Briareos H on 26/7/2013 at 12:47

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Whoops, I forgot to reply. I'm not complaining about the design choices or sounds like half of the internet seems to be doing, because I understand they're as good as can be for a small game.

However, from what I've seen it looks like a very shallow artefact hunt mixed with a hide and seek game. Once you've seen the biomes, once you have a good idea of what the collectables are, you've seen everything the game has to show (esp. since there are no interior spaces) -- so you can only rely on gameplay to make the experience interesting. When that gameplay apparently doesn't amount to much more than that part in STALKER where you had to cross an area, running in the tall grass while avoiding the mutants, that's the part where I become doubtful. Sure, in STALKER it was fun at the beginning, especially because the game was so atmospheric and immersive, but it doesn't inherently make the gameplay mechanic interesting.

Stealth shines in tight and controlled subdivisions of a large space, less so in huge open spaces. I hope for their sake that they really nailed the looks, because without atmoshpere it really does look boring to me. Also, depth with randomization is a feat I only trust 12 bay games to be able to pull off well.

Muzman on 27/7/2013 at 04:49

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The idea that stealth is discrete subdivisions of space/encounters sounds a lot like how Splinter Cell first took the Thief formula and boiled it down to 'avoid this guy' and essentially broke apart or eliminated the larger systemic challenge for ease of access.
It worked of course, but that for me is pretty much exactly where stealth games started to go wrong. Things began to be reductive and rote in the mainstream with only little tweaks and expansions on that right up to the present. I understand why though; it's hard, the AI and feedbacks have to be better than in any other kind of game and then players might find it too difficult . Plus the industry generally feels that stealth is a bad bet in general. So they keep it small and discrete and add gimmicks. Don't mess much with the SC formula if they can help it (and some people genuinely love that discrete stealth encounter and want nothing else but a more detailed version of it each time. Which is fine).

The larger scope and systems is problematic, no doubt about it, but it's a necessary part of every stealth game I've thought was worth its salt. I'm not sure what bit in Stalker that was (sounds specifically from Clear Sky though), but that happened to me quite a bit, and you never know exactly when. It wasn't mutants either, it was usually dudes. They would fan out and drive you places (into anomalies usually) and generally become terrifying to deal with completely at random. However, I am the guy who would essentially move in to the Zone and hunt and wander around. With the meanest mods installed too. Not many really care to do that. I am all for greater spaces and systemic takes on what stealth means though, since it should never have become the limited version that it is today (even though I understand why). The indie experimental space is where advances there will come from, if anywhere, since they can afford the risk.

Concerns about Sir make sense though. I can see how it could easily not sustain itself past two playthroughs or something. There's lots to add to the game yet, like hunting and cooking apparently. A little Day Z ish. But that seems like it could be add odds with the structure of the bots becoming ever more relentless the further you advance. The slower you go the more dug in the bots get. They'll find all the pieces and guard them and you'll be weary of fighting and/or distracting them. So it'll be interesting to see how they balance that.
In some alpha videos there has been some pretty cool turns of events though. I saw one guy setting himself up to raid some guards and grab a piece when he gets surprised by a "hunting party". The bots guarding the piece join in and he's got this nice desperate fight on his hands (among rocky outcrops with his back to a cliff). He barely managed to survive and kill about five bots, leaving one dog still to take care of. He hits it with his last shotgun shell and it turns tail and runs. Bleeding and out of food and bandages, he's now got to chase it down before it brings more bots his way. They run some distance out into open fields and a balloon comes out of the fog. He's got to take the thing down now or they'll be spotted. One round. Two rounds. He just gets it with the last hail mary shot before he's out of bullets and scampers off to hide and find something to heal with.
Scrapes like that are why you play a game like this. So I'm optimistic.

Yakoob on 29/7/2013 at 05:25

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You'd think so but you never know. I'm trying to revamp Postmortem by adding the necessary multiplayer arena deathmatch mode with rocket launchers and leaderboards, but it's not working very well :/

EDIT: also adding a "m-m-monster kill" achievement is hard when you can only ever kill 1 person...

Jason Moyer on 19/8/2013 at 19:29

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(http://store.steampowered.com/app/242880/)

EvaUnit02 on 20/8/2013 at 23:09

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EDIT:- H is the hotkey for bandages.

It's satisfyingly touch as nails since is your character is very fragile. Thus you should definitely try to avoid confrontation, sticking to stealth. Obviously sprinting around and standing straight up will increase your visibiility. Crawling around is the best strategy for not being seen (preferably in tall grass), but you obviously the disadvantage to this is that you move slowly.

You can easily bleed out if don't patch up wounds, fumbling around with the inventory while trying to runaway is frustrating (as it should be, really). Ideally they should have a bandage hotkey like in STALKER.

There's only auto-saving when traveling between islands. Other than that manual saving is the primary M.O., which can only be done at the standing stones (central on each island) and boats. I approve of this design approach, save anywhere/quicksaving would be very detrimental to the survival gameplay. Those with a lack of self-control would savescum for sure.

The core systems were decently fleshed out from what I played. Mostly needs to be tweaked and rebalanced (eg bleed out a bit slower; add more hotkeys; improve UI usability; etc), but the game is fully playable in its present state.

Screenshots. FYI, taken from an older Macbook Pro on low detail mode, 1024x768. Very much a GPU-bound game.
Having a low draw distance is a HUGE disadvantage. Especially on the likes of the Rural biome, where it's mostly open, flatland that goes on for miles and miles.
(http://www.iforce.co.nz/View.aspx?i=vcwqhelj.nxj.jpg) http://iforce.co.nz/i/vcwqhelj.nxj.jpg
(http://www.iforce.co.nz/View.aspx?i=s2rzbzvb.j2o.jpg) http://iforce.co.nz/i/s2rzbzvb.j2o.jpg