Corpus Edax - FP melee RPG in which you kick like in Dark Messiah (though from the footage, even harder)

[Lyre Mors]

Sadly quoted as being only 5-8 hours in length by the developer in the steam forums.

 

[HoboForEternity]

i bought it but havent tried it, gonna wait few weeks because there are some minor bugs based on how often patches is rolled

 

[Marat]

Tried it a tiny bit, nothing overly janky/buggy so I shall proceed further.

Starts (exactly) like Outer Worlds:

Of interest to Codex

Game has a skill specifically dedicated to throwing shit around, on par with hacking and combat, which I find funny.

Very first convo checks age you input:

I think it might be a plot point since one NPC mentioned a life extending drug. I call this BigPharma shill a moron, which grants me +1 Impetuous(?).

After I awaken from hibernation I go through a rapid medical examination, a quick processing by a tired government functionary who explains I am a Class C citizen, then I get my PipBoy CorpID (doubles as a flashlight when you hold TAB):

... and I'm let loose upon The City. Quick check if I have anything on my face...

And off I go.

 

[kangaxx]

Sadly quoted as being only 5-8 hours in length by the developer in the steam forums.

I don't mind short games if they're deep and interesting, and crucially... fun.

 

[Lyre Mors]

I don't mind short games of most genres. I do mind short RPGs though. Anything below 10 hours doesn't seem like enough to feel any sense of good progression that I associate with the genre - one of the chief reasons I enjoy RPGs to begin with. 25-50 hours is my preferred length of RPGs. With something like Corpus Edax, I would have been content with something like 15-20 hours since it's more on the immersive sim side of the spectrum and it's super indie. Not sure if I'd get much enjoyment out of something so short with these kinds of mechanics though. But that's just me.

 

[JarlFrank]

Been playing this, I guess I'm pretty far in at this point considering how short it is.
Throwing stuff is fun, stat checks occasionally let you solve things differently, level design usually allows different approaches and you can go stealthy.

It is, however, janky and amateurish. Definitely someone's homage to Deus Ex, but nowhere near its quality. There's even throwable sticks that stick to a wall and expand - letting you build ladders like with the grenades in Deus Ex, but easier to stand on! Lots of Deus Ex DNA in here.

Hacking and lockpicking have minigames, which are decent enough but take too much time. They get old the more you have to do them. Honestly I wish RPG and immersive sim designers finally learned that overly involved minigames for things you do a lot are going to get old very quickly.

The level design is a mixed bag. Some levels are very boxy, low on detail, and have only one path to the goal. Others are large and open and let you approach them in any way you want. I particularly liked the mines which are made of several walkways hanging above a pit, and you can kick enemies down Dark Messiah style. Good shit. Later you get to an upper city section under curfew where you can hop from rooftop to rooftop or crawl the streets which are patrolled by flying drones.
But then there's an office building where you have to reach the top, and that level is pretty linear and mostly made of straight hallways, which isn't particularly engaging.

Despite the mixed quality of the levels, there's clearly passion behind it and the dev tried to provide a variety of different environments to explore, which is commendable. Definitely an amateur effort, but a valiant one. You just know the guy loves imsims in the style of Deus Ex. If you have tolerance for jank, I can fully recommend it, but you should know what you're getting into.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Been having a blast with this one. It's a really nice blend of immersive sim and RPG with just the right amount of schizocore added to the mix. You have stats that determine your skills. You can choose to fight, persuade / intimidate / seduce, sneak, hack and lockpick. There is stat checking in dialogue. Also the combat is out of this world hilarious. I wholeheartedly recommend this game.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

Been playing this, I guess I'm pretty far in at this point considering how short it is.
Throwing stuff is fun, stat checks occasionally let you solve things differently, level design usually allows different approaches and you can go stealthy.
...

This game also features universal character death. You can kill anyone, including key NPCs. When I killed the recruiter for the "main" faction you get roped into, I got a pop-up saying the story will continue without their involvement. I wonder if the game is larger than what it appears to be, with content locked behind the choice to kill off certain NPCs.

 

[udm]

It DOES seem, though, like they fulfilled their mandatory DEI requirements in the first five minutes.

How's that?

 

[MessiahMan]

One female danger-haired POC doctor, first character you meet. Everyone else I saw through my admittedly limited playthrough was a normal (for the genre) looking...thing. The character models...well, I'm hesitant to call them people.

 

[HoboForEternity]

The lockpicking minigame is probably the worst i have seen, but yeah. The core gameplay is good, levels are mixed, early levels are pretty good, but still simplistic to even the simplest level of deus ex. Too many locked/unusable doors, at the same time o found neat secrets inside ventilation shaft and rooftop that need some creativity to get to.

Save system is . . . Yeah. You only have 2 save slots. One autosave and one quicksave, which is weird becauer you have save station littered in the levels

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

Way too expensive for what you get, should've done an EA period, even if a short one.

 

[Marat]

Got around to killing the first target. It was... underwhelming. Extremely so. Completely barren location, no means of approach beside challenging a guy to an arena fight. I mean, Jesus, anything... No way to sneak into his quarters when he's preparing for/recovering from a fight, no way to give opposing contestant a weapon or combat drugs to kill him indirectly or to reprogram security turrets or electrify something to kill him, can't bluff the gang members guarding him that the boss ordered his execution, nothing. That was the game's first time to shine on a proper mission, wow me with variety of approaches for different builds/gameplay styles, show off location design, give me conversations to overhear and logs to read to expand upon the setting and the plot and instead it does nothing. Apparently you can get a guy you're with to fight him in your stead which I haven't tried, but I presume he jumps in there and either completes the mission without further fanfare or gets himself killed and you have to finish the job. I'll try one more mission, if it keeps this up I'll give it a decided

 

[Child of Malkav]

Yeah, not impressed so far. Stealth seems to work or not, can't tell if it's a bug or not. The visibility meter seems to be binary even though it's a spectrum, apparently, though through my testing being fully lit and being lit for just one vertical line of pixels you get detected just the same, from the same distance. IDK if it's affected by the stat (doesn't seem to) even though I started with it pretty high up at the expense of other stats. Will keep playing but up until now it left a bad impression on me on this particular front.

 

[toro]

Thank you guys for taking one for the team

 

[Marat]

Ugh... The game is blatantly unfinished, that's what it is. A one man effort that ran out of indie go-go funding and was pushed scarcely half made up, into this breathing world. The guy clearly made a desperate dash to an already once pushed-back release date and ensured that, despite a measure of jank, game is relatively very stable. Sadly that is about it he was able to ensure.

Inventory-wise: you collect stuff that, Dishonored-style, gets instantly converted into credit that you can spend on precisely fuck-all. Your inventory system else exists only to store skill- and attribute-granting literature that could very well be consumed instantly, a "Canned Protein" healing item and two types hacking minigame bonuses like in Human Revolution. The rebel base can sell you some meaningless shit that you can pick up practically anywhere, like shivs or bottles which were clearly meant to be disposable items that quickly break in action, not a mainstay of PC's inventory. Through a skylight of a building in a hub area I noticed what looks like a cut marketplace, very likely a remnant of a planned actual inventory system - as is you equip no armor, no gadgets that change how you explore levels or approach missions, carry no weapons, have no augmentations or anything of the sort to spend money on.

As for level design, I reiterate: barren. Levels I've seen are simplistic and linear, no skills nor any tricky jumps/box stacking or other imsim fuckery unlock any special paths. That next mission I mentioned takes place in a warehouse/factory in an industrial district a different revolutionary group converted into a nightclub. One would think a perfect opportunity for underhung service walkways, vents, industrial halls, maze-like offices - nothing. Level was as simple as they come, with nothing to find in it. Not any lore to read/overhear and, as established, any items to relish finding (I did find a +1 Grit book, woo-hoo) - nonexistent inventory system only compounds the issue with there being nothing to look for or look forward to finding. Open floors and straight corridors with aimlessly wandering hostiles and fuck all between them.

My thoughts went back to exploring Sarif plant in HR, with how clever it was laid out, full of alternate paths that a player could find, even weaving them into a complete path to hostages and then the end of the level that would avoid all enemies and to all the items and world-building lore you could find there. CE has none of that and word is further levels are only getting worse, which fits with the rush-out-the-door story.

Now, the reason for PC to visit that club was to secure support of a different revolutionary group as we need their access to explosives and it has to be said that when I found those before rescuing the leader the game updated my objective and informed me I can fuck off back home without rescuing the leader. Still I went to the trouble of literally walking up one more flight of stairs next to those explosives to the boss encounter. Leader of the raid was another on the target list, but happened to be a brother of one of our members - you can talk him down (as well as fight him and, presumably, stealth knock him out), no skill checks, but instead you have to remember his sister's name and story for him to believe you and, seemingly, fight off his brainwashing - all that does though, is give the girlboss leader time to throw a steel crate at his head with lightning speed only to then complain she's in no shape to fight and ask you to clear out the level anyway. The sister makes no comment as to her brother's fate upon my return to base - not a peep.

Combat was boastfully asserted to not just be button mashing - I didn't notice it being anything but button mashing, when enemies shrug off lead pipe hits to the head to knock you down anyway, with character not always kicking when told to do so, actions happening with a weird delay, I haven't had a single fight be anything but a clickfest hoping my blows will land harder and faster. Maybe there's depth to it somewhere I haven't looked, but with how short the game reportedly is, I doubt I'll have time or inclination to master it.

Writing is... scarce, doesn't give itself any room to shine so shine it does not. I guess the upside is there's no room to be stupid either. As far as dialogue goes it is likewise rudimentary, with that club mission being a perfect example. A subway tunnel is the only way there, no side paths, just a literal narrow tunnel. A fleeing worker warns you of a raid, you walk up to a guard and you can either pass a check to make him chase that worker or fight to get past him... aaaand that's it. One liner stat check and he runs off so you can proceed further down the empty corridor or you fight. Mind that you'll have to go back to fuck him up anyway when the leader lady asks you to clear her club.

As mentioned, there is likewise no lore about. No books to read about the circumstances that forced us to leave Earth, no story of how this new World Government came to be, how this class society was founded, nothing about how the station was constructed, nothing about our exploration of the planet below or maybe something about our efforts to terraform it so we don't have to live on a space station or about a conspicuous lack of said terraforming as means of keeping control. Just throwaway, fuck-off lines about "we left Earth, we hibernated, now space station with ABCD citizen classes and oppressive government, go do revolution". That's it.

So in summation, what you have before you is a game made by someone who had a vague idea of what made Deus Ex good, but had neither money, time or skills to make a game for which he haven't thought out a setting, lore, level design, character system or gameplay. It is a skeleton of a game. I'll leave up to you whether you want to pump money into this guy's operation on the off-chance he'll put meat on that skeleton. It had just the faintest glimmers of good ideas and design in some areas of the game, so if you're willing to chalk it up to lack of funds and time maybe you ought to give it a chance. Personally I'm passing and waiting for Core Decay to be my next great disappointment.

 

[Child of Malkav]

BTW I found that if you're not focused on combat and you get in combat, simply throwing a pipe at the enemy's head will just knock them out. Then you pick up the pipe, aggro the next enemy, throw the pipe to KO him, repeat until you clear the area. And when the pipe breaks, just grab a brick, or a shiv or a bottle or another pipe since they are common in a lot of places. This is kinda sad.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Ah, what a shame. Sounds pretty bad all around. Glad I didn't end up getting it after all. I always want to try to support the genre and the indies attempting to keep it alive, but not at the cost of actually well-designed gameplay. You can throw money at a guy like this and hope he puts something out of worth 5 years down the line, but that's 50/50 in and of itself.

Thanks for the impressions, guys.

 

[JarlFrank]

The lockpicking minigame is probably the worst i have seen, but yeah. The core gameplay is good, levels are mixed, early levels are pretty good, but still simplistic to even the simplest level of deus ex. Too many locked/unusable doors, at the same time o found neat secrets inside ventilation shaft and rooftop that need some creativity to get to.

Save system is . . . Yeah. You only have 2 save slots. One autosave and one quicksave, which is weird becauer you have save station littered in the levels

I usually save manually and not with quicksaves, and since the menu has no save option but there's places labeled "save stations" around the levels I thought those were save points. Had to look up in the Steam forums how to save.

Turns out quicksave is the only save option, these save stations aren't functional, according to the dev they're only there to remind you to save regularly

 

[JarlFrank]

CE has none of that and word is further levels are only getting worse, which fits with the rush-out-the-door story.

The lair of the mask-wearing guys, the city level you start in, the factory-turned-nightclub, and the mines are the game's best levels. It goes downhill from there.

 

[Tyranicon]

Turns out quicksave is the only save option, these save stations aren't functional, according to the dev they're only there to remind you to save regularly

 

[JarlFrank]

Because there's no save option in the main menu, but there's things labeled as save stations scattered around, I spent way too much time around one of these trying to activate it. I thought my game was broken and went to the Steam forum to see if other people had that issue too, only to find out that they're not intended to be functional.

Quicksaves are the only option, but the game never tells you that unless you go into the keybinding options and see it there. The existence of items labeled as save stations and the absence of a "save game" option in the menu would make you think that your primary way of saving are these stations...

But no. The dev placed them there as in-universe reminders that saving your game regularly is recommended in an imsim because you might accidentally do dumb shit that kills you.

Of all the weird design decisions in this game, this is the most bizarre.

 

[Tyranicon]

Of all the weird design decisions in this game, this is the most bizarre.

Oh I understood your original post, it was just so weird I wanted to post a BRUH pic.

I never understood devs being weird with saving systems. If you can implement a quick save, it doesn't usually take much more work for manual saves.

The design philosophies that call for restricted saves don't really apply here, and worse, you can't start a new game without saving over an old one.

Really odd that devs do this tbh.

 

[JarlFrank]

Oh I understood your original post, it was just so weird I wanted to post a BRUH pic.

I know, I just wanted to elaborate because of how bizarre it all is!

I never understood devs being weird with saving systems. If you can implement a quick save, it doesn't usually take much more work for manual saves.

Actually...

 

[Nikanuur]

Way too expensive for what you get, should've done an EA period, even if a short one.

Or, what used to be the sensible procedure before the festering boil of madness acclaimed custom of EA has entered the world of men, beta testing for goodies and salary.