The trailer sorta explains things, but I really started loving the idea after watching a couple full matches on YouTube. Creative players can make for some really interesting times! It kind of reminds me of Spy Party in a way. Two “sides” that play entirely differently from each other and game mechanics and rules that encourage players to be crafty bastards to win :)
Planning on grabbing this on payday and I sorta get the feeling that this would be a blast with some QT3 folks!
Well, it is a game about cajoling and intimidating others into doing your bidding (or lying to your boss and pretending to work), so it only makes sense as a multiplayer game.
I’ve been watching this for a while, from pretty far away mind you, and I think it’s a really interesting concept. The thing that seems tricky, though is balancing the rules so that players have a real incentive for contributing with the overlord and the overlord has a good reason not to just zap every player in sight. Otherwise, the game just becomes another Youtuber “Let’s Play” playground.
While I don’t doubt that what you are describing is possible, I haven’t seen any of that yet. The community seems small but cool. Go watch a match on YouTube. There are strategies. People aren’t just blasting everyone for no reason. And the developer has talked about how even if you get someone that does, the game is designed to make that possible but detrimental to the person playing the robot. Sure, you can blast everyone, but there are game mechanics for letting the other players still win. It’s in the robot’s interest to coerce the rabbits into obeying, and it’s generally in the rabbit’s interest to obey the robot until they spot a weak point in the defenses and make their move.
There are “strategies” in DayZ fuckery as well. Sure, you can just blast other players, but the art is in coercing them to obey your sick commands for the entertainment of your streaming audience. It’s in the victim’s interest to follow along until they can catch the antagonist off-guard.
But you’re not executing people or forcing them to drink bleach or stuff like that in Obey. It’s all a lot more benign. If it’s not your sorta thing that’s totally fine of course. But I wonder if people are somehow getting the impression that this game is gory or sadistic or something. Yeah, there’s some head games involved to win, but nothing that extreme.
Well, I’m not saying Obey is as graphic as DayZ. I’m saying the basic gameplay seems to be based on the same kind of multiplayer dynamic found in DayZ and those types of games. Obey just distilled that down to the basic element, added actual rules and a goal, then cuted it up with hamsters and robots.
Hii
I am the developer of OBEY.
I was kindly guided to this thread by Eric.
I think it is an oversimplified way to describe it, but you have the right idea comparing it to some situations in DayZ and Jailbreak mods.
I wrote about the difference in this blog post.
Having said that, I am trying to keep OBEY as much as a ‘formal’ game as possible while still making it a pretty commercial product (ie keep it more like chess than say “shadow warrior”)
ummm… not unless you are talking about a 5’5" 105lb Andre the Giant >_<
So I bought the game and played a handful of games over the weekend. There aren’t always people online, but it’s usually not too difficult to round up enough for a game if you hop into the in-game chat or IRC. I had fun for the most part! The few frustrations I ran into usually revolved around a new player doing something silly, but everyone in the community seems really cool about taking a minute to explain things and that seems to resolve it pretty quickly.
Already seen a fair amount of hilarious treachery haha :) Experienced players pretending to be newbies, flat out lies, misdirection, and so on. I know there are some craft bastards around here who would be good at this :D
