Also the premise, for Splat and others wondering. They are research mission, and the planet they're on is peculiar: it has everything perfect for life - enough sun, oceans of water, breathable atmosphere. They come expecting a paradise world. But as they come, surface is as dead as barren moon. And then this story happens.
I'm so ready for this. The fact that there's no decent Pirx game is disgrace. Also, the planet from "Report from a reservation" would be an amazing exploration/survival game.
I read a book by Stanisław Lem that this is based on at least three times - and it's one of the best hard sci-fi survival horrors. And you correctly guessed the 60's vibe - the book was written in 1963.
Lem's Invincible was published in 1964. A very good story, with some deep, almost philosophical meaning behind, if you want to see, and none of that goofy alien lazer show you'd see in pop culture back then. Could make a good movie, too, really weird that in half a century it was even attempted just once and never done. Been one of my childhood books somehow, so i likely have unrealistically high expectations for this game.
It has a comic book adaptation as well, though in native Polish. I find the story and concepts mildly interesting, but dated with the standard "slow reveal" being, by today's standards, lacking in 'punch'.
@@walterroche8192 If punch is what you want, if you haven't, check Star Diaries or Cyberiad, also from Lem. There's something to think about in them also, but they also work as pure comedy.
@@BuranStrannikLem's was some of the earliest scifi I read as a little kid. He really did spin exciting stories even without war or combat. And made the latter seem silly when he did.
They shouldn't have been so obvious with the name at least. They basically stole the name, the premise, the plot, and the style, and to those who read a book it's quite obvious what happened there in the game.
I like the 60's hard sci fi look. The robot, the vector graphics detector, the tents. The tents look like a temp camp, the sort they set up when they're going to stay at a site and decide if they want to raise a permanent structure.
Loving the aesthetics and mood, very early-Soviet sci-fi film feeling. Makes me think of Solaris (1972). Also the title makes me think of the novel by Stanislaw Lem, which has the common element of stupefied crew members scattered about following a big event. Very cool, will definitely be wish listing. Thanks for the preview!
This game makes me feel like I escaped Fallout Earth before the big war and I'm now on a research mission, maybe not knowing there's almost nothing to go home to. Two thumbs up!
This is what it was meant to feel like. The novel this game is based on was written during the bleak and gloomy era of the communist occupation of Poland, behind the Iron Curtain and under the constant danger of a nuclear war.
Having read the book I can more or less see what happened there in the demo mission, but devs gave us a different protagonist and it feels the same, but looks novel enough - as if we are one of the other Invincible crewmembers doing the survey and research in parallel. P.S.: Splat is right - the air is breathable, if only for a limited time. That's why survivors might have their helmets off or rebreathers detached.
@@stupich5868 Yes and no. This is a different person supposedly from the same crew. Which is fine by me. Hope we'll get to meet book characters as well.
@@SergMuller Im not so sure about same ship - based on the description at the beginning of that demo you aren't from Invincible, which was a military cruiser if I remember correctly, but from a research ship called Dragonfly... In the book the Invincible was doing sort of a search&rescue operation on the planet where another ship disappeared, buuut... Quick google search tells me it was Condor, not Dragonfly. Dunno, maybe they switched the name, maybe they diverged further from the source material or maybe the Dragonfly is suppose to be a smaller shuttle craft from Invincible? If I remember correctly it was a pretty big spaceship in the book, capable of fielding quite an army.
@@notyetidentified9720 perhaps military search and recuse will come later in the game and increase the tension and danger somehow (I never read the book so I’m just spitballing)
I like the first person view, with the mic and borders of the helmet, but giving the player a bit more peripheral vision would not reduce immersion, au contraire.
This _screamed_ Stanislav Lem to me right from the quote on the title screen. Same with the old school sci fi aesthetics, the slavic names, and sure enough, a lil googling showed me a story by the old man that I either forgot or never read. Guess its name. Lem is one of the Great Old Ones, right along and surpassing Verne, Heinlein, Lovecraft. If there are guest appearances in this title, they will be called Klapaucius and Trurl.
I was quite surprised to find this suggested to me by RU-vid, and my mind immediately jumped to the book too. I read it in high school as part of a book exchange program(... and forgot to hand it back, which I feel a little guilty for because I'm probably never going to meet that person again), though in German, but seeing that thumbnail and the title... couldn't have been much else. Speaks to the impression that book left when I just read it once, but remember specific details from it well enough to instantly recognize something based off it many years later.
Or a semi-competent Pilot named Pirx, but only if the ending is grim and brutal because *someone* did something stupid. Pirx, destroyer of worlds (because he forgot he was supposed to radio command). You really should read The Invincible.
The overall feel reminds me, pleasantly, of The Dig combined with the otherworldly and loneliness aesthetic of Planet Crafter. This game absolutely intrigues me! It's a shame the hardware requirements are so stout, or I'd be purchasing it right at release. Perhaps it will undergo some optimization in the future.
I think the hardware req issue is a side-effect of how far computer tech has come.. now, programmer's barely even need to worry about memory or performance to anywhere _near_ what devs used to have to do. Kinda annoying, but there are worse problems to have, I suppose 🤷♂
@@idontwantahandlethough I really feel like there might be something to it. I feel like games nowadays often don't really look much better than what we had a couple of years ago, yet the requirements keep on climbing.
I get your "Laser to the forehead" fear. Ever since seeing Ghost Ship I have a deep seated fear of metal Wires under intense stress cutting me in half. Guitar strings snapping make me want to curl up in a ball..
Both that and the RE part he mentioned were disturbing to me when I was younger. I hadn't watched a lot of horror or gore movies, so getting straight into that was gross.
I'll be honest for me I haven't found an exploration game that has excited me since I played subnautica. Even though it was short, that game covered all the basis, storyline, graphics, exploration, engineering. There were areas that were beautiful and amazing to explore and then there were areas that was dark creepy and scary. At times I found my heart beating fast as I traveled with my mini sub in huge underwater caverns.
I was and am quite curious when it comes to this game. 'The Invincible' from 1964 by polish author Stanislav Lem, although not many people not growing up in the Eastern Bloc knowing it, is one of the huge classics of eastern european sci-fi or 'phantastic literature', as it was called in our climes. It is one of the books that introduced me to this genre and which turned me into the massive sci-fi nerd I am today. So far the demo does not really tell if the game's story lives up to the story told by the book, which is not only quite grim, but was also faaar ahead of anything written with this topic by western authors (won't give any spoilers, but seriously, the first western sci-fi novels with this theme that come to mind were written in, I don't know, the 1990's) - but the 60s eastern sci-fi movie aesthtetics look great indeed. I am under the impression, though, that the devs seem to take the book merely as an inspiration, without being too close to its story. So far, I have seen nothing that actually reminds me of the story of the book, including the characters.
What about Clarke and Asimov? I'm also from the East, but I don't think that Lem needs any particular praise at the cost of diminishing the western sci-fi mastodons
@@justvid366 I think Lem is different, in that he covered different themes. Ones that the west wouldn't really touch till much later. Plus, most of his books have a melancholy vibe that, while not unique - is very distinct. It's more a wonder at the futile struggle against an uncaring, incomprehensible, universe; than a race to the stars. His characters deal with cold tedium of bureaucracy and space work. If you ever seen a run down spaceship, hauling cargo, bump into an existential terror - that's a Lem influence. His spacers are working class, not naval heroes. Not all books though, sometimes it's about wordplay and world building. He really is underrated.
PS. I suspect that it's going to be a similar relation to Stalker (game) - Stalker (Tarkovski movie) - A Roadside Picnic (short story) I'm kind of okay with that
@@justvid366 Yes, what about them? It is interesting that you think I would try to 'diminish' anyone - this wilful assumption says more about you than about me really. All I did was to praise Lem for writing about a topic as early as in 1964 that was not a thing in any western novels I know about and which, and I have no problems with being corrected, western authors and even scientists (around the world) truly had on the radar _much_ later. SPOILER AHEAD The topics of 'The Invincible' are machinary evolution, about how it actually might follow principles that are also true for biological life and how it might influence said biological life and _its_ evolution. Also, what Lem describes as outcome of this machinary evolution is actually swarm intelligence, something that even scientist have discovered as an actual field of research and speculation in the last two, three at best, decades. Please feel free to name any western sci-fi author who writes about this, even more so at this depths and with coming to conclusions that scientists deem possible _now,_ as soon as 1964. Feel free to elaborate why I should not be allowed to 'particularly praise' an author. I praise Shakespeare, for instance, for his incredible use of the english language, uuuh, how can I? And please feel also free to enlighten me how praising an author for showing an exceptional degree of foresight equals 'diminishing the western sci-fi mastodons'. I hold authors like Clarke and Asimov in highest regard, I love their work dearly and I appreciate them for, waaait for it... _their_ foresight as well. Asimov's ideas about social engineering, about using mathemathics in order to predict human behaviour and the course of societies and about finding regularity in the perpetual raise and fall of civilisations in his 'Foundation' cycle are groundbreaking and visionary - now would you say I try to drag other authors down by saying that? It is actually quite interesting, of all the ways you could have interpreted my comment, you decided to take the route of reading the least favourable and most infamous intention into it.
I was the type to mess with TVs and VCRs back in the '80s because I watched MacGyer and so I also jerry-rigged things. Needless to say, I got shocked once or twice by the tube in the TV even though the power cord was disconnected. You learn by doing and by failing.
Dick Brown of Epson decided techs could replace CRTs under warranty. When I brought up the fact that a lethal discharge could happen and it wasn't worth the risk to me he said "you'll just get zapped across the room." I don't think I worked on Epson CRT monitors after that.
I'm not going to yell at you Splattercat, I still fondly remember your let's play of FireWatch. Which is why I still follow your channel, and pop in from time to time so see what you are up to.
I glad that they decided to stick with technology, how it was described in the book, especially considering the year it was written. What I like even more, they seems to build story exactly how it was built in the book (just with different characters). Original was very slow burn, with the question of WTF happened here being central for quite some time. And since Lem was writing significantly closer to scientific fiction than more popular sci-fy - in the end, there are still question, but mystery is partially solved (no magic/occult bullshit). I hope in this game it will happen too.
"Every now and again, I get foggy vision. It's like... Somebody breathed on my visor or something..." Like maybe the person in the helmet who's walking/running, jumping and climbing in desert heat? "I don't seem to have a headlamp, or tactical flashlight, or anything." Like the one that was right beside the metal detector you left in the camp! Oh wait, probably not important.
I love thematic games such as this. The atmosphere seems wonderful and it's moments like this I wish I retained full hearing just so I could have all that auditory context too.I think I will have to try and support this game.
Im really waiting for this one, mostly because its based on a sci-fi novel by Stanislaw Lem, The Invincible, ant it's actually one of my favourite books. It was written in... Uh, 60s I think, so that's why they went with a retro-futuristic aesthetic. Curious how they adapted it, based on the character's origin it seems they might have diverged from the novel - nothing wrong about it, just interested in what they did with the source material.
I see that there is a market for games based on Polish authors. First Witcher by Sapkowski, here is The Invincible by Lem, I'm telling you next will be... Pan Tadeusz.
This isn't my type of game. Feels slow and uninteresting over all, but I thank you for covering it and I can appreciate your excitement about it's full release. Good job as usual.
This game looks interesting, well presented with a story. Those Seegson robots are creepy and are eventually deadly, best leave the AI things switched off.
You know how everyone wants to pet the cat or dog in games, for good reason? That's me and retro robots like ARTi, I just want to be their friend and it's sad that I have no doubt they'll start attacking you real soon.
My old tube tv almost killed me when I was 15. Touch a capacitor w back of hand and I've never felt a pain like that since. Scared the hell out of me..
Stanislaw Lem got the Dr. h.c. from my university when i was studying there in 2003. Just read "The Invincible" a few weeks ago. Looking forward to this.
Yes, but 'lamp' and 'can supply light when you are out in the alien environment' aren't necessarily the same thing, and based on the design of that lamp in the storage container, it wouldn't be of much use for the latter.
so splat what studio is one where you see its name on a game you are instantly worried? for me its Team 17 they have some interesting game concepts however it feels they often also often just drop a 1.0 patch and abandon the game in what feels an unfinished state (the two biggest ones are genisis alpha one and the other is hammerting)
You have foggy vision occasionally because your character has a concussion and is recovering from shock. Also you left your flashlight next to where you found the metal detector. I literally yelled at my TV when you were complaining about not having a flashlight
This game will be amazing. I can already see it. I mean even if they just repeat the first 30mins you played over and over itll be good. But man im a sucker for a good wtf is going on story.
As cool as that would be, I doubt it. My guess is this game is going to be similar to Soma or Amnesia: Rebirth. Subnautica is a survival game but this is, as Splattercat succinctly put it, a "narrative adventure game."
Liked the retro scifi of mid-century Americana films. It's like magic based games the need for higher artistic values are almost requirement. I did find it constraining that linear actions of the storyline when it came to objects. I should have been able to pickup the radio relays, metal detector and all the other things the moment I noticed them. The program should have compensated that you now had them in hand continue the story with them. Since, it is a demo I'll forgive it. I have added to my wishlist with a release date of 2023. Ty for showing us the game.
Only about three-quarters of the way through the video and I haven't read the book that this is based on, but I already have a feeling that the scientist on the other end is going to be a villain and is going to use the robot to finish off Krouta to keep him from talking about what's really going on etcetera. Could be wrong but that's where my vibe is at right now.
