KickStarter Encased - isometric post-apocalyptic RPG under the dome

[agris]

With all its issues, It's still one of the most enjoyable game I played this year...

Man, I was also enjoying the game depite the flaws but what really broke me was when I was killing enemies one by one in encounters because the Ai has a ridiculous short awareness and it was extremely easy to kill them without their comrades a few meters away noticing, also, getting into the City and seeing empty restaurants with not even flavor NPC around was depressing.

The City is really jarring, it’s clearly a point where they just stopped development.

 

[toro]

I've finished it after 35 hours on Hard difficulty. I had to clear the final level and that was it.

The game doesn't have a real pay-off. You don't get any clarifications about the main plot device - Maelstrom - or the companions or any kind of closure about anything. Most of the final "choices" are just cosmetic shit.

I'm somewhat speechless because I don't know how the devs can justify this mess: either they cannot write a proper story, the game is unfinished or they are planning for a sequel.

In any case I cannot recommend the game: the overall experience is dull and pointless without a real pay-off.

I cannot recommend it not even as the first game from a promising dev:
- the anomalies are reduced to pointless gimmicks instead of something more interesting,
- level scaling is retarded considering that your damage potential has a cap (no QA!?),
- there is no tactical level for combat (just spam disabling and aoe attacks) - no cover or flanking,
- generated-loot is simply No-No (one of the last containers in the game had 12 onions inside !?),
- at lvl 32 I had like 6 maximized skill trees but with the right perks someone could maximize almost all skill trees (real lvl cap is higher),
- redundant systems like fatigue, hunger/thirst which add nothing to the experience,
- cannot level up companions (!?) although you can upgrade their weapons,
- the writing is bad and the overall story is just a wasted opportunity,
- companions have a tendency to disappear after certain story events,
- the overall experience is a bait-and-switch (early EA part was "polished" but then the rest of the game is just thrown together)
- everything is just mediocre at best.

Whoever "designed" this game doesn't have the chops to create a good game. Probably Atom is better than this.

Spoiler

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

With all its issues, It's still one of the most enjoyable game I played this year...

Man, I was also enjoying the game depite the flaws but what really broke me was when I was killing enemies one by one in encounters because the Ai has a ridiculous short awareness and it was extremely easy to kill them without their comrades a few meters away noticing, also, getting into the City and seeing empty restaurants with not even flavor NPC around was depressing.

The City is really jarring, it’s clearly a point where they just stopped development.

This was a major WTF moment for me in this game. I felt like the city should be another hub, like Magellan. Instead there is NOTHING, just as you said. You can feel it in other locations besides Magellan/Junktown, but City is the most jarring. Those locations feel like movie sets, or cardboard cutouts rather than real places.

 

[jackofshadows]

Probably Atom is better than this.

Atom is a mess mechanics wise too but not even close as much as Encased and has way worse writing than this but the game overall is consistent and packed with content unlike this.

 

[gothfox]

After deleting game, torrent and GOG install and rebooting - it became just sligthly warm as it should be.
Fucking miners.

Gog installer is signed, and presumably you can't modify its datafiles. Unless you downloaded a repack, it's highly unlikely this was the cause.

I get my gog installers via rutracker almost all the time because it's less effort than going through gog galaxy.

 

[Background Character]

Finished this game a little while back and overall I liked it but I think I liked it more when it was 70s sci-fi during the prologue rather than 70s post apocalypse after the prologue but yeah I would rank it at the level of Fallout 2 or a little below (it even fits because while FO2 had pop culture references Encased has meme references)

I was a bit frustrated at first combat-wise but realized that was my fault for going psychic gloves and no companions but after I got midly good at it (the trick was drugs) I enjoyed it a bit more, then I got tired and just wanted the battles to end as soon as possible

The bad: I did found a bunch of bugs at the end but nothing that impeded me from finishing the game (and besides I know myself and know I will finish one or two more times, even more likely if they release expansions) also the game has random loot right? random loot is never ok. More unique weapons wouldn't have hurt either I only found the psychic katana (and of course I used it)

The ugly: Armor/clothes, it was hard being fashionable and I looked like a clown at the end

Orange for life, where the convicts at

 

[DeepOcean]

Man, Fallout 2 may have its problems but that game had the Den, New Reno, NCR city and Vault City that worked as hubs and the only hub in there that gets close to be unfinished like the hubs on this game is San Francisco but even there they were wise to cut things down instead of having empty prop levels like The City. Also, you can try to go to Navarro right on the start of the game and get annihilated by enclave patrols if you dont save scum. The game also has a proper difficulty curve with you being beaten to a pulp pretty frequently even with companions until you get decent firepower what took a while and Power Armor only happens at near the end game unless you savescum.

Fallout 2 had its problems but lack of content and broken ai werent one of them at least.

 

[Tavar]

Other news - I deleted Encased I got through rutracker cause my notebook start overheating like in summer like if I played some heavy graffixx game, when I just watched streams in browser, lol.
After deleting game, torrent and GOG install and rebooting - it became just sligthly warm as it should be.
Fucking miners.

I hope GOG saves will be compatible with steam version?

Funny, I thought you played the same version as everybody else? Next time maybe get either an official version or at least quality warez when facing bugs no one else has.

 

[Sykar]

 

[agris]

Other news - I deleted Encased I got through rutracker cause my notebook start overheating like in summer like if I played some heavy graffixx game, when I just watched streams in browser, lol.
After deleting game, torrent and GOG install and rebooting - it became just sligthly warm as it should be.
Fucking miners.

I hope GOG saves will be compatible with steam version?

Funny, I thought you played the same version as everybody else? Next time maybe get either an official version or at least quality warez when facing bugs no one else has.

Could be he didn't use the "limit framerate" option in the graphics menu. The graphics options are actually decent for the game, but it's important to limit it to your monitor's refresh rate b/c Unity does love to render menus at 1000s of FPS.

 

[Fenix]

Gog installer is signed, and presumably you can't modify its datafiles. Unless you downloaded a repack, it's highly unlikely this was the cause.

I also installed addons - portrait and music pack.
Anyway, keep in mind that what human done, other could un-done, that's how life is.

 

[Tavar]

I’ve finished the game yesterday (hard difficulty and as a loner, i.e., with no companions). I agree to a lot of what toro said. The game really falls off after the prologue and even further after act 1. The story doesn’t really make sense, but it is also so flimsy that it can be easily ignored. The writing is all over the place in terms of tone: On one hand it is somewhat serious and then you get things like a random encounter where some dude exposes himself to you and you can kick him in the balls. Seems that they tried to captures Fallout’s humour, but couldn’t get it done.

Also, the way other NPCs react doesn’t always make sense. For example, I did all the quests for the Phalanx section, but lacked the conviction skills to get their special quest for the ending. After I’d made my choice, they were super pissed off with me and even

Spoiler

tried to poison me

even though they never gave me a task in the first place. That makes no sense at all.

Other poorly implemented things are the looting system, the crafting system and the balance of the skills as many are completely useless (e.g., Death Proof or driving cars in general). Radiation, hunger, thirst and fatigue are only annoying, but not threatening in any way. They should’ve just been left out completely. Also, most quests are boring fetch quests and a lot of them don’t even give a reward!

Despite all these problems, I’m still happy I played the game. The prologue and the first act scratched that Fallout itch and I’m even happy about a mediocre Fallout clone in these days. The 20€ price point helped as well. I grant .

 

[Fenix]

OK, so - some anonymous at dvach found some video where devs answer some question about the game.
Didn't watch it, and I won't - just re-tell what he said.
They have ~35 people at game development, game cost ~ 1 million$, they plan to polish/finish game/add content with money they got from sales, and with money they will get from this they will try to do other game. Reason why second half of game is like this - ran out of money (that was very obvious).

 

[Fenix]

Could be he didn't use the "limit framerate" option in the graphics menu.

That was the first thing I did, it was set ov 400 frames by default lmao, I'm aware of Unity games that burn down your gfc in menu, like kingmaker.

 

[agris]

Fenix i know you said you didn’t listen to it, but do you have a sense of *how* they plan to finish the game? What the content they want to add is?

 

[jackofshadows]

Reason why second half of game is like this - ran out of money (that was very obvious).

Tough titty. Overly ambitious, underqualified, they should've planned better, they shouldn't have added garbage mechanics (hunger was added relatively recently) or were spread even thinner with things like jail stuff, even day/night cycles could've been cut not to mention the literaly retarted route and anything else in pursuing a clear goal: to make a cohesive, consistent game, not this half-scam.

If they aren't crazy they will not be adding now with the entire team a copious amount of content (and it's not like missing content is the only game's issue) in order to go broke right after that. Most probably they will just add something, to make it look like they're "fixing" the game while starting to work on the next one. At least I hope for that, the subj is basically unsalvageable.

 

[undecaf]

So, is the consensus here that Encased is a solid -90% sale material?

 

[Whisper]

OK, so - some anonymous at dvach found some video where devs answer some question about the game.
Didn't watch it, and I won't - just re-tell what he said.
They have ~35 people at game development, game cost ~ 1 million$, they plan to polish/finish game/add content with money they got from sales, and with money they will get from this they will try to do other game. Reason why second half of game is like this - ran out of money (that was very obvious).

Youtube-channel with 4 subscribers.

 

[Fenix]

Yep.

 

[Sykar]

So, is the consensus here that Encased is a solid -90% sale material?

The game is only 20 Euro bucks so 50% is fine too. The beginning and first act are enjoyable enough. It is what comes after that is rather lackluster. Some nice ideas like PSI tiring you out but overall execution leaves something to be desired.

 

[HoboForEternity]

I've finished it after 35 hours on Hard difficulty. I had to clear the final level and that was it.

The game doesn't have a real pay-off. You don't get any clarifications about the main plot device - Maelstrom - or the companions or any kind of closure about anything. Most of the final "choices" are just cosmetic shit.

I'm somewhat speechless because I don't know how the devs can justify this mess: either they cannot write a proper story, the game is unfinished or they are planning for a sequel.

In any case I cannot recommend the game: the overall experience is dull and pointless without a real pay-off.

I cannot recommend it not even as the first game from a promising dev:
- the anomalies are reduced to pointless gimmicks instead of something more interesting,
- level scaling is retarded considering that your damage potential has a cap (no QA!?),
- there is no tactical level for combat (just spam disabling and aoe attacks) - no cover or flanking,
- generated-loot is simply No-No (one of the last containers in the game had 12 onions inside !?),
- at lvl 32 I had like 6 maximized skill trees but with the right perks someone could maximize almost all skill trees (real lvl cap is higher),
- redundant systems like fatigue, hunger/thirst which add nothing to the experience,
- cannot level up companions (!?) although you can upgrade their weapons,
- the writing is bad and the overall story is just a wasted opportunity,
- companions have a tendency to disappear after certain story events,
- the overall experience is a bait-and-switch (early EA part was "polished" but then the rest of the game is just thrown together)
- everything is just mediocre at best.

Whoever "designed" this game doesn't have the chops to create a good game. Probably Atom is better than this.

Spoiler

From what i played in the early access the game peaked when you got into the maelstrom for the first time. Aka prologue. Such nice unusual sci-fi setting turned kinda another fallout clone. I had hoped they did tons of work post prologue, but seems like feature creep/scope victim.

 

[jackofshadows]

feature creep/scope victim

What a great concise diagnosis of Encased.

 

[RegionalHobo]

So, is the consensus here that Encased is a solid -90% sale material?

money wise? perhaps

time wise? i'd rather replay a hundred other games that i know for sure would be far more fun

 

[agris]

Just finished it, practically a completionist run going in blind playing on hardest difficulty (tactical), never cheesing combat with ranged sneak attacks and purposefully using some of the worst weapons on companions.

It was piss easy. I’m really disappointed how the game turned out. It should have ended after you first go into the emulator. There’s a solid 15-20 hrs of game here. For those that are interested, exhaust all quests up to and including the emulator and then drop it. Rest of the game isn’t worth it.

it isn’t really a fallout clone, using that term to try to capture Encased disparages fallout. I’m exhausted from the experience, otherwise I’d write more.

 

[fantadomat]

lol