Indie Games
- Thread starter Hatorade
- Start date
Lodi
Blackwing Lair Raider
- 1,448
- 1,457
Vorph
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
- 10,996
- 4,719
Seems like a good week for indies. Along with Void Bastards, there's also Atom RPG 1.1 (Russian Fallout 1/2 with good reviews) , It Lurks Below (David Brevik's new game), and Outer Wilds (ruined by Epic on PC though). Void Bastards and Outer Wilds are both on Xbox Game Pass, but no love for PC/Play Anywhere. Shame too, Void Bastards sounds great, but $30 seems a bit steep for what it is.
Last edited:
Slaanesh69
Millie's Staff Member
- 5,870
- 16,348
No kidding, that looks amazing. Now execution will be the question. It's like Empyrion, No Man's Sky, Space Engineers, and Star Citizen had an orgy and Starbase popped out from the pile of sweaty flesh.
Also I watched some streams of Void Bastards and put it on my Wishlist as well. Looked fun and interesting.
j00t
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 7,380
- 7,471
i'm about an hour or so into it. it's pretty enjoyable so far. the dialogue is a little... "young adult" if that makes any sense, but the gameplay seems great so far. a lot of the abilities you get seem to be limited uses, but don't necessarily warrant it, such as having 1 use of 1 extra damage. but again, once i level up some more and get more access to gems (which you use to power up abilities) that might make a bigger difference...
either way, scratches that tactical rpg itch
Szlia
Member
- 6,560
- 1,318
I completed today Return of the Obra Dinn. It's a game made by Lucas Pope, famously known for Papers, Please (an absolutely brilliant game you must play if you have not). It was in a lot of Best of 2018 lists, so I am a little bit late to the party here. The idea of the game is that you must find out what happened to all the crew and passengers of a ship, the Obra Dinn. To do that, you have a magical pocket watch that, once in the presence of a corpse, allows you to see and explore the frozen in time moment when their death occurred (you also get to hear a bit of what happened before). Armed with this device, the ships' manifest, the ship's map and several sketches of all these fine people, you have to piece back what happened, little by little.
From an art direction / technical standpoint, the game looks like an early Macintosh game (only black and white, there is no shades of grey, only dithering). It's some serious wizardry, because the game is in polygonal 3D, yet, somehow, the rendering and filtering does not result in noisy or scintillating visuals. It is very original and does look very nice. In the video options, you can pick other computers/monitors of that era to accommodate your taste and/or nostalgia (I myself went for a render that used a very pleasant beige instead of white).
Without wandering into spoiler territory, I would say that my experience with the game was uneven, but it's unclear to me if it's because I am an idiot or because the game failed to hint at its genius early on. Basically, I played through the game finding it extremely tedious, with a huge dose of fluff for very little substance, and reached after several hours a very unsatisfying ending (solving about a third of the fates). I was just about to give up on the game, but checking some kind of beginner's guide on youTube made me realize I did not understand what the game expected of me as a player. The substance was there all along, I just failed to actively look for it. From then on, I did some sleuthing and solved all the other fates and that 2nd part of my play-through was very enjoyable, but probably not as enjoyable as it would have been if I understood the game properly from the get go.
That being said, I still feel one of the game mechanisms somewhat works against the game itself: every time you have three fates correct, the game validates them. As a result, when you are pretty sure to have two fates correct, you can try some random stuff on a third one until you strike gold. It's unclear to me if you have to do that to solve all the fates, but I would recommend you try and avoid doing it because, ultimately, you rob yourself of some satisfying sleuthing. Now, I understand that if you had to have hypothesis for all the fates before learning if you were right or not, the task would have been extremely daunting! It would also have been soul crushing if after a dozen hours of play you ended up being told "You made mistakes. Try again!" I guess validating fates 3 by 3 is some sort of middle ground already, but I feel it could have been done in 5 or 6 at least to make it less tempting to brute force solutions.
I would recommend you try this very original game if you are at all into its theme or like the idea of doing some detective work. To avoid the pitfall I fell in, let me give you this word of advice: if the game tells you you are able to identify a character (the portrait is no longer blurred), you absolutely can do it, even if it is not obvious how to. Also, bookmarks are your friends.
From an art direction / technical standpoint, the game looks like an early Macintosh game (only black and white, there is no shades of grey, only dithering). It's some serious wizardry, because the game is in polygonal 3D, yet, somehow, the rendering and filtering does not result in noisy or scintillating visuals. It is very original and does look very nice. In the video options, you can pick other computers/monitors of that era to accommodate your taste and/or nostalgia (I myself went for a render that used a very pleasant beige instead of white).
Without wandering into spoiler territory, I would say that my experience with the game was uneven, but it's unclear to me if it's because I am an idiot or because the game failed to hint at its genius early on. Basically, I played through the game finding it extremely tedious, with a huge dose of fluff for very little substance, and reached after several hours a very unsatisfying ending (solving about a third of the fates). I was just about to give up on the game, but checking some kind of beginner's guide on youTube made me realize I did not understand what the game expected of me as a player. The substance was there all along, I just failed to actively look for it. From then on, I did some sleuthing and solved all the other fates and that 2nd part of my play-through was very enjoyable, but probably not as enjoyable as it would have been if I understood the game properly from the get go.
That being said, I still feel one of the game mechanisms somewhat works against the game itself: every time you have three fates correct, the game validates them. As a result, when you are pretty sure to have two fates correct, you can try some random stuff on a third one until you strike gold. It's unclear to me if you have to do that to solve all the fates, but I would recommend you try and avoid doing it because, ultimately, you rob yourself of some satisfying sleuthing. Now, I understand that if you had to have hypothesis for all the fates before learning if you were right or not, the task would have been extremely daunting! It would also have been soul crushing if after a dozen hours of play you ended up being told "You made mistakes. Try again!" I guess validating fates 3 by 3 is some sort of middle ground already, but I feel it could have been done in 5 or 6 at least to make it less tempting to brute force solutions.
I would recommend you try this very original game if you are at all into its theme or like the idea of doing some detective work. To avoid the pitfall I fell in, let me give you this word of advice: if the game tells you you are able to identify a character (the portrait is no longer blurred), you absolutely can do it, even if it is not obvious how to. Also, bookmarks are your friends.
Last edited:
- 1
Szlia
Member
- 6,560
- 1,318
Played some Outer Wilds today. It's a single player space exploration game packed full of strange ideas, Many exploration games are a huge quantity of nothing with a little mysterious something sprinkled over it, and I guess it works ok in a semi-contemplative way. Here though, it's like the total opposite : everywhere you go you fall on some weird stuff that is connected to other weird stuff through plot. Surprisingly, even on this very dense world, there still is a strong sense of awe, wonder and danger going on, because things are just very very bizarre. Will post more when my friend and I are done with the game, which will probably take another 3 Thursday afternoons.
It was an Xbone and Epic Store exclusive for a while, but it was released a couple weeks ago on PS4.
It was an Xbone and Epic Store exclusive for a while, but it was released a couple weeks ago on PS4.
Szlia
Member
- 6,560
- 1,318
Just a bump and an update : we are not done yet (probably another couple Thursdays needed), but I feel it is a milestone game. A game that might not find the huge audience it deserves but will be played by just about every game developer worth their salt and influence their work.
Szlia
Member
- 6,560
- 1,318
Dandai
that's the part where I have to make sure you are talking about Outer Wilds (a game about exploring a strange solar system about to die that has very little randomness and no equipment or leveling of any sort other than knowledge - so not really a rogue-like ?) and not The Outer Worlds (a space exploration action rpg that I did not play).
Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
- 14,539
- 10,027
I've never heard of either be referred to as a roguelike. haha. I have heard very good things about Outer Wilds.
all say, "go in blind". some comparisons to subnuatica. but think those are very light. I get some impressions its more like Firewatch, and edith finch etc...
"it deserves but will be played by just about every game developer worth their salt and influence their work. " I hear shit like that and I makes me squint my eyes and worry if its going to make me want to punch the pretentious as fuck devs. I am REALLY fucking sick of meta-narratives in games and the like.
all say, "go in blind". some comparisons to subnuatica. but think those are very light. I get some impressions its more like Firewatch, and edith finch etc...
"it deserves but will be played by just about every game developer worth their salt and influence their work. " I hear shit like that and I makes me squint my eyes and worry if its going to make me want to punch the pretentious as fuck devs. I am REALLY fucking sick of meta-narratives in games and the like.
Dandai
<WoW Guild Officer>
- 5,907
- 4,482
I’ve played and beaten both. I don’t want to say too much about Wilds because it really deserves to be played blind. What I meant by “roguelike?” is I don’t know what genre to ascribe the game to besides rinse and repeat. Anyway, before I say too much, yes, I meant the game you’re talking about and not Outer Worlds - which has no elements comparable to a roguelike.
Szlia
Member
- 6,560
- 1,318
Caliane
I have not played Edith Finch, but I can tell you Outer Wilds has almost nothing to do with Firewatch. Also, unless it somehow shows up as some twist in the end, there is no pretentious meta-narration of any kind. This game will be studied and replicated for things like content density, confidence in the player's wit and curiosity, non-linear narrative structure, gating through knowledge, etc...
Dandai
fait enough. I guess the "try, fail, try again, fail differently" loop can be somewhat akin to the rogue-like loop, but it's a bit of stretch. The difficulty to find a game that similar to it goes to show the uniqueness of Outer Wilds.