Game would be better without Zurks

[ttavoc]

Just saying it. The strolling around the city, the jump puzzles... thats fun. The Zorks make ruin one of the most interesting games for me.

[BoozeJunky]

Originally posted by DevilPunk:

The zurk chases aren't even that bad. I find it silly that some people struggling so much with them

The Zurk chases would be a lot more interesting if they actually slowed you down significantly, put you into an injured state which forced you to use some other evasion technique, or required you to stop to attack them and pull them off of you. As it is, you just zig-zag your movement a bit and mash a button a bit if they latch onto you. Health regenerates quickly, and it takes a fair amount of time for them to actually kill you. Maybe remove health re-generation and force you to go find mice to hunt and eat to regain health. Other than that, it's fun to bait them into leaping over a ledge or down a hole as they chase you. I was kind of disappointed that they gave you a means to kill them towards the end of the first act.

Honestly, they hardly qualify as a threat. Are people really just Dean Takahashi levels of bad at games?

[L i l a ❤]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Originally posted by L i l a ❤:

They aren't lying, after you escape the Slums, that's the end of the Zurks. xD
They do add a lot to the story, it's the reason why the robots are too scared to try to leave.
Without the Zurks, a lot of the story wouldn't make sense.

It's not 40% though, more like 60-70% before the Zurks stop.

And I still think having sentinels keep robots in the Slums would make for a more coherent story with less plot holes.

It's maybe around 50% of the game, at most.
Story wise though, the Zurks were created to get rid of waste and they got out of control.

I highly disagree with you.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by L i l a ❤:

Originally posted by Quillithe:

It's not 40% though, more like 60-70% before the Zurks stop.

And I still think having sentinels keep robots in the Slums would make for a more coherent story with less plot holes.

It's maybe around 50% of the game, at most.
Story wise though, the Zurks were created to get rid of waste and they got out of control.

I highly disagree with you.

The game has 12 chapters, 4 of them are after Zurks stop showing up. And of those four, Anttown and Control Room are pretty short.

And I know why the Zurks exist in the story, but it's pretty silly imo. Trash eating bacteria became metal eating monsters, but they only eat very specific metal like robots and not metal doors for some reason. Having it be sentinels could have had them exist as a larger theme and actually get some development besides...existing.

[BoozeJunky]

Originally posted by Quillithe:

Honestly that's another bit about them that's silly - they're metal eating monsters and they're sealed off a couple times...by a metal door.

Seems like a bad solution?

It was disappointing to find dead robots around the areas, but none of which had been eaten. I guess that might have been a bit too dark of a tone, but it would have nice to have more dead bots laying around, maybe with resources, that you have to approach cautiously because of the risk of Zurks flooding out from it's half-eaten corpse to attack you if you disturb them. Other than that, it would have nice if they added a timed element to some of the gate puzzles. Trapping them behind a gate currently stops them permanently, but it would have been neat if they could chew through the chain link fences to get to you. Maybe instead of (or in addition to) the light-gun that kills them, you had that little robot companion shoot some kind of apoxy patch onto the chain link fences in order to plug leaks temporarily if you can't figure out immediately how to get to the next jump point to the next platform section.

[scubaboy]

Tried 10 times to get through the first Zurk chase, I suspect there may be a trick way to escape them through some hole only the cat an fit through. No more play for me unless they add options to get rid of the Zurks, or make the "combat" much easier.

[zero hope >:(]

the puzzles are quite mundane tbh and merely strolling around the city without fear is like having the fun cut by a 3/4.

so, zergs or not, i'd like to have more hostile beings to flee and hide from. rat swarms, dogs, predator birds, brutes ought to kick a cat - the common dangers and troubles of the cats life, not just a cute litle fella saving the day in a mimimi way to melt the gamers' hearts.

[joridiculous]

Originally posted by scubaboy:

Tried 10 times to get through the first Zurk chase, I suspect there may be a trick way to escape them through some hole only the cat an fit through. No more play for me unless they add options to get rid of the Zurks, or make the "combat" much easier.

At once when you get control, run to the right and keep to the right wall zigging away from the few jumping crabs. (you can cut straight through one of the "shops" also)
Next area you stay more to the left and then its just follow the route zigging and zagging the jumping blobs sand jumping on everything.

[whitecrow]

Now I keep getting killed at the beginning of Dead End. Sigh.

[moiraesfate]

I HATE the zurks. Its a great game without them. I must have tried 50 times now to get past dead end and I just can't. I'm playing on pc and I'm so frustrated. I've even taken to looking for cheats just to get past this section.

[Passan]

They were never part of the original design of the game.
But their inclusion makes sense. There needs to be a conflict.
Their execution does not makes sense tho. Nothing and nobody gets eaten.

[joridiculous]

Originally posted by moiraesfate:

I HATE the zurks. Its a great game without them. I must have tried 50 times now to get past dead end and I just can't. I'm playing on pc and I'm so frustrated. I've even taken to looking for cheats just to get past this section.

Dead End is a real pain. Getting the damn defluxor too work is the worst

[Fuinelen]

I agree that the Zurks are a complete PITA, at least on a Steam Deck. I have a suspicion that idio ... sorry.. people like "Screen Name" are able to get past them easily mostly due to hardware/control differences with people who have trouble.

They are fine when there is a logic-based solution to deal with them but the elevator scene, for example, is just really bad game design, starting with the unskippable cut scene+relatively long loading time and aggravated by the fact that shaking off the zurks works only for a single one at a time and actually stops you in your track ... at least on the Deck. This means that the moment you have a zurk on you *in that particular scene* you're toast, as it's one of the few instances in which they are actually respawning so you can't even let them jump to their death.

Also : there is absolutely nothing wrong with a game that works without stress factor. Want an example? Just check out Portal and Portal2 or Thalos.

[whitecrow]

The game could still have zurks and make sense if only they would tone down the damage they do. They kill you so quickly that one slip and you are toast.

[Drinzen]

Originally posted by Fuinelen:

I agree that the Zurks are a complete PITA, at least on a Steam Deck. I have a suspicion that idio ... sorry.. people like "Screen Name" are able to get past them easily mostly due to hardware/control differences with people who have trouble.

They are fine when there is a logic-based solution to deal with them but the elevator scene, for example, is just really bad game design, starting with the unskippable cut scene+relatively long loading time and aggravated by the fact that shaking off the zurks works only for a single one at a time and actually stops you in your track ... at least on the Deck. This means that the moment you have a zurk on you *in that particular scene* you're toast, as it's one of the few instances in which they are actually respawning so you can't even let them jump to their death.

Also : there is absolutely nothing wrong with a game that works without stress factor. Want an example? Just check out Portal and Portal2 or Thalos.

Yesss my thoughts exactly, I am stuck at the damn elevator scene and it's such a hassle. Also just extremely annoying that the respawn takes so long too.

[joridiculous]

Originally posted by Fuinelen:

I agree that the Zurks are a complete PITA, at least on a Steam Deck. I have a suspicion that idio ... sorry.. people like "Screen Name" are able to get past them easily mostly due to hardware/control differences with people who have trouble.

They are fine when there is a logic-based solution to deal with them but the elevator scene, for example, is just really bad game design, starting with the unskippable cut scene+relatively long loading time and aggravated by the fact that shaking off the zurks works only for a single one at a time and actually stops you in your track ... at least on the Deck. This means that the moment you have a zurk on you *in that particular scene* you're toast, as it's one of the few instances in which they are actually respawning so you can't even let them jump to their death.

Also : there is absolutely nothing wrong with a game that works without stress factor. Want an example? Just check out Portal and Portal2 or Thalos.

Thalos can be pretty stressfull. Damn the mines!

Reading the "discussion" on the prototype levels is pretty hilarious. So many mad people at the darn turrets instakill you at re-spawn