Subaeria

[h1]DO NOT BUY THIS[/h1] WARNING: This game was released for Early Access over 5 years ago, and it was released in a VERY unfinished state, which is very sad because there's A LOT of potential here. THE GOOD: - The concept is awesome. You play as someone deemed a criminal in a post-apocalyptical world, because she was sentenced by an elite society to work for them, or to be killed by these robots called Cleaners. - Puzzle battles. Devoid of weapons, you have to trick yellow and blue Cleaners to kill each other in order to advance, or use the environment to kill them. You also find and use special powers called Apps, which help you fight, but they never do damage directly. - It's a rogue-like, so when you die, you can come back to a "different" maze. You can level up your Apps by using them, and the Apps levels carry over between your runs, so your special powers are stronger each time. - Boosters help. They give you "passive perks" that you can upgrade and make your life easier as well, but progress doesn't carry between playthroughs. THE BAD: - I managed to get through the 3 levels a couple of times and lost during the "final boss" fight both times (not sure if it's really the final, but it seemed like it). Each level has a preset group of rooms that can spawn, but the room pools are very small, so you'll likely see pretty much the same rooms EVERY SINGLE RUN. Beats the purpose of procedural generation. - The boss of each level is also always the same, so less replay value there. - Some NPC interactions felt too random, so you get screwed just because, and you can say goodbye to your run, pretty much like drawing a series of bad luck Chance Cards in Monopoly. - There's very little instruction/tutorial, so it took me a while to realize what I had to do, how, and why. - Achievements do not unlock properly. I should've gotten at least 5 more that I didn't, and got one that I shouldn't have. - The "Unlocks" section doesn't show your updated and unlocked Boosters. - Being a game that uses top-down 3D perspective, it's very brutal with jumps, necessary especially as a dodge measure. - Also related to height in this top-down 3D perspective, it's very frustrating that enemy projectiles and lasers feel like they always hit you, even when they shouldn't because of height. - When you load a game, your Apps show in the menu as if they're lv 1 with no XP - Useless menu. It has a whole section that is basically not used except for the start of the game ("Messages"), but seeing the basic stuff is a bit annoying, like food pills, and the menu often bugs out. - Unbalanced. There's this "Hack Key" (forgot the actual name) that is usually only once, in one room of the first level, but you can buy it over all three levels and it doesn't carry (only Apps' levels) THE COMPLETE MESS: - Game crashes frequently, especially when you die. - Using teleporting Apps might make you get stuck or leave the the map area, forcing you to restart the whole level. - The game gets significantly harder, but it feels just chaotic, as if it morphed into a bullet-hell game, while you CANNOT shoot, and it ultimately stops being fun. - Terrible optimization. My Ryzen 5 2600 + RTX 2060 + 16 GB RAM can handle it pretty well with no FPS drops on max settings, but I had to turn shadows down to low because my computer was overheating, which it NEVER does, even on more complex games on ultra. VERDICT: While I think devs shouldn't have released this game in this sad state that it is now, I do hope they pursue this career. I didn't follow the development process, and I'd guess there's a reason why this went south. It's clear that they can create something really great, but sadly Subaeria, as it's being sold now, is NOT that 'something really great'... Far from it, just a wasted potential. Sad.

The begging of the game was nice where it taught you how the game works, with a nice asthetic look but annoying, although soon after that mission ends the look of the game changes to what you're seeing the the trailers/screenshots, so that's a relief. So starting at that point I was presented with a nicely drawn cutscene that presented the story of the character I'm playing as, which is charming, and I began my adventure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGIQS68WoYI The visual look of the game with bland and colorful textures, alongside nice but generic enemy designs bbut a nice character model. The controls is of a twin-stick style where one of the sticks you control the characters movement and the other stick is you controling a drone-companion, and that companion would help you get by enemies provided that you picked up and ability for it. Plays nicely with how the gameplay is designed. The way you get passed enemies by by either tricking them into smashing into a laser that is the opposite color, or smashing them into other enemies with different colors too. This is somewhat fun and refreshing to have to do instead of just shooting them like in other games. Story wise I'm satisfied with the cutscenes and quick dialogue the game has with other NPCs, and one of the endings I got was the bad one and even though dialogue and story presentation was short, I had an emotional impact that was satisfactory, which was nice/surprising. Overall I think the game is greatly worth it for the asking price, provided that you'd stand how the game has optimization hiccups and no quick-save options and a handful of bugs with a lackluster explanation of its more advanced mechanics/progression, but that's why it's in early access and you'd treet it as such and hopefully provide some nice feedback.

[h1]Introduction[/h1] Subaeria caught my eye just recently when it was first released on Early Access. An action puzzle game where you have to use the enemies against each other and the environment sounded promising and like a unique experience. And the fact that the levels would be procedurally generated made it sounds even better. So is it what I hoped it would be or did it fail to meet my expectations? [h1]Gameplay[/h1] The gameplay consists of one simple objective really: move through the labyrinth while destroying the Cleaners, robots that are after you and who will try to attack you because you have no more credits left in your account. It’s a simple story, but it gets the job done and like many other games it doesn’t need a good story in the first place for it to be enjoyable. Your character will be able to talk to other characters in some of the areas you visit, but none of them have anything particularly helpful to say, although they sometimes do give you a hint about where you need to to go. Problem is, however, that you usually have to head in a certain direction anyway and you’ll most likely get there even without having talked to them. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=525756987 Each area consists of a square layout, a block if you will, and the entrance and exit will be locked until the Cleaners have been defeated. This usually means you have to trick them into moving through the lasers or by letting them bump into each other. But for this to happen they must be of the opposite color. So a yellow enemy can bump into a yellow fellow without any problems, but let them bump into a red or blue enemy and they’ll both blow up. Same principle goes for the lasers, of course. You will do all of this with the help of a little drone, who can be used to help defeat enemies. You can let him pick up powerups that can be found throughout the levels. You have two slots, a left and a right one, and if both slots are full then the powerup you pick up will replace one of them (depending on which trigger you pick it up with). Unfortunately it’s very unclear what the powerups exactly do without opening the proper menu. During my playthroughs I just started using them randomly, hoping at least one of them would be helpful. And even then it was hard to see what they would exactly do. Note that the game is still in Early Access, but this is definitely something that needs to be addressed; let it be a small tutorial, (paused) textbox or just a floating name/description above the powerups itself. The destroyed enemies will usually leave credits for you to pick up that you can sometimes use to upgrade specific skills, but since the labyrinth is randomized this isn’t always possible (in my experience so far). You’ll also be able to find some sort of ‘perks’ from time to time that will give you things like extra health and increased speed (for your drone). There are multiple endings per character, though, but unfortunately the endings just aren’t terribly interesting. I’m not saying they’re not worthy of your time, but if you’ve finished the game once you probably won’t play it again with that same character, unless you’re absolutely in love with her (/him?). http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=525756901 One other thing I’d like to mention is the camera, which shows everything from the top. But sometimes it’s hard to see where you’re standing or walking and since you can’t rotate the camera this can lead to frustration, since you’ll bump into enemies or lasers regularly. It’s also hard to see depth at times, especially when you have to jump onto boxes to get to higher places. But despite the frustration it’s still a unique experience. At the moment it needs a lot of work in order for it to be brilliant, though, but then again, it’s still an Early Access game. Who knows what we’ll see in a few months time? [h1]Audio & Visuals[/h1] The audio is fine: it feels a little minimalist at the moment, but let’s just assume it’s still a work in progress and more music and effects will be patched in later. No real complaints here. What isn’t fine is the performance, which is absolutely horrible. It’s not unplayable by any means, but there’s a bit of lag and the framerate fluctuates a lot. Something I did not expect to see in a game like this. Again, it’s a work in progress, but I’ve played tens of Early Access games that were way better optimized than this. It sometimes took over 2 minutes to load a level: that’s just insane. The graphics themselves are simple. There’s not much style. Every area has a lot of metalic objects laying around and they don’t have any personality. I personally felt like every room was pretty much the same, with (some of) the objects moved to different places. There is a lack of variety in the level design and it’s a shame, because the setting is great (although unexplained) and there’s so much more room for added details and different locales. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=525756873 [h1]Length/Replay Value[/h1] I won’t sugarcoat it, but the length right now is just not worth the asking price. A playthrough will take about 1-2 hours, depending on your skill. You can repeat the game as many times as you want, but it won’t show you anything new once you finished it. I’m sure the game will be much longer by the time the final version releases, but right now I would recommend to wait for a sale or at least more content, unless you’re intrigued by the concept and want to experience it all for yourself. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] A somewhat unique experience that could’ve benefited from some extra content and more polish. Right now it’s a good demo (not technically, though) that partially shows you what they hope to achieve eventually, but in my opinion it’s not worth the current price. Does that mean the game sucks? No, not at all: it’s just that the price is too high at this very moment. [h1]Too long, didn’t read[/h1] Pros: + Multiple characters (although only 1 is playable at the moment) + Multiple endings + Replayability because of the procedurally generated labyrinths + Unique way to defeat enemies/progress Mixed: +/- Too many rooms are repeated (and therefore don’t feel unique) +/- Not enough variety in map design +/- Despite using the same mechanics the boss fight is still a little unclear and could benefit from more (visual) feedback Cons: - Unoptimized performance - Skills have unclear descriptions - Too little content, even for Early Access [table] [tr] [th]Please note: a Steam key for this game was provided by the developer.[/th] [/tr] [/table] [h1][b]Rating: 6.1 (out of 10)[/b][/h1] [quote]If you enjoyed this review please consider following me: [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41144728-markdj/]curator page[/url] [/quote]

Absolute garbage. Entertainment vacuum. After 1 hour of play, I haven't made any progress whatsoever. That's because, due to intellectually challenged design, the game doesn't save. Not during a mission, not on exit, never. Studios Illogika are happy to waste our precious time. They have wasted enough of mine for a life time; they are blacklisted. 0/10. And that's without counting the art, which is not only ugly but also impractical, incomprehensible. I can never say which height anything is supposed to be, what's a barrier, what's movable... There is no zoom, no rotation, nothing remotely pleasant or useful.

Steam Early Access & More Illogika’s first original IP Subaeria, allows the player to explore a unique sci-fi setting via four playable characters that are are both perpetrators and victims of the injustice that their world faces. As you discover this world, you will dig into topics of a governing democratic society, a secret shadowy organization, and mysterious algorithms that are currently empowering the status elite. Facing these tales of social and political manipulations gives the game a fresh and original vibe. Click this link to read the full article: http://www.gamerheadlines.com/2015/09/subaeria-steam-early-access/

First impressions & gameplay video: https://youtu.be/5NWEpnMdMDg I found myself pleasantly surprised by Subaeria. Each room as you progress requires quick thinking and fast reflexes and the addition of RPG elements make a nice change from other rogue likes. Controls are nice and fluid and the random generation on rooms seems pretty great. Looking forward to seeing what they add later before it leaves Early Access. So far seems like a solid puzzle game which makes great use of action and rogue like gameplay. Very impressed!

...Not a very decent game to my PC, although it has potential. Let's see: Butter smooth graphic, unchecked. Rougelike gameplay, checked. Glitches, checked. Decent storyline, checked. The whole setting section from the main menu before entering the game is broken. Once you make a choice to either Video or Extras, you won't be able to go back to continue playing, making me exit the damn game several times just for adjusting the graphic. You can't even click on the button with mouse cursor. And then the whole button layout is for XBOX CONTROLLER, which is also a bad move if you're planning to sell it for PC GAMERS. The FPS throughout the game (with / without Vsync) is not stable and even gave me blue screens several times before playing it a bit smoothly (30-33 FPS). The rougelike gameplay is at least enjoyable, the characters and dialogues look like something heavily made for PG-13 with punny swearing, but still looks intriguing to explore. Controlling both the drone and the character - yes I know, you still need a controller to play - is still clumsy and the damn drone will get stuck somewhere in the level. Oh, since the whole level is physic-based, getting major FPS drop is frequent. It's still in EA, and I already got the code to test in order to write a preview for this game, so I'm expecting a better, completed version of this game from you guys. Seriously. Fix those problems. And at least give us a button layout for KEYBOARD next time.

Subaeria is surely an oddball of the rogue genre, somehow at some point did find it and play it, now years later pick it up again and beat it. Why is it oddball though? Well it's roguelike where you don't actually fight yourself, instead using Styx's (main character) mobility and jumping you keep away from enemy cleaner robots that will destroy each other in collisions, explosions and so on. These enemies consist of three colours which are blue and yellow aka counted, destroyable enemies and greys that can beat up them both. Every yellow and blue bot needs to be destroyed in room to be able to continue to any other room block in the map. Bots have several different from and sizes that can be helpful to break storage boxes in rooms to get resources to be able to buy all kinds of upgrades, food pills, health pills or apps. Completed rooms stay open and you can go back at them and even collect dropped items from the floor later on, as they won't vanish. Which is really nice thing to have, too many games have time limit to pick drops or they will vanish, which is really annoying at parts. Most of the rooms are normal clean up rooms aka destroy all cleaners, few speak bubble rooms which have stores, npcs and the like, challenge rooms which have task to complete to get reward chest and lastly boss room. Subaeria has three areas with three bosses. First one is starts from Styx's home where her family was murdered by cleaner bots due Styx little mishaps, this area consist of people who got short stick in after apocalyptic events of water rising on earth and people moving to under water communities aka boxes connected with pipe passages. Second is more of and working areas and storages and last is lighted up rich community space. There are unlockables behind some side story missions which give new classes to play with, unlocked hacker, but didn't test it out, there's total three beside basic Styx. So combat is mainly done by making enemies destroy each other, but Styx has drone sidekick and you can upload apps to it to help the fight. Purple apps controls Styx, blue ones give drone abilities and lastly green which affect the cleaner bots directly. Did mainly use greens and some blues. Especially good ones were green masters which gave total control over the selected cleaner. Several apps have similar basic effect, but might have some extra effect based on what version it is. Like gives more money on bot destruction and so on. Gameplay felt fluid enough with Styx and for the most part it's ok to evade enemy attacks, but when swarmed it can become messy, but usually enemies whack each other off at that point. Drone however felt very floaty (well it floats), but it totally feels like losing control sometimes when having master app on some cleaner and like it goes to wrong direction. After beating game once through it raised challenge a bit and opened up side stories and missions to do other characters which give other classes for Styx to try out, so it has good amount of content to go through in the end. Bit wonky at parts, but unique in sense at rogue genre and setting looks pretty nice with art. Fine enough title as it is.

Subaeria is an intriguing hybrid of RPG, puzzle game and arena "shooter" - only you don't shoot anything. Instead you happily trick robots into killing themselves on the environment, or each other. Each region of the game is divided into a map of cubes, with each playthrough of the game shuffling the cubes into a different layout. Each cube is an arena. The doors are sealed, and you have to get rid of all the robots. The game feels 2D, but does use the third dimension for some platforming action and mini-puzzles where power-ups are hidden in tricky places. My gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvD-62T-lQ8 The robot killing is mainly stuff like positioning yourself so that when the robot fires its gun, the recoil sends it tumbling into a laser. Or getting in the middle of two buzzsaw robots and watching them plough into each other. It's great fun to achieve these things, especially when you first work it out and put the plan into operation. But sometimes you won't even do anything and discover that a robot has somehow killed itself! Your droid companion helps you out by storing and deploying the power-ups you find. These include simple stuff such as one-shot healing, and more tactical stuff such as "make the targeted robot go a bit mad and hopefully spin into the nearest laser beam". There's some plot to follow (not all in place yet in early access), which helps guide you between set points of the story - some cubes act as barriers to progression until you've, say, talked to a person hidden in a different cube. So far in early access, you'll find the randomly allocated arenas get a bit too familiar as you do more runs, but each environment is lovingly crafted, with funny details everywhere. This is a well-thought-out world they've built here under the sea. There's only a few types of killer robot in the game - once you know the strategies to kill them, the puzzle aspect is replaced purely by action. A few extra enviromental touches add more puzzle elements - pads that change the colour of lasers to allow you to destroy different robots, for instance - but so far it's not that complex. It's a fun, absorbing game that's worth following as it goes through early access, but yes, there are a few quibbles. The droid is sometimes ungainly to control (using the right-hand joypad stick) and simply isn't that essential yet - it just slows down your deploying of power-ups rather than adds an extra gameplay dimension. The 3D doesn't play any real part in the puzzles, it's just there to add some tricky jumps for the most part. And the game isn't very well optimised yet, with some slow loading times. Thanks to Studios Illogika for the preview copy.

Subaeria est une excellente surprise. Le mix action / puzzle fonctionne parfaitement et offre un petit vent de fraîcheur par rapport à tous les rogue-like sortis ces derniers temps. Pour une fois on ne rentre pas dans le tas mais on est obligé de composer avec l’environnement et c’est vraiment amusant de pousser les ennemis dans les rayons laser ou d’activer les pièges pour les détruire. Le personnage répond parfaitement aux commandes, les salles s’enchaînent bien et sont assez variées. Si je devais émettre un reproche, ce serait au niveau de la perception de hauteur des éléments. Avec la vue quasi de dessus, il n’est pas toujours facile de savoir si oui ou non notre personnage pourra sauter au-dessus d’un obstacle. Pour le reste c’est du tout bon et je suis pressé de voir la suite du jeu. Lire la preview complète sur [url=http://www.gamesidestory.com/2015/10/01/preview-subaeria-pc/]Game Side Story[/url] https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1239&v=okDluk19muY