T w e n t y S i d e d

After the tutorial, Prey settles into a pattern that’s going to repeat for most of the rest of the game. You need to get thing A, but to obtain that thing you need to go through obstacles B, C, D and E, and each of those obstacles has sub-obstacles and optional branching diversions to explore. 

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Prey 2017 Part 5: Getting Around the Cosmos”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Last week I admitted that – much to my embarrassment – there were a bunch of details in the game that I’d missed. Then in the comments I discovered that I am not alone in this. Everyone seems to have gaps in their knowledge. Even more interesting is that everyone’s gaps are unique. We all know 90% of the backstory, but the missing 10% is different for everyone.

The terrible thing is that it’s really hard to fill in these gaps. If I claim that X, then someone else will respond with, “Hey. I never saw X. Are you sure about that? Can you cite your source?” And of course I can’t. We’re all just reading emails on hacked computers and fragments of magazine articles found in locked rooms. There are hundreds of these kinds of messages in the game, and it’s easier to remember what you read than where you read it. 

But I think there’s one misconception I should be able to clear up. Last week several people had the impression that in order to make a neuromod with skill X, a Typhon needs to consume the mind of a human being with skill X. 

Based on what the game tells us, this is extremely unlikely.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Prey 2017 Part 4: Good Morning Morgan”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

The weird thing about Prey is that it has almost no story, but it has absolutely tons of backstory. Most of the game consists of Morgan just trying to get from A to B and running into an endless series of hazards and complications because the space station is in such disarray. Morgan’s adventure is primarily a series of door-opening exercises, but there’s a ton of worldbuilding and history leading up to that adventure.

The author shows a lot of respect for the intelligence and curiosity of the player. There’s never a scene where someone grabs the player’s camera for a brute-force info dump. Very little of the history is revealed through direct dialog, and the little bit we do get is provided out-of-order. If you want to understand the world of Prey, then you need to read bits of in-game lore, listen to optional audiologs, pay attention to environmental cues, and extrapolate the whole based on these various hints.

I love it. The knowledge is there if you care about it, and the gameworld rewards serious inspection. At the same time, the game never force-feeds you and you’re free to run around and shoot shit in blissful ignorance if that’s more your speed.Although, if that’s the case then I can’t help but think you’d be better served by some other genre. 

For the sake of this retrospective, I’m going to present the important bits of historical context in order.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Prey 2017 Part 3: The Story is Mostly Backstory”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.