About Sumerian Six

[Artificer Hitch | Producer]

- "Wer ist da" means... what?

I have a vivid memory of my friend's mom peeking into his room as we played Commandos (he was the first of our bunch to own a PC). She'd overhear a shout in German and quickly shuffle from the kitchen. She taught German language at our primary school, and couldn't miss the occasion to teach a thing or two. While I didn't have a knack for German, I did have a knack for Commandos and tactical games.

I liked Behind Enemy Lines, but truly loved Beyond The Call Of Duty. I found Commandos 2 too easy with all the ammo lying around begging you to cheese your way through, and wrestling with the camera and the few time-limited missions of Commandos 3 felt like the challenge lied in the wrong place.
And even though apparently Commandos 2 outsold C:BEL, I always felt that the series took the wrong turn at that point, losing its puzzle-solving niche. At Artificer, we believe this genre is more puzzle than resource management or real time action. We also took a fistful of inspirations from all the amazing Mimimi games - Shadow Tactics, Desperados 3 and Shadow Gambit - which we believe to be the best spiritual successors of the genre.

I believe a genre remains a niche as long as it remains nameless; seems to be called Commandos-like, like the FPS games were called Doom-likes in the 90s before that genre really took-off. The most fitting term for Commandos-likes, I believe, is "murder sudoku".

And so - I present to you SUMERIAN SIX, our murder sudoku about stabbin' nazis and blowing their ♥♥♥♥ up. Inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's law of "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", it follows a team of super-scientists using their wacky gizmos to rain pain on demon-unleashing nazis. I'm also particularly proud of the gallows humor frequent in the writing - along with the playfulness and combined power of toys at the player's disposal, it all accumulates to a fun, challenging and rewarding experience. Enjoy <3

Oh, and "Wer ist da" means "Who's there". I own this tiny speck of German language that I do remember to the Commandos (づ๑•ᴗ•๑)づ♡

Kacper Szymczak
Artificer CEO

[SKADRIL]

I'm in, but what does this have to do with Sumer in any way?

[talgaby]

So, is the difficulty/level design mentality closer to C:BEL or C:BtCoD? The latter still has my favourite RTT game level of all time (when you have to kidnap an officer), but some players may have found that expansion a tad too difficult. (I mean, sure, pixel-perfectly aligning three hostage guards so you have a 10-frame window to take down a fourth one in the Greek level was probably a bit of an excessive "guards all watch each other" situation to crack, but hey, sometimes you just savescum and pray in these games.)

[Artificer Jan | Lead Designer]

Originally posted by talgaby:

So, is the difficulty/level design mentality closer to C:BEL or C:BtCoD?

We're definitely closer Mimimi's games than C:BEL and C:BtCoD in terms of level design and difficulty.

[talgaby]

Fingers crossed that you are referring more to Shadow Tactics and Desperados III then. Their last game, Shadow Gambit with the selectable crew had to use some super basic and boring enemy placements to make them beatable by any possible combination. (Plus I was not a fan of shamelessly reusing maps for up to six missions.)

[Artificer Jan | Lead Designer]

Originally posted by talgaby:

Fingers crossed that you are referring more to Shadow Tactics and Desperados III then.

Absolutely.

[Snagor]

How many missions are in the game, what is the duration?

[Zheppon]

really hope that you guys will go and beyond mimimi in this

[donmiguelangel]

The game is entertaining, but not brilliant, like Mimimi's. Too easy, even on the hard level. And with many glitches that make the game cut out with a "fatal error" message and jump to the desktop every now and then.

[Mr.SkySea]

Where is the soundtrack? I need to know what song was playing during the 8th mission (after opening the door). Love the game. Will finish all challenges soon

[SpaffyBliz]

Sorry to hear that 1/2 of Artificer staff were cut by Devolver earlier in 2024. Will there be DLC or a sequel?