The greatest compliment I can give to the developers of The Invincible is that it feels like you’ve stepped into a world imagined by a mid-century sci-fi writer. Based on Stanislaw Lem’s novel The Invincible, he spent an hour in the development build of his upcoming sci-fi adventure for Starward Industries and plunged into a vibrant wonderland full of adventure, danger and discovery.
I manipulated the crew of the ship Invincible, Yasuna, in an attempt to find out what happened to previous explorers on a remote, desolate planet. I wandered the branches of mountain passes, finding dead, missing crew members in narrow gorges and winding passages. Her slow, slow spacesuit bootsteps and labored breathing as she climbs rocks or deals with an increasingly worsening headache add depth and emotion to the world around her. Did.
She frequently speaks with her navigator Novik, a crew member of the Invincible who orbits in orbit, to keep her informed of what is happening and to help her make decisions about her course. The two’s constant dialogue provides backdrop to the desolate canyon environment, while branching dialogue options offer customization of how Yasna reacts to events around her. There’s an obvious conflict between the personalities of the characters, adding a bit of dramatic fuel to the chatter.
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Otherwise, gameplay is the kind you’d expect from a first-person adventure game. I’ve selected paths, interacted with objects, and generally seen pretty animations occur. Some segments require the use of tools such as a homing him tracker that detects spacesuit radios, a scanner that reads walls with her X-rays, and a handheld telescope. All of this was always available and worked in a very intuitive way.
It was especially satisfying when I discovered that I could use my telescope to pinpoint and see things on my to-do list from a distance. Part of my job was to catalog the fates of individual vehicles and crews, so just finding and checking vehicle serial numbers from afar made me feel better. to do.
However, Invincible was more of a meditative pace than an action-heavy game or first-person horror title. A lot of it depends on Yasuna, a biologist by profession. Yasuna often gives in to her innate curiosity. She puts up with a lot and pauses when others keep moving to figure out how strange new aliens act. things work.
In all fairness to her, who wouldn’t be thrilled to have a giant metal flower grow a giant metal fruit?
I grew up reading a lot of old sci-fi, and The Invincible really took the itch away. There are vehicles with clicky switches and buttons, knobs to turn, and weird twist lock mechanisms on the doors. The device’s retro-futuristic interface is balanced by a rugged, familiar look that’s decidedly wear-resistant and state-of-the-art.
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The design was great. It would be great to tweak a knob, turn a key to decipher a data unit, download a recorded radio log, or delete a physically printed photo from the robot’s camera his recorder . We also took into account the details. Listening to the rover’s logs, the rover’s built-in radar system replayed events around the time. The ominously moving pins added to the sense of tension and surprise. It promised the kind of detail a good adventure game needs to keep its users engaged.
The demo I played used more dramatic effects sparingly, but they were very effective. In the set piece moment, antimatter cannons were fired, completing not only the moment of action, but also the red-hot rock ripple effect and stunning lighting decisions that followed. left a slope of molten rock behind where it bisected the
All of The Invincible’s technical stuff would benefit a lot from a solid PC and top-notch console. I loved looking at the skyline of the city.
If you’ve enjoyed recent first-person space adventures like Deliver Us The Moon or Moons of Madness, The Invinible should be firmly pinned on your calendar. It’s the kind of catnip you’re looking for.
