Look Outside Beginner Guide Look Outside Game Walkthrough Wiki

1 The two halves of the loop

The developer describes it plainly: plan tense expeditions outside your apartment, fend off the grotesque monsters in and around the building, then return home with gathered resources and partial answers to recuperate.

Neither half works without the other. Expeditions supply the home, and the home is what makes the next expedition survivable. Players who treat the apartment as a loading screen run out of everything.

2 Plan an expedition before leaving

The word the store uses is tense, and that comes from going out with a purpose rather than wandering. Before you open the door, decide what this trip is for.

3 Distance is the combat system

The store calls the combat inventive turn based, and names the reason: it accounts for the space between you and your foes. In most turn based games position is abstract, so this is the mechanic to learn first.

Practically, that means a turn spent moving is not a wasted turn. Backing away from something that only hurts you up close, or closing on something that needs room to attack, can be worth more than any strike you could have made instead.

4 Makeshift weapons and what they are for

You wield makeshift weapons and items gathered in the corridors. That phrasing implies two things: weapons are found rather than bought, and items are part of the fight rather than a separate inventory screen.

Carry a short range option and something that works at distance, even if one of them is clearly worse. Being unable to reach an enemy at all is worse than hitting it weakly, and in a game where combat accounts for space that situation will happen.

5 Not every creature is a fight

The store is careful to say you encounter strange characters, human and otherwise, and that some of them can be recruited. That means the things in the corridors are not uniformly enemies.

In a survival game with limited supplies, attacking first can close off a character, a story thread or an ally. When something does not immediately attack you, consider that the design may be offering you something other than a fight.

6 Home is a system, not a menu

Back in the apartment you recuperate by playing games, making dinner, crafting tools and getting to know your neighbours turned allies. Four different activities are named, which is a lot for something a lesser game would present as a rest button.

Use all of them. Cooking converts scavenged food into something better, crafting converts junk into tools, and the social time is where the writing lives. A run where you only slept and left again is a run where you skipped half the game.

7 People are content

Friends to recruit and visitors to invite back are listed alongside bosses as the things the ten to twelve hours contain. In other words, the cast is not decoration around the survival loop, it is a substantial share of what there is to find.

Since several different endings exist and the store says every player has a different experience, who you let in is very likely one of the things that shapes where you end up.

8 Your first expeditions

1. Go out with one goal and come back when you have it, rather than clearing floors.
2. Spend a turn watching each new creature before committing to a strategy.
3. Keep a close range and a long range option even if one is poor.
4. Do not attack anything that has not attacked you until you know what it is.
5. At home, cook, craft and talk before leaving again.
6. Take notes on which floors you have not reached. The building is the map.