Scanner Sombre 

I personally could only catch onto the story's twist when the character started hinting at it 2/3rds into the story. As for the twist itself, I don't mind it too much (spoilers here), and here's why. The cave is not about him unraveling himself or going through the stages of grief as he journeys through the cave. It's about showing us what the undergrounds are, and why he's trapped. There's an evil history in them that has always drew this character to search deep into them. When he died, his soul got trapped, and everytime he tries to escape, he's looped back to the beginning, forever forced to relive his obsessions, until it all consumes him. The reason why the tones change so much is because his feelings can change. When he sees the horrors, he's fascinated by everything the victims suffered, and feels uneasy about what the caves really are. Showing how his obsessions never really left, but he doesn't know what else he can do. When he sees beauty, he's in awe at what could've been, and how different it is to what horrible things he just experienced. He feels for a brief moment like there's a chance at peace and freedom, like things will get better this time. When he's nearing the surface, his thoughts start to become more desperate, more angry, more somber. Because he's getting close to escaping, he wants this all to be over, but knows that never will be. If you play New Game+, and turn on material mode by the tent, you can find his body, where he died, that you couldn't have seen without. Showing that this was all connected/hinted since the beginning. It's fine that you didn't enjoy the experience as much due to the narrative, but my impression was different when I first finished the game, and I wanted to let you know why I personally was fine with it. Regardless, you still don't have to like the narrative and how it was designed. I hope that you find this LATE comment, and that you have a great day! Let me know if you see this! Thanks!

I think that the problems with this game are very much reflective of Introversion, and particularly Chris Delay's history as a games developer: Aside from the light story touches in Darwinia, all their games so far have been systems driven, not narrative driven. This was an attempt to break that mold, simply because the LIDAR mechanic cannot yet support a systems driven game, and it exposed an underdeveloped side if the studio. Imagine what could've been done with a writer like Alexis Kennedy as part of the core development team for this...

This game's real enemy is the video compression

I don't know how much I like the idea of framing this game as an experiment which didn't work out. It seems like, conceptually, the game was a success, in terms of what it experimentally did well. The problem, then, based off your review, is much more common and basic one. Just couldn't integrated story well enough with mechanics, (where story and tone are conflated). There may have been parts of its execution which were incompetent, but they were not the parts which were experimental.

Have you ever considered flipping the brace colors on the end of the video? That way it would feel like the video's between the black braces (I guess it kinda obsoletes the grey one, but it feels like more of a placeholder to me).

Wow, that is ridiculously gorgeous. I love how the ceilings of the cave are far enough away that they turn light blue - like a starry night above you. Thanks for putting this game on my radar!

7:35 that would be an insta-buy for me (well, if it had a Linux version - apparently it doesn't) Seriously, that unique rendering style and intriguing mechanic would lend itself nicely to a relaxing and serene experience. Not everything needs a "story".

Geez that's a lot of particles. I wonder if they pulled some interesting optimizing gymnastics there.

I'm gonna get this game just for that visual style. I had a moment of Awe when yo uscanned the body of water at the end and got everything under the water surface.

I very much agree. For me this is kind of an extended tech demo. The only interesting thing about it is the main mechanic, and all it does is hint at different ways it could be used and expanded, but it never really goes on depth with any of them. This holds true for mechanics, atmosphere and tone. "Here is a light puzzle element you could use." "Here is how a maze would work." "Here is how it would work in a horror game." "Here is how you could use different filters." "Here is how you could do a story reveal.". None of those things last for more than a few minutes really, and then they switch to something completely different. Ultimately I don't think it's a good *game*. It's very interesting, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in game design. But I would not recommend it to pretty much anyone else. Aside from that it's priced pretty heavily. I felt like I took my time, and I was done in 1.4hours. And while I did somewhat enjoy my time, it certainly is not on the level of the beginners guide for example. And there is nothing to remember here imho, other than what you can get out of a 2 minute trailer tbh.

I would love a game that combines this exploration mechanic with Proteus' wandering about.

I'd love another game like Scanner Sombre that throws away any of the story elements, and give you a huge cave system to explore and get lost in. My favorite parts of this game were walking aimlessly through cave systems, and discovering the cult temple. The scale of things in this game were also amazing; giant ravines and huge empty caverns were fun to come across. I think if another game like this came out that proceduraly generated a cave system with structures to discover, with the ultimate goal being to find your way out, I'd buy it in a heartbeat

Really like the core idea of scanning the environment here. Creates some real nice visuals. The way the scanned cave looks in the water reminds me of hologram stickers like you'd get on toys like Visionaries.

I remember they did a concept demo of this, many months ago. Introversion were wrapping up development of The Prison Architect and choosing what to do next. I'm somehow under the impression that Scanner Sombre is pretty much the same tech demo, with tacked on bits of "story" and tied together with a piece of wet string. Gorgeous, magnificent mechanics and aesthetics though!

I think even they weren't totally sure what kind of story they wanted to tell. After that jump scare early on I ended up creeping along warily, ready to weather the next one. I figured that the alter, if anywhere, would have been the right time to do so. But then when all I found was some innocuous shadowy figures (granted that was pretty neat), I started to feel rather confused. The game threw me a jump scare when it had no reason to, but for some reason the creepy cult prison was, well, just that. A cult prison. The game had nothing to say about it. And then we get to a really cool looking lake area but uh-oh don't fall in the water or ghost-zombie things will show up and... I don't know what they do, actually. Even though the lead-in to that lake area was neat in concept, but thenI realized that I didn't understand the point of it once I actually got to the lake. Was it just to continue this idea of the cave being a with a long history of death? The only purpose of the mines seemed to be to accentuate that notion, so that felt right despite the serene boat-ride interlude. And then we got the ending. As fascinating an experience that was, I didn't understand what it was meant to be beyond that: a neat experience. I think you're right on target in that this is a game of two parts: a high-concept exploration game, and a dark semi-horror game about death. Can you talk about One Shot next? I really want to hear your thoughts about One Shot. Both times I played through it, I had to step away and simply think about how I felt about it. It's the first game I felt that truly brought together the metagame, a-la SUPERHOT and Pony Island, and the meta-commentary, a-la Nier Automata or Spec Ops, but it does so but fully re-purposing those techniques to provide a wholly different experience. Also, the ending choice managed to hit me harder than any video game choice before it. So much so that before I made it I spent an hour trying to articulate my feelings on it. It's a damn near perfect game.

I love DEFCON. Even though there is little going on in a single moment, the slow descent into madness and nuclear armageddon along with the music really makes it feel like the world around you is ending, by your hand no less. Every time I finish a game of DEFCON, I walk away with a heavy heart, fearing the future and the ease at which we are at each other's throats. No other game that I know of hits so hard every single time.

It's so great to hear you being excited about the Scanner's gameplay

Subbed for candid, optimistic and insightful take

Great! Concise and intelligent commentary as usual. Keep up the good work :D

After 7 years I have finally played this game in VR and can finally watch this video🎉

You should do a video on Defcon. Im interested in your history with it and would be good to cover a good introversion game; maybe do an introversion history video or something? I unno

I want to honestly play this game just for the visual style alone. Sucks that the story isn't great, but there's no denying that this game is gorgeous and has such a wonderful style.

I might get it anyway, looks unique.

A Light In Chorus is also doing this pointillism, going for a more surreal and wondrous aesthetic and a more pointed narrative tying it all together than seeming as random as this game. More anticipating that one, since I've loved what I played from conventions.

I just stumbled upon this game a few weeks ago and bought it in the Steam sale. The exploration is gorgeous. I personally felt the on-screen text bits are hardly noticeable, especially if you play on a widescreen. The placement is so off-center, I didn't realize there was any exposition at all while trying to figure out where to go next. I did also wonder what will come next, after activating the elevator. There was some sort of puzzle involved, so I thought the game would go one further, but it suddenly ended. Sadly, due to the missed exposition explained above, I didn't get the finale of the "story".

this, along with super bunnyhop, is probably my favourite show on youtube right now, thanks for producing it

Great video man! keep up with the great work.

Yeah, you pretty much nailed it....all through my Playthrough I couldn't decide if it was a game, or a tech demo.

excellent video as always.

Your comment about it feeling like the developers wanted to play with a cool mechanic more than anything, basically hit the nail on the head lol. Introversion basically came out and said they needed a good quick pallet cleanser after five years of Prison Architect :P

still seems pretty cool, though! I wonder if this was meant to be a VR experience? I think this would be absolutely terrifying on the vive. doesn't look like there's support, though.

I still want to play it now!

any chance you can review the talos principle?

This is a really interesting game if you had not done this review i would have never seen this game thank you soo much Errant Signal i am excited to play it. It looks interesting to play even if the plot might be not the best.

I knew I stayed up late for a reason...Thanks!

I played this at Rezzed, the exploring mechanic is something i feel like everyone would like to experience, rest rest seemed a bit tone deaf

Started watching the video because I thought I didn't care about spoiling this game. But halfway through, now I actually want to play it.

imagine a boss fight where you have to scan to see where the boss last was to attack

I hope they refine it. I would not be interested in something that included horror but a cave adventure using LIDAR would be awesome. Having been a backer of Prison Architect I think part of the reason this game has issues is that they were just so burnt out with PA. This LIDAR concept got their creative juices flowing again before they properly analyzed what they were making / how to market it. I would even say that there were probably 2-3 level designers: One designed the beautiful boat parts, one the horrific parts, and one the basic exploration. The disjointed feel of the game could be a reflection of this. Perhaps they'll do a post-launch dev video. I'd watch.

Looks cool indeed

You should play this game called Refunct. No review necessary considering its sorta short but it is pretty fun and it really has the vibe of that it just wants you to be happy. Anyway thanks for the video, looking forward to the next one.

I think a game with this gameplay but a similar tone and premise to (the non-ARG-y parts of) INFRA would be pretty neat.

Good review. Having played it, I would largely agree with you. Fun one-run game. Not something I'll likely ever go back to, but stupidly engrossing. I spent time painting the hell out of a few caverns.. and others, not so much. Good pick-up for a bargain price.

I know I should wait until the next video to request this (and will probably request this on the next video as well), but: Before Vampyr comes out, I'd want to see you do "Playing AS a Vampire: A Prior Ludology" as a video, looking at seven or eight games (strictly at the mechanics, so you don't have to finish any of them) that I'd say most qualify: The Legacy of Kain series (

I don’t think the mechanic was fully explored either tbh. Like there are some really interesting things they could have done with the dot mapping and I kept waiting for them to pull the rug out from under me and it never happened

I'm curious how you would compare Scanner Sombre to Mu Cartographer. Both seem to be about exploring an abstracted representation of space to find some surprises, with some story bits thrown in. I thought Mu Cartographer's pieces fit well together, whereas it appears that Scanner Sombre's didn't.

Well, I actually liked the game just as it was. I think you are right in that the tone could be improved, there should have been more spooky stuff, and even possibilities to die apart of staying for an absurdly long time in the water or falling off a cliff, or a bridge. However, I think that the story (although you are right in that it's kind of badly written) wraps everything in context well enough, and i really liked the ending, although i think it would have been better if the game didn't let the player out of the cave, because as the curse said, the cave's curse forced all dead humans in there to relive their last moments forever. I think the addition of the story was overall a good idea, since it added context to the game itself, and unwrapped a beautiful, sad ending, in which i'm not gonna lie, i spent some tears.

Great vid but a little strange that there was no mention of VR. From the original videos showing off the tech this really looked like it was going to be a VR only affair but it didn't seem like you were using one or even that it would add much to the experience if you did.

Scanner Sombre is just a short experimental game, it doesn't have to be a hugely deep story focused game.

I'm really late to the party, but I agree with you, one of the important things about exploration games also must be the narrative, if at the beginning of the game, the protagonist already began confused like, 'Where I am? Why I don't remember anything- *see family photo* ... they... I remember them, their faces on the photo, so happy... are they worried about me? Am I being missed? This dark place...' 'I can hear a noise, outside in the darkness... I don't have a choice, I must leave this dark place and find my family... How does this works? This... is familiar, I think it is mine, but how I forgot about everything? Did I hit my head? I don't feel pain... How long I was down here?' 'At least, I think my memories are slowly coming back, I can use this to find my way out... Maybe talking out lound can help me clean my thoughts, I must try to remember...' It would complement so much already, the narrative would be much better... And on the second run when you get all the scanner updates and completed the first run and use the material scanner all the times, there should be another dialogue, like: 'Is t-this a body? From who? A friend who followed me here? I don't remember much... I'm alone in this cave, I'm feeling regretful already, if I remember why I'm were... will this regret stop? Or it will consume me with guilt for leaving my family alone to die in this place alone...? I don't think the reason I came here was ever found, I ended in this dead end, at least I know I walked all this way down, so there must be a way up...' 'This is the second body found... I can't see their faces to find their families to tell them... UGH! Those glitches again, the first time hearing them are the worse, I remember I almost died from the scare alone and the jump I had...' Giving a second different narrative and easter eggs could make the game more enjoyable on the second run too... The game is beautiful, the soundtracks are really inviting, principally the starry cave's lake, but there isn't a lot of personality nor morals you can feel in the protagonist, he never really regret anything until he discovered he was completely locked in the cave, there were some places the narrative could be used to make it more imersive, the protagonist only talked about the lore of the cave, never about his emotions or his thoughts on the cave alone, if they made the protagonist scared of the 'consequences' like: 'I regret leaving my family to go here, they must be missing me, just like I'm missing them... I don't want to die in here, not like this, not alone, without any familiar face by my side to tell me they will miss me and to not worry because they will always remember me... I remember my wife begging me to not leave to go to this cave, where so many died...she was right... Even after I found what I always wanted, I don't feel complete... I don't feel realized...' 'I always thought when I found it, when I got the proof of everything, realized my dream, I would be happy, but I'm not... I feel sad, I'm alone, this place... at least this is not cold... Or is it? I'm so numb... I don't... I feel, angry at myself for doing this...' 'I was so stubborn... and for what? A dream I realized at the cost of everything? My family, my life, I risked everything... if I can't go back? If I break my leg and die here? I will... have so many regrets... '

Pretty good game, I wouldn't have known about it without seeing this video about it; made it look interesting enough that I gave it a go. It's also pretty cheap, so there's not a ton to lose! The video's right, the narrative aspect of this game is pretty dorky, but for 80% of the game it's relegated to unobtrusive text off in the corner of the screen. The "ghost" scenes you come across don't really add a lot, but happy rarely enough that they don't prove overwhelming. The twists in the conclusion are telegraphed for about fifteen minutes ahead of it happening, as Errant says, and none of it really ties in with the stuff you're actually doing ingame. But overall I wouldn't let that get in the way of enjoying a few hours of the interesting navigation mechanic Scanner Sombre offers, which is what occupies the vast majority of the game's run-time; there's plenty of fun surprises in the environments geometry that pop out of the darkness, even if it does boil down to a walking sim with some light platforming. I know this sounds a lot like "Just ignore the bad bits" and really that is what I'm saying, but I assure you they are pretty easy to look past if you're into the ludic aspect.

Do any of those random horror screechy parts have any jumpscares to them? The game looks cool, but I'd rather avoid Until Dawn/Outlast scares if possible

ah Introversion Software it took you 6 games to finaly 3d render a human model also i never even figured out the story

The thing I want to know is as soon as Campster found out about ghosts, was he scared?

Just to be sure - was the twist "He was dead all along"? Cause that's my first bet for "obvious twist"

@3:50 This scene is beautiful, but those "plants" are probably glowworms because the cave looks similar to Waitomo.

Any chance for Darwinia in the future?

Speaking of PA: would you make a video about Rimworld? I'm almost irrationaly interested in a review from you about that masterpiece.

Prefacing that I only watched an LP... I didn't mind the story bits? At least not during the first half. I _liked_ the idea of being in a spooky cave full of ghostly cultists that glitched out your fancy tech. I didn't mind the more "horror-themed" sequences or set pieces (I especially liked the standing-stone circle where the T-pose figure occasionally turns to follow you). It was only later, maybe past the water level, where the narrative really broke down for me and it became _painfully_ obvious what the reveal was going to be. I really liked the _idea_ of the mine level, but it didn't feel like it... belonged? The idea of this cave full of so many different things really didn't quite work for me. That said, I _loved_ the spook factor of stepping outside and it being rendered the same way as everything else despite being so clearly alive and vibrant. It felt _wrong_ in all the right ways.

When you see a game you'd like to play, in this case Unfinished Swan, but its exclusive to a console you don't own, don't play, and won't buy, and yet, they forgo the PC Sales... the first place I checked was Steam. No go. I guess thats theirs and my loss equally then.

Maybe we'll see it cribbed for HL3 eventually. Might make for a fun section.

When you said that it was easy to guess the game's twist, I made a guess, then went on Wikipedia to check what the twist was. I was right. Never a good sign.

Should be a VR game

I fucking hated the ending for this so much. Yeah, sure, it alluded to this earlier in the story but that didn't stop it from leaving a sour taste in my mouth. The cult temple and boat ride were the high points for the game, yet at completely opposite ends tonally, as you've mentioned.

It's nice seeing a different take on graphics here. I think lately, the graphics of games have been fairly generic, with highly rendered ultra realistic for the AAA and low poly single colors for indie developers, so even if the game itself didn't do as well, this sort of thing and other games like the return of the obra dinn are really refreshing to see.

This isn't a joke or a trick or anything: What ghost are you referring to at 3:25? I didn't see a ghost in the video. ???

imagine this game with a VR headset - i mean a real one.

Anyone else feel like the colors should have been flipped? Like red, the longer wavelength, being used for stuff far away, and blue being a shorter wavelength, used for the closer stuff? It really threw me off trying to parse the scene, way more than the transparent walls.

Well at least the writing is way easier to fix than the actual game mechanics. So not the worst thing to mess up really. Maybe they fix it in the next patch or next version :)

I hope they give it another go with a better writer. I could see the ghost idea and gothic horror theme working really well with that mechanic if presented better. That music on the boat ride is truly a disgusting choice. An original score, and something more than just a quick text bit could turn out really awesome.

what pc specs do you have?

ok now I'm paranoid that with an actual light source the cave walls are all covered in blood or some grisly shit like that ewwwww

What happened to memory of a broken dimension?

Are there any jumpscares at all? If not I might have to get this

At first I thought "so what's the gameplay" but honestly it looks amazing. Shame that the story doesn't work, at least according to you. Now I don't know whether I want to play it or not :/

I like to rotate 360 deg while burst

Hahaha, ran into this game on GoG and my first thought was "odd, this would have made a great Errant signal episode" :D

It's a different game in VR.

Did you like antichamber?

The game wasn't that bad. I still liked the visual aspects to the game.

How can the protagonist see his hand and the scanner, while wearing the LIDAR headset?!

hey, are you the same guy who does 3blue1Brown? If not you sure sound very similar :P

I had to quit 30% of the way through because the water started lagging my system. Everything else was fine on high until that, and even putting it down to low, it became unplayable.

So... is this going to make me nauseous like Unfinished Swan did? @_@ Cuz I loved the look of both those games... And my head just didn't agree.

Bioluminescent plants? Aren't those glowworms?

Is the title a play on A Scanner Darkly? I haven't seen the movie so I wouldn't know.

No way 2017 was 7 years ago

Scanner HOMRE!

please give more supporting information for your opinion. great video.

What is the game at 1:07?

Pretty

Here I'm thinking... Can you sell an exploration based game with a single mechanic, without "padding" it with things like story/characters/collectibles?

Transistor, The Witness, and Broken Age please! :)

Oooh, this looks cool. Though, I haven't seen anything. I really shouldn't comment before watching a video. THO ITS ELEVEN ALMOST TWELVE COME ON

Please do a video essay on Little Nightmares!!!

This game is breathtaking in VR. It's super unsettling too, being alone in a dark cave with nothing but spooky ghosts.

You should review Unknown Developer games, from itch.io, but no one should get hypnotized by it

Game: Prison Architect. Ok RU-vid.

If they just removed the dialogue then it would be a lot better.

Looks interesting but just looking at it gives me such a headache.