Questions from a potential buyer

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I hate to say, but I stumbled upon this game by accident. I had no idea it existed until today. As a Deus Ex and System Shock 2 fan, I am intrigued, but I would like to learn more about the game first.

What kind of game is it? How long is it? Is it replayable? Is violence the only way to progress in the game or are there alternate approaches? Is it a coincidence the game looks similar to Neon Struct?

I would love to support a lesser-known independent game, so any answer will be greatly appreciated. :)

[allen]

>What kind of game is it?

It's a first person shooter exploration game with puzzles. You walk around a broken ship and repair it through light puzzles, while defending yourself from robots that want to kill you. Surrounding that is a story that unfolds as you collect audiologs, and read emails and documents found around the ship.

>How long is it?

A play through can be around 1 to 6 hours, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter. If you ignore the story and have little troubles with the combat/puzzles you'll find it on the short side. But if you fully explore the ship, find all the audiologs, etc it will be on the longer end of that estimate.

>Is it replayable?

I think so. There are three endings and loads of things you will miss on your first run. Story details, easter eggs, things like that. There's also a bunch of achievements if you're the type to find those fun.

>Is violence the only way to progress in the game or are there alternate approaches?

There's an optional Peaceful mode which makes the robots passive, they won't attack you in this mode (unless you attack first!). As for the other difficulty modes, it's possible to beat the game without killing anything but you'd basically have to brute force it. It's a nice challenge in a way, I managed to do it once.

>Is it a coincidence the game looks similar to Neon Struct?

Yes, I started working on my game in Feb/March 2013, before Neon Struct was announced. His is a stealth game more along the lines of Thief, mine is a FPS game more along the lines of System Shock 2.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I am grateful you took the time to reply to my post! :D

Sounds good. I might give it a shot.

[Storm_at_Sea]

Originally posted by allen:

>What kind of game is it?
Block of txt deleted for space (but was fully read).

Another potential buyer here, just wanted to thank you for posting more information, it's helpful, but I have a few more questions before I can decide.

What is the control scheme on Mouse/Keyboard? (are they rebindable? If not, is WASD an option?).

Is Mouse Sensitivity adjustable?

What's the FOV? Is there a slider for it?

Are there subtitles? (I think I read there were, but I've read up on a few games and may be confusing if I saw it on this one or not).

Was the game designed with Mouse/Keyboard in mind, or was it an after thought? (I like games that feel natural and comfortable with M/K).

Max resolution?
Thank you for your time.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I just bought the game and I can safely say yes to all these questions! :D

The game runs perfectly for me in 1920 x 1080. The FOV can be adjusted from 70 and 120.

[allen]

Yup like the other guy said, all those options can be configured. Subtitles are on by default, FOV I think is 90 by default. You can't change the weapon FOV (like you can in TF2 for example, changes the weapon FOV but keeps everything else the same), which is something I might address in a patch if people demand that.

Game is primarily developed with mouse/keyboard controls, and those are all rebindable. The gamepad controls were put in as an afterthought, late in development, but they're still functional.

The game should support your monitor's max resolution.

[Storm_at_Sea]

Originally posted by allen:

(like you can in TF2 for example, changes the weapon FOV but keeps everything else the same), which is something I might address in a patch if people demand that.

I don't play it.

Originally posted by allen:

Game is primarily developed with mouse/keyboard controls, and those are all rebindable. The gamepad controls were put in as an afterthought, late in development.

Sounds awesome. The questions I asked in my above post are what I want to know about most games (each where applicable). So far, sounds good, now it just has to be fun/interesting. :) I will check out some gameplay video somewhere for that.

**Whoa, I forgot a very important question- what is the 'save' feature in this game?

Is there one? If not, that's a biggie for me-. Manual saves? Auto-saves w/emblem showing you it's saving, or auto-saves where it doesn't show and you don't know where the game saves? I can't stand having to repeat because I had to abruptly walk away from my PC because life calls and I couldn't save first.

[allen]

Saves are manual in this game, you have to walk up to a console and save the game that way. There's no save option in the menu, and no auto-saves. They're liberally placed and easy to remember the location though, and each one tells you the location of all the others. It's deliberately old school that way.

[Storm_at_Sea]

Originally posted by allen:

Saves are manual in this game, you have to walk up to a console and save the game that way. There's no save option in the menu, and no auto-saves. They're liberally placed and easy to remember the location though, and each one tells you the location of all the others. It's deliberately old school that way.

If they're not too scarce, I could work with that, as it sounds. (Even Doom had menu saves! ;) I'm not arguing tho- I'm actually surprised how it seems to meet my criteria -happily surprised that is!). Tomorrow I'll check out some gameplay footage in the a.m., right now it's looking likely I'll be grabbing this one. Thanks for your time and information- and for making a game with these things, which I used to take for granted- nomore that's for sure.

[allen]

No problem!

[Storm_at_Sea]

I watched some video this morning and decided to get it. {Looked thru the achievements, since I like to 100% games and noticed the 'Put the seats in upright position' achievement- lol- should call that one 'women's nightmare!' hehe}.

I tend to post a lot of screenshots (viewable by contacts only, so they rarely show in the Community Hub), so my contacts will see your game and many are FPS fans too so maybe it'll interest some of them; afterall, exposure is important for game sales. I think when I first saw this game I accidentally ran into it.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Yeah, it baffles me how little exposure this game has been getting so far. :(

[mrmangosir]

Same, never knew of this game, saw it the other day. Checked it out and reminded me of a few games, namely one called Infestation, from a long time ago. Creeping around a abandonded base on the game, similar to this but a space ship insteaed. Robots and security systems etc.

This game has some nice atmosphere, nice to see that :)

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Tell me more of that Infestion game. I tried looking for it on Google, but the only results I get seem to be related to WarZ and Aliens: Infestation.

Also, I have more questions for the developers:

1- Does disabling patrol bots from behind have an impact on enemy spawn rate?

2- Have you considered making an expansion that would add additional levels (e.g. Demhe's surface) and rooms to explore as well as new endings?

[allen]

For your first question, no it doesn't have any impact. I would like to go back and rework how the spawning works, becuase there's a lot of room for improvement for that. I'd like to change it to spawn robots in areas where the player hasn't been to in awhile, and to not spawn robots if the player hasn't cleared an area first. That way, at least the first times, it would be more surprising. Right now bots will spawn even if the original bots are still there, which is kinda funky.

And the second question, no. I did have an idea for more endings, but when I think about it three is enough and there's not much room for anything else. We covered pretty much all our bases narratively that we wanted to. I thought about a bonus 'joke' ending, similar to what Silent Hill did with a few of its games' endings, but haven't came up with anything yet.

And for an expansion, that's a no as well. It would be interesting to have an expanded playable section after the third ending, where you could explore Demhe and find out the mystery behind the so-called 'virus' though. But I'd just rather work on something new, working on this game for so long really makes me want to try something different.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I wish you would at the very least made the control rooms with the bots accessible., but anyway, I can understand your desire to move on. Thank you for your honesty! :)