Blind Playthroughs In Video Games

[@tictactoc9311]

What!? Why do the algorithm never recommend your video until this, i really look forward your new video after that backlog video.

[@maynardburger]

Algorithms dont work on quality of content. It's extremely hard for newer/smaller channels to ever break through cuz they face the chicken and egg problem of a smaller audience leading to smaller likelihood of recommendation.

[@mentalpopcorn2304]

I feel like there's a healthy balance. I don't want to be spoiled on things like boss enemies, story moments, and things in that nature. I personally like having a map up, for TotK something that shows shrine locations. Id like all of them, I don't want to pull my hair out looking for all of them. Like you said as well, the cool builds people come up with make it worthwhile to not play blind, as well as knowing certain item interactions is very helpful. It'd be cool to come across some of these blind, but it's so much more fun to understand how to best utilize what I have in a game. There are so many items I don't want to experiment with all of them myself. In a RPG I like knowing things like what the ideal skill/stat distribution is for the build I want. As long as I'm not spoiled on the story or cool boss encounters I really enjoy playing while looking at others posts/videos.

[@bloom945]

Sometimes i want spoilers because finding everything myself is impossible. Playing Noita, I originally wanted to discover everything by myself- but after 100+ hours, being a completionist, I realized that finding all incredibly obscure secrets and mechanics would take forever, so I just checked spoilers instead. Although it feels like I "gave up", it let me appreciate the game in its entirety. Some games simply require a wiki to play.

[@aarepelaa1142]

Well you ain't really learning anything very far in noita without looking up video's on it. Even something like spell wrapping is never gonna be discovered by yourself, although climbing back up is probably very easy to discover due to the pit that connects the first layer and the snow caves.

[@_bhp]

there's something to be said about having a community of people discovering things together or talking with friends about stuff. it still feels great when you do something your friend told you about, or someone on a forum said, but looking it up in a guide feels dirty for some reason.

[@gastroacid1971]

If you can't figure something out, then you weren't meant to see it. Nothing wrong with not seeing absolutely everything in a game.

[@timothybrogan7008]

For me it's about the journey. If something gets spoiled I just say " okay? How did this happen? Why did this happen?" I like finding out how things happen

[@samuelurban6132]

I like blind playthroughs because of how unique they are, though I also like watching mystery tournaments whenever I can catch them. There's something special about two different speedrunners racing each other to finish a game they haven't played before. Even so, I'm the type of person that sometimes uses speedruns as a means to see if I like the game or not as well as look up guides to a particular achievement that I may have missed or something. Even so, every guide had to start with a blind playthrough.

[@martinrose2668]

i like the topics you choose for discussion and the way you approach them! thank you ❤

[@TwistedScarlett60]

A good spoiler usually sells me on a game or film and encourages me to actually watch it. For example, learning that the protagonist of the 1960 film "Psycho" dies halfway through is the only reason I ever watched that.

[@gastroacid1971]

It's pretty great going through Dark Souls II as a mage, and the feeling of uncertainty as you go through the game, wondering where you'll chance upon some decent spells. Instead of looking up where the main sorceror merchant can be found. Coming up with some alternate build so that you can use some of your randomly-discovered pickups and NPC merchants most effectively. Puzzle games that require problem solving are hurt most by looking things up, leading to disatisfaction rather the joy of discovering the answer for yourself. Going through them absolutely blind is key, with the resolution to accept potentially not being able to finish game, or finish all the game's side-content. Nothing more hardcore than doing something that is usually considered impossible, like going through things that most will give up early and call mayday on. Where it's more than just a matter of attempting something enough times like execution difficulty.

[@Raptorialand]

playing elden ring blind made me quit elden ring forever... All this people who say that the difficulty is variable and you just have to do this, and that and than this, don't understand that i play games blind.

[@Riltea]

A video game I’ve been playing is Vernal Edge. I found out about it after seeing a 2-second clip of it’s combat, & it interested me. So I found it’s name & bought the game. I knew absolutely nothing about the game when I started, & I still don’t know the most optimal things to do in game, but I’ve been having fun since I’m carving my own path. I’m avoiding talking about the game directly to not spoil anything incase anyone reading this wants a fresh experience. So yes, playing a game blind is much more worth it. Edit: I only spoil myself if I don’t care about that series, game, etc. Otherwise, I absolutely despise spoilers. I will do pretty much anything to avoid spoilers for something if I want to experience it myself. Typically, I enjoy a series less when I’m spoiled than if it’s blind. For example, I rewatched Naruto Classic around a year after I finished it, & while I still loved it, I just liked it a little less. I also got spoiled quite a bit on Shippuden before I watched it & I was less happy upon seeing the reveals than on the ones that I wasn’t spoiled about.

[@anders_x3]

I've been playing resident evil games recently. And i always try to do the first playthrough completely blind. only looking something up if I'm completely lost. (for example i had to look up that you have to use the knife in the krauser bossfight in Resi 4) Of course that means i miss some items but that's just the cost i pay for discovering everything myself. In the second playthrough i look up everything.

[@vlad_ussr8390]

Spoilers don't always ruin it for me. Endgame was spoiled for me, but i just didn't believe it. I don't like spoilers for games but it varies, like a game which has a story like the wolf among us i thankfully didn't know much, but for games like elden ring, I don't think it would be too bad to hear some spoilers.

[@niolonq]

Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself. Good video, the game is always a puzzle, we can solve it alone or in cooperation with others, but the way of solving it is more important than the solution.

[@leeachristie]

I usually watch all info about Zelda games in the past, but this time I avoided everything including avoiding trailers and didn't even know what the basic premise of the game was going to be.I am actually feeling a bit left out of being able to see what cool stuff people have come up with because I'm avoiding spoilers and haven't gotten around to much of the story yet.

[@maynardburger]

As others have said, it depends on the game for me and further, there's multiple ways to 'spoil yourself' on things and you can take a pick and choose approach to such spoilers. Like, I may avoid reading a walkthrough for a game, but I might still have no issue looking up a certain specific thing I'm curious about, or perhaps stuck on. And a big thing for me is that I dont tend to replay games a lot. So getting a really solid, fulfilling experience on my first playthrough often matters as I might be a little annoyed if I beat the game and discovered I missed a ton of cool content. Persona 5 Royal for example requires you to fulfill some unstated requirement in order to see the vast chunk of the new content - so you best believe I'm going to look up what that requirement is as I would be more than a little annoyed if I played for 100 hours and realized I locked myself out of most of what the 'Royal' version meaningful.

[@МихайлоРедько-т3л]

I have my favorite game - the binding of isaac: rebirth - and before playing it I was watching videos about it for a year (I was in school, didn't have money). It's a roguelike, and at my first run I knew about all of the bosses, all of the endings, all of the secrets and even all of the items. And still, I really enjoy playing it and have something like 1000 hours in it. I like spoilers, they always intrigue me to try game or a movie on my own, but spoilers definitely ruined my experience in DDLC. It really depends

[@miknius3319]

In some games like Enter the Gungeon and Spelunky I always like to have wiki with all items and their explanations, as I don't consider this as spoiler. But I avoid seeing how later bosses and stages look.

[@jimjohn1740]

really good video. I think adam millard/architect of games made a similar video about rain world, a game probably best played without spoilers. like he said that mystery is good in a game, but uncovering it and eventually overcoming adversity is a big part of the fun... or something like that I dunno

[@aarepelaa1142]

I feel like rainworld is one great game to play blind, but then there's all of the movement in the game that's pretty impossible to discover by yourself, although now there's the weird tutorial pop up now and then wich tells about the moves. You can disable it though and the giant ass docs file with a lot of the movement tech is better to learn it anyway. Those top tips you wanted to know while starting is sometimes great for multiplayer games, like competitive games and whatnot also I guess co-op games like deep rock galactic and Warhammer:Vermintide to a degree as well, but I usually go out my way to watch things like that only after playing for a while.

[@Appleloucious]

One Love! Always forward, never ever backward!! ☀☀☀ 💚💛❤ 🙏🏿🙏🙏🏼

[@wijo605]

the looking up hard puzzles really reads off to me as "my attention span is about 5 seconds", like yea things can take a long time to figure out but that just makes it feel that much more rewarding, no? like yea I have my limits as well but for an extreme example look at space station alpha, it's an insanely long and cryptic game that took me forever just to get to the credits but man does it feel good. the postgame is completely insane but I can only imagine how rewarding it would feel to actually figure that stuff out by yourself. or for an even clearer example, literally any pure puzzle game, for example baba is you. when you get far enough in baba each puzzle takes a good 30 min - ? h depending on your creativity but like THAT'S THE POINT u know c:

[@maynardburger]

No, it does not always feel more rewarding, cuz if I'm seriously stuck on a hard puzzle and I've pulled my hair out trying to figure it out myself, I'm far more likely to just stop playing the game if I specifically force myself to not look anything up. Especially in a game I'm otherwise enjoying quite a lot, I'd much rather just 'cheat' and get through such a roadblock so I can continue to enjoy the rest of the game. And there's been times I have been heavily stuck on a puzzle or something and then when I do beat it after way too much time, I often just feel a sense of burden being lifted rather than it feeling rewarding, especially if the solution was something quite obtuse. Like, I cant imagine for the life of me trying to beat a game like Grim Fandango without ever looking anything up. That seems insane to me.

[@wijo605]

@@maynardburger well yea if it's stopping you from enjoying the rest of the game I can understand that, depends on context.

[@niolonq]

9:45 That's better to avoid e-communications if you want to clear your vision on specific topics, true.

[@gucciguy3408]

Now i'm not sure if I might've missed you talk about this,but any thoughts on how other games and your knowledge of how they work...How do you think this affects someone's ability for a true blind playthrough of a game?

[@A_Surpluss_of_Stupidity]

For me it really is im kinda mad at myself for watching the trailers for tears of the kingdom because I know it ruined the surprise of several things I wished were left unspoiled

[@schmingles]

I don’t care too much about story spoilers as I am of the opinion that a good enough story, with very few exceptions, can’t really be spoiled. For the most part I find stories that hinge solely on some twist or reveal to be kind of cheap. I do however try to avoid reviews/analyses of media I’m already fairly certain that I’m interested in, as I find it can color my opinion or bias me against it and I’d rather draw my own conclusions initially and then bolster or contrast them with others after I’ve already experienced it.

[@lightyami5934]

Recommendations: PLAY "BLASPHEMOUS" AND "DAYS GONE"!!! (YOU WON'T REGRET IT) Edit: Just don't look up much and play...trailers could give you an idea of the games without spoiling much...

[@Kryxx07]

I've never played a Fromsoft game and I think I want to start by playing Elden Ring blind.

[@tomohawk2177]

Played the new Zelda blind other than the trailers and it might be my favourite game ever (hope that’s not just recency bias talking)

[@antgrantrant]

You said you cant "unplay the game". The one and only benefit of my terrible memory is if you give me 5 years, i can totally play a game for the first time again.

[@ThePC007]

Honestly, I think there’s a third option to either playing the game blindly or looking things up about it, which is watching KZbin videos made by people who went into the game blindly. Their strats aren’t going to be perfect, so you still have room to improve upon their ideas in your own playthrough.

[@Tighron]

Story spoilers always ruins a game for me to the point i will have a very hard time continuing my playthrough until a long time has passed, sometimes years. A few games i never go back to at all. This mostly covers someone else spoiling it for me though. There are some games that just doesnt hook you attention until a small thing that is coming later is spoiled so you got something to look forward to, the classic " Trust me, it gets good eventualy". Days Gone was a lot like that for many gamers as the first parts arent that great. Spoiling mechanics, secrets and builds is something you do yourself to yourself, and there everyone is different. Some like doing it and others avoid it even on second and third playthroughs. Take that spoiler study with a heavy pinch of salt though, as it has not been replicated since and is very controversial. And even the methods they used to perform the study is questionable. Look into it if you got the time and care enough.

[@spark_pigeon]

I think that playing a game blind doesn't make it any better. With the exception of games that revolve around strong emotions and figuring things out like outer Wilds. Because you wouldn't fell the same if you knew what you will see and fell from playing a game that relies on you not knowing what to expect. like if you solved a good puzzle that made you fell clever you wouldn't fell that if you already knew what to do. But not all games revolve around something of the sort. Like Elden ring you will still have a lot of fun playing it even if you spoiled your self on it, because the main Factor is combat exploration, and what not. But for outer wilds the main thing for the game is it's story and puzzles. TLDR: some parts of games like story and good puzzles that make you fell something wont be as impactful if you experience them knowing what will happen and what to do. but if the game doesn't revolve around that, then spoiling the game wont ruin the fun, and it mite be more then you would if you where to play blind. As long as your main focus isn't the story and it's the gameplay or something like that then your probably fine. Great video man keep up the good work

[@1ばかぶた]

I think spoiler is making the game more fun because we can talk about the game with our friends. well, as long as the spoiler isnt intentionally made to ruin our experience

[@br0h213]

your example with elden ring quest doesnt fit the concept. because miyazaki doesnt design quests to solve by yourself. his intention is to get it solved with communitys together work.

[@maynardburger]

NPC quests in Souls games kind of require you to look stuff up or else you're pretty much guaranteed to never complete them, or at least only rarely so. They have such specific requirements and usually aren't the kind you can just 'go back' and do later, as you'll usually have done something or gone past some point in the game that breaks them permanently.

[@Kojisama]

I guess it depends on what you value in a game, I personally don't mind story spoilers cause I don't really care for them in the first place, but I hate getting spoiled about beating a puzzle, a boss, or how to make the optimal build cause for me figuring out those things is the fun of the game.

[@PUNISSSH]

Blind is better in the first playthrough imo, in the second one, it's even requiered if you want to experience all things that the game has to offer.