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Whitemithrandir's review of "The Void"

whitemithrandir

Erudite
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
1,115
I'm one of those people who impulsively pick up games on steam based on screenshots, and after playing one such purchase, The Void, I feel compelled to tell you gentlefolks about it with the following heartfelt review of the game. The Void, in so far as design and innovation is concerned, is truly a very, very unique game and represents the sort of creativity that the gaming industry at large has apparently long abandoned.

Firstly, it's not a particularly *good* game. There are some gameplay mechanics that are deeply, deeply broken and a few other unforgivable quirks that show a distinct lack of polish (or a distiinct surplus of vodka for the design team). But the faults, though there, are completely overshadowed by the things that the game does right. Orginiality and style can forgive an awful lot, and The Void has these two qualities in droves.

I'm not even sure if I can tag a genre on to The Void. The best I can do is survival-horror-RTS-First-Person-RPG, with elements of turn-based gameplay. Many games claim to put the player into a completely alien world where he must use his wits to survive, but few of these games actually follow up on that claim. Games like Silent Hill and Dead Space and even Penumbra puts the player into a world with rules and physics that behave in a logical fashion. For example, bullets tend to travel in a straight line, gravity tends to suck things down, and so on and so forth. Such mundane trivialities are not for The Void. The Void truly and utterly dumps you into a completely alien world, bids you "good luck", and then watches gleefully as you bumble into one death after another.

The world of The Void has intricate rules - many of these are very vital to your survival, but no one will tell you these rules. You, the player, have to figure them out and piece together the clues gained through completely inane dialogue and heaps upon heaps of trials and errors. Most such games will include some background in the manual. Not The Void. In fact, The Void's manual is completely fucking useless (probably because it's poorly translated from Russian). It's filled with either obvious common sense (W A S D to move) or completely inexplicable drivel (a comprehensive list of glyphs). The Void is not an easy game. In addition to exploring the world, like many adventure games have you do, The Void requires that you also explore the game's mechanics, or lose horribly.

Now then, on to the premise. Believe it or not, it's actually difficult to describe the premise without spoiling vital gameplay hints, but I'll try my best. You've died and gone to The Void, which is pretty much your own little pocket plane of purgatory. The first thing you'll find is that the void is utterly bland and colorless. Color in The Void is the source of life, and the most precious commodity in the game. If you lose your color in The Void, you suffer oblivion. You store color inside one of your hearts. You start out with one such heart, and as you progress through the game, you'll gain additional hearts. Color that's injected into your heart will slowly leak out overtime into your palette, and you can only use color in your palette that's been transformed by your heart. If your heart(s) run dry of color, you lose.

You use color for everything in this game. You can cast "spells" by dipping your cursor in a particular color and drawing glyphs on the screen. You can attack enemies by doing the same and "flicking" your color drenched cursor at enemies. You can drop blobs of color on the ground to distract enemies you don't want to engage, or to lure other denizens of The Void to you so you can suck up their color. The possibilities are endless, but the amount of color in the world is not.

Color, as you'll find out, is pretty scarce, and since you're bleeding color every second you're in the game, it behooves you to gain color as fast as you can. There are several ways of doing this. You can pick up weeds of various colors dotted around the world, mine colors with glyphs, suck them out from the corpses of your enemies, or grow them on trees. In early game, you'll learn to rely on starting "gardens" of colors. Whenever you see a dead tree, you can "donate" some of your precious color to revive it back to life. After that, the tree will give back a small percentage of your donated color back to you every turn. The more color you give, the more you receive, but it's easy to give too much too quickly, and end up losing the game.

There are also characters in the game in the form of two factions - the brothers and the sisters. These are the keepers of The Void, and its citizens. The two factions have a fairly complex and inscrutible relationship, but the gist of it boils down to which faction you want to align yourself with. It's not much of a choice, though, seeing as how the Sisters are hot, nubile, and often naked girls, and the Brothers are hulking mechanical beasts with blades jutting from their flesh. Anyway, the goal of the game is to either liberate the sisters with color so they can take over The Void, or kill them all, so the Brothers can rule unopposed. There are supposedly more than two endings, though, so I'm guessing there's a middle ground somewhere.

Visually, the game is absolutely STUNNING. The graphics aren't very intensive or hardcore, but the sparse use of color in a black and white world really brings out the contrast. Seeing a dead tree blossom with fiery color is one of the most impressive graphical feats I've seen in a game. Suffice to say, the visuals are adequate for the gameplay, and the art direction is phenonmenal.

Now then, like I said before, there are some fundamental gameplay issues that are hard to overlook. Glyph recognition is one of them. You'll have to draw the glyphs almost exactly as depicted, or the color you've spent drawing them is wasted to no effect. The faster you draw the glyph, the less color you consume, so maybe this is a balance decision, with more complex glyphs requiring more color, but it can get annoying very quickly. Another problem is the lack of a difficulty curve. There's only one difficulty, and it's smash-your-head-against-the-wall-nightmare-mode. It's fine if you enjoy a good challenge, which I do, but I can see how the learning curve might turn some people off. Another thing about the game is that there's a turn limit. Once the turn limit ends, the game ends, and the ending is determined by how you spent those turns. Once again, I see nothing wrong with this mechanic, but I can see how some people might grow to hate it. There literally could exist a point of no return in the game where you've expended so much resource so fast, that's it's impossible to continue the game (if you want a "good" ending) without completely restarting. And the worst part is, there's no way to tell you're in this fatal condition until there are only a few turns left in the game. So be prepared to do a good deal of save/loading.

But in the end, The Void is a fantastic game. Its selling point is innovation and uniqueness, and it does that very well. If you're looking for a breath of fresh air and an utterly alien yet beautiful world to immerse yourself, The Void is for you.
 

Lesifoere

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 26, 2007
Messages
4,071
There are also characters in the game in the form of two factions - the brothers and the sisters. These are the keepers of The Void, and its citizens. The two factions have a fairly complex and inscrutible relationship, but the gist of it boils down to which faction you want to align yourself with. It's not much of a choice, though, seeing as how the Sisters are hot, nubile, and often naked girls, and the Brothers are hulking mechanical beasts with blades jutting from their flesh. Anyway, the goal of the game is to either liberate the sisters with color so they can take over The Void, or kill them all, so the Brothers can rule unopposed.

Interesting that, because I haven't thought about what might happen if I murder every single Sister: since you need to open two hearts per Sister to progress, it didn't occur me to poison them one by one, especially as Uta told me I needed to talk to Ire, Ima, and Yani to find "the secret to your victory." Admittedly turns out they didn't tell me that much, just berated me for my misuse of color.

Something to think about if I should replay (and I feel vaguely stupid for not having tried it), especially since I don't feel any pressing need to "side" with the Sisters (thought Mantid was a p. cool guy, actually). Nice review, all in all, and made me see certain aspects of the game in a new way; the Codex needs to discuss this game more.

Visually, the game is absolutely STUNNING. The graphics aren't very intensive or hardcore, but the sparse use of color in a black and white world really brings out the contrast. Seeing a dead tree blossom with fiery color is one of the most impressive graphical feats I've seen in a game. Suffice to say, the visuals are adequate for the gameplay, and the art direction is phenonmenal.

Absolutely. The Sisters' chambers look fantastic and, more importantly, unique. Sure you can't see every hair on their boobs and every pore on a Brother's face, but this is living proof that art direction will beat gfx-intensive, demanding tech any time.
 

Reject_666_6

Arcane
Joined
Oct 30, 2008
Messages
2,465
Location
Transylvania
I just started a new game, actually. The art style is so nice and a welcome change from the dark gritty mature Dragon Age and its ilk.

Now how about helping this poor guy out with something: why is it that I can never draw the Donor Glyph properly? No matter how many times or how precisely I do it, it always says that I should have drawn the Glyph and that I just wasted some Colour.
 

Murk

Arcane
Joined
Jan 17, 2008
Messages
13,459
I watched a gameplay video of the beginning and was mesmerized by the art, music, and feel.

i was one of those that enjoyed Pathologic despite it being a drunken rehash of Dostoevsky in terms of writing, so I think I might enjoy this as well.
 

Mogar

Scholar
Joined
Feb 11, 2009
Messages
201
I just got the English version a couple of days ago. So far the setting is mesmerizing, one of the best I've ever seen. I wish there were some guides for it; it's extremely daunting knowing that the consequences of (unkowingly) screwing myself over early on may come back to bite me after I've already put a few hours into it.
 

whitemithrandir

Erudite
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
1,115
Now how about helping this poor guy out with something: why is it that I can never draw the Donor Glyph properly? No matter how many times or how precisely I do it, it always says that I should have drawn the Glyph and that I just wasted some Colour.

The position of the glyph is really important. Picture a box 3/4 of the size of your screen centered on your screen. Now draw the donor glyph starting from the top right. Don't be scared to draw a BIG glyph. I think the bigger you draw it, the easier the game is to recognize it.
 

ecliptic

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 11, 2003
Messages
915
9.99 on Steam for the holiday sale. Do it up, fellas!

I love this damned game. Most original thing I've played since Pathologic, but this game is actually enjoyable.
 

Reject_666_6

Arcane
Joined
Oct 30, 2008
Messages
2,465
Location
Transylvania
whitemithrandir said:
Now how about helping this poor guy out with something: why is it that I can never draw the Donor Glyph properly? No matter how many times or how precisely I do it, it always says that I should have drawn the Glyph and that I just wasted some Colour.

The position of the glyph is really important. Picture a box 3/4 of the size of your screen centered on your screen. Now draw the donor glyph starting from the top right. Don't be scared to draw a BIG glyph. I think the bigger you draw it, the easier the game is to recognize it.

Thank you, it finally worked! I also just noticed that the game has a video explaining exactly how to draw it, so I guess it doesn't leave you totally clueless.
 

Helton

Arcane
Joined
Jan 29, 2007
Messages
6,789
Location
Starbase Delta
Reject_666_6 said:
Thank you, it finally worked! I also just noticed that the game has a video explaining exactly how to draw it, so I guess it doesn't leave you totally clueless.

Nope, you were just born that way.
 

Lesifoere

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 26, 2007
Messages
4,071
Mikayel said:
I watched a gameplay video of the beginning and was mesmerized by the art, music, and feel.

i was one of those that enjoyed Pathologic despite it being a drunken rehash of Dostoevsky in terms of writing, so I think I might enjoy this as well.

The Void's translation is much better, yep.

Mogar said:
I just got the English version a couple of days ago. So far the setting is mesmerizing, one of the best I've ever seen. I wish there were some guides for it; it's extremely daunting knowing that the consequences of (unkowingly) screwing myself over early on may come back to bite me after I've already put a few hours into it.

As a principle, read the journal to see the attributes of each color. Fill your hearts with violet before planting a garden (so it costs less color); fill with gold before donating color to a sister; fill with azure while traveling in the Void to increase your speed (so you spend less time out there and lose less color). Green and red are good colors to put on before engaging in battle. Don't leave your gardens unharvested.
 

Coyote

Arcane
Joined
Jan 15, 2009
Messages
1,149
whitemithrandir said:
If you lose your color in The Void, you suffer oblivion.

Wow, that really is terrifying.[/obligatory Codex response]

Another thing about the game is that there's a turn limit. Once the turn limit ends, the game ends, and the ending is determined by how you spent those turns. Once again, I see nothing wrong with this mechanic, but I can see how some people might grow to hate it.

Is this limit hinted at or shown anywhere, or is it more like you're just wandering around trying to figure out what to do next and BAM! game over? More to the point, are the turns always in effect, or only when you're engaged in certain tasks? And are they time-based (e.g., every minute constitutes one turn), based on your actions, or what?

Overall, sounds pretty interesting. I'll have to check it out.
 

Lesifoere

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 26, 2007
Messages
4,071
One of the Sisters implies that there is a time limit and gives you a very rough estimate. It's not that harsh, I don't think.

Coyote said:
More to the point, are the turns always in effect, or only when you're engaged in certain tasks? And are they time-based (e.g., every minute constitutes one turn), based on your actions, or what?

Time passes when you're outside, in the Void. You can speed it up when you want.
 

dx__

Educated
Joined
Nov 25, 2009
Messages
132
Location
Ontario, Canada
I'm currently lacking speakers. Would this lack of speakers detriment my enjoyment of this game, or should I wait until I have speakers?
 

Lesifoere

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 26, 2007
Messages
4,071
The voice acting is quite effective and the background music is atmospheric. Plus there's the screechy metal sounds when a Brother appears. But you could probably enjoy it without speakers.
 

dx__

Educated
Joined
Nov 25, 2009
Messages
132
Location
Ontario, Canada
Sweet. So far, I'm digging this company. I mean - the requirements for a game this recent are remarkably low. I remember Pathologic being even lower. Shit, if it wasn't for Quinns, though, I'd've never heard of either.
 

whitemithrandir

Erudite
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
1,115
GlobalExplorer said:
out of the box the game doesn't support 1680*1050 widescreen screen resolution :roll:

but here is a guide how it can be done: http://forum.ice-pick.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=7544

I also had to set Anti Aliasing to 2 as another user reported

Yeah - that's another problem I forgot to mention. The graphics settings are not very scalable unless you use your card to force AA. Still; looks gorgeous even on non-native resolutions.
 

Suchy

Arcane
Joined
Nov 16, 2007
Messages
6,031
Location
Potatoland
How's the translation? I was totally put down by Pathologic's butchered dialogue, even though I really wanted to play it.
 

Tycn

Savant
Joined
Sep 11, 2009
Messages
1,852
Location
Prosper Land
It's pretty decent, far better than Pathologic's. Most of the dialogue is 'artsy' which makes translation a bit less important as well.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
Isn't this made by the people who did The Path? The Path was terrible.

Oh, just looked it up on Steam and it isn't. HMM.
 

Lesifoere

Liturgist
Joined
Oct 26, 2007
Messages
4,071
Suchy said:
How's the translation? I was totally put down by Pathologic's butchered dialogue, even though I really wanted to play it.

The translation is great, the voice-acting quite good. No babelfishese this time. I'd even say the gameplay is more streamlined than Pathologic. Go grab it, it's still $9.99 on Steam.

Multi-headed Cow said:
Isn't this made by the people who did The Path? The Path was terrible.

Oh, just looked it up on Steam and it isn't. HMM.

Oh, gtfo. Pathologic, makers of.

I've finished it now. Having read everyone saying that the game isn't "fun," I was surprised at how much I enjoyed combat against Brothers (provided I had enough color to fling around). The glyph-drawing should have been really shitty, but I ended up liking it.

The first time I ended the game, I was in a bit of a hurry and achieved turgor almost as soon as I got the breakthrough glyph then got the hell out. I tried again: turns out I missed one vision and a few last words from colors, which turned out to be crucial to the plot and made it much more satisfying. And now I can't stop thinking about the whole thing.
 

Ch1ef

Scholar
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Messages
1,454
Another Ukrainian "DURR HURR WE DONT MAKE GAEMS WE MAKE ART PLEASE BUY OUR GAMES".













Gameplay sux.
 

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