KickStarter INSOMNIA: The Ark - dieselpunk sci-fi action-RPG set on a decaying space station

[Pope Amole II]

KK, gotta play some more before I do a proper review but, basically:

- Graphics and sound design create a beautiful atmosphere and this game can be enjoyed thanks to them. And thanks to them only.

- This is not an RPG, however. Quest for Glory (which is mostly discussed in adventure subforum here) is more RPG than this one. There's a bunch of skills, sure, but pretty much all of them are "+4% damage per level". Or "+5 health". Given that you're getting around ~15 levels or so, that means that your end-game all-out fighter would have maybe 33% more overall combat efficiency than your economical guy. And even that would be dubious as, for example, all those hit point and armor build-ups will be meaningless against one-shotting enemies. Meaning that your choices barely matter.

- Dumb consolized minigames.

- QTE.

- Awful english translation - I'm playing in russian because it's the only tolerable ways.

- Story-wise, initial background choice also barely matters. Some people recognize it & stuff, but it's mostly about getting freebies from them - minor, insignificant items and such. At the end of the day, your background is sorta meaningless.

- Quests of only fedex and gokill variety.

- Awful combat. Bad camera, dumb enemies with buggy ai, stupid hitscan system where a half-meter crate will 100% obscure your line of fire towards the foes for whom you have clear line of sight. Just by staying below, yeah.

- Weapon balance is not even there - feels like they haven't tested their stuff at all.

- It's a total kickscammer, btw. The promises of both kickstarters hardly match the end product. Because what was promised looked like a solid Fallout-like RPG and here we're barely having any real complexity.

EDIT: Oh, and you have to be really special to state this game is better an ELEX. If you compare them on the scale of walking simulators - sure, this one is better. But as a game...

 

[Puteo]

Huh, that's funny. Because you actually said:

Yes, it bears more similarity to Fallout in how they have designed it.

Hm, so either you genuinely believe your post said "In my opinion, it's more like fallout than Gothic" instead of "It's not like Gothic, it's like Fallout" or you are desperately trying to walk back an attempt at self-fellating contrarianism.

What an exciting mystery!

Anyhow, judging by your lack of response to my challenge I am excited to see we have found some common ground; that we both agree Insomnia is the best gothic-like game released in the last 16 years not made by Piranha Bytes. Thanks buddy!

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Anyhow, judging by your lack of response to my challenge I am excited to see we have found some common ground; that we both agree Insomnia is the best gothic-like game released in the last 16 years not made by Piranha Bytes. Thanks buddy!

That’s not really saying very much.

 

[Background Character]

If you ask me this game is a blend of Fallout and Gothic but then I reached the paranatural/metaphysical part and I got so many Solaris flashbacks

This game is bad-ass

 

[Jenkem]

5 hours ago

The were no patch #3 yet, we would post some news if there were one. BTW if any of you guys need a help with translating stuff from Russian to English - just post screenshots and I will help you out. This is the least I can do while this is still not fixed.

 

[toro]

5 hours ago

The were no patch #3 yet, we would post some news if there were one. BTW if any of you guys need a help with translating stuff from Russian to English - just post screenshots and I will help you out. This is the least I can do while this is still not fixed.

Something is happening with these guys. The patch is late one week with almost no communication on Steam.

Tomorrow they have to deliver something or it will get very ugly. I just hope the devs didn't go crazy on Krokodil.

 

[unfairlight]

Wouldn't be surprised if the owner ran away with all the money. Happens quite commonly.

 

[Jinn]

Something is happening with these guys. The patch is late one week with almost no communication on Steam.

Agreed. If we don't see anything by tomorrow I would suggest everyone who has a copy to become reasonably vocal in any relevant thread on their steam forum to not only show there is much interest in them fixing the game, but also that this situation is really getting past the point of ridiculousness.

Very dissapointed with these guys right now, and even more dissapointed that the potential of this game might never come to fruition.

 

[Life of the Party]

INSOMNIA_The_Ark was last seen: Sep 27, 2018

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the slavs did it again

 

[Pope Amole II]

Ehh, once you look at the publisher (in case you don't know - they specialize on mobile p2win schlock) it's not difficult to understand what happened. They ran out of the budget, they got extra budget but with the strict requirements to casualize everything that's possible so it sells (lol). Then they ran out of that budget too and released what they could in a most unappropriate moment possible (2 days after kingmaker). Well, maybe it's not even the competition that dragged the game down but simply the rawness and lack of polish (and lack of gameplay). It doesn't really matter.

What does matter is that, since there are not much sales outside of 2x kickstarters, they're probably cutting their losses, there are some firings, etc. Fans will be lucky if there's actually any real patching getting done.

 

[Jenkem]

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/insomnia-the-ark-deluxe-edition

Digital deluxe edition for $9.99! Already a fire sale! Abandon ship!!!

most likely a price mistake (since that is the price of the deluxe upgrade) but still...

 

[Safav Hamon]

What are you guys talking about? They said a week ago the patch would arrive at the end of the week (it's thursday) and the developer is still active right now in the community hub.

Hello everyone! We are currently testing the next batch of fixes that are planned to be released by the end of next week. From now on, testing of each patch will be extended by a couple of days to ensure better quality builds are released.

They're trying to avoid a Kingmaker situation where they release a million hotfixes that further break the game. The developers are only 10 people.

 

[Jinn]

What are you guys talking about? They said a week ago the patch would arrive at the end of the week (it's thursday) and the developer is still active right now in the community hub.

They're trying to avoid a Kingmaker situation where they release a million hotfixes that further break the game. The developers are only 10 people.

I get where you're coming from, but it doesn't change the fact that

1. They should have never released the game in this state. It's clearly unfinished. And they broke the game with a patch on top of that.

2. Their communication with the community has been abysmally poor and vague.

Neither of these things are inspiring much confidence in them at the moment. We are exactly 3 weeks post-release with an unplayable game sitting in our libraries. You know I want nothing but success for these guys, but they need to get their shit together, and fast, or they're probably not going to be making anymore games in the future.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Yes, they should of released the game in early access. No arguments there.

I don't agree their communication has been poor though. They've been actively talking to players every day.

 

[Jinn]

I don't agree their communication has been poor though. They've been actively talking to players every day.

I appreciate this, but would appreciate it more if they were actually saying anything while they were communicating. It all seems like smokescreen more than actual concrete examples of how things are moving in a positive direction.

 

[Alienman]

https://www.humblebundle.com/store/insomnia-the-ark-deluxe-edition

Digital deluxe edition for $9.99! Already a fire sale! Abandon ship!!!

most likely a price mistake (since that is the price of the deluxe upgrade) but still...

Feels good having payed 20 euro more... That price must be an error like you said.

 

[ADL]

That $9.99 price is one hell of a deal. I grabbed it on Kickstarter several years ago for $15 and honestly I feel bad not paying more since the production values went through the roof.

 

[Jinn]

Dang Heretic, I respect your passion. But come on. At least post a response. Also passerby, step forward with your words.

What exactly do you disagree with? What makes me a tard? You'd be doing the game a service by responding either way.

If I haven't made it clear enough already, I like what I see in the game. I'd just rather see them succeed through proactivity than see them fail through some weird apathy.

 

[Heretic]

Jinn, I don't share your opinion that the developers don't communicate or that "the situation is really getting past the point of ridiculousness."

They are a small team, they released a huge game, understandably containing bugs. They have already uploaded several patches since the release and promised several more.

I understand that you are frustrated, but to me it seems they are working round the clock. In the meantime I have other games to play and will gladly wait for the polished version of what seems to be a gem of a game.

 

[Villagkouras]

9€ in Humble, is this a price glitch?

Edit: Sorry, now I see that others mentioned it too.

 

[Jinn]

They are a small team, they released a huge game, understandably containing bugs. They have already uploaded several patches since the release and promised several more.

The thing is, I was of a similar opinion even a week and a half ago. However, they have released 2 patches, not several. The first seemed to do nothing and the second broke the game entirely, making it impossible to progress through the game to completion. This is a genuine question: have you played the game yet? And if so, for more than an hour or two? If so, I would imagine you'd have similar concerns as my own. The game doesn't just need a patch to make it so you can play through the whole thing. It needs genuine changes to its entire framework. For me, what is less frustrating (I'm not particularly frustrated) and more worrying is if it's taking this long to fix a patch that made their game unplayable, how long is it going to take to implement the features and balance that'll change this from the framework for a good game into an actual good game? And how long are they even going to consider it worth supporting a game that is failing right now because of an unprofessional and completely botched release and post-release? We are getting "news" today supposedly, meaning again, probably no patch on the day it was supposed to be released.

It's not a matter of wringing my hands and waiting eagerly to play it. It's not even a matter of feeling like I wasted my money. It's a matter of it seeming suspicious overall, and watching as a promising team repeatedly shoots themselves in the foot. They aren't going to have any toes left soon if they keep it up. They could help themselves a lot by simply being more transparent and documenting in any way beyond vague promises that "work is being done, just wait" that the work is indeed actually being done. In most cases I wouldn't suggest that this would be a necessary step for a developer to take, but looking at the fiasco of a release this has been, I think anything they can do to inspire good faith is going to benefit them in the end.

 

[Jenkem]

isn't it like 9pm in russia? where is our news?

 

[toro]

isn't it like 9pm in russia? where is our news?

Depends on Putin's mood.

 

[Jenkem]

so it seems that humble deluxe insomnia was indeed a mistake on Humble's part (I assume it was meant to be the deluxe upgrade) and people who bought it are getting their steam keys revoked by valve