Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Wadjet Eye Shardlight by Wadjet Eye Games

Zarniwoop

TESTOSTERONIC As Fuck™
Patron
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
18,650
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
God, if a puzzle is the least bit difficult, reviewers cry about it.

"THIS IS GAME!! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO? PLAY IT?"

Bt
That's old-school, man. These days games are all about Emotional Engagements(TM) and Narrative Experiences(TM). Preferably about some oppressed minority.

That's why utter crap like Dear Esther, that should have been Youtube clips, keep winning "gaming" accolades and high review scores.
 

Daedalos

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
5,559
Location
Denmark
Hmm... Post-apo adventure game AND from this developer.

I am intriqued. Reviews looks pretty gud. Might pick this up.
 

Sizzle

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
2,471
Installed it, but still haven't found the time to play it.

Will probably give it a try this weekend and post some initial impressions.
 

StaticSpine

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 14, 2013
Messages
3,232
Location
Moscow
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Played for a couple of hours. I like it by far. Moody. And feels like other wadjet eye stuff in a good way.
 

evdk

comrade troglodyte :M
Patron
Joined
Mar 31, 2004
Messages
11,292
Location
Corona regni Bohemiae
Codex 2012 Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
The reviews generally describe the puzzles as straightforward and logical, and the game as linear, though it sounds like you get to choose whether to side with the oppressive Aristocrats or revolutionaries at the end. There is one puzzle involving a chalk drawing that some reviews describe as too hard, and it looks pretty cool. :)
...
The NPC standing right next to it straight up tells you the solution. You would have to be a complete ret... oh, wait a second.

Anyway, game is good so far, but the puzzles have been somewhat on the easy side. Not done yet though.
 

evdk

comrade troglodyte :M
Patron
Joined
Mar 31, 2004
Messages
11,292
Location
Corona regni Bohemiae
Codex 2012 Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
So a quick update. I can definitely see why good old Mr. Walker liked this game - the difficulty is about one step above the Walking Dead games. It's also fairly short because of that (Steam say it took me 5 hours - I could try to see the alternate endings, but those amount literally to making one choice and cue ending slides), but it does look so purdy.

Storywise it's fine (although I did think both Technobabylon and especially Primordia were better), but the ending felt sorta rushed. Pretty sure the creators are lucky that old school p'n'c adventure games are such a niche market, cos otherwise the ending would cause a hilarious racism shitstorm
Think BS:I's Finktown mess

:5/5::2/5:
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,405
Location
Djibouti
my favourite part of this game so far is putting a cast iron bucket into a furnace, turning it on, then off and finally taking the bucket out of the furnace with your bare hands
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,405
Location
Djibouti
my favourite part of this game so far is putting a cast iron bucket into a furnace, turning it on, then off and finally taking the bucket out of the furnace with your bare hands

actually i have a new favourite part

escaping from the super high security prison No One Has Ever Escaped From (tm) by doing the equivalent of dropping a piano on the head of the one sole guard patrolling the courtyard and then just waltzing out through the main gate
 

evdk

comrade troglodyte :M
Patron
Joined
Mar 31, 2004
Messages
11,292
Location
Corona regni Bohemiae
Codex 2012 Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
my favourite part of this game so far is putting a cast iron bucket into a furnace, turning it on, then off and finally taking the bucket out of the furnace with your bare hands

actually i have a new favourite part

escaping from the super high security prison No One Has Ever Escaped From (tm) by doing the equivalent of dropping a piano on the head of the one sole guard patrolling the courtyard and then just waltzing out through the main gate
Well, then prepare for the unescapable Quarantine Zone.
 

Darth Roxor

Royal Dongsmith
Staff Member
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
1,878,405
Location
Djibouti
Finished.

TL;DR - The game is stupid and unremarkable, that's really the only way I can describe it. The only positive thing I could name is Abe Goldfarb as the big bad Tiberius, which is downright 10/10 and quite possibly the best acting he's delivered yet in WEG.

Spoilerific details:

1. Why the gaem is unremarkable:

The setting and everything about it is completely wasted, there's no meaning or purpose behind it whatsoever. The basic premise is - there's a city, there's a ruling class, there's a rebellion and there's a plague. This could have taken place anywhere, there's no reason for it to take place specifically in a post-apo environment. The supposed cataclysm of 20 years ago is only a backdrop that fuels the art, and that's it. Put the same scenario into medieval times, ancient times, modern times and you'll see no practical difference at all. The same is true about the smaller setting details - why is the ruling class called the aristocracy? Because. Why are they named after Roman emperors? Because. Why are they stylised as 18th century wig-wearing dudes with flintlocks? Because. There is no significance to any of this. You never even see any of those red bluecoats use their rifles for shooting, they just stab shit with bayonets. Fuck, there is actually not even any significance to the green uranium shards that gave the game its title. They are just there, hangin' 'round, givin' da light, acting as nothing more than props.

It's a meaningless theme park, and it quickly makes you wonder why the hell are you even doing all those rather insanely mundane tasks in this specific world.

Plus, there's also the part about the story at large, and the puzzles, and the characters (except maybe Tiberius) being about as deep as a sheet of paper. It's all mundane, generic and unremarkable. There is no flair. No shine. Just bleh an' feh.

2. Why the gaem is stupid:

Ho boy there's a lot of that. The vast majority of it happens due to the complete lack of any logic all over the place.

- Start with our protagonist. Amy Wellard is a car mechanic's daughter. In the first scene she's reluctant to mercykill a guy that asks for it, her hands trembling as she aims the crossbow. But then she can wrestle a burly rifle-wielding guard and stab him in the eyes with a syringe, shoot another guard in the head from some 50-100m away with the crossbow, consistently shoot small buttons with the crossbow without multiple tries, hit a rope holding a chandelier with the crossbow, and consistently murder people towards the end of the game without doing as much as flinching. And then at the end, she actually becomes the PERFECT GOVERNOR that outshines all the other aristocrats who came before her. WAT?

- Shit all over the game that made me shake my damn head. When Clem the rebel receptionist gets fatally wounded by the guards, he still has enough time to cross out shit from his letter to Amy to leave only the few important characters in to tell her where to find the rebels? When the iron bucket has just finished baking in a furnace, Amy can take it out with her bare hands? When Danton runs into the two guards in the ministry tower, they just charge with bayonets instead of shooting her with the rifles? The super high security prison is patrolled by ONE GUARD and NOBODY HEARS the piano being dropped on his head? A bolt with an affixed rope can pierce a steel chute and become embedded in it firmly enough to let a guy climb over said rope? When the quarantine zone has a corpse disposal chute, there are still dozens of corpses piling up in the streets? To open an elevator door 20 years after a cataclysm, with no electricity, all you need to do is pry open the button caller panel outside and put in a fuse? A guard just goes ahead and drops his pistol in the street, letting Gordon take it up and sell it? What the hell is all this and who thought of it?

- The factions are idiotic.

Let's start with the rebels - if they just take any random person off the street into their Super Sikrit organisation, even though said person is quite possibly a spy (OR BUGGED, WHY DOES NOBODY THINK OF THIS?), I can't say I'm surprised they are as hilariously incompetent as they are. Because actually, do they DO anything? To my knowledge, the only thing they actually achieve is sitting in their basement drawing shit on a blackboard. Also, ministry of medicine spy dude learns that the gubmint is hoarding vaccine. But he's just some shitty receptionist. And he doesn't know where the main storage is. How does he get this info? Also2, I would say their constant blabbering about MUH FASCIST OPPRESSORS is considerably ridiculous when you see the representatives of said fascist oppressors try to cut fair deals to citizens in the market, and the citizens just respond with GTFO FASCIST OPPRESSOR VIVA LA REVOLUTION.

Now, the gubmint. For a large part of the game, I was actually wondering how this gubmint was supposedly this band of EVIL FASCIST OPPRESSORS. As mentioned, it tries to cut the merchants fair deals. It more or less keeps a functioning society. It has a vaccine for the green lung and does distribute it, albeit on a meritocratic basis, but it's a dog-eat-dog world out there. I have a silly feeling that the game developers also came to this conclusion at some point - "hold on, the gubmint is not evil enough, we must ramp up the evilness to overdrive", and so they started consistently putting chaotic stupidity into its agenda. The whole vaccine hoarding thing - Tiberius gives two reasons, and both of them are stupid. First is that other countries/cities would try to invade them if they learnt they had stocks of vaccine. But... nowhere in the game is any other country or city even as much as mentioned and even if one such existed and was comparable to the city where the action takes place, it would hardly have enough strength to go to a full scale conflict. Plus, how the hell does it matter whether the gubmint is sitting on a small or big hoard of vaccine? Isn't the very fact that it DOES have it in the first place reason enough for a desperate rival to go to conflict over it? And then his second reason is that the population would be much harder to keep in check and resources would become sparse if green lung was cured. Hold on. I thought 20 years have passed since the cataclysm? And green lung has been around for long now? And it kills a person in what, 2 months? How the hell hasn't the population been culled into "manageable" levels yet with the controlled vaccination of desirable elements only?

- The endings are ridiculous.

Let's see, our heroine Amy can get rid of Tiberius, Danton or both.

a) Kill Tiberius, Danton makes America great again. The city streets run with blood but THE PLAGUE IS CURED AND AT LEAST ALL OF AMY'S FRIENDS DIE WITH DIGNITY BELIEVING IN A BETTER WORLD! MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
b) Kill Danton, Tiberius makes America great again. The plague is cured, as predicted by Tiberius the population gets out of control, resources are scarce. Amy is left with her friends in her luxury house and FEELS LIKE SHE'S LOST HER PURPOSE IN LIFE, BOOHOO ;____________;
c) Kill both, Amy makes America great again. The plague is cured and... Amy becomes supreme ruler? And fixes everything? People are happy? Industry will get restored in 5 years? There's a new, better government? ALL THANKS TO THE CAR MECHANIC GIRL RELUCTANT HERO, WHO ACTUALLY TURNS OUT TO BE A BETTER RULER OVERNIGHT THAN THE ARISTOCRATS THAT HAVE BEEN RUNNING THE CITY FOR 20 YEARS NOW? AND SUDDENLY RESOURCES ARE ABUNDANT AND THE POPULATION DOESN'T GET OUT OF CONTROL?

????????????????

¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿

yeah fuck this game
 
Last edited:

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Out of WEG solidarity, I feel obliged to point out that 46/46 reviews on Steam are positive. :) Reviews on GOG and Metacritic are positive as well (except for one on Metacritic that identifies this as a game by "Wadget Eye" and calls Golden Wake "Gold Wake"). That said, it's rare for anyone to analyze a game as carefully as Roxor, so perhaps it's just the difference between superficial playing and critical playing.
 

StaticSpine

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 14, 2013
Messages
3,232
Location
Moscow
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Finished it today. I dig Roxor's arguments, but still I had fun with the game, it has some charm.

8844FA227463767910476B88B1524D04CCA34541

:troll:
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
Out of WEG solidarity, I feel obliged to point out that 46/46 reviews on Steam are positive.
Appealing to popularity is a stupid argument.
I wasn't really making an argument. There's no argument I can make having not played the game. I was just saying that Shardlight seems to be doing pretty well in terms of players' reactions, which can be a decent predictor of whether it's worth giving a shot. My guess is that Roxor's analysis is entirely correct -- it usually is -- but people may enjoy it despite all the flaws he notes because the game has pretty pixel art, nice music, and a classic adventure game interface. That's enough for lots of folks.
 

Blackthorne

Infamous Quests
Patron
Developer
Joined
Jun 8, 2012
Messages
981
Location
Syracuse NY
Codex 2014 Divinity: Original Sin 2
Roxor is good at pointing our flaws, but let's be honest - a person's ability to enjoy anything is contingent on their own ability to overlook flaws for the sake of their own entertainment/amusement.


Bt
 

evdk

comrade troglodyte :M
Patron
Joined
Mar 31, 2004
Messages
11,292
Location
Corona regni Bohemiae
Codex 2012 Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Roxor is good at pointing our flaws, but let's be honest - a person's ability to enjoy anything is contingent on their own ability to overlook flaws for the sake of their own entertainment/amusement.


Bt
That pretty much depends on how retarded the flaws are, you cannot overlook everything. I did not have much problems overlooking Shardlight's flaws (apart from the ending, on which I agree with Roxor 100% - the shoot both ending makes zero sense), Roxor did. Stuff happens.
 

Blackthorne

Infamous Quests
Patron
Developer
Joined
Jun 8, 2012
Messages
981
Location
Syracuse NY
Codex 2014 Divinity: Original Sin 2
That pretty much depends on how retarded the flaws are, you cannot overlook everything. I did not have much problems overlooking Shardlight's flaws (apart from the ending, on which I agree with Roxor 100% - the shoot both ending makes zero sense), Roxor did. Stuff happens.

Yeah, I'm not saying the average person can overlook everything, but take Star Wars for example - it's riddled with flaws, but I absolutely love the flick. I'm sure there's some people who can't get beyond some of the more ridiculous flaws and errors and they don't care for it. (I'm speaking in general, not just about Shardlight.)

Shardlight has some elements that make you go hmm, but for me I didn't worry about them and enjoyed it. Everyone's got ideas on how to make things better, and that's cool - hopefully as a dev you take good criticism and try to use that to hone your work.


Bt
 

Ivan

Arcane
Joined
Jun 22, 2013
Messages
7,474
Location
California
hated the annoying white boy

lold at the ridiculous over the top violence (lopping heads off)

looks great, nice music, meh-poor puzzles

:3/5: decent, but prob the worst Wadjet has put out (haven't played G. Wake)

agree with Roxor on most of his points, spot on
 

Sizzle

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
2,471
hated the annoying white boy

lold at the ridiculous over the top violence (lopping heads off)

looks great, nice music, meh-poor puzzles

:3/5: decent, but prob the worst Wadjet has put out (haven't played G. Wake)

agree with Roxor on most of his points, spot on

Seriously doubt it's worse than Golden Wake, the protagonist there uses "Horsefeathers!" as an expletive.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom