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The Turing Test is downright incredible

Montresor

Member
The Turing Test was just released on XB1 and Steam. It will probably come out on PS4 at some point (don't know for sure). Anyway, it is quite possibly one of the best puzzle games I've ever played. It is an indie first-person puzzle game made by Bulkhead Interactive. This appears to be a new studio but under a different studio name, these same talented individuals made Pneuma Breath Of Life, another really good first-person puzzle game. This is a trailer for the game in case you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b6EE0V8NPM

+The game has the graphics, presentation, and visual eye candy of a AAA big budget, blockbuster game. The game is absolutely beautiful.

+ The game is a first-person puzzle game and the controls are sublime. When you don't have your energy/puzzle gun, running around sometimes causes your gloved-spacesuit hands to wave around, as if to brace the main character, which is a nice touch. When you do have your energy/puzzle gun, anything to do with aiming, jumping, running, etc... feels very responsive.

+The game is dripping in attention to detail. Whenever you finish a block of 10 puzzles, you take a "breather" so to speak, and enter a narrative-focused room/area that often has neat story-related documents, audio logs, and objects to investigate. And later on, you perform some "non-first-person-perspective" puzzles in which you can observe the main character - and she is intricately designed. Despite being an FPS game, in these latter parts of the game you can see that the main character's astronaut suit looks impressive and really detailed.

+Wonderful puzzles that treat the player with respect - you are never told what to do. When you enter a puzzle room, it's up to you to carefully examine your surroundings and find the most intelligent way to resolve the room.

+Clever puzzle design for any mechanic the player has never seen before. When the game wants to introduce a new mechanic, it presents it to the player (with no dialogue, hints, or on-screen instructions) in a very, very simplistic, short, easy-to-solve puzzle room. That initial puzzle room teaches the player the new mechanic, and then that new mechanic gets incorporated into much more difficult and sophisticated puzzles later on.

+ Intriguing and interesting storyline and dialogue that touches upon some fascinating subjects, with respect to biology and AI. I loved entering a new puzzle room because every new puzzle room has a few lines of dialogue between Tom (AI running the facility) and Ava Turing (main character) with meaningful discussion about AI/biology subjects, like The Chinese Room, The Turing Test, etc... And a lot of the audio logs and documents touch upon those subjects (and the idea of The Imitation Game). I've done extra reading into the subject thanks to this game.

+Great voice acting from everyone in the cast, from the main character Ava Turing, to Tom (the AI that controls the facility in-game), to the side characters (Ava Turing's colleagues/astronauts).

+ Fantastic soundtrack reminiscent of the movie Moon. This game takes place on an installation on the moon Europa (and Europa orbits the gigantic planet Jupiter). You're (nearly) alone on a cold, lonely, desolate, quiet, snowy landscape. And the soundtrack elicits the same kind of desolate loneliness that the movie Moon had. Awesome, soothing music with just the right amount of bass and tranquility during puzzle solving.

-You have to push the button X on the XB1 controller to climb up any ladder (minor nitpick)
-Load times in the game are horrendous
-There are some minor frame rate drops but for the most part the game ran perfectly fine for me
-Some audio logs were difficult to hear and had no subtitles
 

GHG

Gold Member
Thanks for the write up OP.

I wishlisted this when it popped up on Steam the other day as I thought it looked interesting. Looks like user impressions of it have been very good so far.
 

McBacon

SHOOTY McRAD DICK
I like this game a lot but it is incredibly easy, in my opinion. I'm at chapter 6 and haven't even been close to stuck - whereas games like Talos Principle had me stumped.

Even the optional puzzles have, so far, been cakewalks.

Lovely vibe though, even if the story is a bit like a Neil deGrasse Tyson quote on a picture of a galaxy. have you guys heard of SCIENCE?!
 

Montresor

Member
I like this game a lot but it is incredibly easy, in my opinion. I'm at chapter 6 and haven't even been close to stuck - whereas games like Talos Principle had me stumped.

Even the optional puzzles have, so far, been cakewalks.

Lovely vibe though, even if the story is a bit like a Neil deGrasse Tyson quote on a picture of a galaxy. have you guys heard of SCIENCE?!

You're right the game is definitely a bit on the easy side but I still felt really, really good when I solved some of the game's more sophisticated puzzles.

Did you end up doing Optional Puzzle 6? That puzzle took me 45 minutes - I solved it on my own and it felt sooooo satisfying. That puzzle involves logical/boolean operators, and you literally have to solve a bunch of AND, OR, NAND, and XOR puzzles. Once it dawned on me what the developers wanted me to do, I was in awe.
 
Thanks OP. I enjoyed Pneuma so I will check this out when it comes to PS4. I think this is also the same developer who's making that WWII FPS from Kickstarter aren't they? I can't remember the name but I'm sure it's similar to Battlefield.
 

Stoze

Member
My thoughts from the other thread;

I finished it, really good stuff. Comparing it to other first person puzzlers, I think it's a cut above something like Q.U.B.E. in pretty much every aspect, and I liked that game. It may not be up there with the greats but I think it's definitely worthy of more attention.

There's some really well designed puzzles in here, despite staying pretty simplistic from start to end ala Portal. That's in part because there are little mechanics introduced fairly frequently to keep things fresh, along with a major one that really livens things up. The presentation of it and how it ties into the story is really cool as well. There's very little line of sight tinkering and the object manipulation doesn't get too busy like it did in The Talos Principle.

That said there were a handful of puzzles that felt like they weren't as tightly designed. They sometimes give you more tools than you need, as I would find some solutions quickly without using a lot of the stuff in the level and without abusing physics jank. I kind of breezed through puzzles in the last couple chapters because of it.

The story was entertaining to follow in a sci-fi b-movie way, though at times I'm not sure if that's what they were going for. As I mentioned some of it is clever in terms of it's presentation and how it works in game play, but it's certainly not subtle or well written. I had fun with it though.

Lastly, almost all the optional puzzles are brilliant, they kind of blow the regular puzzles out of the water. I wish there were more, but that would probably knock off some of their novelty.

I didn't mention this but in terms of visuals it is a nice looking game, but they really overdo it on some of the post processing, like god damn there are some blinding lens flares in here. Still it's nice to see all these U4 engine indies coming out looking good and running well for the most part.

It definitely scratches that itch for first person puzzle fans, at least it did for me.
 
Lovely vibe though, even if the story is a bit like a Neil deGrasse Tyson quote on a picture of a galaxy. have you guys heard of SCIENCE?!

I plan on getting this game at some point because the buzz has been really positive, but I must admit that this is kind of a turnoff. Is it really obnoxious?
 

epmode

Member
I like what I played so far. Only problem is that the mouse inversion is all banged up, and it applies to objects and in-universe interfaces that it shouldn't. Like, you have to move your mouse up to choose the next option down on some computer terminals.

I'll be back as soon as it's patched.

I didn't mention this but in terms of visuals it is a nice looking game, but they really overdo it on some of the post processing, like god damn there are some blinding lens flares in here. Still it's nice to see all these U4 engine indies coming out looking good and running well for the most part.

They could really use a chromatic aberration toggle. You can remove it by lowering post-processing but I think you'll take away other effects at the same time.
 
I saw this on Steam and it looked really, really awesome. Thanks for the write up. I might pick it up after my vacation this weekend.
 

Calmine

Member
Had the chance to play at gamescom. It's really good and I didn't realise it came out. Definitely going to pick up. Also chatted with one of the devs who said it was great working on it. They're also the same devs working on Battalion 1944 which I'm very much looking forward to.
 

Stoze

Member
They could really use a chromatic aberration toggle. You can remove it by lowering post-processing but I think you'll take away other effects at the same time.

Yep. First thing I did after the intro area was try to turn post-processing off because of the CA, but then everything looked way worse. So at least the good outweighs the bad, imo.
 

bidguy

Banned
You're right the game is definitely a bit on the easy side but I still felt really, really good when I solved some of the game's more sophisticated puzzles.

Did you end up doing Optional Puzzle 6? That puzzle took me 45 minutes - I solved it on my own and it felt sooooo satisfying. That puzzle involves logical/boolean operators, and you literally have to solve a bunch of AND, OR, NAND, and XOR puzzles. Once it dawned on me what the developers wanted me to do, I was in awe.

that sounds sweet

did you play on xbone or pc ? how does it look on the bone ?
 

Ozium

Member
i'm hearing mixed and so-so reviews from steamgaf and since it's by the people who made pneuma breath of life I can believe them
 

4jjiyoon

Member
yeah it's a really good game. the puzzles had me stumped near the end though. had to sit back and a have a hard think. story was pretty interesting too. found this video showing the first 15 minutes of it so there are minimal spoilers for people who haven't taken the plunge yet. looks like it runs great on pc for the pc gamers who are interested. i played it on xbox one.
 
Eurogamer praised it as well.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-08-30-the-turing-test-review

Best of all, its themes start to blend with the ideas that emerge through the puzzles themselves, via sacrifice, say, or instances in which the only thing to do seems implausibly low-tech and slightly stupid. Throw in the moment-to-moment revelations that are beautifully crafted into each individual challenge, and you have something quite special. The Turing Test may look austere but there is a wonderful wit and warmth to the way it's been constructed. It's very - what's the word? - human.
 

Sloane

Banned
Thanks for the impressions, to me it looked like ADR1FT without the dr1fting and with an even worse title. Might check it out now.
 

Montresor

Member
that sounds sweet

did you play on xbone or pc ? how does it look on the bone ?

Played it on XB1. Looks superb. Some frame rate issues but they were rare for me.

I plan on getting this game at some point because the buzz has been really positive, but I must admit that this is kind of a turnoff. Is it really obnoxious?


I'm not sure what was meant by the Neil Degrasse Tyson comment but I found nothing obnoxious about the game's themes.
 
I just cashed in about $15 of credit from bing rewards. May as well buy this...have heard good things from this thread and one of my friends who purchased it and beat it
 

gdt

Member
So I just bought this game on PC.....and it defaults the audio to my Oculus Rift lol. Any way to stop that?
 

Cajun

Neo Member
Finished the game up yesterday, and while I enjoyed it, I found it far too easy. They introduce some interesting mechanics, and create one neat step in a puzzle around them, but never bring them to full potential. Even as far as the last 2 chapters in the game, I found myself, randomly walking around plugging in energy cells, thinking "was that the intended solution?" as opposed to the "yes finally, I'm a genius," often brought about from comparable games.

The
Boolean Logic
optional puzzle was cool, but the final solution left me with the same feeling. Solution spoilers:
At first I thought I had to free up blue orbs with the pulsating ones to solve the final step, but you can just grab them straight from the initial row of solutions because the devs don't prevent you from dropping straight to the final door from the last puzzle. I used pulsating orbs in my solution but afaik you don't even need to bother with them, which imo is huge missed potential, which really sums up how I felt about a majority of the puzzles.

As far as story, performance, world-building goes, it's all certainly passable. The main plot device of the story,
the extremophile life found on Europa
, is very interesting stuff for a Sci-Fi story. All-in-all, Id say the 75 metacritic is pretty spot-on, and it's definitely a step up from Pneuma Breath of Life. If the studio continues to improve like this, I'll be very interested in what they put out next.
 
I saw it advertised a few places and it looked really neat. I wasn't sure if iy was worth taking the plunge for, though. But after all that praise I'm going to def consider it more heavily.
 

CSX

Member
On chapter 4. Enjoying it so far but im starting to lose interest in it. Not having that urge to play long stints with it. Agree that the visuals, audio, and TOM's voice are fantastic
 

Drain You

Member
Saw this in the Xbox one shop and had heard nothing about it, but it had me intrigued. Might check it out tonight after reading these good impressions.
 

dralla

Member
Looks cool but I'm not much of a puzzle game person. I couldn't get into Talos Principle at all. I'd try it if it went on sale as I think the aesthetic is nice and I think I'd like the setting
 

~Kinggi~

Banned
Looks cool but I'm not much of a puzzle game person. I couldn't get into Talos Principle at all. I'd try it if it went on sale as I think the aesthetic is nice and I think I'd like the setting

Talos was god-tier gaming so if you didnt like that you arent gonna be into this.
 

Jackpot

Banned
I didn't find it that hot. Many of the puzzles were just busy-work. There was no enjoyment or satisfaction from solving them a la Portal. It was more like when an FPS game inserts a puzzle section to slow things down.

Thematically it didn't do anything new either and ends like a wet fart.
 

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
I like it but not nearly as much as the OP does. It's fun but unwisely invites direct comparison to Portal, which is not a comparison it comes out of well. The breadcrumbs of conversation are weirdly broken up in a way normal people wouldn't separate out their speech, making it feel extremely "gamey." The story environment spaces are extremely detailed and believable, but they're separated by miles of devious puzzle design that we're apparently supposed to believe is part of this installation, built by the crew for defense or something? On top of that the puzzles are all variants on "put energy thing into door lock," without many other toys or tools to play with. While it's a good game, it exists firmly in the shadow of Portal, by its own choice.

So I just bought this game on PC.....and it defaults the audio to my Oculus Rift lol. Any way to stop that?

Go into the settings in SteamVR and uncheck "Start SteamVR when an application starts" under the Developer section.
 

Karak

Member
I didn't find it that hot. Many of the puzzles were just busy-work. There was no enjoyment or satisfaction from solving them a la Portal. It was more like when an FPS game inserts a puzzle section to slow things down.

Thematically it didn't do anything new either and ends like a wet fart.

Ya felt the same. Ok game for sure but not too noteworthy.
 

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
How does it compare to The Talos Principle and The Witness? I feel it's going to be tough to hang with those two games.

The Talos Principle is much better. I didn't like The Witness much but it definitely had more of its own identity than Turing Test does.
 
So I was interested in this game and about to buy it last week from the other thread but backed down for Bow due to work but this
+ Fantastic soundtrack reminiscent of the movie Moon.

- has made it very, very difficult to resist. I fucking love that soundtrack.
 

gdt

Member
Almost done with chapter 2 I think. Just did the optional puzzle there.

Digging the hell out of this, though admittedly more for the vibe right now. Gorgeous game and amazing music.
 

Catdaddy

Member
Picked this up yesterday after clicking on my Xbox sidebar to see who the woman in the space helmet was. Read the description and looked up some reviews/impressions and immediately went in and bought it. In the middle of Chapter 3 and so far enjoying the game, the puzzles aren’t all that tough (at least so far), but very enjoyable. I didn’t know about the optional puzzles, so will have to go back and check that out. The over presentation of the game is excellent and so far a nice narrative.

My only gripes are load times and had one non-crash had around a minute of freezing when moving into a new puzzle. If I had to nitpick, the appearance of the rooms is to pristine – as in the base has really really good maid service, it almost looks like no one lives there at all. I don’t need the dilapidated appearance that SOMA had but something a little more non-sterile. Nonetheless – still looks great…
 

Parsnip

Member
Here's what I thought about it and posted on Steam thread.

Finished The Turing Test.
It's okay. The puzzles aren't super hard and I think I broke a few of them by solving them in ways not intended. They do introduce a some additions to the mechanics along the way, but it all gets a bit samey.
The story, well. I suppose it's not terrible. Kind of predictable from start to finish, I was hoping that they would throw some kind of wrench in there at some point but no such luck. If you are at all familiar with other AI stories, it treads through some very familiar stuff without giving it any kind of flavor of its own.
The principal characters are generally well acted, can't say the same about some of the audio log guys.
Graphically it looks nice. There's very little environmental variation but the white hallways and test chambers look pretty good for the most part.


I wonder if at some point in dev the game was something a bit different. There are sections in-between chapters where you are essentially Gone Homing around some areas picking up objects, rotating them and then placing them down, but aside from few text logs and such, there's very little reason to actually do any of that.
 
Sounds cool but I feel like the witness took puzzles games to a whole different level that no one will match for a while. A short simple puzzle game is not as enticing anymore.
 

gdt

Member
Almost done I think. Story has taken an expected turn but boy is the path it took interesting.
 

Montresor

Member
Almost done I think. Story has taken an expected turn but boy is the path it took interesting.

Cool! Nice to see you're enjoying it, bruv.

I'm really encouraged by all the posts saying The Witness is so great (especially the ones saying The Witness blows away The Turing Test). The Witness is coming out soon on XB1 so I'm going to be pre-order it as soon as I can.
 
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