The Forgotten City - time loop adventure set in a cursed Roman city

[Nifft Batuff]

Looks interesting...

 

[Salvo]

A week and this comes out, huh? Guess I'm going to have to try it

 

[Salvo]

Coming out tomorrow!

 

[Grunker]

Visuals are great, but I really dislike the use of any contemporary pop/rock soundtracks in non-contemporary settings.

Soderbergh makes that technique fucking HUM in The Knick tho. I think the key is meshing your visual style and the storytelling to the music. Otherwise yes, it becomes distracting.



Then again, it may just be because Cliff Martinez is a God amongst mortals

 

[Rincewind]

I think the key is meshing your visual style and the storytelling to the music.

Yeah it's a bit of a trend know, but I detest it 90% of the time. Especially the use of pop songs with vocals.

 

[Jenkem]

It's out

 

[Infinitron]

https://af.gog.com/game/the_forgotten_city?as=1649904300

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/874260/view/2983057112753690705

The Forgotten City is now available to buy and download!

The Forgotten City is finally here, and we couldn't be more excited for you to play it, and see why IGN scored it a 9 out of 10 [link to The Forgotten City Review] and called it "Amazing."

Before you dive in, here are some things you should know:

The Forgotten City was made by a core team of three hard-working devs. It may have started out as a mod for an action RPG, but like the mod, this game is in a totally different genre. It’s a mystery adventure game, which rewards thoughtful conversation, exploration, and puzzle-solving. Combat is a small – and entirely optional – part of the game. If you don’t go into this expecting a Triple-A action RPG, you’ll have a much better time!

We’ve taken great care to create a game world with historically authentic ancient Roman art, architecture, costumes, and customs, with the help of two extraordinary historical consultants: Dr. Philip Matyszak (who has a D.Phil from Oxford and teaches at Cambridge) and Dr. Sophie Hay (who has 20 years experience excavating the ruins of Pompeii). We hope you have fun exploring!

Finally, we strongly encourage you to keep playing until you reach the canon ending (Ending 4). You’ll be glad you did!

We've polished the game as much as we can, but some bugs are inevitable on Day 1. So, if you experience any issues, please head over to the Discussions / Bug Reports & Fixes section, and we'll do our best to help you!

Most importantly, we hope you have fun!

The Modern Storyteller team

 

[Lord_Potato]

To those that have already tried it, I have a question: how much of a RPG it still is? I know you create a character (choosing sex and story of your PC, I don't know if anything else, like stats), but does it really change the way you play the game? I read there are no skill checks in the dialogues and combat, while present is quite basic.

 

[Jenkem]

To those that have already tried it, I have a question: how much of a RPG it still is? I know you create a character (choosing sex and story of your PC, I don't know if anything else, like stats), but does it really change the way you play the game? I read there are no skill checks in the dialogues and combat, while present is quite basic.

Dev said this on Steam forums:

There are 4 main backstories you can choose from, each with its own subtle advantages:

Archaeologist: Occasional insights into the ancient world
Soldier: Military-issued pistol with only 10 bullets, ever
Fugitive: 25% faster when sprinting
Amnesiac: A thick skull, making you 50% harder to injure

 

[Salvo]

To those that have already tried it, I have a question: how much of a RPG it still is? I know you create a character (choosing sex and story of your PC, I don't know if anything else, like stats), but does it really change the way you play the game? I read there are no skill checks in the dialogues and combat, while present is quite basic.

Pick archaeologist

 

[Darkozric]

Steam review section is filled with stupidly positive enthusiastic wimps (as usual). Apart from dialogues does this shit have gameplay in general? I heard a guy saying that a whispering voice is telling you the solutions of puzzles after a few minutes and this cannot be changed in the options...

 

[Bara]

Only three hours in and kind of regretting my purchase its feels like I'm on rails playing this and its only just a bit of a step up from being walking simulator.

The only combat so far is shooting this with arrows and its not even a challenge at any point.

The main devil whispering voice is constantly giving out the solutions. I'll have to see if there is a option to turn it off later but with it on all sense of discovery and exploration is dead.

The player's hand feels held at almost all times in order to ensure no story is missed and the player can always get to the next part.

 

[Darkozric]

This is some next level decline

 

[Jack Of Owls]

It looks kind of nice and since I'm a shameless graphics whore that had an eye candy orgasm with Skyrim (and didn't hate its game systems... just it's storytelling & quest design), I might check it out.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I think the key is meshing your visual style and the storytelling to the music.

Yeah it's a bit of a trend know, but I detest it 90% of the time. Especially the use of pop songs with vocals.

I remember Harlan Ellison once saying the exact same thing to an interviewer that's in your signature, except he never attributed it to Twain, the little fink. And I personally heard him say during a lecture with great profundity and authority: "The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and human stupidity!" to wild applause from the audience to which he beamed proudly; except he never attributed it to its proper owner, the little prick.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

To those that have already tried it, I have a question: how much of a RPG it still is? I know you create a character (choosing sex and story of your PC, I don't know if anything else, like stats), but does it really change the way you play the game? I read there are no skill checks in the dialogues and combat, while present is quite basic.

Pick archaeologist

There's a huge mod for Skyrim where you hunt all over the continent for archaeological items, weapons and artifacts then bring them to a great, central beautifully designed museum. Can't remember the title and I never downloaded it but has anyone here played it? Seems like it would be interesting for a few runs. Archaeologist seems like it would be a fun build in an RPG for a change from the usual hacky slash.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Steam review section is filled with stupidly positive enthusiastic wimps (as usual). Apart from dialogues does this shit have gameplay in general? I heard a guy saying that a whispering voice is telling you the solutions of puzzles after a few minutes and this cannot be changed in the options...

Tomb Raider 2013 had a nice built in hint system where if you were stumped rescuing, say, a group of caged companions dangling way up high, they would offer suggestions from their cages. The longer you were stumped, the more suggestions you'd get. You could turn this feature off, I believe, though it was on by default. It's a nice system to maintain immersion, I felt. What a shame you can't disable this in TFC though. I can be as casual and couch potatoey as the next guy, but there's a limit to how much dumbing down and hand holding I can take in a modern title. Might give this a pass after all..

 

[Butter]

To those that have already tried it, I have a question: how much of a RPG it still is? I know you create a character (choosing sex and story of your PC, I don't know if anything else, like stats), but does it really change the way you play the game? I read there are no skill checks in the dialogues and combat, while present is quite basic.

Pick archaeologist

There's a huge mod for Skyrim where you hunt all over the continent for archaeological items, weapons and artifacts then bring them to a great, central beautifully designed museum. Can't remember the title and I never downloaded it but has anyone here played it? Seems like it would be interesting for a few runs. Archaeologist seems like it would be a fun build in an RPG for a change from the usual hacky slash.

Legacy of the Dragonborn. It basically transforms Skyrim into an Animal Crossing collectathon, which is an upgrade.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

To those that have already tried it, I have a question: how much of a RPG it still is? I know you create a character (choosing sex and story of your PC, I don't know if anything else, like stats), but does it really change the way you play the game? I read there are no skill checks in the dialogues and combat, while present is quite basic.

Pick archaeologist

There's a huge mod for Skyrim where you hunt all over the continent for archaeological items, weapons and artifacts then bring them to a great, central beautifully designed museum. Can't remember the title and I never downloaded it but has anyone here played it? Seems like it would be interesting for a few runs. Archaeologist seems like it would be a fun build in an RPG for a change from the usual hacky slash.

Legacy of the Dragonborn. It basically transforms Skyrim into an Animal Crossing collectathon, which is an upgrade.

I'm not opposed to the idea of playing an Animal Crossing game (though I never have). I quit Skyrim only about a third of the way in and never went back to it because I started to loathe its whole main quest, but I would actually happily go back if I could avoid that main quest and still find plenty of new things to do. LotD seems like it might be well-suited to that, perhaps with a few additional mods.

 

[Jenkem]

the devs said that they will most likely include a toggle to turn off whispers/hints or whatever in the next patch... guess I'll wait

 

[Rean]

This game has a really good OST.

 

[Darkozric]

the devs said that they will most likely include a toggle to turn off whispers/hints or whatever in the next patch... guess I'll wait

At this point it doesn't matter to wait a toggle off/on option if the puzzles are already braindead. Fuck this shit.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

It looks like that the existence of the whispers is related to the lore. With the exception of a couple of puzzles, indeed they are dumb-dead, even without whispers. The "difficulty" part are not the whispers per se, but connecting the dots to understand the whole picture, that requires experiencing more than one loop.

The problem of this game are the expectations. It is a game difficult to define. it is a kind of light adventure game with great focus on story(fag) and exploration, and with a lot of NPCs dialogs. The objective are not solving the puzzles or the combat per se, but the discovery of the story.

People who expect something like rpg/combact/heavy puzzles have obviously a bad experience.

 

[Darkozric]

It looks like that the existence of the whispers is related to the lore. With the exception of a couple of puzzles, indeed they are dumb-dead, even without whispers. The "difficulty" part are not the whispers per se, but connecting the dots to understand the whole picture, that requires experiencing more than one loop.

The problem of this game are the expectations. It is a game difficult to define. it is a kind of light adventure game with great focus on story(fag) and exploration, and with a lot of NPCs dialogs. The objective are not solving the puzzles or the combat per se, but the discovery of the story.

People who expect something like rpg/combact/heavy puzzles have obviously a bad experience.

It's not difficult to define it. It's a story driven walking sim in disguise.

 

[Bara]

People who expect something like rpg/combact/heavy puzzles have obviously a bad experience.

I went into this expecting more of a challenge to put things together and figure out where to go next just too easy even without the whispers. Story got a little better but its kinda eh?

I'm hoping for something more as I get closer to the end. I don't hate the time I've spent with the game but thats mostly because it's nearly over for me in six hours even without rushing things.

Is the skyrim mod actually good or was it just hype? Never did play it.