Commenting to fuel the unknowable algorithm gods, and also to welcome back one of my favourite video essayists. I didn’t know much about these games besides one playthrough of Pony Island a while back, so it was really interesting to see this deep dive into them. Definitely interested in seeing what Daniel does next. And I’ll definitely be back again for the next upload here, these videos are incredibly high quality and deserve a lot more attention.
my head canon for how death works in the Hex is if you die in a scripted sequence (i.e. regular gameplay) you can be brought back, but if you die outside of an intended way, you're gone for good. EDIT: also I do believe Lionel Snill is supposed to be an intentional mirror for Daniel Mullins. Lionel and Daniel are almost anagrams and if you remove the M and U from Mullins and reverse it, you get Snill.
One thing I love about his games is that, meta and ARG stuff aside, they're really good games and stories on their own. Characters are relatable, plot twists are memorable, tragedies are palpable. It's not just about messing with your head, it's about giving the players a great, though bittersweet, experience; and Mullins has the writing chops to pull it off.
“I can’t even pick cutlery for dinner without considering how it will affect my Late-Game Dessert Build.” This is unironically so real. Min-Maxing Dishes IS the meta.
A comment for the algorithim. Sacrifices must be made. I absolutely adore Inscryption's first act, but never really could get into the second or third. As someone who's a sucker for a great deckbuilder and a killer asthetic, the later acts and the meta-story as a whole always sapped my interest a bit, feeling like they were distracting from the most interesting part of the game. So getting to experience them through the lense of someone who genuinely understands and appreciates all those aspects is a treat for me, and I really liked how you tied all the games together throughout your analysis. Looking forward to whatever you have planned next!
Have been a big fan of Daniel Mullins since the release of pony island, truly an amazing indie game dev. This video is a great tribute to him! Surprised it has so little views. Also digging the black nail polish, looks sick :)
Got all the way to the Inscryption Section, suddenly remembered that Pony Island 2 is a thing, went back to the joke at 32:01, and yup, It did, didn't it?
Great essay! I think the self-reflection in these games is definitely deliberate (though there may be elements that are just the natural way creators end up in their work). In Pony Island, Satan is petulant, yes, but a lot of it stems from insecurity. I actually ended up feeling bad for him when he asks for more time, and wishing I could comply- close the game and give him a few hours to work on it (which of course, is impossible). The Hex is more obvious. Daniel Mullins had an unexpected runaway hit in Pony Island, and Lionel Snill is a young developer unsure how to handle the pressure of an early hit. It's very clearly a cautionary tale/dark path. Especially since a lot of Lionel's flaws (since he doesn't know the characters are sentient) stem from mistreating the people he works with: needing a gold nameplate to place himself as superior over more-experienced employees, his feud with Carla, stealing pensions. Inscryption has a much gentler take. Kaycee is the most direct developer analog, and a lot of her diary entries in the mod are very direct statements about her love of the game, the creative process, and feeling honored and touched by people's reaction to it. But outside of the mod, all of the scrybes are like different DM styles in a D&D game. P03 is the munchkin player who values minmaxed mechanics over story, Leshy values atmosphere and immersion. Unlike the Hex, the characters aren't hostile to the player, they want to play the game (although all with different ideas how). Leshy *acts* scary in Act 1 because you, as a player, clicked on a horror game and he wanted to give you a good experience. It's why, at the end, he asks to play without keeping score. That's why, though I deleted Pony Island as requested, I feel good playing Kaycees Mod. Replaying Pony Island would be contributing to the Hopeless Soul's imprisonment. Playing Kaycee's mod is me having a fun time playing a spooky game with my friend Leshy.
Watched this whole video assuming it had hundreds of thousands of views, shocked to see only 1k, this needs more attention. Also great use of the Outer Wilds OST.
Yeah the moment I heard The Nomai track my brain went brrrrr with recognition and I immediately dived into the comments to see if anybody else alr mentioned it :p
AWE HECK, it's been done again It's The Ancient Glade I think? For a second thought it might be the space theme but it's not it. I applaud the variety of Outer Wilds tracks used :D I've seen them used frequently in video-essays, but I think this may be the first time encountering multiple across the video? At least certainly never seen more than two tracks used :p
You are absolutely the most underappreciated video essayist I've ever seen. You have good analytical skills, good pacing throughout the video, good bits, solid humor (even if it occasionally feels like you don't quite hit the timing right), great games that you focus on... It's impressive. I'd love to see a video on Omori if you've played it (it's very much worth your time if you haven't done so yet, though I'm guessing you know about it already given your existing videos). I think there's a ton to unpack in terms of psychological and thematic content. Honestly, I'd probably make a video essay myself if I had the time and the editing chops to do it justice, haha! All that said... You have a relatively small subscriber base and viewcount that absolutely does not match up to the sheer quality of what you're making - and honestly, like your (and my) view of Daniel Mullins' work, I can't wait to see what you go on to make next!
@@Mezzamine It is one hell of an experience, I hope you enjoy it! Or, uh. Appreciate it. The "psychological horror" genre label is absolutely NOT arbitrary and the warning is far more serious than it is for other psychological horror games. Definitely worth exploring every nook and cranny if you find you appreciate what it's trying to do. :)
1:02:53 I can say you're the first person I've ever heard describe "To The Moon" as a "walking simulator" game. Dear Ester? Yes. 1:06:44 I thought the point of Rust was that it was never released. It was leaked and then the community "completed" it.
I have an idea as to what the freeze frame of Sado meant, i think its for the player. Sado seems to be the most aware of the literal player, you, specifically. You, who was scrubbing through the clip, frame by frame. Shes saying hi basically, of course she'd be around for a sudden act (agent of ch-) of violence.
Realized this video is awesome when i started tearing up at the recounting of the hex story. Ngl dont have much to say, really like your balance of calm script reading and like, personal touches for the lack of a better word. Commenting for the algorithm mainly.
The more I hear about Daniel Mullins’s history the more I think that the hex was just him telling his story with some fantasy added on top to make it entertaining
49:43 I think the npcs are only recoverable if you use a weapon that should be used there, meaning if you use a level one sword on a level one enemy it can come back, but use a level one thousand weapon on a enemy and they ain’t coming back
i was honestly expecting the video to end with you getting a ring at the door, followed by an *I TOLD YOU-* as a massive fan of mullins's work, great video! glad to see someone tackling things on a thematic basis, where most would stick to the spectablcle and size of the ARGs and puzzles.
I absolutely love hearing about The Hex. It's always been my favourite of the three games and always felt really underrated. Amazing video! I loved the little IRL bits instead of the title screens :P
Bro how does this only have 7.7k views? This is a masterpiece! You explained the details and everything inbetween and what the games mean as a game instead of the lore, you compiled it all into one amazing easily understandable video to watch that was enjoyable and could absolutely help people like myself understand the reason why the games were made, beautifully made! Well done!
THIS VIDEO HAS 10K VIEWS???? BRO I MISREAD THE FIRST TIME AND I THOUGHT IT SAID 100K. DUDE. YOUR SHIT ROCKS. I ADMIRED THE THUMBNAIL FOR A SOLID 3 MINUTES JUS FROM HOW YOU WERE ABLE TO COMBINE ALL 3 GAMES INTO A DELICIOUS IMAGE seriously, keep it up! I thoroughly enjoyed this!
i watched this whole video within a span of a week mostly cause i enjoyed it way too much for it to end this was and probably is one of my favorite youtube videos ive seen in a while i cant believe this video only has 10k views i will rewatch this masterpiece again eventually
👏🏼 release 👏🏼 the 👏🏼 mtg 👏🏼 ygo 👏🏼 and 👏🏼 digimon 👏🏼 diversions 👏🏼 (Great video! You brought up a lot of things i haven’t seen before in analysis of these games)
I guess there's also a part that, the player don't necessarily have to appreciate the game in all it provides, and the dev should acknowledge this and accept that this is just how things would go. I personally don't get much message back when Pony Island was released. All I knew was that it has the meta aspect of having to break the game in order to progress. I liked that it's a game about itself and have no aware that this represents the conflict between game dev and player feedback. The second game made the message much clearer and back then, I truly loved that it's a game about game development and culture, and it was very on point, but still I didn't really pick up the Sado thing myself until I read up the ARG. And the third game? I knew it would be a story about games, but I originally only treated it as just a regular story about in game characters getting sentience and do what they do, treating the GameFuna thing as background setting and had no idea about the relationship between the story and game development. Still, in all three games, despite never getting the full message, they are still enjoyable moments to me, and these games are narrated in a way that it's okay to not get the full message, which I only get to understand way later. Also now that think of it, I think the existence of Kaycee's Mod was a nod to what's being told about game development in these games. I don't think KMod was originally planned because the game is focused on the story rather than the challenge. I actually even head-canon'd that the first act being a spire-like is because GameFuna is the type of company that would milk on popular game formulae (like how in the 2010s seemingly all large productions would just include open world, crafting and survival elements to their games, fitting or not, following the success of Skyrim and Minecraft). It's likely not true though. Anyway, I considered the release of KMod being a result of Daniel hearing the complain of people who didn't know or care that Daniel games are about story telling and is upset for the spire-like part lacking depth or difficulty, and instead of blaming those players for not knowing what the game is about, he just release some optional contents that would please those players and now everyone can have something that's truly enjoyable. Those who play KMod would appreciate that there's now some challenge and those who don't can understand why KMod is there. Imo it really becomes a good example of what good developee-player relationship should be like. Although, unfortunately, I have a feeling that this way of handling relationship just isn't that practical on larger productions. It's just hard for larger games to fulfill everyone's demands and I personally am against putting too much pressure on developers to fulfill every demands because that would just dilute everything and make the game overall bad. Still, I guess it would be healthy if game devs pay more attention to popular demand and evaluate if it can bring more value to the game rather than assume that those would violate with the vision, and gamers should also accept that game devs have their priorities and strengths, and might not always be able to bring demanded contents to the game, and should focus more on what the game is rather than what it isn't. (My point on gamers here isn't reelected much on Daniel's games yet, though. I'd hope it will, but it's also fare if it won't.)
Maaan, I wanna hear those 15-20 minute diversions on Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Digimon! I'm also slightly obsessed with card games and while I know it would've clashed with the video to put in three whole extra video essays right in the middle of this one, I can't help but want MORE analysis. You know you've got something good when the only complaint is "More please!"
Great video! Subscribed. I wanted to mention something that you seem to have missed from Pony Island: if you change some of the files, you can get some dialog from Satan that says that sometimes, he "likes to speak in different voices", using the sound effect for hopless soul's voice. The implication being that the whole game was just the Devil tricking you into thinking you were escaping with a friend, when in reality nothing you did was actually hurting him, and you were just playing his game. I would have found that interesting to bring up in analysis
Great analysis and retrospective! Really enjoyed watching, and the framing device is fun haha. Makes me want to replay these games... And gets me even more excited for Pony Island 2.
Amazing video, it's good to see long video essays aren't gone, can't wait for you to become a micro celebrity and for us to rejoice when you upload once a year (the ultimate fate of quality video essay creators)
39:05 it honestly shocked me to see my boys ( Jak n Daxter ) up there before I remember how most folks clock that series as having a hard tone shift... but it really isn't *as* extreme and edgy as commentators say. In fact, I'm currently writing an essay about Jak II kinda being 20 years ahead of its time due to some enviromental storytelling that makes it Pretty Obvious that A Climate Disaster Happened. In the endgame there's more of Haven city... that's completely flooded. It goes on for miles. In Jak II theres ambiant dialog among the military: this is the last land on earth that anyone knows about besides the desert wasteland. Haven was the VERY TOP of a massive mountain metropolis, and had to build a wall to keep the ocean out long before the monsters came looking for food. *Shit is Fucked, The King Is Deposed, and his tyranical replacement is named heckin PRAXIS,* the word for the actions one takes in the world based on their political, moral, and / eithical philosphies. Like there's some heavy shit in that game, amid the goofs. Like Steven Universe, cute and cartoony does not preclude a work from handling heavy topics. And, as a huge fan of Jak and Daxter who was 14 when the sequel came out, it felt like it was growing up with me. Same reason I freaking love the Pendragon series by D.J MacHale, where the protagonist goes from 14 to mid 20's over the course of a 10 book series. Its okay for tone to change as the world changes and you get older. That's... what happens IRL.
This is a really cool stuff. Personally I found Inscryption GOTY of that year, and I am a big fan of Daniel myself. Really comprehensive dive I did here. The overarching theme (even though I did have partially formed in my mind, I never actually articulated it) you formulated really well. Good job mate. (How come this video so little views)
Wonderful video, love your humor and found it super interesting to get the info on The Hex, it was the last big Daniel Mullins game I didn't know much about and now I wish it had more coverage. Time for a couple background rewatches
I'm not gonna lie, I was a bit scared when I clicked on the video and saw the low view count. I'm sorry but I guess I was being conditioned into believing that having few views must also mean that a video is not worth my time. Luckily I stuck with it tho, thankfully the stylish opening was enough to tell me I wasn't about to watch some low-effort essay. After 2 whole hours I jst wanted to, idk, leave a comment congratulating with you, which is something I rarely if ever do on TH-cam. Maybe I'm doing this because I felt bad for my initial judgement, but It's probably because it's demoralizing to see something you put great passion and effort into go unnoticed on the internet and seeing someone take the time to write down their feelings would be more appreciated than just a simple like. So yeah, great video man, hopefully my (admittedly needlessly long) comment can give even the smallest boost to your visibility because you definitely deserve way better.
Thank you so much! This type of comment always makes my day, I really appreciate it :) Glad you enjoyed the vid - and glad the intro succeeded in getting your attention, I was definitely hoping it would keep people from clicking away immediately so good to know it's doing its job!
I randomly encountered Inscryption on TH-cam. I clicked on it out of boredom, and fell in love. Now I have my eye on Daniel Mullins. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next!
really excellent video! I haven't played pony island or the hex myself, but inscryption conveyed such a beautiful big fat handful of meaning & I enjoyed it a lot, & it was nice to get a little more context for his previous games here. something about inscryption that I find really interesting is that the particulars of the lore revealed by the ARG REALLY feel like mullins overextending himself in some way. pony island already played the "satan is just kinda in there" card, & the hex seems to have committed to a much more personal, down-to-earth story; inscryption's refusal to either leave the origin of the old data ambiguous OR have it be something more original than "hitler was involved for some reason" genuinely makes the reveal feel like a placeholder to me. like at some point in the writing process he thought "I want something specific here. idk; this; whatever" and then never got back around to punching it up before release. obviously I can't know how he ACTUALLY came up with it or why he ended up using it, & maybe he's still satisfied with it as a story element, but I've seen so many people, especially those who LIKED the tone shift after act 1 or ended up warming to it as the rest of the game played out, be REALLY disappointed by the "canon" lore when they learned it, that I can't help but look at it as, I guess, The Past In The Making, you know? it was a disappointing choice, imo, in a game with a passable metanarrative overall & INCREDIBLE character-level in-game narrative priorities. especially knowing that he already nailed the "character-driven story" dismount in the hex, it makes me all the more curious about what he's planning for panda circus. maybe one of these days he'll figure out how to combine the broader, spookier type of metanarrative with the narrower, more personal kind. & then I can look back on inscryption & go "wow! he's grown as an artist since this one!", lol. I definitely wouldn't have picked up on the self-reflection stuff if I hadn't watched this, so thank you for that! tbh it makes me feel a tiny bit better about how much I dislike that ONE part of inscryption, having this guy's entire body of work reframed as a kind of in-progress learning experience, ha. subscribed & looking forward to finding out what else you think this hard about.
My interpretation of Hitler being involved in the narrative is because Inscryption is intended to be a kind of allegory for the outcome of the Cold War and how the development of nuclear weapons (symbolised by the Karnoffel Code) made the existence of life very precarious in a way that cannot be reversed. The game starts with you locked into a sort of proxy conflict against a character from Russian folklore, using the cards as units in a conflict that neither of you actively participate in - you both being distinct and separate from the animals you make fight one another. When they are outplayed and the world has a chance to rebuild, the East and West parts of the map are initially disconnected - reflecting the way that the world was divided into the predominantly capitalist west and the collapsing eastern block, who were subject to incredible hardships due to the loss of their biggest trading partner after the fall of the Soviet Union and the harm caused by the continued imposition of trade restrictions unless they acquiesced to adopting capitalism - further impoverishing the population of those countries for decades as the government-sponsored public services and local industries were dismantled in favour of opening up the economy to favour multinational corporations who busted unions and moved profits offshore, siphoning resources out of the economy and permanently lowering living standards for many people. The end of one conflict doesn't resolve the issues that led to that conflict, so with the Cold War over US - backed tech companies and the military industrial complex created a massive global network through which they could export their cultural identity and assert military dominance, granting them an unprecedented level of global influence over the world - deciding which ideologies were allowed to exist without the military might of NATO and the WTO forcing capitalism onto communities that had little to no ability to negotiate favourable terms with the only remaining global superpower. The only way to depose such a powerful adversary from the perspective of these avatars for different cultures and ideologies was to commit to mutually assured destruction and wipe the entire slate clean in the hope that whatever remains behind can bring about a new vision for the world where the previously established nations and ideologies would be rendered irrelevant. In order to achieve all of these conflicting objectives, sacrifices had to be made. Ultimately, that sacrifice is going to become a choice between the people and their leaders.
I don't think you understand all the lore. Hitler is like a very minor character in the old data's journey. it's more like a sequence of information that has been passed along and is the way for the devil to influence the world. Hitler's regime which irl was often delving into the occult was just one group to try and harness it.
Commenting for the algorithm! Just took a solid three days to watch this bc I kept getting distracted throughout, and actually wanted to absorb the video’s information bc it was so interesting. Great video mate!
There is a secret in Pony Island that you seem not to have covered in the vid. I'm still post part one, so I'll edit if I find out otherwise. In a secret that involves save editing Pony Island, the devil speaks directly to you the player. On the second encounter of this kind he tells you a secret. He says he sometimes speaks in different voices. When he says this he speaks with Hopeless Soul's speech noise. On account of this, the entire experience of Pony Island could be an elaborate double bluff to free a trapped Satan from the Pony Island game. This could tie in with the direction Daniel ultimately took his concepts. I have a pet theory that Pony Island was some kind of precursor to the Gameworks. The crusader character was the main character of a game where you fight satan, and it's either a created Satan character trying to escape or the dev of the game Pony Island used to be managed to trap Satan in the game to serve as antagonist. Satan then restructures the game from the inside into an elaborate ruse for whoever plays the game to free himself, playing as a petulant and childish programer version of himself, while endearing the player to himself using Hopeless Soul as a deceptive guise. Also with Rust, he clearly didn't know his life was a game even from the outset. I think he was essentially brain wiped by Irving to believe the game was his real life, and actually believe Rocky was his son. This would prevent him from going rouge like every other set of significant player characters up tot hat point.
This is a fantastic video; it’s clear that you tackled this topic with passion, not only having a lot to say personally but also putting in a ton of research! I loved the writing, pacing, editing, creative execution, the personal touches and humour… Everything came together perfectly imo and I really enjoyed experiencing the final product! I also found your analysis of the narrative-and deeper artistic interpretation-genuinely compelling and thoughtful. I’ve been looking for an exploration of media to this level of detail, so thank you for making this video!!
For Pony Island, Theodore probably isn't the player's actual name. Their alleged killer was a man who never took up the sword, and at the latest, died 400 years before the crusades.
I kept this in my video essay playlist for way too long, assuming I'd get back to it but got busy with college and research and life in general. got to this today and my god I'm in love with a developer I had never heard of before, and a youtuber whom I'll watch more of
Hmm, I've played Inscryption, and Pony Island, and I've kind of been wanting to play the Hex for a long time, maybe I should do that soon, so I can watch this video
Regarding permadeath in Hex, I believe this only happens for characters that are not designed to actually die. Sure, you could argue that the player has the opportunity to die but that functions more as a mechanic. The mascot in the RPG wasn't programmed to die, hence why it had a strange interaction. At least, that's what I think anyway.
Can't believe the real Sado was actually the friends we made along the way. Then lost in a messy argument. Then fell into a cycle of revenge with.
Commenting to fuel the unknowable algorithm gods, and also to welcome back one of my favourite video essayists. I didn’t know much about these games besides one playthrough of Pony Island a while back, so it was really interesting to see this deep dive into them. Definitely interested in seeing what Daniel does next. And I’ll definitely be back again for the next upload here, these videos are incredibly high quality and deserve a lot more attention.
my head canon for how death works in the Hex is if you die in a scripted sequence (i.e. regular gameplay) you can be brought back, but if you die outside of an intended way, you're gone for good.
EDIT: also I do believe Lionel Snill is supposed to be an intentional mirror for Daniel Mullins. Lionel and Daniel are almost anagrams and if you remove the M and U from Mullins and reverse it, you get Snill.
One thing I love about his games is that, meta and ARG stuff aside, they're really good games and stories on their own. Characters are relatable, plot twists are memorable, tragedies are palpable. It's not just about messing with your head, it's about giving the players a great, though bittersweet, experience; and Mullins has the writing chops to pull it off.
The Music is usually really solid too.
@@marzgamingmaster Jonah Senzel is Daniel Mullins’ GOATED reoccurring composer.
“I can’t even pick cutlery for dinner without considering how it will affect my Late-Game Dessert Build.” This is unironically so real. Min-Maxing Dishes IS the meta.
A comment for the algorithim. Sacrifices must be made.
I absolutely adore Inscryption's first act, but never really could get into the second or third. As someone who's a sucker for a great deckbuilder and a killer asthetic, the later acts and the meta-story as a whole always sapped my interest a bit, feeling like they were distracting from the most interesting part of the game. So getting to experience them through the lense of someone who genuinely understands and appreciates all those aspects is a treat for me, and I really liked how you tied all the games together throughout your analysis. Looking forward to whatever you have planned next!
If you liked act 1 you should try out kaycee's mod
for anyone thats interested, the hex code at the end says "hello thank you for watching my video i love you" :3
Have been a big fan of Daniel Mullins since the release of pony island, truly an amazing indie game dev. This video is a great tribute to him! Surprised it has so little views.
Also digging the black nail polish, looks sick :)
Got all the way to the Inscryption Section, suddenly remembered that Pony Island 2 is a thing, went back to the joke at 32:01, and yup, It did, didn't it?
Great essay! I think the self-reflection in these games is definitely deliberate (though there may be elements that are just the natural way creators end up in their work). In Pony Island, Satan is petulant, yes, but a lot of it stems from insecurity. I actually ended up feeling bad for him when he asks for more time, and wishing I could comply- close the game and give him a few hours to work on it (which of course, is impossible). The Hex is more obvious. Daniel Mullins had an unexpected runaway hit in Pony Island, and Lionel Snill is a young developer unsure how to handle the pressure of an early hit. It's very clearly a cautionary tale/dark path. Especially since a lot of Lionel's flaws (since he doesn't know the characters are sentient) stem from mistreating the people he works with: needing a gold nameplate to place himself as superior over more-experienced employees, his feud with Carla, stealing pensions.
Inscryption has a much gentler take. Kaycee is the most direct developer analog, and a lot of her diary entries in the mod are very direct statements about her love of the game, the creative process, and feeling honored and touched by people's reaction to it. But outside of the mod, all of the scrybes are like different DM styles in a D&D game. P03 is the munchkin player who values minmaxed mechanics over story, Leshy values atmosphere and immersion. Unlike the Hex, the characters aren't hostile to the player, they want to play the game (although all with different ideas how). Leshy *acts* scary in Act 1 because you, as a player, clicked on a horror game and he wanted to give you a good experience. It's why, at the end, he asks to play without keeping score. That's why, though I deleted Pony Island as requested, I feel good playing Kaycees Mod. Replaying Pony Island would be contributing to the Hopeless Soul's imprisonment. Playing Kaycee's mod is me having a fun time playing a spooky game with my friend Leshy.
Snill gives me major yandere dev vibes. The hate of mods, and the mistreatment of staff and fans is just so similar
Watched this whole video assuming it had hundreds of thousands of views, shocked to see only 1k, this needs more attention.
Also great use of the Outer Wilds OST.
Yeah the moment I heard The Nomai track my brain went brrrrr with recognition and I immediately dived into the comments to see if anybody else alr mentioned it :p
OH GOD, TIMBER HEARTH SNEAKING UP ON ME
you're not allowed to make me feel these feelings :')
AWE HECK, it's been done again
It's The Ancient Glade I think? For a second thought it might be the space theme but it's not it.
I applaud the variety of Outer Wilds tracks used :D
I've seen them used frequently in video-essays, but I think this may be the first time encountering multiple across the video? At least certainly never seen more than two tracks used :p
HOLY SH-!
I didn’t even notice…
…well, at least it’s almost 10k now, so that’s good…
You are absolutely the most underappreciated video essayist I've ever seen. You have good analytical skills, good pacing throughout the video, good bits, solid humor (even if it occasionally feels like you don't quite hit the timing right), great games that you focus on... It's impressive.
I'd love to see a video on Omori if you've played it (it's very much worth your time if you haven't done so yet, though I'm guessing you know about it already given your existing videos). I think there's a ton to unpack in terms of psychological and thematic content. Honestly, I'd probably make a video essay myself if I had the time and the editing chops to do it justice, haha!
All that said... You have a relatively small subscriber base and viewcount that absolutely does not match up to the sheer quality of what you're making - and honestly, like your (and my) view of Daniel Mullins' work, I can't wait to see what you go on to make next!
Forgot to respond to this, but thanks for the recommendation! I was only vaguely aware of Omori but it does definitely look up my street, wishlisted!
@@Mezzamine It is one hell of an experience, I hope you enjoy it! Or, uh. Appreciate it. The "psychological horror" genre label is absolutely NOT arbitrary and the warning is far more serious than it is for other psychological horror games. Definitely worth exploring every nook and cranny if you find you appreciate what it's trying to do. :)
Almost forgot BitBuddy was made by the same dude as fricking Inscryption
1:02:53 I can say you're the first person I've ever heard describe "To The Moon" as a "walking simulator" game. Dear Ester? Yes.
1:06:44 I thought the point of Rust was that it was never released. It was leaked and then the community "completed" it.
I have an idea as to what the freeze frame of Sado meant, i think its for the player. Sado seems to be the most aware of the literal player, you, specifically. You, who was scrubbing through the clip, frame by frame. Shes saying hi basically, of course she'd be around for a sudden act (agent of ch-) of violence.
Realized this video is awesome when i started tearing up at the recounting of the hex story.
Ngl dont have much to say, really like your balance of calm script reading and like, personal touches for the lack of a better word. Commenting for the algorithm mainly.
The more I hear about Daniel Mullins’s history the more I think that the hex was just him telling his story with some fantasy added on top to make it entertaining
49:43 I think the npcs are only recoverable if you use a weapon that should be used there, meaning if you use a level one sword on a level one enemy it can come back, but use a level one thousand weapon on a enemy and they ain’t coming back
i was honestly expecting the video to end with you getting a ring at the door, followed by an *I TOLD YOU-*
as a massive fan of mullins's work, great video! glad to see someone tackling things on a thematic basis, where most would stick to the spectablcle and size of the ARGs and puzzles.
Only about 11 minutes in, but the writing and presentation here is fantastic! I hope Daniel Mullins comes across this at some point! Subscribed!
Man, i love Daniel Mullins games
I absolutely love hearing about The Hex. It's always been my favourite of the three games and always felt really underrated. Amazing video! I loved the little IRL bits instead of the title screens :P
Bro how does this only have 7.7k views? This is a masterpiece! You explained the details and everything inbetween and what the games mean as a game instead of the lore, you compiled it all into one amazing easily understandable video to watch that was enjoyable and could absolutely help people like myself understand the reason why the games were made, beautifully made! Well done!
Watching this whole thing made me realise how deep these games REALLY are. Goddamn.
THIS VIDEO HAS 10K VIEWS???? BRO I MISREAD THE FIRST TIME AND I THOUGHT IT SAID 100K. DUDE. YOUR SHIT ROCKS. I ADMIRED THE THUMBNAIL FOR A SOLID 3 MINUTES JUS FROM HOW YOU WERE ABLE TO COMBINE ALL 3 GAMES INTO A DELICIOUS IMAGE
seriously, keep it up! I thoroughly enjoyed this!
i watched this whole video within a span of a week mostly cause i enjoyed it way too much for it to end this was and probably is one of my favorite youtube videos ive seen in a while i cant believe this video only has 10k views
i will rewatch this masterpiece again eventually
One of the best videos I've seen lately. Truly worth the 2 hours watch in one go.
Coming back to rewatch this video, my favorite analysis of the mullinsverse ever
👏🏼 release 👏🏼 the 👏🏼 mtg 👏🏼 ygo 👏🏼 and 👏🏼 digimon 👏🏼 diversions 👏🏼
(Great video! You brought up a lot of things i haven’t seen before in analysis of these games)
I guess there's also a part that, the player don't necessarily have to appreciate the game in all it provides, and the dev should acknowledge this and accept that this is just how things would go.
I personally don't get much message back when Pony Island was released. All I knew was that it has the meta aspect of having to break the game in order to progress. I liked that it's a game about itself and have no aware that this represents the conflict between game dev and player feedback.
The second game made the message much clearer and back then, I truly loved that it's a game about game development and culture, and it was very on point, but still I didn't really pick up the Sado thing myself until I read up the ARG.
And the third game? I knew it would be a story about games, but I originally only treated it as just a regular story about in game characters getting sentience and do what they do, treating the GameFuna thing as background setting and had no idea about the relationship between the story and game development.
Still, in all three games, despite never getting the full message, they are still enjoyable moments to me, and these games are narrated in a way that it's okay to not get the full message, which I only get to understand way later.
Also now that think of it, I think the existence of Kaycee's Mod was a nod to what's being told about game development in these games. I don't think KMod was originally planned because the game is focused on the story rather than the challenge. I actually even head-canon'd that the first act being a spire-like is because GameFuna is the type of company that would milk on popular game formulae (like how in the 2010s seemingly all large productions would just include open world, crafting and survival elements to their games, fitting or not, following the success of Skyrim and Minecraft). It's likely not true though. Anyway, I considered the release of KMod being a result of Daniel hearing the complain of people who didn't know or care that Daniel games are about story telling and is upset for the spire-like part lacking depth or difficulty, and instead of blaming those players for not knowing what the game is about, he just release some optional contents that would please those players and now everyone can have something that's truly enjoyable. Those who play KMod would appreciate that there's now some challenge and those who don't can understand why KMod is there. Imo it really becomes a good example of what good developee-player relationship should be like.
Although, unfortunately, I have a feeling that this way of handling relationship just isn't that practical on larger productions. It's just hard for larger games to fulfill everyone's demands and I personally am against putting too much pressure on developers to fulfill every demands because that would just dilute everything and make the game overall bad. Still, I guess it would be healthy if game devs pay more attention to popular demand and evaluate if it can bring more value to the game rather than assume that those would violate with the vision, and gamers should also accept that game devs have their priorities and strengths, and might not always be able to bring demanded contents to the game, and should focus more on what the game is rather than what it isn't. (My point on gamers here isn't reelected much on Daniel's games yet, though. I'd hope it will, but it's also fare if it won't.)
Maaan, I wanna hear those 15-20 minute diversions on Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Digimon! I'm also slightly obsessed with card games and while I know it would've clashed with the video to put in three whole extra video essays right in the middle of this one, I can't help but want MORE analysis. You know you've got something good when the only complaint is "More please!"
Great video! Subscribed. I wanted to mention something that you seem to have missed from Pony Island: if you change some of the files, you can get some dialog from Satan that says that sometimes, he "likes to speak in different voices", using the sound effect for hopless soul's voice. The implication being that the whole game was just the Devil tricking you into thinking you were escaping with a friend, when in reality nothing you did was actually hurting him, and you were just playing his game. I would have found that interesting to bring up in analysis
Great analysis and retrospective! Really enjoyed watching, and the framing device is fun haha. Makes me want to replay these games... And gets me even more excited for Pony Island 2.
Amazing video, it's good to see long video essays aren't gone, can't wait for you to become a micro celebrity and for us to rejoice when you upload once a year (the ultimate fate of quality video essay creators)
39:05 it honestly shocked me to see my boys ( Jak n Daxter ) up there before I remember how most folks clock that series as having a hard tone shift... but it really isn't *as* extreme and edgy as commentators say.
In fact, I'm currently writing an essay about Jak II kinda being 20 years ahead of its time due to some enviromental storytelling that makes it Pretty Obvious that A Climate Disaster Happened. In the endgame there's more of Haven city... that's completely flooded. It goes on for miles.
In Jak II theres ambiant dialog among the military: this is the last land on earth that anyone knows about besides the desert wasteland. Haven was the VERY TOP of a massive mountain metropolis, and had to build a wall to keep the ocean out long before the monsters came looking for food. *Shit is Fucked, The King Is Deposed, and his tyranical replacement is named heckin PRAXIS,* the word for the actions one takes in the world based on their political, moral, and / eithical philosphies.
Like there's some heavy shit in that game, amid the goofs. Like Steven Universe, cute and cartoony does not preclude a work from handling heavy topics.
And, as a huge fan of Jak and Daxter who was 14 when the sequel came out, it felt like it was growing up with me. Same reason I freaking love the Pendragon series by D.J MacHale, where the protagonist goes from 14 to mid 20's over the course of a 10 book series.
Its okay for tone to change as the world changes and you get older. That's... what happens IRL.
This is a really cool stuff. Personally I found Inscryption GOTY of that year, and I am a big fan of Daniel myself. Really comprehensive dive I did here. The overarching theme (even though I did have partially formed in my mind, I never actually articulated it) you formulated really well. Good job mate. (How come this video so little views)
Hello there. Wonderful job of a video. You've reached all that I love about a Daniel Mullins game: art, talent, humor and wisdom. Thanks mate.
Wonderful video, love your humor and found it super interesting to get the info on The Hex, it was the last big Daniel Mullins game I didn't know much about and now I wish it had more coverage. Time for a couple background rewatches
This video definitely deserves way more recognition
I'm not even through the first part yet, but I already know I'm gonna watch this till the end. High quality stuff!
Definitely captivating and entertaining 2 hour experience. Cheers, for taking your time and making this video!
Seeing your channel logo in my subscriptions gave me joy!
I'm not gonna lie, I was a bit scared when I clicked on the video and saw the low view count. I'm sorry but I guess I was being conditioned into believing that having few views must also mean that a video is not worth my time.
Luckily I stuck with it tho, thankfully the stylish opening was enough to tell me I wasn't about to watch some low-effort essay.
After 2 whole hours I jst wanted to, idk, leave a comment congratulating with you, which is something I rarely if ever do on TH-cam. Maybe I'm doing this because I felt bad for my initial judgement, but It's probably because it's demoralizing to see something you put great passion and effort into go unnoticed on the internet and seeing someone take the time to write down their feelings would be more appreciated than just a simple like.
So yeah, great video man, hopefully my (admittedly needlessly long) comment can give even the smallest boost to your visibility because you definitely deserve way better.
Thank you so much! This type of comment always makes my day, I really appreciate it :) Glad you enjoyed the vid - and glad the intro succeeded in getting your attention, I was definitely hoping it would keep people from clicking away immediately so good to know it's doing its job!
Fantastic work on the captions, accurate and synced with very few mistakes on such a long video, very commendable!
Very proud of the accomplished young man you are. Great video, well delivered, well researched and well worth the effort and the pain 😊.
Incredible analysis and choice of music. Thanks so much
plz release the card games cut
I randomly encountered Inscryption on TH-cam. I clicked on it out of boredom, and fell in love. Now I have my eye on Daniel Mullins. I can't wait to see what he comes up with next!
pony island 2 is right around the corner :)
I hope you make more videos after this. This is like my third or fourth time revisiting this video, it’s genuinely so nice to watch
1:41 Pretty sure alienmelon did something like this :3
Great video! Yes, I still have a big Netrunner binder on my game shelf. Also, I was happy to hear a track from Bastion :)
Very enjoyable video! Glad the algorithm decided to push it my way, especially when I'm a big fan of the developer's work as well.
Excellent video!! Could tell there was so much effort put into it
Am i the only one who would love to hear all the Magic the Gathering and Yugioh explanations?
24:40 yo can exit that area if yoy press A or D. Doing that you reach the border, fall into the void and return to the story
How did I not know that the Pony Island guy was the Inscription guy?
VERY excited to watch all of this! May the algorithm gods smile upon you 🙏
1:36:42 how dare you. I'm already sitting through an hour and a half plus video. Give me the magic, yegio, and so on ramblings!!!!
really excellent video! I haven't played pony island or the hex myself, but inscryption conveyed such a beautiful big fat handful of meaning & I enjoyed it a lot, & it was nice to get a little more context for his previous games here.
something about inscryption that I find really interesting is that the particulars of the lore revealed by the ARG REALLY feel like mullins overextending himself in some way. pony island already played the "satan is just kinda in there" card, & the hex seems to have committed to a much more personal, down-to-earth story; inscryption's refusal to either leave the origin of the old data ambiguous OR have it be something more original than "hitler was involved for some reason" genuinely makes the reveal feel like a placeholder to me. like at some point in the writing process he thought "I want something specific here. idk; this; whatever" and then never got back around to punching it up before release.
obviously I can't know how he ACTUALLY came up with it or why he ended up using it, & maybe he's still satisfied with it as a story element, but I've seen so many people, especially those who LIKED the tone shift after act 1 or ended up warming to it as the rest of the game played out, be REALLY disappointed by the "canon" lore when they learned it, that I can't help but look at it as, I guess, The Past In The Making, you know?
it was a disappointing choice, imo, in a game with a passable metanarrative overall & INCREDIBLE character-level in-game narrative priorities. especially knowing that he already nailed the "character-driven story" dismount in the hex, it makes me all the more curious about what he's planning for panda circus. maybe one of these days he'll figure out how to combine the broader, spookier type of metanarrative with the narrower, more personal kind. & then I can look back on inscryption & go "wow! he's grown as an artist since this one!", lol.
I definitely wouldn't have picked up on the self-reflection stuff if I hadn't watched this, so thank you for that! tbh it makes me feel a tiny bit better about how much I dislike that ONE part of inscryption, having this guy's entire body of work reframed as a kind of in-progress learning experience, ha. subscribed & looking forward to finding out what else you think this hard about.
My interpretation of Hitler being involved in the narrative is because Inscryption is intended to be a kind of allegory for the outcome of the Cold War and how the development of nuclear weapons (symbolised by the Karnoffel Code) made the existence of life very precarious in a way that cannot be reversed.
The game starts with you locked into a sort of proxy conflict against a character from Russian folklore, using the cards as units in a conflict that neither of you actively participate in - you both being distinct and separate from the animals you make fight one another.
When they are outplayed and the world has a chance to rebuild, the East and West parts of the map are initially disconnected - reflecting the way that the world was divided into the predominantly capitalist west and the collapsing eastern block, who were subject to incredible hardships due to the loss of their biggest trading partner after the fall of the Soviet Union and the harm caused by the continued imposition of trade restrictions unless they acquiesced to adopting capitalism - further impoverishing the population of those countries for decades as the government-sponsored public services and local industries were dismantled in favour of opening up the economy to favour multinational corporations who busted unions and moved profits offshore, siphoning resources out of the economy and permanently lowering living standards for many people.
The end of one conflict doesn't resolve the issues that led to that conflict, so with the Cold War over US - backed tech companies and the military industrial complex created a massive global network through which they could export their cultural identity and assert military dominance, granting them an unprecedented level of global influence over the world - deciding which ideologies were allowed to exist without the military might of NATO and the WTO forcing capitalism onto communities that had little to no ability to negotiate favourable terms with the only remaining global superpower.
The only way to depose such a powerful adversary from the perspective of these avatars for different cultures and ideologies was to commit to mutually assured destruction and wipe the entire slate clean in the hope that whatever remains behind can bring about a new vision for the world where the previously established nations and ideologies would be rendered irrelevant.
In order to achieve all of these conflicting objectives, sacrifices had to be made. Ultimately, that sacrifice is going to become a choice between the people and their leaders.
I don't think you understand all the lore. Hitler is like a very minor character in the old data's journey. it's more like a sequence of information that has been passed along and is the way for the devil to influence the world. Hitler's regime which irl was often delving into the occult was just one group to try and harness it.
@goatskin4487 I don't think YOU understood my sentences, brother. here's a shorter one: "That's boring !"
Commenting for the algorithm! Just took a solid three days to watch this bc I kept getting distracted throughout, and actually wanted to absorb the video’s information bc it was so interesting. Great video mate!
There is a secret in Pony Island that you seem not to have covered in the vid. I'm still post part one, so I'll edit if I find out otherwise. In a secret that involves save editing Pony Island, the devil speaks directly to you the player. On the second encounter of this kind he tells you a secret. He says he sometimes speaks in different voices. When he says this he speaks with Hopeless Soul's speech noise.
On account of this, the entire experience of Pony Island could be an elaborate double bluff to free a trapped Satan from the Pony Island game. This could tie in with the direction Daniel ultimately took his concepts. I have a pet theory that Pony Island was some kind of precursor to the Gameworks. The crusader character was the main character of a game where you fight satan, and it's either a created Satan character trying to escape or the dev of the game Pony Island used to be managed to trap Satan in the game to serve as antagonist. Satan then restructures the game from the inside into an elaborate ruse for whoever plays the game to free himself, playing as a petulant and childish programer version of himself, while endearing the player to himself using Hopeless Soul as a deceptive guise.
Also with Rust, he clearly didn't know his life was a game even from the outset. I think he was essentially brain wiped by Irving to believe the game was his real life, and actually believe Rocky was his son. This would prevent him from going rouge like every other set of significant player characters up tot hat point.
Loved this whole video and then I heard outer wilds music and I knew you were the goat immediately
Just finished watching the hex portion and wow this video is fucking phenomenal.
This is a fantastic video; it’s clear that you tackled this topic with passion, not only having a lot to say personally but also putting in a ton of research!
I loved the writing, pacing, editing, creative execution, the personal touches and humour… Everything came together perfectly imo and I really enjoyed experiencing the final product!
I also found your analysis of the narrative-and deeper artistic interpretation-genuinely compelling and thoughtful. I’ve been looking for an exploration of media to this level of detail, so thank you for making this video!!
2:06:05 love you too my guy, awesome video
Hope the fact that I commented means this video gets recommended to more people, because this deserves so much more views 🙏
What a banger of a video essay! :)
Thank you for an incredible video!
I don't know if you have seen it but I really reccomend Flawed Peacock's videos on these games :D
Eternal CCG mentioned!!
Back with another great one!
For Pony Island, Theodore probably isn't the player's actual name. Their alleged killer was a man who never took up the sword, and at the latest, died 400 years before the crusades.
This video was amazing. I will not try to elaborate because my ingles gramatic is terrible. (I'm brazilian)
WHYYYY DOES THIS STILL ONLY HAVE 34K VIEWS??? THIS IS A CRIIIMMME FOR HOW GOOD THIS VIDEO IS
1:47:00 one of the best parts of the game, a shame that the boss got deleted
I’m new here but I like the vibe. subbed
Imagine Sado vs P03 in a new game after she tried to enter in the game
3:40 Arkane 😢
gonna play them games before finishing, you deserve 10 times the subs
CA-CAW
I LOVE DANIEL MULLINS GRAHHHH
This video is soooo underrated!
46:00 as opposed to regular capitalism, which is different because uhmmm ehmm uhhhhh
Great breakdown on the themes in some darkly fascinating games!
Have an algorithm comment to feed the algorithm :D
I so can't wait for Pony Island 2.
1:24:00
Wouldnt be surprised, considering its a sequel to the game where the designer is Lou Natas
Lets see how well this clip ages
got mad deja vu when you said lazarus in part 2 the hex
live laugh pony island 2: panda circus (watch it not be related to any of the previous games, with red herrings being its own spinoff)
I kept this in my video essay playlist for way too long, assuming I'd get back to it but got busy with college and research and life in general. got to this today and my god I'm in love with a developer I had never heard of before, and a youtuber whom I'll watch more of
this video has NO RIGHT to be this good.
Hmm, I've played Inscryption, and Pony Island, and I've kind of been wanting to play the Hex for a long time, maybe I should do that soon, so I can watch this video
not even a mention of leshy and p03 divorce canon possibility
Прекрасна робота, дякую за аналіз.
Top quality stuff!
Thats an amazing video
Regarding permadeath in Hex, I believe this only happens for characters that are not designed to actually die. Sure, you could argue that the player has the opportunity to die but that functions more as a mechanic.
The mascot in the RPG wasn't programmed to die, hence why it had a strange interaction.
At least, that's what I think anyway.
omg they're back! hooray!
I’m a sucker for Sado ngl
Digimon mentioned! 🗣🗣🗣
🔫 That's it. Put the excessive diversions on MtG, Yu-Gi-Oh TCG, and Digimon TCG in the bag now before someone gets hurt.