I admire its purity - the ALIEN: ISOLATION thread

haven't played it since i got stuck. maybe i need to level down and just jump the dude with my crowbar.

i never stuck with the dlc. seemed insanely hard and the lack of save points bugged me too much

quit this awhile back but i'm determined to finish it. bumped the difficulty down to novice to get past the stupid alien randomness. i swear they used a rng to determine whether the alien sees/hears you or not. the dizzying backdrop to the airlock part was really cool

finished. just not my type of game as i was horrible at it. u ppl doing nightmare difficulty are crazy. but awesome game all-around. shd prob win some awards, at least for environment or sound design.

I have wanted to play this since it was announced for consoles initially but now its on Switch, I took the plunge.

Its basically a cowering simulator...

I like it but if it gets any harder than the first alien encounter, I can see myself noping out of this pretty quick.

Spoiler: it will get harder than the first alien encounter.

I stopped playing it on the PS4 after a while, not because it wasn't any good but in a way because it was too good!

My break from this game became a ... well, break from this game. But I just came across this recent exchange with one of the AI developers, which is fascinating:

I was one of the AI Developers for this game, and you’re totally right. The way this worked is Director operated outside the normal save state system, so when you interact with one of the Xenomorphs or Androids, they will have some degree of knowledge about your play style and strategies. This was done to give the AI some degree of equal footing, just like the player, where continual attempts and save scumming could not allow you to find and exploit some minor flaw in pathing. This means they would learn and hold grudges. As a piece of trivia, we all watched and tried to mimic the Stargate SG1 episode Avatar just a ton of times while working on this routine.

edited 11 hours ago
I LOVE YOUR WORK. This game is a masterpiece and a classic. I wish that it made more cash and we got more sequels because you guys absolutely nailed the aesthetic. Really rekindled my love for Aliens. The polish on everything (like the AI!) really shows :) you guys paid attention to the important details. There's a reason they say it's a true part of the canon. Not many Aliens games hold that title. You should be proud of what you guys created!!
What you just said is prime example of you guys taking it to the next level with your design... I hope future games learn from your advancements!

tysonedwards
11 hours ago
I am right there with you. A lot of work went into the biofeedback engine, where player experience between save states - and even data from Optical Heart Rate Scanners and Micro Expression Frameworks (cough, Kinect v2, cough) - would tie into the play experience even making it so if the player appeared to be enjoying certain sections, dial up the difficulty, increase the number of enemies, or extend the length of a hallway by a few meters. If they are getting frustrated, dynamically dial back the difficulty, in advance of the player ever recognizing the change. Same with the AI design itself and letting actors become aware of evolving strategies between iterations. After all… the player gets to learn from each death.
The “grand vision” was that if people really enjoyed it, maybe Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo add galvanic skin response sensors, 1 lead ECG sensors, microphones, and accelerometers to the controllers so you can know how the player is doing physiologically.
But… none of that happened. Critical failure became cult classic.