Hey all! After some months of radio silence, it would appear that Klei has made some cool changes to the UI and general feel. I've not spent too much time with it, but I would be interested in what people think about it!

Looking forward to trying this out some this weekend. I bought and played this a little bit on the first day they made the alpha available, and I haven't touched it since then.

The game was already really solid before the final version but I am super impressed with how it all has come together with the final level of polish they put on everything since the last release.

I have been holding out on buying it to play the final game. Hope it's good. I have faith Klei turned out a good product. Fingers crossed.

It is a fun game, the release version adds a ton of polish to the game, cut scenes and UI improvements. It is a very unique game, turn based stealth rouge like. It is a hard game but the rewind feature softens the blow a bit. Lots of different agents, items, and bad guys keeps the game fresh. The game has the typical story mode along with an endless mode. I think it is well worth the money to get such a unique game and it was fun following it through out its development, it changed a lot.

I played through the main three difficulty levels this weekend, and came away from the experience a little unsure what to think about it - maybe just because this game wasn't in line with what I'd initially expected. This is certainly an entertaining and very well made game, but the short main progression (each playthrough beginning to end being about 2-5 hours depending on how cautious you are and how you spend your 72 in-game hours preparing for the final battle) and the highly random nature of it made it hard for me to truly feel connected to the experience.

Overall, this game maybe falls closer to something like FTL than it does to XCOM. It gets its mileage by being challenging, extremely random, and encouraging you to play through multiple times with different world/difficulty configurations and starting agents. At the end of each playthrough, your persistent experience is tallied up and you can unlock new agents and abilities to start out with, each agent/ability lending itself to playing a bit differently but none of them seeming particularly over/underpowered.

In spite of the comparison I made to FTL and the talk I've seen about this game being extremely difficult in the roguelike tradition, I managed to finish each of the main difficulty tiers (beginner, experienced, expert) on my first try. As long as you focus on being cautious and stealthy, you can be pretty successful in this game regardless of the dice rolls that dictate level layouts, equipment, agents, and other factors. The only place where you're at the mercy of extremely unfair odds and randomness is in the final mission - I barely survived it on my experienced playthrough but ended up with a floor layout on expert that allowed me to get through without anyone even being spotted.

@inoajd said:

Oh, so this is Game of the fucking Year then?!

@inoajd: At times like this, I really wish the forums had a "Like" button, because what more is there to say than "Yep, this is great."

Also I love how that blue polo shirt became the default outfit people think of Ryan as wearing. Because it totally was.

@inoajd: Sheeeit, that's pretty great.

Cool Ryan tribute!

@chaser324: Thanks for the impressions. I feel like I would feel the same way about the game as you do. Didn't know it was such a short, replayable thing. Not sure how I feel about that combined with Turn Based Strategy. That genre seems like one for long games and investment in your characters, like you bring up.

I tend to like the long game more, when it comes to tactical RPG type stuff. I even think a game similar to FTL that was designed to last longer could be something I'd like more.

@jakob187 said:

@inoajd said:

Oh, so this is Game of the fucking Year then?!

How do i get this!?

Also, does anyone know if there are multiple endings? Because the ending I got was certainly not a good one.

@mikemcn: Nope. There's just the one cliffhanger ending.

I'm always put off by the procedurally-generated aspect of these type of games. I get that in a way it adds replayability, but it also makes everything feel kind of soulless. Also the random factor means some levels will be stupid hard and others real easy, because thats just how the tiles fell this time around. I'd take fewer hand crafted and player tested levels over infinite randomized ones anyday. I mean just imagine if Portal was procedurally generated? Sure it would be longer but those puzzles wouldn't be nearly as good.

Yep, when I learned it was a procedurally-generated game, all of my hype for it went away. But it's actually pretty good.

Awwwww, I killed like 1 guard and i thought that made me get the evil ending, what a sad ending!

In XCOM:EU, the procedurally-generated stuff made sense in the universe: the aliens are mysterious, we don't know what firepower they have, the levels will change based on where they crash landed, etc. In this game, you're supposed to be a spy agency that knows the corporations you're facing; why would spies walk into a building they didn't know at least a little bit of the layout of? That doesn't make a lot of sense. In the 2 hours I've played, I've already seen repeated tile sets. I'm with you that the level design feels kind of soulless.

If Portal was all random levels, it would take away from the great puzzles and the "Aha!" moments those games have (but maybe would be good in Co-Op?).

@wjist: Something about procedurally generated stuff that instantly looks like it was made by a machine. The way rooms are layed out in a nonsensical manner and stuff. I mean I'm talking just overall, I'm still on the fence about getting this.

I feel like a scumbag but I keep thinking like, man this is probably going to be $5 on the Steam Summer Sale..

@wjist: Well the story obviously justifies why they wouldn't know about the buildings they're entering. They're on the run and don't have time to gather all the intelligence that they would normally have. I haven't played a ton of it yet, but that seems to be how things are going to go for most of the game.

@randalian: Sure, but Incognita...something, something. I guess knowing how heavy the security might be in any given location is as much intelligence as they're going to get like that.

To be clear, I'm having fun, but the having-Mark-of-the-Ninja discount was low enough for me to buy it. Maybe they'll add features/levels by the time the summer sale happens? Klei supported Mark of the Ninja with some good extras.

I've been playing this game since the beginning of Early Access and the procedural level thing is key to the whole game design. The game is designed is to force you into situations you never planed for and think of creative ways to get out them.

I am a huge fan of Klei Entertainment's stuff so kinda psyched to hear this is out. How much would you say has this game changed since Giant Bomb did the Unfinished?

@i_stay_puft: Well, for one, there's an actual story (with cinematics and everything), and the feel is even more cyberpunk. They've added 4 more agents to choose from (including alternate starting loadouts for existing agents). and a much better UI all around.

In terms of first impressions, I really like the idea of this game, but it's really, really hard! The procedural generation of the game makes for endless replayability, but it also makes it really hard to find out where you need to go, and I often waste precious time trying to figure that out while guards swarm me. Is there anybody who has any tips on how to beat the game on experienced? Or, like FTL, does it rely on luck of the draw?

@i_stay_puft: It's fundamentally the same game, but it's far more polished.

Having played a hundred+ hours of Xcom: EU and long war, let me tell you, that game could use some more generation... those levels are so mind numbingly the same between battles... enemy placement is the only meaningful random thing. Parts of the level really don't change in a major way, the alien ship can only be in like 2 places on most maps and the aliens might not even be inside so who cares about finding it. You end up just following the alien noises until you jump on top of them. That's not engaging after a certain point which is why I'm always ramping up the difficulty in xcom, without that it's just a chore.

In Invisible I think the layout of the map changing, paired with enemies being anywhere, is much more interesting by itself at the outset. You may explore in a completely wrong direction and end up stuck, or pick the right path and be on your objective and out the door before the guards react, that's cool. One run may involve a ton of readily available safes and stores, while another may have very little. I may get tired of the sneaking before I get tired of the level generation.

I think there's a middle ground between complete generation and none. Xcom has too little and invisible inc seems to have a bit too much.

Just a heads up there is a great Three Moves Ahead episode on Invisible.Inc.