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KickStarter Encased - isometric post-apocalyptic RPG under the dome
- Thread starter LESS T_T
- Start date
rusty_shackleford
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2018
- Messages
- 50,754
it was a good demo, I can't wait to play the game that comes after the prologue
Wunderbar
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2015
- Messages
- 8,825
Last edited:
Sykar
Arcane
So Koch Media is a crappy publisher it seems.
DeepOcean
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 8, 2012
- Messages
- 7,404
Dont see the point, 90% of what you do is combat after 50% of the game and the combat is horrible, unplayable not tested horrible.
The story starts interesting then devolves in endless meaningless fetch quests for characters that you dont give a shit about, só there isnt even a storyfag reason.
The whole charm of the game was how it started grounded then things go to scientific magic territory pretty fast, it is obcessed with that boring shit later.
wishbonetail
Learned
- Joined
- Oct 18, 2021
- Messages
- 671
Sounds exactly like Insomnia the Ark.
GloomFrost
Arcane
Yeah Insomnia really ruined its gritty, dirty, depressing setting with stupid hoodoo-woodoo magic for some dumb reason.
Die Healing
Novice
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2021
- Messages
- 20
What are the chances that fans finish this game and it becomes a cult classic in 15 years
Iluvcheezcake
Prophet
rusty_shackleford
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2018
- Messages
- 50,754
Throwing out the setting they built up and replacing it with a stalker/fallout setting is probably my worst gaming kick to the nuts in recent memory.
GentlemanCthulhu
Liturgist
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2019
- Messages
- 1,479
Aww that's sad. While I thought the game was wholly mediocre, it was still quite competent in almost everything it did. I think it just needed a more interesting premise and quest design. There are far worse games than this still kicking around.
jackofshadows
Arcane
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2019
- Messages
- 5,065
It's not like that. I agree it's for the best because the studio in its particular line-up was too bloated actually (30+ or something members including a range of underpaid juniors/amateurs if I'm not mistaken). Encased clearly shows "one hand don't know what the other one is doing" problem. And at the very least the studio was too poorly managed, the reasons aren't important. Hopefully, the best of ex-Dark Crystal Games devs will join some other indie studios like ATOM team or better yet, create a new one with valuable experience under the belt and new management.
I actually enjoyed this quite a bit despite the shortcomings. I didn't follow the game at all and besides seeing the relatively low reviews and some negative sentiment when referenced in other threads I went in blind.
Sure, combat is easy even on "Classic" difficulty (and afaict, the only higher difficulty only adds permadeath for companions when you don't bother to revive them for a long time) when you build your character sensibly. The 100% crit chance on first turn perk really should really should come with some downsides considering the multiple-hundred-percent crit multipliers on many weapons. Enemy variety is also meh with all enemy types coming in formulaic melee/ranged/psi variants. Even frickin hyenas have a machine gun variant. The MOBIOS seem to be only somewhat unique enemy with iirc at least one doing radiation damage, but perhaps that was just the environment.
This formulaic approach to enemies is even more noticeable when going full murderhobo. Even the hippie Picnic and Carmine Heights are able to pull the same servo suit cops out of their ass (because they sure as hell aren't around before you go hostile). Of course I normally don't expect a game to dedicate resources to that play-style and it is commendable that completing the game is not blocked artificially by critical NPCs, but they do advertise this (as well as a multitude of other ways to get through the game) so it should be at least somewhat compelling. It isn't.
I didn't even bother paying attention to most of the secondary stats and resistances. Between taking out 2+ enemies on the first turn (and enemies universally have shit initiative so you do get the first turn) and basically free med-packs there you are simply never in any real danger once you get past Nashville and pick up some companions.
But I'm mostly a storyfag so forgettable combat doesn't bother me too much. And here the game starts out extremely strong. The CRONOS bureaucracy, misterious forefather tech and the Maelstrom in particular are intriguing. Shame that it doesn't really go anywhere and the writers (like most mistery writers) didn't seem to have an answer for the questions they hook you with so in the end the Maelstrom is whatever you want it to be, choose your own ending style. Side quests also almost completely drop of after you first go into the Emulator and the main story progression too reliant on fetch quests.
The game boast that you can approach challenges in multiple ways and that is true to some extend but the differences don't seem meaningful when your character can easily pass all of them. I have never seen a stealth mechanic so forgiving that you as a fresh character can stand 2m in front of a patrolling guard and be safe from detection. What's the point of rewarding max faction reputation with a gift when you can just take the item out of the flashy "weapon case" that each faction has one of in their HQ whenever you want. You are also showered with XP and ability points (OK, I did focus on my learnability and take related perks) that long before the end I had all non-combat abilities maxed long before the end. And weapon abilities are just so pointless that I just unlocked them because I had nothing else to spend those points on.
Itemization is a bit disappointing with tiered progression instead of unique designs, making weapon upgrades boring. Crafting in general is mostly useless out of farming XP which you don't really need. I never needed to use any grenades except for the first fights where you are outnumbered and other consumables are largely made redundant by (medic) abilities that let you do the same by spending a bit of fatigue which you can restore by resting or drinking coffee (which you can get for free all around the civilized areas). Even attribute boosters ended up collecting dust in my inventory for the second half of the game. Relics are a bit more interesting with some unique ones but also feel like not used to their full potential. Perhaps what you get as perks should all have been unique relics instead so that you actually need to find them in the game world?
I like the anomalies and throwing bolt mechanic even if the (smaller) anomalies boil down to damaging a bit and often you can just walk around them. Would have been nice if there were some areas with invisible / less visible anomalies so the bolt throwing was an actual mechanic rather than just for flair. The larger anomalies (psi damage in the forefather camp, random map location with endurance draining anomaly) were more interesting but underused.
The companions had interesting personalities (except Sparrow) even if they are not developed much throughout the game. Despite the annoying weeb-bait language, I think Yoko might be the most interesting one because she acts as a way for you to express your views on some of the characters or events by occasionally asking you to explain them. Your answers don't seem to affect anything in the end but its still nice to see. In general, the robokids could have been developed further with potentially morally ambiguous choices for you to make concerning their child-like sentience. I liked the one encounter where you can repair a scientist's robokid only to notice signs of abuse while doing so - with unfortunately no way to follow up, but I guess it's ok to leave some things to the player to think about.
Party control outside of combat is a bit annoying with you only controlling one character at a time and the (linked) characters "following" that one. I put following in quotes here because the companions often walk a bit in front of you and step onto mines or block whatever you wanted to interact with next, especially in tight corridors. You companions blocking interaction is a really baffling design decision especially when they can teleport out of the way when you want to walk somewhere. Infinity engine-style party control would have been much preferable to the awkward unlinking of followers needed when you want to defuse a mine field.
So there are plenty of negative points so why is my overall reaction positive? First of all, most of the negatives are not the game being horrible but just lots of missed potential. But what I really loved is the atmosphere. The art I think is great and consistent from the game world to the UI. In fact, I think this is one of the best looking UIs from all the nu-RPGs I played recently, adapting well to any aspect ratio/resolution while still looking sufficiently heavy and not too floaty. Just driving around the wasteland was great with many unique areas to discover. The "Ursula" land train that you can get after a nice puzzle is great if also a bit disappointing by magically giving you a full set of crafting/cooking stations for free - if there was ever a good place for an upgradeable "fortress" then this is one. In general, the game just oozes atmosphere. I guess I am just a sucker for both post-apocalyptic and retro-futuristic settings so this game hit the right spot.
Tech wise, the game ran mostly well, even adapting to my 3840x1600 resolution which most Unity engine games on Linux absolutely refuse to acknowledge for some reason and won't offer in the in-game settings even if they do support other ultrawide resolutions, requiring either command-line arguments and/or manual config editing. The Linux version also has a weird performance "leak" where the game occasionally gets laggy and the only fix seems to be to restart it and then there is a seemingly unavoidable crash near the end with (default and only officially supported) Vulkan backend so you need to switch to --force-glcore or Proton (but beware, Steam was happy to nuke my saves when trying that so make backups).
Sad to hear that the studio is dead because I would have liked to see their next game or perhaps even an eventual "remastered" update to Encased fleshing out the late game areas.
Sure, combat is easy even on "Classic" difficulty (and afaict, the only higher difficulty only adds permadeath for companions when you don't bother to revive them for a long time) when you build your character sensibly. The 100% crit chance on first turn perk really should really should come with some downsides considering the multiple-hundred-percent crit multipliers on many weapons. Enemy variety is also meh with all enemy types coming in formulaic melee/ranged/psi variants. Even frickin hyenas have a machine gun variant. The MOBIOS seem to be only somewhat unique enemy with iirc at least one doing radiation damage, but perhaps that was just the environment.
This formulaic approach to enemies is even more noticeable when going full murderhobo. Even the hippie Picnic and Carmine Heights are able to pull the same servo suit cops out of their ass (because they sure as hell aren't around before you go hostile). Of course I normally don't expect a game to dedicate resources to that play-style and it is commendable that completing the game is not blocked artificially by critical NPCs, but they do advertise this (as well as a multitude of other ways to get through the game) so it should be at least somewhat compelling. It isn't.
I didn't even bother paying attention to most of the secondary stats and resistances. Between taking out 2+ enemies on the first turn (and enemies universally have shit initiative so you do get the first turn) and basically free med-packs there you are simply never in any real danger once you get past Nashville and pick up some companions.
But I'm mostly a storyfag so forgettable combat doesn't bother me too much. And here the game starts out extremely strong. The CRONOS bureaucracy, misterious forefather tech and the Maelstrom in particular are intriguing. Shame that it doesn't really go anywhere and the writers (like most mistery writers) didn't seem to have an answer for the questions they hook you with so in the end the Maelstrom is whatever you want it to be, choose your own ending style. Side quests also almost completely drop of after you first go into the Emulator and the main story progression too reliant on fetch quests.
The game boast that you can approach challenges in multiple ways and that is true to some extend but the differences don't seem meaningful when your character can easily pass all of them. I have never seen a stealth mechanic so forgiving that you as a fresh character can stand 2m in front of a patrolling guard and be safe from detection. What's the point of rewarding max faction reputation with a gift when you can just take the item out of the flashy "weapon case" that each faction has one of in their HQ whenever you want. You are also showered with XP and ability points (OK, I did focus on my learnability and take related perks) that long before the end I had all non-combat abilities maxed long before the end. And weapon abilities are just so pointless that I just unlocked them because I had nothing else to spend those points on.
Itemization is a bit disappointing with tiered progression instead of unique designs, making weapon upgrades boring. Crafting in general is mostly useless out of farming XP which you don't really need. I never needed to use any grenades except for the first fights where you are outnumbered and other consumables are largely made redundant by (medic) abilities that let you do the same by spending a bit of fatigue which you can restore by resting or drinking coffee (which you can get for free all around the civilized areas). Even attribute boosters ended up collecting dust in my inventory for the second half of the game. Relics are a bit more interesting with some unique ones but also feel like not used to their full potential. Perhaps what you get as perks should all have been unique relics instead so that you actually need to find them in the game world?
I like the anomalies and throwing bolt mechanic even if the (smaller) anomalies boil down to damaging a bit and often you can just walk around them. Would have been nice if there were some areas with invisible / less visible anomalies so the bolt throwing was an actual mechanic rather than just for flair. The larger anomalies (psi damage in the forefather camp, random map location with endurance draining anomaly) were more interesting but underused.
The companions had interesting personalities (except Sparrow) even if they are not developed much throughout the game. Despite the annoying weeb-bait language, I think Yoko might be the most interesting one because she acts as a way for you to express your views on some of the characters or events by occasionally asking you to explain them. Your answers don't seem to affect anything in the end but its still nice to see. In general, the robokids could have been developed further with potentially morally ambiguous choices for you to make concerning their child-like sentience. I liked the one encounter where you can repair a scientist's robokid only to notice signs of abuse while doing so - with unfortunately no way to follow up, but I guess it's ok to leave some things to the player to think about.
Party control outside of combat is a bit annoying with you only controlling one character at a time and the (linked) characters "following" that one. I put following in quotes here because the companions often walk a bit in front of you and step onto mines or block whatever you wanted to interact with next, especially in tight corridors. You companions blocking interaction is a really baffling design decision especially when they can teleport out of the way when you want to walk somewhere. Infinity engine-style party control would have been much preferable to the awkward unlinking of followers needed when you want to defuse a mine field.
So there are plenty of negative points so why is my overall reaction positive? First of all, most of the negatives are not the game being horrible but just lots of missed potential. But what I really loved is the atmosphere. The art I think is great and consistent from the game world to the UI. In fact, I think this is one of the best looking UIs from all the nu-RPGs I played recently, adapting well to any aspect ratio/resolution while still looking sufficiently heavy and not too floaty. Just driving around the wasteland was great with many unique areas to discover. The "Ursula" land train that you can get after a nice puzzle is great if also a bit disappointing by magically giving you a full set of crafting/cooking stations for free - if there was ever a good place for an upgradeable "fortress" then this is one. In general, the game just oozes atmosphere. I guess I am just a sucker for both post-apocalyptic and retro-futuristic settings so this game hit the right spot.
Tech wise, the game ran mostly well, even adapting to my 3840x1600 resolution which most Unity engine games on Linux absolutely refuse to acknowledge for some reason and won't offer in the in-game settings even if they do support other ultrawide resolutions, requiring either command-line arguments and/or manual config editing. The Linux version also has a weird performance "leak" where the game occasionally gets laggy and the only fix seems to be to restart it and then there is a seemingly unavoidable crash near the end with (default and only officially supported) Vulkan backend so you need to switch to --force-glcore or Proton (but beware, Steam was happy to nuke my saves when trying that so make backups).
Sad to hear that the studio is dead because I would have liked to see their next game or perhaps even an eventual "remastered" update to Encased fleshing out the late game areas.
randir14
Augur
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2012
- Messages
- 758
It's free on Epic today: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/encased
KeighnMcDeath
RPG Codex Boomer
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2016
- Messages
- 15,412
Game is on sale. Is it worth a buy?
Jrpgfan
Erudite
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2016
- Messages
- 2,110
How is that a bad thing?
Read something about the team being from Russia. It's only a rumor, however it would seem likely that politically "correct" people and companies advocate that even Russia's art and artists are now to be blamed or at least suffer as part of the embargo..Been meaning to check this game out for a while, but what is this about the publisher apparently refusing/blocking the Patch 1.4, that the devs sent them almost a year ago?
And if that's the case, why?
Last edited:
ArchAngel
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2015
- Messages
- 21,284
They got an easy solution for this. They train for 1 year as a commando and then take out Putin.Read something about the team being from Russia. It's only a rumor, however it would seem likely that politically "correct" people and companies advocate that even Russia's art and artists are now to be blamed or at least suffer as part of the embargo..Been meaning to check this game out for a while, but what is this about the publisher apparently refusing/blocking the Patch 1.4, that the devs sent them almost a year ago?
And if that's the case, why?
Iluvcheezcake
Prophet
The game is abandoned, and has been for a long time now, that rumor you heard is just a lame ass fake news excuse
I second that. But they really shouldn't forget High-Tech Weapons, Criminal, and Psionics this time. Who knows what awaits them in the bowels of Kreml nowadays.
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