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Vessel |OT| The Future Has Arrived

F

Family Fry

Member
0fCV8.jpg


RELEASE DATE
March 1st 2012
PURCHASE NOW DIRECT! Via developers and save 10% for launch week, DRM free copy and Steam Unlock Key.

PLATFORMS
cJKPP.jpg

PC STEAM DEMO PAGE
PC STEAM FULL GAME PAGE

XBLA Autumn 2012
PSN Autumn 2012

PRICE
The game will recieve 10% off for launch week, 1st-8th March.
13,99€/12,59€
£11.99/£10.79
$14.99/$13.49

Following is to highlight advice given by Wok for EU buyers (also if your in UK $13.49 roughly works out at about £9, still saves you a few more pennies) if you buy via the developers link above you get DRM free copy of the game AND you still get steam key.

Wok said:
In Europe, Vessel is sold on Steam with a 10% discount, which makes it worth 12,59€ since the initial price is 13,99€.

However, if you go on the official website, you can buy a Steam key from the Humble Bundle Store with the same 10% discount, but in dollars. As the price is $13.49, with paypal foreign exchange, this makes the game worth 10,46€.

Although there is still a difference of 0,34€ with the true converted price, due to paypal forex fees, this makes the discount 25% for European buyers.
Click to expand...

DEVELOPER

Strange Loop Games

PUBLISHER



OFFICIAL GAME TRAILER



60 FPS VIDEO TRAILER
http://private.strangeloopgames.com/Vessel Trailer.mp4

DEVELOPER WALKTHROUGH



NEWS

March 1st

Vessel has been released.

"After more than 3 long years, our journey in creating Vessel has today reached it’s conclusion – or rather, it’s beginning. Vessel is officially launched!"

http://www.strangeloopgames.com/vessel-is-released/

24th February 2012

Featured in-game soundtrack from Jon Hopkins.

“award nominated musician and creator of the ‘Monsters’ soundtrack, as well as being internationally renowned for his production and collaborative work with artists like Brian Eno, Coldplay, and Imogen Heap.”
"Vessel will have 10 tracks of Jon’s music, which we are dynamically remixing as you play the game using a custom music engine. As you play through the puzzles the music will change as you get through each step."

http://www.strangeloopgames.com/vessel-will-feature-a-music-soundtrack-by-jon-hopkins/

THE STORY

Living liquid machines have overrun this world of unstoppable progress, and it is the role of their inventor M. Arkwright, to stop the chaos they are causing. Vessel is a game about a man with the power to bring ordinary matter to life, and all the consequences that ensues.

The Future Has Arrived.

With M. ARKWRIGHT’S invention of the liquid automaton FLURO, civilization as we know it has been TRANSFORMED.

Not an industry is left that does not employ FLURO WORKERS in its operations. Their work is FLAWLESS, their efforts TIRELESS, and in the event of industrial accident, their forms REPLACEABLE.

Through use of M. Arkwright’s patented TURBINE invention, Fluro creation is UNRESTRAINED, flexible enough to bring ANIMATION to absolutely ANY LIQUID. The INFINITE ADAPTABILITY of these life-like machines make them a force greater even than NATURE HERSELF.

With the PHENOMENAL SUCCESS of this invention, ALL EYES are on M. Arkwright as he prepares his next great invention, a BUILDING-SIZED creation of UNKNOWN PURPOSE, known only as THE ACCELERATOR.

JOIN US as we venture into this new ago of LIMITLESS WONDER and POSSIBILITY, and enter the world of VESSEL.


GAMEPLAY

Liquid Gameplay to be precise, Vessel is built on an optimised Liquid simulation that features flowing water, lava and steam, reactant chemicals, glowing goo, the mysterious ‘protoplasm’, and more. Each liquid has its own unique property, which can be mixed with others for dramatic effects.

There are also puzzle elements within, required by mixing the properties of the Florus with the liquid they are created from. Every aspect of the world is physically simulated, and all puzzles are based in this liquid simulation. For instance drop a ‘Drinker Fluro’ and lure him by spraying Goo. Create a ‘Dark Fluro’ and chase him with light. Liquid and physics are not an aesthetic in Vessel, but a foundation of gameplay.


THE INVENTION REPORTS
Reports of progress from inventor M. Arkwright.

INVENTION REPORT #1

Inventor: M. Arkwright

Device: The Fluro
4cuPf.jpg


Description: Labour performing automaton composed of liquid.
Purpose: To perform tasks cheaper and faster than human counterparts.
Hazards-
*Possibility of Fluros performing undesired tasks.
*Possibility of unlimited self-replication.
*Theoretical chance of evolution (very unlikely)

INVENTION REPORT #2

Inventor: M. Arkwright

Device: Seeds
WYtHZ.jpg


Purpose: Portable creation of ‘Fluro’ liquid creatures.
Origin: Created from Fluro samples taken in the field.
Notes: Production limited only by liquid supply.
Hazards: Possible unforeseen effects on surrounding liquid.

INVENTION REPORT #3 ‘The Accelerator’
Coming Soon….

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
OS: Windows 7/Vista/XP
Processor: Dual Core 2.0Ghz or equivalent processor
Memory: 2GB System RAM
Hard Drisc Space: 1.5Gb
Video Card: ATi Radeon HD 2400 of NVIDIA GeForce 7600 or better (Shader Model 3.0 needs to be supported)
Direct X: 9.0c
Sound: Direct X Compatible

WALLPAPER

If you like the main cover artwork here are the wallpapers for you, direct from developers..

WALLPAPER 1
WALLPAPER 2
WALLPAPER 3

REVIEWS

RPS Review
"Vessel is contained in a beautiful world, full of creations that deserve to be seen, experienced and solved."

This is my First OT/Thread, eek.
Game is out March 1st (2 days) and it will be well worth a look, 3 years in the making and many IGF nominations later we will finally be able to play the finished product. Mixture of physics puzzles, platforming, wonderful soundtrack by Jon Hopkins and the beautiful 2D/3D art visuals will make for a great experience.

Thanks to Strange Loop Games, Steam sites for some of the words, art and pictures, enjoy.
 
S

ShaneB

Member
It looks really interesting and plenty of fun, and the art style is charming and really wonderful. It's definitely on my radar to play sometime.
 
F

Family Fry

Member
Developers said..
"We’ve actually had Jon’s music in the game under a temporary license for the entire length of development (3 years)"
Which would have been 2009, same time Jon Hopkins' Vessel came out. Maybe they were fans and wanted it for the game since they both shared the name Vessel.
 
F

Family Fry

Member
Well the pre-order does give you an instant steam key, I just put it up cause it was on the site. As I said there will no doubt be 10% via Steam, always seems to be now for first week of smaller indie releases.
 
M

mclem

Member
Like the art style of the physics engine, but something about the grassy scenes isn't working for me. Too oversaturated, maybe?
 
G

Greyvvolf

Member
I remember seeing a video of this game a while ago and it looked really interesting. I didn't know this game was releasing so soon. This might be an impulse buy for me now. Good job on the OT, Family Fry.
 
S

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
Steam had a 60fps video up (briefly) and it looked incredible. I also had a chance to play it at PAX. Really looking forward to this one.
 
F

Family Fry

Member
Added 60fps video.
Oh and asked dev on twitter about Demo, Demo will ship on Steam March 1st people.
So will be able to try before you buy.
 
Wok

Wok

Member
In Europe, Vessel is sold on Steam with a 10% discount, which makes it worth 12,59€ since the initial price is 13,99€.

However, if you go on the official website, you can buy a Steam key from the Humble Bundle Store with the same 10% discount, but in dollars. As the price is $13.49, with paypal foreign exchange, this makes the game worth 10,46€.

Although there is still a difference of 0,34€ with the true converted price, due to paypal forex fees, this makes the discount 25% for European buyers.
 
E

epmode

Member
I bought this sight unseen (aside from that 60 FPS video). I find myself buying all sorts of strange games at $15 or less but I just can't bring myself to buy a new game at $60, no matter what it is.
 
F

Family Fry

Member
Leon Belmont said:
And what's the lenght of this game?
Click to expand...

Dev quote

"We’ve been trying to figure out how long Vessel is, and determined it really varies. We’re guessing it’s going to be about 10 solid hours of gameplay, all challenging puzzles and no filler or repeated sequences."

Have updated thread with some new information and added advice given by Wok, I'm off to finally play the game.
 
L

Leon Belmont

Member
Family Fry said:
Dev quote

"We’ve been trying to figure out how long Vessel is, and determined it really varies. We’re guessing it’s going to be about 10 solid hours of gameplay, all challenging puzzles and no filler or repeated sequences."

Have updated thread with some new information and added advice given by Wok, I'm off to finally play the game.
Click to expand...

Thx Fry, I'll buy it! :D
 
E

epmode

Member
OK so this does the awesome IMUSE style interactive music thing. God I love games that do the awesome IMUSE-style interactive music thing.

And I like the integrated tutorial so far. No text, just easy puzzles to show you how stuff works.
 
S

SparkTR

Member
Very little discussion on this game, it looks interesting but at $14 I'd love to hear some impression before I buy.
 
E

epmode

Member
GAF, I do not understand why you aren't playing this one.

The puzzles are clever
The liquid tech is fun
The screens may not be super-impressive but it looks very good in motion
LOVELY INTERACTIVE MUSIC (kind of like the way Portal 2's soundtrack behaves)

I'm still only ~2 hours in but it really seems like something special.
 
S

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
epmode said:
GAF, I do not understand why you aren't playing this one.

The puzzles are clever
The liquid tech is fun
The screens may not be super-impressive but it looks very good in motion
LOVELY INTERACTIVE MUSIC (kind of like the way Portal 2's soundtrack behaves)

I'm still only ~2 hours in but it really seems like something special.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but it's a PC exclusive indie game. What were you expecting around here?
 
M

Micerider

Member
Played the demo and I am very interested by the game now.

The game looks really good, with a fantastic design.

The game mechanics and the concept are very interesting and could lead to some clever puzzle/platform sequence.

I will just wait for review (or some fellow GAFers with a full version completed) to :

1) confirm that the game is technically stable (the game runs fine, but I had some weird occurences of "slow-mo" in the section with the flowing "river" in the cave.

2) Confirm that the game is sufficiently lengthy to worth the price of admission (I'd expect more than 10 hours).

3) To confirm that, level-design wise, they have managed to expend on the initial game mechanic and concept with a bit of variety.

One to watch! This thread should catch the attention of more hopefully
 
W

wutwutwut

Member
Micerider said:
1) confirm that the game is technically stable (the game runs fine, but I had some weird occurences of "slow-mo" in the section with the flowing "river" in the cave.
Click to expand...
I needed to lower the res slightly on my laptop, but otherwise it runs at a smooth 60 fps.

I've encountered a couple of bugs though -- I worked around them locally and sent the devs a bug report. They said it should be fixed in a patch coming out on Monday.

Note that if you've played the demo then select "Continue" from the menu the first time you play the full version, you'll skip a bunch of puzzles that aren't in the demo. To avoid that, select New Game at the start. I understand this will be fixed in Monday's patch.

2) Confirm that the game is sufficiently lengthy to worth the price of admission (I'd expect more than 10 hours).
Click to expand...
The game's pretty long. I've spent 7 hours on it so far and solved around 2/3rd of the game, I think. The way the puzzles are structured is pretty interesting -- each area has a linear succession of easy puzzles which you need to solve to progress. They're meant to get you used to any new mechanics. Somewhere along the line, you start encountering hard puzzles which you can ignore for a while and walk past (like in Braid). The hard puzzles are not a joke -- I've been having serious trouble, needing to spend above 20 minutes, on quite a few of the puzzles so far (for comparison, I breezed through Braid).

You need to solve most of the hard puzzles to complete an area, but you can skip one per area. So the first area has 9 hard puzzles, of which you need to do any 8. If you do all the puzzles in an area you're rewarded, of course.

Each area also has a final bit -- so far it's been one boss "fight" and one relatively easy puzzle.

3) To confirm that, level-design wise, they have managed to expend on the initial game mechanic and concept with a bit of variety.
Click to expand...
Yes. Easily.

TL;DR: buy this game.
 
S

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
The demo wasn't too intellectually demanding, but it showed a few glimmers of brilliance. The lack of excessive hand holding is refreshing. Do the hard puzzles seem cleverly designed when you solve them?
 
W

wutwutwut

Member
SapientWolf said:
The demo wasn't too intellectually demanding, but it showed a few glimmers of brilliance. The lack of excessive hand holding is refreshing. Do the hard puzzles seem cleverly designed when you solve them?
Click to expand...
The demo's difficulty is nowhere close to that of the full game. As you said, there's no hand-holding, and yes, the hard puzzles are cleverly designed. None of them's felt unfair so far, since even the ones that require relatively precise timing let you reason about exactly when to perform an action rather than rely on trial and error.

Oh, and the game has a pretty fleshed-out upgrade system. The right upgrades (nozzles, capacity and seed types) can make some puzzles a whole lot easier or even open up alternate solutions, so it can be worth skipping a puzzle if you're having trouble executing a solution. So far I've done that twice.
 
J

Jive Turkey

Unconfirmed Member
epmode said:
GAF, I do not understand why you aren't playing this one.

The puzzles are clever
The liquid tech is fun
The screens may not be super-impressive but it looks very good in motion
LOVELY INTERACTIVE MUSIC (kind of like the way Portal 2's soundtrack behaves)

I'm still only ~2 hours in but it really seems like something special.
Click to expand...

Summer sale.
 
P

Primate Ryan

Neo Member
I've finished the workshop (first level), so I'm not that far into the game, and I'm already quite in love with it. The implementation of the music is rather and I really enjoy the puzzles. Just now, during one particular puzzle, it felt a bit like a fancier version of Auditorium when I was redirecting the particle/water streams using those Fluros and the music started to kick in, indicating that I was well on my way solving it. But yeah, well worth the long wait, judging by the first part of the game.

And the game might get a bigger audience when it launches on consoles as well (it will in a month, supposedly), but the total lack of attention almost everywhere might make it hard for the game to reach a large audience. There has hardly been any coverage on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, for example, which is an important site for these games. They do have an advertising banner for the game at least and I also expect a Wot I Think in the near future, but for now the game still has a very low profile.
 
F

Family Fry

Member
I feel bad I started the thread and have been so damn busy I have only managed to play played 25mins of it, it's lovely stuff though, will get day with it on Monday.
I can't imagine how difficult It must be reading about people not willing to buy your indie game at full price but in same industry people are willing to pay Tim Schaffer 2million dollars for a game that's not even started production.
Good times.
 
E

epmode

Member
Primate Ryan said:
And the game might get a bigger audience when it launches on consoles as well (it will in a month, supposedly), but the total lack of attention almost everywhere might make it hard for the game to reach a large audience. There has hardly been any coverage on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, for example, which is an important site for these games. They do have an advertising banner for the game at least and I also expect a Wot I Think in the near future, but for now the game still has a very low profile.
Click to expand...
RPS had a quick preview of the game one or two weeks ago which is how I heard of it in the first place (and then GAF reminded me the night before it was released). If I don't see another story next week, I figure I'll email them for the first time.
 
P

Primate Ryan

Neo Member
epmode said:
RPS had a quick preview of the game one or two weeks ago which is how I heard of it in the first place (and then GAF reminded me the night before it was released). If I don't see another story next week, I figure I'll email them for the first time.
Click to expand...

That preview was posted at the end of January actually, and the writer expected to have a WIT online before release, which is why I believe that we will see something in the near future, and seeing how their website has been "Vessel"-ised I don't think they can get around posting something about it either. I also don't really mind that they don't always rush to get things out. The coverage by itself is enough, especially if it's positive. It's hard to estimate how much of an influence they have on indie sales, but I'm quite sure that they've had a significant influence throughout the years and that they are one of the most effective marketing tools for indies on the web.
 
S

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
Family Fry said:
It must be reading about people not willing to buy your indie game at full price but in same industry people are willing to pay Tim Schaffer 2million dollars for a game that's not even started production.
Good times.
Click to expand...

Holy shit you realize there is a difference between a person proven to release games you love the shit out of asking you to take a 15$ risk and a completely untested indie start up, right? I mean goddamn.
 
F

Family Fry

Member
Stallion Free said:
Holy shit you realize there is a difference between a person proven to release games you love the shit out of asking you to take a 15$ risk and a completely untested indie start up, right? I mean goddamn.
Click to expand...

You actually loved the shit out of Sesame Street Once Upon a Monster? I mean goddamn.
 
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