TARTARUS

[h1]Introduction[/h1] Easy peasy lemon squeezy! What, you thought I’m talking about the game? TARTARUS can be summarized by a few words, sure, but “easy” ain’t among them. And that is perfectly fine. It’s been far too long since I’ve had a game that pushed me so close to rage quitting. But no, I couldn’t give up and I didn’t stop until I finished TARTARUS, even if it took me longer than expected. I guess that’s the beauty of some Steam indie games. You take a good look over the Store’s official screenshots for it and you still can’t guess what aces lie under their sleeves. For a Steam debutante, Abyss Gameworks has left quite an impression on yours truly. [h1]Story [/h1] “Tartarus” is the Ancient Greek equivalent of Hell. It's also supposed to be the ultimate abyss from which not even the ravenous Titans could escape following their defeat and imprisonment by Zeus. No surprise then, that the dev team also mirrored their own name into their first project. That was a nice touch indeed, capturing the very essence of the game, if you will. A reconnaissance vessel has suffered a cascading failure of its systems and is about to crash into Neptune. A cook/miner (nice combo!) with zero programming skills and a short temper, must save the day and himself in the process. Basically all that’s separating TARTARUS at this point from a Steven Seagal flick, is a terrorist plot like in 1992’s “Under Siege”. Cooper, the unlikely hero of our story, may not kick bottoms and bad guys like good ol’ Steve yet he’s just as creative when it comes to finding a solution at the very last moment. He won’t do it alone, but the ship was already run by a sparse crew and it’s the player’s determination that will culminate in either success or failure. Time is the initial enemy yet TARTARUS has more surprises in store for you, as you’re rushing towards the story’s conclusion. It won’t be that predictable, which is great. Titles relying heavily on logic and puzzles, represent the last genre in which you’d wish to find anticipated results. No one is going to spoil the mystery here, least of which the game itself. [h1]Graphics[/h1] TARTARUS is being powered by the Unreal Engine 4. You might even draw a stylistic comparison to Alien: Isolation’s CATHODE Engine, yet UE4 has its own quirks which I couldn’t overlook. Asking for permissions before booting the game for the first time? Only you, Unreal! On my GTX 1070, I couldn’t hope to run 60fps on recent games skillfully powered by this graphics engine at 4K resolution, but they look just as great when maxed out at “just” 2K. Stable 60 frames per second without a single drop in sight. I didn’t mention above the best Alien video game in years, for no apparent reason. They share a vital element. In TARTARUS, you’ll also feast your eyes upon the kind of retrofuturism and examples of lo-fi equipment which made Science Fiction movies more relatable, if not more believable in regards to their release date. In our particular case, CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors and VHS (video home system) tapes along with an interface which reminds of MS-DOS. Almost a reminiscence of Event[0], yet there’s no Artificial Intelligence to interact with in TARTARUS. Command lines shall be typed and puzzles shall be solved anyway. Didn’t find a single flaw to the visual style, textures or the scripted events. [h1]Audio[/h1] Both the soundtrack and the voice acting are top notch. I was actually surprised to notice that a single voice actor was used for all in-game characters. Not that they’re too many, but the use of accents was definitely an excellent choice. You’ll notice that too once you start playing. As for the OST, all that tension builds up to the final confrontation between life and death. It really pays off to be as patient as you can with those puzzles and see the game through to its conclusion since TARTARUS really separates itself from Event[0] in that regard. Nothing underwhelming about it, from start to end. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] If you’re expecting some heavy action, shooting, stabbing or explosive situations while you’re scraping the blown brains of some alien lifeforms off your uniform, then TARTARUS may not the right Sci-Fi experience for you. While not inherently static, the gameplay could never be acknowledged as dynamic either. You’re not being constantly hunted by a creature or subjected to mockery and threatened by a rogue AI. In fact, the sense of progression itself is strictly tied to how well you’ll fare in the puzzle sections which involve command lines typed on those faux CRT terminals. You’re receiving a minimum amount of help but make no mistake, you’re on your own starting from the 2nd puzzle and all the way to bittersweet end. Most games offer advice nowadays, but TARTARUS is a title you’ll really appreciate at its full potential only if you follow its rules. Pay close attention to even the smallest details in each room and corridor you visit. Set your screen brightness accordingly and if you can, do use headphones which shall emulate the 5.1 format, unless you have a speaker system capable of relaying the real thing. Sound plays a central role in the second half of the storyline and it functions almost like the echolocation on which the survival of many species relies on. Keeping your eyes peeled will only get you so far, unless you’re also listening in closely. Last but not least, you may find that keeping a pen or pencil and something to write on near your desk, is a simple yet effective alternative to memorizing details and hints. Later on, you’ll also need help with calculations. Yes, mathematics are involved, though it isn’t overwhelming at any point. I’m a man of words, names and historical dates primarily, yet I didn’t consider the several math-based puzzles in TARTARUS, as insurmountable obstacles. It didn’t stop some players from complaining about it though. I won’t even bother sharing my honest thoughts on those which downvote or outright publish a negative review to a game which they found too difficult. We’re not talking about any technical issues or narrative inconsistencies here. TARTARUS is a stable game which doesn’t feature any bugs or glitches. No cheap tricks are used at all. You either ambition yourself to solve the puzzles or you don’t. At least take a break and retry at a later date. Throwing a hissy fit about the difficulty scale only speaks volumes of yourself, not the game in question. [h1]Verdict[/h1] Definitely not what you’d presume at first glance. It was still a pleasant surprise and appearances are once again, quite deceiving. At least you know now not to expect some subpar survival indie game in space. Both Steam and I, had our fill of that subgenre. The Linux version will be launched soon and just keep in mind that TARTARUS is a game of logic, first and foremost. The story is just there to kickstart your imagination on the right track. It’s still up to you if you’ll finish the journey or not. No one’s gonna hold your hand so use your brain, will you? [h1]Strong Points[/h1] + Logic-based puzzles. + Beautiful graphics & sounds. + Interesting storyline and characters. + Steam Trading Cards & Achievements. [h1]Weak Points[/h1] - Unbalanced difficulty, with no option to skip puzzles. [b]Rating 90/100 [/b] [quote]This review was submitted for [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ImperialReviews]Imperial Reviews[/url], through the generous contribution of the game’s developer.[/quote]

[b]SUMMARY: For a puzzle game, Tartarus does a few things right...but it's still not the sum of its parts. Relatively short (four genuine puzzle segments) and hamstrung by a weak plot and some bad gameplay mechanics, it's hard to recommend the game to anybody but a diehard puzzle gamer. That being said, the developers are steadily rolling out small patches that are improving some of the issues described in this reivew. I'll try to reflect those changes in this review, so it's up to date.[/b] +++PROS+++ + Awesome "retro-futuristic" aesthetic is a nice change of pace from other sci-fi games and lends a bit more personality to Tartarus + Responsive development team appears receptive to feedback and on top of bugfixes. + It feels [i]really[/i] cool and immersive to sit at terminals and input commands in the process of solving puzzles. In fact, I wish more puzzle games would take a cue from Tartarus in this regard. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1208392582 ---CONS--- - When you drill down into it, the game has only [u]four[/u] puzzles, and a couple of other segments that might be loosely considered puzzles. This can be a [i]very[/i] short game. - A pretty weak plot, with an ending segment that (without spoiling it) is just terrible and goes against the spirit and mechanics of the rest of the game. - Your character moves quite slow and while they can "jog" slightly faster for short distances, they'll tire quickly. I feel like a better "solution" would have been to give you a single movement speed that is faster than the default walk, but slower than a run--especially since your movement speed has no bearing on the game's mechanics until the final "puzzle". [strike]Exacerbating matters, the player's character will produce a RAPID breathing noise (almost like they're hyperventilating or shivering to death) while they jog[/strike] [b]NOTE: The developers recently released a patch that improved the audio for running[/b]. - Strangely inconsistent graphical quality: Sometimes Tartarus looks pretty great, but other times it's a surprisingly ugly game; many areas are unnecessarilly large and sparse, almost as if they're unfinished (SEE PHOTO BELOW). With such a small development team and budget, this doesn't come off as a [i]huge[/i] surprise, but perhaps it would have been better for Tartarus to use more abstract aesthetics (i.e. "Tacoma" or "The Witness") to better conceal its rough visual edges. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1209587657 - Occasionally poor "mission" guidance: There's a difference between a game refusing to hold your hand, and opaque/unfriendly game design. Often times, Tartarus falls into the latter category. For instance, at one point your objective is to "Go to the Navcomm Room", but it's not entirely clear [i]which[/i] room is the Navcomm room. As a crew member of the ship, this would be obvious to the player's [i]character[/i], but it's never made clear to the [i]player[/i]. Eventually--perhaps by simply exploring every area you physically can--you'll find a room with a small morse code chart on a table and some equipment that, through some imagination and scrutiny, may suggest you've found the Navcomm room (although to be clear, many of the rooms are crammed full of sci-fi equipment)...but then what? The objective remains the same: "Go to the Navcomm Room." The fact that the objective didn't update made me question whether or not I'd actually found the correct room. Only after examining every nook and crany of the area several times did I discover that I needed to interact with a small panel in order to speak with another crew member, thereby advancing the plot. [b]NOTE: The developers recently released a patch to improve the issues described below; I haven't been able to play the game since the update, so I can't confirm how much easier it is to navigate this segment, but it's good to see that they're working on improving it:[/b] Similarly, upon donning a spacesuit and exiting the vessel, I'm provided with the objective of finding an "exterior hatch". Okay...this ship is the size of an enormous aircraft carrier floating through an asteroid field...maybe the game/player/NPC could provide some better guidance than that, so I don't spend the next 10-15 minutes crawling through space looking for a hatch of some sort? For example, [i]"the hatch you're looking for should be about halfway down on the port side"[/i] or [i]"from where you are, you're going to have to head to the opposite end of the ship; look for a glowing red antenna."[/i] Again, this might be the sort of knowledge the player's character would possess, but no effort is made to convey that knowledge to the player.

I loved the game. The game is mostly a puzzle solving game. If you don't like puzzles, then do not get this one. Also, the puzzles are based heavily around using computers. If you hate computers, then don't get this game. Side note, if you hate computers, why are you reading this? Game does virtually no handholding and the puzzles can be extremely difficult from the start.

[h1]SUMMARY[/h1] Start off as playing a janitor (Cooper) on a ship in space and wake up from being unconcious to only find out somthing terrible has happened to the ship and why everybody is gone. There is one other person on the ship and you must follow his insturcutions to make your way through areas, solving puzzles to descover more of the story of what truly happend. [h1] FIRST IMPRESSION[/h1] The graphics are amazing and easy to learn controls. However dialog beggins early, and you cant do anything but walk around until the dialog is over, and most of the time the dialog is quite long. after you get past that the puzzles are pretty hard with your choice of getting help at anytime (only with the terminal puzzles). Navigating around is confusing at times seeing theres no real good indication of what direction you should go in. The terminal puzzles are difficult even though is does help you know what to type to navigate your way thought the system, however theres so many folders, you must know which ones to go in, so in summary you will be blindly searching through folders and dead ends for a while until you finally type in the write combination, and seems like some of the keys, passwords, ect. are randomly generated with each game so you cant look it up which could be a good thing but makes for a long difficult time consuming effort. There is a great story to this game and the enviroment gives you an feeling of being alone despite the other person here and there on the comm system. In my opinion the "action" button is hard to locate on the things you need to interact with, you will either pass somthing up because you wont know its interactable or you will be wiggling your mouse around for a bit trying to make your action. [h1] MY THOUGHTS[/h1] My thoughts are, this game seems great and story rich with graphics and texture that will drag you in, if it werent so time consuming. It takes ages to just get through a few steps. This game does not hold your hand throught the gameplay, at most it will guide you in the genaral direction and you must go from there. If it were easier to interact with things, and if the dialog wasnt so long i wouldnt feel so bored. If your a player that can take your time playing a story rich sifi game, this game maybe just right for you. [h1] MY RATING [/h1] The rating I decided to give this game is a [h1]4/10[/h1] due to the lack of being active. you must pause all the time and wait. Probably best to bring up a notepad as well seeing how theres not much of a hud and you need to remember passwords and such.. I liked where the game was going, but with all the flaws i have pointed out, it was just to much of an inconvenience. If you found this review helpful check out this cool page [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Original_Curators_Group] OCG[/url] [i] I recieved this game for reviewing purposes [/i]

Controls are set to laggy and highly sensitive by default. The game is unplayable without adjusting these settings. You spend much of your time in a too-dark environment, moving very slowly with a flashlight - how innovative. Alignment to interact with an object requires getting uncomfortably close and choosing the correct one (not that one, or that one, THAT one). Dialog is really quiet, even turned up all the way. In the final (terribly frustrating) sequence, the voice actor merged the characters into a single voice. You do not even need to deal with the final sequence because there is nothing added to the story. Finish the reactor puzzle and go to Andrews. Then quit the game if you want to avoid the annoying gameplay, you will not miss anything. The puzzles are decent and interesting for the most part, though better games skip re-entering already found requirements. The terminal is poorly implemented with cumbersome commands and no tab-completion, which ruins the main puzzle interface. [h3]Additional Details[/h3] [table] [tr] [td]Operating System[/td] [td]Ubuntu Linux 21.10 x64[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]CPU[/td] [td]Ryzen 7 5800h[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]GPU[/td] [td]RX 6700m[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Game Saves[/td] [td]Automatically, way too infrequently[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Notes[/td] [td]The most enjoyment I got from this game is knowing it is out of my backlog[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Technical Notes[/td] [td]Unreal game engine, 1 crash[/td] [/tr] [/table]

[b] [u] [h1]TARTARUS[/h1] [/u] [/b]Walking Simulator auf einer Raumstation mit kleinen Problemen. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1951901673 [u] [h1]Story[/h1] [/u]Wir sind im Jahr 2230 ein/der Koch auf einem Raumschiff. Plötzlich wird das Sicherheitsprotokoll aktiviert. BOOOOOM.Einziger Kontakt ist ein Kollege namens Andrew, der uns über die Freisprechanlagen hilft, das Raumschiff wieder zu aktivieren.Aber wo sind unsere anderen Kameraden???? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1951901997 [u] [h1]Sonstiges[/h1] [/u] [list] [*] +Spieldauer ca. 6-7 Stunden. [*] +Errungenschaften, 8Stück sind in einem Durchlauf zu schaffen [*] +Sammelkarten.[*]+ Grafik und Sound waren OK[*]o Taschenlampe macht zu wenig Licht.[*]- Beschissene Rätsel, also wirkliche Rätsel wo man schon Ahnung haben muss von Computer Programmieren und Elektronik.[*]- Schleichpassage habe ich gefühlte 1576 Mal gemacht. [*] - Preis €19,90.- auf alle Fälle zu viel. Für unter €5 kann man es mitnehmen, aber nur wegen den Erfolgen.[/list]https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1951901628 [u] [h1]Fazit[/h1] [/u]Hat für mich bombastisch Begonnen, dann kam das erste Rätsel und ENDE für mich. Ohne Youtube hätte ich es nicht geschafft ans Ende zu kommen.Deswegen ein NEIN von mir.Viel Spaß, beim retten der TARTARUS[code]Du möchtest mehr Reviews? Dann folge jetzt der [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32139821/]German Review Group [/url] [/code]

I loved the premise of TARTARUS, there is an accident on the ship and you, the cook, are the only person who can bring systems back online to save the ship. You have to interact with the bridge, cargo bay and reactor systems which are all things you aren't trained to do so as a player you have to explore them and learn how they function. But TARTARUS isn't a very well built game. Many of the puzzles don't provide any feedback at all. So it might be a maths based puzzle and after entering in your calculations a message appears saying 'Calculation Failed' without any other feedback to indicate where you might have gone wrong or how far from the correct answer you are. Then there is the linear nature of the game, which is surprising because it is so immersion breaking. On the ship there are intercom panels in most rooms, in some rooms there are two, but if you need to use the intercom as your next objective, you need to find the one that the game is expecting you to use. After using it you can't use it again until the game is expecting you to use it as the next thing you need to do. This also applies to computer terminals and other objects. Ladders can't be used at all if it isn't one you will need to use to complete the game so there is no to very little exploration. There is a part of the game where you have to turn some valves and are only able to turn the one that you need to turn, to progress. So in concept TARTARUS is great, but the execution is at a low standard. The ending leaves much unresolved and doesn't answer the question of 'Is the ship saved?' or 'Did I survive?'. I can only recommend this game to game design students who want to see a game which is an excellent example of clear problems in design for an assignment. 2/5

An excellent Puzzle Game ! All of comments below are wrote after 4h of gameplay. I am not one of that "old" gamers but I love hard games. (lets say "fair" hard games) When I heard about TARTARUS I was feel like "ughh :/ another garbage walking simulator game." When I read further about the game, I learned its not one of them and then I get hyped bcs it looks amazing! Recently, I finished almost half of the game. I want to say this game is awesome for an indie game. About Story You are a cook in the mining spaceship. One day an accident happens and the ship getting itself locked and alarmed. You are as a cook trying to solve the problem and trying to go back homebecause you are the only one around to do that. [b]PROS[/b] Brilliant puzzles. Elegant graphics. Intrusting story. Good game design. (Non-helping gamestyle, hard puzzles ..etc) [b]CONS[/b] Sometimes you see ugly textures and objects. The playgorund feels completely empty. There are lots of terminals, cabinets and drawers but they are not interactive. There might be some lore notes around playground... [b]Who should buy?[/b] [list] [*]People intrusted with coding. (The game has hard coding puzzles) [*] Puzzle lovers. [*]Non casual gamers. [/list] [b]Who should stay away?[/b] [list] [*]Casual gamers. [*]Futuristic style haters. (see CoD Infinit WF) [*]Nonpatience people. [/list] Thanks for reading.