I realize that a sequel probably flies in the face of Ice-Pick Lodge's philosophy, but The Void was easily the most beautiful and aesthetically pleasing game I've ever played (Homeworld and Sins of a Solar Empire come close, however); I always looked forward to seeing what tortured Sister and equally twisted environment awaited me in each chamber. To see Ice-Pick Lodge flex their level art and character design muscles in that vein again would be utterly fantastic.

Give up your hope, as far as I remember IPL stated clearly long ago, that they will never make sequels or share an SDK :C

Evidence in late Spring suggests that Cargo! may actually be a direct sequence to The Void.

A continuance of themes and ideas would be great no matter whether it isa direct sequel or not.

As long as Ice-Pick keep making interesting and challenging titles then I'll be happy to support them and sing their praises even though as a whole the games industry is increasingly diving further into the gutter.

Could you elaborate on that? Just interested to hear your opinion (if you don't mind )

This is overly generalising in some cases - to me though when I look at what is currently available be it via physical or download release even more so than ever it feels like the same recycled themes, styles and mechanics with little experimentation are being relied on, bit odd to be posting this on Ice-Pick's forum as they are bucking that trend. Yet for the most part I look at what is out there and find myself less and less interested in buying, when I check gog.com or find a neglected corner of a store with a treasure trove of older titles then I find something to be interested in.

Smaller independent pieces are pushing boundaries but overall at least to me it does feel that games are stagnating in the majority of cases, when I see yet another Call of Duty or another bland same generic fantasy MMORPG I can only groan and go rooting around for my copy of Deus Ex or Darwinia. Either that or look for releases like Christine Love's work, not a game developer per se but perhaps that has it's advantages. Also has provided me with games to play that were intelligent, moving and something that I would want to reccomend and encourage other people to play.

The risk averse sequel dependent mindset of the industry really doesn't help that image either. Increasingly intrusive and limiting digital rights measures do little to avert the apathy that I feel when I see new title announcements, mind you they are saving me a considerable amount of money and the steady reduction in the longevity of games is also a mark against.

The independant sector is more important than ever, I'm just hoping that it continues to inovate and create titles that you can be enthusiastic over and want to encourage others to play, as for me, the larger publishers and developers - it feels like the same old formula being unceremoniously regurgitated along with day of release DLC and two fingers up at the player.

As long as Ice-Pick keep going I'll have some hope though.

As long as there's still debate just as on this forum then I'll be happy.

''When you paint a masterpiece, you don't then continue to paint it until it is a smeer of what it once was''
- Me....32seconds ago.

I don't buy modern software either... (except for the occasional Indie)

The Void 2: Survive inside of the head of a manic depressive artists - can you bring stability or will you starve or will you drown in the by-products of colour?

In retrospect my main complaint regarding the Void is the lack of a 'hinterland' to each map. I really enjoyed the 'wandering' aspect of Pathologic. In the Void you end up coming into a scene quite close to your objective, and while some of the levels are a bit bigger, they could really do with being three or four times the size (even if they were a bit simpler). As a result, the secrets are packed in very close with the main game elements of a level, one can escape most enemies simply through simply running through the level (and back out to safety) and there is no sense of a transition between the wildly different artistic themes in each level. Even making the different portals in a level go in different directions (ie. allow leaving a drop on the map from a different side) would force one to walk through the levels and take more routes than one might otherwise.

The result is that a lot of the gameplay takes place on the 'overland' game map, and involves optimising collecting and distributing colour (with the player just avoiding 'screwing up' when in the game's levels).

I'd love to have another wandering game, with immersive, reasonably subtle and larger than life environments. Pathologic itself was a bit of a contradiction - it involved wandering (with resource management), along with a novel like plot line and an artistic environment. In some ways the elements contradicted - I want to wander the beautiful streets (and find some way to live), while I also wanted to wander the beautiful streets and advance the plot line.

So nothing is perfect. However, I'd love to see a re-release of Pathologic with the new translation and a few tweaks to gameplay (eg. having the player collapse if health gets too low - but be rescued and nursed back to health - but with a massive drop in reputation as the 'doctor is sick'). Another example would be to slow time slightly, but have the player's reputation drop if they don't spend a certain amount of time on 'clinic duty'. This would bring reputation into the world of 'ethical players', while giving the player a chance to trade it for a few minutes of extra time (to meet that nefarious midnight quest deadline). There are actually only half-a-dozen cases where a few additional scripts could soften and further balance the gameplay (without changing the balance and dynamics).