Achron (you know, that time travelling RTS) is available for pre-order now. Doing so gives you access to the alpha demo.
I admit I'm kind of tempted.
Games for 2009... And BEYOND!
I got it too, unfortunately I'm pretty much terrible at playing the game. I can't seem to do any kind of time travel which doesn't end up with me in a worse position :/
I think I just need a bit more practice
I've got to try fighting a battle, then chronoporting the survivors back in time and sending them as reinforcements to the battle...
I think I just need a bit more practice
I've got to try fighting a battle, then chronoporting the survivors back in time and sending them as reinforcements to the battle...
GENERATION 22:The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
I was temped not, I don't see how this is ever going to be a good game. Sure it's intresting, but I think there are so many possobilities that everybodies head is going to spin in trying to think of them, especially in a relative short time.
So what you get is hoaxes and you hope your hoax is better then the enemies, but please tell me if it get's any better then that.
So what you get is hoaxes and you hope your hoax is better then the enemies, but please tell me if it get's any better then that.
Jordy... wrote:I was temped not, I don't see how this is ever going to be a good game. Sure it's intresting, but I think there are so many possobilities that everybodies head is going to spin in trying to think of them, especially in a relative short time.
So what you get is hoaxes and you hope your hoax is better then the enemies, but please tell me if it get's any better then that.
The game (apparently) will have a lot of flexibility in how fast various things happen. For example the developers have said many times that in multiplayer games you can configure how quickly time waves propogate - so if you like a slow game (giving you time to think about the changes in the timeline) you can space timewaves further apart.
You can see changes in the past occurring as time waves sweep past, so often you don't to react quite as fast as you'd imagine, in fact since you can pause time to respond to enemy actions often the game is slower than a normal RTS.
Saying that, in the last game I played I was doing really well, until a timewave swept past and suddenly BAM, my entire army disappeared off the *entire timeline* - somehow they destroyed my army so far into the past that it was off the timeline - I honestly have no idea what happened :/
In summary, buy it.
GENERATION 22:The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
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Ace Rimmer
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RabidZombie
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Ace Rimmer wrote:If your army disappears, does that mean everything you gained with it goes too?
Yes, if an army is killed in the past all the armies achievements get swept away as the timewave passes, if you're smart you can go back, save your army, and go back to your previous mission at double speed and overtake the timewave, thus the enemy player *thinks* the timewave will sweep past, destroy your army, and restore their base - instead it sweeps past, and nothing much changes because you managed to save yourself.
Unfortunately there is no indication as to what changes are wrapped up in a timewave, which is a bit of a problem. It means that when my entire army disappeared in the single player mode, I had *no idea* what killed it. All I could see was my army disappear, and I explored the map as far into the deep past as I could go and my army was dead even back then! I guess the AI destroyed my army really far back down the timeline, and the timewaves took so long bringing that change that by the time I realised it had happened (I was working at the other end of the timeline, in the present) it was too late, and I couldn't save my army. Smart move if you can pull it off....
GENERATION 22:The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
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vanarbulax
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So, The Void... an interesting game to put it lightly.
The only snippet I could think of was "the most surreal Harvest Moon you've ever played". This is mainly because you spend a long time growing colour and exploring areas, talking to the different denizens (since they're not exactly people) of the world, earning their trust through gifts and settling into a routine to constantly feed your demand for colour. Except that it's not like that at all, instead of growing carrots and turnips you're growing colour to manipulate the world itself and instead of an idyllic routine of rural labour you're desperately trying to please half-dead monstrosities from fear of being banished to absolute death for corrupting the nymph like "sisters" they protect.
The mechanics take a leaf from Okami's book, drawing symbols with precious colour to attack enemies, create shields or give colour to trees so you can harvest them later. But unlike every other game where you triumphantly return the grey world into glorious colour you have to tread carefully, colour is insanely precious, the moment it is no longer coursing through your veins you die. Your body constantly converts lympha (colour which affects you attributes) into nerva (colour you can draw with) so it's a constant balancing act between having enough colour to do stuff with (and grow more colour) and having enough colour in stock so you don't run out before you get a new deposit. Oh, and it's also made very clear that colour is potent and dangerous stuff, and you do not know how to use it properly, the more colour you spend in an area the worse off it gets, leading to almost a pyramid scheme like scenario where you constantly need more colour to fuel your progress through the world but as you do the world gets worse and worse unless you use colour wisely and sparingly.
The game is mainly split between the void and the chambers inside it. In the chambers you talk to the sisters and brothers, fight enemies, find hearts and colour and plant trees. In the void time passes and you convert lympha in to nerva. The time passes in cycles of 99 ticks, so in each tick you convert lympha into nerva and each cycle the situation changes (e.g a tree you plant with colour will "fruit" in the next cycle and will give diminishing returns for three cycles then lie dormant for five). This makes everything desperately urgent, not only have to balance the different colours and what forms they are in but also time events so they flow into each other (and story and random events throughout the game always force you to replan). Basically it's desperate, frantic, yet cold and calculated at the same time.
Did I mention it's beautiful? It really looks amazing, each sister's chamber has it's own vibrant and unique feel, the brothers are suitably horrendous and dignified at the same time, everything from the the menus, to the chambers to the void itself screams "art game".
It can, no will, also be very frustrating, at least at first as you are learning how to do things. While a lot of the difficulty and constraints add to the atmosphere (it wasn't called "Tension" in Russia for nothing), there are also some frankly just irritating design choices and sequences in the game. You also might have to back track a fair bit, realizing you stuffed up something a few cycles (about an hour) back and have to load a save from then can be very annoying. and I do admit to cheating a little bit, using the console to get a few extra drops of lympha in some desperate moments, but once you learn how the game works it shouldn't be too hard. There's also a lot of trudging around familiar chambers scavenging any morsels of colour you can, but randomness and the control you get later in the game alleviate that a fair bit.
I don't really want to outline the plot or anything because it's so interesting and also ambiguous but trust me when I say it also does some really interesting things with it's cast of surreal and fabulous characters.
Oh boy, that was too many words. Clearly I like it and it's creative enough for me to want to spout on about it. I encourage you to try it if you are all interested in artistic games and are prepared to endure or even become absorbed in tension, desperation and confusion. Also be warned there is a fair amount of nudity in the game, artistic nudity but nudity nonetheless and some people could find bits of it uncomfortable.
tl;dr Get The Void, it's awesome*
*Enjoyment may vary. Many may lose their will to complete.
The only snippet I could think of was "the most surreal Harvest Moon you've ever played". This is mainly because you spend a long time growing colour and exploring areas, talking to the different denizens (since they're not exactly people) of the world, earning their trust through gifts and settling into a routine to constantly feed your demand for colour. Except that it's not like that at all, instead of growing carrots and turnips you're growing colour to manipulate the world itself and instead of an idyllic routine of rural labour you're desperately trying to please half-dead monstrosities from fear of being banished to absolute death for corrupting the nymph like "sisters" they protect.
The mechanics take a leaf from Okami's book, drawing symbols with precious colour to attack enemies, create shields or give colour to trees so you can harvest them later. But unlike every other game where you triumphantly return the grey world into glorious colour you have to tread carefully, colour is insanely precious, the moment it is no longer coursing through your veins you die. Your body constantly converts lympha (colour which affects you attributes) into nerva (colour you can draw with) so it's a constant balancing act between having enough colour to do stuff with (and grow more colour) and having enough colour in stock so you don't run out before you get a new deposit. Oh, and it's also made very clear that colour is potent and dangerous stuff, and you do not know how to use it properly, the more colour you spend in an area the worse off it gets, leading to almost a pyramid scheme like scenario where you constantly need more colour to fuel your progress through the world but as you do the world gets worse and worse unless you use colour wisely and sparingly.
The game is mainly split between the void and the chambers inside it. In the chambers you talk to the sisters and brothers, fight enemies, find hearts and colour and plant trees. In the void time passes and you convert lympha in to nerva. The time passes in cycles of 99 ticks, so in each tick you convert lympha into nerva and each cycle the situation changes (e.g a tree you plant with colour will "fruit" in the next cycle and will give diminishing returns for three cycles then lie dormant for five). This makes everything desperately urgent, not only have to balance the different colours and what forms they are in but also time events so they flow into each other (and story and random events throughout the game always force you to replan). Basically it's desperate, frantic, yet cold and calculated at the same time.
Did I mention it's beautiful? It really looks amazing, each sister's chamber has it's own vibrant and unique feel, the brothers are suitably horrendous and dignified at the same time, everything from the the menus, to the chambers to the void itself screams "art game".
It can, no will, also be very frustrating, at least at first as you are learning how to do things. While a lot of the difficulty and constraints add to the atmosphere (it wasn't called "Tension" in Russia for nothing), there are also some frankly just irritating design choices and sequences in the game. You also might have to back track a fair bit, realizing you stuffed up something a few cycles (about an hour) back and have to load a save from then can be very annoying. and I do admit to cheating a little bit, using the console to get a few extra drops of lympha in some desperate moments, but once you learn how the game works it shouldn't be too hard. There's also a lot of trudging around familiar chambers scavenging any morsels of colour you can, but randomness and the control you get later in the game alleviate that a fair bit.
I don't really want to outline the plot or anything because it's so interesting and also ambiguous but trust me when I say it also does some really interesting things with it's cast of surreal and fabulous characters.
Oh boy, that was too many words. Clearly I like it and it's creative enough for me to want to spout on about it. I encourage you to try it if you are all interested in artistic games and are prepared to endure or even become absorbed in tension, desperation and confusion. Also be warned there is a fair amount of nudity in the game, artistic nudity but nudity nonetheless and some people could find bits of it uncomfortable.
tl;dr Get The Void, it's awesome*
*Enjoyment may vary. Many may lose their will to complete.
Icepick wrote:Do you have a link for it?
The Void (wikipedia) and where to get it. Somewhat amusing that the developers are Ice-Pick Lodge.
The above post is not intended as an attack on you. It's not about making you look stupid for not searching. It merely states the facts. Please don't be offended.
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Chris
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Damn you Gary I knew you were up to something!
DinoSteve wrote:Icepick wrote:Do you have a link for it?
The Void (wikipedia) and where to get it. Somewhat amusing that the developers are Ice-Pick Lodge.
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RabidZombie
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Chris wrote:Damn you Gary I knew you were up to something!DinoSteve wrote:Icepick wrote:Do you have a link for it?
The Void (wikipedia) and where to get it. Somewhat amusing that the developers are Ice-Pick Lodge.
It's alright, you can stop pretending. We know you're the same person.
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