Quick Look: Kairo

The word you're looking for is complement, not compliment.

Sorry, we're on a "correct terms Nazi" post war in here with Ryan's "symbology" comment so I just had to. No hard feelings.

Rift support please

This game reminds me a lot of At A Distance, although mostly in terms of look and some aspects of the tone.

Reminds me so much of the Assassin's Creed: Revelations first person sections. Which sadly isn't a great thing in my book.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/symbology

That was pretty bad "Szturgiewicz", Ryan. You won't fool anyone in Poland. Keep practicing.

Ryan's jerky mouse movements gave me motion sickness. Please don't be a jerk-er!

Space Egypt

I'm as big a fan of abstract arty games as anyone... but 5mins in it just reminds me of my old Quake mapping days, it really looks like someone's first attempt with a map editor. It's difficult trying to differentiate between artistic minimalism and crap.

@pancakehumper said:

Rift support should be in the game soon. My kit has apparently shipped now so I'll be patching it in as soon as I can.

Yeah, I'm good friends with Terry and I'd already been working on Kairo for nearly a year when she showed me what he was doing with At a Distance. So it wasn't a case of any kind of copying since obviously he took that game in such a different direction to Kairo.

I first heard about those sections when I was showing this at a PAX and people kept mentioning the similarity. TBH as much as I loved AC2, by the time I got around to Revelations I was so burnt out the core AC gameplay that those first person bits where the only part I did enjoy. Obviously I'm biased though. ^_^

@ryan It's Bartosh Shturgyevich. Fun fact from a Polish user!

Looks strange but only $8 so seems worth checking out. Anyone who has played it, could you tell me how long it is?

I don't know what people find so amazing about the art style. Just looks like your average first person game from the UT99 era to me, and let's not pretend UT99 looks amazingly artistic in 2013.

I can understand the budget reasons for going with a minimalistic style, but these days it almost seems like all indy games get automatically praised for their amazingly original art style when they have crap graphics. By now it's not even original anymore by a long shot, just like the classic 8bit style etc.

Although I didn't like antichamber's gameplay, that did have an artstyle and still managed to look attractive while being minimalistic. It's a world of difference with this if you ask me.

So Myst series now inspired others to do the same with even less story or idea on what's going on, glad to see more of this as it just doesn't look like much fun to me.

This game looks terrible. Like, 1st year uni student work bad. That green maze room would drive me fucking insane!

I believe the word you are looking for is symbolism...ssssymbolism. I'll be having a bagel with my coffee.

I got all excited from the screenshot because I thought this was some update to Discs of Tron. I was sadly mistaken.

This seems like a nice little game to waste a Sunday on.

whoa boy my eyes are spinning, havent been this motion sick since the halflife 2 days.

aaaaand 86 people made the Boondock Saints joke already.

i heard THERE WAS A FIREFIGHT!!!

@xite: aha of course, now i get it... Thanks Bootsy and xite!

P.s. Bootsy Collins is now my new role model in sick threads!

I really liked the look and atmosphere of this game, more so than Antichamber, but to hear that the music room is 'just for fun' is pretty disappointing. That dilutes the whole thing for me. I dislike the idea that I could be pottering around for ages in rooms that appear to be puzzles but actually have no point, just because the creator didn't want to curb their abstract tendencies.

Also, 'symbology' is a word and Ryan used it appropriately. For me, it fits better than 'symbolism' in this instance, since IMO 'symbolism' connotes meta-textual representative qualities. The symbols in this game don't appear to have that, they're just 'a bunch of symbols', which can be referred to as a 'symbology' (or indeed 'symbolism' if that's your preference).

The legitimacy of 'symbology' goes beyond mere cromulence. Also, Boondock Saints is a retarded fucking movie.

AWESOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Both of the brothers are lying to you. Get the green page for the old dude.

So I'll freely admit that I don't sign post enough that the three rooms in the game meant to be there to play around are not puzzles. However I think games trying to set a sense of place should have more to them than just functional progress. I really like the idea of games giving you things to mess about with. I've not done it super well in this case but I hoped people would just enjoy playing notes on the floor.

With that all said, as development progressed and I was looking for places to hide secrets in the game. The "play about" rooms became an obvious choice. So there is actually a secret hidden in that room but the clue does not come until much later in the game.

Sorry if you feel this dilutes the whole experience. It was a long three year development cycle and even then I know I didn't get everything up the highest level but hey y'know, did what I could.

@antfoolish@killahcam

Symbology is a broader term than symbolism. In addition to "the use of symbols," which both terms cover, symbology includes "the study and interpretation of symbols," which makes it a better fit to describe this game.

wow

Ryan. Patrick. A puzzle game. What can possibly go wrong?

The gray room DID look super awesome. I wish more games would do stuff like that, event though this one didn't even.

@perrin: I was disappointed in the sense that it sounded like there was nothing to discover in the room, in contrast to the other areas which coach the player into believing that something can usually be altered or discovered in the environment. I had no idea how much of the rest of the game resembled the music room, but if there are only three similar rooms and if they actually hold secrets, then that again changes my perspective. A secret is at least something to discover.

As I say I really like the look and atmosphere, so kudos. I may give your game a try in future.

The question of how much a game world should be about functional progress is an interesting one. I could go either way on it. I suppose I'm on the fence in that I don't want to feel like I'm playing in purely mechanical gameplay arenas, but I'm not convinced that giving the player lots of miscellaneous opportunities for physical interactivity is the best way to create a sense of place. IMO that kind of diversion works best when it is just a spectacle, as in something audio-visual, rather than physically interactive. I'm thinking of the vistas in Ico or even that room in Arkham Asylum which only serves to switch the player's perspective to first person while the Joker talks to them. When the player is invited to physically interact, on the other hand, I think there is a natural expectation that something will happen or change.

Incidentally, I've just realised you worked on The White Chamber! That was a great little game, especially for a free download. Extremely oppressive atmosphere. No one ever seems to know what I'm talking about when I've mentioned it to them in the past.

Definitely getting a Myst vibe from this, but more abstract with lots of aimlessly wandering around.

Unlike Snoop Dog's memory of the green room, it reminds me of later levels in Gauntlet where you have to make your way through a maze with invisible walls

Except a simple Google search will show that it is, in fact, a word. Also, fuck Boondock Saints.

Hi im doug gilmour SHUT UP