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Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey - ape evolution game from Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Desilets

Tigranes

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I love the concept of this, and the fact that something like this has been attempted. I might give it a try, even though I expect the execution to be more than lacklustre.
 

cvv

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Say what you want, but I highly respect Désilet's creative spirit. The first two Assassin's Creed games who he directed/wrote were actually quite good, too. The series lost their shine and handwriting once they got turned into annualized fastfood.

I absolutely do respect innovation but great ideas don't excuse bad execution. Back in the 1990s when I was growing up vidyas were exploding with innovation AND great fun, one shouldn't hamper the other.

Btw AC1 was p. terrible, it suffered from the same exact shit Ancestors apparently suffer, only in the sequel Desilets properly refined the formula.
 

Wirdschowerdn

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https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-08-27-ancestors-the-humankind-odyssey-review-broken-bones


[...]

But does this matter? All the science blather on the screen suggests that Ancestors wants to be taken seriously as a sort of playable documentary, but what I got out of it over time was quite different. Science aside, this made me think about how terrifying those early days must have been for those plucky hominids, the jungle crowded all around, survival seeming very unlikely indeed. Ancestors isn't really about the neurons and the connections that got us here, then. I'd argue that at its clearest it's about the empathy that is possible because of where all those neurons and connections are today. This weird, difficult, silly game is, deep down, actually sort of memorable.

:kfc:
 

Jaedar

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Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
I love the concept of this, and the fact that something like this has been attempted. I might give it a try, even though I expect the execution to be more than lacklustre.
Yeah, I think an exploration of "what made early humans alpha predators" and the like is really interesting. But I am not sure it will actually be fun and/or accurate enough to be good, and 40 euro + epic exclusive is a pretty big barrier.
 

Fedora Master

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Why are Frogs so obsessed with endless unskippable cutscenes???
e:
Consoles ruin everything.
txRFswv.png
 
Last edited:

Jrpgfan

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Played this a little bit. Lost 2 monkeys falling from a tree after stealing some big bird's egg from its nest and being chased by it.

I can see it getting monotonous after a while(there's quite a bit of grind) but I like the fact that the game doesn't hold your hand. It even asks in the beggining if you want any assistance at all(if you say no it toogles off all UI and tutorials), which is a plus for a "console" game. For those who like "immershum" this might scratch an itch.
 

Fedora Master

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Played this a little bit. Lost 2 monkeys falling from a tree after stealing some big bird's egg from its nest and being chased by it.

I can see it getting monotonous after a while(there's quite a bit of grind) but I like the fact that the game doesn't hold your hand. It even asks in the beggining if you want any assistance at all(if you say no it toogles off all UI and tutorials), which is a plus for a "console" game. For those who like "immershum" this might scratch an itch.

Some of the controls are a bit obtuse but otherwise I really enjoy the exploration and "smash rock against things to discover shit" ideas. You can also tell that the game was a labor of love in many places. So far I'd say it's a solid 70/100 title anyone with an interest in history can enjoy.
 

Fedora Master

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Some of the design is fucking retarded though no way around it. Tigers are heat seeking missiles that will never stop and your clan members are too stupid to just climb a tree. The "combat" controls are also awful but that's just because it's a console game and consoles ruin everything.
 

Fedora Master

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You must fight it?
It doesn't go away on its own as far as I can tell. That's what I mean by missile, it's not programmed to snatch prey and then leave, it's there to fucking exterminate you and everything you hold dear. Other animals don't show this behavior. Even if you lure it to a warthog and make it eat those it still won't leave you alone.
 

Jrpgfan

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Some of the design is fucking retarded though no way around it. Tigers are heat seeking missiles that will never stop and your clan members are too stupid to just climb a tree. The "combat" controls are also awful but that's just because it's a console game and consoles ruin everything.

Hopefully that could be fixed with changes to the AI(maybe)?

That is, if it's possible and they'd be willing to do it.
 

Fedora Master

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Some of the design is fucking retarded though no way around it. Tigers are heat seeking missiles that will never stop and your clan members are too stupid to just climb a tree. The "combat" controls are also awful but that's just because it's a console game and consoles ruin everything.

Hopefully that could be fixed with changes to the AI(maybe)?

That is, if it's possible and they'd be willing to do it.

I checked the forums about this and apparently the idea is that you're in their territory so they will fuck you until you kill them, which isn't exactly realistic.
Another problem I have is when you start in survivor mode (alone) you have to find a mate ASAP or anything you do becomes pointless because you can't acquire XP without a baby on your back, meaning you can't even figure out how to hold things with two hands.
 
Self-Ejected

Carls Barkley

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This game is doing reasonably well among lets play and streamers. Hopefully Amsterdam 1666 is coming next.
 

Fedora Master

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Semi-Necro but I felt like writing a kind of review of this because the game is so odd I think it deserves a deeper analysis.
I'm guessing I've played this for about 30 hours now, including multiple restarts.

My initial impression still stands: It's a 7/10 game. Janky in many places but fascinating nonetheless.

First of all, the jank mainly stems from some of the non-standard design decisions the devs made. The game puts immersion before established rules in many places, especially the controls. It's absolutely true that you need a controller for the proper ~*experience*~. The UI is also not exactly intuitive but again, that's deliberate. You won' really find "stats" here so much as a vague sense of how you're currently doing. It was frustrating for me at first because it requires shedding some expectations and even after you've gotten used to it all it still feels rather experimental. Some of the design is logical, some not so much. Most keys are supposed to be pressed and held for a few seconds until you hear a noise that tells you you've reached the sweet spot for your current action. It essentially simulates how much force you're investing in an action. While trying to sharpen a stick you can release the button too early and achieve nothing or too late and smash whatever you're holding, only the right amount of force while hammering away will get you results. This becomes easier as you evolve better muscle control and fine motor skills. Same for "combat", press and hold A until you hear the chime to successfully evade or attack. It's very hard at first but becomes much easier later on, showing your progress towards the top of the food chain. I've complained a lot about those fucking tigers but now they are barely a threat to me. The webm I posted above was a bug, they've since fixed this behavior.

As for the actual basic gameplay cycle, it works like this: You start either alone or in a small tribe. Your first action should ALWAYS be to mate and make kids because without kids you can't generate neuronal energy - pretty much XP - to unlock new neurons and evolve. Kids also have a chance to be born with mutations that unlock neurons you otherwise can't access. Ideally you want as large a tribe and as many kids as you can manage. Then you go out and explore the world around you. At first everything is unknown and scary so naturally you have to pick things up, look at them, sniff them and maybe lick 'em a bit to make them not-scary. You can pick up various rocks and sticks and smash them together to figure out useful combinations. Smashing a rock against a rock gets you a sharp rock. A sharp rock used on a stick gets you a sharp stick. A sharp stick is the best weapon you can get the entire game, often insta-killing smaller predators. A grinding stone used on certain plants gets you... well, plant mush that you can smear on bleeding wounds and such. It's all very logical that way. Once you've unlocked a couple of new neurons/abilities you have to pass them on by going one generation forward in time. You can be the smartest ape in the jungle but that won't matter because you can only pass on so much learning, so you want to switch generations often. Rinse and repeat until you have done enough evolutionary feats to jump a few million years entirely, turning into a slightly more advanced hominid along the way. This unlocks entirely new neurons. I actually didn't understand the last part until late in the game because it doesn't remind you that a large evolutionary leap has become possible, so for the longest time I ran around as a proto-hominid chimp. I was the biggest motherfucking chimp around, regularly beating up tigers and giant anacondas though. :lol:

Speaking of the way evolution works, it's... weird. Almost LaMarkian in design, since you do a thing and then evolve to be better at that thing. One the one hand that's perfectly valid game design, on the other hand it has little to do with actual biology. In fact, the game has quite a few weird discrepancies between game mechanics and reality like that.

There's sadly no real environmental simulation. Other animals exist to be obstacles/annoyances while you explore and that's pretty much it. Tigers often seem to "spawn" out of thin air behind your group and pounce on one of your clan members. Then again, each tiger is tied to its territory so if you kill it you won't be bothered by that particular kitty until the next generational change. Predators also don't hunt for food, they hunt YOU specifically. You'd think a predator would snatch prey to feed and be content for a while but that doesn't happen.

Despite all this I think Ancestors is one of the most unique games currently on the market. It genuinely tries something new with its design and its setting. Not everything works but when it does, it feels really nice. The effort that went into animating the apes alone is noteworthy. After a few evolutionary leaps I reached a stage where my guys sometimes seemed eerily human in their behavior and animation but not quite, which is exactly what they are at that stage in human development. I genuinely do hope they will make a second game with some improvements to the formula. I say this as someone who despises console games and AssCreed in particular.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...-will-be-the-game-patrice-desilets-makes-next

It sounds like 1666: Amsterdam will be the game Patrice Désilets makes next
"I'm back at it."

Patrice Désilets has given a strong indication that 1666: Amsterdam will be Panache Digital's next game, following the release of Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey earlier this year.

Désilets mentioned 1666: Amsterdam towards the end of an Ancestors postmortem at Reboot Develop Red in Canada today, while talking about what could come next. I was in the audience so I pressed him.

"How serious are you about revisiting 1666?" I asked because sometimes it's hard to tell.

jpg

1666: Amsterdam concept art. Creepy.

"How serious am I?" he answered. "I almost lost my house over it." He paused, people laughed. "I'm not joking." (He was referring to the torrid time he had wrestling the IP from Ubisoft.)

"I want to do a game about the Devil," he went on. "I hate horror movies, I hate the subject matter for some reason, so it's a challenge for me. I love Amsterdam, I like the fact there was a year called 1666, and I want to do it. I want to do it.

"But what's great is it's not the game after Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood any more, it's the game after Ancestors. It's not the game made with THQ Montreal, it's the game from Panache. We found our DNA a bit, our signature - I won't help you much. There's going to be narrative and it's going to be about the Devil - that's the subject matter.

"I'm back at it. I'm about to post something, it will be nice. Plus, I fought for it. I fought for it - no you won't have my game - and I got it back. I sold it to myself, which is weird - I had it personally but I had to sell it to Panache.

"But yeah," he added. "I'm really serious about making that game."

I pressed once more: "So is that what's coming next?"

"Yeah," he replied, "but you won't have the exclusivity!" He laughed. "Let me have the exclusivity, come on!" Sorry, Patrice!

1666: Amsterdam was in development at THQ Montreal in around 2014, but the studio went bust and Ubisoft swooped in to buy it - Ubisoft being the company Désilets created Assassin's Creed for. But Ubisoft cancelled the project and Désilets left.

Eventually, Désilets managed to regain the 1666: Amsterdam rights, then in 2016, at Reboot Develop Blue in Croatia, he showed video footage of the game. The gist of the game was to "be worse than the Devil", and you could control maligned creatures like ravens, rats and black cats.

Back at THQ Montreal, the project was dubbed the new Assassin's Creed, but back then it also had a triple-A budget. At Panache, it won't. Panache is now an established studio with a game under its belt but it's still only 35 people, with only modest plans of growth to 50 people in the next few years. It produces, as Désilets likes to say, triple-I games - the I standing for indie.

Ancestors was published by 2K's indie label Private Division, and Désilets said he still had that relationship, suggesting it may be the publisher of 1666: Amsterdam as well. Panache also has long-running funding from private investors.

But before 1666: Amsterdam becomes a thing, there's the 6th December PS4 and Xbox One release of Ancestors to see through. "And then again," said Désilets, "we've got multiple ideas about that game [Ancestors]. It's not over. This is my tool box where I can test some stuff."
 

Jrpgfan

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This guy has some really good ideas and you can see he's passionate about his projects. Ancestors wasn't perfect but the concept was pretty interesting and the execution wasn't bad(it was a good game overall imo).

I wish him luck with his next project. I'll probably play it if it ever comes out.
 

dbx

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My own vote would be 4 at best 5 on a 10 scale.

Classic nice idea, bad execution.
Tech and graphic wise is ok to good.
Didn't mind much the lack of realism, gameplay wise the evolution part was well done, a mixture of randomness and intelligent design. Maybe a bit too exploitable by experienced gamers.
The real problem of the game is that in a couple of hours you do everything that can be done in the game, the following 30 hours its just grinding and repeating of the same few basic actions in order to evolve your tribe with a bit of exploration of the different biomes.
There is too much retarded respawning. The main antagonists (assorted felines) spawn every couple of days nearby the player camp like clockwork, even if you put fences sometimets it spawn beyond them inside your camp.
 

Infinitron

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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
lul https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...ancestors-fell-victim-to-critics-expectations

Patrice Désilets: Ancestors fell foul of critics' expectations
"People expected my studio of 35 people to ship a game that is close to Assassin's Creed -- and it's just not possible"

Panache Digital co-founder Patrice Désilets had admitted his disappointment with the critical reception that greeted his studio's debut game, Ancestors: A Humankind Odyssey. Speaking at Reboot Develop Red, the former creative director of Assassin's Creed questioned the sincerity of some reviewers, and their assumptions about what kind of game Panache's 35-strong team would produce.

Ancestors launched on the Epic Games Store at the end of August. After more than 70 reviews, Désilets said, it had a Metacritic average of 65 -- a figure that he referred to as "the elephant in the room" at the start of a talk that would chronicle the game's creation and development.

"I'm used to having bigger numbers than that, so it's the elephant in the room," he said, referring to the first three Assassin's Creed games, all of which had Metacritic averages between 80 and 90. "But people expected my studio of 35 people to ship a game that is really close to Assassin's Creed, and it's just not possible. We made some harsh decisions in order to ship the game, and we wanted it to be different."

The pragmatic reality of shipping a game and the desire to make a unique experience would be the talk's two major themes. First, however, Désilets had an accusation to level regarding the professionalism of certain websites.

"We know for a fact that some reviewers actually didn't play the game," he continued. "It is part of our industry -- they have to review games, and they have 15 of them to review in one week, and sometimes they don't have time. And since Ancestors is so different, some of them went 'urgh, I don't have time for this.'

"And we know for a fact that some just invented some elements in the game -- like there is no fire and you cannot ride any horses, even though one reviewer said 'oh, it wasn't that great when you ride a horse.' Yes. My people are pissed, by the way.

"So please don't take notes today as we talk, mainly because I don't know how to make a video game."

While Désilets had tongue firmly planted in cheek when making that comment, there was a kernel of truth at its core. No matter how much experience a designer has from previous work, he explained, each new game is fundamentally different. While he left Ubisoft as an expert in making Assassin's Creed, he was a novice at making a game from the themes at the heart of Ancestors.


Désilets talked candidly about what he saw as many critics failing to grasp what Ancestors was trying to do

"Because of the subject matter you're trying to attack," he said. "Personally, I never made a game about human evolution before, so it was 'How do I make a game about that?'"

This was new territory not just for Panache but for video games as a whole. The solutions that Panache found for articulating those concepts were unusual, and Désilets believes that some didn't understand it before they gave up trying -- "it needs an hour," he said, before adding, "maybe two."

But some decisions were informed by the more mundane reality of running a studio -- the need to get the best possible result from limited resources, and making sure that the company would survive to make another game. Realities, it is worth noting, that Désilets didn't have to consider when he shipped three Assassin's Creed games.

"President, CEO, responsible for 35 families," Désilets said. "The game designer in me wants to make a decision about the quality and whatnot, and then the other guy says, 'no, no, I'm responsible for those people, and I need to make a decision that makes sure the studio doesn't shut down, and that it's good for at least two other years afterwards'... Without them, I'm not here."

Panache Digital was scaling up for much of the four years that Ancestors was in development, but the team was never more than a few dozen at its peak. According to Désilets, he had one full-time level designer, two animators, one UI specialist, four people in the art team, and eight programmers -- an embarrassment of resources for many games, but not for a game of the scale and ambition of Ancestors.

This led to the choice of a hyper-real art style that avoided the extra work that a more photo-realistic approach would have required. It was also another incentive to use a more open, systemic structure, with very little in the way of hand-holding.

"That was the question I went with: 'Hey, homo sapiens, you think you're top of the evolutionary chain? Can you survive like our Ancestors did?' And this is why a bunch of what would be normal game design decisions of helping the player, we went 'we're not doing it?' Because otherwise we're answering the question for the player, and it doesn't make sense.


Despite its mixed reception, Désilets said that 'the money is made' in terms of the game breaking even

"And this is why you need teams of 200, and 800, and 2000, because you need to come up with all the missions and whatnot. I felt it was so much [more] powerful to [let the player] come up with their own storytelling instead of ours. Homo sapiens, deal with it."

Ancestors wasn't intended to be quite so uncompromising, though. Désilets wanted to include advice to introduce players to the game's systems, but mundane reality interfered again. Panache simply had to ship the game, and some features had to be cut to make it happen.

"We shipped the game and we left 72 pop-up tutorial messages on the floor," he said. "We couldn't do it. They are coming now for the console version -- they will be in, it will be easier -- but we didn't have time. You need to eventually say, at the end of the day, that you have to ship. And that's more important than anything else."

Despite the mixed reception it received, though, Désilets said that it had broken even from a commercial standpoint. When asked about sales by a member of the Reboot Develop audience, he responded: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, the money is made. Plus, I know it's more a console game than a PC game."

This was a reference to Ancestors' launch for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on December 6, which should be an opportunity for the game to achieve even greater financial returns for Panache and its publisher, Private Division. After that, Désilets said, will be another project that he has been attempting to make since leaving Ubisoft almost a decade ago.

"I built a toolbox, I've got a studio, I've got a team... and I've still got 1666: Amsterdam," he said.

1666: Amsterdam was in development at THQ Montreal, the ill-fated studio that Désilets left Ubisoft to run. When THQ collapsed and Ubisoft stepped in to acquire what was left, that included the IP. A legal battle ensued, which was finally resolved in April 2016, when Désilets finally regained control of his idea. Eurogamer, which was in the audience, asked how serious he was about revisiting 1666.

"How serious? I almost lost my house over it," Désilets said. "I'm not joking... I fought for it. I said 'No, you won't have my game,' and I got it back.

"What's great is that it's not the game after Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood any more. It's the game after Ancestors. It's the game not made with THQ Montreal. It's the game made by Panache."
 

Duraframe300

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My own vote would be 4 at best 5 on a 10 scale.

Classic nice idea, bad execution.
Tech and graphic wise is ok to good.
Didn't mind much the lack of realism, gameplay wise the evolution part was well done, a mixture of randomness and intelligent design. Maybe a bit too exploitable by experienced gamers.
The real problem of the game is that in a couple of hours you do everything that can be done in the game, the following 30 hours its just grinding and repeating of the same few basic actions in order to evolve your tribe with a bit of exploration of the different biomes.
There is too much retarded respawning. The main antagonists (assorted felines) spawn every couple of days nearby the player camp like clockwork, even if you put fences sometimets it spawn beyond them inside your camp.

And that's no exaggeration. After getting bored I looked up the ending on Youtube. And yeah, it's all you do until the credits suddenly pop up when you reach the last point in time.

I don't mind games where you make your own fun, but in Ancestors case the gameplay is just too shallow and repetitive to not be supported by ANYTHING else.
 

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