Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Miasmata - New Robinson's Requiem?

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
Patron
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
15,048
Location
In quarantine
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
It looks like an interesting survival simulation adventure may be coming to the PC in just about three days - on November 28th. (Unless the release date has been pushed back - I haven't been able to find out for certain.) Reminds me of Robinson's Requiem.

http://ionfx.com/product_pc_Miasmata.php

Miasmata is a first-person survival adventure game, independently developed by brothers Joe and Bob Johnson.

The Story:

You play as Robert Hughes, a plague-stricken scientist on a journey to discover a cure. Your adventure begins on the shores of a remote island called Eden. Long ago, Eden was inhabited by a group of indigenous people, whose extant monuments still decorate the island landscape.

Eden is now home to a scientific research outpost, and it is your hope to reunite with your colleagues working there. Unfortunately, you'll soon discover that something has gone terribly wrong.

The Gameplay:

Miasmata is a game of survival, exploration and discovery. Our goal was to create gameplay that challenged convention. We wanted an immersive experience that gives the player the freedom to discover the world at his/her own pace and in his own way.

During his adventure, the player will encounter a mysterious and deadly creature. This creature can stalk the player for miles, lurking behind grasses and vegetative cover. By treading carefully and quietly, the player may be able to elude the creature. If he's careless, however, the player will be forced to confront the creature head-on.

The island of Eden is filled with dozens of plants and fungi, many of which have unique medicinal properties. Some of these plants hold the secret to curing the plague, so the player must harvest them and run lab experiments to determine their worth.

Exploration is a key component to Miasmata, so we developed an interesting cartography system. The player can use landmarks, such as ruins and statues, to triangulate his location and construct a map of Eden's boundaries and contours.

The Technology:

The graphics technology powering Miasmata is our MILO engine. MILO is a brand new engine and tool-chain, written from scratch by Joe himself. It is state of the art, featuring outstanding lighting/shader effects and innovative real-time simulations. Some of the unique features include: voxel-based volumetric clouds, advanced water reflection and refraction, volumetric lightshafts and atmospheric scattering simulations.

Miasmata's island of Eden is dense and beautifully detailed. Its landscape is covered by forests with lush canopies. The terrain surfaces are blanketed by tufts of moss and grass. The forest floors have thick undergrowth and are littered with fallen leaves, rotting logs, stumps and sticks.

The creature is governed by a deep artificial intelligence. He uses sight, hearing and smell to track the player and react to his movements. Our robust path-finding algorithms allow the creature to find advantageous positions and trap the player.​

Trailer:



Robinson's Requiem was a cool game so I'm cautiously excited about this one, although it's probably going to be less complex than RR.
 

Cool name

Arcane
Joined
Oct 14, 2012
Messages
2,149
It does look interesting. The cartography does seem fun. The graphics are pretty. The squirrel was adorable. The music was boring. The creature was not really scary. The trailer did fail to convey a sense of tension. I am ambivalent on the game so far, but thank you for bringing it to my attention.

And Robinson's Requiem was a nice game indeed.
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
Patron
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
15,048
Location
In quarantine
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Well the creature doesn't have to look scary. It's all about how dangerous it is, which will depend on the AI first and foremost.

There are of course many ways in which this game may turn out to be subpar. We'll see. Games like this don't get released often though; I hope to at least have some fun with cartography, lab experiments and disease survival.
 

ghostdog

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 31, 2007
Messages
11,150
"miasmata" can be considered an accurate title since it roughly means "diseases" but it does sound a bit corny(?) to me. I guess english speakers may find it somewhat exotic.

The game sure holds promise, though.
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
Patron
Joined
Feb 2, 2007
Messages
17,301
Location
Terra da Garoa
The creature was not really scary. The trailer did fail to convey a sense of tension.
Yes, those are my main gripe... I agree that the creature doesn't have to look scary, in games like this clever use of sound & atmpsphere can be better than any monster design, but showing it like that in the trailer was dull...

And the music was really bland, it shows that it was made by two programmers. :P
 

AngryKobold

Arcane
Joined
Aug 12, 2012
Messages
534
New Robinson's Requiem

Damn, I've almost fell for it.

After seeing the trailer: well, better than I expected. But there ain't much in common between this and Robinson's requiem. RR and its sequel Deus were combat- oriented. Instead, Miasmata looks like a game closer to Biosys (Take 2, 1998). So, survival simulation, scientific things to do, a lot of walking around- but little action.
 

Berekän

A life wasted
Patron
Joined
Sep 2, 2009
Messages
3,112
The video is certainly intriguing, looking forward to any Codexer impressions.
 

deus101

Never LET ME into a tattoo parlor!
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
Messages
2,059
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2
Hmm, might just have to do that.

Also...gods sake people its a measly 14 bucks.

Its also an indie, we don't have to prove anything by :keepmymoney:
 

Stabwound

Arcane
Joined
Dec 17, 2008
Messages
3,240
I've played a little. It's a weird game and it runs like absolute shit on my computer no matter what I do, and water looks like jello or some shit.

It reminds me a little of Lost after playing for about an hour. Despite some of the weird gameplay, the story seems pretty intriguing, but the absolute shit framerate I'm getting (feels like 10fps) is ruining it for me.
 
Self-Ejected

Jack

█▓▒░
Patron
Joined
May 5, 2010
Messages
4,900
Location
Yondo
Insert Title Here
Apparently the engine is made by one of the two brothers behind the game, so that's why it runs like a turd on ice.
 

deus101

Never LET ME into a tattoo parlor!
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
Messages
2,059
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2
There are some serious bugs with the game not loading up the hardware resources properly.
 

Metro

Arcane
Beg Auditor
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
27,792
Hmm, might just have to do that.

Also...gods sake people its a measly 14 bucks.

Its also an indie, we don't have to prove anything by :keepmymoney:

Measly $14? Welcome to the era of digital download where $15 is pretty much the max I'd pay for any title!
 

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
Looks very interesting, I have it installed but can't play because of the terrible FOV and low framerate. Will wait for patch or tweak.

edit: Dev already responded:

" We are (aware of those issues) and are addressing them. We hope to have an update out this week sometime :) "

:thumbsup:
 

Cool name

Arcane
Joined
Oct 14, 2012
Messages
2,149
On my notebook the game does behave terribly. On my desktop the game does run better yet it is glitchy and very badly optimized. I will try it later on my brother's gaming PC but so far it does have 'made by amateurs' all over it. Even with all detail sliders at maximum I am still able to clearly identify the border of the textures and I am have parts of the enviroment disappear to appear the moment I do slightly move the camera. Not to mention the pilars of rock that do appear all of a sudden. Middair. And then break into tousands of little floating rocks the moment I take a step or move the camera. Nor many other similar glitches.

Presently I am not impressed.
 

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
I have been exploring a bit and while it's certainly no Crysis or STALKER it has it's own aesthetic and it oozes atmosphere.

Also voxels :love:

76B1166AC47CBE1EF33B15043998977DD4B1C3C4
 

taxalot

I'm a spicy fellow.
Patron
Joined
Oct 28, 2010
Messages
10,060
Location
Your wallet.
Codex 2013 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
Stop comparing this game to Crysis and give us some info about how good or bad it plays, already !
 

kaizoku

Arcane
Joined
Feb 18, 2006
Messages
4,129
interview with the brothers: http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/6/3735358/miasmata-ionfx-game-profile

Survival-focused exploration games tend towards horror, playing up feelings of panic and powerlessness, but Miasmata is billed as an adventure game — something that’s led to some confusion. "I think people have misunderstood that as meaning it’s like an old Sierra adventure game," Johnson says, referring to puzzle-heavy series like King’s Quest or Gabriel Knight that bear little resemblance to Miasmata. "There are no other characters, so there’s no interaction; there are no puzzle elements."

Miasmata also downplays the importance of backstory. Unlike "90 percent of [narrative] games," as Johnson says, the player character isn’t an amnesiac trying to recover his past, and the plot is largely incidental, ignoring the most pressing questions. What’s the story behind the island and its ever-present Easter Island-style statues? Why are you being chased by a green, antlered panther? It’s hard to tell. The game's basic premise, true to its genre descriptor, could have come from a men’s adventure magazine: an early 20th Century utopian society, founded on an island with a mysterious past, tries to cure a deadly plague amidst political unrest. "I drew from a lot of sources, pretty heavily from Hemingway," says Bob Johnson, "For Whom the Bell Tolls — I used that as a basis for a lot of the thematic backstory."

As in many games, the real driving force is completionism. "Most people are interested in fleshing out the island," Johnson says. As pieces are added to the map, simply finding every new landmark trumps uncovering a story. "I know that sounds to some people like a walking simulator," he admits. "But we build tension with the creature, and so forth, to alleviate a lot of that."

Johnson says sales so far have been "modest," and it’s too early to tell whether it will build the kind of lasting fanbase that’s sustained other indie developers. Nonetheless, he considers the release a success. "We crossed a point where we think we can continue making games," he says. "We invested a lot into building our engine, and we won't fully recoup that with Miasmata. That will hopefully pay off in the long run as we release more games based on it."
 

agentorange

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
5,256
Location
rpghq (cant read codex pms cuz of fag 2fa)
Codex 2012
I played it for about half an hour. Stayed out too late trying to spot landmarks and fill out my map, suddenly absolute darkness, I stumble off a cliff while trying to find my way to the cabin and drown to death. Does a very good job of making you feel like you are playing out a Jack London story.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom