KickStarter All Walls Must Fall, a "tech-noir tactics game" set in a 2089 Berlin where the Cold War never ended

[Infinitron]

UPDATE - Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inbetweengames/all-walls-must-fall-a-tech-noir-tactics-game/

A hipster tactical game?

http://www.allwallsmustfall.com/

Description
All Walls Must Fall is a tech-noir spy thriller set in Berlin 2089 where the Cold War never ended. A game in the isometric action tactics genre, you command secret agents using time travel, social stealth and combat. Prevent nuclear annihilation. Bring down the Wall. Love, kill, and remix reality to explore the meaning of freedom in a parable reflecting upon current global issues in the mirror of a fantastic future past.

History
Berlin, November 2089 - For 150 years of Cold War both sides have used temporal technology to counter each other's every move. But this deadly love is finally coming to an end as a rogue nuclear strike has both sides sending agents back in time to find out who did it and how to prevent it before everything turns to ash forever. Over the course of a journey that jumps and loops through a single night in the city, players will unravel the conspiracy keeping East and West locked in struggle and oppression. As lines between factions become blurred, choices become difficult. Which side to play? Who to side with? When both time and free will are an illusion - who can you really trust? Will your actions tear down the wall, bring stability, or perpetuate a cycle of war and terror? In the end all walls must fall.

Features

• Isometric action tactics game for download on PC and Mac
• Procedurally generated levels and campaign that plays different every time
• Developed by a team of former AAA professionals using Unreal Engine 4
• Sci-Fi noir Berlin as a divided city in which the Cold War never ended
• A parable that reflects on free will, moral ambiguity and the meaning of freedom
• Mixed 2D/3D art style of a propaganda poster brought to life
• Mind-bending time manipulation abilities
• Pausable real-time tactics with actions on the beat of the music
• Synaesthetic nightclub environments and audio
• A simulation sandbox featuring crowd simulation and destructible objects
• A focus on player agency and expression fostering different play styles including combat, hacking and social stealth using specialized secret agent characters
• An inclusive representation of the people of Berlin including their diverse cultural, sexual and gender identities

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/04/18/all-walls-must-fall-pc-game/

Cold War Tech-Noir: All Walls Must Fall

All Walls Must Fall [official site] is the first commercial release from inbetweengames, the indie studio founded by former members of Yager, developers of Spec Ops: The Line. It’s a “tech-noir tactics game” set in Berlin 2089. This is a Berlin still divided by a wall and a world where the Cold War never ended. To navigate its perils and its nightlife, you’ll use a combination of social stealth, time travel and combat. It looks delicious, like a propaganda-powered, post-Syndicate dream.

Almost everything that inbetweengames have said about the game makes me hungry for more. Here are the basics though: it’s a pausable real-time tactical game with procedural levels, actions performed to the beat of music, simulated crowds and destructible objects, and a story that involves time travel, geopolitics, love and oppression.

Over the course of a journey that jumps and loops through a single night in the city, players will unravel the conspiracy keeping East and West locked in struggle and oppression. As lines between factions become blurred, choices become difficult. Which side to play? Who to side with? When both time and free will are an illusion – who can you really trust? Will your actions tear down the Wall, bring stability, or perpetuate a cycle of war and terror? In the end all walls must fall.

I’m pleased that nightclubs seem to play a big part in the setting, not only because that fits with my memories of actual Berlin but because I’d quite like every action scene to take place in a nightclub. The finest scene in the very fine John Wick is a good, recent example of the form. All Walls Must Fall will have “synaesthetic nightclub environments and audio”, apparently, which sounds like an excellent thing to include in a game.

It’s not yet clear how the time manipulation mechanics and social stealth will play out but I’m keen to see more. And I’m just as excited to see what inbetweengames will pull off with the plotting and setting. I liked Spec Ops: The Line well enough but it felt like an interesting piece of characterisation and commentary straining against the structure and realities of a big budget third-person shooter. In some ways that was the ideal vessel for the story but All Walls Must Fall looks like it’s taking some of the ideas – from investigation of politics and social structures to the use of graffiti, posters and propaganda – to far more interesting spaces.

Early Access is set to begin in Autumn. For more info, point your browser and face at this devblog post.

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

Time manipulation, what a fucking gimmick.

 

[an Administrator]

:mrpresident:

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The setting made me immediately think of Jazzpunk.

Odds are good Jazzpunk will emerge as the better title of the two.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Over a hundred years of Cold War? Don't the writers think that's a bit retarded?

 

[Destroid]

Any particular reason the cold war couldn't have lasted 100 years?

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

Any particular reason the cold war couldn't have lasted 100 years?

Economics.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Time travel bring some mess that only bored people on the forums or comments section use to find any logic and sense.
Beside few movies and books - none of them go beyond the mess mentioned.
Cold war that lasted more years would be less surprising.

A hipster tactical game?

not enough pixels and "+0,03% to this and that" in items stats.

 

[JarlFrank]

Ok the setting and gameplay concept sounds interesting enough.

But time travel

Not only time travel but time travel in order to find out about and prevent an event that has happened in the recent past

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE ACTUAL STORY IS ABOUT BUT I ALREADY KNOW THERE ARE OVER A HUNDRED PLOT HOLES IN THIS

Time travel stories never work out. Ok, Cold War lasting 150 years, I can engage my suspension of disbelief on that. But time travel? So why didn't they prevent the Cold War in the first place by traveling back in time before it even started? And if the answer is "because you can only travel back a short time", ok but there are still plot holes. I have the feeling this thing will be entirely made of plot holes.

Goddamn time travel.

 

[nil]

• An inclusive representation of the people of Berlin including their diverse cultural, sexual and gender identities

"Hi, are you Katja? We are here for the explosives."
"Yes, I've been expecting you. I was born a boy, but I always knew I was really a woman. Here are the explosives. Good luck."

 

[an Administrator]

"But its 2089!"

 

[Zarniwoop]

Ok the setting and gameplay concept sounds interesting enough.

But time travel

Not only time travel but time travel in order to find out about and prevent an event that has happened in the recent past

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE ACTUAL STORY IS ABOUT BUT I ALREADY KNOW THERE ARE OVER A HUNDRED PLOT HOLES IN THIS

Time travel stories never work out. Ok, Cold War lasting 150 years, I can engage my suspension of disbelief on that. But time travel? So why didn't they prevent the Cold War in the first place by traveling back in time before it even started? And if the answer is "because you can only travel back a short time", ok but there are still plot holes. I have the feeling this thing will be entirely made of plot holes.

Goddamn time travel.

Also, another plot hole - if all the walls fall, what's going to keep the roofs from crushing everyone to death? Didn't think that one through did they?

• An :incloosive: representation of the people of Berlin including their diverse cultural, sexual and gender identities

This shit is like Depression Quest with graphics.

 

[vonAchdorf]

The premise sounds interesting, but red flags (pun intended) are abound.

If they were cool they'd give it the 300 treatment. Mainly white East with some Vietnamese and Angolans sprinkled in versus multicult hellhole of the West, which has become an open air Berghain "synesthetic nightclub", where people are constantly drugged and f*** each other on the streets, while other parts are under sharia law.

 

[Average Manatee]

Feeling disappointed that this isn't a prequel to One Must Fall 2097

 

[PulsatingBrain]

• A parable that reflects on free will, moral ambiguity and the meaning of freedom

Why the fuck would they tell us the DEEP MEANINGFUL message long before the game is even out? Aren't players meant to get that themselves? Isn't the impact kind of lost? Everything else too, but that stuck out to me

 

[vonAchdorf]

They probably took the applause for the Spec Ops: The Line story to heart and think that's their forte now.

 

[Isaac Ashdown]

Also, another plot hole - if all the walls fall, what's going to keep the roofs from crushing everyone to death? Didn't think that one through did they?

Damn.
All the other plot holes, we've got totally valid explanations for that are sensible and logical and rational.

But how did we miss this one? Now the game doesn't make sense.

- Isaac
inbetweengames

 

[Infinitron]

Also, another plot hole - if all the walls fall, what's going to keep the roofs from crushing everyone to death? Didn't think that one through did they?

Damn.
All the other plot holes, we've got totally valid explanations for that are sensible and logical and rational.

But how did we miss this one? Now the game doesn't make sense.

- Isaac
inbetweengames

Haha, you've got some balls posting here. Crooked Bee Give him a developer badge.

I see you've worked on a Coreplay game in the past. You know HobGoblin42?

 

[Isaac Ashdown]

I see you've worked on a Coreplay game in the past. You know HobGoblin42?

I'm afraid I don't, and I didn't exactly work on their game - I ported that well-known beloved classic Germany's Next Topmodel 2009 to PS2 from wii, while working at Zeroscale in Berlin. I guess that's what you're referring to? We didn't really have much interaction with the original devs if I recall correctly. It was one of a few ports we did of wii games to PS2, all of German TV shows, where the original developer was elsewhere in Germany, and they blur together somewhat in memory. From my time at Zeroscale I'm somewhat more proud of working on Demolition Inc. How did you discover this gem of my resume, may I ask?

 

[Infinitron]

I see you've worked on a Coreplay game in the past. You know HobGoblin42?

I'm afraid I don't, and I didn't exactly work on their game - I ported that well-known beloved classic Germany's Next Topmodel 2009 to PS2 from wii, while working at Zeroscale in Berlin. I guess that's what you're referring to? We didn't really have much interaction with the original devs if I recall correctly. It was one of a few ports we did of wii games to PS2, all of German TV shows, where the original developer was elsewhere in Germany, and they blur together somewhat in memory. From my time at Zeroscale I'm somewhat more proud of working on Demolition Inc. How did you discover this gem of my resume, may I ask?

Mobygames! It remembers your sins.

 

[HobGoblin42]

Well, that 'game' is undeniably the highlight of our careers and, of course, the codex is always very willing to remind us about that.

 

[Mustawd]

How did you discover this gem of my resume, may I ask?

Infinitron can find anything online. It's actually quite scary.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Well, that 'game' is undeniably the highlight of our careers and, of course, the codex is always very willing to remind us about that.

If you had made the Kardashian F2P mobile game, you could make your dream games for the rest of your lives now, so it was a honest try.

 

[nil]

Also, another plot hole - if all the walls fall, what's going to keep the roofs from crushing everyone to death? Didn't think that one through did they?

Damn.
All the other plot holes, we've got totally valid explanations for that are sensible and logical and rational.

But how did we miss this one? Now the game doesn't make sense.

- Isaac
inbetweengames

No. It's a perfect metaphor. The walls are all the social shit that stands between people, and forces the human race to be divided. Racism, bigotry etc. Our heroes set out on a righteous journey to break down those walls, but in their arrogant, selfish need to do good, they are too blind to see the truth. They break down the walls and society falls apart too.
Now, as the very world they tried to make better is destroying itself, they finally realize that it can't be forced. Building pillars to hold the roofs takes time, and when they are finally built, the walls will crumble on their own. So they go back in time to stop themselves.
At this point you realize that during the whole game your enemies were you from the future, and that you are doomed to fail, because you already saw yourself fail. But you still try, because you are no longer driven by ego, but by a true, selfless desire to save the world.

 

[Isaac Ashdown]

Also, another plot hole - if all the walls fall, what's going to keep the roofs from crushing everyone to death? Didn't think that one through did they?

Damn.
All the other plot holes, we've got totally valid explanations for that are sensible and logical and rational.

But how did we miss this one? Now the game doesn't make sense.

- Isaac
inbetweengames

No. It's a perfect metaphor. The walls are all the social shit that stands between people, and forces the human race to be divided. Racism, bigotry etc. Our heroes set out on a righteous journey to break down those walls, but in their arrogant, selfish need to do good, they are too blind to see the truth. They break down the walls and society falls apart too.
Now, as the very world they tried to make better is destroying itself, they finally realize that it can't be forced. Building pillars to hold the roofs takes time, and when they are finally built, the walls will crumble on their own. So they go back in time to stop themselves.
At this point you realize that during the whole game your enemies were you from the future, and that you are doomed to fail, because you already saw yourself fail. But you still try, because you are no longer driven by ego, but by a true, selfless desire to save the world.

Nailed it.