Pyre - Supergiant Games is at it again

[vortex]

http://indiegames.com/2016/11/pyre.html

Supergiant Games' first two games, Bastion and Transistor, are isometric action games. They have very different settings and Transistor improved on the combat of Bastion, but the mechanical similarities were obvious. However, their upcoming game Pyre, due out sometime next year, is set to be an RPG revolving around a sports-like 3v3 ritual. At the heart of that strange leap is a desire to craft a story about a larger cast of characters and dealing with failure.

According to Greg Kasavin of Supergiant Games, the team enjoyed crafting the worlds of Bastion and Transistor, but realized that both games have very few characters in them. "This time around, we got excited by the idea of the player getting close to an interesting cast of characters over the course of a grand journey, and having some impact over what happened to them," he says.

"We wanted the stakes of the story to be high, but not the kind of life-or-death struggle that's there in a lot of games, so that these characters would have to recover from their losses and the game and story could move forward even if the player failed in a given moment. That way the experience could feel more true-to-life, and more about how relationships between people really are, despite the trappings of Pyre's fantasy setting."

The game casts the player as someone who has just been exiled to a barren land from which there is supposed to be no escape. They quickly get picked up by folks who say that there is a way -- but that they need someone who can read to guide them. Since it turns out that the player's avatar was exiled for reading, they're in luck. The player can guide them to be in the right places at the right times so that they can participate in rituals and work their way out of the wastelands.

Those rituals take the form of a 3v3 match against another group whose ultimate goal is the same as that of the player and their companions. They're designed to stress the fact that the player character and their companions cannot succeed without each other's help.

"We were very interested in capturing the feel of a high-stakes battle of wits, where you have to outsmart and outmaneuver your opponent to succeed," says Kasavin. "At the same time, we knew we were making a multi-character game, but not a team-based game. So, the player's role would be to guide these other characters to victory, against other characters equally motivated to succeed.

"Analogies to sports or competitions became very intriguing for a variety of reasons," he continues. "Such competitions can stress both teamwork and personal achievement while sometimes putting those things in conflict. Competitions have their own complex rules that need to be learned and accepted but can at times be subverted. And those who fail competitions typically have to confront their failure, and figure out how to move on from it."

Since dealing with failure is one of the big themes of the story, Pyre has no 'game over' state. Win or lose, the characters continue on. One way or another their story will end. This means the story has to branch, and that's made more work for Kasavin. "We have this goal of creating a game where your actions can influence what happens to the characters around you, so aspects of the story have to branch in order for that to be possible," he says. "I spend a lot of time writing variant versions of events that a given player will never see!"

"Our goal with our stories has always been to balance having personal moments and details unique to the player's own experience with the benefits of having an authored story and characters," says Kasavin. "We've explored a wide range of possibilities for both the use of procedurally-generated content and branching story content and think we've found the appropriate proportions for the game we're making."

One big development challenge that Kasavin mentions is figuring out what place narrative and dialog would have in the game. "We knew it would have one! The act of reading is important in the world of this game. But figuring out the answer to 'how much reading should there be' took a lot of iteration to figure out," he says. "The stories of our games are there in service of the experience, so we're sensitive to using story as efficiently and economically as possible, and ruthless about starting over on stuff that isn't quite there."

Supergiant's focus on crafting narratives that players can get involved in is probably why Kasavin is reluctant to go into further details on how the lack of a 'game over' state will impact the story and its branching narrative. "On the face of it you'd think [the lack of a 'game over' state] would make for an extraordinarily easy game, though on the contrary I think our game has plenty of challenge in a variety of ways," he says. "As game players many of us are highly conditioned to save-load out of our failures. But I hope that many players will eventually experience this aspect of Pyre for what it is, and take something positive away from it."

 

[vortex]

http://www.supergiantgames.com/blog/pyre-introducing-head-to-head-versus-mode/

 

[anus_pounder]

Maybe this should be in General Gaming? So the RPG purists aren't offended?

And spoil the flow of popcorn.gif material? Are you kidding?

 

[LESS T_T]

Coming in July 25th, pre-order is up:

About the Game (With New Details!)



Pyre is a party-based RPG in which you lead a band of exiles to freedom through ancient competitions spread across a vast, mystical purgatory. Who shall return to glory, and who shall remain in exile to the end of their days?


A New World From the Creators of Bastion and Transistor



This is the biggest and most imaginative world yet from us at Supergiant! You'll get to know an ensemble cast of characters struggling to earn back their freedom as you make your way across the forsaken land called the Downside. Characters in Pyre come in all shapes and sizes, from hulking demons grown strong from their struggle to survive, to the winged Harps, who plot against their enemies from their mountain nests. Everyone in Pyre has a unique story behind their exile, and their own reasons for wanting to return.


Action-Packed Three-on-Three Battle System


Central to Pyre is the ancient competition called the Rites. Each Rite plays out like an intense close-quarters mystical battle, where the object is to extinguish your adversary's signal flame before they can do the same to you. You'll have to outsmart and outmaneuver your opponents to succeed -- or you can banish them outright with a powerful aura blast.

You'll be up against a colorful cast of adversaries in pitched, high-stakes confrontations where each victory (or defeat!) brings your exiles closer to enlightenment. Choose three exiles from your party for each Rite, and outfit them with powerful Talismans and Masteries to gain an edge.


A Branching Story with No Game-Over



We wanted to make a game that had plenty of challenge and exciting action, but where the fear and frustration of getting stuck was not a factor. Picking yourself up after being defeated could be part of the journey, rather than something that took place in your head while looking at a Game Over screen. So, one of the unique aspects of Pyre is how you are never forced to lose progress. Whether you prevail or fail, your journey continues. The interactive narrative is expressed through a story that should feel personal to you, and that no two players will experience in quite the same way.


Challenge a Friend in Versus Mode



On top of the single-player campaign, Pyre features a local two-player Versus Mode, which lets you play against a friend (or CPU opponent) in one of the game's fast-paced ritual showdowns. You'll be able to form your triumvirate from more than 20 unique characters you'll meet in the campaign, and customize your Rite in a variety of ways -- configuring your characters' abilities, choosing from a variety of stages each with their own distinct effects on gameplay, and more. We think this adds a great deal of lasting value to the game, and we've been having a great time playing it ourselves, trying out every possible character combination we can think of.


Rich, Atmospheric Presentation



Creating a specific and cohesive-feeling tone and atmosphere for our games is very important to us. From the vibrant hand-painted artwork to the evocative, reactive musical score, every aspect of Pyre's presentation is designed to draw you into its mystical fantasy world.

# # #

For more information, please have a look at our Pyre FAQ. Pyre has been in development for nearly three years. We can now safely say that it's the biggest game we've ever created, offering substantially more ways to play and more characters to meet than either Bastion or Transistor before it. With each new game we've made, we've endeavored to push ourselves out of our creative comfort zone to make something that felt fresh to us, in the belief that this would translate to a worthwhile experience for our players. We cannot wait for you to try it and hear what you think.

 

[thesheeep]

I wonder what the playtime will be for that.
Their previous games were pretty short.

 

[vortex]

 

[Rahdulan]

Holy shit, Greg lost some serious weight. I still remember him as that chubby Gamespot guy.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[---]

Lol, who is the speaker?
The art direction is pretty good indeed, as usual...

... But the gameplay seems just "meh".
Bastion's and Transistor's too

 

[Popiel]

They ruined perfectly good trailer with this ridiculous voice. Nevertheless, I already bought it and I’m waiting anxiously, I really dig their games.

 

[vortex]

Gameplay-wise, will Pyre be similar to Banner Saga ? It won't be as usual as party-based RPGs we know.

 

[Iznaliu]

I wonder what the playtime will be for that.

1 second.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Gameplay-wise, will Pyre be similar to Banner Saga ? It won't be as usual as party-based RPGs we know.

Combat system looks similar to Transistor in a sense.

 

[Popiel]

Combat system looks similar to Transistor in a sense.

No it doesn't...

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Combat system looks similar to Transistor in a sense.

No it doesn't...

YWhy not? It's realtime tactical action combat with phases where you control single character and aim you abilities / dodge enemy abilities (with cooldowns), not a turnbased party combat like in banner saga.

 

[vortex]

Combat system looks similar to Transistor in a sense.

Oh, I meant general gameplay not combat particulary. You traverse along the world and then the game loads combat area or arena to fight ?
When fight is over, you go on another journey along the world.
I meant Banner saga's general gameplay in this way.
You're not walking around the areas like in Fallout.

 

[Iznaliu]

YWhy not? It's realtime tactical action combat with phases where you control single character and aim you abilities / dodge enemy abilities (with cooldowns), not a turnbased party combat like in banner saga.

The game is party-based apparently.

 

[Boleskine]

http://www.pcgamer.com/pyre-review/

Pyre review
By Wes Fenlon 26 minutes ago

Need to know

What is it? Half visual novel, half fantasy sports combat.
Expect to pay: $20/£15
Developer: Supergiant Games
Publisher: Supergiant Games
Reviewed on: Windows 10, 16GB RAM, GeForce GTX 980
Multiplayer: Two player local
Link: Official site
Buy: Steam

I spent a long time staring at my screenshots of Pyre before writing a word about it, because every frame captures a pure fantasy world so creative and otherworldly I envy the minds able to bring it to such vivid life. It's the kind of art that reminds you fiction can be anything, if only you have the power to imagine it. I'm also staring at my screenshots of the Downside, the purgatory world where Pyre takes place, because my opinion of it is as confused as Pyre's own identity.

Pyre is half fantasy sport, which is never as fun as it should be, and half narrative text adventure, which drags out a narrowly focused story across more hours than either half can really support. It's exquisitely made, yet neither half lives up to its potential.

It begins with a spark of hope for a trio of exiles in the Downside, as they find me near death in the desert. Through a series of dialogue choices I define the broad strokes of my history: like them, I'm a woman exiled from the Commonwealth, with either no memory or no desire to share my past. The one thing we both soon discover is that I'm a Reader, literate in defiance of the Commonwealth's laws, and by reading a magical relic called the Book of Rites I may be able to guide us to a way out of the Downside.

As in many visual novels, as the player I am literally the Reader. Characters address the screen directly as they share their stories or ask where we should go next. This starts with the trio of Hedwyn, a gentle, optimistic nomad; the imposing and gruff horned demon Jodariel; and dapper mustachioed dog-man Rukey Greentail, who invite you into their wagon and then ask your advice on which path through the Downside.

This setup sounds like a fantasy RPG take on The Oregon Trail, and that's what I expected at first. Hedwyn tells me life is harsh in the Downside, so surely our course through its beautiful wastes will matter. But it doesn't: most every choice of path in Pyre is binary and largely inconsequential. Within the first hour, you've essentially experienced the confines of play in Pyre. There is dialogue, and then there are the Rites, the strange fantasy combat sport that makes up Pyre's other half.

Unlike The Oregon Trail or a more traditional RPG, there is no survival mechanic, there are no quests or sidequests, no minigames, no cities to explore and really no exploration, period. Within a few hours I'd seen all of the Downside, but felt like I'd interacted with none of it.

Pyre is more visual novel than RPG, though you do assemble a party of characters as you progress. Instead of interspersing narrative sequences with puzzles, Pyre instead switches over to the Rites, a 3-on-3 competition that's basically wizard basketball. Each team's goal is to douse the opponent's pyre, which starts with a hundred hit points and takes damage as a character flings or runs the ball—orb—into its flames. There's disappointingly little connective tissue between the two modes. Most times, choosing a destination on the map just results in a minor buff or debuff to one of your party for the next round, an effect I found all but meaningless.

Larger characters like Jodariel move slowly but do more damage to the pyre. Rukey can briefly sprint at a much greater top speed, but deals less damage. Each character also has an aura around them that will 'banish' or briefly knock out the enemy if it touches them. This aura disappears while holding the orb, so winning the Rites comes down to how you use those auras offensively and defensively, and how skillfully you can avoid them by jumping or sprinting around enemies.


Building your team for the Rites is where Pyre most resembles an RPG. Each character in your party comes from one of the Downside's races, with a unique skillset and stat distribution and a simple skill tree to level up as they gain experience. Most of the races can jump and fire their aura in a straight line like an energy beam, but there are plenty of exceptions and twists on that basic setup.

One of my favorites is the slithering worm knight Sir Gilman, who's naturally the fastest member of the party. Instead of firing his aura, Gilman can detonate a trail he leaves behind him, banishing any enemies he passed in the last few seconds. Another is the Harp Pamitha, whose wings let her fly for several seconds instead of just jumping, and who can dash forward to banish any enemy in her path instead of firing her aura as a projectile.

Ability upgrades further augment these skills and change how you use them. For Gilman, I had to choose between the ability to teleport back to the starting point of his aura trail and the option to make the aura blast cover a wider radius. With Pamitha, I beelined through the skill tree to an ability that let her fly into the enemy's pyre and score without being banished—a quick and powerful way to score, because normally a character that enters the enemy's pyre has to sit out until the next point is scored.

I love the structure and strategy of Pyre's Rites. The problem is that I never found playing them fun enough to justify how much time Pyre devotes to them.

Each character can also equip a Talisman, and those add another layer of variety to team building. Hedwyn's all-rounder stats made him a regular on my team, so I equipped him with a talisman that gave him a chance to respawn immediately after being banished. Pamitha's dash move was a powerful offensive tool but she moved around the field too slowly, so I gave her a talisman that buffed her speed. Others I frequently used gave me money for each banishment in a match, restored some of my pyre's own HP when I damaged the enemy's, and made aura blasts penetrate obstacles on the field.

Like in their last game, Transistor, Supergiant Games' designers did a great job creating a diverse array of abilities that combine and change in interesting ways over the course of the game. I love the structure and strategy of Pyre's Rites. The problem is that I never found playing them fun enough to justify how much time Pyre devotes to them.

After more than 15 hours, I never got fully comfortable managing my entire party in the Rites. You can only control one character at a time, pressing a key or a controller button to swap between them. There's just enough of a delay here, and often just enough confusion about which I'm switching to, that I rarely made use of more than one at a time. In my best moments I'd position one character in midfield so their aura was an obstacle, or pass the orb back across the map to keep it out of enemy hands. But I never felt like I could switch control quickly enough to embody a defender in a snap and stop a quick enemy from jumping into my pyre.

Rites move with the speed and fluidity of a sports game, and controlling a single character feels tactical and responsive. It's almost akin to Rocket League, hurtling towards the goal while dodging, jumping, putting on a burst of speed. The analogy could even extend to an American football game, when you make a killer pass as the quarterback and then automatically control the receiver as you spin and sprint your way to the endzone. But imagine playing one of those games where the rest of your team stands still while you control them.

It's 3-on-3 Rocket League, but the other cars idle on the field. It's 3-on-3 basketball, but two of your players stand under the basket until you bring them to life.

Pyre was designed to play this way, of course, so it's not broken, but it never feels right to me. Switching characters isn't immediate enough to allow for full use of a team—and while I'm sure there will be high-level Pyre players who prove a counterpoint, the game never demands that degree of skill. At the same time, the Rites are too fast to offer the same satisfying planning-then-execution of RPGs and turn-based strategy games that Pyre draws some inspiration from.

I enjoyed the Rites less and less as Pyre went on, mostly because its structure simply doesn't change from the beginning. Click a location on the map; read some dialogue; play wizard soccer; repeat. That may sound reductive—after all, aren't most RPGs simply walking to a new place and fighting battles along the way?—but the lack of true exploration and side activities really hurts Pyre, as does the linearity of its story. The grind makes an already overlong campaign feel even longer.

The narrative half of Pyre is an endless stream of wonderfully written dialogue, imbuing each character with a personality magnified by simple but expressive character portraits. And while there are a few twists along the way, and some small stories that develop between characters, the trajectory of Pyre at the end is the same as it is at the beginning: you and your companions striving to complete the Rites and escape the Downside. It all plays out in a way that feels inevitable, which may be thematically appropriate for a game about destiny and mythological traditions, but doesn't make for an engaging story after a dozen hours.

Even as I was bored with the predictable arc of Pyre's story, I admired how much work it took to make my personal version of this tale work. You see, your cast of exiles can one-by-one escape the Downside, but only if you win certain Rites. As I won again and again, my party shrank, and Pyre had to account for who remained. I was left wondering how differently this tale would play out if I lost those critical Rites, and it's a testament to how much I liked these characters that my heart clenched with stress when their freedom was on the line.

In the end I loved how their stories wrapped up, which made Pyre a strange contradiction for me: I preferred the destination to the journey. And as frustrated as I was with its lack of variety, I was just as in love with its small touches. Instead of a generic 'continue' text prompt, for example, every action in the story gets its own unique bit of writing. 'Seek now your destination.' 'Journey onward.' 'Accept this, for it is done.' I didn't think there was room to innovate the 'continue' button. I was very wrong.

That creativity is what I'll remember about Pyre as I look back on it. Pyre is clearly made with great skill and great care, blending art and music and words with more confident style than most games can hope for. But for all that work, its story and its combat never really meld, and neither was ever quite as fun or varied as I wanted them to be.

The Verdict
71
Read our review policy
Pyre
Pyre's campaign is repetitive and its combat never quite clicks, but a touching and thoughtful story makes it worth sticking through to the end.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-07-24-pyre-review

Dazzling and mysterious, this ambitious party-based RPG is a masterpiece.

By Cassandra Khaw Published 24/07/2017 Version tested PC

Supergiant Games' Pyre is, like all of their prior games, just sumptuous. But while I loved Bastion and Transistor, thought the art was beautiful and six types of jaw-dropping, Pyre - Pyre is something else. Pyre, with its surreal designs and otherworldly colour palette, made me catch my breath in places, made me ache in the way that you sometimes do when you're in the presence of Good Art. Which sounds pretentious, but hey I stand by it. It is Dante's Inferno by way of Jean Giraud. It's an operatic underworld myth.

Pyre

• Developer: Supergiant Games
• Publisher: Supergiant Games
• Platform: Reviewed on PC
• Availability: Out July 25th on PS4 and PC

And also, this chimera of a game that is part football, part arena-combat, part choose-your-own-adventure, and part - actually, I don't know how else to describe it. The developers call Pyre a 'party-based RPG' but I don't think that description is anywhere near adequate.

Am ambitious exercise in slow worldbuilding, Pyre opens with your character being discovered by a triumvirate of masked figures. They rouse you, ask about your past, bring up nouns that aren't really explained, but you're given a general idea of what is going on, and end up being recruited by their group in record time. They need a Reader to facilitate an escape from this unearthly place, and that's you.

Immediately after that, we segue to the 'combat' sequence.

Well, maybe not combat sequence, per se. The Rites, as they are described in the game, do not involve any amount of traditional violence. It is a competition between two factions, each represented by three champions. The objective here is to quench the other party's pyre, before they can do the same to yours, an affair that may be complicated by various bonuses, some of which are accorded by events and others by talismans you equip. To do so, you're going to need to gain control of a Celestial Orb and toss it into their bonfire.

No big, right?

Let's say it one more time, just so we're clear - this game is gorgeous.

Here's where it gets interesting, and intense. You can only control one of the characters. When a character has active control of the Celestial Orb, they lose their aura which, according to an incredibly sardonic announcer, is the manifestation of their wrongdoings. Without your aura, you become vulnerable to the opposition's aura, a miasmic glow that will basically knock out anyone who comes into contact with them. Fortunately, you can still sprint, leap, or perform character-specific acrobatics, but there's also a stamina bar to contend with.

More importantly, on top of being vulnerable, the loss of your aura means you cannot weaponise the thing. On top of being a useful force field, it can be sent outwards as a kind of projectile attack, knocking out enemies.

So, all of it comes together in this tight package that requires you to flip rapidly between characters, all the while navigating through topographical hazards as the announcer, who has a line for everything, sneers his way through a running commentary of the game.

It can be an incredibly satisfying experience. When that hail mary that you have planned works out just right, and you can see the enemies rushing to your position, and they miss by the sliver of hair. And it can be frustrating too. At least, to me. But that is because I am completely terrible at the whole shebang.

Moving on, you'll eventually find yourself navigating this bizarre world, moving from locale to locale in pursuit of the next Rite. As the Reader, it is your duty to figure out the route that your caravan will take. Mostly, this involves deciding whether you'd rather use Path A or Path B. Your decision, in turn, will influence your relationships with specific characters and consequently, their performance in battle. It is, as far as I can tell, mostly tangential storytelling. The main narrative, which is beautifully and sparely written, seems to be linear, although there's nothing wrong with that.

What I love about Pyre is how you're never really told what is going on. The storytelling is subtle. It strings a complex world along familiar tentpoles, so you're never completely adrift. But even late into the game, there's always a sense of this place being completely alien.

Despite the grim undertones to the main plot, the cast is a peculiarly cheerful bunch save, perhaps, for the horned Jodariel, who is endlessly dour. I won't spoil anything for you, but I will say that the roster you develop is very much multidimensional, and their banter is alternately hilarious and quietly heartbreaking at times. Long before the end comes, you'll want to help all of them home.

There's a lot to love here. Everywhere you turn, there's something to appreciate. The music, which I've yet to mention, is stunning, and easily the best soundtrack to come out of the Supergiant Games' studios. I don't have a vocabulary to describe the audio, but I will admit to leaving the game to idle for no other reason than to write by the tune I've selected. (Tangentially, Pyre has the coolest jukebox I've seen in any game yet.)

And there are always little things to interact with, little clever things that Supergiant Games has done with the way that information is presented, little choices in their approach to design that impress. Even the skill trees and the way you can assist your coterie of misfits, the inscrutable language used by the general populace. It is a good game. (I do miss hearing Bastion's Logan Cunningham's voice, though, but somehow, I don't think his basal tones would quite fit the role of the announcer.)

Have I mentioned it is beautiful?

Because it is beautiful.

This game is beautiful.

Please go get it.

 

[Iznaliu]

It's kind of jarring to see the difference in opinions between reviews.

 

[Roguey]

Cassandra Khaw is Lesi's friend, I don't trust her.

 

[Urthor]

PCGamer gave it a low score, does that mean it's actually good, or PCGamer copying reviewers who actually know what they're talking about???

 

[Roguey]

PCGamer gave it a low score, does that mean it's actually good, or PCGamer copying reviewers who actually know what they're talking about???

Ignore the number and read the words.

 

[YES!]

Is this a real game or just more hipster shit with very rpg light elements and little game for the dumb and hip like their other two games?

 

[Rahdulan]

That PC Gamer review is so odd. He basically just didn't like the game because it wasn't his thing and then bends backwards to justify himself.

 

[Iznaliu]

That PC Gamer review is so odd. He basically just didn't like the game because it wasn't his thing and then bends backwards to justify himself.

That is what a lot of game reviews boil down to.