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[Fire and Glory]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/362490/Exanima/
Exanima is an early access physics based RPG by Bare Mettle where you must descend into a mysterious dungeon in search of a way out. Story wise you have no idea who you are and the only indicator as to your purpose in these parts is a letter telling you to assist an unknown figure or recover their research if you're unable to. You're also a sorcerer of some sort. Things become more clear as you read various writings in your descent.

Spoiler: The part where I ramble about everything in the game (click to show/hide)

Things of note:

• Combat

Combat in Exanima can take some getting used to.

How it works is your attacks are based on the movement and location of your mouse, if your mouse is on the right side of your screen and you move it to the left when initiating an attack, your character will swing from right-to-left, and will swing left to right if your mouse is moving from left to right. Depending on how fast you move your mouse and how far away it is from your character, attacks will be faster or slower and more controlled or more wild. If you go crazy with your movements when you're also moving your feet then you're liable to make yourself trip over.

Whether your swing will be high or low can depend on what your mouse is doing, what direction you're moving in, and what direction you're swinging in as well as whether you're trying to hit someone with the start or end of an attack.

Double clicking lets you perform an overhead attack and alt clicking will let you perform a thrust which will generally try to hit where your cursor is pointing, so if your cursor is on someone's thighs it'll thrust low, if the cursor is on their head it'll thrust high.

There are three main parts to defense I've found. Moving away from an attack will naturally cause it to miss, however moving into an attack can and will render it harmless as you're too close for your opponent to actually swing the weapon. Characters will automatically move their arm to block attacks with their weapon/shield when not attacking, this will work up to a point but relying on it is a good way to get your meat cut open so I've found so it's best when used in conjunction with movement.

As far as your health goes you have stamina/yellow damage and lethal/red damage. Stamina damage is bruising etc caused by impacts that were mostly absorbed by your armor, outside of combat you will slowly heal from it. Lethal damage is caused by anything breaking the skin and it does not heal. More on that later.

• Modes

Exanima has two game modes. In the story mode you start with nothing and need to find weapons and armor as you explore. The contents of most containers are semi-randomized so you might find a leather vest in a chest in one playthrough and a billhook in another. Items outside of containers are not random though, so it's not like you're at the whims of RNG for if you'll get a decent weapon or not.

If you get knocked unconscious due to stamina damage you will wake up later missing a bit of health in more or less the same spot. This can get pretty goofy depending on what exactly knocked you out and can lead to a cycle where you get knocked out, wake up, and then knocked out again. If you get killed then you'll lose all of your progress on the current level and get put back at the beginning where you first entered. There's no manual saving. This is a bit too hardcore for me so I frequently make copies of the save files.

Every level has at least 1 healing potion for recovering lethal damage so if you're hurting, be sure to keep looking around.

At the moment story mode only has one NPC you can talk to in it, so don't expect quests or anything.

Story mode also has magic in it. At the moment it's only mind magic which is pretty boring, but it gets a little more interesting at the end. Force magic is planned for implementation Soon^TM.

The second mode is arena where you fight dudes, get money, and buy armor and weapons from the shop. Arena combat is generally more challenging than the story as most things in the story mode aren't trained combatants and don't fight well, at least early on. So arena is good for getting to grips with the combat.
The only things I should mention is if your main character gets killed in arena then it's game over. So only fight with other characters. The other thing is that you can hire recruits and hirelings. You control recruits in the fights while hirelings are NPCs. Any group fight requires hirelings to participate in.

• Equipment

Armor in Exanima is layered, like how it was in ye olde medieval times. So a man can put on a gambeson/padded shirt, then put a padded coat on top of that, then chainmail, and finally plate or leather armor. Though you might want to skip the chainmail if you're wearing plate because that can get heavy. You also have bracers, gloves, helmets, coifs, pauldrons, leggings, and so on. Lots of things you can wear on every part of your body. Except for codpieces, hopefully we'll get those later. Armor and weapons in the arena is heavily based on historical items whereas more fanciful/unique pieces can only be found in the later parts of the story mode.

• Etcetera

The game also has character customization in it. It's pretty basic and I wouldn't mention it only I just wanted to say that muscularity and fat-ness do not have any bearing on your combat ability aside from your mass. On the other hand your height have very real effects on how your character does in a fight and I highly recommend leaving it firmly in the middle, as short characters tend to get beaned in the head and tall characters can have their attacks sail right over their opponent.

That's the big stuff I think. I should also note the glacial development speed, there's almost a one year gap between every update with real content in it, so it's a good thing the DF players are used to waiting. The game is actually making progress though, despite what the doomsayers claim.

And that's Exanima! It's not very expensive and while I was somewhat cool on it at first, the addition of maps, some eventual skill on my part, and a habit of making backup saves has really helped my feelings toward the game and I look forward to everything they're planning to add next.

[Mephansteras]

I like the arena mode, it's actually a pretty good arena manager game. I wish the inventory system didn't suck so much, though.

[Fire and Glory]

Equipping dudes in arena could probably stand to suck less, yea. I don't get the appeal for arena management games much but I'll boot it up from time to time to swing swords at dudes.

[EuchreJack]

Diablo with Mount & Blade's combat system?

[Mephansteras]

Not really...the combat system is much harder to use, but also allows you to do a lot more. It's all actually physics based, rather than being a set of moves that you can use.
Sometimes you get some really cool behavior out of it.
Sometimes you get drunken boxing and people tripping over chairs.
It's a mixed bag.

[motorbitch]

i tried this.
i woke up in a dungeon. after a few minutes i had figured out that i could manipulate a spike, pick it up and use as weapon.
dude stuck the spick through his wrist instead of using his hands, and started to walk like a zombie.

it was at t his point that i uninstalled and refounded the game.

[nenjin]

Watching people play it I've been tempted to try it many times. But then I remind myself, Examina was basically a tech demo for something that was supposed to be much bigger. Then they went "Eh", the project fell apart and they added some more features to Examina instead.

[SalmonGod]

At a glance, it looks like Sui Generis isn't dead.  It's just on hold for longer than they initially implied.  They're using Exanima as the vehicle for completing the game engine, and will resume work on Sui Generis when that engine is done.  And they are still very much working at it.  I picked up Exanima when it was first released 5 years ago.  It has been massively expanded since then, and there are still fairly frequent updates.  I've returned to it 3 times over the years, as in it temporarily became the main game I was playing for a month or two, and it felt fresh every time.  They're claiming to be finished tweaking core stuff like fine-tuning the physics and controls of movement and combat, and are adding the last major gameplay features on top of that -- ranged combat, magic, and multiplayer, which they claim to be getting easier and easier to work on as they establish better foundation.  And when those are finished, they're going to consider it done and return to Sui Generis.

Exanima is more difficult than most games to get into.  It takes at least a couple hours to begin to get comfortable with the controls.  But once you do, it's incredibly rewarding.  It has the most fluid and dynamic melee combat of any game I've ever played.  There is a rhythm and flow to it, and once you get zoned in with it, your fighting can look pretty badass instead of drunken stumbling.  And there's a greater satisfaction, I think, that comes from mastering an adaptable intuition to a dynamic flow, as compared to your typical game that involves rote repetition of button combinations in response to rote repetition of enemy behavior patterns.  Baiting your opponent into an awkward swing so that you can step in behind it and fell them in one solid blow to the head with superior balance and timing just feels amazing.

My only criticism of the game would be the dev's attitude towards save games and hardcore difficulty.  I'm a pretty decent gamer, and I've never beaten it.  The levels are incredibly difficult to navigate and there's no mapping system.  It gets frustrating running through the same areas over and over again on repeated attempts and never seeming to be able to figure out where you're going no matter how many repeated explorations you do.  Arena mode is currently the most fun, and it is quite fun.

[Mephansteras]

Yeah. Been a while since I tried the actual dungeon part of the game since I just found it kind of annoying.

The Arena, though, that's a blast. I have 200 hours in the game, and most of that is Arena.

[nenjin]

At a glance, it looks like Sui Generis isn't dead.  It's just on hold for longer than they initially implied.

It'll be 5 years in November since the Kickstarter. Just saying, from the outside looking in, Exanima hasn't changed dramatically since then. I'm still tempted to try it, but not based on its promise of something better. I can never shake the feeling looking at playthroughs and stuff that it's still largely a tech demo or proof of concept than a full game. Other than the labyrinthine dungeon layout and coming to grips with the combat system, it seems kinda one note.

Mostly I do want to try it though because it's one of the few isometric games I've seen in the last few years that really captures that "Diablo 1 spooky dungeon" vibe.

[Fire and Glory]

My only criticism of the game would be the dev's attitude towards save games and hardcore difficulty.  I'm a pretty decent gamer, and I've never beaten it.  The levels are incredibly difficult to navigate and there's no mapping system.  It gets frustrating running through the same areas over and over again on repeated attempts and never seeming to be able to figure out where you're going no matter how many repeated explorations you do.

The addition of in-game maps you can find helped a lot with my enjoyment of things. They're not all that helpful in game but printing them out and systematically exploring every room, marking off the ones you've been in, makes them much more helpful. Before that, it was pretty frustrating and I never got past the first level or two. It doesn't help that the 'music' for those levels consists of maddening droning noises which are okay at first but get more and more annoying as you go.

At a glance, it looks like Sui Generis isn't dead.  It's just on hold for longer than they initially implied.

It'll be 5 years in November since the Kickstarter. Just saying, from the outside looking in, Exanima hasn't changed dramatically since then. I'm still tempted to try it, but not based on its promise of something better. I can never shake the feeling looking at playthroughs and stuff that it's still largely a tech demo or proof of concept than a full game. Other than the labyrinthine dungeon layout and coming to grips with the combat system, it seems kinda one note.

Mostly I do want to try it though because it's one of the few isometric games I've seen in the last few years that really captures that "Diablo 1 spooky dungeon" vibe.

I can't imagine how bloody long it'd take for them to complete Sui Generis even if Exanima has most of the mechanics they need. I'm glad I never heard of it until much later and only signed on for Exanima otherwise I might be a bit salty if I took part in the kickstarter.

[Egan_BW]

Examina. Exsamina. Egsamina. Eggsammina. Egg Sammy.

[BoujeeTheAlan]

Green Eggs And Ham?

[scriver]

Hey, I've been wondering what became of this.

[Fire and Glory]

Very slow but measurable progress as always, friend.

So my question for the class is, does anyone like axes? Specifically the non-polearm kinds. In my experience they can't really draw blood from an armor strike like blunt weapons can and they're slower than swords, as well as having less cutting edge. So they're just kind of disappointing whenever I use one.