Sparking Curiosity-Driven Exploration Through Narrative in 'Outer Wilds'

[@d00mnoodle24]

Also if by any chance you stumble upon this video while not having played outer wilds yet. Stop what you are doing, buy the game on steam, play it, fall in love, buy the DLC, play it, cry because it's over and then proceed to watch this video. Outer wilds is something EVERYONE should experience themselves. Best space game ever

[@d00mnoodle24]

@@someonewithsomename YES THERE IS, IT'S AS AMAZING AS THE BASE GAME, GO PLAY IT, AVOID SPOILERS, DO IT NOOOWWWW

[@KroltanMG]

@@someonewithsomename No, it's just about the base game. Do play the DLC though! I was worried they wouldn't catch the lightning in the bottle again, but they god damn did.

[@reenchanted]

@@someonewithsomename No, she only spoils a bit of the base game but does not discuss the Echoes of the Eye DLC.

[@teslalockwood4171]

I'm having a hard time making headway on the DLC. So hard for my brain to navigate and memorize where I'm going and where I've been.

[@d00mnoodle24]

@@teslalockwood4171 keep going, that'll make the discovery that much more satisfying! You can do it

[@fmgs31]

"oh this looks interesting, I'm going to buy this space game. Hmm... there are 2 of them, Outer wilds and Outer worlds, both same year. Which one was it? Oh, right, the girl in the video said she works at Obsidian"

[@boumahonza]

I hate this

[@ZedAmadeus]

LMAO NOOOOOO!!!!

[@julesnar1175]

Any GDC about Outer Wilds is a must watch!

[@evanlane1690]

They also did an hour-long walkthrough of how they made it in Unity on the Unity channel if you're interested in the tech side of it.

[@julesnar1175]

@@evanlane1690 Oh thank you, I'll definitely check it out!

[@Reenfoque]

I just finished the game yesterday... MAN! What an amazing experience!!! I dont think there are enough words to describe what this game does to you as "the explorer", I had never come across such a beautiful masterpiece that trusts so entirely on the player's ability to discover an entire world through mere curiosity. Also, I had never experienced so many emotions during a game, that actually has NO fighting, no leveling, no collecting... just experiencing. My brain and heart are still blown away by this narrative-less-filled masterpiece!!!

[@voodoodolll]

The second I read "curiosity driven exploration" I thought Outer Wilds before I even got to the end of the title. Excited to watch this!

[@TalkbackTapes]

Babe wake up, the best game ever made is in a GDC talk

[@TheRedstoneScientist]

Kelsey Beachum will always be a superhero to me

[@user-wo5dm8ci1g]

The detailed work that went into making the text and clues in the story fun and engaging really shows. This is a fantastic talk about one of my favorite games of all time.

[@mr.indieperson1413]

The best game I ever played and knew. So creative and unique with all these different worlds and space-time mechanics, it's a masterpiece. My top 1. Only Disco Elysium shares the same place, as I can't decide, what is better :) You will regret if you watch it somewhere and don't play it yourself

[@Tharky]

Outer Wilds is the best game I have ever played.

[@JuanTorres-zo5xs]

I just started playing this game yesterday, I’ll come back to this talk once I’m finished. Timing is amazing sometimes…

[@JuanTorres-zo5xs]

I just platinum this game what a ride! Saving up for the expansion, absolutely a masterpiece. Now time to enjoy this GDC!

[@dovedozen]

As someone who's not into games set in space AT ALL and will only ever experience this one via half-watching streams, the game design principles on display here are so beautifully thought-out and committed-to that I respect the final product SEVERELY, even though I wouldn't enjoy playing it much. It really shows in the game itself that questions like "what questions do we want the player to ask and how do we get them to do that" were carefully considered here, and imo that kind of consideration is 100% necessary if you're going to make an exploration-driven game. It's not enough to create a world full of things & expect players to make their own fun, or put in a ton of work to reconstruct whatever story or lore you were thinking of while you made that world, you know? Hitting this level of balance between "story that's clear and followable enough to be satisfying as a story" vs. "exploratory gameplay that's player-driven enough to FEEL satisfying" is a feat of completely bananas proportions. I can really see why people went nuts over this game. The milieu isn't for me, but the craftsmanship is on an all-time level, & I'm LOVING this opportunity to get more of a glimpse into that aspect of it without actually having to. Play the game. Huge shouts out to GDC for letting me absorb genius Artistic Tactics in this way.

[@Eupolemos]

I quickly went from just watching this talk to splitscreening and taking notes

[@d00mnoodle24]

I'll take whatever outer wilds content i can find to fill in the void of realizing you can't experience the game the same again 💔

[@DaveLH]

I play every Outer Wilds mod that gets made, just to keep feeding my love of experiencing it!

[@d00mnoodle24]

@@DaveLH based

[@seraphir4662]

I feel like I've been waiting for this talk since the release

[@ric4746]

An incredible talk, should have hundreds of thousands views. Thank you so much for sharing !

[@janmarucha9138]

We needed a talk from one of these geniouses who made Outer Wilds

[@lizardlegend42]

Oh awesome I've been waiting for this one to get uploaded! My all time favourite game by far

[@Edilyon]

Kelsey, thank you very much. You are inspiring ! I'm looking forward to see your next work.

[@ZedAmadeus]

Wonderful talk! Really entertaining, and that pushing vs pulling idea is GOLD. Not the only takeaway, but such a brilliant, game centred way of explaining the intersection of using "show don't tell" and curiosity led game design that Outer Wilds excels at.

[@DaveLH]

This is the presentation in 2021 that first made me aware of "Outer Wilds", and I've been in love with it ever since!

[@DaveLH]

Kelsey Beachum is such a great writer ... (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD) * * * ... with all of the Nomai dialogue and monologues, making you really feel for and care about these people who have been dead for 280,000 years and you will never see or meet (with one big exception). From Poke's self-doubts to Pye's hubris, from Yarrow and Clary's budding romance to Solanum's Anne Frank-like youthful wisdom.

[@Nova-ru5mm]

Finished the game about a week ago for the first time. Came over here to see if there were any interesting talks and I'm met with this surprise. Great start to my friday

[@etamr60]

Wonderful game really, and really interesting behind the scenes talk! On the characterisation of Nomai people, I'm not sure it works best for everybody. I'm awful with names (IRL too 😅), so the different Nomais kept getting mixed up. Maybe a visual clue, like color, could help? But maybe it's a me problem, not the game's!

[@neilliu655]

Very informative and organized talk. Thank you for sharing!

[@s0matando]

Thank you for sharing your experience with my GOTY last year! It completely blew me away! I have two major wishes, and hopefully you can do something about one of them: one, I can't wait to see what you're going to come up with next, and two, I really wish I could forget Outer Wilds just to rediscover it from the very start. Congratulations!

[@porkman1838]

Wow, I didn't know she is now on Obsidian. How cool!

[@franknord4826]

I really wish orgs holding streamed talks finally figure out that you can record locally and hand in that recording later instead of having the audio quality of someone yelling into a washing machine. Seriously, I'm pretty good with English even though I'm not a native speaker but I have to spend pretty much all my braincycles trying to decipher what the hell the speaker is even saying here… :/

[@ExcyWoW]

I love Kelsey

[@_g_r_m_]

In my first playthrough I missed the (spoilers alert) thing inside cinder twin, even though I was invested in the story and enjoyed understanding every other thing. And I actually thought that was it, the game was about being a space archaeologist and once you are done you just stop playing, at the time I didn't understood that you could do something with the universe to escape the loop. I think it was partly because you can't change much in the world, specially because it resets every twenty minutes. Anyway, I finaly got it and I've replayed it already a couple of times.

[@fissionphoenix4995]

Game of the decade.

[@SorryBones]

Exploration game of the century Puzzle game of the century Existential game of the century

[@buttonasas]

"Unvisited Nomai text is visually different than text the player has already read" Not quite true - the game only differentiates text read _in the current loop,_ which is different from the player having read it. A persistent difference would be better but also not perfect because the game can't really know if the player actually read it, just skimmed through or even just held down "translate" on accident while sneezing or something... happens more often than you'd think, I've seen many let's plays do this :D Hornfels unfortunately has missable hints - you only get to ask 1 question of 6 and cannot revisit this because they go to the statue on further loops. Thankfully, the ship log records the suggestion to go to Attlerock, for example.

[@Dan0RG]

This thing about some of the information not being revisitable, Gabbro is another good example. If the loop ends or a cyclone picks up their island before you're finished talking to them for the first time, you can't revisit that piece of dialogue ever again. Pretty unfortunate considering it contains the reveal that Gabbro is in the time loop just like you.

[@fridgegremlin5496]

WOOOOO MORE OUTER WILDS CONTENT

[@rivrr1555]

what a good talk

[@fedorafinder]

OH SHIT HELL YEAH

[@dakota182]

::)

[@lilsheba]

Oh. Just the best/worse example of curiosity payout that the game has to offer, in adorably naive comic form. 😅

[@Tredjehjul]

I got such a great hopes for this game..but cannot really handle this somehow. I am game veteran of C-64 gaming era (translating to ultra hard level of today's games) but for the "relaxed exploration experience" this game is in my opinion too demanding to master. And mastering controls are absolute must to get anywhere and see anything. Most of the times I got stuck under something or flown into infinity with no hope of going back and got to commit suicide... Almost unplayable... wanted to involve my wife but she got stuck even getting to the ship. And the time limit - come on 22 minutes? It's again against the core of the game somehow...I am explorer - give me at least an hour pleeeaase! Seen few things but I probably someday watch gameplay over YT and get my copy shelved... Lost potential in my opinion.

[@Flipside3D]

STOP THE VIDEO! Go play the game and come back and watch this