By Quintin Smith on April 22nd, 2011 at 11:19 am.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in, tweeted and MSNed me about this. I’d also like to thank you guys for stopping short of throwing rocks through my window.
So, Ice-Pick Lodge, the legendarily high-minded Russian developer behind Pathologic and The Void have just released Cargo, a game I’ve been looking forward to for almost a year. More so ever since I read Tom Jubert’s account of his business trip to visit Ice-Pick’s offices (which is a two bedroom apartment in a Moscow high rise) and I fell that much more in love with the guys. If you haven’t read it yet, do so immediately.
Anyway, Cargo – The Quest for Gravity (previously “Cargo!”), which you can see above and buy here, is a game about… it’s… the… OK, it’s probably best if you just read my account of my first hour of play. It’s after the jump.
Cargo opens on the above patchwork zepplin, drifting slowly across a flooded world. The crew of the zepplin consists of (1) A captain with a voice like a boot in a blender, dressed like Napoleon except with a Hawaiian shirt and (2) You, a plucky pirate engineer-type lady with, again, an improbably deep voice.
Below is a strange race of people, every one of which looks like a failed attempt at cloning Richard O’Brien. Are they having some kind of celebration for you?
“They’ve come out to meet us!” cries your Captain. “An offer like this comes once in a lifetime!” It turns out that yourself and your captain represent some kind of post-apocalyptic delivery service, and are delivering some cargo to this very island.
On cue, a stray firework shoots your zepplin down.
Washed up on the shore below you find the band, which on closer inspection I think I saw live once while I was at university. The band’s vocalist doesn’t sing, instead speaking only in poor quality poems.
“The crash landing was a great success / Our finest, most important minds came to greet our honoured guest
Yet somehow they miscalculated / Your position wasn’t triangulated
You landed far from the festivities / And made a horrible mess”
From here, you’re prompted to start physically kicking these strange, nude creatures around. Each time you do so they squeal with joy and produce a certain amount of “Fun”, which your character collects.
Then it’s time to meet the Gods of this strange world.
“I am Manipu,” booms the first. “The creator. And your client. We cannot accept delivery! The cargo is only technically here.”
Fair enough. Who’s next?
“I am Manipu, too,” calls the second. “Deus Ex Machina. I assert: the engineer is lousy. She doesn’t build or fix a thing – she just kicks arse and chews gum.”
Is he talking about you? And wait, he’s called Manipu as well? Isn’t that a bit confu–
“And I am Manipu,” interrupts the third. “Deus Ex Machina, three in one. And I agree to compromise, for I am so full of mercy.”
Finally there’s this guy. It’s not made clear whether he’s called Manipu or not, but you’re immediately distracted from who he is because by this point the strange bald creatures have found a jet intake that fell off the zepplin. They’re walking towards it and getting sucked up and churned into nothing, one after another. You get the sense that this is a bad thing.
Since the Richard-O’Brien-icide is happening on a different island, it’s up to you to build a vehicle to get there, a process which plays a bit like Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts if you removed every other line of code.
On the other island you discover there’s no way to actively disable the jet engine, and so instead must distract the horrible monsters from wandering off to their doom. Mostly by kicking their arses, but you can also drop the music that can be found floating throughout the game, causing the strange little mutants to assemble for the ugliest dance party.
Before long you’ll have amassed enough fun that the game prompts you to bring up the “Stratosphere” menu, and it’s here that things start becoming a bit more clear.
Look at this strange rock thing! No idea what it does, but I literally summoned it out of thin air!
In Cargo, the stratosphere is full of strange items and landmarks, and at a cost of fun you can return gravity to them, dropping them into this open world of yours. From the Gods’ incoherent jabber, you piece together the fact that the world, our world, has undergone some kind of apocalypse, and gravity has become sporadic, and fun is the only thing that anchors people to the ground, and these Gods created a new form a mankind but it is a bit shit. Or something? Hey, look! One of the items you can pull down is an iceberg!
Pulling down the iceberg triggers an immediate and inexplicable winter across the landscape. All of the water freezes over and the world is covered in snow. But your creatures are either too noble or too stupid to be scared. They immediately set to climbing their new plaything.
Except it turns out iceberg is populated by furious, 14-feet tall penguins! I watch in horror as a penguin devours one of my tiny, smiling fun factories through its anus. Something must be done!
It turns out that “something” is gathering various abandoned crates of cargo, building a car, and driving at the penguins at speed in order to remove the fun that is tethering them to the ground. Of course!
So, that’s your first hour of Cargo. It’s certainly something, I’m sure you’ll agree. I’ll be posting a full-bodied Wot I Think early next week, but if this sounds like your cup of tea/absinthe/bleach then the Steam page is right here. Godspeed, gents!
22/04/2011 at 11:26 jalf says:
Wait what?
I want!
23/04/2011 at 14:35 BAReFOOt says:
What is this, I don’t even…
22/04/2011 at 11:26 talon03 says:
So does the LSD come free with the game or did you provide that yourself?
22/04/2011 at 14:34 killmachine says:
i think drugs have done some good things for us, i really do. and if you dont believe drugs have done some good things for us, do me a favor. take all your discs, cds and dvd’s and burn em. coze you know what, the developers who made all that great games that enhanced your life throughout the years … really fucking high on drugs. (by bill hicks, sort of)
22/04/2011 at 18:07 thelxr says:
Check your manual on page 23, there should be a sticker with a bicylce on it it. Remove the sticker and lick the contents. If you own a digital copy, just lick the screen, when Steam promts you during install.
22/04/2011 at 11:27 Loix says:
What the fuck just happened?
22/04/2011 at 12:14 McDan says:
Precisely what I was about to say, I have no idea what’s going on now. My entire day has just turned upside down. Are you meant to put cheese up your nose? I have no idea! Logic has gone.
No, no you are not meant to put cheese there.
Brilliant read though, must be said.
22/04/2011 at 11:27 Teddy Leach says:
What the… This looks awesome!
24/04/2011 at 14:34 LionsPhil says:
I can’t stop laughing at the banner image. It’s like they got RubberFruit to make the character models. (It’s kind of a shame to see tha there’s duplicates in there, so they’re probably not procedural.)
Also suddenly I am reminded of late-’90s odd strategy thing Baldies.
22/04/2011 at 11:27 gorgol says:
WTF. I can’t tell if this game is something mundane disguising itself with wierd cosmetics, or if it is innovative design obscured by unfamiliarity. My natural gaming cynicism makes me settle on the former.
22/04/2011 at 11:30 jalf says:
Yeah, when faced with something that might be interesting, always assume that it isn’t. That’s a recipe for a life full of excitement if I ever heard one.
;)
22/04/2011 at 15:30 CoyoteTheClever says:
Icepick Lodge games are definitely not mundane, though they do seem to me to feel somewhat unpolished, which is forgivable because of how unique they are and the amazingly grotesque artistry.
22/04/2011 at 11:27 Jimmy Z says:
Somehow, my mind feels violated only after reading that. O__o
22/04/2011 at 11:28 Theoban says:
Poor Alec :(
22/04/2011 at 11:29 Robert says:
I’m confused.
22/04/2011 at 11:31 Dominic White says:
It really does look like a lunatic Russian take on Banjo: Nuts & Bolts, which was a terribly poorly recieved but actually rather ace little game.
Strange that they just kinda released it without telling anyone, though.
22/04/2011 at 11:33 Alex Bakke says:
I… Just….
Wh….
How….
Shiiiiiiiiiiit.
22/04/2011 at 11:34 Mario Figueiredo says:
Ok, those little people… that’s just too disturbing for my own taste. The game artists hit my personal uncanny valley right on the mark.
22/04/2011 at 13:16 suibhne says:
That’s not what “uncanny valley” means. I think you intended to just say “the uncanny”. ;)
22/04/2011 at 13:37 Mario Figueiredo says:
Interesting. What do you think uncanny valley means?
22/04/2011 at 14:42 Chaz says:
I don’t know but it sounded quite painful.
22/04/2011 at 16:26 dadioflex says:
Yep. Mario nailed it.
22/04/2011 at 16:33 Halfgild Wynac says:
“Uncanny valley” is the concept of realistic human models becoming more and more appealing the more realistic they get, and then suddenly looking ugly just before the “very realistic” zone. The reasoning behind such a strange preferences people have is usually as follows: the more realistic the models become, the better their human-like features become people can sympathize with. However, when the model becomes very realistic yet “not quite real”, it suddenly looks less like a cute creature with human behaviour and more like a deranged human or a living corpse that looks real and still you feek something is wrong about them.
Hardly applies to Cargo!, though, where the models are nowhere near realistic.
22/04/2011 at 18:14 Mario Figueiredo says:
My apologies. But that’s only telling half of the story. It can (and does) apply to unrealistic depictions. The Uncanny Valley theory doesn’t pretend to know anything about realism/fantasy, simply about human perception and response to likeness. It’s for this reason that zombies were described by the author himself as being in the lower end of the graph. And zombies are hardly realistic, would you agree? Yet they are like humans.
What the Uncanny Valley graph describes on its horizontal axis is the likeness to human beings. Likeness is not a factor of realism. The models on this game have a striking similarity to a real human being and yet are depicted in a deforming fashion. Unrealistic, but with faces very much like human beings. So close in fact, they can become unnerving due to the obvious similarity coupled with the obvious differences. The overall composition may become disturbing. That is, hit the uncanny valley region.
22/04/2011 at 18:37 DrGonzo says:
I dunno, I think you are confusing characters that have been modelled to be intentionally weird and disturbing with Uncanny Valley.
22/04/2011 at 19:09 Muzman says:
And the uncanny valley notion doesn’t concern Realism. I concerns Naturalism. Likeness in that context describes an increasing level of detail and accuracy in the representation (the higher it goes, the harder it is to give the representation ‘life’) .
What you’re describing fits better in the common usage of Surrealism.
22/04/2011 at 19:14 Zenicetus says:
I don’t see it as Uncanny Valley either. The Valley isn’t a “region” that can incorporate many things. It’s a very narrow gap — the gap between something that seems like a real human and something that’s very close but just a hair off. That failure to close the small gap triggers a subconscious reaction that tells you something is wrong. It’s probably related to the ability to detect disease, deformity, or just the “Other” from a different tribe.
You get a “that’s wrong” reaction looking at the Buddies, but I think it’s more just straight-up Uncanny without the Valley part, because it’s so far off the norm.
22/04/2011 at 19:42 Mario Figueiredo says:
Oh, I sure am. Throughout history artists have gone to great lengths to depict just the right amount of disturbing/pleasant images. Zombies are intentionally disturbing, as teddy bears are intentionally cute. Experimenting with shape and movement intentionally placed things in or to the right of the uncanny valley, depending on the desires. Expressionists were masters at creating all sorts of disturbing imagery, sometimes by simply making someone smile. There’s often intentionality. And, concerning games, praise the artist who can create on the gamers the effect they desired when modeling something.
The uncanny valley is not something which applicability only exists on a certain domain like some of you folks are trying to make it look like. The shape of the curve (narrow, wide, tall, short), even its placement is merely a matter of which culture is seeing what image, what person is seeing it, and even what’s emotional predisposition of the person seeing it. For an interesting read on this very matter, I suggest a 2005 paper by Dr. David Hanson, et al, Upending the Uncanny Valley (warning: pdf link). Although a direct reply to Masahiro Mori, and thus pretty much centered around the field of robotics, it tries to demonstrate the fact that the Uncanny Valley is different things to different people, as well as highly plastic (the curves shape can be influenced in all directions) and even that over the horizontal axis there can be more than one uncanny valley.
22/04/2011 at 20:00 Muzman says:
Yes but it still only concerns would be depictions of people as people, not distortions based on people designed to weird you out in the first place. You’re misapplying the concept.
( I think their “data” in that article is pretty terrible too, even if their over all point is harmless enough. Asking people to grade the expressiveness of obvious robots and which still image they like best completely misses the point)
I would add that nitpicking the Uncanny Valley to death is pretty easy to do. Since it’s a plot of measures of nothing in particular at all, concerned with vague groupings made up of arguably thousands of variables it falls over pretty easy. But it’s just because no one knows how to measure it.
22/04/2011 at 21:02 Consumatopia says:
it tries to demonstrate the fact that the Uncanny Valley is different things to different people,
No, it tried to show that Uncanny Valley theory did a bad job of predicting the way people reacted. It did not try to show that the Uncanny Valley is different things to different people, because the term “uncanny valley” is a reference to the theory of the Uncanny Valley, so if you think the theory is wrong then you shouldn’t use the term. I don’t think I noticed any instance of that paper using the term “uncanny valley” to mean “things people find uncanny”.
23/04/2011 at 00:44 Mario Figueiredo says:
So, you purposely ignored the second test in which he put to test a whole continuum and foundnd that for that case there is no valley? You also choose to ignore the following part: “Alternately, it may trigger “surreal” (dreamlike) feelings, rather than fear. Thus, people may find the robot strange but not frightening. As no “valley” is inherent; anthropomorphic depictions can be either disturbing or appealing at every level of abstraction or realism.”
While Hanson and others tried to contest the Uncanny Valley theory in the particular field of robotics (for which it was created but eventually spilled into other visual arts), they do not reject the theory as a whole. Simply the simplicity of its formulation. They propose a revised theory, not that the theory is wrong. Again, a quote: “So if people are indeed more sensitive to realistic depictions, but there is no “valley”, then the theory needs a new name and a new framework. We suggest that any level of realism or can be socially engaging if one designs the aesthetic well. This, in effect, represents a bridge of good aesthetic, which inspires us to name the revised theory the “Path of Engagement” (POE).”
Personally, I don’t take sides. The issue is clearly largely unresolved. But I can understand you didn’t take the time to fully read the paper. What I do find it slightly disturbing that you apparently want to believe that cultural differences, age, different sensitivities, and even occasional predispositions do not affect everyone’s personal graph. That everyone has the same graph. I can tell you for sure that is not the case.
23/04/2011 at 00:47 Mario Figueiredo says:
So, you purposely ignored the second test in which he put to test a whole continuum and found that for that case there is no valley? A couple of quotes: “[...]no “valley” is inherent” and “anthropomorphic depictions can be either disturbing or appealing at every level of abstraction or realism.”
While Hanson and others tried to contest the Uncanny Valley theory in the particular field of robotics (for which it was created but eventually spilled into other visual arts), they do not reject the theory as a whole. Simply the simplicity of its formulation. They propose a revised theory, not that the theory is wrong. Again, a quote: “So if people are indeed more sensitive to realistic depictions, but there is no “valley”, then the theory needs a new name and a new framework. We suggest that any level of realism or can be socially engaging if one designs the aesthetic well. This, in effect, represents a bridge of good aesthetic, which inspires us to name the revised theory the “Path of Engagement” (POE).”
Personally, I don’t take sides. The issue is clearly largely unresolved. But I can understand you didn’t take the time to fully read the paper. What I do find it slightly disturbing that you apparently want to believe that cultural differences, age, different sensitivities, and even occasional predispositions do not affect everyone’s personal graph. That everyone has the same graph. I can tell you for sure that is not the case.
23/04/2011 at 00:50 Mario Figueiredo says:
So, you purposely ignored the second test in which he put to test a whole continuum and found that for that case there is no valley? A couple of quotes derived from their two tests:
- “[...]no “valley” is inherent”
- “anthropomorphic depictions can be either disturbing or appealing at every level of abstraction or realism.”
While Hanson and others tried to contest the Uncanny Valley theory in the particular field of robotics (for which it was created but eventually spilled into other visual arts), they do not reject the theory as a whole. Simply the simplicity of its formulation. They propose a revised theory, not that the theory is wrong. Again, a quote: “So if people are indeed more sensitive to realistic depictions, but there is no “valley”, then the theory needs a new name and a new framework. We suggest that any level of realism or can be socially engaging if one designs the aesthetic well. This, in effect, represents a bridge of good aesthetic, which inspires us to name the revised theory the “Path of Engagement” (POE).”
Personally, I don’t take sides. The issue is clearly largely unresolved. But I can understand you didn’t take the time to fully read the paper. What I do find it slightly disturbing that you apparently want to believe that cultural differences, age, different sensitivities, and even occasional predispositions do not affect everyone’s personal graph. That everyone has the same graph. I can tell you for sure that is not the case.
23/04/2011 at 00:56 Mario Figueiredo says:
@Consumatopia
So, you purposely ignored the second test in which he put to test a whole continuum and found that for that case there is no valley? A couple of quotes derived from their two tests:
- “[...]no “valley” is inherent”
- “anthropomorphic depictions can be either disturbing or appealing at every level of abstraction or realism.”
While Hanson and others tried to contest the Uncanny Valley theory in the particular field of robotics, they do not reject the theory as a whole. Simply the simplicity of its formulation. They propose a revised theory, not that the theory is wrong. They propose the newly revised theory to be called “Path of Engagement”.
Personally, I don’t take sides. The issue is clearly unresolved. But I can understand you didn’t take the time to fully read the paper. What I do find it slightly disturbing that you apparently want to believe that cultural differences, age, different sensitivities, and even occasional predispositions do not affect everyone’s personal graph. That everyone has the same graph. I can tell you for sure that is not the case.
23/04/2011 at 00:57 Mario Figueiredo says:
@Consumatopia
So, you purposely ignored the second test in which he put to test a whole continuum and found that for that case there is no valley? A couple of quotes derived from their two tests:
- “[...]no “valley” is inherent”
- “anthropomorphic depictions can be either disturbing or appealing at every level of abstraction or realism.”
While Hanson and others tried to contest the Uncanny Valley theory in the particular field of robotics, they do not reject the theory as a whole. Simply the simplicity of its formulation. They propose a revised theory, not that the theory is wrong. They propose the newly revised theory to be called “Path of Engagement”.
Personally, I don’t take sides. The issue is clearly unresolved. But I can understand you didn’t take the time to fully read the paper. What I do find it slightly disturbing that you apparently want to believe that cultural differences, age, different sensitivities, and even occasional predispositions do not affect everyone’s personal graph. That everyone has the same graph. I can tell you for sure that is not the case.
23/04/2011 at 01:44 Muzman says:
edit: huh. I swear there used to be a post here I was responding to. oh well.
Argument from authority is never a good start, but anyway….
I’ve not read any of the papers this summary refers to, but the two surveys they use as examples for refuting the uncanny valley are wanting. Pointing to animatronic faces and asking people if they feel disturbed by them has limited applications, since it’s obvious that they are not humans at all from the outset. Testing reactions to something like the nurse robot would be better (she sits right on the line for me, if it’s the one I’m thinking of, offering great expressiveness one moment and then just doing something…wrong when some solenoid locks onto place or something).
The second one ranks still images mixing Mulan (I think) with the face of Jennifer Love Hewitt seems utterly pointless to me since animation is essential to the whole concept most of the time. It does exist in still art but a better test would be photographs versus hyperrealist artworks of the same people (which are often accused of triggering the effect).
As openers for a whole raft of research into the notion they are harmless enough. But nothing you could draw any solid conclusions from by themselves. They haven’t shown the valley doesn’t exist, merely that it doesn’t seem to be where they looked (the Mulan survey appears to be in answer to another study that was trying to establish the valley using similar methods and I think that’s pretty shakey too). As I said, taking it apart is pretty easy. I don’t know anyone who treats it as a strict metric in the first place (except maybe the originator). The amount of things that go into the impression of humanity and life is massive and not easily reductive. Research to really figure out anything specific about it would be similarly large and complex.
However, their purpose with this article is very specific. They are arguing against the idea that robotics should avoid human representation in too much detail, and for the idea that facsimiles of humans can help us understand expression better. There I would agree. Make what the heck you like. Our understanding, and ways of understanding, human perception has come a long way in fifty years. I find it weird the uncanny valley notion would stop them at all. Some sort of facial Turing Test would be the thing I would think.
23/04/2011 at 02:40 MrEvilGuy says:
you guys are on crack this is the most feckless discussion I’ve ever seen; it’s almost Pre-Kalkanian
23/04/2011 at 02:57 Mario Figueiredo says:
Yeah, there was a post Muzman. I got into all sorts of connection/database/something-else problems trying to edit it and eventually I got tagged as spam. The post, I think was deleted, when that happened.
Anyways, good discussion. But I don’t pretend to take sides on the matter of Hanson vs. Mori. The issue is clearly unresolved. Neither it is very important to get into much detail about where/what/how/when the Uncanny Valley is in effect. That much we agree.
I just find it curious that using the expression Uncanny Valley to refer to those fellas on the screenshot produced such discussion. Moreover that there are minds that actually don’t seem to think that people perceive uncanny things in different forms and degree depending on culture, age, history, even any emotional predisposition at the time. As such, every person has their one graph (certainly they can share many similarities with other people’s graphs).
As for Hanson,
If there is one thing Hanson demonstrated (on the second test) is that you can very well produce a continuum without that producing a valley. More than just demonstrating there can be situations in which no valley is present, it clearly illustrates that the graph shape isn’t something fixed. BTW, he doesn’t pretend to disprove the initial theory. By far. He just criticizes it and proposes a revision.
PS: It wasn’t an appeal to authority. You claimed to know something that four PhDs on their respective fields don’t. That isn’t just something I can accept easily.
23/04/2011 at 18:21 Consumatopia says:
I just find it curious that using the expression Uncanny Valley to refer to those fellas on the screenshot produced such discussion.
Because you said “Uncanny Valley” when you should have said “stuff I find uncanny”, and now you’re being defensive about it.
Moreover that there are minds that actually don’t seem to think that people perceive uncanny things in different forms and degree depending on culture, age, history, even any emotional predisposition at the time. As such, every person has their one graph (certainly they can share many similarities with other people’s graphs).
No, no one in this thread said this or gave any evidence that they were thinking this. No one denies that different people find different things uncanny. That you’re confused over this is all the more reason why you should start using words correctly–so you can understand what people are saying, so when someone refers to the uncanny valley you don’t think they’re talking about uncanniness in general.
22/04/2011 at 11:34 hosndosn says:
So insane it’s good?
22/04/2011 at 11:35 terry says:
Game of the year.
22/04/2011 at 11:35 Navagon says:
Last Wednesday was a bit like this.
22/04/2011 at 18:09 thelxr says:
Party hard, mate, party hard. )
22/04/2011 at 22:51 sinister agent says:
Damn, I was hoping to get in there with “I once had a date that went a lot like this.” You dastard.
22/04/2011 at 11:36 The Sombrero Kid says:
OMFG this is the most amazing surprise ever!
22/04/2011 at 11:39 Rii says:
Oh dear. I laughed loudly enough at “I watch in horror as a penguin devours one of my tiny, smiling fun factories through its anus” that if there were any other human beings in my vicinity, verily they would have been disturbed and looked askance in my direction. For better or worse, mine is a lonely life.
Registering interest.
22/04/2011 at 11:42 Batolemaeus says:
What did I just read?
22/04/2011 at 11:45 MadTinkerer says:
This looks a lot like a game I came up with when I was twelve… if I had also been taking copious amounts of LSD at the time.
My hand is involuntarily reaching for the “add to cart” button. Must… maintain… calm… reason… and… read… reviews… first!
22/04/2011 at 11:47 James Allen says:
I’m halfway through the game since getting a review copy Wednesday. Here are my impressions.
+ Vehicle variety and design is nice. Boats, cars, submarines, helicopters, plus plenty of parts to attach (propellers, wings, wheels, etc)
+ Generate fun by: kicking the naked midgets, towing them behind your vehicle and doing stunts, or finding music notes and then placing a dance party (you can import custom MP3 and even customize the dance moves). Spend fun on new parts or bringing down objects from orbit.
- However, the three methods of generating fun is all you get (plus some mini-games), so it becomes a bit repetitive after an hour or two.
+ Plausible physics for your weird contraptions
- Vague objectives. There is no mini-map or HUD indication of where to go, or even step-by-step instructions to provide assistance. The big mission in the winter level says to “swim to the volcanoes and turn them on.” This actually means “build a sub at a crack in the ice, follow the train tracks under water to two different volcanoes, attach naked midgets to your sub, and bring them to each volcano and do a mini-game”. Took me a while to figure that out.
- Obviously linear with such specific instructions like that
- The mandatory mini-games are not fun and are generally annoying rather than challenging.
So there you go.
22/04/2011 at 11:53 Quintin Smith says:
Haha. Dude, if you worked any harder at eliminating mystique you would be the X-Men.
22/04/2011 at 12:29 James Allen says:
Insanity can only go so far.
22/04/2011 at 12:45 Turin Turambar says:
Thanks for the interesting points, but isn’t there a little contradiction in them?
You complaing about the gameplay being a bit repetitive after a while, but i am reading well, there is also exploration and puzzles… it’s just that you are putting that areas as a negative point (the vague objective minus point). Maybe they could be less vague, i agree that it can be a flaw, but there is a positive side you aren’t considering it. Part of the gameplay seems also doing what you are complaining: exploring the enviroment and trying stuff.
In the other hand, that volcano puzzle was really vague :S
22/04/2011 at 11:49 James G says:
I’m sorely tempted, it sounds like the kind of game the phrase ‘batshit insane’ was invented for. Also, its quite reasonably priced. Main problem being I already have a hell of a backlog.
22/04/2011 at 11:49 FunkyBadger3 says:
Mmmmm, Wodka. Is there anything it can’t do?
22/04/2011 at 12:31 Wulf says:
Everything except be vodka!
22/04/2011 at 21:08 Teddy Leach says:
Wulf wins. Flawless victory. Fatality.
22/04/2011 at 11:52 Longrat says:
So erm, what sort of game IS this?
22/04/2011 at 11:56 Quintin Smith says:
Technically speaking, a sort of open world vehicle-building adventure game. In practice you spend the whole time gawping.
22/04/2011 at 11:58 Longrat says:
That’s a great combination!
Gawping + any game = an instant hit.
22/04/2011 at 12:03 Chris D says:
Where we’re going we don’t need genres.
22/04/2011 at 12:31 Wulf says:
…hahahahaha.
Gods, I am such a nerd. I probably shouldn’t have found that as funny as I did.
22/04/2011 at 21:18 Teddy Leach says:
Is it bad that I laughed too?
22/04/2011 at 21:27 noom says:
Man, that is so true about the gawping. I’ve bought it and spent my first couple of hours slack-jawed with one eyebrow almost permanantly cocked. I did break from that briefly to laugh quite loudly at the “Now that’s heroic!” bit, but then it was straight back to the gawping.
22/04/2011 at 11:53 TJ says:
Glad you’re enjoying the game, and the ‘trip report’ Quins. Although ‘high-rise’ is probably pushing it ;-)
This was an eye opening project to be involved with. Mostly because of the vodka.
22/04/2011 at 12:00 Quintin Smith says:
Aw. I imagined it like this: http://www.hotelinspector.com/ourhouse.jpg
But yeah, I really enjoyed the trip report. Although I mostly read it clenching my fists with jealously at both your experience and what you’d managed to write about it.
22/04/2011 at 12:38 Fede says:
Quintin: you can always try to convince The LxR to invite you in order to preview their next project :P
22/04/2011 at 18:11 thelxr says:
@Quentin Smith: Hell, you don’t need to ask, just visit Moscow anytime – you’re always a welcome guest at IPL. :) Also, the pic is a bit resembling of the building… But our isn’t as gloomy.
22/04/2011 at 18:33 TJ says:
You’re not far off, just knock off a few stories.
23/04/2011 at 08:45 tomeoftom says:
Can this please, please happen? [journeyofsagajourneyofsagajourneyofsagajour~]
23/04/2011 at 10:15 Saldek says:
“just knock off a few stories” – should be first nature for a
hackjournalist, no?22/04/2011 at 11:59 catmorbid says:
Wow, this actually seems interesting… Might be me has to buy this. Oh, you should link the trailer there as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0rR5qx32ZY
22/04/2011 at 12:03 Quintin Smith says:
Sure. Will add it in now.
22/04/2011 at 18:13 thelxr says:
BTW, we didn’t do the trailer and kind of dislike it.
22/04/2011 at 19:43 Shih Tzu says:
I kind of dislike it too! I’m glad I read the article first.
22/04/2011 at 21:11 Dominic White says:
You should do your own one in-house and just seed it across Youtube. If the publisher say you can’t? Well, do it unofficially on a personal channel, heh.
22/04/2011 at 12:02 magnus says:
Sold, Steam, you are a harsh mistess, just take ALL my money why don’t you?!
22/04/2011 at 12:04 konrad_ha says:
Im 30 years old and what is this?
22/04/2011 at 12:04 Conor says:
Holy…what the…is…what?!
I want this a lot. A LOT.
22/04/2011 at 12:11 CMaster says:
Watching the video, especially with the really, really cheesy american voiceover makes me wonder:
Is this a serious attempt at making an interesting game, or is it just one giant satire of well, every other game ever?
Also, quick question, as I really want to play the Ice-Pick Lodge games but have been waiting for a really cheap deal or Pathologic to be fixed: This or The Void? (to start obviously).
22/04/2011 at 12:18 Quintin Smith says:
The Void! But the two games are kind of incomparable.
22/04/2011 at 12:40 CMaster says:
@Quinns.
Evidently. I was just asking which is the more interesting, more odd experience really.
22/04/2011 at 14:27 Giaddon says:
I haven’t played Cargo, so I’m actually talking out of my FUN-hole, but The Void is one of the strangest, most interesting experiences gaming offers. You should play it.
22/04/2011 at 18:00 godkingemperor says:
I wouldn’t count on Pathologic being “fixed” any time soon. Besides, the rough edges and barmy translation are part of its charm.
22/04/2011 at 12:27 RagingLion says:
I want to play whatever comes from these minds but the colourful nature of the game will genuinely help me to finish this as opposed to The Void which I intend to go back to but need a decent amount of emotional energy to do so each time.
I confess that I’m very much expecting there to be some kind of clever message that comes from this. I hope that turns out to be the case so I’ll be interested when that ‘Wot I think’ comes around.
23/04/2011 at 00:16 opel says:
Emotionally draining. Yes, that’s exactly what The Void is. It’s an incredibly unique experience, but it can really wear you out.
22/04/2011 at 12:27 Wulf says:
This is like mindrape in the form of a game. It’s a game that rapes your mind, and then vicariously you get your mind raped just by reading the experiences others have had with this game. From there, the mindrape spreads virally.
I am so buying this game.
22/04/2011 at 12:41 Wulf says:
I’ll also add that I now know what would happen if the computer running the simulation that our reality is housed in got a virus. This would happen.
22/04/2011 at 12:32 Zagzagovich says:
Not available in my region. Which is Russia… What? Why? SADFACE
22/04/2011 at 18:13 thelxr says:
Patience, my friend, patience. All in due time!
22/04/2011 at 12:39 thebigJ_A says:
So it’s basically Pathologic 2, then?
22/04/2011 at 12:48 terry says:
In that it’s completely unlike Pathologic in every way, yes.
23/04/2011 at 04:15 thebigJ_A says:
Have you never heard the word “joke” before?
22/04/2011 at 12:43 clippa says:
Ouch, made the mistake of watching the trailer. Is the narrator in the game? If so, can you change it to the original language and have subtitles?
22/04/2011 at 12:47 Quintin Smith says:
American narrator is not in the game, thankfully.
22/04/2011 at 13:30 Archonsod says:
The voice acting is in fact really well done.
22/04/2011 at 14:58 clippa says:
Thanks you two. Fears allayed :D
22/04/2011 at 17:52 Muzman says:
In that trailer it seems as though, to stave off ‘ummm…what?”s, someone went with “You know, for kids”.
22/04/2011 at 12:50 Cynic says:
For reminding me so very much of Giants: Citizen Kabuto, I will have to get this.
22/04/2011 at 13:00 Wulf says:
I’m currently replaying that, now! Buddies do kind of look like Smarties, don’t they?
Giants, such an incredible little game.
22/04/2011 at 13:39 Urael says:
Giants. Kabuto. Delphi. Smarties. Exploding ‘Potatoes (no Portal ARG love??).
BEST. GAME. EVER.
22/04/2011 at 19:58 gummybearsliveonthemoon says:
Agreed. Just from reading about it I can taste the same sort of bizarre comedic antilogic that infused Giants. I must get this.
23/04/2011 at 21:02 Citizen Kabuto says:
Damn! Any game that reminds me of my most favourite game has to be good! Off to try now!
Oh, and PlaneMoon – if you’re listening – we REALLY DO NEED another Giants! Plz ;-)
22/04/2011 at 13:11 suibhne says:
This sounds like a fever dream.
22/04/2011 at 13:23 Chris D says:
My download finishes in about three minutes. Wish me luck.
22/04/2011 at 15:32 Chris D says:
This game scares me.
22/04/2011 at 16:04 terry says:
Same here, I want to play it again but I’m not sure where I’ll end up.
22/04/2011 at 13:29 Urael says:
I wonder how many people here equating the somewhat ‘wacky’ premise of this game to an LSD trip have actually experienced one? Lazy, journalistic shorthand for anything unconventional (people said the same thing about the creation of the Teletubbies, and have been doing so about certain games since the early 80′s) is now a lazy commenting meme. It’s called CREATIVITY. And it’s what happens when you stop trying so hard to emulate real life, and free yourself to explore the potential of a truly digital space. However, considering the stale, prosaic nature of modern (commercial) gaming, you could be excused for not realising this.
Game looks AWESOME. £15? Sold!
22/04/2011 at 13:39 Wulf says:
I wholeheartedly endorse and agree with your viewpoint and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
22/04/2011 at 13:48 Urael says:
:D Yep, on this you and I are completely in accordance. I’m tired of military shooter X – we need moar games like this, Giants, Dungeon Keeper, Sacrifice, MDK, From Dust, Fract, The Witness….
22/04/2011 at 14:00 GenBanks says:
hallucinogens vividly unleash the imagination and give you realistic experiences which would normally seem very strange and unusual. So i think the analogy is correct when dealing with a highly unusual, dream like and creative game. I don’t think the comparison to an lsd trip is intended to be negative as you make it out to be.
22/04/2011 at 14:06 Soon says:
X is like Y on Z
22/04/2011 at 14:30 Wulf says:
@GenBanks
I don’t think Ureal was speaking of drugs in a negative way (I certainly don’t think of them as such) but rather saying that one doesn’t actually need drugs for creativity.
If that was true, with the crazy WTF shit that my mind cranks out on a daily basis, I should be on drugs all the time, but I don’t need them. It’s fun, though, because I get the most bizarre ideas and sometimes explaining them to friends just stalls their brains, it screws them up, and leaves them wondering how I do it, why my brain dreams up the stuff it does, and where it gets it from.
And speaking of drugs, this reminds me of something an exploration party of one of my favourite races and what they found on one world, an almost-tree (more of a flora/fauna mix than purely flora) that had evolved a defence mechanism against being chopped down, it had sacs which gave off chemicals that induced euphoria and hallucinations in all those around, essentially leading to Garden of Eden scenarios where all your dreams became true. However, only one in one hundred trees actually had active sacs on them, the rest were vestigial, but it was found that a broad forest was required for trees with active sacs to pop up, if they tried to group small numbers of trees in an orchard, all the sacs grown would be vestigial. The race on that planet started harvesting this for their own use, since it was the most powerful drug they’d ever encountered, buuut unfortunately this proved to be the downfall of their civilisation. Everyone was far more interested in the incredibly believable and real fantasy scenarios presented by the trees than their own reality.
Beware trees, they’ll do you in eventually. That or they’ll turn you into bees, metaphorically speaking.
22/04/2011 at 15:13 Dominic White says:
It is fairly undeniable that the production of the game DID involve large quantities of vodka, maybe some absinthe, and it probably wouldn’t be stretching to say a few illicit substances as well. This is Ice-Pick Lodge we’re talking about.
That said, chemical assistance or not, they’re damn creative people.
22/04/2011 at 17:32 Urael says:
@soon. Awesome! God, I miss that show. And bang on the nail I was trying to hammer into people’s heads, good sir. Thanks. :)
22/04/2011 at 13:38 Pew pew LAZORS says:
Yes, a new game by Ice Pick, best news in a long time.
Shame about the game not being available in my region :(
22/04/2011 at 13:40 JuJuCam says:
I’ll maybe wait for the full WIT but I’m pretty much sold anyhow. Like someone above, I haven’t completed any IPL game before but this looks like one I could just stomp around and have fun in without worrying too much about various pressures.
22/04/2011 at 15:18 Archonsod says:
It’s even got a sandbox mode.
22/04/2011 at 13:50 hamster says:
One question, and one question only:
Is it fun?
22/04/2011 at 15:31 Chris D says:
This game is mocking you. No, really.
22/04/2011 at 14:01 Soon says:
Your words are wasted. The screenshots are enough.
22/04/2011 at 14:24 Fwiffo says:
Well, if Ice-Pick deserve kudos for anything, it’s for designing something absoutely nobody in the world will want to see porn of.
22/04/2011 at 14:33 Wulf says:
…ffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
There are two problems with what you just said.
1.) Someone will actually do it, now, just for shits and giggles.
2.) I’m now morbidly, deathly curious as to whether Smartie porn exists. I WILL RESIST YOU, CURIOSITY.
22/04/2011 at 15:35 Wodge says:
Rule 35 is probably now in effect.
Bugger.
22/04/2011 at 21:41 Teddy Leach says:
Rule 34, surely?
EDIT: Never mind, I’m miles away and couldn’t remember my rules.
23/04/2011 at 00:29 opel says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0rR5qx32ZY
Pause at around 53 seconds and look closely.
It already exists, my friend.
23/04/2011 at 04:25 Wulf says:
…53 is a reversal of 35…
They did it on purpossssse!
22/04/2011 at 15:32 thurzday says:
From the Tom Jubert files:
“12:30am – We talk about Ice Pick’s next project (Cargo’s deadline is in the next few weeks). It’s a kind of bildungsroman charting the lives of a large number of characters over a great space of time. This alone makes it fascinating. There’s unsubstantiated talk of applying the dynamic interaction of something like Minecraft to narrative. There’s also reference to a great play as central inspiration. And I could tell you more – Ice Pick is the only professional developer I know not to bother with NDAs – but I’m not going to.”
All of my money–take it.
22/04/2011 at 18:38 TJ says:
Keep in mind this is most likely just one of a bunch of crazy ambitious ideas circulating at IPL, and they need Cargo to be a success to move forward. But yes – there’s a very good reason I went out of my way to work with the guys.
22/04/2011 at 19:30 ZIGS says:
Color me intrigued
22/04/2011 at 15:37 shoptroll says:
This sounds like the bastard child of Myst and Garry’s Mod. Intriguing.
22/04/2011 at 15:37 nuh uh no way says:
so basically, it’s numberwang?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjOZtWZ56lc
22/04/2011 at 15:58 Maykael says:
And to think I wasn’t going to smoke pot today… Damn you Quinns!
22/04/2011 at 16:10 BillyIII says:
“Not Available in your Region”
Good job, Ice-Pick…
22/04/2011 at 16:19 ZIGS says:
Huh, it’s the publisher’s fault, not the devs
22/04/2011 at 16:18 ZIGS says:
I wonder what would happen if I played this while listening to I-Doser
22/04/2011 at 16:40 Wedge says:
So… this sounds like their most accessible game yet then? Couldn’t get into The Void at all, when I realized it was a rather boring resource management simulator. Kicking naked mans and tethering them to vehicles sounds more fun than growing plants!
22/04/2011 at 17:06 terry says:
You’re right – this game could be a gesture to those who complained about Icepick Lodge’s concept of difficulty in their previous games. It’s pure pressure-free exploration, even when there is a timer nothing fatal seems to occur (yet).
22/04/2011 at 16:48 Freud says:
Nice water effects.
22/04/2011 at 17:11 Squirrelfanatic says:
“Rated T – Partial nudity.”
Lol.
22/04/2011 at 17:25 magnus says:
Only in america! ‘OMG you can see his moobs, it’s nearly as bad if you saw Percy!’
22/04/2011 at 17:29 fenriz says:
Reminds me of Eric Chahi’s crazy new game.
Why are they even doing this? Why do they go for demential surrealism?
23/04/2011 at 02:54 Wulf says:
Because some people want it?
My response to this sort of thing tends to be, quite simply, MOAR!
There’s too much boring stuff going around these days… oh look, it’s another epic fantasy set in medieval England with the same story that we’ve gone through since pen & paper came about, or oh look, it’s another epic space opera, with xenophobic humans who apparently hate body modification, human-like aliens, and no sense of exploration or discovery, or even worse, it’s another historical game, or another modern day game, or a gritty (‘cuz dat’s cool, yo) modern day game, or… @_@
Too much of that.
Not enough of this.
More of this.
23/04/2011 at 18:26 fenriz says:
…or, “oh look there’s another another world”. I so don’t want that, oh no.
epic space opera. awesome.
But no, we get freaky porn midgets and have some kind of tetris nonsense puzzle game. yay.
I thought videogames evolved because they could tell about humanity.
Even on an alien world, but nonsense takes us back to primitive times.
23/04/2011 at 21:56 Wulf says:
I had trouble parsing that, all I managed to get from it was: “Anything unfamiliar to me is nonsense and therefore has no worth.” Which is the opposite position of my “Anything overly familiar to me is boring and I don’t want to be doing the same thing for the billionth time.” attitude.
Right.
To each their own? Though in all fairness, your market is incredibly over-catered for, and mine is the minority, so I don’t know what you’re worried about.
25/04/2011 at 00:59 fenriz says:
i’m not against something unfamiliar TO ME. I’m not a xenophobe.
It’s about humanity or surreal crap.
It’s the difference between a bizarre theatre act with clowns who start off dancing with black balloons, then pretend to be fish, talk with shadows, laugh at a projected face of a monkey, and finally a tornado frightens them and the act ends.
…and King Lear.
One is nonsensical surrealism, the other is humanity.
Videogames can’t afford to be demential, yet… painting had to evolve, and remain REALISTIC for 2000 years before Picasso could paint his bizarre stuff.
As for the minority majority issue, the best minds(Eric Chahi, Ron Gilbert) go for surrealism and we remain with Bioware staff accessibility dragon age retards.
25/04/2011 at 01:20 Malawi Frontier Guard says:
That’s pretty good, I’ll tell you that much.
Pretty good. Rich.
22/04/2011 at 17:36 sk2k says:
Err…what…hmm….
Does it plays like Lemmings? Do you have to save the buddies? Can they die? What happens to fun then? Are there time limited “missions” ? So many questions…..
23/04/2011 at 22:40 Brass Monkey says:
The gameplay is very unlike Lemmings. Most of the time is spent collecting energy and parts for vehicles and using those vehicles to race, ram into things, transport objects or just generally exploring.
There are some events with a timer, but if you let the timer run out, no big deal. Some of the Buddies will die, but there are so many of the buggers that you hardly notice, and you can always create new ones. As far as I know the game doesn’t even have a game over screen.
The character you are playing as is completely invincible at all times, and your vehicles take no damage from anything either.
22/04/2011 at 17:42 bluebogle says:
Damnit! I had no intention of buying any video games today! I need to stop checking this site every day…
22/04/2011 at 18:04 thelxr says:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbe7SOOnfGw – a Cargo live action movie is planned to be released sometime soon, folks. Stay tuned and check out the trailer.
23/04/2011 at 16:58 Chinacula says:
Just when I think Ice Pick Lodge can’t get any cooler, you go and do something like this! I think you have just created the RPS equivalent of being Rickrolled.
And now I want to move to Ghana, but only if I can have an apartment where I can play nothing but Pathologic, The Void, and Cargo.
22/04/2011 at 18:15 thelxr says:
http://forum.ice-pick.com/viewforum.php?f=39 – it looks up from here. Try again?
Also, it’ll be out in Russia, but a bit later. Sorry about that, folks.
22/04/2011 at 18:17 protobob says:
I started playing this yesterday, it’s pretty great, though my initial impressions with making my first boat were very frustrating (because I was doing it wrong, duh). If you actually do what the game tells you to do it’s not frustrating at all, but my inclination was to do experiments while buddies were in danger.
It IS a disaster, after all.
This frustration was soon followed by pure joy (and staying up till 4 am building stuff and playing with the buddies).
22/04/2011 at 18:20 bwion says:
So, apparently, Salvador Dali has made a game.
22/04/2011 at 18:21 Daiv says:
So this is the game equivalent of “Has anyone really been far as decided to use even go want to do look more like?”
Parsing that “impressions” gave me a mental hernia.
22/04/2011 at 18:34 Tei says:
I am stuck on the Organ. I have absolutelly no idea how that 1,2,3 Space thing works. It seems that I have to turn a tube green, but I have no idea how to do that.
22/04/2011 at 18:42 Chris D says:
It’s basically guitar hero. Press the key when it flashes on screen.
22/04/2011 at 18:54 Tei says:
Tried that, nothing.
22/04/2011 at 19:01 Chris D says:
Hmm, that worked for me, although there were quite a few casualties.
Did you bring enough buddies with you?
22/04/2011 at 23:18 Brass Monkey says:
1) Go into the sub and head outside the volcano. Go around a bit underwater and gather 7 Buddies. Go back to the volcano and exit the sub. The Buddies should jump off and move toward the hole in the ground near the Organ.
2) Do this one more time so that the number above the hole reads 13/13. You might not need this many but it allows for some more mistakes.
3) Use the organ to star the minigame
4) Wait until a Buddy appear in a tube and floats upward. When it reaches the middle, wait for the tube to turn WHITE and then press the button that is on the tube (1, 2, 3 or space). The tube should now flash GREEN. If it flashed RED you pressed either too early or too late.
5) Do this for a while until a cutscene takes over.
23/04/2011 at 09:46 Tei says:
Ohhhh… is probably the tube turning white that I never figured out!.
THANKS GUYS!!!
23/04/2011 at 13:08 Tei says:
I am enjoying this game a lot!. Is a riot of fun to build stuff, with the duddies, hehehe.
22/04/2011 at 19:14 clippa says:
Is there any way to turn off the weird inverted mouse acceleration?
If I move my mouse fast, I turn a tiny amount and if I move it really slowly I turn at a normal speed. It’s driving me mad.
22/04/2011 at 19:19 thelxr says:
Set mouth smoothing to minimum. Possibly.
22/04/2011 at 19:27 clippa says:
Yeah, got the sensitivity turned right up and the smoothing right down.
I’m assuming there’ll be no real aiming involved so I’m sure I’ll get used to it but it would be great if I could turn it off. Can’t find any config files or anything like that :(
22/04/2011 at 20:25 clippa says:
OK, after about half an hour, I’ve gotten used to it and having great fun :D
22/04/2011 at 21:37 noom says:
Mouth smoothing is now typo-of-the-month.
22/04/2011 at 19:33 Davie says:
…what.
22/04/2011 at 19:45 notjasonlee says:
i…stopped reading
22/04/2011 at 19:53 Gabbo says:
I really wish they had given some indication this was coming out so soon, instead of dropping it on the public out of the blue. That said, I’ll be picking it up sometime shortly, as I’ve enjoyed everything IPL has created thus far, even if they have been difficult as all get up.
22/04/2011 at 20:37 Moonracer says:
Making “fun” the currency in your game seems like a possible design flaw. Oh how often have I had to sacrifice fun to progress through a game.
I just hope it is not the case here as I have just purchased it. Thanks for the heads up about this. I saw it in the Steam new releases list and didn’t pay it much attention.
22/04/2011 at 21:00 The Sombrero Kid says:
I’ve hit a couple of bugs, basically save regularly & not over previous saves, saving caused one of my bugs, other than that this is their greatest game yet, wish i could have the first person camera all the time though & not just in vehicles.
22/04/2011 at 22:04 The Army of None says:
Sweet Horace, I don’t know what I just read
22/04/2011 at 22:13 ZIGS says:
The more you play, the more sense it makes and the better it gets. This is a pretty fun game. Still haven’t tinkered with the vehicle editor much, the story is starting to grip my attention but I’m sure I’ll dedicate some time to it in the near future
22/04/2011 at 22:54 sinister agent says:
Poor Richard O’Brien. I do hope there’s a moment where the wee naked weird things start a harmonica chorus, though.
22/04/2011 at 23:36 Dirhael says:
This looks, and sounds, exactly like the game I never knew I always wanted.
22/04/2011 at 23:49 The Sombrero Kid says:
this car was quite useful for ground/water http://steamcommunity.com/id/thesombrerokid/screenshot/541766098703988431
23/04/2011 at 00:10 Tams80 says:
Well, I shall certainly have to try this out. It’s a shame I don’t have access to Steam though, nor the time to play. =(
23/04/2011 at 03:05 Wulf says:
Can… can we clone Ice Pick Lodge 50 times, so that we can have them work on 50 different games?
23/04/2011 at 04:08 Rii says:
Wouldn’t you want to take at least half of those clones and see what they could accomplish together? I mean, how are you even going to find the time to play 50 different games?
23/04/2011 at 04:27 Wulf says:
I would make the time!
…still, putting the clones together so that they make 15 games instead of 50 might work out, too.
But I think we all agree that they need to be cloned, for the good of the entertainment industry.
23/04/2011 at 13:15 Chris D says:
This would be very good for the games industry.
I suspect the Russian distilling industry might do quite well out of it too.
23/04/2011 at 13:10 Tei says:
I am playing the game, and loving it.
23/04/2011 at 14:45 Wulf says:
I have another reason to love this game. They voice-act everything and the voice-acting is actually not at all bad! (Though I can’t help but feel that the engineer we play as isn’t quite the same ethnicity as implied by the voice, but that’s a minor niggle.) I’m really pleased about this because my old sight isn’t getting any better, and with it being optic nerve related as opposed to something in the eye itself, there’s not a lot I can do.
But this game is actually quite accessible. There’s not a whole lot of tiny text that’s necessary to read, and what is necessary for me to read is often voice-acted. I genuinely appreciate this, it’s a great accessibility feature and it makes my life easier. That and the Magicka devs giving me a way to increase the font size in Magicka leaves me thinking that having indie devs responsible for a good chunk of PC gaming is actually a great thing for that reason. They’ll either consider accessibility, or at the very least you’ll be able to approach them about it and ask.
Bright future stuff, right there.
23/04/2011 at 17:53 bluebogle says:
Having played through the rather short game, I gotta say it’s full of bugs, runs surprisingly poorly, and as mentioned is far too short. That said, why do I want to go back and play it some more?
24/04/2011 at 00:07 ZIGS says:
Because it’s cheaper than LSD
24/04/2011 at 01:09 bluebogle says:
Last I checked, I could get 4 hits for the price of this game… wait, why do I know this?
24/04/2011 at 03:38 Wulf says:
Because you checked!
24/04/2011 at 17:49 edit says:
Bought. Ice Pick Lodge are one of those developers I feel compelled to support purely because their games are so creatively unique. I still haven’t gotten around to finishing The Void, though. I do plan on it.
25/04/2011 at 14:29 Item! says:
I can only assume that this is something worth perceviering with then?
I bought it on a whim, played for 10 minutes and then turned it off.
Kicking stumpy nude guys around an island and throwing rubbish into the sea wasn’t much fun, the controls felt lardy and drunken and the general “wackiness” was pretty tiresome. Then I bought a sail.
Sounds like it doesn’t actually reveal its hand for a while though. I may go back…
25/04/2011 at 23:50 Muzman says:
There’s some better videos going around now. This is what a Buddy dance party with custom music looks like.
http://youtu.be/QMRamENH9ig