Outer Wilds

Checked out the radio tower and got to the satellite but couldn't figure out what to do. Thought "feck this" and looked at a guide. Felt ashamed i couldn't figure that out as it seemed so obvious what to do. Vowed to never check a guide ever again.

Got to The Stranger. Got inside and had a few minutes of "what the jaysus is this". Like the Ash Twin project meets Halo, but with whitewater rapids. Found a good few projections with various clues. Found the secret passages in two of the buildings with the green symbol and going by one projection, thought I'd be able to teleport between them. Misinterpreted as they just seemed to be tombs or something. But one of the slots in one of the "tombs" was empty. Is one of the deer owl dudes alive? Is he here? Is he maybe even on the quantum moon? Will he jump out at me and be the reason there is a scare option in the game?

I see a lot of text scattered around, but my translator can't read it. The projections show the owl dudes using their firey walking sticks to see things. I managed to get into the cabin surrounded by ghost matter and found evidence of metal objects. Could be key to translating the text, but that's merely a hunch. I think I need to find out how to translate this stuff to progress.

Really spent a lot of loops wandering around and never getting any additions to the ship log. Disheartening, but still determined not to use a guide. Found the vault under the chains, but no idea how to open. Found a building beside the reservoir that needed a combination, but no clue where to find it. Remember seeing a third green symbol building but no idea how to reach it. Realised that of the two channels going into the reservoir, i had only been in one. Ah ha! That goes along the back of the third green symbol building. Now to find a way in there.

Some failed attempts to get in due to currents. Managed to get in post flood but couldn't reach much. Eventually got in; just needed to be less crap with the raft. Good few new log entries, but nothing overwhelming. Found an artifact. Brought it to the building surrounded by ghost matter as i thought i need to combine it with the artifacts in there; nope they're the same thing. Recalled a projection showing owl dudes falling asleep in their tombs holding the artifacts. Went to the tomb with a missing slot and tried to get in. Nothing. Tried falling asleep and woke up and what the actual...

Had a wander around. Hard to know if it's their actual home world or an afterlife or what. This could easily be the bit that's supposed to be scary. I don't know. But maybe i can visit from anywhere that has a flame. I'll find out soon!

I've got to the core of giant's deep, got the coordinates of the eye and everything else related to the probe.

I've landed on quantum moon a couple of times. Been in the shrine, I know the three rules but the moon has just disappeared underfoot without warning every time I've been on it, even when I have the scout out looking at the ground, so haven't quite figured that out.

I absolutely despise both sunken city and hanging city. There's "more to explore" in both places, I've been to both loads of times but the muddy maze of caves / the copy pasted ruined buildings are such a pain to navigate and try to figure out where I haven't been, made even more annoying by the rising sand on one or the black hole you fall into with one misplaced jump in the other.

I've uncovered a hell of a lot of lore but no real clue about how to stop the supernova, I guess the "6th location" might guide me to the eye and that does something. From some of the translations it sounds like the sun station causes the supernova, I've tried to land on it about 20 times and burn up every time so I don't think that's possible. I haven't been inside the ash twin project, I have pretty much all of the lore about it and how the statues work plus the bit inside the volcano that talks about them making sure it can withstand a supernova so it sounds like the whole thing is planned but it's still pretty unclear exactly what's going on. I think I need to find the high energy lab entrance in the sunken city to find out more but too many frustrating attempts have put me off trying that again. I also haven't found the vessel in dark bramble because the angler fish are also an absolute pain. I think those are the only remaining question marks in my ship computer.

By completed I mean I saw the credits screen when I died holding the warp core so I'm counting that as an ending!

I figured out what I needed to do, due to the fact there's barely anything else in the solar system you can actually physically interact with it was incredibly obvious once you've been on the vessel and seen the device for inputting the coordinates and the space for a warp core just like the one in Ash Twin which I think may be the only item in the entire game other than scrolls and projection stones that you can pick up and carry around.

However even when you know what to do the anglerfish are an absolute pain when you're under time pressure having waited the best part of ten minutes to line up the entrance of ash twin to get the core first. So after a couple of failed attempts I just watched it on youtube. A quicksave / quickload feature would have saved so much trouble in this game but I'm happy enough that I solved the puzzles and saw the ending. I don't need to spend another 20 minutes doing all the same steps again, I don't get much time for gaming these days so really appreciate games that are respectful of my time but this isn't one of them. The ending bit with the campfire looked annoying to actually play too, I was happy to let someone else do that and see the end of the story unfold.

Well, I had met the prisoner the previous night two nights previously and thought "rafting into the sunset - is that it???" and eventually had to google what to do next as I knew it was close to the end. Didn't realise it was just to get him to be a part of the band. I had forgotten how annoying it was to trigger the ending though... Mistiming the ash twin warp = ending up in a column of sand. Giving into temptation to using thrusters = being eaten. Being a crap pilot and crashing into random parts of Dark Bramble = having to get out and repair the ship = running out of time and supernova.

But as far as DLCs go, it was brilliant. Before playing, I thought it was pointless to add DLC to a game where the world ends. Like, what were they going to do? Add a way to prevent the world ending? That would ruin the entire narrative and come off as a needless cash grab. But they simply honed in on a little niche part of the original story; why did the eye suddenly broadcast, and then suddenly stop?

The Stranger is a great little place though. Like, at various times, I thought I had explored every nook and cranny and that there was nowhere left to explore. But things like finding the hull breach breathed new life into the place as it meant I didn't have to go most of the way around in a raft almost twice just to get to somewhere like Starlit Cove. Also, when the burned reel temple showed the locations of the burned reels... I had been around those 3 places and didn't feckin see them.