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Heaven's Vault - open world adventure from 80 Days and Sorcery! dev

LESS T_T

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https://www.inklestudios.com/heavensvault/




https://af.gog.com/game/heavens_vault?as=1649904300

preview_3.jpg


Text to full 3D, eh?: http://www.inklestudios.com/2017/03/03/announcing-heavens-vault.html

What is Heaven's Vault?
Heaven's Vault is a character-driven graphic novel crossed with an open-world adventure game...

... and it's our most ambitious, beautiful and complex game to date.

Our greatest adventure yet!
Initial work on Heaven's Vault began almost immediately after the completion of 80 Days, with a long period of prototyping, as we tried to ask the question: "What does an inkle story look like when you can see it?"

Over three years the team has trebled in size. We've produced over twenty prototypes, ranging from tiny gameplay concepts to whole playable levels. We've been through rounds of concepting to develop our protagonist, our supporting cast, and their world.

And now we're ready to tell you about it.

Meet Aliya
el-stand.png


Meet Aliya Elasra, an archaeologist who studies the lost places and forgotten history of the strange Nebula where she lives.

With her reluctant robot assistant, Six, she will piece together a complex past - and discover a secret that will change the future.

The Game
Inspiration and influences
The game draws on a wide range of influences:
  • Stargate and Indiana Jones, as well as the novels of Raymond Chandler and Gene Wolfe
  • the work of Dr Monica Hanna in protecting Egypt's antiquities
  • the graphic novels of Möebius and Hergé
  • Islamic art, architecture and calligraphy
  • the animation and real-time storytelling of The Last Express
  • the character art of The Banner Saga
  • the open worlds of Shadow of the Colossus, Firewatch and The Witcher 3
  • the puzzle-solving of The Witness
  • the translation puzzle of Infocom's classic game Infidel
ruins-wide.jpg


The art style
We've developed a unique art style, integrating stylish, hand-drawn 2D characters into full 3D environments. The aim is to make every frame look like it could have come straight from a graphic novel.

The engine
We rebuilt our ink engine from the ground-up for this project, integrating powerful new features - and open-sourcing it to the developer community along the way.

The game itself is built in Unity and we'll be releasing on multiple platforms - including, for the first time, console.

blog-glyphs.png


The journey ahead!
The prototypes are now complete. We know what we're making, and how. But there's still a lot to do and the game won't be ready for some time.

But we'll be keeping you updated via this blog and our email newsletter, which you can sign up using the form below.
 
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Don Peste

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  • the graphic novels of Möebius and Hergé
The art did catch my eye. Although I would simply call them "COMICS".

  • the open worlds of Shadow of the Colossus, Firewatch and The Witcher 3
Man, this is really a cheap line. Bravo. Add L.A. Noire and Saint's Row too, why not!

  • the puzzle-solving of The Witness
  • the translation puzzle of Infocom's classic game Infidel
No clue about this. Does it actually mean anything good?
 

HoboForEternity

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Sorcery was a wonderful journey playing it trough around when 4 was released.

I cannot cannot get excited.

It's,cool that,they explore such rarely explored culture in western media too. I hope their office dont get bombed,or anything
 

Starwars

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Would've rather seen another text-based game as I loved both Sorcery! and 80 days (for slightly different reasons, 80 days is way less of a "game" so to speak). But hopefully it'll be good!
 

almondblight

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a lot of name dropping and not a lot to back it up

But not bad name dropping. I mean, stuff like Moebius, Wolfe, and The Last Express are decently well known, but they're not "the new hot shit" that you throw out there just to build hype.
 

V_K

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stylish, hand-drawn 2D characters into full 3D environments
Funny how adventure graphics have come full circle from the late 90s.
  • the puzzle-solving of The Witness
  • the translation puzzle of Infocom's classic game Infidel
No clue about this. Does it actually mean anything good?
I think Infocom is always good thing to have as influence. And Witness was pretty solid, if somewhat artificial.
 

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.rockpapershotgun.com/20...ault-a-stunning-sci-fi-archaeology-adventure/

Inkle’s Heaven’s Vault: a stunning sci-fi archaeology adventure
Adam Smith on March 7th, 2017 at 7:00 pm.

01heavensvaultb.jpg


With 80 Days and Sorcery, Inkle have made some of our favourite games of recent years, but Heaven’s Vault [official site] might just be their greatest achievement yet. It’s early days, of course, but a half hour play session at GDC has already convinced me that this science fiction adventure is a very exciting thing indeed. It’s a game about exploring the past, in the future, through archaeology and translation, and it has a remarkable sense of wonder.

When people say something looks better in motion, they’re often also saying, “wow, that doesn’t look all that great in stills, does it? Please don’t judge the stills.” With Heaven’s Vault, I found the stills so attractive that I was dreading getting a closer look and seeing the art lose its appeal when glued onto a game.

But, no, Heaven’s Vault looks better in motion. Those painted figures shimmer across the landscape, using just a few frames as they transition from one place to the next, fading in and out of view as they move. It’s an elegant solution, allowing the quality of the artwork to survive animation, while also condensing some of the long treks from place to place into a smaller timeframe than they’d need if every step were modeled. Heaven’s Vault isn’t a walking simulator, but the ambulating industry could learn a lot from its methods.

It’s not an interactive fiction game either, though Inkle haven’t entirely pulled up their roots. That said, Inkle’s games have never been traditional interactive fiction, despite their wordiness. The later releases in the Sorcery series moved away from their game book origins, introducing complex systems and rules. Even 80 Days, which feels like the purest of narrative adventures, has resource management and makes strong use of art alongside its text.

Heaven’s Vault moves all of those aspects forward. It’s still a game built around words, perhaps more so than anything else in the Inkle catalogue, but it plays like a graphic novel. The build that I played has just one location, an apparently lifeless desert planet, but there are many places to go. By the time I reached the demo’s cut-off point, having climbed to the point of exhaustion in thin air, I felt like an explorer, stepping into the unknown at every turn.

01heavensvaulta.jpg


Lead character Aliya Elasra is an explorer of a sort. She’s an archaeologist, working out of a university, exploring the Nebula, a network or rivers flowing between moons. The old meets the new in this sailing through space, and in Aliya’s explorations, which involve dusting down surfaces to read ancient inscriptions as well as asking a trundling robot companion for advice. That robot, Six, fits into the mould of the impatient, ultra-logical companion, used for laughs as well as assistance. The dialogue between the pair is well-written, Aliya driven by intellectual curiosity and a hint of something more personal, while Six is a reluctant and sometimes cruel source of advice.

Movement is between nodes, though a less restrictive mode is also planned. You’re free to look around though, while standing at a node, and in doing so can highlight items or areas of interest. Clicking – or pushing a button – moves Aliya to the target area or object, and there may then be other options, to investigate, ask Six for input, or observe from a distance. Those are just examples of the basics. During my brief time with the game I also dropped a stone down a well and crept into an abandoned (?) building.

And all along the way, I was solving puzzles. Or failing to solve them. More on that in a second; first, a reassurance that these aren’t block-switching puzzles or Towers of Hanoir or crosswords or Sudoku. Puzzles it the wrong word entirely really, so let’s scrap it. You’re not solving puzzles, you’re translating an alien language.

Oh, but of course, that’ll involve doing a Word Search or a Jumble or playing Scrabble or doing Word Tetris, won’t it? No it absolutely will not. You translate by paying attention to the context of inscriptions, combining that with knowledge of the language’s symbols that you’ve already built up, and then make educated guesses. If you’re anything like me, some of those guesses will be terrible. Fortunately, you probably won’t have the game’s writers watching you make those terrible guesses.

The very first choice in the game is between “Temple” and “Port”. Words in this language are often compound, a few symbols crunched together to create new meaning. That makes it easier to figure out what individual symbols in a cluster might mean if you’re sure of the definition of at least one of them. The interface handily marks out possible translations of those symbols and definite meanings, based on your previous work.

In this instance, I knew nothing. The symbols in question are written on a stone that is either a marker, pointing the way, or part of an actual ruin. It’s partly submerged in the planet’s red sand. Given all that sand, stretching from one horizon to the next, and the arid rocks that littered the surface, I figured this was definitely a port. In the middle of a desert, on a planet that might never have been home to even the tiniest drop of water.

01heavensvaultc.jpg


No matter. As I tried to explain, realising I’d made a blunder when Six snarked in the background, I’d thought that the place might have been a port for the moonriver ships. I don’t know how any of this works and even though the demo segment had clearly been selected as a gentle introduction, the lack of context as to how the Nebula works, as a social and geographical place as well as its history, had left me floundering a little.

Thankfully, Heaven’s Vault doesn’t lock doors or paths if you muddle through the translations. Brilliantly, the words you choose will become part of the conversation between Six and Aliya, so I might see a reference to “the port back there”, or, later, “home from water”. As soon as you read something like that last phrase, you can be sure you’ve made a mistake somewhere. Inkle have decided that the syntax and word order of the translated language should fit with English norms (I wonder how this game about translation will work in translation?), so if it looks like nonsense it probably is. The one exception to this is articles (the/a/an), which have been consigned to the scrapheap.

I find it hard to imagine how the game as a whole will work, having only experienced one aspect of it with this slice of planetary exploration, but I love that it’s possible to carry a false assumption around, for a while at least. It feels true to the process of understanding history – if we mistake an action figure for an idol to be worshiped, our understanding of an entire society might be altered. Here, incorrect translations won’t prevent progress and you won’t be able to build too far on a false foundation; instead, you’ll be able to consider your mistakes and the corrections to those mistakes.

Though there is a definite sense of progress, and even a stamina meter of a sort to measure strenuous activity, Heaven’s Vault isn’t a game about Jonesing through some ruins and Crofting explosive solutions to the obstacles in your way. It’s a game about building up a picture of history, of societies that no longer exist, and figuring out what they can tell us about ourselves. While I’m not expecting a story as personal as Arrival’s sci-fi translation gave us, I’d be surprised if we don’t learn about Aliya as she learns about the Nebula and its previous inhabitants. We’re also going to learn more about those moon rivers and how robots like Six work, and how they came to be, and maybe where the gods have gone, or how they left the world.

In short, Inkle are doing Big Picture sci-fi here. Translation, exploration and conversation will be the heart of the game, and having had a brief taste of all three, I’m as delighted as I hoped to be. Inkle haven’t put a foot wrong so far and Heaven’s Vault looks like such an intelligent expansion of the core ideas that have run through their previous work that it feels like both a natural progression and a bold step forward.

We’re so accustomed to science fiction games that are about conquest or survival that the sense of mystery and discovery can seem like a secondary aspect of the genre. Heaven’s Vault looks less Lucasarts and more Le Guin, and spending half an hour in its company has me anticipating the full version more than almost any other game. I might not understand everything it’s trying to tell me, but as learning processes go, it’s a hell of an exciting one.
 

LESS T_T

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Coming this year:





ss_7424ee40f6bdb130d77cfef803a7ff3aa46333ae.600x338.jpg


ss_e5c4b33e5c1feacc275253c356bb8ce1cb3daec2.600x338.jpg


Aliya Elasra is an archaeologist, exploring a strange region of space called the Nebula with her robot sidekick Six, hoping to uncover the secrets of the long-forgotten past. When a roboticist from the University of Iox goes missing, Aliya begins a trail of discoveries that will lead to the very edge of her world - and the ancient secret of Heaven's Vault.

Sail an open-world of fast flowing space-rivers, discover lost ruins, explore ancient sites, find artefacts and translate their strange hieroglyphics. Piece together the history of the world and an entire alien language.

From the creators of massively-branching interactive adventure 80 Days, Heaven's Vault is not your usual linear adventure game. Progress through the game in any order you choose - the game's fully adaptive narrative remembers every choice you make, every discovery and every action you take, influencing what happens next. Meet a diverse cast of characters who remember everything you say, and who's attitude to you will change with how you act. Some are friendly, some are cautious, and some are out to trick you.

Who will you trust? What will you find? What will you learn? What will you risk? What will you lose?
 

LESS T_T

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Release in Spring:



History is the story in Heaven's Vault. Uncover thousands of years' worth of history by finding artefacts, discovering new sites, and deciphering ancient inscriptions in this branching, narrative-driven adventure game, coming Spring 2019. Your discoveries about the past will change the future - but will the history you put together, be the truth?
 
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Looking forward to hearing about it. Been really impressed with Inkle's other stuff but since this is something different I'm interested to hear how it pans out.
 

HoboForEternity

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Played 6 hours today. Been loving it.
The story and central mystery is amazing so far, kinda hard to make sense of and get into at first, but it got me hooked real good.

I think it falls more into more a walking sim category, but dechipering the language is fun.

If you choose to, the game do all the work for you, but figuring how it works is fun. For example, i figured how to differentiate verb words with nouns or adjectives from simply a pattern of the character, and how the glyphs works to make a word. For example, the word "holy", "god", "divine" has similar character combined with other character that indicate whether it is a noun, or an adjective. So the character + noun mark means god or godesses. The same character + adjective means holy or divine depending on the context. So is the word that more or less means a person. I figured out, with the context, for example the emperors and empress of the ancient empire is deified people.

So in the rough speculation, the character "holy" and person "person" combined make the word "emperor". They put alot of work into this fictional letters. For example the word "bless" is also comprised with the mark that indicate a verb and the character "holy" so it means "to make something holy" aka to bless.

You arent required to recognize these so far, as the game automatically translate most stuff if you got right information, but it is perfectly possible to learn the language yourself. i am learning japanese and Chinese language atm, while i am still a beginner, not even a novice, but it is kinda similar to how hanzi/kanji works. In Chinese there are some hanzi, which is made severL characters, then when combined mean roughly the combination of those words while it still have its own fitting translation.

My only complaint so far is walking speed is SLOW.
 

Starwars

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Playing a bit of this one, I'm quite liking it so far. Feels like a unique experience which is always welcome. Like HoboForEternity says, it is a walking simulator in a sense, I would guess there are no "failstates" or any real roadblocks to the player's progress. But, the whole translation minigame is a lot of fun, the game presents they mystery of it really well. It's easy to get sucked in.
And like 80 Days, it's a very relaxing way to spend your time. Again though, no challenge. But... this is a game that still manages to be interesting to play.

I'm not sure I feel the whole change to controlling your character and walking around adds much though. The whole thing feels kinda clunky to play. I prefer the Sorcery and 80 Days way of moving about, where you just click where you want to go and then get the little text adventures.

Still, really liking it so far. It's always nice to play a game that does it's own thing.
 
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V_K

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Gave it a shot and quit after 15 minutes. The story seems interesting, and I didn't get much of gameplay, but the visual presentation, UI and controls annoy the crap out of me - to the point of not being able to continue.
 

Starwars

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V_K is right in terms of the UI and controls at least (I don't mind the visuals myself). It feels pretty clunky, and what should be a fun gameplay thing (translating texts and going back to older ones and trying to get them right) is just not very fun due to the shitty UI. The way you can talk and "monologue" when you're walking around is a great idea but again, it feels pretty clunky.
I also think they dropped the ball on the ship sailing, exploration mechanic. It's a fun idea, especially since you can find artefacts on the way, but it just takes too long. They did add a fast travel thing in a patch though.

I'm still kinda in love with it though. It's just a supernice game to relax with. I guess there are storybeats that you have to go through and all that but I love that it feels kinda freeform and it feels like there's almost always something new for the characters to talk about whenever you go somewhere. The story and background to the world is a lot of fun to discover, and the music really helps with the mystery of it all.

I really like Inkle's games I must say. Even though they are very simple in a way and "gameplay light" (well, Sorcery! was a bit more involved I guess), they occupy a really nice niche for me. Again, very relaxing.
 

V_K

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(I don't mind the visuals myself)
The visuals are ok, it's the presentation that didn't work for me. Like a combination of OTS camera control and sprite PC with limited animation (and why on earth is she half-transparent?). Or the way the game shows dialog lines on stalks, which it draws after the showing the whole line.
 

Boleskine

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https://www.pcgamer.com/gog-rejected-heavens-vault-but-is-now-having-second-thoughts/

GOG rejected Heaven's Vault, but is now having second thoughts

Specific player numbers aren't available but the critical success of Heaven's Vault is obviously a big plus, and the volume of activity on the Heaven's Vault Discord server suggests that a committed community has built up around it. And it may yet find the adventure game audience on GOG that it's so far missed, too: A rep said that, "seeing the general reception of the game by the community," it's going to give the game another look and possibly (I would guess likely) change its mind.

"This is nothing extraordinary, as we sometimes go back to games that were previously rejected and decide to release them on GOG after another review," the rep said. "Our curation is a human process, and we may miss a release that is interesting for gamers. But we’re not afraid of going back and changing decision if it really makes sense—after all GOG is built with gamers in mind and we’re doing it for them."

:rpgcodex:

Don't do it - make GOG pay the price for their lack of vision.
 

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