Saturday, December 16

Game Review: The Invincible

My Steam review was too long, so I've posted the full thing here instead. 

TL:DR - Super pretty. LOTS of potential that was squandered. Should have been a VR title.  Can't recommend.


Intro: 

The Invincible needed to be a VR game instead of a classic game, as well as needing a few other fairly substantial tweaks to make it great.  Right now it's simply middling.  (Unlike other reviews, I paid for my copy and I now wish I'd waited for news of a VR update).


The Good:

- Top of the list is the aesthetics.  The Atom Punk look and feel is this game's major appeal when "playing" it.  The art direction is not just great, but iconic.  If you understand what I mean when I say iconic, it means that The Invincible now own this look, and that any other game that tries to use this look will be described as having a The Invincible aesthetic in its reviews.  THAT'S how much they nailed this look.  It was also my single greatest reason for buying the game.  Truly outstanding design.  Just beautiful.  

- It's more of an interactive visual novel, and that's not a criticism.  I like this kind of experience, but it doesn't make for an entertaining game in the classic sense.  So why is this comment in The Good section??  Because The Invincible has ALL the characteristics of what makes for a great VR experience.  Landscapes of immense scale, interesting aesthetics, large easy-to-operate equipment, an ever-visible helmet (and face mic), a full body, lots of exploration, getting close to other NPC's faces, very detailed hands, climbing!, the tracker, and on and on.  All these things really work in VR, but in this version of the game, they don't seem to hit the mark like what the creators were originally intending.  This is included in The Good section because if ported to VR these features will absolutely shine.  

- Driving in the Rover.  (Again, would have been AMAZING in VR).  A really fun vehicle, that also looked great. 

- The Anti-Matter Bots.  These were terrific and it would have been great to have seen more of them.  I would have especially enjoyed being able to control a broken one with limited functionality and get it to shoot its laser.  This would have been both a great thrill, but also an excellent intro into using the same tool we use at the end.  When we finally do use this device (at the end of the game) we would have already been familiar with it and enjoy the greater freedom we have with it.

- The Force Field generators.  Impressive scale and visuals.  I would have loved to have activated one and seen it hollow out an area, or turn one off and then see an unstable cliff collapse as a result of that action.

- The Flying Saucer - Too bad we never saw it when it was flying.  It looked SO cool! 

- The Robot helpers - Too bad we never to to control one, or even have one help us.  I would have loved for a situation to necessitate it sacrificing itself for us.  Wow, that would have been amazing, but sadly it wasn't in the game.



The Bad:  

- The Story's dialogue.  This was based upon a classic novel from 1964, which I haven't read, but I felt the dialogue between my female character and the Astrogator was very old-fashioned and it sincerely wouldn't have hurt the reputation of the book if the speech was modernised away from what I felt was a very patriarchal tone.  There was an obedience that the main character gave to her superior that seems very out-dated now.  It would have been great for her to have gone a little more rogue and question the whole concept of authority now that she was alone on a strange planet.  When there was a dispute in ethics, which I liked, she agreed to disagree and got on with the mission, and his plan.  There should have been way more fight in that dialogue.  "Hey, I'm the one down here risking my life.  You either help, and do what I say, or abandon me and have to live with that for the rest of your life.  Now what's it going to be?"   She needed more of that.   For the most part, however, I found the repetitiveness of the dialogue rather grating.  When the Astrogator asked for an update and the main character answered, "Nothing in the last 5 seconds, sir", I would have heard that line about 20 times.  Surely the actors could have given you 20 different versions of this theme instead of repeating it 20 times.  I would have opted as a rule to never repeat dialogue.  Also, the last dialogue in the Condor was excruciatingly long, and to be required to sit through that to find the alternate endings seemed like hard work. Also, I didn't want to hear how "this mission has dragged on", or "how heavy my legs feel".  (With the low gravity they really shouldn't have felt heavy at all).  

- The Story's unanswered questions.  One of the most fun and fascinating parts of the game was tracking the underground network of strange steel objects.  This was a real mystery to me, and sadly it stayed that way because we never got to the bottom of what it was, or saw what it did.  If you take a page out of Subnautica's book you'll see how their mysteries had genuine pay offs, but in The Invincible they did not.  For example, what even was The Invincible?  It looked like a gigantic ship, but it was so far away we never really knew what it did, or why we should care about it.  I found the story in general quite hard to follow, mostly because the old-timey waffle between the characters would get in the way of what they might actually have been trying to communicate to me.  Conversation prompts became such a meaningless chore that I paid less and less attention to them the more the game went on.  In terms of communicating a story in a game, you should be embracing "Show don't tell", and with dialogue, "less is more".   When a character speaks it needs to push the story, not fill a silence.  (I would have preferred silence, and been able to work it out for myself from exploring the game's world, and whenever a character does have to speak: It's important). 

- The Story's lost opportunities.  We soon realise that our memory is being affected by the planet's flora.  It would have been terrific to have played around with that a lot more, like what they did with the movie Memento.  This may have become a Groundhog Day-like experience where you need to re-do something you've done before, not knowing why it back the way it was, or even how many time's you've done this now.  Waking up from a blackout, having lost the tool you were using, or any tools, in a different environment, and needing to work things out from there.  You wake to find your rover is crashed.  "Did I do that?"  A different character in front of you.  "Did he do that?"  Is he a friend or foe?  "Who are you? Have we met before?"  Your journal becomes a detective novel for your own life.  Photos/sketches of people are already there:  "Friend"  You wake up again, check your journal and see the same sketch scratched out: "Dead".  How did that happen?  That would have completely transformed the game experience in a good way.  

- No consequence.  We were never able to die and then had to try a section again because of it (at least I never encountered this).  I would have loved to have needed to escape from the Anti-Matter Bot's laser, and not succeed.  Or run out of oxygen trying to save my colleague.  Or any number of events that may have escalated the tension.  Having to run from a faulty robot trying to get you, but needing to sneak around the enemies base to reach their control panel and shut the robot down.  Stuff like that. 

- Movement.  It was too slow. I don't mind slow, however this was too slow, especially as the gravity was light enough for me to easily carry a dead body.  If, instead of running, you gently moon-hopped like the astronauts do in real life.  That would have made a bit more sense.  But my main criticism was getting blocked by a length of piping on the ground, or a small ledge, which I should have easily been able to step over or climb over, only to have to walk around it. That was bad enough, but to then be perfectly able to scale a large chunk of rock many times larger only a short distance away _really_ didn't make sense, and was annoying.  Another gripe about movement was that the rover wasn't able to reverse. That made getting out of tight spots very laborious.  

- The Invincible lacked big moments, or taking advantage of big moments it did have.  I liked the idea of this being an exploration game, but I felt as though the few moments of action that were peppered throughout this game weren't capitalised on.  A perfect example of this was the saucer.  We really needed to be taken on that whole flight path and seen the explosion of sand when we "landed".  And to see our pilot black out just before and be in that moment of terror.  Instead, we saw nothing.  Many wonderful moments, or important moments (for the story) were communicated poorly.  The worst example was remembering a moment when you were back onboard the Dragonfly and it had us sat in front of a monitor hearing dialogue from your crew mates down on the planet.  This was anything but fun.  


Conclusion:

The bones of a great game are there, but it needed to be fleshed out a lot more and made into a much more entertaining experience, even if that meant departing from the original novel to do so.  

What I'd LOVE is for this game to be given a moderate-sized overhaul in terms of game design, and really provide the oomph it deserves.  Yes, a re-invention, but one that wouldn't require scrapping the whole thing, but instead adding or re-working what's already there, with brave & bold decisions, into something great.  And then make it for VR.  My hope is that the profits you make from this version go into the conversion for VR, and during that conversion process many of the criticisms are addressed, and the lost opportunities gained.  That's my greatest hope.  Again, the bones are there, it just needs a re-think/re-work in some key places, and the bravery to really take it to that bold new place.    

Until then this is a game that has great potential, which is all within arm's length, but for whatever reason wasn't able to reach it at launch.  Perhaps it is a project that ran out of money during production, and needed to take short cuts with their interactivity.  That would explain most of the criticisms I have above.  Perhaps they needed a stronger game designer (I'm available, by the way).  Perhaps they stuck too close to the original novel and didn't give it the modern injection of life it deserved.  (This game is an _interpretation_ of a novel, after all.  "Based on" is fine).  Whatever the reason, it truly is unfortunate that the potential of this game excites me more that the what the actual game does, even though I still enjoyed playing it.  Until it reaches this potential, however, I cannot recommend it. 

Thursday, March 16

Update to the world in tenths

 Tell me which one looks more like an honest representation of data. 
(It's the same data, by the way).  
Which one looks more easily comparable and understandable?  


Wednesday, October 20

Blender request: Show Tool Gizmo on keypress (G/R/S)



The way Blender changes tools (Select/Move/Rotate/Scale)

...could be much more efficient...

just by showing the gizmo on the key press.


Example:

Press G = Move gizmo appears

Hit X /Y/Z (within the next 2 seconds) = Moves along axis (gizmo disappears)

RMB = Cancels (normal)










If you hold down G it remains in Modal (and you move the object immediately).

You can press X/Y/Z in the next 2 seconds after that to lock to axis. 


Making the Tool gizmo immediately available from the key press allows the user more options, with more control, while still allowing lock-to-axis in the next key press.

I've pushed this concept to include new shortcut keys for the Transform and 3D Cursor tools, but don't let this distract you.
(I don't want all the comments to be about that).

The main idea: See the gizmo at key press.


If there is an existing Add-On or setting that allows me to do this, please point me in that direction.









Thursday, April 22

GRIP5 - An even more minimalistic minimalist wallet

 I recently bought a GRIP6 minimalistic wallet as an upgrade to my previous minimalistic wallet: A rubber band. 


When the GRIP6 arrived I didn't know what to expect, however I thought I'd give it a red hot go.  

The first thing I noticed is that it wasn't a small as I thought it would be.  Here is where a card sits in relation to the GRIP6. 

Having been used to the size of the cards themselves it felt a bit bulky, and still does, so I looked at where the design could lose some weight and came up with this: 

By bending the aluminium around the side we lose the need for the screws on the side shedding some weight that way.  

A final render.  Getting the finger ring version was a gamble, but I have come to like it, even if only to just to swirl around, other times to help dig the GRIP6 out of my pocket.  Here I've swapped the ring with a teflon loop which can do the same job, but with less bulk.  

The mechanism inside has been changed significantly.  Keep in mind that this exact diagram would not work, but the idea itself seems sound.  It uses the tension of bendable plastic/metal as a spring saving a lot of room.

When the bend of the mechanism raises up it utilises the space where the cards used to be. 

And finally, my ideal version of this design has a money clip on the side.  In my view of what this is I see it as a "GRIP5": Carries only 5 cards, is the slimmer, less-manly version, but the one I'd definitely buy.  

Until I see a version like this I'll continue to enjoy my GRIP6.  








Sunday, February 14

How I deal with the NTHE (Near-Term Human Extinction)

I see myself as being in a waiting room that has a large window with a view to the apocalypse. The waiting room itself is rather pleasant, but the view is disturbing to say the least. Now, I've already passed the stage of acceptance with our NTHE, but when I started out dealing with it I remember being glued to that window, fascinated by the slow creep of The End, and monitoring every detail with the understandable anguish that comes with it. I now call that type of sweating the details Disaster Porn. I don't do that anymore. I've spent enough time at the window now to accept that this is a thing. That it's reality. I now spend more time enjoying what's in the waiting room than looking out the window. Since mid-2017 I made a deliberate decision to do exactly this and I now believe I've found genuine happiness in spite of the overall situation. I've been looking after my health more, and that feels good. I've been learning things that I have previously been intimidated to learn (3d animation), which feels great, if not a little bit challenging, but that's why it feels great. And I've also fallen in love with drawing again, a past passion. What I haven't done is close the curtains of the window to block out the apocalyptic view. That's always there to remind me what's coming, but my focus is more in the waiting room.

Now you might be asking, if I'm in a waiting room, what am I waiting for? Well, that's easy: I'm waiting for what's outside the window to affect what's inside the room. Right now the two seem very disconnected to one another and that makes for a schizophrenic existence, which can be confusing. Essentially we live in two opposing realities at the same time: the natural world that is dying, and the all-singing, all-dancing world of money that is desperately convinced there's nothing wrong. Being aware of both realities has made it singularly frustrating to see the urgency of climate change go completely unheeded by the corporate-owned media and the corporate-owned politicians. What's worse is just how many people don't seem to really care either. In fact, you can replace climate change with peak-oil, or global debt, or any other completely unsustainable paradigm of equally terrifying consequences and it will be met with the same disengaged apathy from the general population. (The trouble with being awake is that you realise just how many of us are still asleep). But I digress...

So, when there is no longer any schism between the room and the view, when both of these opposing realities become one and the same is when we'll finally see the truth, whatever that may be. The truth about other people. The truth about ourselves. The truth about the world. Human nature. Etcetera. I expect it to be ugly and beautiful, and fascinating, but I also suspect something we already knew anyway, but never fully embraced. However, while I wait for that moment to arrive, (in my very pleasant waiting room) I'll continue living my life in the way I would like to live it, to the best of my abilities, while I still can. Actually, one of the pleasant surprises I've recently discovered has been the joy of maintaining a clean and organised house. Even with the NTHE drawing closer and closer I'm amazed how rewarding it is to have my place tidy. I call it Choretopia. I'll meet my inevitable demise one day, but until that time comes I'll make sure all the dishes are clean and put away.

Now some of you might be thinking, isn't what I'm describing basically another form of Denial? Well, not really, however it probably would be if I completely ignored the view outside. I accept the NTHE as being true. I also accept that there's really nothing I can do about it either. And yet I'll still recycle, and I'll still support organisations that do good in the world. I'll even participate in some of their efforts from time to time. Walk in a peace rally? Sure! Stand up for endangered species? Absolutely. Will any of it make a difference in the end? Of course not. But that's not the point either. It's who we want to be in the time remaining that is the point here. We don't do it to be remembered as such, because we won't be. We do it simply to remind ourselves who we are as a human being, what we believe is important and what we stand against.

And to regularly vacuum.