Late To The Party: Outer Wilds

 I really wanted to like the Outer Wilds. A game about exploring space in a wooden ship? Yeah, OK. Let's see what we see!

But:

I think their choice of having the flight of the spacecraft really hew to how a spacecraft might work was detrimental. I could not get the hang of it, and never felt like I was improving. 

Next, I never felt as if I was progressing my knowledge, either: I went to weird planet after planet-crashing each time, but able to land...until I tried to land on an object and my craft bounced. There was no reason given for said bounce. It just bounced. 

Multiple experiences were like this: I didn't know I could heal myself, until I read it in an online guide. By then I'd already died due to accumulated injury at least once. 

I had also suffocated multiple times, due to an inability to control my movement in my spacesuit. One time I was sucked through a wormhole-no idea how I did that-and ended up thousands of kilometers from my ship, with no way to navigate. 

If failure teaches you nothing, then it rapidly becomes discouraging. 

And that is what happened to me. Instead of being fun, it was depressing to play. I didn't know what was going to happen, until I did: I was going to die and I wouldn't understand why or how to not die next time, except to not go to the place I was trying to explore. 

It's strange for me to have this experience, to do something and gain nothing from my failures. 

But I suppose I did learn something: If an experience is making you miserable, move on.