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AdolfSatan

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2017
Messages
1,871
Can there be an RPG without combat? Is there even one?
While last year Disco Elysium captivated everybody's attention, firing up countless debates as to whether it even was a game or not, a little gem who set out to answer this questions flew under everyone's radar: Titan Outpost.

And it is a shame indeed, because it has proven that (at least for story and non-combat mechanic fags) yes, it is possible without losing its essence as a role-playing game game at all.

But I don' wanna bore you with walls of text, so let me cut to the chase.
We all love VtMB but consider it a flawed gem, don't we? Why don't we take a second to remember its pros and cons:

+ C&C
+ Great ambiance/atmosphere
+ Equally fitting music
+ Memorable characters and voice acting
+ Jankiness

- Awful combat
- Quality tends to go down later in the game
- Jankiness
- Bugs

TO has all the good without the bad. Except for some bugs. But every time I contacted the dev about one he squashed it in less than 24h, so eventually there are bound be no more.

Game features a heavily branching storyline in an open world moon* that can end in quite unique ways. Save the Earth! Terraform Titan! Scorch the Earth! Wing it and go hide in Mars! Become a computer god! And much more!

And I'm writing this thread because it deserves all the attention it can get, it's precisely the kind of hidden treasure codexians will hold dear to their rotten hearts. It's filling a very specific niche in which quality games are always missing -that is, hard sci-fi-, and the level of attention and subtlety the dev has put into every detail that makes its world is astounding.

Should you watch LPs on yt to make your choice? I wouldn't recommend it. As captivating as the game is when you're the one playing it, watching some other guy walking thru red landscapes and space outposts while interacting with the environment and always clicking the option you definitely wouldn't on dialogs for 20' is a complete bore. So go and get it, if you don't like it you can always ask for a refund. But you won't, because it kicks ass.

________
*or, a mix between modes C and D according to JarlFrank's structural breakdown of an rpg
 

Thunar

Educated
Joined
Dec 29, 2019
Messages
98
Anyone tried running it on Linux yet? Can't find anything on wine appdb.
 

MF

The Boar Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 8, 2002
Messages
892
Location
Amsterdam
Thanks a bunch.
There are actually hundreds of them. They are just called simulations for some reason.
Please elaborate. It seems like a false dichotomy that doesn't apply to Titan Outpost. D&D was at one point marketed as a simulation. For SSI it was even part of the brand name.
Anyone tried running it on Linux yet? Can't find anything on wine appdb.
It'll probably work. I ran it on a BSD machine with two old Radeons I use for Blender rendering, piping Wine to a terminal session to see if it would run and it did. Didn't really test that any further, though.
 
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