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[Sirian]

I gave it a try, it's not bad but it hardly has any depth. I can't really imagine playing it more than once.

I wonder though : the difficulty seems to ramp up depending on how many fragments you have stored inside the stone circle, but what if you stored them in houses and then when you have them all you put them in the stone ? Or is the difficulty increasing when you loot the fragments, not when you put them in the stone ?

[Karlito]

Spoiler: The wisps (click to show/hide)

This one's pretty apparent right from the beginning of the game.  Blue sprites drift around the islands, illuminating the area at night and making a weird noise.  As far as I know you can't interact with them, they don't do anything tangible, and the robots ignore them.  They may be part of something unfinished, just scenery, or something I haven't figured out yet.

Spoiler: Mystery Solved (click to show/hide)

They lead you to the parts of the device.

[kaian-a-coel]

this game looks fairly interesting.

[thobal]

It seems fairly nice.

Edit: I just noticed I basically said the same thing as kaian

[Cthulhu]

It would seem that I left my computer on for like two days, with Sir open, while I was never actually at my keyboard.

I'm here to inform my steam friends that what they may have noticed should not be considered a testimonial.  Sir is good, but it's not so good I killed myself playing it for days.

I would hate to know that someone bought the game on a mistaken inference.

[hemmingjay]

I am a big fan of RPS and have supported this game since day one of the kickstarter. I reported for duty with the closed alpha and prepared to do actual hard work to help out. What I found was somewhat embarrassing. I'm not trying to be too harsh because the game functions rather well. It's just that there is a real lack of game design knowledge here. There is no proper mechanism to compel the player to play through and the narrative suffers from a major identity crisis. There is a valuable lesson here: being a decent game reviewer does not make you a decent game designer. Jim Rossignol has become a lazy writer and editor over the last year or so and it is now also being reflected in this side project. Perhaps he's just spread too thin to do either job well enough, or perhaps he just doesn't have the touch. I think far too many people give this game a lenient review out of courtesy and that is a disservice to the public in my opinion. I hope they do some sort of re-design because the concept sounds enticing, but the gameplay is bland and pointless.

Seriously, do you guys remember when RPS articles were funny and punchy?

[Scoops Novel]

How do you expect them to compel the player through, by the way? Nobody but hemmingjay turn this into a sandbox vs railroading argument on the DF forums. They also haven't added in a good few of the enemies. I'm expecting great things from the trapper.

*Haven't played the game, views RPS as some of the best of games journalism for what''s that worth, wont personally buy the game, am a neutral party

[Drakale]

Err, I don't think Hemmingjay said anything about sandbox vs railroad. His point is that the game is not engaging the player enough through plot and/or game mechanics.

I didn't play the demo, but from what I have seen this seem like a fairly good analysis.

[hemmingjay]

I own the game, and hope they can turn it around. It's a pretty universal standard that the game design emotionally or mentally compels the player to engage in activities and this game fails to do so. For 10-15 minutes you will keep playing out of curiosity, but that is it.

[ank]

Having played the game I don't really see Hemmingjays point.
The objective is to find the items.
--> To find the items you have to trek across the island avoiding robots.
--> To be able to do that you need to scavenge items, leading you into town, and avoiding more robots.

To be fair, the narrative could be a lot better, the narrating voice might as well not be there.

Many features are missing from the game, but the features that ARE there are tied well together.

[generalpie]

It seems interesting, but with what Hemmingjay said, doesn't seem like there's any real motivation for me to hide and panic from the robots, and as much as I like to be sweating because of intense Thief-like moments where I know a simple screw up could get me killed, the difference between this and Thief is that I can retaliate easily and given the sand-boxy environment, nothings really stopping me from trying to change my objective from hide and stay away from robots to stealthily kill every single one of them. Its an interesting idea, but the title is about as far as the plot goes. This just emulates the effect Far Cry 2 had on me, as fun as it is to run around and gun down thousands of everything and everybody in ways that differ from stealthily to "Oh my god, the Congo is on fire", it didn't matter because the motivation to kill the games primary enemy wasn't there. In-fact, if anything he helped me by sparing my life at the start so if I was going to try to do anything, I'd try to help him

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And yes, I know i'm Chapter 2 you end up helping the Jackel

Don't get me wrong, this is about as sand-boxy as games come and I love sandbox games, but for a game like this, sandbox doesn't feel right, there needs to be a plot, something to make me completely fear and loathe these robots, which isn't there),(and yes, I know murderizing Robots isn't the way the game is supposed to be played, and it actually gets me spotted more often, but it allows me to do so all the same) games in-which you hide for the majority of the gameplay usually end up having plots, Thief, Metal Gear, System Shock, and they also encourage me to not kill, again, my main issue with the game is that nothing in the (currently non-existent) plot and gameplay(getting shot at only goes so far as a motivator) makes me want to fear these robots...

I can only imagine me now hiding in some grass waiting for a systematic sweep, so I have more things to kill, rather than to hide from, and air balloons end up being an opportunity to increase my kill count by tons...

[hemmingjay]

It's obviously just a matter of taste. To me it's very similar to 3079-3089 except that for all of it's flaws, 3079 was still compelling. I felt like I was actually becoming more powerful and taking on more powerful enemies where in Sir the progression is rather flat. Luckily everyone can try it out for themselves and they need not rely on my opinion.

[Cthulhu]

It is definitely a little flat right now.  Once you've cleared the central island and seen the other two island types, there's not a whole lot else there.

I like the odds of things getting better though.

[thobal]

Supposedly, there will be more enemy types as time goes on. Poachers(that sort of lurk in the shadows), Riders(who fly around on robot horses), and Landowners(who are as tall as one of the small houses and follow you relentlessly)

[jhxmt]

So, SYABH is on 50% sale on Steam at the moment.  I took the plunge and bought it, and I have to say I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would!  I've actually had a few tense moments hiding in undergrowth as robots walk past me a scant few metres away, chattering "turned out nice again" in their damnably British robot accents.

Died not too far into my first game, but I like the apparent difficulty of the game.  It appeals to the losing is fun mentality in me.