This game stresses me out

[firefyte]

#12268

It might be me being old, but I’m feeling quite stressed in parts of this game, I don’t remember feeling this when I played UAKM and Overseer.

Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen ‘gamer mode’?

I hope this doesn’t reflect other people’s playthrough.

[Tijn]

#12269

I’ve yet to start, but choosing “gamer mode” sounds like it might be a bad idea haha

I’m hoping to get around checking this out in the coming days, and when I do I’ll definitely go for the lighter “entertainment mode” first, that seems a lot more doable for a first-time player like me.

[Pix]

#12270

It’s quite a relaxing game in my eyes with a few actiony bits I guess. One of the features in gamer mode from what I recall is getting more points for solving some of the puzzles quickly. Is that the stressful part? There is no penalty for taking forever other than points here so there isn’t a real rush. You can also swap to the easier mode at any time but can’t swap back again. Hints are disabled in gamer mode but you can of course save your game, get your hint then reload again.

Gamer mode has a handful of extra bits – off the top of my head I can only remember them near the end of the game where there are some extra rooms in the final section.

[firefyte]

#12275

I think it must be related to spikes while playing in dosbox (max cycles dosbox staging), as I noticed timed puzzles running out of time before the time is up, and movement might spike and feels unreliable (using o.g. controls), especially on the final stretch where you have a movement-critical puzzle.

[Dreamkid]

#12283

I think I read gamer mode includes some extra content or locations or something although the manual sort of recommended it only for “experienced players” or those who have already played through entertainment mode.

[Xanarki]

#12288

Yeah, as already hinted at, Gamer Mode does increase the difficulty via the inability to get hints in-game and certain puzzles being timed (whereas in the normal mode they’re not timed at all or they have a more generous time limit). The tradeoff is that there’s extra puzzles tossed into the game, although it’s not a lot.

I’m uncertain if any of the extra locales/puzzles are hugely relevant to the story, though. The “normal” mode already contains plenty of locations and endings, at least.

So all in all, Pandora Directive did pretty decent in the replayability dept. Although tbh I’m not sure if I have the resilience to re-play it through that 2nd mode lol.

[Loomattic90]

#12371

I thought I was softlocked because I run out of money but finally you can give up points to get some cash back ! What a relief…

[watchful]

#12372

Not just *some* but 500 points! My ego cannot take that kind of hit.

For real though, it’s nice how these later adventure games had accessibility options like that, alternate solutions, and/or built-in hint/journal systems.

[Dreamkid]

#12381

Typing of ego, I had to concede to hints just because I missed the open action for a box. I guess I didn’t mouse over it just right, sort of like how I missed hotspots in The Longest Journey and Runaway: A Road Adventure despite mousing over the whole area.

[red.hexapus]

#12391

I’ve been playing this recently and I had really enjoyed the acting, the interactions between characters and Tex’s witty comments, but I’ve just gotten to Day 7 and this part just completely killed my enthusiasm towards this game 🙁

It feels so tedious and stressful at the same time, I will probably just give it a break for now and try to come back to the game in a week or two.

[Dreamkid]

#12395

I just finished the game after abusing hints. It seemed neat at first, but it dragged on for so long that I was just ready to be finished with it. It didn’t help that I had real life things to vie for my time this month. Maybe, I would have liked it more had I not been stuck so much, and had more time to play?

[jan0sch]

#12428

Wrapping up:

I liked it initially but was unnerved fast by the controls. Thanks to the wsad patch I got back to it.
However while the acting/video stuff is not bad it always breaks immersion for me. Also I feel less “free” than in comparable text/point and click games. Maybe because the video sets somehow “real world” expectations. I did not finish it and also found it a bit of a drag.

However it isn’t bad and I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as they could. 🙂