Gamescom 2014 round-up – Part 1
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments, Call of Cthulhu
The good news for people looking forward to Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments is that it will be coming out as early as September 30. The bad news is that my appointment with Focus Home didn’t last long enough for me to see anything that wasn’t already shown in the extensive gameplay trailer put out earlier this year. Especially disappointing was not being able to try out the revamped deduction system, which will at times open up new mid-case decisions and let you indict or clear any of at least four suspects per case, with nine possible endings to each of the six cases. To increase replay value and immersion, you can (and will by default) choose not to be told whether you picked the right suspect, though at the end of each case you can opt to have its correct solution revealed.
Crimes & Punishments gameplay video
These six cases should take about three to four hours each. Some of them are based on the original Conan Doyle stories, though with some changes made so people who already read those stories won’t be able to crack the case right off the bat. The cases do not come together in any overarching plot, but the aftermath of each does affect your reputation and career as a detective.
While I was still at Focus Home’s booth, I took the opportunity to ask about the upcoming Cthulhu-based game that was announced recently. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t tell me more than that it will be made by the same team as the Sherlock Holmes series, and that they are researching thoroughly and playing some Cthulhu board and card games every day at lunch. The publisher catalog I got further states that the game will be called Call of Cthulhu and released in 2015.
The Talos Principle
Getting into conferences this big can be hard without a publisher, but this year the collaborative Indie Mega Booth showed up at gamescom for the first time, taking up a surprisingly large space and showcasing more than 30 games. Most of them were of course from other genres, but one I did sit down for was The Talos Principle, the “philosophical first-person puzzler” coming from Croteam later this month.
As the demo began, I was at a small bridge leading up to a medieval-style stone fort, protected by a distinctly not-medieval-style electronic puzzle lock. Not having enough pieces yet to solve the Tetris-style jigsaw puzzle, I explored a bit instead. It was certainly a nice enough stroll: everything looked great, from the luscious grass to the richly textured walls to the sky above, where I even spotted a rainbow out in the background.
After crossing the bridge again back to where I began, I found some ruins in the same style which looked to be more accessible. Soon enough, I stumbled on a little computer terminal. Where I expected to get some immediate result just using the interact button, surprisingly the view zoomed in for detailed interaction. Then what started out as trying some console commands to override security turned into what felt like a dialog puzzle when a reluctant AI inside questioned why I should be getting special treatment. I say “felt” because at the end, nothing seemed to change and I’m not sure whether I succeeded or if success was even possible. After exploring the computer a little more for some vaguely philosophical-flavored texts, I moved along while a voice-over discussed how “the apparent wisdom of the interloper” was hollow and self-serving. (Ahem.)
Exploring a bit more, I finally arrived at some of the physical puzzles I assume will be the bread and butter of this game. The ‘Easy’ puzzle I began with introduced force fields and inhibitors I could plop down to disable them. The ‘Hard’ puzzle I took on next introduced a red laser that could be redirected by another pedestal-mounted device I could reposition, with useful things happening when the beam went into the right hole. You can make the beam hit the redirector from any angle and split it up as much as you want; there just needs to be a good line of sight to everything. It’s a bit much to take in, but it starts to feel natural very quickly and soon enough I was happily running around alternating between moving the inhibitor and the redirector, getting one step further each time. Then a little while later, the fun really started when a blue laser and targets were added to the mix.
Since I had an appointment elsewhere drawing ever closer and I couldn’t hog a show floor demo for too long in any case, I couldn’t get much further than that. But while I didn’t get to see some of the more advanced mechanics and can’t tell if the philosophy angle will amount to much more than window-dressing, the puzzle design and atmosphere certainly make this a promising title if you have an itch to scratch for a Portal-style physical puzzler.
Wander
Also available to try out at the Indie Mega Booth was Wander, a game which is unusual in that it is a narrative-driven exploration game while also being a (combat-free) MMO. You start the game as a living, vaguely humanoid tree, recently awoken in a thick rainforest. The visuals are certainly pretty enough and combined with the ambient sound effects give off a very relaxing atmosphere as you stroll from one point of interest to the next, but the lumbering tree moves about so slowly it started grating on my patience soon enough. I don’t play a lot of exploration games, but I dare say the movement is a bit too slow even for one of those.
After encountering some stone ruins, you soon gain the ability to take the form of a griffin and take flight. This is quite a bit faster and makes for a great view, but without the help of a minimap it’s very easy to lose your bearings and have no idea how to get back to your takeoff point. Walking on the ground in griffin form is still quite slow, but the full game should have other, more convenient forms for that.
What I didn’t see was any interaction with another player, nor anything I could recognize as a puzzle. Creative Director Loki Davison likes to compare the game to a multiplayer version of the PS3 game flower, and also said it would be a bit like Myst when I asked about that. The way the MMO interaction is described is also reminiscent of Journey. So Wander is a bit hard to place for now, but it might blossom into something fascinating when it moves out of its public beta later this year.
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