Bob plays Grounded #1

Channel:

Robert Dodd

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Published on February 17, 2023 2:57:57 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hBBvRg6vnQ

Game:

Grounded (2022)

Duration: 38:23

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We take a break from our regularly scheduled Skyrim content to play Grounded. Because that is what I am playing these days.

I love AND hate Grounded. Since I am spending all my gaming time these days playing it, I expect I love it more than hate it, but the path to get what you want in the game is as opaque as the mud in the swamp. There is no lore, since your new home has previously only been the home of bugs and they don't do lore. So you often have no clue as to how to progress. You just have to thrash around killing bugs and chopping plants and analyzing the dead bug bits for RAW SCIENCE! until you get somewhere. You have to climb up a mind-numbing and completely invisible tech tree in order to get what you want. You will never know that spider brains will unlock level II axes until you analyze spider brains or whatever. Before then you have no clue.

That said, the sense of challenge and adventure you get is a rare experience in gaming. As a kid, I used to build little miniature cities in the back yard, making domes obelisks and monuments in the clay and collecting colorful gravel to decorate them, and imagining what civilization would live there. This game is very much reminiscent of those childhood experiences. Also the verticality of the game, the fact that you can climb the weeds and build vertically makes you feel like a back yard Tarzan. I hope that some future iteration of the Elder Scrolls games will feature tree climbing, because it is awesome. Even the fact that your character choices are all teens enhances the feeling of bringing back childhood imaginings about the world of the back yard.

The enemies do not scale with your level because your character does not level, it only gets new tech. Wolf spiders for instance will eat your lunch no matter what you do starting out. The only thing that improves is your own strategies as a player and your tech level. You are not a badass and as far as I can tell you will never be, but I am still relatively new to the game.

I have at least one more episode in the can and there is a high degree of likelihood that there will be more after that since that is what I am playing right now. Nevertheless, I can feel the Skyrim withdrawals setting in and it's not unlikely I will return to it and the adventures of Ra'jazz but it might be a month or so.

As always, I never play TO record, I only record what I am actually playing at the time. This is what I am playing now.

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