KickStarter Encased - isometric post-apocalyptic RPG under the dome

[jackofshadows]

It puts a cherry on the top in the form of the modern graphics and a polished, well-working interface.

They might patch that out eventually but release version has had quite awful UI/UX. Journal is a mess, crafting/vendor windows are the worst offenders, how can anyone praise that lmao.

It's got more solutions to most of the situations, a skill based approach, and all of that in a complex sci-fi world with many a complex human relationship to delve into or shoot through.

Which is correct for 3.5 locations, more or less. A way to oversell the game in question. Basically the fact that this issue been left unaknowledged nullifies the whole review. Try better next time.

sometimes the game seems too easy. But what the heck, I'm not skimpish.

Anyway, what to expect from a guy who thinks Fallout is the most complex RPG ever.

 

[Nikanuur]

I have to say I fucking despise this review format. Just delete the lines with the unchecked boxes to improve legibility by 100%.

Some people do, I've noticed. You are doing great expressing your emotions, thanks for the reaction.

 

[Nikanuur]

Fucking horrendous

How you feel is important.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Fucking horrendous

How you feel is important.

On behalf of the Codex I'd like to say sorry. That's not how we behave around here. We usually agree with everything people say and encourage them to keep doing whatever they're doing despite them doing it poorly, because we don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings.

 

[Nikanuur]

Fucking horrendous

How you feel is important.

On behalf of the Codex I'd like to say sorry. That's not how we behave around here. We usually agree with everything people say and encourage them to keep doing whatever they're doing despite them doing it poorly, because we don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings.

:D Well, thank you kindly then.

 

[Nortar]

Here's my Steam review. I hope at least some of you will find it entertaining. I'm not a native speaker so any reactions concerning the gramatical errors within will be met with severe IP and DNS hostility UTMOST THANKFULNESS in order for me to improve.

Spoiler

Listen, when you play an isometric, turn-based combat RPG that let's you do shenanigans like buff yourself with the Action Point and Perception drugs, go into the sneak mode, pop up the manhole cover, shoot the tranquiliser dart into the neck of a closest enemy (meaning you have to have a high Science Weapons stat), then go down the ladder, wait some time, pop up again and repeat the whole scenario 5-8x until all six enemies, still sort of unsuspecting, just being on alert by being stunk, drop into a heavy fatique induced sleep, then mash their heads in with any pipe you found nearby, missing like 1/2 of the hits due to your clumsy melee skill... well... whenever some RPG lets you do this, you just play it to the core and call it awsome.

I didn't believe it until I saw it myself, but yes, it's true that this is a spiritual successor to the legendary Fallout 2. It puts a cherry on the top in the form of the modern graphics and a polished, well-working interface. It's role-playing heavy to the point of having the different conversational lines as a severely dumb person. It's got more solutions to most of the situations, a skill based approach, and all of that in a complex sci-fi world with many a complex human relationship to delve into or shoot through.

Warning, this game will make you a cleptomaniac, and it will force you to look in any trashbin you are passing by on your way to work in the morning. People of weaker will, are also going to be compelled to traverse all the 11-store company's building toilets to steal any mops and look inside the closets for lost coins.

Gamers report it's got quite many bugs (haven't found more than a handfull tbh), and sometimes the game seems too easy. But what the heck, I'm not skimpish. It's a total ride. 10/10 for an isometric RPG fan. 8/10 for the wider spectrum of gamers.

% Gameplay (subjective, non-rating)
☐ You'd Need Depression Pills
☐ Don't Get Me Wrong, But…
☐ Probably Better Than Watching Netflix
☐ Late For Work Again…
☑ Please Put This on a Piedestal of Its Genre

❤ Atmosphere
☐ Is Probably an Eupheism
☐ You May Have Emotions
☐ Hot Tea and a Book on a Gloomy Day
☑ Dog of Baskerville Salutes
☐ I Watched C-Beams Glitter in the Dark Near the TannhäuserGate

☯ Story
☐ None To Speak of
☐ Look, We All Have Some Tales..
☑ You'd Tell Your Friend
☑ Your Dreams Can Use this as an Inspiration
☐ You Don't Want it to End Ever

☼ Graphics
☐ Danger of Loosing the Eyesight
☐ Who Needs Graphics
☐ Worth to Stop And Look at the Sceneries
☑ Best Vacation Photos may Pale in Comparison
☐ Miracles Happen

♬ Music
☐ Turn it off Please
☐ I Forgot it Had Some
☐ This Is Actually Nice
☑ Invigorates Your Headphones
☐ Orpheus Cries

☠ Difficulty
☐ Press a Button
☑ You'll Learn It Soon
☑ Prepare Well, Young Padawan
☑ So You Wanna Be a Jedi Master?
☐ You Must Beat Darth Vader

۞ Gaming time
☐ I Should've Bought a Movie Instead
☐ Somewhat Long (10-20hours)
☐ Now This Is Something (40-80 hours)
☑ …aaand I Like to Live in My Games (100-200 hours)
☐ You May Never Have a Girlfriend (200 - infinity)

＄Hardware Requirements
☐ Wooden Abacus Is Enough
☐ Just Have a PC
☑ Just Upgrade Regularly
☐ You Will Need to Buy a New RIG
☐ Quantum Computing Here I Come

§ Bugs
☐ A Broken Anthill
☐ An Anthill
☑ Well, What Did You Expect From a New Game?
☐ You Can Do Without a Repelent
☐ Sterille Environment

I would agree on most of your points except the difficulty.
It's disgustingly easy even on Tactics.
Perhaps it's due to messed up character progression; as I'm sure that xp gain in random encounters is bugged.

I have not finished with Act 2 yet, but already have maxed out all non-combat skills, 3 weapon skills and have 3 spare perk points,
because there's nothing interesting left to take.

Lack of challenge removes all importance of equipment.
The only thing that more or less matters, is your weapon.
And the number of times when I had to switch to a weapon with different damage type can be counted on a lame chicken's paw.

I wish they cranked up the difficulty to eleven and then some.

 

[Nikanuur]

By the way, do you think I should report that bug for the infinite EXP at the Magallan's reactor level? It's in the service-ways, the quest related is called Noise in the Vent. The damaged wiring in the wall can be repaired indefinitely through the text choices, masochistically over and over for 42EXP.

I mean... why be a snitch :D ?

 

[Nortar]

By the way, do you think I should report that bug for the infinite EXP at the Magallan's reactor level? It's in the service-ways, the quest related is called Noise in the Vent. The damaged wiring in the wall can be repaired indefinitely through the text choices, masochistically over and over for 42EXP.

I mean... why be a snitch :D ?

Let it be, it would be too funny if someone was seriously cheating his way to power by this "exploit",
when a random hyena dies from a stern look and gives like 3500 xp.

 

[Rafidur]

Here's my Steam review. I hope at least some of you will find it entertaining. I'm not a native speaker so any reactions concerning the gramatical errors within will be met with severe IP and DNS hostility UTMOST THANKFULNESS in order for me to improve.


Listen, when you play an isometric, turn-based combat RPG that let's you do shenanigans like buff yourself with the Action Point and Perception drugs, go into the sneak mode, pop up the manhole cover, shoot the tranquiliser dart into the neck of a closest enemy (meaning you have to have a high Science Weapons stat), then go down the ladder, wait some time, pop up again and repeat the whole scenario 5-8x until all six enemies, still sort of unsuspecting, just being on alert by being stunk, drop into a heavy fatique induced sleep, then mash their heads in with any pipe you found nearby, missing like 1/2 of the hits due to your clumsy melee skill... well... whenever some RPG lets you do this, you just play it to the core and call it awsome.

I didn't believe it until I saw it myself, but yes, it's true that this is a spiritual successor to the legendary Fallout 2. It puts a cherry on the top in the form of the modern graphics and a polished, well-working interface. It's role-playing heavy to the point of having the different conversational lines as a severely dumb person. It's got more solutions to most of the situations, a skill based approach, and all of that in a complex sci-fi world with many a complex human relationship to delve into or shoot through.

Warning, this game will make you a cleptomaniac, and it will force you to look in any trashbin you are passing by on your way to work in the morning. People of weaker will, are also going to be compelled to traverse all the 11-store company's building toilets to steal any mops and look inside the closets for lost coins.

Gamers report it's got quite many bugs (haven't found more than a handfull tbh), and sometimes the game seems too easy. But what the heck, I'm not skimpish. It's a total ride. 10/10 for an isometric RPG fan. 8/10 for the wider spectrum of gamers.

% Gameplay (subjective, non-rating)
☐ You'd Need Depression Pills
☐ Don't Get Me Wrong, But…
☐ Probably Better Than Watching Netflix
☐ Late For Work Again…
☑ Please Put This on a Piedestal of Its Genre

❤ Atmosphere
☐ Is Probably an Eupheism
☐ You May Have Emotions
☐ Hot Tea and a Book on a Gloomy Day
☑ Dog of Baskerville Salutes
☐ I Watched C-Beams Glitter in the Dark Near the TannhäuserGate

☯ Story
☐ None To Speak of
☐ Look, We All Have Some Tales..
☑ You'd Tell Your Friend
☑ Your Dreams Can Use this as an Inspiration
☐ You Don't Want it to End Ever

☼ Graphics
☐ Danger of Loosing the Eyesight
☐ Who Needs Graphics
☐ Worth to Stop And Look at the Sceneries
☑ Best Vacation Photos may Pale in Comparison
☐ Miracles Happen

♬ Music
☐ Turn it off Please
☐ I Forgot it Had Some
☐ This Is Actually Nice
☑ Invigorates Your Headphones
☐ Orpheus Cries

☠ Difficulty
☐ Press a Button
☑ You'll Learn It Soon
☑ Prepare Well, Young Padawan
☑ So You Wanna Be a Jedi Master?
☐ You Must Beat Darth Vader

۞ Gaming time
☐ I Should've Bought a Movie Instead
☐ Somewhat Long (10-20hours)
☐ Now This Is Something (40-80 hours)
☑ …aaand I Like to Live in My Games (100-200 hours)
☐ You May Never Have a Girlfriend (200 - infinity)

＄Hardware Requirements
☐ Wooden Abacus Is Enough
☐ Just Have a PC
☑ Just Upgrade Regularly
☐ You Will Need to Buy a New RIG
☐ Quantum Computing Here I Come

§ Bugs
☐ A Broken Anthill
☐ An Anthill
☑ Well, What Did You Expect From a New Game?
☐ You Can Do Without a Repelent
☐ Sterille Environment

its spelled "awesome"

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

For a game with so many useless containers and trash to loot, it has an annoying barter system regarding cash. AtomRPG/Trudograd is an example of how to do this well...one click to get the correct transfer amount.
All the 3xp 'system locked down' hackable terminals.....

Robot Waifu, an obvious tranny *and* a Furry for companions:

 

[Die Healing]

This game was very disappointing to me as I am a big fan of Fallout and zone fiction. The writing is pretty good but the mechanics are just half baked at best. Act 2's giant and barren levels is making me fall asleep, I don't think I will be finishing this game. I don't even feel like I'm playing a character because the encounters are very easy and there is little options to roleplay as my wing (orange) apart from a sidequest to sell drugs. The concord prologue hyped me up but the rest of the game feels like a really shitty reskin of Fallout/ATOM.

 

[agris]

For a game with so many useless containers and trash to loot, it has an annoying barter system regarding cash. AtomRPG/Trudograd is an example of how to do this well...one click to get the correct transfer amount.
All the 3xp 'system locked down' hackable terminals.....

Robot Waifu, an obvious tranny *and* a Furry for companions:

Click the equal button in the center-top of the barter UI. It equalizes the value discrepancy between your board and theirs with credits. It’s useful and completely undocumented.

PSA: stop playing after you boot up the emulator. Not worth it.

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

PSA: stop playing after you boot up the emulator. Not worth it.

Too late. I also did a completionist run, getting to lvl 38 white/high tech/doctor, and only missing one of the Church endings because of negative influence.
Not bad but not great.

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

It looks like they put effort into a low INT run, particularly with the 'bag of hammers' trait. Worth another run?

 

[Tavar]

It looks like they put effort into a low INT run, particularly with the 'bag of hammers' trait. Worth another run?

No idea. I was tempted by that myself, but couldn't be arsed in the end.

 

[Sykar]

It looks like they put effort into a low INT run, particularly with the 'bag of hammers' trait. Worth another run?

Personally I would have prefered to have at least one type of experience to be fully implemented, not two half arsed halfway through the game.

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

Idiot run is fairly fleshed out, and at least good for a few decent lulz at least as far as starting up the Maelstrom.

 

[GloomFrost]

Idiot run is fairly fleshed out, and at least good for a few decent lulz at least as far as starting up the Maelstrom.

Well that's the thing about Encased. Its a pretty damn good RPG in general up UNTIL the Maelstrom. As soon as you finish Early Access portion of the game it turns into a very boring, linear unimaginative game with simple unbalanced combat, tons of useless loot junk and unfinished, unnecessary mechanics. Such a let-down because the potential is there.

 

[Daedalos]

Poppin' out from under my rock to say:

Is this good yet?

 

[True Ukrainian]

Its good for 15 hours of entertainment.

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

Spoiler

The 'best' ending I saw was merging with the Maelstrom using the church ejector, which you only keep if you lie about breaking it. I chose to berate Santiago about the activities in the hidden lair and to spoil the Abbot's sermon, so I did not get the other pos/neg Church endings, nor their help in Concord. The others were various degrees of 'bad' for the inhabitants of the Dome.

The robot waifu is a near useless companion. She's fragile, and repair kits are not craftable and are rare as drops and in merchant stocks. She's makes a bad mule and doesn't have any other useful skills.

 

[agris]

Spoiler

The 'best' ending I saw was merging with the Maelstrom using the church ejector, which you only keep if you lie about breaking it. I chose to berate Santiago about the activities in the hidden lair and to spoil the Abbot's sermon, so I did not get the other pos/neg Church endings, nor their help in Concord. The others were various degrees of 'bad' for the inhabitants of the Dome.

The robot waifu is a near useless companion. She's fragile, and repair kits are not craftable and are rare as drops and in merchant stocks. She's makes a bad mule and doesn't have any other useful skills.

Obviously I have no idea how you’re playing but she hits like a truck and almost never takes damage bc she’s a sniper… plus you don’t need repair kits to heal her, your tech skill has a repair robots option that doesn’t require any item at all to use, and there is the common “Fixer” consumable that acts as a medkit for robots. Those are easy to find in the games 372628394 containers.

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

I found the 'fixers' (correcting myself, not the big blue repair kits) to be rare drops/crate/merchant finds, and you can't buy them with 'scanning' points (is there a point to there being 2 types, btw? seems redundant). I must have missed the repair robot skill. I got lazy and never bothered to 'unplug' her from the team for long distance combat so she was always clustered up front. I spent most time with Crump and either Fox or Jack, the former a good mule and good for busting open crates/rock piles.

By end game, I was 8 levels above my companions, with a maxxed out primary combat skill and every applied skill at maximum as well. Companions topped out at around 130 for primary combat and never levelled 'applied' skills to any useful degree. They were for combat and as mules.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...-school-isometic-turn-based-rpg/posts/3340730

Post-release Encased updates

Greetings, dear employees of the CRONUS corporation! A whole month has passed since the release of the game. During this time we published a whopping 3 hotfixes and a big patch that fixed most of the issues with the game.

Our team will continue to fix any and all bugs found under the Dome, as well as fill Encased with even more interesting content.

Here’s a little roadmap for you.

Halloween Special Event
On October 28th the Dome will be once again in danger, far more terrifying than any anomaly. The dead will rise from their graves and hunt the living.

Fight the undead and get cursed seeds for your victories. You can exchange them for a valuable artifact or useful equipment from a new merchant.

Survivors of the attack of the dead will receive a unique pumpkin helmet. It can be upgraded up to three levels, using the seeds of the dead and other resources.

To get some of the valuable prizes, you will have to meet the Halloween merchant, who is waiting for you in the heart of New Committee City. She sells not only the usual first aid kits and anti-radiation drugs, but also a new valuable artifact available for purchase only in exchange for the cursed seeds.

By the way, the merchant will remain in the world under the Dome even after the Halloween event ends, so don't worry if you forget to sell the seeds before the end of the event. However, the skeletons will disappear from the game, and you will not be able to get new seeds.

New Year’s Patch

New Year's Eve is the time for gifts and holiday festivities. Our team is also preparing a present for you. In December you can expect new random encounters on Ursula, as well as new content that’ll bring even more life under the Dome.

We're also always listening to what players want. Tell us what you'd like to see in the upcoming updates! We'll choose the most popular wishes and try to implement them.

Patch 2

Much of the second patch is still under the veil of secrecy, but we can tell you about some things now. In the second patch there will be a new game mode: Arena. There you will be able to hone your combat skills, try new weapons, team combinations and different builds.

We’ll tell more about the updates closer to their releases. We hope you’re just as excited about them, as we are!

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Looks odd. I don't think the game can be fixed by "QoL features" let alone by adding more global map encounters. I wish they just ditched this entirely and started a new project. OTOH maybe they did start it, they have enough man power while this is just for raising a credibility after releasing such a half-assed game.

games that have LAUNCHED having roadmaps is quickly becoming one of my biggest pet peeves
the time for a roadmap was early access