John Kowalski
Banned
I don't even know, got too drunk and passed out before even meeting him.
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else Heart.Break() |OT| A Low-Poly Open-world Hacking Adventure
- Thread starter Nillansan
- Start date
Coreda
Member
Early impressions are go! So far have been liking the game. Played about an hour or so and it's pretty much what I was expecting from everything I'd seen, which is to say a kind of chill city exploration/point-and-click adventure with sweet ass low poly graphics and low-key music with some indication things aren't all as they seem.
Seb become a bit tired while wandering around (*cough* stalking someone while they walked home *cough*) and at 4am he started to sway from side to side. Pulled out a coffee liberated from a guy's pad which perked him up. Caffeine amirite.
Interacted with several computers and floppies, and for what it's worth the hacking element has yet to be introduced (though I'm not anticipating it currently).
Quick thoughts on the controls/camera:
- Game could be described as a 3D point and point and click for the most part. Mouse clicks move the character as seen in the trailers and left/right mouse buttons for interaction. I could see an alternate WASD control for character movement being nice for roaming around but it's easy to control as it is.
- It's often tricky to get a clear view of an area as objects can frequently obscure the camera view when rotating. Foreground walls in small room will hide when rotated to display more of the room but other foreground objects such as buildings or trees will stay visible which makes the zoom/pan less useful in outdoor areas. Since the camera can't be panned manually or zoomed out very far it can be a little hard to locate where you are, especially as the map you pull out isn't exactly high res
/thoughts
Defo a game I can see myself enjoying.
John Kowalski
Banned
go to the shoe store and give the girl a cig
Ah, crap... I did that earlier, but
I didn't realize I could go into the back room until it was so late in the day that nobody was there.
John Kowalski
Banned
I felt really bad cuz I drank the grog and missed most of the party
Heh, some folks made fun of me because of that.
John Kowalski
Banned
One thing that i'm having a lot of trouble with personally is that i can never discern where the game breaks, or when it stops going forward. I've been messing about, exploring, doing stuff that i've been asked, and regardless of whether i do things well or not the world just seems to move forward regardless into the next daily objective.
Like,
Like,
i went to the factory, completely missed whatever it was that i had to get, could not for the life of me understand what was going on, but then i just left and visited Pixie again and though she definitely got a bit mad that i had nothing to give her, the next day she game me another assignment as if nothing had happened. I went back to the factory and maybe found what i was looking for but now i don't have the prompt to give the stuff to Pixie. Also i picked up a suitcase very early on that i can put things into that are basically just stuck inside forever since there seems to be no way to get them out. Now i have to find a second modifier and that's gonna be a real fucker i can just feel it. Also negative 100 bucks yay... i hope the credit company doesn't come calling. Or the Wellspring dudes.
More_Badass
Member
Need some more impressions of this. How open-ended and how different is the hacking? I saw this interesting excerpt in a review
John Kowalski
Banned
Objects have a restricted number of functions they can run. Consumables can change stats, computers with screens can display graphics, some (i don't understand this bit very well) can access networked computers and call functions stored somewhere else... it gets a bit dense. But, for example, the code inside a key is basically Toggle(door_number), so in theory you could have one key and edit the door number to have it open whatever door you want it to open... but how do you find out what the number of the door is? If it were completely open you'd use a function to find out the number then store it then use it with Toggle, but keys simply don't run the necessary functions to do that. You can use an item to find out the name of an object, but then you get something like Hotel_Reception_OfficeDoor1, which you can use as a parameter for an Unlock function but... it only works with networked objects? IDK. Haven't tested that.
It's no Hack'n'Slash, that's for sure. Also, you'll find very few people comment their code in the game..........
It's no Hack'n'Slash, that's for sure. Also, you'll find very few people comment their code in the game..........
If there's anyone who wants to see the game in action
http://www.twitch.tv/chrizzzzzzz
is streaming the game
http://www.twitch.tv/chrizzzzzzz
is streaming the game
Conor_Fool
Banned
I've held off long enough. Plans tonight fell through. About to buy this and play the hell out of it
Coreda
Member
Encountered a bug that overlaid some internal debug code above the screen and effectively froze the game when exiting a door. Emailed the dev, hopefully a patch can fix it.
Wish there were hotkeys for opening you bag and putting away the current item, and a 'drink all' button (I'm guessing you can later re-program your drinks judging from the review quote above).
Wish there were hotkeys for opening you bag and putting away the current item, and a 'drink all' button (I'm guessing you can later re-program your drinks judging from the review quote above).
While you aren't editing the .lua files the game's made of (I think, I don't get how it actually works) I feel like the open world in Else heartBreak will be a lot more fun to hack and rewrite to do what you want. There's just more to mess with.
Conor_Fool
Banned
Yeah it really is. Can anyone find it on this list of songs?
Soundtrack
EDIT: By the way, how if everyone's framerate? I have a nvidia geforce gtx 860m (not sure if I'm supposed to provide other specs, total pc noob) and while the game started as pretty much locked 60fps with an occasional dip, in some parts of town I drop to like 30 and it stutters for a second. Maybe I'll just have to use "Great" graphics instead of "Best"
I am quite sure that the game is made in Unity and going by the murmurs from the game development scene, Unity is praised for its flexibility, but criticised for optimization.
girl is the one you're looking for.
John Kowalski
Banned
Oh look, that's Petra.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Cities Skylines is also built in Unity. And yeah, it runs great at first. Really fast simulation. But as you get like 10,000, 100,000 or so citizens it slows down quite a bit even on powerful systems.
Love Unity. But yeah.
John Kowalski
Banned
10 seems to be good enough. Does it actually change anything tho?
John Kowalski
Banned
Oh dear, i think i'm nearing the end and this is getting too weird... my brain can't keep up.
Conor_Fool
Banned
I have logged a few hours in this game and I have not progressed like at all in the story. I've met that girl that is dating Ivan (lol) and I still haven't found that mofo that was looking for me at the beginning of the game.
At least I beat Ivan's bitch ass's high score on that game in the club. I put Ivan sux as my name, hope he gets the message
At least I beat Ivan's bitch ass's high score on that game in the club. I put Ivan sux as my name, hope he gets the message
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
What is the coding like in this game? What language is it and is it easy to figure out once you get into it? Does the game teach you anything or just assume you know what you're doing?
Herbspiceguy
Member
I feel the beginning was rather weak. It gave me an impression of a game filled with dull dialogues, flat characters and very linear story progression. But it gets better and more interesting.
I never met the sales guy either and I wasn't on time on Pixie's first appointment. They're not required for the story progression. Not sure who it was, but at one point you'll walk into someone who knows more about Pixie and your conversation will progress the story.
John Kowalski
Banned
Similar to BASIC but even simpler. There are many ways to learn it, there are manuals spread around the world which explore each facet of the language (ifs, loops, variables, object oriented, etc.), and there is at least one character which will take some time to teach you and give you simple problems to solve.
But honestly i think you'd be better served if you stop expecting the whole thing to be about hacking, because it isn't. As soon as you're hacking you're obviously inches away from being able to break the whole thing in two, and that's obviously something that's reserved for the end game. Most of the game revolves around experiencing the city, its inhabitants and its particular reality. There is a ton of content that is very far from the critical path, and you're left to your own devices specifically to hide that critical path and make you explore things you wouldn't otherwise. Even when you get to hacking, and hacking hackers, and traveling between dimensions, and quickloading because you changed some code and welp you're fucked now, you're still supposed to stop and take a stroll through the city just to find people and other secrets. I'd say the game is much more about Dorisburg than it is about hacking. The programming isn't hard, it's just puzzle solving. The rest of the game is just as, if not more interesting.
BTW, i was thinking about the game a while ago and noticed that as soon as the player gets access to a modifier, he goes on to show exactly why the ministry is necessary... i wonder if that was intentional.
Conor_Fool
Banned
I progressed a lot last night and this game is something else. That third step of the hacking tutorial (the game) was super cool. I got to what I assume is a very important computer last night and I couldn't figure it out. It was the
one. For some reason I hacked it fine to
, but I couldn't find the right input on the computer itself to activate it.
Thanks for lookin, I was actually talking about Fumes though, it's usually playing in the hotel lobby. Now I am hacking every jukebox to play it, haha. No surprise that it features Shelby Cinca, those two collabbed to make Daisuke which is one of my favorite tracks from HLM
Does anyone have any tips on where I can store shit? I don't want to just read a musical token/digital trash and then have to put it down somewhere random, I kind of want to collect them. I'm guessing there is a way to hack trash cans to basically make them a stash?
door open
include all three doors
Thanks for lookin, I was actually talking about Fumes though, it's usually playing in the hotel lobby. Now I am hacking every jukebox to play it, haha. No surprise that it features Shelby Cinca, those two collabbed to make Daisuke which is one of my favorite tracks from HLM
Does anyone have any tips on where I can store shit? I don't want to just read a musical token/digital trash and then have to put it down somewhere random, I kind of want to collect them. I'm guessing there is a way to hack trash cans to basically make them a stash?
John Kowalski
Banned
The code runs when you interact with the computer, if you just have Unlock() stuff in it the code will run the instant you interact with it. If nothing happens perhaps there is a problem with the order of the code, try moving everything to the very beginning of the code. As per storing......... not really, i just had one single disk in which i pasted stuff from other disks. Not all of it is very important though, most of the disks that actually have important stuff in them you can just read them and write down the most important stuff in something you already have.
I just finished it, tried two different endings (
)
I just finished it, tried two different endings (
killed by Monad, though i assume there is some way to kill her? not sure, also ended the game by just going back home. Ivan didn't even thank me!!! what a butt
Erik if you're reading this the final puzzle with the heart was really clever, well done
at first I really hated the game because I was lost and just wandering talking to rather boring NPCs
then I got a modifier and really started to enjoy things
but then I got bored of god mode, and kept ruining things that were meant to be part of the story. You're not supposed to learn about slurping until late in the game? wtf. By the time I really started with the story, I had already visited almost every "hidden/locked" area
then I got a modifier and really started to enjoy things
but then I got bored of god mode, and kept ruining things that were meant to be part of the story. You're not supposed to learn about slurping until late in the game? wtf. By the time I really started with the story, I had already visited almost every "hidden/locked" area
John Kowalski
Banned
Yeah. There's a very late game conversation about you asking people how to slurp.
I was like "bro i'm so beyond anything you're doing right now".
they set it up pretty early don't they.... don't they mention slurping on that one floppy?
John Kowalski
Banned
Well technically if you explore enough you can find out about what's really going on without ever hacking and just knowing which rooms to explore.
Whether that's a benefit or not... i don't know but it definitely works to the behest of the earlier hours instead of the endgame.
Whether that's a benefit or not... i don't know but it definitely works to the behest of the earlier hours instead of the endgame.
Yes, that's my point really. It's one of the first things I did after getting a modifier (after making a brute force key). Late in the story though, they explain it to you and give you a tutorial. That actually explains some other problems w/ the story, specifically the
mission to get data out of the factory. I had already slurped to the server room, added myself to the fence and looted the place before even joining the lodge and then the first mission makes you sneak in using a minecart
It's not really a problem necessarily, as the game isn't really about the story but if they wanted to keep that aspect in they should have introduced powers more gradually or something. Once you stumble into a few special computers and learn the language you are unstoppable but the story acts like you're still some dumb soda salesman.
Another example (late in the game)
I've already looted Monad's apartment before even learning who she is, but right now in the story they are telling me how impossible it is to get in there and not to try. I'm holding her hard-drive, files, etc and can't even give them over until I figure out what triggers advancing that part of the story
Coreda
Member
Got back into the game after putting it aside for a while, and the general direction finding in this game as well as having no where else to stash items when your bag is full are probably my two main peeves.
Traveling to a location a character needs you to be at a certain time is always trial and error without a decent map or camera panning/far-out zoom, even for relatively familiar places like the soda warehouse. This mightn't be such a problem if the map was seamlessly connected but with the mini loading screens between the relatively small areas taking a wrong turn or getting lost starts to become annoying.
Hoping there's someplace to store items soon as the bag is full of interesting floppies atm and can't pick up anything more
Traveling to a location a character needs you to be at a certain time is always trial and error without a decent map or camera panning/far-out zoom, even for relatively familiar places like the soda warehouse. This mightn't be such a problem if the map was seamlessly connected but with the mini loading screens between the relatively small areas taking a wrong turn or getting lost starts to become annoying.
Hoping there's someplace to store items soon as the bag is full of interesting floppies atm and can't pick up anything more
This game is getting some nice reviews. http://www.pcgamer.com/else-heartbreak-review/
I want to try it. Some other impressions from you guys?
I want to try it. Some other impressions from you guys?
lordfuzzybutt
Member
I just started it, about 2 hours in but so far my impressions are:
Very nice artstyle.
Very nice music.
Unique atmosphere, makes me want to explore everything, been running around looking at stuff for the past 2 hours.
Some things are a bit clunky like the inventory system.
Kind of a slow start.
Overall, interesting game so far.
Got back into the game after putting it aside for a while, and the general direction finding in this game as well as having no where else to stash items when your bag is full are probably my two main peeves.
Traveling to a location a character needs you to be at a certain time is always trial and error without a decent map or camera panning/far-out zoom, even for relatively familiar places like the soda warehouse. This mightn't be such a problem if the map was seamlessly connected but with the mini loading screens between the relatively small areas taking a wrong turn or getting lost starts to become annoying.
Hoping there's someplace to store items soon as the bag is full of interesting floppies atm and can't pick up anything more
Honestly, it makes no difference if you make those dates or not but the problem you describe is easily solved once you get a modifier
I just copy the contents of the floppies into notepad. You don't need the actual items for anything, really
I actually have a question for people that beat the game:
I beat it -- a few ways -- but the dialog indicates I was supposed to destroy the heart or the mainframe and I can't for the life of me figure out how to destroy a computer?