Hey. Time for a little shameless self-promotion! Because Ice-Pick are such cool dudes, I got a review copy of the English version to get my teeth into. Being the aspiring word-writey-type I am, I'm doing a series of play diaries of my first few days in The Void.

Check them out at my blog:
http://www.thegamelessplayed.com - Feel free to comment, suggest stuff or just heckle, if you're so inclined.

Once I've actually beaten the thing (hopefully before the game is released), I'll be doing a full review. I really quite like what I've played so far, and am quite impressed with the quality of the translation and voicework.

Thats a great idea Dominic!

If you need anything else let me know...

Jason - Mamba Games - Commercial Director

Good work

If you made it to end doing that, it will match my video play though, only with words

Ha, at the rate I'm going, I don't think I'm going to get to the end without restarting. I only plan on doing a handfull of these diaries to give people a feel for how the game works. I'll probably deliberately crash and burn somewhere into the second 'chapter'.

Not that there'd be much difference beween how I'm doing now and a deliberate fail, either.

Failure is the path to enlightenment


I almost forgot, welcome to the forums

Wouldn't mind seeing someone else fail so I could avoid that particular brand of enlightenment, but I guess I'll just improvise.

Any tips on the first 'trial' set by the Brothers, though? I don't seem to be able to find what I'm looking for in the first mine, and haven't opened up anything but the first four chambers. A quick look at your longplay videos shows that a LOT has changed between the original Russian release and the new one.

Oh, and one other question - I heard the original version had multiple endings, although one of them may have been cut. Does the english version have plot-altering choices to make later on?

Hum...

Ok for first things first. I suspect you are talking about the mine quest. If so, go the only mine you have available and look for patches of colour embedded in the walls and/or floors of the chamber. When you find them just use Expose on them.


Hum... hard question. There isn't any plot altering decisions per se. You get to pick which which ending you wouldn't like in the end, but some decision early on the game can block certain endings. In the end, the decision is fairly open and let up to you to choose, nothing is forced onto you.

Dominic: You should see some pulsating patches of Colour in the walls of the mine. Look around for them - They're probably in the two walls that stretch along either side of you when you enter (before you get to the long sets of steps). Also, if you put your mouse over the map location before entering the mine, the diagram will show you which colours are there, so you'll know what to look out for. You'll need the 'Expose' glyph to crack open the rock, and then the 'Extract' glyph to get the Colour out. You'll receive hints on how to get them.

[EDIT: I was writing this at the same time as Throdax, obviously ]

Weird. I just spent half an hour searching for the slightest bit of discolouration on those walls. I'll give it one last poke, see if I can't spot anything.

I DID find the secret area in there, though. Wonder if that has any more significance later in the plot...

Edit: I feel like I'm going blind here - I've walked up and down those paths twenty times now, slowly, looking for ANYTHING that looks like the glowing patches in the tutorial video for the Expose glyph. Nothing!

I get the feeling I'm doing something stupid and/or wrong.

Weird.

I had no problem finding them in both versions. Don't look only in the middle paths, in the russian version I found some in the tower itself and in the stairs that lead to where the heart used to be.

They can be small sometimes -_-

Alright, that is really weird. In the German release, there was a bug that meant these areas didn't show up on ATI cards if you were using antialiasing. But it's been fixed now. Still might be worth switching it off temporarily, just in case...?

Aah, I DO have an ATI card. I'll try disabling AA and see if that changes anything.

Edit: Yep, that did it! They're bright as day now. They literally weren't there are all with AA on. Perhaps the review copies that got sent out have the same software build as the german version, and not the final UK/US gold master?

For anyone at Ice-Pick who it might help, the 'date modified' on the EXE in this version is 26/05/2009, and I'm running an ATI 4850HD 512mb, using the very latest drivers (updated about a week ago), and I'm on Windows 7 64bit. If the final English build is a later version, that should be fine. If not, there's still a bug there that needs fixing.

Bug-wise, I've also noticed a couple of random '?'s in text, including the name of one Sister and in a bit of dialogue from Echo. If those aren't bugs, then I apologize.

Sorry Dominic - I should've mentioned that issue earlier. Glad the problem is solved, though (at least in a workaround fashion)!

Alright, updated my diary with Cycles 2-5.

http://www.thegamelessplayed.com/2009/1 ... -to-5.html

I'll probably do another 3-4 of these before completing the game properly and jumping into the review. Hopefully I can do all that before the UK release date.

What do you think so far?

Fun, although heavy going. It's definitely reminiscent of the very first Freescape-style 3D adventures I played like Castle Master and Driller, where you're really not expected to win the first time, and the first couple of tries are spent getting a feel for what works, what doesn't, and just what exactly can get you killed.

It's vague and abstract (almost frustratingly so at times) but it fits perfectly with the atmosphere.