CivCube
Spicy.
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2003
- Messages
- 5,824
Greetings, All Other Games denizens. I'm afraid I have to use a medium to type this post for me, due to current unfortunate circumstances. I...well, I'll let this headline tell the story:
Pinochle Post said:
Terse but to the point. When I came to, I found myself in a spectral gaming shop. The clerk handed me a copy of this, this very game called The Void. I figure an AAR would be appropriate while playing through for two reasons: 1) I can show you how unique this game is and perhaps intrigue you enough to buy it yourself. and 2) This is a very difficult game. It's better to go through each cycle with the fullest deliberation so that I can make the best decisions. I've already played through the few few cycles about three times to get a better handle on things, along with a couple looks at GameFaqs to see what I was missing (there's a lot this game doesn't tell you that they assume you'll look through the manual for).
Anyway, I'm still dead, so what better way to pass the time than to enter that game's existence? 'Ere we go:
Spoiler :
Nyuch. The afterlife is about what I expected. This is a gray-brown rocky stubble in the middle of nothingness. I walk across a dark lake that stretches on to apparently infinity. Down the long tooth-bridge I go...suddenly, I hear a woman's voice: Death took your last heart. You only have moments to live. Please hurry.
Not a moment to lose. As I come closer to the island, the dead tree in its center sprouts into brilliant, golden light.
Spoiler :
Hmm. Well, if you say so. I take the heart and feel almost alive again. Almost. I look behind the ruined structure. Within the tree is the source of the voice:
Spoiler :
This is Death, one of the Sisters that lives in the Void. I talk to her by holding left-ctrl and clicking on her with Color. I'll explain that shortly. The game demonstrates by slowly dragging across her but that's not necessary. One point of Color does fine.
She tells me that Color is the only way to sustain myself in this dimension...something I found out the hard way in my previous games. Color in The Void is really the only mechanic I will use. It's food, health, mana, stat boosts, currency, and even ammunition all rolled into one. Needless to say, it's pretty darn important.
One of the ways to get Color is by picking up random plants from the ground:
Spoiler :
There are better ways to get Color, though, which will be explained later. For now, I'll try to find as many of these things as I can so that I don't double-die. Hitting B for the inventory screen:
Spoiler :
Oh, by the way, I'm naked. Enjoy the view. This is as much an illustration of what goes on in the game as it shows how I'm doing. On the right side you can see the Color I've already collected, which ends up in those glass "organs". As long as it's on the right side of the screen, it's not going anywhere; I can decide when to use it. The other organs house different Colors--and yes, different Colors do different things depending on circumstances.
On my chest you can see the heart I just picked up a second ago. There's a symbol ("Glyph") right above it. That simply means I get an additional power with every heart I pick up. I can put whatever Color I want in a heart; however, each heart is sized differently. This one is sized to hold 75 Color points. I've already put that much Golden Color into the heart. While I have so much of a certain Color in my body, it will give me a stat boost in a certain area. Gold, for example, will give me better transactions with a Sister, similar to Alexander's city-state bonus in Civ 5.
The left side of the screen is where Color ends up when I'm outside a chamber. Inside a chamber, time stand relatively still. I won't lose Color from my body while I'm inside. Outside is a different matter; time passes and my body is continuously drained of Color at the rate of 2-3 points a second. I'm losing health in the meantime, but this is also how I create my usable mana/currency/ammo. It's a tricky balance and it's also why I've had to start a few times already. The Void does not forgive you for taking your time foolishly.
Sister Death bids me adieu and I strut into the black waters that take me Outside, Outside into the Void...
The clock starts and I'm greeted with this message:
Spoiler :
How pleasant! A famine! I'll definitely take my kids here the next time I'm alive. It beats McDonald's.
Cycle One: I'm Hungry And I Want A Snickers
Spoiler :
This is the main game map, the one I don't want to be looking at too often if I want to live. Insanity. At the top is the game's chapter title, current cycle, and a countdown meter to the next cycle. This map shows all the different chambers that been unlocked (in blue) and the ones that have yet to opened through Sisters (in red). I'm currently at the bottom...neuron-thingy. Those colorful fireworks in adjacent chambers show where there's new Color to be found. I'll head to the left one so I can get some Green.
And here we go, into the mines:
Spoiler :
These plants won't hang around in the next cycle, so it's best to pick up as much as I can. You really need to know what you're doing for the next few cycles or you're strapped for resources later on. It's true to the original Russian title of "Tension" but I'd like to see some more options than sticking with what the developers intended. Still, that's what Ice Pick Lodge does. Their first game Pathologic is insanely detailed but also punishes the player for not knowing what to do. It's deliberate and evil and depending on your level of masochism, quite fun.
But now you'll see why I really picked the mines first:
Spoiler :
Another heart! This time it's sized at 25. I also get a glyph that creates a shield that dissipates after a limited time. Apparently you can get up to 21 hearts by the end of the game. In the meantime, I have two hearts that I can any Color I want into. If I put more Gold in there, I could have 100 Gold helping me out the next time I talk to a Sister. It's really important to mix and match Colors out of your body when entering chambers so that you can get the most effectiveness out of your actions.
One thing I have to careful about is how often I use Color.
Spoiler :
I haven't seen the effects in-game yet but apparently using too much Color over time, or letting it spill into the Void when my hearts pump into filled mana, can create unintended consquences, e.g. Azure speeding up time in the Void if I use it too much. Bad things can happen for all the Colors, though, so I'm kind of screwed no matter what I do. The challenge is to accomplish what I need to do before that happens.
I look behind me and gaze at the Mines themselves.
Spoiler :
Then I jump in the big hole to go back to the Void. I decide to take the next available chamber over, a Reservation for half-living matter:
Spoiler :
I climb the stairs and look for plants at each level. Along the way I find a tree and pump some Azure into it:
Spoiler :
Trees are the main way to get Color in this game. Every cycle your invested trees will bloom with a certain amount of Color. Depending on how much Color you put in the first time, you can get a steady stream each cycle that will eventually trickle out in five cycles. We'll see if this tree ends up being useful. It costs Color to travel between chambers, so if it's too costly to come back, I might not use it.
On the fourth floor, I look up at the hole in the ceiling:
Spoiler :
Is it rock from above ground? Is it the Moon exploded a million years from now? Just what the hell am I doing here? I pass through the exit and enter back Outside.
Next up, the "garden". Someone needs to take of this...
Spoiler :
...oh wait, that's me, isn't it? There are several of this type of chamber sprinkled elsewhere in the game. Just like that tree earlier, I can plant Color into the trees here to make them sprout more Color in later cycles. It's my refrigerator. My warmed over, moldy refrigerator.
I haven't yet shown how to plant Color in a tree. Just like talking with Sister Death, I dot the tree with any color by holding left-ctrl and clicking:
Spoiler :
I then left-ctrl and drag the glyph for donating Color across the screen...then, voila:
Spoiler :
I have my first tree. I plant two more for two Golds and one Green:
Spoiler :
Spoiler :
I can smell the brownies already. Too bad I'm already in a heightened state of consciousness. I head back to Sister Death to hear what she's complaining about; she wants me to kill off some nasties that popped up in the chambers. I'll save you from more pics but that's where Color can be used as ammo. Simply left-ctrl and pump them with Color. 10 points usually knocks them out. I had to walk back to each chamber to do it, which took about fifteen minutes. The main drawback in this game is having to walk around the same areas at a slower pace if you don't have Azure in your body. I'm still figuring out if I need to mix and match Color in my body before or after I enter a chamber.
Anyway, I go back to Sister to get some praise. She also tells me another important bit: if I want to unlock more chambers (and the chance to meet the Sisters in them), I'll need to donate Color to her--two hearts' worth, to be precise. This amount depends on the heart and Sister. Every Sister has four hearts to unlock but they all have different prices. The first heart unlocks that Sister's chambers to use; the second unlocks access to the other Sisters. The third one...well, we'll talk about that when the time comes. It's like Civ 5's social policies--the next heart will cost more Color. In Death's case, I think the first heart was 100 and the second is 200. I don't have much time left in this cycle, though, so I head out to be by a tree when the next cycle starts:
Spoiler :
So now I'll head into the Reservation when the next cycle starts. This is a really weird game, folks, but potentially very satisfying if I can pull off a win. I plan to work through one cycle at a time and write up an entry so that I can pull back and think.
Yes, wait for time to pass me by so I can die on top of a giant brain cell. Who knew death was so kind? Until next time, this is the first of several dispatches from a dead soul.
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