That reminds me Halfgild: Did you modelled the chambers and the girls?

No, I did not. All the girls were made by one modeller, who modelled them through most of the development cycle.
As for the chambers - yeah, many of them. The chambers were made by two people. I was afraid even, that someone might notice that all of them were created by two different people, who worked in a slightly different manner.
Anyway, I knew the whole world's looks even before the original release.

Well it is enough to praise you anyway

Great job on the areas. I have never seen such emotion, depth and ambiance put into areas. It just proves you don't need fancy high tech thingamagigs to create the perfect ambiance or to convey an emotion.

(If you created the girls I would ask to have your babbies )

We had a concept artist, after all.

Props to him also, of course.

But I find both parts important. One thing is what you see on paper, another thing is how it is implemented on the computer screen.


But in the end, the whole team deserves a praise of the highest order, I just dispense them as you guys start posting in the English section

The review is based on a play-time of approx. 15 to 16 hours. I'm unsure if my colleague managed to play through the whole game in that scale of time, but he surely finished it for the gameplay-video

Concerning the screenshots: I will upload the PDF-File of the review tomorrow. With that you can check out which number represents which situation of the game.

Update: There you go - The Void Review from PC Games

Another german review:

German Version
Google Translated Version

This one got 70 (out of 100 I suppose) and I'm going to read it now.

Another good review. Thanks!

Just read it, and I'm begging to loose faith in game journalism...

Since when is game "not suitable to impacient people" a negative point??? Since when is "lengthy gameplay" and "slow start" negative points???


It feel that just because the game didn't came from a multi million euro production they must find new excuses to lower game score.

I agree: It certainly doesn't seem like a reason to lower the score. However, those are important points to mention because a lot of people out there simply don't have the patience for slow games, long games, difficult games, games with a noticeable learning curve... The reviewer had to 'warn' potential buyers about these things.

Perhaps it's more a problem of readers than reviewers. I think there are quite a few people out there who will blindly buy a game if their favourite review site gives it 80% or above, and won't buy anything with a lower rating. People often seem to pay more attention to the score than the words of the review. So perhaps the lower score is to save your average FPS fan from being confused and disappointed...?

I don't know. Regardless, from what I could tell through the smeared lens of Google translation, it was a fair and positive review, overall.

It was a positive review all in all, I must admit.

But still, one thing is to warn potential consumers out of learning curves and such, another is calling them cons.

What I think isn't right with reviews these days is exactly what you've just said — the reviews are written in a form that prevents people from leaving their niche, developing themselves, growing. Even if it's only games we're talking about. When one stops from learning something new, one starts to degrade and simply siezes to be of any interest.

Thus — not giving a negative hue to these actually neutral qualities (slow pace, steep difficulty curve, etc...) is a definitive plus in my book.

Also, there exists an opinion that a good review is one that is a subhective, authors POV review. This works for a lot of people that have tastes similar with the author and covers the maturing factor. If the author isn't a retard, naturally.

Now I sure hope, that people who don't know me, won't come here looking at the snobbish Ice-Pick Developer. That I'm not. ))

I agree. With Metacritic scores and quick pro/con lists, everything is geared to a format that requires the least amount of thought and effort from consumers. Why think for yourself and do your own research when a quick glance at Metacritic will tell you everything you need to know?
Very wise words.

Exactly! Though I should say I'm very happy with the German coverage at PC gamer. Even though they have these pro-/cons- tables too, the review was good.

Well, I blame consoles for the state of gaming journalism and a bit for the state of gaming (as opposed to hatting, which I don't)

Some of my favourites games of all time would not each reach A level today instead of the fabled AAA games today (where did that came from anyway).

Games like:

-Crusader: No Remorse, No Regret
-Rollcage
-Lemmings
-Another World
-Gods
-Flashback
-Shadow of the Beast
-Masters of Magic
-Star Control 2
-Chrono Cross
-etc
-etc
-etc

Would fail grandly due to the attention span of less than a goldfish most console gamers posses today. It is at those people that "Slow start" "Lengthy game", etc; are seen as cons in a review.


I'm not mad at the 70 per si, I think that is a good score, I'm just mad at the cons they had to came up with.

I restarted the game now two times, but somewhere between cycle 6 and 8 I'm running out of colors.
I'm really, really nerved up with this game and the only reason I haven't thrown it in into the trash can is the story, which I want to continue on.
Aren't there any ways to cheat some colors?

Instead of cheating, why not try these tips?

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=7494

Seems like rapidshare nuked the file (10 download limit or something).

Can anyone re upload? I'm curious

Nice try, dude.
I have allready scanned this whole forum and send a copy of it into my brain.
But as I already mentioned, I'm too nerved up to start the game over and over again.

Hello everyone.

I just registered to say: Thank you for this amazing game!

On a german forum I tried to present the game (pretty hard to do it without revealing secrets of the story while describing the gameplay elements ) and this is my conclusion (translated):

"I am very captivated by the game. The atmosphere that it is creating is unique and there are many new ideas in it. The biggest point of criticism (maybe the only one) is that "The Void" has a high level of difficulty. You have to listen to everything, to every detail and you will probably need to use the manual sometimes. I am pretty sure that there are only a few people who will beat the game on the first try.
Even if there is a kind of journal, it would not harm to use paper and pencil for taking some notes while playing to filter the most important things.
But honestly: This is missing in most other games nowadays. Normally the player is led through the whole game and even if it is a open-world game you always immediately know what to do. That you have to keep yourself busy with a game, that you have to spend much time in it to understand everything is very rare nowadays - but it is damn much fun. (This is what gaming really means to me.)
The story is also something completly new and it is fascinating. After playing some hours secrets will disclose and "The Void" gets even more suspenseful.
I can recommend the game to everyone, who brings some patience and who is up for a new gaming experience."

And some other things I wrote:
"The level design is a master piece."
"The game has nearly perfect (german) voice-over artists."
And I need to mention that I love the contrast between the "brothers" and "sisters".. and how they look.


I did not finish the game yet but I'm on the right way, I think.
Just ordered a copy of Pathologic. I am really curious about the game after watching the gameplay video on the DVD of The Void.

I'm looking forward to new projects.

Regards
Kabraxis

PS: Oh, in cycle 20 there was a bug, I think. I could not do anything in the garden of Yani - except for moving and opening the main menu. Pressing B, J, Ctrl or right mouse button... nothing works. I could not even leave the chamber.
Then I noticed that on the "map" there are shown other colors than there really were. But after in cycle 22 one of the brothers harvested the colors in the garden, everything was okay again.
And the game stucks sometimes while fighting the worm (always one or two seconds after the worm grabs a predator for the first time after entering).
But that's a minor matter.

And another one:

German
Google Translated

Ding ding:


German
Google Magic


The score keep getting lower with each review

I guess people have no sence of taste and couldn't see of a work of art if it bite them in the noose.

Right, I can't unterstand why they are criticizing things like controls or slow movement and fights.
Okay, some are slow but in others you have to run for your life.
Controls? Couldn't be easier in my view (after I've learned how to draw the first glyph).

Here(/translated) are three (including mine) "votes" of gamers, not of the media.
Average so far:

Singleplayer: 93%/100%
Graphics: 9/10
Sounds: 10/10
Controls: 9/10
Atmosphere: 10/10


And this is exactly how the game should have been rated.

Yup the glyphs are piss poor easy to draw, as long as you remember to draw large glyphs (my donor glyphs usually take up the whole screen.)


All in all I was expecting a better acceptance (press wise), but it seems we've been corrupted by shiny and shallow FPS in the last years. (See discussion a few posts back )

2KabraxisObliv: Nice! Thanks for posting these — it's rrather pleasant to see that we make gamers happy, not only game critics. By the way, somehow I think you'll like this: when you appear in the Adit after visiting the surface, go to the very bottom, where Ordalia is and draw a magnet glyph, a big one. You'll see why, if everything was done right.