KickStarter INSOMNIA: The Ark - dieselpunk sci-fi action-RPG set on a decaying space station

[a bear named spigot]

it reminds me of elex,sorry for the dumb question but does it have skill tree/talents etc?

battle skills (assorted weapon types) and character skills (health, endurance, mechanics, etc)

 

[razvedchiki]

nice,i remember the game getting bashed in this forum when they revealed some info about the combat system but people seem to like it now.

 

[Safav Hamon]

They just added a 4gb patch an hour ago. I'll report back if the FPS and translations have improved.

Update: FPS doesn't drop below 30 anymore in cities, so that's a major improvement.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Wishlisted for later.

 

[agris]

Are the enemies HP sponges? I played the demo and it was dodge-roll fighting with HP sponge enemies, but that was years ago.

 

[Safav Hamon]

No. Enemies die quickly, and so do you.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Anyone else (mostly Safav Hamon ) getting the edges of the screen flashing reddish continuously?

 

[a bear named spigot]

They just added a 4gb patch an hour ago. I'll report back if the FPS and translations have improved.

guess I'll take a break for a bit, download the patch, and post a few more thoughts

i haven't read the complaints about the graphics, but if people are giving up the game because of a few low quality textures they are missing out. I think the overall aesthetic is excellent and most of the locations I've visited look really nice.
there has not yet been much in the way of skill related dialogue choices, with the exception of some related to the "class" you pick, where people will give you some junk. one I really liked was a guy gave me a book with a bullet hole in it that apparently saved his life, which I can equip and it actually hangs off my character's belt.
i like the slight spookiness.
exploring abandoned areas just feels good.
i like a lot of the npc armour/clothing, some cool looking stuff.

the game really is very playable in it's current state, and hopefully this patch sorts out most of the main concerns. haven't seen any patch notes yet.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

i haven't read the complaints about the graphics, but if people are giving up the game because of a few low quality textures they are missing out. I think the overall aesthetic is excellent and most of the locations I've visited look really nice.

They have absolutely nailed the art in this game.

 

[Safav Hamon]

it reminds me of elex,sorry for the dumb question but does it have skill tree/talents etc?

Spoiler

Battle skills (5 levels each, 1 skill point per level)

Light weapon
Rifles
Shotguns
Automatic weapons
One-handed weapons
Two-handed weapons

Battle Perks (3 skill points each)

Adrenalin
Shooter
Heavy Artillery
Ironman
Swordsman
Grenadier
Deft Hands
Piroman
Shield-bearer
Sprinter
Hammerer

Character Skills (5 levels each, 1 skill point per level)

Health
Endurance
Computers
Mechanics
Scammer
Explosives

Character Perks (3 skill points each)

Somnia Resistance
Leadership
Trading
Search for a Way
Energy Weapons
Acrobatics
Lightning Reflexes
Strong Shoulders
Resistance
Medicine

 

[PEACH]

Guess I'll pull the trigger on this tonight and cross my fingers that it keeps improving. I'm usually wary about showing support in the hopes of future improvements but it seems like these guys are on the ball and I can make an exception for something this inspired and unique looking. My concerns going forward have nothing to do with graphics which look fine to me, especially with that excellent art direction, so if it's as playable in its current state as you guys are suggesting I'm 100% on board

 

[Alienman]

Check out the free artbook in your install catalog. Some cool art in that one. It's in:

Insomnia The Ark / Insomnia_v2 / Content

The OST is good too. Very Fallout inspired I think.

 

[razvedchiki]

for the past couple of days i also see a giant banner of the game on the codex,money for ads but no money for trans?(-lation).

 

[Safav Hamon]

They have absolutely nailed the art in this game.

Not just that. Every area feels handcrafted and rich in detail.

 

[a bear named spigot]

The OST is good too. Very Fallout inspired I think.

i knew I was forgetting something in my post above, the music/ambience is quite nice.

 

[Safav Hamon]

How are you even supposed to kill these guys?

 

[a bear named spigot]

a few particular low texture things I'd noted previously are now looking much better, so I guess a large part of the 4gb patch was missing textures? didn't do anything about the untranslated map/items yet.

 

[grimace]

Full Disclosure: I kickstarted this game during my kickstarter phase.
InSomnia (PC, Mac, Linux)
£14.00
All of the above (Except for Crazy Early Bird and Early Bird Tiers) + DRM-Free Digital Copy of InSomnia + Steam Copy of InSomnia + In-Game Item Starter Set + Your Forum Badge is Upgraded to Nomah Forum Badge
Estimated delivery: Nov 2016

I've downloaded the game via Steam.

---


What's the best resolution to play this game at?
Was it designed for 1080p?

 

[Safav Hamon]

Followers are good in this game. They follow me without issue, they avoid being detected when sneaking, they take cover when possible, and draw enemy fire. If you want to focus more on non-combat skills I suggest getting the Leadership perk.

 

[Safav Hamon]

This game isn't messing around anymore. Another 6 enemies spawn as soon as you defeat this wave.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/783170/announcements/detail/2618171872213775780

First patch goes live!
September 28 - Vault_13

Hello everyone! Yesterday was a historical day for our team since it marked the release of our very first game that we’ve been developing for many years. It came a long way from an isometric Ogre 3D project to a game you’ve already had a chance to explore.

However, even though we were beta testing the game and improved it significantly thanks to player feedback, we were still not able to deliver INSOMNIA in as best shape as possible. Some unexpected technical hurdles cropped up (like the mix up of different game localization) and thus the release was marred by these issues. Please accept our apologies.

The current goal is to buckle up and hunt down all of the problems you’ve encountered so far. To start things off, we are releasing our first patch today that will address the following issues:

• Game freezes when the resolution is changed mid-level should be fixed.
  
• Fixed issues with players getting stuck in certain locations (Red House, Morach Base, etc.)
  
• Fixed a bug preventing a range of achievements to be unlocked by players.
  
• Fixed a key door not opening in the "J-27" location during a mission.
  
• Fixed character moving along the train tracks after entering an anomaly.
  
• Fixed a bug with weapon occasionally not displaying correctly in the class selection screen.
  
• Fixed random FPS drop in the House of Bea Kera.
  
• Fixed missing Deblin’s eye implants in cut-scene.
  
• Added a proper icon for the frag grenade.
  
• Added proper animation for "biostim-5".

Thank you all for the comments and suggestions in the Community Hub! We really appreciate your understanding and patience while we continue to address your feedback as quick as is humanly possible. Please continue submitting your bug reports and thoughts via this form[docs.google.com], since this the most effective way for us to collect and prioritize feedback.

Our team will be working all weekend, so you can expect the next patch to arrive early next week. If you have any questions, we will be more than happy to answer them in the comments below and in the Community Hub.

And even though Object 6 has been drifting in space for more than 400 years, we promise to make it a better place for everyone as soon as we can!

 

[Safav Hamon]

Here's a good review of the game from someone that played 50 hours in beta.

Awe and Frustration in Insomnia: The Ark – Impressions So Far

In my preview of the closed beta of Insomnia: The Ark, I expressed my concerns that the game could get bogged down by its ambition while neglecting its strengths. Insomnia can indeed be very messy and frustrating as a whole, but it’s also one of the most compelling gaming experiences I’ve had in a while. The build I got to play so far was actually v0.9, but the release build will likely be v1.0. So, for the record: my impressions are based only on my experience with the v0.9 build.

I’ve clocked 50 hours so far, and I have yet to finish. My character is level 12, and I assume the level cap is at least 20. I’ve completed a good number of side quests, and I’ve made substantial progress with the main quest. I’m still struggling to understand what’s going on in the grand scheme of things. There is almost no handholding or introduction, and no tutorial at all. Everything you learn about the game and its world comes from the UI and the characters you meet.

Insomnia is fairly straightforward as a third-person ARPG with standard controls, though the camera controls are vertically locked. You can’t look up or down. This is effective because it reduces jank in movement. Your character can’t jump either, which also reduces some of the jank, though he can dodge and roll. Granted, there’s still some clunk, with a few invisible walls and spots where you can get stuck. Considering this is the debut title of an indie Russian studio, it could be much worse.

Sure, a technological wonder crumbling away in a remote corner of the universe.

The journey begins with you waking up from the Big Sleep, a cryogenic state in the colony ship turned crumbling space metropolis Object 6, a relic of the Exodus of the Nomah civilization. Insomnia allows you to choose a name and one of five unique classes for your character. You plunge into a conspiracy involving an alleged terrorist attack. As you investigate the case and follow the orders of your superiors, you discover a realm or dimension called Somnia. At certain parts of Object 6, you are able to enter this dimension, where you meet “shadows,” but it isn’t quite clear whether they are ghosts or something else. Some of them will send you on little quests so you can try to figure out what’s going on.

In the middle of all this metaphysical quandary, you explore Object 6 and meet many characters and factions. Sometimes, you fight marauders and rebels, and sometimes it’s giant insect-like creatures, or giant lizards and scorpions. Sometimes you get weird “somnic” visions of some kind of a shadow-beast lurking in corners. There’s very little explanation for what you see and hear. The world of Insomnia speaks for itself. For some players, this will be fascinating, but it might frustrate others.

There’s little innovation or distinctiveness in its base gameplay. The shooting is barebones, but effective enough at what it does, with decent animation. It doesn’t have a streamlined third-person cover shooting system, and I actually prefer it that way. You can cheese the melee combat all the way to victory just by clicking away. There are different kinds of grenades and Molotovs you can toss, but they’re mostly unnecessary. The AI is thoroughly unremarkable and just plain functional. There’s some challenge to the combat, but, as a general rule, you can come out of most battles unscathed.

Monument to the Aviators.

The art direction is mesmerizing. The dieselpunk Nomah civilization has a fascinating and beautiful aesthetic. It looks like a combination of Soviet propaganda and architecture with retro-futuristic elements. As said in the preview, the influence from the art direction of Fallout and BioShock is very clear, though it’s not just a barefaced imitation. It’s an original combination of elements and details, with a sleek space station visual design.

The level design itself lacks a little elegance, but it’s effective. There are quite a few surprises and interesting details for the dedicated explorer. It’s not exactly an open world, but some of the locations are fairly large and open, full of nooks and corners that add to the atmosphere. While most of Object 6 is falling apart, some of the locations are still in pristine condition. Those levels are usually the least interesting, though.

I really like most of the music in the soundtrack, but the sound design itself can be a bit annoying and repetitive. Not just the usual UI sound bits, but also some background noises in certain areas. It’s a bit like Chinese water torture. Still, the music in most of the bigger levels is very soothing, with some of that Blade Runner ambiance.

Yes, I’m wearing a top hat. It helps me carry more loot for some reason.

There are so many problems with the UI that I don’t know where to begin. It’s like it’s held together by spit and bailing wire. At first, it’s almost inscrutable. Inventory management is a complete mess, and it crashed the game a couple of times. There’s very little organization involved, and if you have a compulsion to keep everything neat, don’t bother. The character UI where you manage your skills is also mostly unintuitive.

Insomnia excels at its worldbuilding, as already mentioned in the preview. This, of course, requires that you have some interest in the world and the building behind it. And it’s not so much a plethora of lore dumps so much as the patience to put together all the bits and pieces that you gather from documents, books, and dialogues. I know that the vast majority of gamers won’t care for it, but I find it fascinating myself. It’s a rewarding and very obsessively designed fictional universe.

The localization from Russian improved somewhat when compared to the closed beta preview, but it’s still far from optimal. There’s still some text in Russian, and there’s still some poor translations and awkward sentences. There was also a residue from gender scripting for the player character in some dialogues. Some of the NPCs will say things like “you gender(dumbass, whore).” Apparently, it was possible to play as either male or female at first, in the early stages of development. Then they changed it to an exclusively male player character. This might be a really bad look if it makes into the final release.

I bet I’ll have nightmares with this fast travel system a few weeks from now.

The characters are colorful, but the side quests are mostly restricted to fetch-or-deliver. It’s refreshing to play an RPG without a quest mark system, but the areas and directions should be well-implemented and defined beforehand, which isn’t always the case here. The main quests follow the recent model of quest design where a quest leads to another quest that leads to another quest… It can be a bit much after a while. While the quests are engrossing as I struggle to understand the whole story arc, I’m ready for closure after fifty hours. There’s definitely replay value with the different classes and the different skills, but I haven’t had many choices overall.

What I really hate in Insomnia right now is the fast travel system. Not only it’s way too slow (I get it, Object 6 is huge, but give me a fast-forward option at least), it’s also full of random encounters, most of which are unskippable. It’s one thing to have a couple of random encounters when you’re making a big trip to the other side of Object 6. It’s another thing to have like three encounters when you’re trying to reach a close destination just to wrap up a quest. In that sense, Insomnia scratches the classic Fallout itch, but it also reminds me of one of its worst parts.

I’m still eager to continue my odyssey in Object 6 in spite of all these complaints. I do wish Insomnia was more polished and consistent as a product, but some of my favorite games are messy and frustrating just like this. I call these games diamonds in the rough, but some will call them buggy, unoptimized hunks of junk. They’re not entirely wrong, but I hope this is informative enough to both those who share my tastes and those who don’t.

 

[toro]

I've tried the game for like 30 minutes and it's raw. Like eurojank raw.

It runs pretty well but it definitely needs a couple of patches to fix: mouse movement, controls lag, Russian translations, add save/load buttons and many more QOL things. These guys never made a game before and it feels.

The presentation is great, the unique world seems to be interesting although the tutorial area was not great. We'll see.

 

[RK47]

 

[Junmarko]

Played just over 5 hours.

The state that it's in reminds me of Alpha Protocol. Frustratingly broken and unpolished, but the sheer ambition makes it hard to ignore.

Hope they keep working on it, damn shame otherwise.

Happy to support