KickStarter STASIS - An Indie Space Adventure Game - now with CAYNE DLC

Pyke, you have a really interesting definition of what "refined" means

 

Just finished the beta, steam clocked me at 5h.
The game is super awesome! The music, sound, and visuals blend in perfectly to create a dark and oppressive atmosphere. Think best moments of Sanitarium in the asylum, but even prettier and IN SPACE!. The story is interesting, with quite a lot of background information - I want even more of it. To me the whole setting is even more interesting than the main quest. Saying that, John's motivation is quite understandable, relatable and strong so no complaints here.
The puzzles are very logical. I got stumped couple of times, and found the subtle hints of Pyke very useful. However, none of the puzzles actually require any help, at most a bit of out of the box thinking. The most complex one is the decanting puzzle near the end of beta, and that can be solved by looking carefully in the environment. The best thing is, the puzzles do make sense in the setting, and don't feel like an arbitrary obstacle put in your path.
The only gripe I have with the game is that John's animations feel "jerky" sometimes, and there were couple of bugs (that dev is fixing).
I'm very, very glad that I backed this game and looking forward to full release!
Pyke, the next kickstarter you make, I'll back straight away.

 

Admit it...you giggle like a mad person when that worked.

Thank you very much for your review! Cant tell you how awesome it is that you have played it and enjoyed it! I was chatting to Nic during the week about what I want out of Stasis (besides the freedom to make more...), and said that I just want people to be entertained. It really is such a cliched artists answer - but knowing that you've spent a few hours of your time in a world that started out as a few doodles on a scrap of paper and evolved into a few years of sleepless nights ( 2 apartments, 2 new pets, 3 relationships, 3 new offices... ), its such an amazing feeling. Its like a runners high - only more intense!

 

Thanks for the review, Yaar. Sounds very promising (but we knew it would).

I hope the "jerkyness" of John and other minor stuff will get fixed for release

Pyke, How long is the beta (5h-ish) compared to the final game? Half? 1/3rd? 1/4th?

 

Ive been aiming for around 8 - 9 hours altogether - taking into account that some people play faster and slower than others.
Its also quite hard to judge because most of the people who have played the beta played the alpha, so they move through that first section very quickly.

In terms of 'game size' - the BETA has 64 'rooms' (excluding computers) and the whole game has 105 (again, excluding computers used in puzzles, or other 'puzzle screens' - total screens in the game is 150).
So its about 2/3'rds'ish through. A 'slower' player is probably sitting at 10 - 12 hours, a faster player at 8. I can speed run it in 4,5 without stopping to read anything and knowing all the solutions.

Not sure if that helps - but yeah. Its not a big 100 hour + games - but its not a smaller casual adventure.

 

Yes, I was quite happy when I got the puzzles that finally stumped me. More of a maniacal laugh than a giggle though.

Also, to make it clear - the character animation is ok, even in the current state. The only reason it seems jerky sometimes is that the environments look so great and env animation is so great (that storm effects!). As far as I remember Sanitarium, this is at least on par, or bit better than there.

I don't know what price point it will sell, but I feel that my $60 on this on kickstarter was money well spent. I already had much fun, I am hooked on the story. Everything about this game screams quality - the visuals, the sound and music (Morgan did terrific job!), the puzzles, the writing. It is a proper, old school (as in requiring use of brain cells), non-hipster, memorable adventure game.

Plus, it has a holographic stripper in it!

Edit:
I forgot one super important thing - you can pause the cutscenes! Why more games do not allow that, I don't know... I couldn't find a way to skip them - would be useful to have (same as fast forward for dialogues) for the inevitable LPers.

 

I don't know if this has been suggested before but being able to press ESC to go back in computer interfaces would be rather nice, maybe it's a moot complaint but I am just too used to it.

Also, as for bugs, in the third room of the game, if you click the door while standing at the lower right side of the room, the pathfinding messes up a bit and tries to take the long way around the desk instead of going directly towards the room's exit:

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

Btw, will we be allowed to keep savegames for the final version? While the game is truly a joy to play maybe forcing myself through the beta areas all over again would kill much of the impact when playing the final version in contrast to simply continuing it from that point.

 

Im not sure if the saves will be compatible (right now they are - but it would require a bit of testing to make sure) - but even if they arent Ill provide you with a save game from the end of the BETA to continue playing from.

And yeah - I've added the ability to escape from the computer logs - as well as having the next and back buttons on the bottom of the logs as well, so you can more easily navigate through them.

Ill check that pathfinding now!

 

Just a suggestion: being able to use the mousewheel on text logs could be nice, rather than clicking on the arrows.

 

Im talking to the Visionaire guys right now about the scroll wheel - but if they cant add it what I have done is put in an additional NEXT and BACK at the bottom of each log - so if you do go down you can skip to the next one without having to scroll back up again.

 

Seems fair enough to me.

 

BUG:

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

John seems to gain Jesus-like abilities to walk over sewage if clicking the upper right unreachable area in the sewers area, below the residential area where you fall after jumping down the hole with the sheets, sadly my internet was slow when it happened so I couldn't upload a screenshot.

 

Quashed already!

 

I redeemed my key on steam and all I got was a 13 Mb download...

 

It's a scam.

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

 

I hope STASIS will be the number one RPG for 2015 in the next RPG of the year award here on the Codex.

 

Pyke I just received a key by email but I think it's a Steam key. Is this the Beta key? I'm going to want a GOG key for the final release if possible so don't know if I should redeem this one. This will go along with my boxed edition of course...

 

Probably the Beta key.

 

You can WISHLIST Stasis over at Gog.com

http://www.gog.com/game/stasis?pp=cb4e5208b4cd87268b208e49452ed6e89a68e0b8

 

Just finished the beta:



Waiting for the full release, only two weeks now... Have to say that despite enjoying the first demo a lot, the new beta areas surpassed all of my expectatives with their atmosphere, plot/background details, audio-design and well-thought puzzles, not to mention the small additions and twists to some of the already present ones that are now making me consider playing it from the start the 31th just to see if you do the same again. Plus I gotta watch the suicide sequences.

PS: PDA related bug that has probably been fixed but whatever:

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

The last paragraph from the April log of Erica Boxer's PDA (near the elevator to medical) gets repeated at the end of her December log.

Edit: Ooops, already reported two pages ago.

 

Did ya dig it? - read your edit above. Glad you liked it!

Yeah - bug already stomped! Also done a lot of cool little interface tweaks (scroll wheels etc).

 

RPG? What is this madness when adventure games are also called RPGs now..

 

Kotaku considers EA sports games to be rpgs, so there's that.

 

It's a game in which you play a role, hence Role Playing Game!

 

With that definition everything is a roleplaying game. No need for Codex to have any other subforum but roleplaying one.