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I'll check out your article in a bit, but definitely agree on the verbosity part. And it wasn't just the verbosity, the whole writing style had a very uncanny-valley thing going for it, although it was presented differently in dialogue versus documents and notes.
Also, don't know if you chose the same ending as I did, but definitely Ra-Ra-Rasputin forever. I actually had a pretty good time with the ending.
It's not that impresive tbh, but it was a solid effort to reflect some choices you make. Most of the overall ending depend on what you do in the last mision at the end of the day.
Some of the sidequest scenarios were also interesting (but not always presented objectively), e.g. There was a quest about solving a dispute between a German employer who fired a bunch of local workers. You find out the workers are literally getting drunk on the job (very Slavic thing to do), while their employer is just trying to save money because he's getting heavily in debt.
Yeah this has to be the best quest in the game by a HUGE margin. You can solve it in a lot of ways, all of them make sense, is not as simple as it seems when you get to dig a bit, doesn't preach you (mostly) and the solution/outcome is left to you to wonder which one is the adequate.
Polish dubbing now available!
Learn more about the latest patch for The Thaumaturge.
Hello everyone,
We couldn't be more excited to introduce the latest Patch 1.1 for The Thaumaturge which, among other things, adds one of the most requested features - a full Polish dubbing!
Listen to the new Polish voices:
To maintain the Slavic flavor of The Thaumaturge's narrative, Polish voice actors recorded the English dialogues, and the same actors have reprised their roles for the Polish dub of the game. With writing taking full advantage of the realities of the Warsaw setting, using the period vocabulary and expressions that are no longer in today’s everyday speech, The Thaumaturge with Polish voice-over gives its players an even more immersive and true-to-life experience.
Bloew's a list of all improvements that come with the latest Patch 1.1.
Overall Stability and Steam Deck improvements:
Added an option to tweak Community Density which should reduce CPU load;
Added Screen Resolution Percentage option for ability to further tweak graphics options;
Added an option to tweak Volumetric Clouds to improve performance;
(Steam Deck) Major optimization changes to achieve stable performance on Steam Deck;
(Steam Deck) Reduced number of community to improve performance in problematic areas;
More improvements to overall stability that should reduce instances of random crashes.
General issues and improvements:
Added support for controller vibration;
Postcard from Łódź now has a proper picture;
Fixed the issue where opening tutorial list as soon as tutorial screen appeared resulted in an unresponsive state;
Fixed the issue with black screens sometimes displaying instead of tutorial videos;
Fixed the issue where rapidly switching between different UI tabs led to lighting change;
Fixed the issue where it was possible to move character while the game was paused;
Fixed the issue where Undo Changes option was not functional;
Fixed the issue where some quests were missing hyperlinks to corresponding districts in Journal;
Fixed the issue where notification about the ability to tame Salutors was not intractable;
Fixed the issue where highlighting an ally in combat incorrectly showed the most effective Salutors against the ally;
Fixed the issue with missing certain community at Port Praski location;
Fixed the issue where part of UI on the far right could be cut off during certain combat encounters;
Fixed the issue where interaction prompt did not disappear upon interacting with a pawn shop readable at Powiśle location;
Fixed the issue where new entries for Points of Interest and Urban Secrets quests could not be accessed with a controller;
Fixed the issue with lighting changes when at barbers’;
Fixed instances of missing translations;
Improvements for animations and clipping issues across multiple scenes;
UI improvements;
Navigation improvements;
Collision improvements.
Quest related issues:
Fixed the issue where multiple clicks on clues that triggered dialogues could have led to a blocker during certain quests;
Fixed the issue where manipulation option could become unresponsive after completing Upyr’s Vision in the same persistent;
Fixed the issue where one of the objective could not be completed if the player completed it beforehand during The Reptilian Bash main quest;
Fixed the issue where The Price of Friendship quest could remain active despite being completed which could have led to black screen if Player interacted with Voronin again;
Fixed the issue where player could see out of boundaries when defeating enemies during All our Curses main quest;
Fixed the issue with redundant copy of quest NPC remaining after completing Veiled with Holiness side quest beforehand;
Fixed the issue where trail to Powązki Cemetery viewpoint appeared only when in close proximity to the cemetery;
Fixed graphical issues that could occur with certain NPC spawns in The Mermaid City's Son main quest;
Fixed the issue where there was a conversation with the bookmaker missing after making a bet during To Dust, You Shall Return main quest;
Fixed the issue with the logic of a certain dialogue in The Story of One Lecture side quest that did not take into account a completion of Cognitive Function side quest;
Fixed the issue where background was missing in a fight with burglars during What We Leave Behind main quest;
Fixed the issue where community did not disappear and remained during combat in They’re Alive side quest;
Fixed the issue where redundant Bukavac model persisted if combat was invoked despite manipulation being available during Bastards of the Night main quest;
Fixed the issue where quest marker did not appear until in close proximity to Czesław in Higher Education side quest;
Fixed the issue with missing trail for “Talk to Chajat and Feldman” objective after certain steps in All Our Curses main quest;
Fixed the issue with misleading trail during Dangerous Friends main quest if objectives were completed in certain order;
Fixed the issue where lighting became corrupted upon skipping certain dialogue during A Rod for the Hero side quest;
Fixed the issue with incorrect sign being displayed when manipulating Mieczysława in They’re Alive side quest;
Fixed the issue with missing VO line during Close to the Apple Tree main quest;
Fixed the issue where Player could interact with candles for the second time during They’re alive side quest;
Fixed the visible gap in the ground during dialogue with Abaurycy in Here We Go Again side quest;
Fixed the issue with incorrect lighting in some scenes in To Dust, You Shall Return main quest;
Fixed the issue with incorrect information described in Journal about certain decisions in Here We Go Again side quest;
Fixed the issue with redundant Wiktor’s chats about telephone ringing during The Mermaid City's Son main quest;
Fixed issues with Wiktor’s incorrect face models during certain epilogue;
Fixed the issue where redundant area map pin remained during All Our Curses main quest;
Fixed the issue with missing link in the Journal about certain conclusion in The Mysteries of Faith main quest;
Fixed the issue with redundant The Mysteries of Faith main quest being active when it should not later in the game;
Fixed the issue with a redundant objective trail in the dungeon during To Dust, You Shall Return main quest;
Fixed the issue where Player could repeat the same dialogue option in Front Page side quest;
Fixed the issue with duplicated icon to Javier’s barge on map and mini map during To Dust, You Shall Return main quest;
Fixed the issue where objective was not automatically tracked after obtaining The Story of One Lecture side quest;
Fixed the issue with redundant icon for Property Deeds clue in Children of Satan main quest;
Fixed the issue where autosave for a combat encounter in Front Page side quest was missing location name;
Fixed the issue where one of the crucial lines in dialogue was not marked accordingly during Front Page side quest;
Fixed the issue where two of the dialogue lines during Front Page side quest could be repeated endlessly;
Fixed the issue with incorrect trail leading to Wanda during certain objective in Dangerous Friends main quest.
Until June 8th you can now get The Thaumaturge with 25% discount:
Finally beaten the game, after buying it right after the release. I'd rate it 6/10 overall. The game has some good ideas, but is generally mediocre and undercooked. I'd still play a sequel if word of mouth said that it's a great improvement upon the original. Still, I'd recommend buying it at a large discount simply to check it out.
My observations:
-The "adventure" system simply sucks. You just mindlessly click right click then click on objects to advance the plot. At this point it would be better to make a game either into a proper point and click adventure or a visual novel. You spend almost half of the game following the read thread activated by this game's equivalent of detective vision. Stopped reading item descriptions halfway through the game and focused on dialogue. It wouldn't hurt the game if the players were to just follow the quest marker instead of having to click on random objects to make it appear.
-Combat system is simple but rather intriguing. Very liberal use of different statuses makes it more engaging. Still rather easy, the only fight I struggled on hard was the final boss. Too bad it's crippled by rather bland selection of foes. Or rather representation of such. They all have different stats and attacks, but most of the enemies you fight are random thugs, Russian soldiers and "shadows" of random people you encounter. Their abilities rarely thematically fit the people who use it so the entire thing seemed a bit arbitrary. Final battle is a highlight, it's gimmicky but fun. Other RPGs could learn from it. Spoilers:
During the game you collect spirits called "salutors". In the final battle main boss gives you unique and often crippling status effects based on each of these. You can "release" the spirit, losing an ability to use it later in a fight to remove it and restore your health. So you need to think how long can you afford to keep your favorite spirit and release them at appropriate time either to get it of a very bad condition or to regeain your health.
-Overall everything about the game feels a bit arbitrary. Why do some soldiers have only 2 stamina points while others have 7? They don't seem that tough. Why do some attacks slow me down or remove more stamina than health? They all look like standard punches, slashes and shots. There are 4 aspects of magic: heart, mind, word and deed. Why? Why does the heart dimension boosts my light punches, and mind boosts my heavy punches? It makes the game world lack some weight.
-The devs had done pretty good job researching the setting and including it in the game AFAIK. They've really tried to put as much of the early XX century Warsaw in the game as possible. On the other hand It don't think that the setting is a very excited one. You spent almost entirety of your adventure in a single city and fight random lowlives. To make it even more realistic most of the time you don't even fight to the death. You just get into random scuffles that could be cut from the game entirely.
-Salutors are rather unterutilized. Basically the entire idea behind the game is that wizard called Thaumaturges exists. They are able to control Salutors, which are spirits who can possess people with certain vices they're interested in. Thaumaturges are unique in that instead of being possessed by salutors like most people they learn to control them and even use them to affect minds of other people. Sounds intriguing but the game doesn't really do much with them. You can't fight salutors directly. When you challenge one you fight shadowy versions of some random people, while Salutors hang out off-screen and helps them with their abilities. There aren't any Wizard duels in the game, despite the fact that model already exists for some non-playable Salutors. Not only that, unlike actual ghosts (or Personas or Stands) salutors cannot affect physical environment most of the time. Which means that most of the interesting stuff happens just in people's heads.
-All of this would be forgivable if at least the writing was good. Alas, it's not really that great. The main plot is rather uninteresting. Most of the time nothing is really happening. You just walk around town, talk to an NPC, learn that you need to talk to a different NPC, go to that NPC, get bothered by random thugs, fight them and continue on your way. There are less than a dozen interesting events in the entire game. It's hard to overstate how uneventful the game is. It might be similar to Disco Elysium, but DI had a colorful cast of characters and a rather intriguing plot (at least before the ending). Here everything just feels bland. And most of the time it doesn't feel like there is any plot. Just a bunch of characters trying to do their stuff when an MC bumps into them.
-Instead of your typical morality slider you can either feed your pride or not. This locks you out of some choices and from what I've heard unlock others. A bit more interesting than your standard good boy/bad boy meter but like most other aspects rather undercooked. Despite being explicitly lined to heard dimension, feeding this flaw doesn't increase, nor does it have any effect in combat. If the sequel fleshed it out a bit, and for example made you choose between many different flaws and have these flaws actually take some effect outside of dialogues it would be a straight upgrade over current morality meters.
-Polish dubbing really adds to the game, at least if you're Polish.
Now some spoilers:
The plot feels really underwhelming on all fronts. None of the plot points feel connected to anything else. We help Abaurycy and the only thing he does it help us in one fight at the end. Rasputin is advancing his master plot in the background, and he only needs us to fake one miracle in a quest we are railoraded to do for him, even if we don't trust him at this point. Guess this can be explained by his quasi-mind control powers. Viktor's father death is just a result of revenge of a local Jew and isn't connected to anything else that happens in the game. Except to have the player look for a missing grimoire. The grimoireis held by Konechkin, who's not really involved in the plot and isn't really planning to use it for anything. He pops-up here and there and is then quickly disposed of. If you follow Coterie Rasputin's plan is only relevant because he wants to mindfuck Tzar at the same party as your completely unrelated mindfuck attempt.
A lot of the problems with under utilization of salutors and how mundane combat is rise from the setting of the game. Normal people can't perceive salutors at all. Only wizards can actually see the magic. So when a salutor rips and tears, that's not actually what's happening in the real world. And since wizards are so rare, by necessity 99% of enemy encounters have to be mundane.
The exception to this is the final boss who freely admits he doesn't really know how his own powers work and what he's doing is just hypnosis. It's just annoying when the supposed expert wizards don't understand how he manages it either.
The characterisation is odd. Wizard guy isn't political, yet the supposed main love interest is a militant socialist. Wizard guy just sort of drifts along, leaving most of the narrative directionless.
Or why do you demon to stop some enemies from reducing incoming damage by 80%. How do normal people deal with them? How can they even live around night-invincible hobos?
I dunno where I live that sounds like the leftist worldview. Lifting is gross, do some satanic (but still secular!) rituals instead, that's way cooler.
I actually had a pretty good time with the ending.
