YIIK: A Post Modern RPG / Ackk Studios / Andrew Allanson - "I wanted to make a game with a protagonist who was very unlikeable" - From Someone who is equally unlikeable. Currently developing Version I.V (1.5)

[FatMebius]

So is the story good now? I've been playing IV off and on and I think the combat is kinda fun and I'm liking the visuals but I'm curious as to whether the IV's story is mostly just the base game with a new coat of paint since that's mostly what I've seen so far.

There's a lot of new story stuff in-between segments. Plus the entirety of NG+ is new. Possibly more secrets or stuff hidden too. No one knows since hardly anyone seems to have played IV.

 

[X Prime]

Most guides are focusing on pre-NG+ and the Discord unfortunately has few details. Some people are being cute and don't explain shit on purpose.

For example, a lot of people don't realize that you have to sell the Broken Record in the actual sell screen in the final area for 1 dollar, and this unlocks Alex's best weapon in the same shopkeeper's Buy screen.

Then there's shit like if you do not have the thousands of dollars on hand to pay Alex Hawkins as soon as he asks, he breaks, leading you to miss out on 5 copies of what is easily the best armor because it gives +200 speed.

 

[Leaded Gasoline]

I finished 1.2.5 some days ago and 1.5 feels almost like a new game just from how much they changed the cutscenes and combat

 

[X Prime]

The problem with 1.5, I think, is it has too much shit. It kind of wears out its welcome unless you understand what the new shit is doing.

(It is effectively metacommentary about deconstructions being stupid, and social media + its users being vapid. Shockingly, it's right, but it feels awfully strange coming from YIIK.)

 

[FatMebius]

Most guides are focusing on pre-NG+ and the Discord unfortunately has few details. Some people are being cute and don't explain shit on purpose.

For example, a lot of people don't realize that you have to sell the Broken Record in the actual sell screen in the final area for 1 dollar, and this unlocks Alex's best weapon in the same shopkeeper's Buy screen.

Then there's shit like if you do not have the thousands of dollars on hand to pay Alex Hawkins as soon as he asks, he breaks, leading you to miss out on 5 copies of what is easily the best armor because it gives +200 speed.

I noticed that you can complete the quest that involves banishing the entity at the factory twice. There's still a good number of bugs.

The problem with 1.5, I think, is it has too much shit. It kind of wears out its welcome unless you understand what the new shit is doing.

(It is effectively metacommentary about deconstructions being stupid, and social media + its users being vapid. Shockingly, it's right, but it feels awfully strange coming from YIIK.)

Agreed. There's a ton of seethe behind the new material. The Allanson bros have a lot to say about critics. It reminds me of that Sam Hyde gag where he's screaming "DON'T LEAVE A NEGATIVE COMMENT." Except the Allanson bros mean it literally. I do think they're talented, but good god do they need a tard wrangler to keep them in line.

 

[X Prime]

That yes/no question from Kisage X actually penalizes you if you answer Yes. It kicks you to NG++ (redoing the part you already did) instead of NG+ (the new content), supposedly.

 

[Haramburger]

Just watch a let's play, its not even worth pirating.

I look forward to my second dose of 80+ hours of youtube footage, without ever having played this piece of shit, any version.

 

[X Prime]

The other issue with the game is it doesn't tell you certain things.

For example, that a certain character's skill, Mend Karta, actually restores destroyed cards. This allows you to spam card sacrifices with impunity. The description only says that it heals cards.

 

[FatMebius]

That yes/no question from Kisage X actually penalizes you if you answer Yes. It kicks you to NG++ (redoing the part you already did) instead of NG+ (the new content), supposedly.

To be fair: YIIK always defaults the cursor to the "correct" option. But, yeah. Picking "Yes" kicks you to a more traditional NG+. Picking "No" lets you play Benevolent Psychosis. And the end of Benevolent Psychosis, you're given the option of whether or not you want your next playthrough to be NG++ or another go of the former.

I look forward to my second dose of 80+ hours of youtube footage, without ever having played this piece of shit, any version.

I want more people to suffer through YIIK.

 

[X Prime]

As far as I am aware there is no reason to play Benevolent Psychosis again, unless you can open that mysterious locked iron maiden in the church, which would not surprise me. It would also not surprise me if I just missed a key.

NG++ has a new ultimate superboss and subsequent ultimate Karta for winning.

 

[LucasSomething]

I'm also on the train of the new content, at least the sheer amount early on, being a downside that hurt the game more than it helped.

I finally pirated the update and after doing 10 minutes of a dream sequence i felt tired already and took a break. Which is weird to me cause i survived much slower indie rpgs like In Stars and Time.

I'm sure it the new game plus has new content and explains stuff but you need to make the player care about the game before that so normies won't care. I love me artsy pretentious rpgs myself but i find meta commentary lazy in general. If yall really think it's worth i'll try next weekend.

 

[X Prime]

You have to care about the characters. It suffers from the same sort of issue as Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology's extra stuff which I explained in the SMT thread.

It's just too many words and the combat is not engaging enough to be a good "glue" inbetween the words.

I like Michael's new stuff. Chondra has a good voice actor, but she's annoying because she's blatantly trying to be the Smart Black Girl who happens to be the most indispensable party member. What's ironic about what I am saying is that if I am interpreting things correctly, Chondra is Michael.

 

[FatMebius]

Michael is the real standout in IV. His voice actor is acting his ass off and all the new material surrounding him is very well done. The new cutscene in Vella's Mind Dungeon where he comes really close to letting his mask slip in particular is really solid.

 

[X Prime]

Pretty much, the Michael content basically carries the game at this point.

Pity he's mid as a party member, even if you abuse the gun.

 

[deepfriedfritter]

I finished YIIK 2 a couple days ago and what I got from it was a feeling, at least in the beginning, that a yiik fan wrote it and made it as a guide for a new yiik fan. It even ties into the question at the end. The Devs assume that by answering 'no' you're admitting that you like YIIK and wants to offer you more of it. Cryille being the old yiik fan and Krow acting as the newly awaken yiik fan. (Cryille's character bio mentions being one to see through the chaos or some shit.) Lots of "Reject the bad memes" e.g. "I'm yiiking out!" Or any quote from running shine's video, and uplift the good memes, fuck I dunno, Alex is a baby man child who lies a lot.

By the end I felt the brothers were trying to be all, 'Maybe we, the devs and you the player, aren't that much different from Alex. Maybe we need to change too and stop hating and forgive Alex for being Alex.' Micheal being a stand-in for both the player and the Allansons. Which I guess is fine and all but I don't recall ever agreeing to this unlikable protagonist shit. Sure Alex is annoying to listen to and would be even worse in a real life setting; but that's not really enough to hate the guy.

 

[FatMebius]

By the end I felt the brothers were trying to be all, 'Maybe we, the devs and you the player, aren't that much different from Alex. Maybe we need to change too and stop hating and forgive Alex for being Alex.' Micheal being a stand-in for both the player and the Allansons. Which I guess is fine and all but I don't recall ever agreeing to this unlikable protagonist shit. Sure Alex is annoying to listen to and would be even worse in a real life setting; but that's not really enough to hate the guy.

Even with the new stuff, Alex never quite comes off as the piece of shit that Andrew wants him to be. Kind of annoying? Sure. Pretentious and spoiled? Yeah. But never outright awful. All the stuff that parallel Alexes do is stuff we hear about off-screen. It's emblematic of the biggest problem with Alex as a character. Lots of telling and not showing. We hear about how parallel Alexes have fucked up other characters (Ditching Vella for a younger girl. Kissing Michael in one reality and trying to kick his ass in another, etc), but the main Alex is dickish at times where it makes sense for him to be salty. Rory lied and he's kind of in the right to be shitty about the waste of time and the fact that they almost died.

I'll say they do a decent job of trying to work with what they've got at least. Like making it clear that Alex is supposed to come off as a bit of a creep and fetishist for his Semi obsession. Which is sorta there in the original release, but conveyed in a way that is so subtle it might as well not be a factor. I get that, as a writer, you don't necessarily wanna spell every little detail out, but YIIK was often times vague to the point that I wouldn't have known some plot elements if I hadn't followed the Allansons on twitter.

 

[X Prime]

The problem with Alex is that he's just some upper middle class liberal twit.

And to be fair, those are kind of ruining the world by the evil of only caring about their own facile bullshit, but that's not enough to cement them as evil. He doesn't even act casually racist, homophobic, or anything.

The game tries to imply he's a racist for even thinking Claudio might be able to pick a lock, except Claudio can in fact pick multiple kinds, thus undermining whatever point it was trying to make.

In other words, this game suffers from the same kind of sanitized inability to write villains as slop like, say, Dragon Age the Veilguard.

 

[Travis Touchdown (REAL)]

I finished YIIK 2 a couple days ago and what I got from it was a feeling, at least in the beginning, that a yiik fan wrote it and made it as a guide for a new yiik fan.

this feels very real as somebody who has finished the Oneyplays series and is playing YIIK IV rn.
Just finished the sewer segment with Rory and it feels like the game was morphed specifically to fit what DD Chris and Julian though had to say about the game by that point

 

[LucasSomething]

Even with the new stuff, Alex never quite comes off as the piece of shit that Andrew wants him to be. Kind of annoying? Sure. Pretentious and spoiled? Yeah. But never outright awful. All the stuff that parallel Alexes do is stuff we hear about off-screen. It's emblematic of the biggest problem with Alex as a character. Lots of telling and not showing. We hear about how parallel Alexes have fucked up other characters (Ditching Vella for a younger girl. Kissing Michael in one reality and trying to kick his ass in another, etc), but the main Alex is dickish at times where it makes sense for him to be salty. Rory lied and he's kind of in the right to be shitty about the waste of time and the fact that they almost died.

I'll say they do a decent job of trying to work with what they've got at least. Like making it clear that Alex is supposed to come off as a bit of a creep and fetishist for his Semi obsession. Which is sorta there in the original release, but conveyed in a way that is so subtle it might as well not be a factor. I get that, as a writer, you don't necessarily wanna spell every little detail out, but YIIK was often times vague to the point that I wouldn't have known some plot elements if I hadn't followed the Allansons on twitter.

I think Andrew wanted Alex to be relatable in some ways and hateable in others but somehow got the opposite effect in his methods.

Like, Alex is "you from another dimension", him being a whiny gamer hipster engaging in escapism feels like Andrew saying you are not so different from him deep inside.

Meanwhile Alex shitting on Rory, not getting a job and ruining every other timeline are supposed to be dramatic callouts of him being the worst but 1-SCREW RORY, 2-The game never gives you a choice and 3-Any sane person can't blame our Alex for those.

Even worse, like running shine said, you're forced to search for jobs and fail so the game allows Alex to say he tried.

 

[Sicko Hunter]

I'm sure this has already been said a million times before but even if Yiik isn't that great a game taking an esoteric idea you have in your head and putting in the thousands of hours necessary to make a full length video game is impressive and does warrant respect. 99% of Indie games like this never get finished let alone look somewhat decent like Yiik does.