gameplay mechanic explanations all balance each other very well, and the narration is great.
Sub for me, this is the kind of content that I love
could not have said it better myself 👍👍
Weird comparison but this is how we all thought cyberpunk 2077 was gonna feel like
One of my favorite moments in Rain World, whether it was intentional by the devs or not: The early game teaches you to do anything to get food and survive, so you try so put anything in your mouth just to get enough food. Because of that, once you get to Moon your first instinct is to grab those flying neurons and try to eat them. The first time I got there I did exactly just that, I didn't even realize Moon's attempt at communicating with body language and I just swallowed them like they were the most delicious thing in the universe and I walked away, I acted like a beast with no intelligence because I was a beast with no intelligence, the only thing on my mind was food. When I got to 5 pebbles, I realized I fucked up after getting the mark of communication. I wasn't just a beast anymore, I suddenly had a purpose greater than just shoving anything in my mouth
Same, but then the neuron glow really helped in shaded
I had the same realization, it's funny really, we humans really are nothing more than beasts deep inside.
I remember from my teenage years, when my brother and I got the game X-Wing or X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter or such, he was simply shooting anything that moves and I facepalmed. Until that point he had had no concept of factional gameplay in video games, and he loved shooting gallery style games.
I myself, though, got massively frustrated with Metal Gear because stealth gameplay was new to me.
TH-cam algorythm is weird, every time rainworld came back to my mind I always went back to youtube looking for a video like yours.
And I only discovered it today, it is really good.
I never finished rain world got softlocked in someplace and abandoned it there, thanks for the tour around.
Until this day it's hard for me to explain how good this video and how well you described Rain World
One of these days I want someone to explain to me why any video on or of Rain World always puts me into sleepy time mode. I can go from wide awake and wired all to shit on coffee to nap time as soon as I hear the ambient noises of Rain World happening.
“...Alienating casual players like paid game reviewers.”
Damn. That’s a spicy take.
Also I think I might just get this.
Game reviewers like the ones at IGN are 9-5 zombies (like most of us) if you truly have passion & skill & the brain to put it together, you make art like this game is, and this video about this game is. Thank you creator!
This is such a great essay, thank you for giving a new audience access to what's incredible about this work.
Your video and Wobbles' Rain World Retrospective blog post are my two favorite pieces of Rain World content. The game has been out a while and yet very few people have been able to understand and discuss the game in a way I find satisfying. I appreciate which parts of the game you chose to include here, and which aspects you chose deliberately to leave for the watcher to discover (or not) on their own.
Rain World really is a masterpiece of a game. While it won't appeal to everyone, that fact actually propels it to higher heights. Thank you for taking the time to make this.
How does not appealing to everyone propel it to higher heights? There are valid criticisms against this game. It's not "not appealing to everyone" It had some questionable decisions/design that holded it back at launch and still has some of that today.
@@DivyeshVartha EDIT: I think I understand how you feel
It might help to look at my unstated implications, "While it won't appeal to everyone, that fact actually propels it to higher heights [for those that appreciate what it does]." I would even change to "...allows it to be propelled..." but I try to keep judgement-y statements as simple as possible.
The reason I believe this has a lot to do with how I view games as a medium for artistic expression. I am willing to forgive deviance from the norms when I feel like the work is enriched by those choices. My favourites aren't always "games with no flaws," or "games I can easily share with others" (though often they are), but are almost always "games that were intensely personal to me and offered me something unique."
Did I get stuck in a death loop in filtration system on my first playthrough? Yeah. Did I think that was stupid and not my fault? Yeah. But for me to say "Beautiful, confusing, and difficult, 3 out of 5" is to miss all the things RW showed me and made me feel--that most games don't, or can't. And I'd like to think that the reason that's possible is owed, at least in part, to its "unpopular" design choices. With a more streamlined, more accessible, less frustrating Rain World, it becomes less special.
Something that's endlessly fascinating about games is how they can resonate with you in a way that's difficult to describe. A game might be able to communicate something to you that you've never heard, or in a way you've never considered. Often, when you play a game like that, it can be hard to recommend it to others... unless you know a person well and understand their tastes deeper than surface-level. Even though I can't and won't recommend Rain World to my best friends, I think the people it does speak to find something unique and intensely personal. The way I see games makes that worth celebrating.
@@-swann I love Rain world's art and unique approach to a game. I loved it so much in fact that it absolutely pains me to think that this gem is not appreciated only due to some trivial design decisions. I feel like very small changes like making backtracking possible at any point in the game, a little more basic instructions and controls (like switching hands), a little more push towards the sticking to the "intended" route, maybe the leeches shouldn't be rng on the other end of the pipe, small things like this would've made it a lot better. I don't think these quality of life-like changes would retract anything from the game. If you paint a masterpiece would you show it off under candlelight? No you'd bring a huge torch. The fact that people won't appreciate it just because of some trivial accessibility issues saddens me. I love the game, I wanted it to be popular so others can get inspired and create more original games like this but I can't in good faith say that it is a well designed game. It is a work of art but as a game, it falls short. Which is a shame because when niche games succeed like undertale and papers please, it shows the world that there is a demand for original passion-filled games that break the norm. What was supposed to be a great game, to me, just feels like a tragedy that could've been avoided. And I hate it for that. Few other things evoke such strong yet mixed feeling for me. Before you, I criticised it and tomorrow I'll defend it. And that's how I feel.
Reminds me of the success of Don Quixote. Everyone will read it and have a different opinion but most will enjoy the experience. Not all popular things are great but great things don't have to be unpopular. That's my counter-argument. The things that make rainworld great are not the same things that pushed people away.
@@DivyeshVartha totally fair. I feel similarly in many respects. Great write up!
Yeah I also love this article experiencedmachine.wordpress.com/2019/09/16/rain-world-reaching-enlightenment-through-unfairness-part-i/
You should really check it out
I absolutely adore this game, so I'm glad that I finally found a video that could do it justice. Astounding work man
1:03:00 death pits are indicated by a black gradient at the bottom of the screen, theres also a remix option that makes them more obvious
this video came out before remix
@@thepurplefridge8778 fair
This is an exceptional video. You summed up my appreciaton for rain world perfectly, "it cannot be described, its ethereal"
Amazing Rain World video. Rain World is definitely one of my favorite games of all time and I consider it to be a masterpiece.
I have a very complicated relationship with Rain World. One unique to me I hope as I discovered it when it was new. It became a hyperfixation but at the time I didn't own a computer, so I adored a game I couldn't play.
I was younger back then. I drew the slug cat and the lizards and ended up even founding the Rain World amino (which I have since only caused problems in and can't in good conscience show my face again on the site)
It consumed a lot of my brain power during middle school (I am now graduated. I am young yes I know) and I still hadn't even played it despite what it meant to me.
It's been years since I last really thought of this game. And having stumbled upon this video it brings back a lot of sweet memories and good times.
I hope I'll think about it more. And appreciate it better now as a work of art.
And I also hope I will, for once, actually play it.
I’m not gonna lie at the beginning I thought the old man was gonna be reviewing Rain World. Great review tho
Lynch is the greatest film director alive today, check him out before he dies soon and your experience will be motivated by less genuine interest
I just tripped over this randomly-recommended video, probably because I am into a mixture of game design and mechanics, and oddball games with hidden depths like Noita, Pyre, or the old Creatures life-simulation games from the Windows 2000/XP days. I don't know, but it came to me unbidden, and I'm glad it did. I was skeptical about watching a whole 80 minute video on a game I'd never even heard of, at first... but this video, this game is almost hypnotic. I was planning to catch a quick nap before Thanksgiving dinner, but instead found myself watching through the whole thing, and knowing by about 10 minutes in I was going to buy this game and see it for myself. Thank you for sharing what looks to be a real hidden gem. It almost looks like a dark mirror of the Ori platformer games, but with much less explicitly given up front for the player. I'll keep an eye on your channel for other deep dives!
Incidentally, Rain World is currently 30% off on steam for anyone else looking.
I think the moment I remember best from rain world is when you finally emerge from five pebbles and go across the top of the wall. something about that background and the sheer scope of it sticks with me. that was the moment that made me say "why the hell didn't anyone tell me about rain world?" masterful game
Going back to that moment, I find it interesting that the "faces" (?) of the ancient beings in these murals were scratched off. Like, they are already quite alien and almost abstract in their looks, I don't think seeing their faces would've made them look any more familiar...
...unless...
@@Mike14264 If I had to guess, I would assume its a Karma thing. Erasing the visage of whoever was depicted as an erasure of their ego.
This is one of my favorite videos on this platform. I just keep coming back to it.
I can safely say this remains the de facto insight into what makes Rain World so special. A simple review without the tour would simply not have managed to express the 'organic' and ecological nature of the game. Thank you for the immense effort this project must have taken.
I like how scavenger emotions are conveyed in a way just human enough that you can tell if they're displaying negative or positive emotions, but also unique and alien enough that you need to study them to figure out what specific emotions they're conveying. I still kind of struggle with them sometimes, but I've interacted with them enough that I can figure out most of what they're telling me by looking at them. I mostly struggle to tell when they're just trying to greet me, or asking me to give them something. It's sometimes hard to tell when they're doing the "Look! A friend!" point and the "Look! Your spear! Gimme!" point lol
i know this is random but lordy, THESE SLUG CATS ARE CUUUUTE!
IKR! the way they move, look around at things, soetimes reach out their arms for nearby noms ... it's just adorbs!
Tip: In the water sections in Drainage System, you can use snails(the little colorful shell dudes) to stun the leeches. Hope this helps!
You didn't talk about the echoes! I had no idea they existed for so long
It's funny to me how much flew over my head. I am an animal putting pegs in holes until the game ends, and then I leave, unaware of most of its grander allure, content with the fact I played with levers until the black box reached an end state. The five desires, the echoes, the ancients' obsession, all of it was just backdrop for eating food and being food until somehow breaking out, more by raw persistence than any informed or inferred decision. Just like in Cultist simulator or Book of hours where most of the greater lore is lost to an animal brain following only what can be perceived with senses because higher thinking has checked out of trying to put it all together a while ago.
Although I'm not so uncouth as not to appreciate paid professionals being negatively described as casual players.
Your dead voice reminds me so much of those animal documentaries that i watched when i was a kid/teen it really sells the experience
XD
I can't play this because I just don't have the manual dexterity for this kinda game, so this was a wonderful way to get a good look at it, thank you for the great vid! I especially appreciate allowing it to have long parts with no talking, to just absorb the atmosphere of the game between getting information about it.
If something grabs you and you don’t immediately die, there is a window to hit them and force them to release you. That’s how your friend escaped the purple lizard.
This is weird to me seeing your order of discoveries, because I went through the areas in a completely different order. Subterranean was my third area for example, there's a pathway through drainage system that leads into filtration. And I got into the depths right after exploring that. Realising that it's the final area and where I had to go right after speaking to Five Pebbles was an amazing moment for me, especially when I thought about what the lore behind the place actually was now that I knew it. Great video by the way! Glad to see Rain World getting some attention.
There's multiple paths to the game if i recall, and in a speedrun you can actually skip past 9 biomes or something to get to the filtration system immediately and get to the ending
this is an above and beyond review, damn
Played the game, and I while I did enjoy it and what it trying to go for, I never finished it. The game, despite its good qualities, thoroughly tested my patience with its lack of direction and difficulty spikes until I decided I had enough. Specifically it was at the Drainage System and it bleeding water and leeches that had me go 'Fuck it, you win game! Have fun being abandoned! '
It was only AFTER I quit and started reading up and watching other peoples videos on it that on it that I fully began to appreciate it as a sort of 'outsiders art' sort of experience. And that is also what made me realize what the main problem with Rain World is, in my humble opinion: *conveyance* . It's all well and good to 'leave it to' the player to explore and learn things on their own after a brief tutoriel, but it starts to sour the more you go further and further to the extreme end of that design philosophy. If you're not going to give someone the full scoop on what they can do or what they're in for, then when they do get flatfooted it comes across more often than not unfair, obtuse, obscure, or some combination thereof to the average gamer, rather than an intriguing/thought provoking exercise that the devs intended. Failure with/without blind experimentation can be a strong teacher, especially if its painful, and it can all add to the experience of a retro style game like this one, but it is also *frustrating* if it happens to catch you off guard while you're trying to have fun and get through the game. Exponentially so if said failures happens FREQUENTLY , abruptly, and early on before much progress can be made. You need to balance out this lack of conveyance with something *else* , be it good gameplay, story, world design, whatever, and I feel that Rain World really doesn't do enough in this regard.
Which leads me to my second and last point: The story and world building. Or the lack thereof, really, unless you're willing to do a LOT of aimless faffing about in game or going on a wiki hunt for the info. Even if the player can get past that, or can accept that things are going to be blurry going forward and only they can clear stuff up with their own smarts/wisdom, they'll probably end up being disappointed or left lost with the sheer lack of story or ANY plot at all beyond the vaguest notions of 'reuniting with your family through technology and Karma' . The game really leaves you to the wolves (or lizards and raptors, rather) in this regard, and only through a heck of a lot of diligence, brainstorming, and exploring the world will you only *begin* to piece together a coherent idea of what happened and what you're supposed to be doing. Problem with that is that with the aforementioned lack of conveyance and a rather punishing game play and learning loop, coupled with how BIG the world is and how labyrnthine it can get, you're fighting and uphill battle to get said information, let alone find any use for it. And when you're dying at lot and getting chewed up by the game, or getting lost in a bad way as you're trying to find SOME thread to follow to completion, that wears away at a person spirit, determination, and overall enjoyment with the game. Sometime to the point of getting tired of it entirely and quitting, as was in my case. Of course you CAN just look up everything relevant or otherwise on Rain World and chart your course with MUCH more clarity and MUCH less frustration, but not only does that fly right in the face of what the devs intended in a playthrough, it also takes a lot of mystery and wondering out of exploring the world itself. And the whole story, setting, and history of the game itself.....well, I consider it somewhat sad and damning that I only understood and enjoyed it all not through the game itself, but from media outside of it. When the average person can't make heads or tails of your story without that level of sigh posting and skulduggery, or even find it at all to begin with.....yikes that is a tragic mess to be had.
For some they can get past this, that, and much more bugbears and bafflings to see this game as a gem worth mining for all its worth. For most who are used to the modern advancements and typical design philosophy that games employ now in days, however, I can't blame them for finding the game heavily wanting. To be clear I'm not saying Rain World is a bad game - it is NOT - but rather one that can't and won't appeal to most without some frame of reference to bounce off of, be it outside research of the game itself, a history of playing and enjoying games like or similar to R.W. , or a clear understanding and acceptance of what exactly you're getting yourself when you buy and play it. It's a poster boy for 'niche title' , and while that lends it a lot of charm and own brand of excitement, it doesn't make it all that accessible for newcomers to sink their teeth into and develop a appreciation for it unless it *clicks* with them.
Overall.......Rain World is good, but a very specific kind of good. It pulls off its systems, gameplay, and world design excellently, but those very same things can be a turn-off or discouraging unless they appeal or one can accept the bad aspects as a part of the whole. The game offers an experience that is exceedingly rare, but it is not one I can recommend unless you do your research on it first (whatever kind that may be) before diving it.
Yeah when I first played I got stuck in Drainage too. It's almost a trap. Good players can get through it, but its literally the worst path you can take to start. You also never actually have to go through drainage to beat the game. Of course, the game doesn't tell you this.
This is the curse of all niche labors of love. VERY good and fun for people into it, but they can only be admired from a distance by people who aren't. Broad Appeal is often a necessary sacrifice.
42:20
You most likely already know this now, considering this video was legitimately two years ago. Just in case, I will tell you anyways!!!
This is an intended mechanic as far as i know, where if you're quick enough, in the jaws of a lizard, you can throw something at them to to make them drop you. By a stroke of beginners luck, your friend seems to have accidentally done this and thrown it just at the right moment to stab the lizard in the neck.
Alternate title: Man finds another reason to replay Rain World
it is an absolute CRIME that you only have 3k subs. the amount of effort you put in your videos is beyond anything ive seen on this site
On my first playthrough I went from outskirts to drainage to subterranean and it was terrifying but it also really got me interested
Yeah, getting through to garbage wastes is what hooked me. Swimming to subterranean is even crazier
Jimmy McGee yeah Garbage Wastes feels like the most “Rain World” area if you know what I mean.