We just got some news about the Bachelor campaign. Apparently it's going to have a nonlinear story progression, and no combat.
also they haven't even started an alpha build
https://teletype.in/@icepicklodge/QC8lkECDPqZ
 Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
 |
Shopping Cart Returner Shirt $21.68 |
Ice-Pick Lodge? more like Shit-Dick Sludge
Finally, someone who correctly interpreted that line about October. All the morons that thought it meant "release imminent" should kill themselves.
Honestly it's looking like Pathologic 2 will be "done" in like 7 years. I wonder how they pay model will work out, certainly the other campaigns won't be free updates.
Bold of you to assume the project will ever be completed. I wouldn't be surprised if it's free for backers, paid for everyone else.
I do think it will be completed, Dybowski seems incredibly fricking dedicated to the game. It's just that it's essentially 3 different games, even more so than the original. With that in mind, the release schedule hasn't been that unreasonable, with other small games being worked on in between Pathologic campaigns.
I would love to see it completed but my hopes are in the ground
>the release schedule....other small games
FRANZ NEWS FRICKING WHEN?!?
>no combat.
It's shit
Seems this version of the Bachelor isn't going to be a one man killing machine that everyone's terrified of.
>no combat.
Ruined. I mean in pathologic 2 people reference how "This big city dude just arrived and already shot someone" and he also shoots a man in cold blood at the end of the game.
Being a dickhead who doesn't care for tradition and treats people like means for an end is pretty much his whole identity.
I think ww3 gonna happen before he ever gets to finish even Bachelor. Sad though because i would have loved to see what can he do with Changeling because it's supposed to be super meta-gaming character and (presumably) not being constrained by "we have a week to finish changeling story the frick we gonna do".
There will probably still be moments of violence, just not roaming the streets killing 50 criminals in one night.
it's "on its way", apparently
I don't give a frick about no combat so long as you still get to shoot people, but no open town with its people is unacceptable. Its like if Dybowski decided to gut the plague and turn the game into an animal crossing clone.
>People wouldn't shut up about walking and shitty console hard drives couldn't handle the town so we're just going to delete all that for you
Its Pathologic without the fricking pathos.
>no combat
good
>No combat
>No open world
>No bartering
>No dumpster diving
>No survival mechanics in general
What the frick did Dybowski mean by this?
It means the game is gonna be a non-linear plague resource management game where understanding the reality of time lets you understand how a human or plague can become immortal? Or something?
Boring
Means he's not content with artsy presentation and
>it's not supposed to be fun
schtick, now he wants to be all artsy about the base gameplay.
It will crash and burn, unfortunately.
dude Pathologic's whole thing is gameplay and narrative cohesion what are you talking about
I agree, this is quite possibly the worst approach he could do
Pathologic has always been a survival game at it's core, instead of adding unto the systems and the frame that they build with the Haruspex they are scrapping all that in lieu of something else which makes me worried
Since Fromsoftware is now making open world procedurally generated copy-paste trash, and every other studio is either dead or trash, these guys, ZA/UM and Ueda are the only ones I care about.
I don't care how much they change the core gameplay, this is the shit I live for.
According to Nikolay, survival and meter management will still be in the game, it just won't be based on your physical needs like hunger and thirst, but on more abstract concepts - time, your volunteers, probably the plague spyglass etc.
We'll see when the time comes, I guess.
>these guys, ZA/UM and Ueda are the only ones I care about.
same anon, though i would add videocult to that list as well
Lmao what the frick, I forgot about them and I actually 100% agree.
They're all devs that focus on integrating gameplay and story into a cohesive experience, and are willing to make their games more obtuse and difficult to achieve those ends. Very few developers do that sort of thing, but when they do it's amazing.
Yeah, it's hard to explain to people I don't care about difficulty for difficulty's sake (see: Elden Ring's endbosses), nor obscurity for obscurity's sake.
Games like Patho and Rain World have a very clear, focused vision they try to achieve using every facet of their medium, which is obviously going to require some experimental mechanics people aren't used to.
God, Elden Ring was honestly depressing in some regards. To see the company that made Demon's Souls and Dark Souls buy into their own "hard because hard" marketing so deeply... I won't pretend the game was all bad or anything but I think I'm safely at the point where I can say I no longer care about FROM as a developer, especially as a developer who tries to push boundaries and do interesting things with games.
It's depressing seeing Miyazaki agree with the mainstream narrative that DeS and DaS1 are outdated and their design philosophy is a relic of a bygone era.
FROM succumbing to that and saying ER is what they wanted to create all along is why I'm particularly scared when I see Dybowski saying how their small-scale open world and the survival mechanics were a failure.
To me it seemed he was saying that those aspects of P1 were a failure, he seemed to be fairly happy with them in P2's Haruspex campaign. Honestly it makes sense to me, Bachelor's campaign in P1 does feel like it veers off course in a weird way towards the end where all the focus is on the Polyhedron and the plague is all but forgotten. Aside from giving various characters panaceas you don't do much "doctoring". I think it's a reasonable issue he wants to address, especially considering he said that the survival mechanics will still be in place, just in a different form.
We know that Franz is built off of a prototype of the plague AI for some version of Bachelor's campaign, so the most likely scenario is the game has a plague AI that's more advanced than the original game's scripted plague, but not whatever turned into Franz.
Impressive, you manage to seethe even in a Pathologic thread
I'm not even gonna disagree with you, I'm full on seething about this game and how I'm disappointed in FROM's output post-Bloodborne.
It is rent free.
It's the best From game though
Stop getting filtered
>muh AOE
jump lmao
>According to Nikolay, survival and meter management will still be in the game, it just won't be based on your physical needs like hunger and thirst, but on more abstract concepts - time, your volunteers, probably the plague spyglass etc.
This sounds horrible. You tards cant tell this is fluffy PR speak for "we're turning it into a movie game".
>You tards cant tell this is fluffy PR speak for "we're turning it into a movie game
As someone who played other IPL games, I can tell you they're good at making survival games out of abstract concepts.
The Void is much harder than Patho1 and 2, and also more obscure, and the resource in that game is fricking colors.
He said they're keeping economy and resources in the game.
I am not 100% satisfied with the fact the game won't feel like a grounded, real town anymore, but I am pretty sure it's a far cry from a walking sim like Marble Nest felt. Read the article brother
>>it's not supposed to be fun
This is a fricking meme. Pathologic is fun, it's satisfying hell finding great loot in the houses / dumpsters and the excitement you get when trading a kid to find they have a schmowder and that you've stocked up enough trading items to be able to afford it is satisfying as hell.
Like I get what they mean by, it isn't """"fun"""". Its certainly fricking engaging.
>Biden's sanctions caused this
No they fricking didn't Russia's attack on Ukraine has nothing to do with our do-nothing president. And even then, it doesn't seem that their statement had any negative effect on the studio.
>Purposely attacking a nations economy and devaluing their currency won't finically impact their studio
Russia shouldn't have attacked an independent nation if it didn't want to face the consequences. Funny enough, the developers agree with me.
>Shitty government does shitty thing
>Directly punish the innocents citizens for it
It's not about what putin did, it's the direct economic attack on on innocents citizens that even created a ripple effect affecting even more innocent people in unrelated nations rather then providing military's support and helping them actually win the war
Mass famine and high energies costs are the result of of sanctions that dip shit Joe knew would hurt people
The US State Department shouldn't have been trying to usurp said independent nation's autonomy to create a border vassal. Now go leave
lol
lmao
>everyone should just be part of the American empire bro
lol
lmao
Go leave you Black folk, this is the only good thread here right now
I was scared at first until Dybowski said he loves resource management, various economies etc. and that that will still be largely present in the Bachelor.
Reading about the concept and seeing those gifs really interests me, and I was hoping for the plague mechancis to be deeper than they were in Haruspex.
I am confident they can execute some interesting resource management gameplay even with these abstract mechanics, as they have with The Void.
However, playing The Void, and still not liking it as much as I did the Patho2 Haruspex route is what makes me pretty sure I won't enjoy this as much as I did Haruspex.
The Void is a great, interesting game, but the primary reason I adored P2's Haruspex is, despite all the abstract, extravagant concepts, the constant 4th wall breaking with the theatrical presentation etc. - the game still feels extremely down to earth and mundane.
No game out there made me feel like I'm in the shoes of my character as the P2 Haruspex route.
So, yes, I'm very excited, I'm also glad that Bachelor possibly being more accessible might make me talk some of my friends into giving the game another shot, I'm going to throw all the money their way to make Changeling possible as well.
However, even tho I expect something very unique and interesting, It doesn't sound like it'll be nearly as immersive as the Haruspex was.
Even more news, if you're a backer.
God, the fact even a video about kickstarter reward figurines is focused on the problems they have during development is so hilarious and on brand.
Also that chick looks like Björk.
i think this is a russian thing, the struggle is always the main theme.
>Apparently it's going to have a nonlinear story progression, and no combat.
They are just trying to bribe some government funds, so expect it to have a lot of shilling.
The fact that Dybowsky didn't even worked on Bachelor since game release just shows how little he cares about already paid and funded product
They posted a PSA about how they worked with Ukranians and don't support the war which probably already blacklisted them in Russia, so I don't think any type of "shilling" is gonna help them.
It was at the start.
Nikolai still could change his mind, considering he wasn't fired from BШЭ university he is working in(and any peace supporters are getting fired from universities in Russia)
Maybe if he had enough balls to be pro-war, he'd finish the fricking game already.
but then we wouldn't be allowed to play it
Oh, okay, had no idea.
Well, I don't care much either way, as long as the team finishes this and the changeling sometime by 2040.
not even russkie devs are safe from globohomo
>bow down to your government at all costs
How exactly is this Volunteer system going to work?
From what we see, I assume you'll be able to commit a certain number of them to certain jobs/quests.
Since plague management will be much more important, apparently, and the world won't be simply split into infected/post-infected/non-infected areas, but instead the plague will roam around everywhere, I assume you'll be able to make them deal with that.
Other than that, he's implying something along the lines of you get to retry certain time periods/quests, but it costs a limited resource.
I was sort of surprised to hear him be very satisfied with the way the plague behaves in the new prototype, considering how negative he is about the Haruspex, so that also gives me hope they've developed something interesting.
I'm hoping this is a full realization of what was sort of present in Haruspex, that the plague itself was sentient, a character, an actual antagonist instead of some disembodied and objective obstacle. It's probably too much to ask for some kind of elegant plague AI, but some smart scripting to resemble something similar could make it feel exceptionally dynamic even if it isn't open world.
If I recall correctly, the original plans for Patho2 back before it released included deeper Plague mechanics. Stuff like you spending too much time in infected districts and carrying it with you, discarding infected items around healthy districts etc.
The npcs in the game even make references to that, warning you to be careful with the fact you have permission to travel in and out of infected districts.
Bachelor will probably focus on these aspects much more deeply, which is something I've been suspecting for a while, but also deal with time and immortality, which I have no clue how they plan on including.
Wait what? Didn't pathologic 2 come out years ago? Or was it some remake thing
Pathologic 2 is both a sequel and a remake in a similar vein to FF7R or the Evangelion Rebuilds.
Only one of the three original routes is complete, now they're working on the 2nd one.
I'm fairly sure he referenced it being a failure in one of the older interviews, and even in this new article he says their open world, with the roaming NPCs and janky combat was not a success.
I'm not that worried, what I'm reading here seems perfect for Dankovsky, I'm just worried that the abstract jumping from location to location in fragmented time will make the experience less immersive.
As I mentioned previously in the thread, it took me until I played through The Void to realize why I love this game as much as I do, and it does sound like Bachelor might lack the grounded, realistic mundanity of scrambling around town, being affected with disease and poverty in the same way the rest of the town is.
>it does sound like Bachelor might lack the grounded, realistic mundanity of scrambling around town, being affected with disease and poverty in the same way the rest of the town is.
Honestly, fair enough. One of my favorite parts of the P1 Bachelor campaign is how you slowly get filled with a sense of resentment that this backwater town is clearly not telling the only licensed doctor all the info they have to stop the plague. Maybe this new version will be better overall, but it does sound different.
>Bachelor
>No combat
WHAT??? I could understand Changeling...
To be fair you really shouldn't have to fight much in bachelor in pathologic 1. There was the side quest where you fight the thugs, and the random dirt people in the steppes, but that was about it from what I recall. I'm not saying that removing it is a good idea, just that is his route is totally detached from the town, the normal people and such, it could work thematically for him where he is trying to look at the big picture and making hard decisions about who get's what supplies, and studying the plague and such. I do find it odd if they totally remove combat, because at least in Pathologic 2, its implied that bachelor shot someone.
It'll probably still have violence, just not ludicrous shit like the Bachelor casually crawling out of a shallow grave and killing 15 army mutineers.
OH SHIT RIGHT. I forgot about the final day where you kill those 6 dudes with awful ai that just stand there as you shoot them usually.
Void 2 is next
>meanest pistol slinger across the Ghorkon, feared and respected by townsfolk
>no combat
GAAAAAAAAAAY
>feared and respected by townsfolk
Well they certainly fear him, but no one respected him for the most part.
It was mostly upfront respect and gossip and smack talk behind the back, but yeah.
Hasn't this game been released years ago? What fricking development?
I want them to re-release the fricking board game again, it was impossible to get a copy the first time.
>Pathologic 1
>Daniil kills left and right
>Gets fricking executed
>Just wake up and kill remaining shitters
>Pathologic 2
>lol no combat
>remember dude that made a Pathologic video I watched years ago
>check him out today
>he's a troony
You literally cannot make this shit up goddamn
?t=91
>sul matuul is a troony
Ah well shit.
Pathologic fandom in general has a concerning amount of trannies for whatever reason
>opens with laughably poor impression of a breathy female presenter talking about how ackshully Nietzsche would be fine with gays and blacks
lmfao
it shouldn't be a shock that someone in the medical field is a morally bankrupt moron
Not even the first one lel, listen to this dude then look at his username and his profile pic
Bumping for those that see elden ring as the true end of fromsoft as a creative studio
Why no one discusses this game?
Literally nobody has played it. I'm working my way through P1 right now (just finished Bachelor, debating playing Haruspex on P1 or P2) and plan to tackle it afterwards, but it's certainly an intimidating game.
It's kino, one of the most unique games I've ever played, it's to Pathologic what Pathologic is to other videogames.
Still don't like it as much as Patho2 Haruspex, which feels like the culmination of all their ideas and strengths.
HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who played through these games and thirsts for more, it's their best after Patho.
Unironically too experimental and high IQ for 99% of people.
The most succinct way to describe this game to the uninitiated is something like 'Silent Hill + Okami', but even that's not correct.
It's also deeply unpleasant to play, and intentionally so. There's a reason the original title was 'Tension'.
It really is something else.
Shit's hard
Its good, but too easy to soft lock yourself like 6 hours in and have to restart.
Oh yeah. I've had an inescapable death loop once in P2, caught the plague and had to restart the day, however that was less than 2h of progress and it was satisfying to do it over better.
The Void is so abstract and it's so difficult to know if you're fricking up or not, you can frick yourself over permanently at any point of the game, and the first 5 or so hours are very key.
If you do the first 3 or so hours badly you might only realize you're proper fricked 10 or so hours in, and that might be too miserable for most people.
>no combat
absolutely not, faith lost
>P1 Bachelor route
>Always wanted to have a choice between steppe magic, Mistresses etc and *tips fedora* heh magic not real ya uncivilized fricks
Though of course it's sad to hear that after this many years since the release of haruspex the bachelor is still relatively far away (which I already suspected to be honest, in fact I'm personally unsure if the full thing will ever be released or if it'll become the death of the studio) at least I find it commendable that they really didn't sugar coat shit in this Q&A.
They also didn't shy away from giving the questions a "dude really?" tone which most players/backers have at this point, and I felt like it didn't dance around the facts.
I am a bit worried about the once-again ambitious direction that the big dybowsky is taking this (didn't that fail the first and second time around?) and that some of the things that were stated kind of contradict the bachelor's reputation/character, but I can only hope that it'll work out in the end.
I'm personally really fond of pathologic 1/2's writing so it'd be a real shame if we saw no more of it.
>They also didn't shy away from giving the questions a "dude really?" tone which most players/backers have at this point
Yes, this is very commendale imho. Makes me feel more secure that it's not just PR bullshit, and nothing that was said felt overly suspicious.
I'm in the same boat, unsure if this game will ever get finished, but I'm glad we at least got some news.
It's something else, for sure.
The funniest way to look at the game is a Romance VN with survival elements, it's a mix of a lot of different, unique ideas, and I gotta say no other game nailed the feeling of Purgatory/Limbo as well as it did.
>Romance VN with survival elements
Accurate.
>that some of the things that were stated kind of contradict the bachelor's reputation/character
I'd keep in mind that the Bachelor (and the Devotress for that matter) seen in Haruspex's playthrough are just that, his view. Distorted/unreliable. Not to say totally inaccurate, but we don't see Daniil as Daniil much of the time. I'm guessing he'll be more like Marble Nest Bachelor.
>I'd keep in mind that the Bachelor (and the Devotress for that matter) seen in Haruspex's playthrough are just that, his view. Distorted/unreliable.
Well maybe, but I was drawing more of a comparison with path1 bachelor. Of which key descriptions would be:
* strong interest in the immortality allegedly attained by Simon
* intellectual who isn't afraid to use force to attain his goals and believes that "the end justifies the means"
* looks down on the town and its backwards butcher-culture
* clever clogs
>I'm guessing he'll be more like Marble Nest Bachelor.
Unfortunately haven't played that, so can't comment.
To be fair, all the points you've made are confirmed by Dybowski in the interview, which is why he won't focus on the town, the regular people etc., but instead the gameplay will be centered about him, the fight against the plague and the thanatica stuff.
Of course, that's the narrative angle, the reason for them hacking out the open world is performance (especially on consoles) and them being unsatisfied with how it turned out. At least he was honest about that angle, too.
If this was a different game I would be fine with it.
But Pathologic as a series has become a brand outside of Ice-Pick Lodge and although that limits the artistic capabilities their are expectations of what a Bachelor campaign will be based upon the original game, what is already in Pathologic 2, and the standards set by the adaptation of the Haruspex's story on what can be changed and what carries over.
Wait... It's not done? I thought I just finished playing it.
The original game had three routes with three different characters and three different stories.
2 has only adapted one of them.
i'm not that excited for bachelor seeing as the main appeal for me is the characters boo rack interacts with, and his self. but could be cool, i'd also think baldy route would be more interesting.
>troony fanbase
never playing your shit 'game'. have a nice day
my daughterwife Murky
"Secondly, at the end of the last year, we entered into an agreement with a major well-known investor. And despite how feverish the world is now, today we still have a deal. Therefore the team has expanded and since the beginning of this year it has working on a game at a full capacity."
I must thank that based investor to treat artists like they should, and not canceling anything because they're "ebil ruhssians" non-sense. Pains me to have to do that, but really, the clown world is getting more and more radical.
I mean I'd be willing to bet actual money on said investor being Russian. Not only because of the war, but because their games, especially Pathologic are... decently popular in Russia, and very much not outside of it.
Yeah, that was really nice to see. I've always thought that if I got very rich I'd support studios like IPL, nice to see I'm not alone in that.
So they want to go Memento/Pulp Fiction with time, so we get completely lost in the days, forget about time and space, I actually like this very idea. The real challenge would probably be to fit all of the pieces together and the chronology?
"There will be no continuous streaming of the city. Now the hero arrives at the point needed, solves a problem there and then moves to another destination in time and space. There also will be no more a number of artificial humans standing round the streets pretending they have some kind of business. It won't be possible to engage in combat with any passersby. There won’t be any stats imitating physiology, but the system of markers to control the time instead."
What the frick?
Then what the frick is the point of playing your garbage now?!
Seems like they went the easy lazy route. Understandable.
I think the new gameplay path could be spectacular is executed in a way that fits together, but I think Dybowski is selling himself short on how the open world fared. No other game has had me weighing options and making decisions almost literally every second, from going to infected districts to rescue babies, using up a bullet for a thug, which quests to take, even just something as small as the best route to an objective when the clock was running out. There never was a break, I constantly was laying down tracks in front of the train, and I'm in awe of how they pulled off that feeling so seamlessly.
This, exactly.
I am interested in how they'll execute this, I was hoping for the gameplay mechanics to be wildly different than Haruspex, and the bigger focus on the plague itself excites me.
But I agree with everything you said. It seems like the bad reviews and the lack of sales made them think that Haruspex was a failure, and that idea worries me. That route is in my top 3 videogames of all time, and I fully reject the idea that "it's not supposed to be fun", because I've had a blast doing multiple playthroughs of this.
Yep, and now because they're going down into this completely linear path, we're gonna be toys of what the scenes are gonna be about, and how they are gonna be presented to ourselves, instead of MAKING OUR OWN CHOICES.
Which was the whole point of the Pathologic experience.
I'm so saddened by this awful turn of events... No matter the execution... The fact that we're gonna jump from scene A to B to C to D, and back, is pointless. It's gonna kill the pressure, all of the feelings Patho really was all about.
If we're not threatened by anything not even by time or any management, then you have no game... You just a bad VN where you follow the story linearly.
Bad new, very bad news from these Russians.
Not to be overly rude, but read the article.
Economy/resource management will still be in game, it just won't be concerned with your physical needs.
Second of all, the way I understood it is, you'll be able to pick a time and a place (unsure if the places will include only one or multiple districts at once), and that doesn't mean there's only a single objective in that moment.
Since we have confirmation we will have volunteers to assign to different tasks, and try to minmax them in the most effective way, and the confirmation that you'll be able to return to scenes you've already done, but "for a price", meaning your jumping around will also be a limited resource... and those gifs that showcase you using the scope that can detect the plague had a clear bar that shows us the lenses are a limited resource as well - this will still be a resource management game, and I expected a pretty obscure one. If anything, it's reminding me of The Void the more I think about this new concept.
Pretty much all of their games are resource management games and pretty much all of them have some kind of a clock ticking constantly.
>no open world
meh
Put the town back.
Change the gameplay actions, and the character's thoughts and dialogues.
Start the days in random order. Jumping back and forth.
Make him focus on that immortal guy or whatever.
There, I fixed your shit, Dumbowsky.
Ngl lads, all this talking and thinking about it is making me wanna do another playthrough, no other games do it for me at the moment.
It might be time to do that 0 unscripted NPC deaths run.
Can anyone explain what is the gameplay of this game like and what makes it appealing to someone unfamiliar to it
You are a doctor. You are in a town that undergoes an outbreak of a deadly killer plague. You have to try and survive while managing resources and treating the townsfolk.
It's fun.
Kind of difficult to do, especially the appeal.
The gameplay of both 1 and 2 (as 2 is a remake) is a (small-scale) survival/mystery with horror elements. The game is incredibly stressful, difficult, confusing and disorienting, and the clock runs in real time.
Its whole point and ethos is that you cannot possibly make time to do everything you want while also taking care of your needs (which is why the difficult survival elements are important, without those you could just do all the quests ez).
The appeal is an interesting world, a very unique story, incredible atmosphere, some of the strongest ludonarrative I've experienced in vidya, no game made me relate to my character's (and by extension the town's) struggles as hard as this one.
Despite the narrative that it's "not supposed to be fun", I'm one of those people who loves stressful resource management, I always pop boners when you get inventory upgrades in survival horror, so if accumulating resources and figuring out shit in a game that doesn't hold your hand doesn't sound fun and appealing, it might be a skip for you.
>a small-scale survival/mystery
fricked that one up, a (small-scale) *open world* survival horror.
Anxiety and despair
Bartering with children simulator with elements of slav vn
I don't get why it's so hard for them. All the visual assets are done.