Next Fest - Halfway Up The Stairs

To my considerable surprise, I've already played four of the eight demos I downloaded for Next Fest. Things went much faster than I was expecting, although not for the reason I might have wished. I didn't really get into it and spend a lot longer playing than I thought I would. Just the opposite, in fact, as we're about to find out.

Here are the four demos I've played so far, in descending order by how long Steam tells me I spent playing each of them:

Dissimilar - 59 minutes 

Nova Antarctica - 31 minutes

Atomic Age - 23 minutes

Magic World - 5 minutes

Let me break those timings down a little. 

I haven't finished playing the Dissimilar demo. I stopped at a convenient point because it was getting late. I was having a pretty good time with it and the only reason I haven't gone back to finish it is because I thought I ought to get some of the others out of the way first. 

Conversely, I've played the whole of the Nova Antarctica demo twice. It has a fifteen-minute lockout.

The Atomic Age demo might last any amount of time. I wouldn't know. I got stuck in the very first location and decided enough was enough.

And the Magic World demo turned out not to be a demo of the game at all.

Now the reviews. I'll take them in reverse order, saving the best for last. 

Magic World   

This is a demo for a game that supposed to be an open world MMORPG. Maybe it will be, one day. I wouldn't put my money on it. Certainly no-one, not even the developers, are claiming its an MMORPG yet.

The first thing you see when you hit Play is this warning:

At best, it's a tech demo, although even that's pushing it. It's a very basic draft of the proposed magic system as it relates to combat. There's a short tutorial, using placeholder graphics, in which you move through a series of featureless corridors and open spaces, following instructions on how to move your mouse and press keys to fire spells at an opponent or protect yourself from attacks. There are also options to duel other players and fight NPC opponents, neither of which I felt the slightest inclination to do.

Steam tells me it took five minutes to get to the end of the tutorial but it felt a lot longer than that. I never expected to enjoy the gimmick of moving my mouse while pressing a key in order to cast a spell but this was even less fun than I thought it would be. No fun at all, in fact.

I can easily imagine a VR game, where you have to wave a wand around to cast spells, being both exciting and immersive but this is neither. The idea of simulating somatic gestures by moving your mouse left and right or up and down seems doomed to failure form the start. Who would find that more enjoyable than any of many variations on action combat we have already?

 

Not me, that's for sure. As for the demo not including anything that makes the game an MMORPG, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the devs to put up a tech demo and ask for feedback. I just don't want to be the one playing it. Looking at the game's store page, it does explain that's what it is (Kind of...). I didn't see that when I chose it and if I had I would never have downloaded it. I don't think it was made clear in the Next Fest entry but I might just have missed it.

Also, to answer a question that came up in the comments last time, the store page clarifies that the images they're currently using to promote it are indeed generated by AI but they promise no AI content will be used in the game itself. Judging by what's available so far, I would imagine by the time the actual game arrives, AI will be so embedded in game development generally, no-one will care any more.

Atomic Age

This one looked every bit as good as I hoped it would. Well, it did in the one location I ever got to see... 

It begins with the main character addressing the player directly, telling you who he is and what he does as he sets up the premise for the game. The dialog is solid enough and the voice actor does a good job putting it across. I was feeling like this might go well.

Then there came a couple of opportunities for me, the player, to ask questions in the traditional "Pick one response from three" mode and those started to give me some concerns. All three options felt a little off, somehow. They didn't feel like they'd been written by the same person who'd done the dialog. They had a different tone altogether, one I didn't much take to.

That discomfiting dissonance continued once the introduction ended and the game itself began. There was some conversation between the character I was playing and the mustachioed gentleman I'd come to see for an interview. None of it felt quite right. Then the gent and his female companion left, locking the door behind them and leaving me trapped in the room

Side-stepping the issue of how wildly unrealistic this is (Have you ever been for an interview that ended with the interviewer, accidentally-or-otherwise, locking you in the interview room?) the real problem was that I couldn't get out. I'm used to adventure game logic, where I end up trying every interactable object with every other interactable object until some entirely ridiculous combination does the trick although usually I don't have the patience for trial and error and just look it up.

This time, there were few enough objects that it seemed quite feasible to try every combination. The problem was none of them worked.

I opened the cupboard and took the rope. I found the Personal Assistant robot in the bin full of spare parts. I found the Operating Manual on the shelf. I attached the rope to the fruit machine that dispenses batteries as prizes. (Best not ask too many questions about that.) I got a battery, which I put into the PA to get it working.

 

And then I was stumped. Those were all the usable items I could find apart from a gramophone and the door. Using the gramophone caused a drawer at the bottom to open and close and that was all. No item would interact with it, open or closed. Nothing would interact with the door. None of the items worked on or with each other.

I googled for a walkthrough but it seems no-one has bothered to write one. Or even complain about being stuck. At which point, I decided I had better things to do with my time and called it a day.

Apart from the unplayabilty of it all, I found the controls annoying. In most point&click adventures, you Examine with RMB and Use with LMB. This one does the opposite. Either I or B usually opens your inventory. Here, neither does. I could only open it by clicking on the icon at the bottom left of the screen and once the inventory was open it obscured most of the middle of the picture, making it very awkward to hand anything to anyone or use an object in the backpack on anything in the room.

None of these idiosyncrasies presented an insurmountable problem but all put together they added up to a constant background of mild irritation. Compounded with the major frustration of being stuck in the first room, it was more than enough to make me want to quit, which I did.

I wouldn't write the game off for that, though. A walkthrough or even an in-game hint would have gotten me over the hump and the odd UI choices are something I'd have become used to as I went along. The visuals are very appealing and the voice acting was more than decent. I'll give it another go if I find out how to get past the opening screen. 

Nova Antarctica

This demo felt much more polished, finished and complete than the other two. It ran flawlessly and everything was clearly explained. The game plays well and looks great. 

I didn't enjoy it all that much, for two main reasons:

1. It's a true survival game
2. It's on a timer.

Yes, I knew it was a survival game, going in. Yes, I have played quite a few survival games and enjoyed them. Even so, I wasn't ready for such a harsh, unforgiving experience.

At the start of the demo you arrive in the Antarctic by boat. According to the game's description, you're a child although, since the character is dressed in an all-over environment suit, complete with helmet, that looks exactly like a space-suit, you could be a gnome or a dwarf or anything less than four foot tall, it's impossible to tell.

The suit has a backpack life-support system powered by batteries. If the temperature drops below zero it uses power. (It's the Antarctic. It's always below zero.) If there's a blizzard, power use increases enormously (It's the Antarctic. There are always blizzards.) 

 

You follow some glowing footprints. You pick up everything you find - wood, rocks, meal packs, plant life - as you pass by the remnants of previous expeditions, including the corpses. You can even activate holograms that give you some idea what happened to them.

At various points the game instructs you on how to craft useful items from the detritus you've found. A crate, so you can clamber over obstacles. A new battery to replace the one that's just about to run out. A pick to mine ore. You find a penguin you can pick up and carry to give you additional body heat.

All of which is quite good fun. Until you die. Which you will.

On my first run, I failed to replace my battery fast enough. I froze to death in a blizzard. I had learned quite a bit, though, and I was sure I could do better.

I was right. I did much better. I got a lot further, saw a lot more, managed to replace the battery several times. I was just at the point when the game was telling me I ought to be making some kind of shelter when I died. My battery hadn't run out this time (Although it was damn close.) The timer had.

 

You get fifteen minutes. Andy Warhol would love it. (Actually, he'd hate it but anyone over about fifty is culturally obliged to name-check the great man whenever the words "fifteen minutes" are mentioned, regardless of context.)

Fifteen minutes is not long enough for a demo in my opinion. I'd say you need twice that long to get the feel of most games and probably longer for anything in the survival genre. I'm sure, having played survival games before, that gameplay gets easier the longer you last, or at least the survival aspects will fade into the background. All this does is highlight the extreme difficulty of getting started in a game like this, which is the part most people would probably prefer to forget.

Also, similarly to Atomic Age, the controls were non-standard. Again, not a major problem. I was already adapting to them even in the short time I played. I do often wish there was an industry standard for these things that developers would adhere to, though.  

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Nova Antarctica turns out to be a good game. I just don't think you can tell all that much about it from the demo. I wouldn't say it was a particularly good demo although it's not bad in any obvious way. Just not good.

And at this point I ought to move on to Dissimilar, only I think I'll save that for a separate post. This one's long enough and it would be unfair to hide the demo of the four I most enjoyed all the way down here. I might write it up later today or if not then tomorrow.

As for wish-listing, none of the three I've talked about made it onto the list. Atomic Age might, one day, if I ever get to see the rest of the demo. Nova Antarctica just isn't for me. As for Magic World, I'll be surprised if it troubles any of us again.