6057

Wow, this sounds even more sexy to older me!

6058

image

It was. Still is.

The box art I think was inspired by someone watching Blake’s 7.
image

6059

ding ding ding! well it’s really Leeder Krenon but yeah.

when i was very young i used to look at this artwork (they used it for advertising the game in magazines) a lot and wonder what the game would be like, it fascinated me.

yeah they uh, kind of went with a different vibe with Rebelstar.

6060

Insurmountable, a mountainclimbing… roguelike (sic) is free this week on EGS.
I had never heard of it, and I love mountainclimbing games (well, all the five of them released in the past 30 years).
Sadly, the mountain part feels like a mere skin on standard semi-hardcore roguelike tropes. The mountain feels like the board of a board game, with floating icons, hexes and unrealistic sights everywhere. But the really aggravating part for me has been the interface.
It started with empty text boxes placeholders for what must, obviously, be the event system of the game, which means narration, and I don’t like narration when I’m mountainclimbing, I’m normal!
But the game features a totally broken camera system that got stuck without hope of going around it all the time. The slight issue is that you can only interact with the board by clicking on it.
Now I know why I had never heard of it.
Maybe you’ll have better luck and the interface won’t make the game unplayable for you.

6061

I had better luck with Insurmountable but watched Retromation and Splattercat’s videos first so knew what I was getting into.

Camera is … painful, but part of it seems to be an intentional replacement for “fog of war” - it seems to use also use that in addition to the lighting and weather effects to directly limit what you can see - it does mean that you might navigate to certain locations just to get better camera angles so you can see things and click on things. Kind of wish there was a first person mode? But also see that wouldn’t work with respect to clicking on hexes.

In the end, it’s a cute (relaxing?!) solitaire turn-based boardgame of keeping a bunch of resource meters from dropping off as you navigate through a hex grid, with a sprinkling of “choose your own adventure” mini events that happen. Also, I’m not a mountain climber at all haha so I have no idea if it’s remotely at all related.

6062

Have you been playing with a controller? I didn’t try one, but with the mouse my camera got stuck (after it told me I could move it holding the V key, ironically!) behind a wall with no way to do anything but quit the three games I started successively.
I have litterally no idea what the game is like, beyond its look and this terrible repeatable fumble on my end. I guess I’ll check the video you kindly linked and save myself some frustration!

6063

Anybody play this yet? Iron Lung by David Szymanski, the creator of Dusk, and it uses retro graphics.

A really neat idea for a horror experience. Played in first person, you’re at the bottom of a lake of blood, sealed into a tiny metal submarine. With the aid of a map, you navigate to different objectives and take photos of what you find there.

And that’s the thing: The only way to actually see anything visually is with that camera, and it only takes still shots in grainy black and white, and it takes a few seconds after you snap the shot for it to display on your screen.

Here’s a decent gameplay video. The guy gets a little excited from time to time, but it does a good job of presenting what the game has to offer in a short video. The video also spoils the somewhat predictable ending.

And that’s the only problem I have with this game, and the only reason I haven’t bought it yet. It feels like this idea has a ton of potential, and yet watching that edited video, I feel like I’ve already played it. Szymanski really needs to expand on this idea, because I love it.

Also, I think it didn’t need to be set in a lake of blood on an alien planet. It would have been just as frightening if it were set in the ocean.

Also, I have never actually played Fatal Frame, but didn’t that game use a similar gameplay mechanic as far as the use of the still camera?

Gameplay video. I didn’t embed the video because the damn thumbnail spoils the ending, I think. Also, if you watch it to the end, the ending is spoiled.
Another gameplay video.

6064

I’m interested mainly to find out more about the premise. Why is there a lake of blood? Why am I plumbing it’s depths in a submarine? I’d be bummed if those are just background and not really addressed.

6065

Don’t worry, it’s all explained in the opening title card!

Iron Lung deets
Iron Lung deets1200×723 126 KB

-Tom

6066

Sweet, you saved me $5.99!

6067

I did a dream a few weeks ago that shares many aspects with the premise. I don’t like scary games but I will probably jump in, because fever makes the best dreams!

6068

That reads like someone trying to write a backstory for a game that was designed without thinking a jot about it. Did it need one? Probably not.

6069

I think that title card sounds awesome. I have no idea if the game itself will live up to that awesome title card setup. Will you ever unravel the mystery of what happened to all the habitable planets? Does the answer actually lie on the blood planet?

6070

Insurmountable seems pretty fun for a low intensity game. The camera’s fine in my opinion. After the first climb you get some kind of mission choice map with some kind of plot. I haven’t gone that far.

6071

Ok, I played Iron Lung. It’s a game with a very clear focus, extracting the maximum amount of tension out of a very minimal interface and setting, and letting your imagination do most of the work. The ending is… best experienced.

And the backstory is irrelevant, but it sets the mood. The briefing (which you read at the start of the game) does a better job anyway. If you like short horror experiences, it’s recommended. Play at night in a dark room with the headphones on. And then never play it again.

Yeah, watching a YouTube of someone playing this game would totally ruin the experience. Do not watch any gameplay videos at all if you’re remotely interested in this, because it’s all about the experience and the anticipation.

6072

Re: insurmountable - I was definitely playing with a mouse (which controls the camera) with a mousewheel for zoom (on PC as I had picked it up from the Epic giveaway that’s on till Thurs). The camera definitely does some weird things if you get behind a wall but with the mouse you can just force it to rotate through. Coming to think of it, that is probably why climbing down the mountain seems more awkward than going up.

6073

Regarding Insurmountable, is everyone remembering to use V to pull the camera even further back than the furthest zoom level and pan the view? Viewing your surroundings, looking for points of interest, is meant to be challenging; it’s one of the game’s core mechanics, according to the devs (if I remember correctly from a Steam forum comment).

6074

That’s how my camera got stuck every time, using the V key, and unlike our other friends, I couldn’t rotate my camera out of it.

The single man climbing and the forced storyline mean this is not the game for me anyway!

6075

Aha, I never used the V key - must have missed the tutorial on that - but then again maybe that’s why I was only annoyed at the camera instead of actually getting bugged out? I’ll have to try it carefully next time…

I’ve only done one run but it was pretty relaxing overall. I took a couple levels of the “extra O2 capacity and O2 gain when walking” and a couple levels of “heat while walking” since I didn’t want to waste levels on short term buffs which ended up making the “Death Zone” pretty manageable - I ended up taking the buff that gave you bonuses for keeping your O2 high since that was barely ticking down.

6076

I tried it, and I was enjoying my time excepting for the gameplay itself (having to keep mouse button pressed is a big effort for me!) and the non stop collisions which were taking me out of it.
I guess I wasn’t enjoying my time that much!