Where is the best place to purchase SV-4?

[⛧Ð🜨ꭥ𒐈$∃∄ᚱ⛤]

I really admire this game, the developer, and his credos.

This is the kind of game I'd like to have a box copy of to put on a shelf to be displayed where I can admire it, and where people who see it can ask me what it is, and I can enjoy telling them about it..

But that era of gaming is kind of gone, for the most part.. And I'm kind of glad it is, because this game likely wouldn't exist if the market still had the same limitations it did back then..

I guess that brings us to my question.. Where is the best place to purchase this game? I want to make sure Deric gets as much of the proceeds as possible. I also want to make sure that whatever platform I purchase the game from, offers me the ability to preserve my purchase.

This is a game I don't ever want to lose. I'll probably keep a copy on an SSD to boot. Hah.

Deric, you should be so proud of yourself. Your passion really shows in Scavenger SV-4.

[⛧Ð🜨ꭥ𒐈$∃∄ᚱ⛤]

Starting to think Steam is the only place he's selling it. I thought maybe he'd have tried itch.io, I've seen a lot of games pop up there that I didn't expect to see.

I wouldn't be surprised if itch evolved to be more like steam in the future with what it hosts.

[Khallis]

Wow, thanks! That's really touching.

So far, this is the only place to buy it. The version you get from Steam has no DRM - you can start the executables directly, and it will work just fine.

I have considered, as a vanity project of sorts, making a boxed copy of it for myself for similar reasons you mention above - I saved the boxes from many of my favorite games from the era when game boxes were a Thing.

If I ever get around to it... I'll make a handful. No promises, though. :)

[⛧Ð🜨ꭥ𒐈$∃∄ᚱ⛤]

Even if it's just a Jewel Case with inserts, a little stapled manual, and CD-ROM. That'd probably be the cheapest method to mass produce, just to have a physical copy.. I'll admit, most of the old games I managed to keep around, are in this state.. Paper and cardboard don't last long. Plastic's where it's at for cheap preservation.

Hey, think you can drop me a hint on this autopilot module I keep finding, that keeps directing my rover to the same large structure..? It seems to home in on this module I can detect that is inside the walls, and at the center of this structure.. I looked at it from above while recalling and it doesn't seem to have anything above it, or an open center.. But there does seem to be this one wall on one side of the inside of the structure that is slightly off color.. In games, that usually means that its a scripted object... I tried shooting that wall, but it didn't blow up or disappear.. I'm thinking maybe it needs another module to open it up?

I feel like Popeye trying to get in to the den of the 40 thieves. "Open sesame!!" Nope.. "Open sissy! Open cecil!" Lmao.

I wish I could remember if the autopilot module ever tried driving me in to the wall on the side that DIDN'T look like it had a possibly scripted wall/door... I know you can detect the object from both sides..

Am I on to something? :O

[Khallis]

Autopilot modules, and direction finders / detectors, all vary. Figuring out what they even do within a specific run is challenging.

Here's some examples, behind spoiler tags.

Some will lead you to the closest example of a certain type of module.

Some will lead you to buried treasure.

Some will lead you to one specific structure.


Some will lead you to vault structures, which can be opened several different ways
depending on what modules you find - or brute forced, at the cost of possibly damaging some of damaging the contents. If you shoot a wall and you see electrical arcs and sparks, that wall is special...

[⛧Ð🜨ꭥ𒐈$∃∄ᚱ⛤]

I knew it! I shot the wall and I saw an alpha textured object or something appear, hard to tell with the various camera type modules I've found, but it was definitely a sparking effect. I knew there was something about that wall..

This is when the depth of the game really hit me.. I love it, but it frustrates me to death as well.. Now that I am older and have so much in life to juggle, the mystery and complexity under the surface of that damn planet is driving me mad.. Lol.. I only wish I was 12 again so that I could just geek out on it and only have school as a second distraction..

Losing a rover is so frustrating when you're on to something, have all these modules and you're so close to figuring something out, and then something happens because of a dumb mistake, or bad luck.

Almost makes me wish the save system was more accessible from the user end, so that I could save-scum in SV-4, but that might kill some of the reward factor to figuring things out... As an avid modder, I get it, ESPECIALLY as an old fart who remembers having to call developers by land-line to figure out how to get past something I've been stuck on for 2 weeks, because the info wasn't able to be found on any BBS's at any of my friends houses who had dial-up.

I'm sure as a developer, you struggle with it even more, how hard is too hard? One simple mechanical change can make or break the entire game loop's fun factor... I run in to this issue with my nephew, who is young and autistic. He gets really upset when games are too difficult, so he usually prefers games with a lot of difficulty options, damage that can be switched off, etc. I play with him to make him happy, but god is it boring... Lol.

Anyway, great job on the hints. I don't think you spoiled much, you only confirmed what I was already suspicious of. Anyone who happens to pass by and peek under those tags will probably only be tempted to boot the game up and explore this for themselves...

Especially what you said about digging.. What!? See, I thought about gathering objects from a flat plane.. But I didn't think about it in the 3D sense... I mean I don't expect to actually dig a hole in the terrain visually (though it wouldn't surprise me if you coded in terrain polygon manipulation,) but I didn't think about any modules scripted to reach objects that could have been placed at a *lower* level..

I bet I'm going to get behind that scripted wall now only to find out I've got to find a better gathering module lol.

[⛧Ð🜨ꭥ𒐈$∃∄ᚱ⛤]

Have to add, glad that it's DRM free and as accessible as it is, too.. I did put a copy on my main SSD, and I constantly update my files... So there are a lot of times I wind up sneaking in a little play where I shouldn't (be able to, lmao.)

I'm around capable devices ready to accept USB connections constantly, haha, and SV-4's not that demanding.

[⛧Ð🜨ꭥ𒐈$∃∄ᚱ⛤]

Well... Now I'm just disheartened.. Is it possible to run in to an enemy that launches bombs at you that can hit you while you're in the air, ascending and descending? It's one of those ground crawlers that look like scorpion bug-like machines.

Not only that, but it can hit you from very far away, and from over mountains.. I managed to get to it after a couple recalls and repairs, but when I got to it, what I found was that it's either got a lot of health, its defense is super high, or it requires a certain type of weapon to kill..

I had one of those spine mounted masers on, with high damage.. I railed that sucker hard, 5 times.. I couldn't manage to get the "electrical arcing" alpha texture to spawn when an attack hits something scripted to take damage, though, and I know I was hitting it, I was watching the laser touch the enemy.

That's what maybe made me think it needed a certain type of weapon.. It can't be invincible.. So I recalled, repaired again, mounted a different weapon with more maneuverability.. Same deal, no "arcing."

Ideas? Should I keep trying diff weapons? Maybe a flamethrower?

[Khallis]

Sorry you ran into a frustrating encounter. The game is so open, it is hard to prevent.

The electrical arcing effect is only when you are damaging doors that may open if you hit them a few more times. It won't show when you hit regular enemies. Though an effect of some sort would have been a good idea, in hindsight.

There are no enemies that require special weapons or are otherwise invulnerable. Raw damage will kill anything, if you hit with enough of it. It might take a lot, if your weapon is not very good, and that particular guardian is mostly operational and intact.

The most dangerous weapon to be shot at by at the longest distance is probably seeking missiles. (They usually hit mountains, though.) There are modules that will make these not a threat at all, if you happen to find one.

There are lobbed mortar shells, which might be what you ran into, but it takes very bad luck to get hit by one of those in the air, they aren't very accurate.

[⛧Ð🜨ꭥ𒐈$∃∄ᚱ⛤]

These were the lobbed mortar shells, haha. And boy did they hurt, and they were super accurate.. I ran in to some enemies that could only lob them a good 20 feet, but this guy was throwing them from multiple football fields away. And he must have been damn near invulnerable.. I think that spine mounted Maser had an output of 16-17 damage per hit. Lol. Definitely above 15 but no more than 18.

Don't apologize, variation and danger is part of the fun. Maybe I'll see him again.. Lol. He was unique that's for sure.

Also I could have swore that when I killed a couple of enemies using a pulse laser that was turret mounted, hitting them generated some kind of visual effect.. Maybe I was imagining it. the rover's base camera is grainy, you know?.

[Khallis]

Lasers and their family do have an effect at point of impact, whether you hit anything important or not.

(It would have been a nice touch for hits on live enemies to produce some extra reaction, though.)

[⛧Ð🜨ꭥ𒐈$∃∄ᚱ⛤]

Yeah, I'm having memories of Starfox's spinning, growing spherical explosions spawning at the point of impact and hanging behind as some of the flying enemies in SV-4 pass overhead.

Naturally, when I first encountered one, that's kind of what I was expecting when I first fired at it and hit.

At least now I know I was definitely hitting that enemy, because I got up in its face before it destroyed me.. Curiosity overcame my care for the run and I decided to test this guy.. I was planting laser burst fire right in his face and he still wasn't dying, I wasn't seeing any kind of hit effect at the point of impact from the lasers that you mentioned either.. The ones I guess I wasn't imagining on the other enemies I did destroy. Must have been a bug.. He was after me for quite a while, and I did run from him for quite some time.. He originally came after me when he detected me through a wall while I was investigating inside of a structure.. Probably heard me.. He was trying to tear a door down while I was collecting things, and I took off to unload and get some armor.. When I came back down, I was looking for this guy on the descent, and saw him.. lobbing his shells right at me from the moment I broke the cloud cover.. And he hit me all the way down, from like 1,000 feet off from where I made landfall lol..

[⛧Ð🜨ꭥ𒐈$∃∄ᚱ⛤]

Trying again, going to see if I run in to this guy again.. I got pretty confident with my ability to fight, and I feel like some of these modules are trying to.. speak to me.. Must know...

Back to playing..

Hey, before you disappear from this thread, have any suggestions for any games that're dear to you? Or really unique and original, like yours? I live for this kind of content in my free time.. It's what I enjoy doing most with my time. If I were to drop another example myself, I'd probably say Objects in Space (which reminds me a lot of SV-4 actually,) or American Mcgee's Scrapland.. Ahh, and Space Station Silicon Valley, if you ever played that or have heard of it, which is similar to Scrapland. All obvious passion projects by great teams.

[Khallis]

Good luck, and enjoy your journeys!

I've meant to check out Objects in Space - I liked their support for build-your-own control panels. It seemed to me that they left it in a partially completed state before I got around to checking it out, though.


Games that are dear to me... there's been a lot, of a lot of different genres.

The flexibility of the module displays in Scavenger owes a lot to the original System Shock - it's dated and hard to play now, but you could find all kinds of slottable items for your cyberware which included things like fully playable minigames, all kinds of crazy stuff. It tried to simulate a world, and if you can get over the foreign-to-us-now UI, it's a great game.

Recently, Outer Wilds (not the outer worlds), and Return of the Obra Dinn were both amazing games that I wish I could experience again and would highly recommend to go in blind for.

If I were going to name one other obscure-ish game that clearly had a lot of care and love behind it, I'd nominate Primordia. I'll admit a few of the puzzles are frustratingly contrived in the tradition of oldschool graphic adventure games, but the writing is just superb, and there's a very well told story to be discovered within it.


That's just off the top of my head, though. I'll think on it. No worries of me disappearing - I'm always here, you know where to find me.

[⛧Ð🜨ꭥ𒐈$∃∄ᚱ⛤]

Hehe. You might have a hard time naming one I haven't heard of, but if you're up for a challenge, keep at it. In the process one of us may learn of a new great title, people who *really* love games are always looking to find those "hidden gems," especially when we dream games up ourselves, wish they existed, and then... "A-HA!! Someone DID make it!"

System Shock is classic, nuff said.

Primordia was great, I found that one in my quest to scour the earth for anything apocalyptic (especially post, been that way ever since I first saw Mad Max when I was a kid, I used to hit up all the video rental stores I could find looking for cheesy knock off post apocalyptic flicks, lol.) I never finished it though, because adventure games drive me mad.. for exactly the reason you stated. Hello cat hair moustaches.

I've yet to finish watching the longplay of that one, but the writing *is* good, like Firewatch, the writing on that one was captivating as well, in offering an escape from reality.. That one I stopped watching the longplay on and started playing myself, however, because the puzzles were a bit easy to figure out in a way that allowed one to actually use their brain in sensible ways.. Lol.

Outer Wilds I'm really, really not surprised you mentioned.. I'm glad you did anyway. That one is a marvel of moving parts.. The developers did a really, really good job on it.. The math involved must have been maddening.

Edit: I just reread your post and you mentioned being inspired by system shock's minigames in the cyberware.. what you were talking about when you mentioned some minigame in SV-4 in the special thanks? It was hard to read, you were crediting yourself for something and something about a minigame flashed by..

[⛧Ð🜨ꭥ𒐈$∃∄ᚱ⛤]

Just remembered *another* great one, though a bit buggy.

I really liked the story in this game.. It's called Insomnia: The Ark, a tasteful, well done, low budget "eurojank" dieselpunk space RPG about the human race launching itself on a giant metropolis in search of a new planet, after ruining earth..

Some disaster, a strange dimensional tear, and radiation start to cause mankind to become lost to this strange anomaly as it tears the space metropolis apart.. You interact with these weird beings that start building themselves out of junk in the ship, some kind of sentience from the anomaly..

They think it was caused during these weird sleep experiments they did to try and preserve humans for longer periods on less resources, It's much deeper than that,.. But that's the general plot.