KickStarter Scorn - another Giger influenced horror game released after long developement

[manifest]

This game is nowhere near as bad as Agony dawg.

 

[Lyric Suite]

But it suffers from the same problem, does it not? A bunch of artists getting together to make a game while having no idea how and thinking their knewl art alone will save them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

who is giger

 

[Gregz]

who is giger

H.R. Giger

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

He invented the Giger counter

 

[toughasnails]

This game is nowhere near as bad as Agony dawg.

Yeah. Those who defend the game tend to compare it to Myst from what I saw but I think the better comparison would be HL2 (and HL2 inspired shooters like you Are Empty) with a bit more involved albeit still easy Myst style puzzles. HL2 with sparser combat, just as much focus on ambiance and setpieces, and more involved puzzle side. People who play Source mods likely played content for HL2 and episodes that is in that vein...

RaggleFraggle
Dropping the Tower for Crater was horrible idea indeed. The areas prior to Crater actually say something and are visually interesting. For example there was a complaint here in relation to the game's critique of technology that the first area, the factory, doesn't look "efficient". But the idea of is horribly efficient, when you figure out that it is even built out recycled workers that serve as spare material hence the curved organic designs and the retrofuturist feel to the tech (bc stuff would be always operated and pushed by the workers). Except maybe that part wasn't as clearly communicated in game as in the artbook, most people seemingly only got that the workers are being produced and disposed there and not the full extent of the horror.
The exterior desert area also has its point, the facility looks like some giant overfeed parasite on top of landscape that was completely drained of life.
The descent into the Crater by comparison is p visually forgettable and you have a hard time seeing wtf it is being said. And so much of the game is spent on it and it will be the most tedious part of the game for most people due to all the combat encounters. Compare the Tower section that was thrown out bc of it and it looks considerably more striking and would've communicated some p strong stuff.

 

[NecroLord]

who is giger

Oh,he's just the guy who designed the Alien from a little indie film called "Alien" released in 1979.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

who is giger

Oh,he's just the guy who designed the Alien from a little indie film called "Alien" released in 1979.

Never seen it.

 

[NecroLord]

Legit or just usual trolling?
If not,then you should definitely watch it.

 

[toughasnails]

Legit or just usual trolling?

Even a month of being around here should be enough for you to guess the answer.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

So how many of those art fag psuedo-games do we have now? I remember Agony, and i think there was another one too (no, not Succubus, another from a different company that also had knewl art but non-existent gameplay).

Lust from Beyond?

Dropping the Tower for Crater was horrible idea indeed. The areas prior to Crater actually say something and are visually interesting. For example there was a complaint here in relation to the game's critique of technology that the first area, the factory, doesn't look "efficient". But the idea of is horribly efficient, when you figure out that it is even built out recycled workers that serve as spare material hence the curved organic designs and the retrofuturist feel to the tech (bc stuff would be always operated and pushed by the workers). Except maybe that part wasn't as clearly communicated in game as in the artbook, most people seemingly only got that the workers are being produced and disposed there and not the full extent of the horror.
The exterior desert area also has its point, the facility looks like some giant overfeed parasite on top of landscape that was completely drained of life.
The descent into the Crater by comparison is p visually forgettable and you have a hard time seeing wtf it is being said. And so much of the game is spent on it and it will be the most tedious part of the game for most people due to all the combat encounters. Compare the Tower section that was thrown out bc of it and it looks considerably more striking and would've communicated some p strong stuff.

Exactly! All the architecture in this game is soylent green. The artbook literally says that if you broke open the statues in the Polis, you’d find living flesh inside. I don’t understand why Ebb didn’t show this off.

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

So if I'm reading this right, it's actually a better investment to buy ONLY the artbook?

 

[toughasnails]

RaggleFraggle
He likely meant this

 

[Lyric Suite]

Ho yeah, that one.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I don’t understand why these devs insist on including combat mechanics. That’s always the worst part of these games. They would be genuinely better off producing non-combat Myst-style adventure games to show off the art direction.

 

[Sizzle]

I don’t understand why these devs insist on including combat mechanics. That’s always the worst part of these games. They would be genuinely better off producing non-combat Myst-style adventure games to show off the art direction.

Because then they would be lumped in with the walking sim crowd. And dude-bros don't play those, no, those are aimed at artsy-fartsy storyfags.

So they add lackluster combat and crappy puzzles so they can say that their game has actual gameplay (plus, it also serves to pad out what amounts to a glorified tech demo).

 

[what am i doing]

I don’t understand why these devs insist on including combat mechanics. That’s always the worst part of these games. They would be genuinely better off producing non-combat Myst-style adventure games to show off the art direction.

Because then they would be lumped in with the walking sim crowd

But they've been lumped in with it anyways because that's what the game is.

 

[lightbane]

Combat is necessary to show how dangerous the world is, as otherwise it's quite empty, being devoid of traps, environmental hazards, people to interact, etc.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Combat is necessary to show how dangerous the world is, as otherwise it's quite empty, being devoid of traps, environmental hazards, people to interact, etc.

That’s stupid. If weren’t for all the braindead elitist dudebros whining about “walking simulators” we could’ve gotten a Giger/Beksinski version of Myst. Instead, the combat is the single most criticized aspect of the game. Worse, the devs blew their budget on that bloated bullshit when they could’ve spent it on the more interesting sounding cut locations.

There’s nothing wrong with not including combat! How are these devs still so fucking stupid after so many examples proving this? No combat is better than shitty combat!

 

[toughasnails]

There are some suspicious things about this thread but I still find it interesting.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/698670/discussions/0/3482997257334038863/
It's interesting bc you can still make the argument for much of this sans non-linearity being in the game. Different skillsets can refer to you acquiring abilities to interact with different sorts of objects in the world or heal yourself rather than about RPG-style skill tree as the OP read it. Save the ending cutscene, all of them are in first person and none of them, including the final one, are prerendered. You will be running to cover where you can in order to avoid enemy attacks, you can often either run past the enemies and sometimes there are alternate paths you can take to avoid them. Different playstyles can refer to combat, puzzle solving, exploration rather than the CHOICE between different styles of tacking the same situation. At other points, like the loadout one, the OP is being p dense.

But still, what sort of game would you expect going by the Steam description? You would be excused for expecting some sort of horror immersive sim or something rather than what the game actually is.

 

[Sizzle]

Combat is necessary to show how dangerous the world is, as otherwise it's quite empty, being devoid of traps, environmental hazards, people to interact, etc.

That’s stupid. If weren’t for all the braindead elitist dudebros whining about “walking simulators” we could’ve gotten a Giger/Beksinski version of Myst.

That's wildly optimistic. Scorn was never more than visuals + atmosphere. Since it was only ever made to be those two things, whatever else was tacked on it would always feel superfluous and off.

Which is exactly why everyone is criticizing the combat and puzzles. These elements weren't made in service of the game and its (admittedly thin) gameplay, and you can feel that the game devs would much rather have concentrated their efforts on the look and feel of the game - instead of crappy survival horror and boring puzzles.

 

[toughasnails]

whatever else was tacked on it would always feel superfluous and off.

Which is exactly why everyone is criticizing the combat and puzzles. These elements weren't made in service of the game

If you look at the central puzzle in the opening area, it is actually well integrated in the world and gradually reveals its functioning to you. It also p strongly shows the philosophical critique of technology they are drawing on, they explicitly mention people like Heidegger in the artbook and elsewhere. You saw how the workers are framed on a rack in the pod puzzle? And you then slowly figure out how they are used... Humans p much becoming what Heidegger calls standing reserve. Most of the game should have, could have been like that.
So that shows they could have done it. And if you look at the artbook, there were possibilities for more imaginative puzzles, like how the body switching in the final area, which you only encounter literally in the last minutes of the released game, could have been employed much more extensively.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Yeah. After the prologue/act 1 puzzles the following puzzles gradually make less and less sense in the context of the setting. The Act 5 boss fight being the absolute worst imo, since it should be entirely skippable if you weren’t constrained by game mechanics. Altho that’s pretty normal for survival horror games. I just wish all the puzzles were as immersive as the first two.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

The game wasn't so bad? I played it without having read any opinions online and it was quite alright I think. Reading through this thread there's only the negative opinions.

I will probably be thinking of the world of Scorn and what it all means for quite some time. It's like that civilization transformed into a tumour that fed on its former self.

How do you decide if puzzles are good or bad? People are saying the puzzles are stupid but how?


e:

 

[toughasnails]

I will probably be thinking of the world of Scorn and what it all means for quite some time. It's like that civilization transformed into a tumour that fed on its former self.

That's more or less it, yeah. I'd check out the artbook if I was you, it's definitely worth a look.