Bucky Seifert on 24/7/2015 at 00:50

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As the title says, this is a game I feel is not getting the attention it deserves and really want to try to get more people to play it.

The game is essentially Thief 1/2 if it decided to make a baby with Deus Ex 1, for those who don't know. It's not the most polished game in terms of presentation, but it's still got a great style to it with solid stealth game play, and fantastic level design. Plus, a level editor is going to be coming out for it!

(http://store.steampowered.com/app/310740/)

Bucky Seifert on 24/7/2015 at 07:32

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Funny enough, I too am working on a game like that :O though, it's more Thief than Deus Ex, and probably won't be done for quite a while. I hopefully will have the first prototype done before the summer is out.

But yeah, I'm starting another playthrough of Neon Struct. I hope this gets a fair bit of custom levels made for it. This has potential to have a nice little mod scene.

Thirith on 29/7/2015 at 13:57

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And then you get threads of two or three posts that die down immediately. I wouldn't want all megathreads, all the time, but for general discussion, where people make connections ("Game X reminded me of game Y, which I'm currently playing..." "Yeah, developer Z has done some cool stuff. I recently replayed..."), they're fine. If I'm replaying a game and notice something new that I find cool, I'll post this in a general games thread, but I wouldn't start a new thread or revive one that died years ago.

Thirith on 29/7/2015 at 14:19

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I think both have their pros and cons. If there is enough discussion on a particular game or topic, a thread of its own makes sense. As it is, though, the "Now what are you playing?" thread is one of my favourite threads at least, because it has actual conversation, develops like a conversation, and doesn't die after three replies. Perhaps it'd be better if people started new threads on games rather than contribute to one megathread, but I suspect there'd be less discussion on the whole, which I find depressing.

As it is, games that generate more discussion have their own threads and coexist next to "Now what are you playing?".

heywood on 28/9/2015 at 17:41

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This turned out to be a really fun, engaging game. I just finished it over the weekend. In my opinion, it's a must play for Thief and Deus Ex fans. It took me about 15 hours to finish, but I was going for 'S' ratings most of the time and that takes a lot longer.

For the most part, I liked the basic stealth gameplay with old school sneaking in shadows with various stims and gadgets to assist you in being sneaky. The levels were well designed and fun to explore while searching for all those hidden geocaches and stuff. I also liked the quasi futuristic world aesthetic, e.g. the brutalist architecture, the colorful lighting, even the fonts. The music was great too, uncommonly good for an indie game. And of course the story was interesting and meaningful and set up a couple of clever levels. But what impressed me the most was the way almost every element of the game felt like it was honed down to its core and polished in such a way that it achieves a consistent Zen-like quality of artful minimalism running through it. As if Jony Ive or Dieter Rams had a hand in designing it.

I did say "almost" because there was one aspect of the gameplay which was reduced a bit too far: takedowns. Also, there are a couple hints of a possible JC back story but nothing follows, and whether or not you decide to wipe her files at the datacenter seems to have no effect on the endings. Another minor nit is that the tension falls a bit at the endgame: Beatrix Cheung and Peter Tannhäuser are a little bit too nice to Jillian, aren't they?. But aside from those relatively small complaints, I really enjoyed this game.

It's interesting to compare and contrast Neon Struct to Solarix. Both games are indie takes on old school Thief 1/2 stealth; Solarix mashes it up more with SS2 and Neon Struct more with DX. But Solarix seems to suffer a little bit from too much ambition whereas Neon Struct is comfortable in its minimalism. Solarix has more intricate level design, more detailed models, animations, more sophisticated AI, etc. It looks like a AAA title from 10 years ago, and it seems like the devs were trying to push the production values as much as they could within their limited resources. But it's rough around the edges, even after multiple patches. And the level design and pacing is somewhat uneven. It has all the right elements on paper to be an awesome game, and I did like it enough to recommend it to other TTLG members. But it's just not as tight, polished, fun, or memorable as Neon Struct. I think there is probably a lesson here for small indie developers, make sure you nail the basics and have a fun game before worrying about adding lots of detail.