NOCLIP Pocket E92 - Mash Your Body - The Fall

My intentions are podcast. Welcome back to the podcast! Today,
we’re going to be talking about The Fall. Despite being almost ten
years old, I’d consider this to be part of the new wave of
adventure games, ones that seek to capture some of the elements of
the classic games but without the more obtuse elements. The Fall
mostly manages this, using a 2D sidescrolling style which limits
the amount of screen searching and navigation you have to do to
find all the pieces to each of the puzzles. It’s not without its
stumbling points, but for the most part the puzzles are well
designed and placed very smoothly into the difficulty curve.
Slightly more questionably, it also includes combat mechanics and
some exceedingly light platforming, but the mechanic set is well
rounded and it’s easy to overlook some of the less polished
aspects. The kicker, though, is that what you didn’t know you were
actually here for is the narrative. The game is shockingly well
written, both for the genre and medium as well as the time period,
doing a great job of communicating its themes without dumbing them
down for the player to understand. It’s a sci-fi narrative focused
around AI that feels very focused, and honestly ahead of its time,
and it’s well worth playing just for the story alone. We’re going
to be talking about the more misguided elements of the puzzles and
mechanic systems, how impressed we are that we cared about the
characters at all, and ways to improve coffee…puzzles. Thank you
for joining us again this week! This is a game that had made it
onto the Mystery May list for how long we’ve known about it, but
having now played it, it’s surprising how little it shows its age.
Certainly in some mechanical ways it feels old, but we were
impressed by its maturity. Let us know what you thought in the
comments section or over on our Discord! Next time, we’re doing
what may be our first ever Christmas special, and talking about
Cthulhu Saves Christmas, so we hope you’re in the spirit for it
then.