Penumbra

[Erratic]

Hadn't really heard much about these games at all, just a scatter of mentions over the last little while but finally checked out the demo for Penumbra: Black Plauge and it's pretty great. Anyone try these yet? Apparently there's two games in the series (overture being the first, black plague second), they're basically FPS-Survival horror made up mostly of puzzle solving from what I gathered from the demo, but they're pretty ingenious puzzle designs. Really practical, logical kind of puzzles, I had a blast with it.

Gonna try and get these somehow. Not sure they're available retail...They don't seem to be available on Steam either, which is a shame, cause they look like perfect candidates to be on there; no publicity/by a small developer.

so yeah, go download for awesomeness.

Overture Demo

Black Plague Demo

[BioPulse]

I read the website and can't wait to dl the demo when i get home from work later.

It looks like a pretty creepy and sneaky game

direct link to game-info page: http://www.penumbrablackplague.com/site/game.php

[Algor]

Impressive that it's a two man dev team. I downloaded both the demos, I'll try and check them out tonight and post some feedback.

Beat the first demo: does this end at the dog? Just got to make sure Great stuff though. Don't know if I had a graphical glitch or they were trying to make it seem like you were drunk... I definitely had a lot of visual anomalies like the screen tearing. Great interaction systems though. Also had a problem where all my object interactions were pretty far below the actual object itself, which slowed me down a lot.

Finished the second demo now, pretty outstanding. I do have to say though, some of the puzzles aren't exactly clear. They also throw red herrings in there to look for a certain device (ie; hex shaped object on power box leads me to think I'm looking for a hex screwdriver) when you are just supposed to beat the hell out of it to make the front panel come off, which I tried (apparently not enough!). Either way, had a good time playing it.

[Sindwiller]

Impressive that it's a two man dev team.

For real? Man, that's completely sick dude. Two guys manage to create a scary-shit adventure game, whereas huge dev teams cannot. Touché(s)!

[Sentura]

I don't think the number of people developing a game has anything to do with how scary it is. i've seen plenty huge devs do extremely scary stuff, and i've done some level design myself that i've gotten intimidated by as well.

[Buddy]

I've seen screenshots from these two games last night and they didn't interested me too much.

Now that you brought it up and I've checked some videos I decided to dll and test. The mechanics and Atmosphere are decent, the art could be a bit better though. (While sequel is arleady a lot better than the original)

And yeah puzzles really are logical.

it's clearly inspired by SH and other simmilar games, I like it:D

[Erratic]

I've seen screenshots from these two games last night and they didn't interested me too much.

Now that you brought it up and I've checked some videos I decided to dll and test. The mechanics and Atmosphere are decent, the art could be a bit better though. (While sequel is arleady a lot better than the original)

And yeah puzzles really are logical.

it's clearly inspired by SH and other simmilar games, I like it:D

Play it! The experience it provides with minimal content is astounding in my opinion. Gameplay videos of most games suck

And you're right about it borrowing from Japanese horror games. The piano/ambient sounds in particular are such a throwback to the fixed-camera style Resident Evil games. It's great stuff.

I got a digital download for Penumbra: Overture from Direct2Drive and loving the puzzles so far. They're so grounded in reality when compared to other horror game puzzles. Gives such a better sense of the environment and world as opposed to arbitrary puzzles that-are-so-obviously-puzzles that you find in the Silent Hill and RE games. (they're still awesome too, of course )

[Buddy]

Yeah I dll'ed and finished it, that is what i used to based my opinion on It makes me want to buy it.

[Taylor]

The new Alone in the Dark has something about 'Real World Rules' for their combat and puzzles, not sure how it compares to this.

[Buddy]

Lol looks silly, total ripoff from Penumbra

[D3ads]

Gotta check this out sometime, looks like totally my thing

[Sindwiller]

Lol looks silly, total ripoff from Penumbra

Oh the irony

[Cybbe]

Lol looks silly, total ripoff from Penumbra

Well, to be fair, Alone in the Dark is a series that has been going for a long, long time... I wouldn't be quick to say it's a ripoff rather than mechanics are influenced back and forth between these two, and many other games of this and other styles...

[Erratic]

I really doubt the Alone in the Dark guys played Penumbra, honestly.

[Cybbe]

Yeah, and well, while I don't know what he meant by ripoff, the inventory mechanics have been like that, albeit not as advanced, for tons of games, and I'd be prone to believe that the former Alone in the Dark games would have had similar physics/lighting, whatever if it had been possible. Although, it wasn't really necessary back then Alone in the Dark used to scare the shit out of me. I have no doubt this one will as well.

And saying another game is a ripoff of something else due to having familiar elements is just silly. It'd be like saying every game from HL2 and on would be ripoffs for having physics (to that extent, anyway), and saying that all scary games are ripoff of each other ;x

Claiming ripoff should be reserved to the cases where the content is in fact questionable, and blatantly steals stuff from something else. I can't be arsed to come up with examples, but I hope you get the idea.

And I hope the " " in buddy's post means he was in fact just joking, but things like this should probably be set straight anyway.

http://www.xkcd.com/386/