Transistor

[Bjorn]

Started playing this tonight.  It's just fucking brilliant, like so many good ideas and good execution in every facet of the game.  I'm particularly impressed by how you need to use different combinations of functions in order to unlock all the background story/lore.  It naturally nudges players towards experimentation, which is something games with interesting systems often fail to do. 

 

Got a bit past the first boss before I quit.  Can't wait to get deeper into it. 

[Spenny]

  On 7/1/2014 at 6:49 PM, Dewar said:

Cloak is pretty awesome as well.

 

I ended up running the second half of the game with Cloak instead of Jaunt. You get a damage bonus when uncloaking which is pretty rad.

[dibs]

Oh man, the cooldown hurts if you don't reduce it though. i favoured jaunt, with the homing dot attack attached. very nice for taking out weaker enemies while waiting for Turn to come up again.

[undermind9]

something to consider with heavy limiter use - Ping w/life steal & bounce.  easily clear the shielded cells, and will quickly clear & heal in a pile of weeds

 

keeping bounce, crash, tap & load on passives.  lots of damage available and heavy survivability.  i found myself spending more time in "real time", especially against Man & the "hair cut" projectiles

[SuperBiasedMan]

I like how most of the suggestions being offered involve abilities I haven't got yet or a system I can't use til later (I'm pretty sure passives haven't been brought in anyway). But really I know I'm being a bit of a baby, I'll just experiment around with abilities like I'm supposed to and figure out alternative strategies. In general I heavily favour maneuverability in games so even a quicker paced mouse control character would annoy me a little for the indirect control of it, so when it's tactically relevant it's more problematic for me.

[Dewar]

Obviously, when you pick powers is going to impact what you have the option to do. If it makes you feel any better, I died completely in that boss fight. The earlier tip to use the end of your turn to get away behind cover is pretty much the best tip.

[Bjorn]

Do powers/options you skip over show back up as an option later (either at a later level up, or through some other mechanism)?  Or are they gone for that playthrough?

[Dewar]

They show up again, usually around 5 levels later.

[Latrine]

You can eventually get everything but not necessarily on a single playthrough. NG+ is pretty fun though, the extra limiters up the challenge and I think there are more enemy spawns in general. Something you don't notice on the first playthrough is that a lot of the encounters are actually random. 

[osmosisch]

Beat this after getting it in the Steam sale.

I adored the graphics and sound/music but the gameplay and story did not grab me very much. I think my core issue with the gameplay is that I didn't like having the periods of downtime where I basically had to run around like a headless chicken waiting for turn() to recharge. I'd rather they had gone pure turnbased but I can understand why they didn't. Just, well, that didn't suit me.

The ending basically came out of nowhere for me, especially given that the relationship between Red and the Transistor is left so understated.

[dibs]

  On 7/3/2014 at 11:42 AM, osmosisch said:

The ending basically came out of nowhere for me, especially given that the relationship between Red and the Transistor is left so understated.

 

I for a long time thought that he was just some stranger or fan that had gotten caught up inside the whole thing. From where he got drunk onwards I got such a stalker vibe...

[Bjorn]

So I finished it this afternoon, shortly before heading off for Fourth of July festivities, which gave my brain some time to ruminate in the background as I celebrated 'merica by blowing shit up and stuffing my face.   I hadn't read much of this thread to avoid spoilers, but just read the last 5 pages or so, at least all the posts after it was actually released.

 

A lot of great powers/combos were talked about here, but I don't think I saw anyone mention how baller Help() is.  The dog is amazing.  He's a second target, so that takes some of the heat off you during Turn cooldown.  He can circle a map multiple times with his crazy movement in Turn, which lets you sometimes completely stay out of combat yourself on the opposite side of the map while having him murder things for you. Load() gives him a HUGE AoE bark.  He benefits from debuffs like Void and Crash, which help compensate for his damage later on.  And there are some other interesting combos you can stack on him (like Spark for 2 dogs).  I'd have to check my stats, but he was probably up there with Crash as my most used Function.  The only real downside was the long summon period, but most fights I could get him out right away without problem and he'd either make it through the fight or there would only be minor cleanup work after he was gone. 

 

I'm a bit conflicted in how I feel about the story overall, but I think there are some points that haven't been brought up in this thread yet (unless I missed a spoiler going back through).  But I'm going to sleep on it tonight, too tired to try and work through my thoughts on it. 

[Bjorn]

Spent some time thinking about the story this weekend and think I got some things straightened out. I think everything in the story revolves around two characters, Sybil and the Voice. Some of this is conjecture, but I think all of it has some support in what's present.

Overall I'm really impressed with the story and world building Supergiant achieved. I think it delves into very similar themes as Bastion, but overall the story is far more interesting and detailed.

First, a shoutout to sexuality and gender

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There are 18 named characters in the game, and 6 of them are women. That's still only a third, but it's better than a lot of games and the women are all profesionals and respected leaders in their fields. There are 3 likely LGBT characters, all of them on the villain side, which is interesting but may not have much deeper meaning. Asher and Grant are likely married, and Sybil is either gay or bi.

The world and characters

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I don't think this is a Matrix-like place where the people have "real" bodies somewhere. I think the people in Cloudbank are part of the Process themselves. Either they were designed that way, or have evolved out of the process at some point. Perhaps they are an experiment in a super computer. Or they are the NPCs in an abandoned MMO that has been running for millenia. They are of their world in the same way we are of our world. This is why each character represents a Function, because they are themselves just code that once had a purpose. Not all Functions in a program are created equal, which is why some people have greater power than others. But like the real worl, some people can leverage lesser advantages to achieve great power.

Sybil

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Sybil is an odd one and worth considering how strange she is compared to everyone else. Everyone else's functions are all directly related to their skills or personality. And the functions mostly have similar capabilities whether they are in the Active, Passive or Support slots. Sybil's Help isn't like that though. It gives a radically different power depending on where it is slotted. It can provide a companion, suppress the spread of the process or make you a Superuser with the uber-attack Kill().

Sybil also gives you access to the Backdoor, a secret personal space that can be accessed from all over Cloudbank. She had found or created a kind of interdimensional space that was clearly not a common thing.

As previously mentioned, she was infatuated with Red.

Of all the characters, Sybil may well have been the most powerful of everyone before Red took up Transistor. I don't think her goals were the same as the Camerrata. She already had a level of control in the city that the other members didn't. She could, maybe, create spaces on her own and she had a large amount of influence on the designers and tastemakers in the city, giving her a huge influence over what people would be voting on. I suspect that she may have always intended on betraying the Camerata or using them for her own goals.

The Voice

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I think the Love in the Transistor is actually part of the Process. The various entries suggest that he DID exist before the beginning of the game, but that he was distant and mysterious and only associated with Red. There's a 95 percent chance based on his Trace data that survived that he does not match any known resident of Cloudbank.

So where did he come from? I think he was spawned from a combination of the evolving Process, Sybil and Red. Royce was experimenting with the Process, bringing it into the open and causing a kind of rapid, forced evolution, which eventually resulted in Man-like creatures being brought forth. Sybil's Function allowed her to summon help from the process, both on the battlefield and as a companion (as seen in her Backdoor space). Red makes people vulnerable and weak to other influences. The influence she had on the masses made her uncomfortable and she withdrew from much of society other than performing. Sybil was obsessed with Red's music and probably being influenced by it. Red was also influencing the Process. You can see how it nearly worships her in the late game, even as it is trying to destroy her. These three elements came together, unitentionally by any of the characters, to spawn the Lover. A dedicated companion whose sole purpose was to support and love Red. Which creates all sorts of fucked up questions about the ethical nature of the relationship if he was created to love her and she knows that, and I think she does in the end.

What happened right before the game started

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The Camerata attacked Red, the Lover intervened and the result is that Red ends up in possession of the Transistor. Why would the Camerata abandon the Transistor? It is the tool they absolutely must have to finish their goals.

Something went wrong. I think the Transistor "backfired" when it absorbed the Lover. It wasn't meant to absorb the Process. But something like the Lover had never existed before. It caused a surge or something. This cripples Grant (who we know is injured in some way). Asher chose to try and save his husband by dragging his body away to their safehouse, rather than save the Transistor. Sybil was caught in it as well, which resulted in driving her fully nuts.

The other possibility is that Sybil may have intervened in this time. Her goal was to get the Lover killed, not necessarily get Red killed/trapped. Once the Lover was taken, she stepped in stop Red from being taken (with her Kill function), crippling Grant but also being badly injured herself.

Either of these is equally likely to me, or it may be a combination of both events happened.

So what's up with the end?

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Red is abandoned in an empty world. She knows she can't bring anyone back from the dead. At least 99 percent of Cloudbank is dead, and more than likely everyone but her is dead. She hasn't committed suicide, she's just stepping through a doorway to the only place she knows that has anyone alive in it.

Also, she has become God. The Process is gone, and Cloudbank depended on it for all the background work. As far as we know (or her for that matter), even if there was still a population left to save, she would be responsible for everything the Process previously did. That could be a crushing realization.

[ariskany_evan]

Great points!!  

 

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I love the idea that the Lover is the manifestation of an obsessed fan.  Did they even have a relationship before he got sucked into the Transistor?  Was he just a stalker?

 

She doesn't really communicate with him until he gets slowed down by the Spine; up until that point he's just rambling at her.  Does their relationship blossom only in the face of mass extinction?

 

I think I'll try my NG+ with that reading going.  Fun to see if it's supported.

[Bjorn]

  On 7/7/2014 at 5:02 PM, ariskany_evan said:

Great points!!  

 

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I love the idea that the Lover is the manifestation of an obsessed fan.  Did they even have a relationship before he got sucked into the Transistor?  Was he just a stalker?

 

She doesn't really communicate with him until he gets slowed down by the Spine; up until that point he's just rambling at her.  Does their relationship blossom only in the face of mass extinction?

 

I think I'll try my NG+ with that reading going.  Fun to see if it's supported.

 

Thanks!  On your spoiler:

 

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I think that Red and the Lover must have had some connection or knowledge of each other before, but I agree that some of his dialogue does point towards them not having a romantic relationship before his death, and that he might have manifested as an obsessed fan or stalker. But then the end credits kind of throw a wrench into that, as they appear to show the two of them being lovers before the start of the game.

 

More on the Voice and my theory about him:

 

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His function is Breach, which means to tear or rupture something. It seems like a pretty clear reference that he represents the ability to transcend two worlds/states and it is another hint that points to him being an outsider of some kind. I think there are a lot of little story and biography details nested in the names and uses of Functions, not just their lore unlocks.

 

More on Sybil as well:

 

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She appears to be using Superuser mode when you fight her, though her attack is different than yours. She floats around the battlefield, and when you use it, you also float.

 

I also wonder if she was helping keep the Process in check, and no one knew it.  Her support ability points towards that, and it's after she's been driven mad that the Process starts to spiral out of control.  Everyone thinks it is because of the Transistor, but it's not entirely clear.

[osmosisch]

Great posts Bjorn. It's definitely an interesting take on things. I wonder what makes me so much less willing in this game to invest mental energy in figuring things out than in the Souls games. I'm still inclined to blame the (to me) irritating flow of combat and media res nature of the story from the beginning.

[Upthrust]

  On 7/7/2014 at 4:18 PM, Bjorn said:

First, a shoutout to sexuality and gender

  Reveal hidden contents

There are 18 named characters in the game, and 6 of them are women. That's still only a third, but it's better than a lot of games and the women are all profesionals and respected leaders in their fields. There are 3 likely LGBT characters, all of them on the villain side, which is interesting but may not have much deeper meaning. Asher and Grant are likely married, and Sybil is either gay or bi.

 

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There's even what seems to be a transgendered character in one of the bios. At least, that's how I assume "Gender: X" and "a variety of social challenges she experienced early on" is meant to be interpreted. 

[Vasari]

So according to the latest podcast, Red is not animated ingame by sprites or by a realtime 3D render. Rather, she (and I guess other NPCs as well?) are all made up of compressed Bink video files with an alpha channel around them. I'd love to know more about how that works, because that sounds completely fucking insane!

[syntheticgerbil]

Isn't that pretty much the definition of in game sprites just in a (I'm guessing uncompressed) movie file? It's still a frame by frame affair.

[Merus]

Video files are not nearly as heavyweight as they seem these days. For instance, the dialog box animation in Windows (copy, etc.) are all movie files as well.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I was mostly amused because I've never even heard of Bink do that made it seem more arcane

[ariskany_evan]

Getting near the end of my NG+.  Have been plagued with thoughts about world-building (no pun intended).

 

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Technology has progressed to a plateau.  It exists both within us and without us.  The problems of the world have been solved.  Things change (as opposed to progress) at a pace at which recording the past becomes meaningless, thus there is no history.  The Process underlies our entire human existence.  At a certain age, kids are either given or get to choose a function() that allows them to manipulate the Process in a small way.  The Process is democratic in the sense that every aspect of it can be manipulated by functions held by its citizens, but also through the voting machines that the administrators monitor and put into effect.

 

An interesting thought is that Red isn't such a special main character.  She's just good at her function.  The Camerata is a series of anomalies (Grant being voted into power so many more times than any other administrator previously, for example).  They are the special people, the ones who uncovered the matrix.  There's something nice about playing as someone who isn't necessarily good at the core gameplay.  Sure, Red is debatably the best singer in Cloudbank, which adds color (pun) to her character, but otherwise she's just as good as anyone would be at fighting off the Process.

 

I'm guessing there's a choice to not enroll with the Process and gain a function.  "Not on Facebook", but with actual political/societal implications.  The Lover could then be thought of as a future drifter.  A guy who for one reason or another couldn't make up his mind.  The Transistor couldn't fully process him, so he was left more in limbo, between both spaces.  One of his lines is something along the lines of "This [being in the transistor] is the first time I've felt like I'm good at something."  Maybe Red taking him as her lover was controversial, something she'd need to hide.

 

The outside world... If the Process is world-wide, then it makes sense that most all of human civilization would be wiped clean.  The news story towards the end mentions that all of the remaining city population was huddled on the eastern edge of the city.  They look west and can see nothing where the city used to be.  More importantly, they look east, outside of the city, and don't see anything.  That was the only support I could find for the theory that the Process is most everywhere in the world.

 

Who's left after everything.  The transistor still exists.  There could potentially be pockets of humans who never chose a function left in the world.  "They [the Process] don't like the water" was a line, so life could still continue in the water.  So just a mass extinction event, not total annihilation.  

 

 

Just some theories, but I found myself circling around to find these.  The way in which things are so carefully just so in this game led me to believe that the world was fully thought out, that there would hopefully be enough clues to create a fuller picture.

[Merus]

So I've finished the first run-through.

 

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My impression was that the Voice had some memory loss when integrated into the Transistor, which is why, in the critical moments when we're learning about him, he comes off more as an obsessed fan than as someone with a reciprocal relationship with Red. Of course, that's his jacket she's wearing all along, and they have matching outfits.

[Arathain]

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The relationship between Red and her Lover is absolutely reciprocal. You listened to Paper Boats, the final song, right? The sense of wonderful inevitability that Red sings about feels very familiar. I feel the same way about my wife and child. All of Red's motivations have to be seen in the context of a view that she will not and cannot be separated from the one she truly loves.

[Berzee]

To me, Transistor's story is primarily a cautionary tale / fable about why you never, Ever, EVER throw your sword.