KickStarter Encased - isometric post-apocalyptic RPG under the dome

[Whisper]

The game is still barren post act 1 months after release.

Such a shame. I've just downloaded it because I was bored of Wrathfinder, tutorial location felt really comfy, with a lot of effort put in. Gonna play through the first half, I guess, and quit when it turns into placeholder/scam.

Act 1 is pretty meaty. That's around 15 hours of solid content.

Problem is that nothing after it. You can just as well stop playing.

 

[True Ukrainian]

The game is still barren post act 1 months after release.

Such a shame. I've just downloaded it because I was bored of Wrathfinder, tutorial location felt really comfy, with a lot of effort put in. Gonna play through the first half, I guess, and quit when it turns into placeholder/scam.

Act 1 is pretty meaty. That's around 15 hours of solid content.

Problem is that nothing after it. You can just as well stop playing.

That's what I did too.

 

[gothfox]

That's around 15 hours of solid content.

Sounds good, thanks. I'd probably purchase it (on sale, but still) if the devs owned up to this whole situation, and apologized. :shrug:

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Afaik they streched themselves too thin, mismanaged it and ran out of money. DLC while the game was still in EA was a sign, but not gonna lie, i got hyped, up to the Maelstrom it really scratched that Fallout itch

 

[Salvo]

Afaik they streched themselves too thin, mismanaged it and ran out of money. DLC while the game was still in EA was a sign, but not gonna lie, i got hyped, up to the Maelstrom it really scratched that Fallout itch

What a surprise
Perhaps they shouldn't have reworked the awesome time-travel prologue they had in early access into the shit we have now

 

[gothfox]

I'm finishing up Act 1 content, I think I have only a few side quests and locations left. Overall, it was okay, I guess. If they ever manage to actually flesh out Act 2 and release director's cut or whatever I'd buy it. Not holding my breath though.

What I liked:

- the setting was alright, at least it was an original take on a postapoc template;
- great soundtrack;
- overall I've enjoyed quests, vignette random encounters, and lore;
- 70s design, especially that comfy orange glow in the bunkers;
- jetpack felt nice to use;
- minor, but some slav shit being represented for once i.e. конфеты раковая шейка;

What I didn't like:

- too many memes and references they really hammer in (kawaii cat ears, seriously? a literal crazy karen complaining to HR? roadside picnic?)
- game needs some kind of global speed up. everything is too damn slow. moving around is slow, performing actions is slow, moving on the worldmap is dreadfully slow. it's like the game tries to waste my time on purpose, constantly;
- combat was boring, even with inspecting everything for resistances i felt that enemies were a bit too bullet-spongey;
- gear/weapon variety was lacking (no, upgrading is not the same);
- relics mostly felt not worth it because of their disadvantages;
- you need to larp hardcore as a container vacuum cleaner to upgrade shit because everything needs too many components;
- container content seems to be mostly random, worthless, and in general there are too many containers which drains all excitement from looting shit;

Thanks for reading my blog. I'd rate it 3/5 (excluding placeholder Act 2 and the whole early access scam thing).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

very boring
feels like there should be a good game here but there just isn't

game expects you to spend 80% of the time playing it going through trashcans. You might suggest "well, just skip them!", yet if I didn't check a fucking broken toilet I'd have missed an important piece for rebuilding a relic. When a game does that, it's telling you to absolutely check every single container...
...and most of the containers seem to randomly generate their loot...
there only seems to be a handful of item "templates" and they just scale the item upwards sort of like diablo-style loot. You're just replacing your pistol with pistol+1.
none of the characters are really memorable, probably because there's so many so it's spreading the writing too thin
anomalies and relics(or w/e they're called, I already forgot and I just closed the game...) are really, really boring. Why are anomalies some dinky freeze puddle that does 10 damage? Anomalies should be an entire area dedicated to one anomaly. The relics should be game-changing in some way, not some dinky -5/+5 stats.
dialogue causes me to get vietnam flashbacks of playing pillars of eternity, stop describing every action the person takes

re: the setting
Honestly think it would have been much more interesting just exploring under the dome, doing various missions for CRONUS, etc., Not some post-apoc australian version of the dome. Feels like they decided to firmly shackle themselves to Fallout(+stalker stuff) and everything that implies instead of going their own way. Wish they decided to just lean into the sci-fi of the setting rather than make it fully post-apoc.
Everyone else is saying it goes downhill after act 1, I say it goes down hill after the prologue.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

as an example of how much retarded shit there is to loot if you thought I was exaggerating

screenshot reminded that I forgot to add the weird separation between weapon abilities/regular abilities on the hotbar. Why would I want my non-weapon abilities to be accessible via the keypad by default...?
luckily in my case it just maps to the side of my mouse, for most users though, lol

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Everyone else is saying it goes downhill after act 1, I say it goes down hill after the prologue.

The prologue is act 1, at least in my mind.

 

[Zombra]

I am done with trash digging in games, period. Sorry we had to lose this one.

 

[Sykar]

I am done with trash digging in games, period. Sorry we had to lose this one.

Meh you can buy most stuff from merchants anyway. Still the game was a huge waste of potential sadly.

 

[jackofshadows]

"Muh potential" was there only at the very start of the development, at best. After that there was total mismanagement and ahem, misdesign. Looking back, the game was already doomed once it saw EA. I mean, even if it had sold much better at the time. Too many cooks not counting the publisher, casualisation, VO introduction, endless feature creep... There's no way a truly good game could've come out of that hell.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I wouldn't call it potential, but I genuinely felt like I was going to have a pleasant experience at first. As if all the mechanics for a decent game were there, but the rest simply was not.

 

[Bad Sector]

When a game does that, it's telling you to absolutely check every single container...

You mean you're not doing that with all games anyway?

Next thing you'll write that you're not trying to collect every single object that isn't glued down to sell in a vendor later or you're not killing every potentially hostile creature that gives at least 1XP even when the level threshold is 283948293 XP.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

When a game does that, it's telling you to absolutely check every single container...

You mean you're not doing that with all games anyway?

Next thing you'll write that you're not trying to collect every single object that isn't glued down to sell in a vendor later or you're not killing every potentially hostile creature that gives at least 1XP even when the level threshold is 283948293 XP.

I do, but that could be excused away as a peculiarity I happen to partake in.
When the game does something like what I mentioned, it's the game explicitly telling the player they must now search every flowerpot, broken toilet, and stack of papers lest they miss an important item.

 

[Bad Sector]

When the game does something like what I mentioned, it's the game explicitly telling the player they must now search every flowerpot, broken toilet, and stack of papers lest they miss an important item.

Dunno, i do not see anything wrong with the game expecting players to thoroughly explore and search the environments. I am not fan of the randomly generated aspect you mentioned (i prefer the same containers to always have the same objects) nor having pointless objects (though i haven't played this particular game to judge if that is the case here) but in general having lots of containers with stuff to pick up (or ignore) is certainly not a negative IMO.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

When the game does something like what I mentioned, it's the game explicitly telling the player they must now search every flowerpot, broken toilet, and stack of papers lest they miss an important item.

Dunno, i do not see anything wrong with the game expecting players to thoroughly explore and search the environments. I am not fan of the randomly generated aspect you mentioned (i prefer the same containers to always have the same objects) but having lots of containers with stuff to pick up (or ignore) is certainly not a negative IMO.

I think you underestimate how much trash there is to sort through in this game.

 

[Bad Sector]

I think you underestimate how much trash there is to sort through in this game.

Maybe, how does it compare to something like Morrowind or even New Vegas (though i think Morrowind has more "trash" there but at the same time you can find some very powerful stuff at seemingly arbitrary places)?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I think you underestimate how much trash there is to sort through in this game.

Maybe, how does it compare to something like Morrowind or even New Vegas (though i think Morrowind has more "trash" there but at the same time you can find some very powerful stuff at seemingly arbitrary places)?

did you look at my screenshot above?

 

[koyota]

I think you underestimate how much trash there is to sort through in this game.

Since the game is so so easy, Is this OCD wanting to get the best weapons, or do you have to search every trash to actually get critical paths / locations?


Nothing was more freeing than overcoming my OCD thanks to The Outer Worlds realizing that searching every container was utterly pointless as i`m already at an invincible power level even on the hardest difficult

 

[gothfox]

how does it compare to something like Morrowind or even New Vegas

\

overall more containers and way less fun looting them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I think you underestimate how much trash there is to sort through in this game.

Since the game is so so easy, Is this OCD wanting to get the best weapons, or do you have to search every trash to actually get critical paths / locations?


Nothing was more freeing than overcoming my OCD thanks to The Outer Worlds realizing that searching every container was utterly pointless as i`m already at an invincible power level even on the hardest difficult

It's there, it has stuff in it, and it's not marked owned
I must loot it.

Don't ask what I plan on using the loot for, I don't know.

 

[Bad Sector]

did you look at my screenshot above?

Yes, but i'm not sure i can tell much. As far as pure number of containers go i think a single floor in a New Vegas vault (or other interior with more than a couple of rooms) has more or less the same number of containers and often these containers have multiple items (not to mention all the stuff you can pick up from the world itself directly, like e.g. objects placed on shelves, racks, etc). Do containers in Encased have multiple items?

I wish there was a demo for this to try it myself :-P

 

[Jrpgfan]

as an example of how much retarded shit there is to loot if you thought I was exaggerating

"Just don't loot everything you see" lol

Apparently the devs spent too much time making random junk to fill the world and too little on everything else.

 

[Alphons]

spent too much time making random junk to fill the world

Not true, once you start Chapter 2 everything's so bare that you don't even get the random junk.