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Contrast (PS4/PC) |OT| Vaudevillian Noir Dreamscapes

Maxwood

Oh rock of ages, do not crumble, love is breathing still. Oh lady moon shine down, a little people magic if you will.
The ending was...confusing.
I love weird and multi-dimensional stuff, but I feel like the game's story would have worked better if they stayed a little more down to earth. Thirth act felt a little out of place story wise.

I find this to be a very diffuclt game to give a final rating. It's far from perfect, but I really enjoyed my time with it. And time will only tell, but I feel like this is one of those titles that will stay in the back of my head for a while.

And great scott, it's a really pretty game.
 

kurbaan

Banned
Played this today, really interesting game. I wanna like it more but it needed some more time instead of being rushed out for launch very buggy / unpolished.

Kinda stuck on that elevator part.
 

Vitor711

Member
Hoping the glitches get ironed out for the EU release. Heard so many good things about this game but apparently the bugs really let it down.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Played this today, really interesting game. I wanna like it more but it needed some more time instead of being rushed out for launch very buggy / unpolished.

Kinda stuck on that elevator part.

Yeah, gonna wait for a few patches before I bother
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
I finished it in about 4 hours according to Steam.

I wish there were an easy way to have anti-aliasing. I tried forcing it with nVidia Control Panel, but it did not seem to work. I do not have downsampling set up, and I did not try digging through the Unreal Engine 3 .ini files, so there may be a way to adjust some settings.

Still doing some testing because this game seriously needs some more umph in its step.

But MaxMultiSamples=1 is the default, AA gonna test it at higher levels and also gonna try allow D3D11 to see if i can get more outta the game.
In a couple games this doesnt work at all and you have to try force it through Nvidia or use an injector, both work quite well with Unreal Engine games.

I got a weird screen tearing issue as the game (according to the ini) wasnt forcing Vsync instead relying on MaxSmoothFPS.

Alot of the settings in the ini seem really low heck MaxAniso is set to 4 by default....what is this a console game?
 

synce

Member
Ugh this save system is fucking retarded. Twice now I've had to redo tedious puzzles because I had to stop playing right before finishing them.

Is it suddenly a crime to let people save when they want or create multiple saves? Seriously every game these days, even indies.
 

Teggy

Member
Man, we need a spoiler thread for this one. What happened in this game? Here's a few confusing things:

1. Early in the game you find a newspaper talking about a gangster who is let off of a murder rap because the witness disappears. The gangster looks exactly like Vincenzo, so it is probably assumed they are one and the same. Is he a gangster in Didi's world but a magician in the shadow world?


2. Based on posters we know that Didi's mother was Vincenzo's assistant at one point, presumably when they had a relationship.

3. Another news clip states that one of Vincenzo's assistants disappears during his trick but never returns. Is this Didi's mother? Did he send her to the shadow world because she was pregnant?

4. Wikipedia says this: "There are two main characters: an older girl Dawn that the player controls, and a younger girl, Didi, who Dawn meets in a train station. She is discovered to have a dysfunctional family with a recently murdered mother and an estranged father." I don't know where this comes from. We never hear anything about a train station. It could be possible that Vincenzo killed Didi's mother in her world and the mother that she interacts with is actually one in the alternate shadow world where she is still alive. Or, the murder bit is something that the wiki person just made up?

5. There is another news article about Vincenzo cancelling a magic tour through Europe, but I couldn't figure out what information this was providing.

6. If we never see Didi's parents in non-shadow form, doesn't that mean they only see her in shadow form? Why don't they find this strange?
 

Kitoro

Member
100%'d the game in one 4 hour sitting last night, and loved every minute. The puzzles were creative and thought provoking enough to puzzle me at times, but never once did I have to resort to a guide. This is technically the most consistently enjoyable launch game I've played since the Dreamcast era. :p

Surprised at reading about bugs people are encountering, though. The only bug I encountered at all, albeit repeatedly, was when dropping a box, Dawn would often get suspended in free falling animation for 3-4 seconds, which was mildly annoying.

Great game!
 

Teggy

Member
The only bug I encountered at all, albeit repeatedly, was when dropping a box, Dawn would often get suspended in free falling animation for 3-4 seconds, which was mildly annoying.

Great game!

This is the bug I saw as well, but it happened in a lot of other places besides just picking up boxes. The framerate on the PS4 is also terrible. It would constantly cycle between what appeared to be 60 fps and something much, much slower.

At one point I thought I had hit a bug because I had a hell of time while I spent about 10 minutes using shadows to get up on a ledge I thought I had to get to:
the roof above the roller coaster ball claw
. I actually managed to get up there finally and then realized there was no reason to be up there at all :p
 
My one complaint is the very UE 3 browns that reminded me of the London sections in Alice Madness Returns. Thankfully, there's enough colour and neon in the architecture to offset it.

No. That is 100% art direction and has nothing to do with UE3.

See: Mirror's Edge, Bioshock Infinite, Borderlands 2, etc etc....

Also, a few nice screenshots I snagged from K-Putt on Flickr:

10922264345_fc6bd0f649_h.jpg


10876267115_1e309c630d_h.jpg
 

Sami+

Member
Played for a few minutes. Really not liking it at all so far. :/

Very buggy and unpolished. This game just... Doesn't make sense. There's a shadow realm, but how does it work it work? How do the shadow people interact with the real people? Why is there nobody in the real dimension? Who is Dawn and why is Dawn the only one who can see her?

Doesn't help that I don't really like the game's art style. Really weirdly out of proportion and just not very appealing IMO.

Can't get into it. Just not my type of game at all. Oh well.
 

Rhysser

Banned
Man, we need a spoiler thread for this one. What happened in this game? Here's a few confusing things:

3. Another news clip states that one of Vincenzo's assistants disappears during his trick but never returns. Is this Didi's mother? Did he send her to the shadow world because she was pregnant?


I think this is Dawn. There's a poster of Dawn and Vincenzo performing together in the Collectibles.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Played for a few minutes. Really not liking it at all so far. :/
This is a game to NOT play if you don't like the art style and atmosphere. I'm sorry you didn't like it, but please watch the unmarked spoilers since even the stuff you mentioned did not click for me right at the start of the game, and I would hate to ruin that for people discovering it on their own.

I think this is Dawn. There's a poster of Dawn and Vincenzo performing together in the Collectibles.
Yes, with the collectibles here is a bunch of plot stuff I with the conclusions I drew (SPOILERS):

You are in the shadow world as Dawn the entire game. This is why everything is empty since everyone you are around is in the real world.

Dawn was Vincenzo's assistant, and she vanished (into the shadow world). In addition there was a big family tree with Didi's mother. Several family members vanished or went insane.

Didi's mother writes in a letter that Didi is not crazy, she has an active imagination, and lots of girls have an imaginary friend. Even I...but then that part is crossed out, presumably because Didi's mother does not want people knowing that she (Didi's mother) also talks to an "imaginary friend". She also mentions Didi is the only one keeping her sane (see the family tree and insanity again).

My guess is that Didi and Didi's mother for some reason can see people from the shadow world, and be seen by them. This would explain why they apparently show up in both worlds, and why people from the family tree tend to go crazy. Then again, you can't see Didi's mother at the beginning, so maybe not! Or maybe each person only has one shadow world partner. =P

Dawn and Vincenzo can apparently go between the worlds (possibly due to Vincenzo's research) and I don't know if that is anything family-related/"genetic"/whatever for them.

I am not sure why Vincenzo seemed to care after being so harsh to Didi. Maybe he was angry at losing Dawn, who cared about Didi. Maybe he just changed his mind a little when he saw how smart Didi was. Maybe it's just not a consistent plot point. :p

I thought the gangster was supposed to be Didi's not-father, who started the circus (I forget his name), but it may well have been someone else.

At any rate, I felt like I could piece together bits of narrative from the things I would find and hear throughout the game, which was cool.

I want to ask about a couple of puzzles near the end too, to see if other people have a better solution (or in one case any solution) to a couple of things.
 

UNCMark

Banned
Why is the OT limited to PC/PS4 only? Seems weird. I tried the demo on 360 today and it's just as broken as the PS4 version. They should have tested this thing better on all platforms.
 
This game is a huge dissapointment. I have had to restart multiple puzzles because my character gets stuck... The pirate ship mechanics were aweful. I got my ball stuck in the ground and had to repeat, myself stuck and had to repeat, the box got stuck and had to repeat, I got stuck in nothing again and had to repeat. Talk about frustrating.

This is such a creative and fun game when it works. I hope it gets patched.
 

tensuke

Member
Just beat it and got 100%, it was a really neat game. Loved the artstyle and music, some of the puzzles were tough and the shadow platforming was a really cool mechanic. It definitely could have used some more QA/bug fixing, because there were quite a few times I got stuck (usually fixed by dashing) or had to restart, or had weird clipping issues, or shifted into walls I probably shouldn't have been able to shift into. Barring those, though, it was a fun little game overall. Fantastic for a free game, would still be worth it for $10-$15, I wouldn't pay any more than that though unless it were polished a bit more. Vincenzo stuff was a little bit confusing but I think I pieced the story together well. It was nice that you were able to figure things out on your own through posters and collectibles, rather than the game outright telling you everything.
 

Rhysser

Banned
This game is a huge dissapointment. I have had to restart multiple puzzles because my character gets stuck... The pirate ship mechanics were aweful. I got my ball stuck in the ground and had to repeat, myself stuck and had to repeat, the box got stuck and had to repeat, I got stuck in nothing again and had to repeat. Talk about frustrating.

This is such a creative and fun game when it works. I hope it gets patched.

It's rather buggy, and you get stuck in a lot of places but I found I could get myself unstuck by using the dash, once you get that.
 

codhand

Member
beat it. fun game. really unpolished. a lot of good ideas. i want to try the Wii game with the similar shadow mechanic...
 

Wynnebeck

Banned
Ok I'm at the
Circus and I'm currently stuck at the 3 mushroom puzzle in the Puppet Show.
I've been stuck there for a good 45 minutes continually dying and I'm about to chuck my DS4 at the TV. Any help? Also, I definitely agree about the clunkiness. Game is fun, but definitely need a little more time in the oven.
 

Luigi87

Member
Ok I'm at the
Circus and I'm currently stuck at the 3 mushroom puzzle in the Puppet Show.
I've been stuck there for a good 45 minutes continually dying and I'm about to chuck my DS4 at the TV. Any help? Also, I definitely agree about the clunkiness. Game is fun, but definitely need a little more time in the oven.

Stand on the
tip of the lower left branch (don't raise the upper left one) and use it to fling yourself. You can either try to land on the right branch, or go right over the bamboo.
 

fourstorks

Neo Member
Ok I'm at the
Circus and I'm currently stuck at the 3 mushroom puzzle in the Puppet Show.
I've been stuck there for a good 45 minutes continually dying and I'm about to chuck my DS4 at the TV. Any help? Also, I definitely agree about the clunkiness. Game is fun, but definitely need a little more time in the oven.

EDIT: Beaten!

Three mushroom puzzle:

IIRC you have to jump on the first, then third, then middle to time the branch reset correctly. What helped me a lot was realizing the goal is to have the bottom branch bring (or fling) you up to the top branch and then jump across the gap.
 

Raw64life

Member
Just beat this. Fun little game. This is why PS+ is awesome. This is a game I would not have given a second thought about if it wasn't part of PS+. Buggy as all hell without an ounce of polish on it but still fun and was happy that it didn't overstay it's welcome.
 

mreddie

Member
So since I wasn't getting a PS4 yet, I burned 15 bucks on this on the PS3.

Not a bad game. Too bad it's pulls a Sopranos ending and ends mid-CUT TO BLACK

It gets glitchy but not gamebreaking.

+Mechanics are a nice change of pace
+Didi wasn't as annoying as I thought
+The soundtrack

-They don't go far enough with the shadowplay
-3-4 hours, you'll 100% this game in no time.
-Jumping feels floaty yet in the shadows, it has weight.
-Ending leaves too much questions

VERDICT: With some polish, it could have gotten better reviews and if the price was 10 bucks, I would recommend it. PS+ users for the PS4 are lucky, you're in for a bargain. Everyone else, if you have the puzzle platformer inch, I would recommend it but lower your expectations.

3/5
 

Jeels

Member
The ending was really abrupt.
he pops out of the shadows, we are shocked, and it cuts to black. what happened?
 
I beat it yesterday, took me a little over 2 hours without getting all the collectibles. i thought they did some neat things with the shadow mechanic and I liked the art-style. However, I felt the story was a little confusing and the ending was really abrupt.
 

lol51

Member
Game is so buggy. I got stuck 3 times: in the circus tent, got stuck again on top of a treasure chest on the pirate ship, and got stuck under a crate i jump off the edge with. After the 3rd time I just decided to turn it off. This game is a mess and needs patches. I will still finish it but this is really frustrating.
 

Alucrid

Banned
I need help with a puzzle near the end I think.

It's the one where you have to rotate the planetarium. I get what you have to do, make the ball a shadow and rotate the planetarium so that it picks it up and drops in onto the balcony, I just can't seem to get it right.
 

Kssio_Aug

Member
Ive not played yet, but by the videos that Ive seen I thought the character movementes very strange. And the gameplay did not seems that fluid.
Anyway... its free, and I guaranteed mine already. Just waiting my PS4 now!
 

Blizzard

Banned
I need help with a puzzle near the end I think.

It's the one where you have to rotate the planetarium. I get what you have to do, make the ball a shadow and rotate the planetarium so that it picks it up and drops in onto the balcony, I just can't seem to get it right.
About that puzzle:

I would have to replay the section to know for sure, but I SEEM to recall that the ball is not actually needed yet, and you just need to climb up to the balcony using the shadows yourself.
 

Teggy

Member
About that puzzle:

I would have to replay the section to know for sure, but I SEEM to recall that the ball is not actually needed yet, and you just need to climb up to the balcony using the shadows yourself.

You do need the ball, I put it in shadow near the doorway under the balcony and set it up so the next thing to hit it was the planet with the rings (I think? Can't recall exactly, but you can tell from the motion which shadow to use). Should scoop it up and dump it backwards on the balcony. May need a couple of tries to get it perfect. You use a separate set of shadows to get yourself up there.
 
Really enjoying the game,despite the glitches,still early on but cool concept and a lot of style,really glad it is on plus I don't think I would had given it a second look otherwise.
 

Lijik

Member
The ending was...confusing.
I love weird and multi-dimensional stuff, but I feel like the game's story would have worked better if they stayed a little more down to earth. Thirth act felt a little out of place story wise.

I find this to be a very diffuclt game to give a final rating. It's far from perfect, but I really enjoyed my time with it. And time will only tell, but I feel like this is one of those titles that will stay in the back of my head for a while.

And great scott, it's a really pretty game.

I realized during the lighthouse where they bring in a lot of the backstory that up till that point I had questioned nothing about the world and just took it as it was, like a fairy tale. Was offputting at first to be given a Bioshock series esque "Heres whats REALLY going on" moment
 

Alucrid

Banned
You do need the ball, I put it in shadow near the doorway under the balcony and set it up so the next thing to hit it was the planet with the rings (I think? Can't recall exactly, but you can tell from the motion which shadow to use). Should scoop it up and dump it backwards on the balcony. May need a couple of tries to get it perfect. You use a separate set of shadows to get yourself up there.

Ahh okay, thanks. I'll give that a try.
 
Just beat this. Fun little game. This is why PS+ is awesome. This is a game I would not have given a second thought about if it wasn't part of PS+. Buggy as all hell without an ounce of polish on it but still fun and was happy that it didn't overstay it's welcome.

I came to post just this. I enjoyed my time despite the problems but promptly deleted it after 100%, never to think about bit much again. Too bad there's no platinum!

I'm still confused about exactly what happened, though GAF has cleared up a lot of it for me.
 
Played it on PS4 and I loved it. MY favorite part was the princess story.

Buggy when Dawn goes into levitation model mode. Needs some patches.

But the music, art style, and puzzle mechanics makes this a winner for me. I really liked the voice acting too.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Played it on PS4 and I loved it. MY favorite part was the princess story.

Buggy when Dawn goes into levitation model mode. Needs some patches.

But the music, art style, and puzzle mechanics makes this a winner for me. I really liked the voice acting too.
I agree, the fairy tale part was very clever.
 

- J - D -

Member
I just finished this. It's a good thing that I'm easily pleased by nice art design because really that's the best thing about this game. The music and voice acting were nice as well. Really great ambiance overall.

However, the odd performance and technical issues kinda diminish the presentation some. For a game that doesn't look very demanding, it runs rather spottily on a powerful machine like the PS4 -- something that I thought was really odd. It doesn't even look like they utilized any intensive anti-aliasing because the aliasing in this game is pretty noticeable.

On a related note, are the splash screen logos and text (and initial load screen) really pixelated for anyone else? It's not a big deal or anything, but I thought it was strange.

Anyway, I wished the animations were better and the shadow concept, while interesting, was implemented more smoothly (the platforming is rough, not to mention glitchy). I think the segment where I saw the most potential was the Princess fairytale bit, but it's fleeting. After finishing the whole thing, I did want to see more of the world, so if by some miracle they get to do another like this, I'd be willing to buy it.
 
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