By Quintin Smith on May 23rd, 2011 at 2:49 pm.
What are you doing tonight?
We here at RPS are card-carrying fans of Plain Sight, the beautiful, acrobatic, low-gravity robot dueling game. So last week when the developers got in touch about organising an RPS Plain Sight night to give a boost to the game’s ailing playerbase, I was all to eager to shout “Yes!”, though it was more like “Yepht,” because at the time I was eating spaghetti. Whether you do or don’t own Plain Sight, if you want to have some fun and/or do a good deed and/or literally run rings around a sucker or two, tonight is for you. Details after the jump.
I say that tonight is for you even if you don’t own Plain Sight for the simple reason that at £1.99, the game’s so ludicrously cheap now that even if you bought it and just played for a couple of high-octane hours tonight, you’ll already have gotten your money’s worth. If you want a more solid reason than that, here’s Kieron and me singing the game’s praises.
So, when will this be taking place? And where? It’s easy! Come 6pm GMT Beatnik Games are going to be starting a selection of dedicated RPS servers that you’ll be able to see via the in-game lobby, at which point you should simply come along and have yourself a good time. I’ve specifically requested one CTF server, which as you may or may not know is the connoisseur’s Plain Sight mode of choice.
One last thing- at this point I’m going to say what I always say in conversations about Plain Sight, which is that you should disable the game’s music and run your own in the background. This game has a miraculous ability to suit any genre of music you care to throw at it, and both the album and the game will benefit. You’ll see. Jonsi’s Go in particular becomes a supernaturally beautiful experience when you’re floating a ninja robot through various dangerous parabolas. Give it a shot! And I hope to see you guys there.
23/05/2011 at 14:53 Bassism says:
I rather hope there will still be people playing by late US time, because I love this game.
23/05/2011 at 20:25 Waltorious says:
I would be down for some US time playing, but it will probably be quite late for me as I’m in California AND I need to cook dinner tonight. I’ll try and log on after and see if anyone’s still on.
23/05/2011 at 22:39 jonfitt says:
I’ll log in late CST too.
23/05/2011 at 14:54 CMaster says:
Will be there, will try and bring the “gang” from my TS.
Think I might experiment with Daft Punk.
23/05/2011 at 22:41 jonfitt says:
OOh good call. A bit of Aerodynamic would go nicely.
23/05/2011 at 14:56 Protagoras says:
I really wanted to get into it after getting it on the winter steam sale, but the servers are usually so dead… Hopefully tonight I’ll be able to give it a real try with lots of people around (and no bots) :D
23/05/2011 at 14:58 Maykael says:
I just needed a reason to buy this. See you this evening fellow RPSers!
23/05/2011 at 14:59 Gnoupi says:
I love the movement in this game, it feels fun to move around, and nicely disorientating.
However, the multiplayer system annoyed me to the point that I quickly stopped playing it. This is the kind of game which is allowing you to buy upgrades, according to how well you perform (number of points).
Which, for me, means that I was spending my time attempting to touch someone while the better players were upgrading their speed, their abilities, etc, increasing the problem. So in the end I just left each round frustrated, getting killed non stop.
It made me feel like if I was playing CS all over again, attempting to shoot people with my miserable pistol while getting killed by rifles, round after round.
I don’t know if they changed that since the last time I played, though. I would hope so.
23/05/2011 at 16:47 Tengil says:
Yeah, giving the better player a handicap seems like a really backwards way of doing it and put me off the game quite quickly.
23/05/2011 at 21:18 GeneralAdmission says:
I hear your frustration. The new minimum detonation energy requirement (every suicide requires more points than your previous suicide) just added to the game has made things worse in my opinion.
I’ve petitioned the devs over on the Steam forums to make the MDE a server option…we’ll see if that takes or not.
24/05/2011 at 11:13 Gnoupi says:
Oh, so apparently they listened to the hardcore base instead of the others.
If I remember, their biggest reason to complain was that when they were cumulating kills, if someone was killing them (usually with a lower score), they usually exploded themselves directly.
I remember them being very mad at this, because to them it was “stealing”.
So I guess they felt the need to implement a system to prevent that, to force you to cumulate kills.
Which indeed means that bad players like me will just stay bad, without any upgrade.
About server setting, it would be nice to have a fixed set of skills (the basic shield, and some little other things), and that’s all, no upgrade. But I guess it doesn’t go to the appropriate direction for them.
23/05/2011 at 15:02 elDiablo says:
We’ll leave the servers running all night for our friends over the other side of the pond. And just as an aside to Quinns post, we’re recently added Steam friends integration, so that you can join through the handy “Join Game” button in Steam friends. So it will be as easy as looking at the RPS community page and joining someone who is already on.
Hope to see you all online tonight from everyone here at Beatnik Games!
23/05/2011 at 15:32 Axyl says:
Cheers dude.
And muchos kudos on an awesome lil indie title.
Are we going to be joined by some of the Devs at Beatnik as well? That would be awesome. :)
23/05/2011 at 15:34 elDiablo says:
Some of us will definitely be online, though late night US times might be a bit much for us (being based in the UK afterall).
23/05/2011 at 17:36 Axyl says:
works for me, i’m UK based as well.
Being a PC gamer from the UK gives us the best reasons to moan about stuff too..
Release dates, Steam’s 1:1 conversion rate etc etc..
And we brits do love a good complaint. :)
Plus, i find, and this maybe just me, but when i find a game i like, and then discover it’s by a British dev team, i tend to get behind it even more.
That whole “local lads” vibe, y’know? :)
/endpointlessramble
23/05/2011 at 15:03 somnolentsurfer says:
Quite enjoyed this, but none of my friends were playing (one friend I gifted it to claimed it made him ill), and I wasn’t very good at it. Really 6pm GMT, or 6pm current UK time (BST)?
23/05/2011 at 15:07 brulleks says:
I’d completely forgotten that I owned this. Will be there, with mp3s in tow. Specifically Lambchop tonight, as I’m just getting into my first album of theirs.
Robots and alt country? It could work.
23/05/2011 at 15:10 FLBR says:
“So last week when the developers got in touch about organising an RPS Plain Sight night to give a boost to the game’s ailing playerbase”
So this article is just an advert? Has Beatnik payed RPS for this article/ad?
23/05/2011 at 15:17 tomeoftom says:
Maybe the answer lies right before our eyes – has RPS actually been Beatnik the whole time!??!?!?! How far down does the robot-hole go?!??!?!!!
23/05/2011 at 15:22 Protagoras says:
OH MY!
It seems this conspiracy was staring us the face the whole time. One could even say it was hidden in plain sight…
23/05/2011 at 15:23 FLBR says:
I find it quite funny that RPS criticized the free Deus Ex advertising campaign, and then they post an advert disguised as an article, with a £1.99 price tag.
Hypocritics.
23/05/2011 at 15:31 CMaster says:
@FLBR
Are you really as dense as you appear?
Yes, it’s pretty much just free advertising for the game – it also provides a service to the community as well. The article makes no secret of its origins. It also doesn’t charge you anything for reading it, nor is it remotely the same as the “like DX:HR’s FB page to unlock more adverts”.
You constantly make bizarre, bizarre comparisons that makes me think either your brain doesn’t work right (in which case people should probably stop picking on you) or this is all just pure troll.
Edit: Wait, Hypocritics? Has to be troll, surely.
23/05/2011 at 16:18 8-bit says:
but most news posts on any video game website could be described as an advert, even the reviews.
all I see in this article is that they are trying to get the readers together to play a game, nothing wrong with that. would a similar post about bloodbowl have gotten the same kind of hostile response, I doubt it.
23/05/2011 at 16:35 FLBR says:
8-bit, “the developers got in touch about organising an RPS Plain Sight night to give a boost to the game’s ailing playerbase”.
The article is an ad.
23/05/2011 at 16:48 Vagrant says:
EVERY post on this website (along with most others) is an ad. That’s sort of the way enthusiast press works, from film to basket weaving.
23/05/2011 at 16:50 Protagoras says:
Whats the problem with an ad? Its obvious that RPS think this game is good, and want to play it with other people because there aren’t enough players for it.
What about the organized games for ARMA? are they also ads?
What if RPS organizes a sunny D and rum party? are they in the employ of sunny D? or the international rum conglomerate (IRC)?
Regardless, even if marketing as a side effect of organizing events was all that evil, they’re supporting a small indie studio, and they’re talking about 2 fucking pounds. There are worse things to support (like EA/UBIDRM/AMERICA).
I know that stick you have up your blah blah blah SHUT THE FUCK UP.
23/05/2011 at 16:58 Jesse L says:
The ignore function looms…it looms for thee…
23/05/2011 at 17:29 Flobulon says:
FLBR : The RPS Truth Files, showing now in cinemas!
(Disclaimer – FLBR holds no affiliation with any banned accounts of a similar four-letter name)
Next week – The Return of ASDF!
23/05/2011 at 18:37 FLBR says:
Protagoras wrote – “they’re supporting a small indie studio, and they’re talking about 2 fucking pounds. There are worse things to support”
Like a free Deus Ex ad campaign?
23/05/2011 at 19:27 Kieron Gillen says:
I recall the line a PR person told me a long time ago about the difference between Marketing and PR: “Marketing is coverage you pay for. PR is coverage you don’t pay for”.
If it was paid for, RPS would say so. We’d be legally bound to say so.
KG
23/05/2011 at 21:37 CMaster says:
@FLBR
Just on the off chance that you will actually pay some attention.
The complaint about the DX thing wasn’t that it was marketing.
It was that fans were being asked to help market the game (by “liking it it flashes up on their walls, appears in the profiles etc) in return for which they would be given access to more marketing material. John was commenting on the ridiculousness of “If you help us market your game, we’ll let you help us market our game”. He wasn’t condemning marketing in itself for existing.
Just like your comments about Valve, you don’t appear to understand how to compare two things and see if they are alike no not alike.
23/05/2011 at 22:45 Daiv says:
Okay guys, shut it down. FLBR has called you on it. Time to give up gracefully now your secret is out. Here are some cardboard boxes, lets not get anything scratched so we’ll wrap anything delicate in newspaper first. I need a volunteer to take the sign down, and someone’s going to have to seal Jim in a giant tupperware container. This carpet’s going to have to go, it’s ruined – what IS that stain? Never mind, into the skip with it. Don’t worry FLBR, by tomorrow this place will be a car park.
24/05/2011 at 00:15 FLBR says:
@Kieron Gillen; So when a developer contacts RPS claiming that their game has an “ailing playerbase” and would like to organise an “RPS [enter game title here] night”, RPS doesn’t charge them for writing an article advertising their game? An article/ad that otherwise wouldn’t have been written unless the developer contacted you first?
You do know that RPS has a syndicated link on Steam right? With more than 30 million Steam accounts, that’s potentially a lot of hits for RPS right?
Could be a lot of sales for the game(s) with the “ailing playerbase” right? And RPS doesn’t/wouldn’t get anything?
Ok.
24/05/2011 at 00:18 Malawi Frontier Guard says:
This was much better when I thought FLBR was a parody account.
Things are never that easy.
24/05/2011 at 09:01 Kieron Gillen says:
FLBR: Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Like most of what RPS does, we just thought it was a giggle. It’s a great game, we dig it and they want to throw some RPS-servers up. Why not? Very little skin off our nose. We like having RPS events for our readers.
KG
23/05/2011 at 15:15 tikey says:
I’d love to, but being in a completly different time zone really difficults things. And even beside that today is “there is an awful lot of things to do” day.
What a shame :(
23/05/2011 at 15:16 squareking says:
Woohoo. Hope to see some fellow RPS yankees out there tonight.
Also, FLBR: GOAWY
23/05/2011 at 15:24 airtekh says:
I haven’t touched this since I bought it in a mega sale ages ago. Might check it out later.
23/05/2011 at 15:26 mcwizardry says:
I’ll be there, could be a good idea to extend this kind of community event to other games.
23/05/2011 at 15:26 Anthile says:
YES.
Soundtrack is, of course, going to be Pendulum or Sub Focus for me.
23/05/2011 at 15:29 Axyl says:
Woop!
I’m reinstalling Plain Sight thru my Steam client as i type this..
Soundtrack for tonight will be Clutch methinks, interspersed with some Nero.
Yup, Rock ‘n Roll, Robots and some Dubstep-y 8bit inspired awesomeness.
See y’all around 6ish. :)
23/05/2011 at 15:30 KingCathcart says:
Haven’t played in ages due to low player count but it was jolly good fun when I did.
23/05/2011 at 15:42 SamH says:
I own this game but never played it, sounds like perfect reason to give it a try :)
23/05/2011 at 15:42 _Nocturnal says:
Yes, yes, yes.
I hate you guys for ruining my other plans for tonight, but YES!
P.S.: I could never hate you.
23/05/2011 at 15:50 Dolphan says:
£1.99? Nothing better to do this evening? I’m there.
23/05/2011 at 15:53 McDan says:
Sweet! I knew I bought this for a reason! I’ll get practicing!
23/05/2011 at 15:56 Ogun says:
Bah, have work to do this evening – but I guess it can wait.
23/05/2011 at 15:57 Tom OBedlam says:
Quinns, ole buddy, this is highly improper of you, I have a dissertation to do…
See you there at 6.
23/05/2011 at 15:59 Vexing Vision says:
This sounds really fun, in a self-harm inflicting way, but positive.
Shame I got work-related plans tonight. :(
23/05/2011 at 16:02 itsallcrap says:
I bought this game last itme it was on sale and quickly discovered I was rubbish at it, so almost immediately went back to TF2.
But since this seems to be what all the cool kids are doing, I’ll be there boasting about how I was into it way before all you noobs.
23/05/2011 at 16:05 DrazharLn says:
And my Axe!
23/05/2011 at 16:29 Protagoras says:
And my “THIS WAS OLD 6 YEARS AGO” sign.
23/05/2011 at 16:59 Jesse L says:
Once more into the breach!
23/05/2011 at 17:25 Malibu Stacey says:
400 year old meme is old.
Am I doing this right?
23/05/2011 at 16:15 Grinnbarr says:
Well… I have an exam at 9.30 tomorrow morning. Oh well.
See you all there!
23/05/2011 at 16:23 Coccyx says:
I’ll be there.
23/05/2011 at 16:25 8-bit says:
I could drag myself away from The Witcher for an hour I guess.
tonight I shall mostly be listening to MGMT.
23/05/2011 at 16:27 westyfield says:
“This game has a miraculous ability to suit any genre of music you care to throw at it”
I’ll be there, Bellowhead in tow. English folk music and sea shanties sound like a perfect match for electro-laser-robot death!
23/05/2011 at 16:29 Emil.BB says:
Nice! I bought it back when it came out, but then alot of work meant that I never got around to it, and now everybody says the servers are barren. But this might be my shot!
23/05/2011 at 16:33 subedii says:
One last thing- at this point I’m going to say what I always say in conversations about Plain Sight, which is that you should disable the game’s music and run your own in the background. This game has a miraculous ability to suit any genre of music you care to throw at it, and both the album and the game will benefit. You’ll see.
Guess I’ll give it a try and see. I’ve got a folder of random stuff I dumped together when playing RTS’s like Supreme Commander. I guess it could work here.
IIRC there isn’t any in-level music anyway though is there? Just the menu screen jazz?
23/05/2011 at 16:34 AndrewC says:
Jonsi!
I can’t play because I have no time, and because I can’t play the game.
23/05/2011 at 16:38 Rei Onryou says:
I’m tempted to not play, since whenever I look at it, it says “The last achievement you unlocked was: Who’s The Real 7 Billion Ton Robot Monster Here? Not I… Not I”
But I probably will play. Just not well enough to achieve anything.
PS: More games need awesome achievement names!
23/05/2011 at 16:43 Felixader says:
Stop turning me into a PC Player.
23/05/2011 at 17:26 Malibu Stacey says:
I think you’re lost.
23/05/2011 at 17:22 ShowMeTheMonkey says:
Is this going to passworded for RPSers?
23/05/2011 at 17:36 Xercies says:
Finnily enough I’ve just been listening to that album
23/05/2011 at 17:37 tomeoftom says:
Will this be playable from Australia?
23/05/2011 at 17:52 y2rich says:
Just downloading now. My music of choice will be Wasting Light by Foo Fighters
23/05/2011 at 17:53 arienette says:
Dammit, I’ve been waiting for a good time to play this for ages and now on a night I can’t play this comes along!
23/05/2011 at 18:36 FLBR says:
see above.
23/05/2011 at 18:41 Vinraith says:
I;d love to play, Plain Sight is that rare purely MP game I actually quite enjoy, but the time zone mismatch is unfortunately unworkable. :(
23/05/2011 at 18:45 Lewie Procter says:
Gosh I suck at Plain Sight.
23/05/2011 at 18:57 Qbopper says:
I got this the other day! Now I have a reason to play it.
23/05/2011 at 18:59 ShowMeTheMonkey says:
338 points is good for me… Great game guys!
23/05/2011 at 19:15 KillahMate says:
Actually bought this in a sale a while back, never played it though. Downloaded it on Steam just a few days ago, must have been a hunch… I’ll be there in a few hours, hopefully not everyone will have left by then…
As for that other thing, the Tron soundtrack is too easy I think. Maybe some Schiller? And then Bear McCreary. ‘Storming New Caprica’ might just go well with this.
23/05/2011 at 19:15 Kerbobotat says:
Oh god I hate my life. My visa card was stolen yesterday, and I want to play this.
Anyone purchasing a four-pack they have a spare in?
23/05/2011 at 19:27 brulleks says:
Damn. Managed half an hour before I got motion sickness. First game ever to give me that while I’ve been sober : (
23/05/2011 at 19:37 Rhygadon says:
I was sort of amazed that it *wasn’t* making me nauseated. It certainly seems like it should. I wonder how much playtesting they devoted to minimizing that.
23/05/2011 at 19:29 Kieron Gillen says:
Just had an hour on the servers in the company of Daft Punk’s Discovery, which always works well.
KG
23/05/2011 at 19:33 Rhygadon says:
Well, that was good fun. If a bit hypnotic.
Amazing how much difference it made when I had the micro-epiphany that seconds in which I was not locked on were seconds in which I could not be killing anybody.
23/05/2011 at 19:40 Coins says:
This game is so hard. That, or I’m -horrible- at multiplayer games.
23/05/2011 at 19:54 HermitUK says:
Had some good fun on the CTF server. The lock on is far too unreliable for my liking, though – killing anyone feels like too much luck and not enough skill on my part. I don’t really like the need to upgrade during every round, either.
Still, it’s a neat concept, and the movement is great fun, and awesomely fluid once you’ve unlocked the jump and run improvements on a round.
23/05/2011 at 19:59 CMaster says:
Just had a good blast, although probably helped that I was doing pretty well both rounds.
Was cool to see some of the regular commentator names on the server – I clocked subdeii, roBurky, Poisoned Sponge and Tom O’Bedlam on the CTF server.
23/05/2011 at 20:02 Tom OBedlam says:
Was going rather well too until I got caught in some odd gravity eddy and felt sick :)
23/05/2011 at 20:07 CMaster says:
That was probably me (or someone else) with the gravity voretx mega-perk. You hold down E and can suck people in, then release to BOOM.
23/05/2011 at 20:04 Maykael says:
One fun hour of deathmatch with you people was damn good fun. I do hope that we do this again.
23/05/2011 at 20:08 Ayam says:
Good fun, I was the set of pistons and cogs skewered on CMaster, Hermit and Poison Sponge’s swords.
Number 5 is alive… spoke too soon. :)
edit: Rockwell’s Somebody’s Watching Me went really well with the action
23/05/2011 at 23:31 HermitUK says:
I got rather lucky, having picked the Flaming Sword perk at the start (with no idea what it did before I bought it – They need descriptions on the main menu).
Basically it seemed to make the lock-on much more accurate for a few seconds, which was enough to score a few cheeky kills before it needed to recharge.
23/05/2011 at 20:10 radomaj says:
BAM http://steamcommunity.com/id/radomaj/screenshot/560909119996551558
Shame I couldn’t connect to the DM or the CTF server.
23/05/2011 at 20:38 Mana_Garmr says:
You and your ridiculously high score! I thought I was doing so well too.
23/05/2011 at 20:10 Flobulon says:
Had excellent fun on the CTF server tonight. Do this again some time!
23/05/2011 at 20:49 y2rich says:
Was enjoying it until I started getting pounding headaches. Don’t normally get motion sickness so I assume I’m just feeling the after effects of getting clobbered in the head a few times yesterday.
23/05/2011 at 22:02 Sharzam says:
Ive been a passive reader of RPS for quite a while, this made me sign up :) had plain sight for ages but never found a good/full server, tonight was loads of fun. Thank you all also nice to see familar names in the CTF server.
23/05/2011 at 22:04 McDan says:
This was really good, don’t know who I killed but it was all in good fun. It is a really good game, you just can’t play for long which is a shame.
23/05/2011 at 23:01 Cross says:
After playing the game for a bit, i suddenly don’t find it surprising that the game’s playerbase is dwindling.
The game rewards only the very best of players, who can just dominate everyone else, and there’s no community or communications options in the game. I’ll let this unique idea and it’s horrible camera die in peace.
23/05/2011 at 23:54 8-bit says:
I had some good fun tonight I must say, although that’s probably because I did quite well in the games I played. Almost won a round earlier when I had a lead of something like 300 points and gave it away in the last few minutes D: but I guess that’s kind of the random nature of the game.
I doubt even if it had more players it would replace altitude as my online game of choice but I might try and play more often in the future.
24/05/2011 at 00:13 Octaeder says:
I’d forgot quite how good a thing this is… Hopefully this’ll boost the servers for a few weeks at least.
24/05/2011 at 01:12 Moonracer says:
I was glad I gave this game a try. It’s quite fun. It was nice to see some familiar names too.
One question, how does the scoreboard work? My name was always at the top with a crown. I felt like I was doing okay, but not deserving of a crown. Did the game just not want to hurt my feelings or is it afraid I forgot who I was?
24/05/2011 at 03:46 Scandalon says:
I am sad today that I live in a wildly different time zone, and though I have enough in my fun-money account for one copy, not enough for a four-pack. Anyone know how long the sale is on for?
I would have tried my (trimmed of the screaming/growling nonsense) “Inspired by The Witcher” playlist.
24/05/2011 at 09:03 adonf says:
That was fun ! Except the parts where I was killed, which happened a lot. Must train before next PS night.