A slow paced story adventure. Multiple endings, based on a book, deciphering ancient language, intrigue, robots? What more could you ask for?
I need an A24 movie adaptation
Sentimentos mistos definem minha experiência com Heaven's Vault. Teoricamente, ele tem tudo o que gosto. Não, sério, literalmente eu gosto do arcabouço teórico dele.
A narrativa se centra numa disputa do que é a História e seu papel social e cultural. Por um lado, temos os detentores da "História Oficial", que paradoxalmente baseiam sua legitimidade na História ao mesmo tempo em que querem destruí-la como ciência. Para eles a história não é uma investigação do passado; ela é uma justificativa do presente e uma prescrição do futuro. Disputar a "História Oficial" é o mesmo que sedição. Em contrapartida, a protagonista acredita que a História é mais do que uma narrativa fixa. O passado é um repositório armazém de possibilidades não-realizadas, cujo horizonte de expectativas não era simplesmente o tempo presente. Esse armazém não tem um dono: é nosso legado coletivo. Só faltava o nome da protagonista ser Koselleck, sério.
Toda essa teoria é posta em prática de forma razoavelmente bem-sucedida. A mecânica principal de desvendar um sistema de escrita antigo é mais permeado de dúvidas e exige vários palpites e saltos lógicos de sua parte - e isso é bom! Realmente historiadores têm que assumir muitas coisas porque às vezes o passado parece ser agressivamente hostil contra aqueles que tentam desvendá-lo. Se corrigir ao conseguir nova evidência e ver suas hipóteses desmoronando é parte do dia a dia de qualquer cientista, e o jogo simula isso muito bem.
Outra aspecto que o jogo simula muito bem é como muitas vezes pesquisa é algo... Chato. Por mais que você tenha interesse na área, é inegável que catalogar coisas minuciosamente e ver seu progresso andar a passos de tartaruga não é exatamente algo excitante, por mais recompensador que seja no final das contas.
Esse tédio acaba sendo o Calcanhar de Aquiles do jogo. Não acho que o trabalho do historiador deveria ser romantizado, pelo contrário, a inclusão das características menos glamourosas da disciplina foi uma decisão acertada. Mas mesmo outras coisas que não precisam ser tediosas acabam, com o tempo, virando um fardo. O game é ambientado num mundo scifi semi-solarpunk super inspirado em Planeta do Tesouro cheio de ruínas de civilizações antigas e uma diversidade de planetas para explorar. E toda vez que eu entrava nos rios cósmicos ficava com um pouco de sono e invariavelmente pensava "já chegamos?". Não sei vocês, mas na minha cabeça navegar por rios cósmicos descobrindo planetoides de uma civilização perdida não deveria me deixar com essa sensação...
Pra ser justo, no começo fazer isso é realmente legal. Mas o ritmo do game é deveras lento e a variedade de coisas pra fazer pequena demais pra carregar a aventura por mais de 20 horas, que foi o tempo que levei pra zerar. E o game ainda por cima espera que você zere mais uma vez para ter um entendimento mais aprofundado da história? Aí é comprometimento demais pra mim.
Se Heaven's Vault fosse uma aventura mais enxuta, de digamos umas 8 horas, teria potencial para ser um de meus favoritos. Apesar de nossa fama de falastrões, historiadores sabem apreciar o poder de uma boa síntese.
A narrativa se centra numa disputa do que é a História e seu papel social e cultural. Por um lado, temos os detentores da "História Oficial", que paradoxalmente baseiam sua legitimidade na História ao mesmo tempo em que querem destruí-la como ciência. Para eles a história não é uma investigação do passado; ela é uma justificativa do presente e uma prescrição do futuro. Disputar a "História Oficial" é o mesmo que sedição. Em contrapartida, a protagonista acredita que a História é mais do que uma narrativa fixa. O passado é um repositório armazém de possibilidades não-realizadas, cujo horizonte de expectativas não era simplesmente o tempo presente. Esse armazém não tem um dono: é nosso legado coletivo. Só faltava o nome da protagonista ser Koselleck, sério.
Toda essa teoria é posta em prática de forma razoavelmente bem-sucedida. A mecânica principal de desvendar um sistema de escrita antigo é mais permeado de dúvidas e exige vários palpites e saltos lógicos de sua parte - e isso é bom! Realmente historiadores têm que assumir muitas coisas porque às vezes o passado parece ser agressivamente hostil contra aqueles que tentam desvendá-lo. Se corrigir ao conseguir nova evidência e ver suas hipóteses desmoronando é parte do dia a dia de qualquer cientista, e o jogo simula isso muito bem.
Outra aspecto que o jogo simula muito bem é como muitas vezes pesquisa é algo... Chato. Por mais que você tenha interesse na área, é inegável que catalogar coisas minuciosamente e ver seu progresso andar a passos de tartaruga não é exatamente algo excitante, por mais recompensador que seja no final das contas.
Esse tédio acaba sendo o Calcanhar de Aquiles do jogo. Não acho que o trabalho do historiador deveria ser romantizado, pelo contrário, a inclusão das características menos glamourosas da disciplina foi uma decisão acertada. Mas mesmo outras coisas que não precisam ser tediosas acabam, com o tempo, virando um fardo. O game é ambientado num mundo scifi semi-solarpunk super inspirado em Planeta do Tesouro cheio de ruínas de civilizações antigas e uma diversidade de planetas para explorar. E toda vez que eu entrava nos rios cósmicos ficava com um pouco de sono e invariavelmente pensava "já chegamos?". Não sei vocês, mas na minha cabeça navegar por rios cósmicos descobrindo planetoides de uma civilização perdida não deveria me deixar com essa sensação...
Pra ser justo, no começo fazer isso é realmente legal. Mas o ritmo do game é deveras lento e a variedade de coisas pra fazer pequena demais pra carregar a aventura por mais de 20 horas, que foi o tempo que levei pra zerar. E o game ainda por cima espera que você zere mais uma vez para ter um entendimento mais aprofundado da história? Aí é comprometimento demais pra mim.
Se Heaven's Vault fosse uma aventura mais enxuta, de digamos umas 8 horas, teria potencial para ser um de meus favoritos. Apesar de nossa fama de falastrões, historiadores sabem apreciar o poder de uma boa síntese.
Oh my god this game is so darling I think everyone should play it.
it's shocking how much this game gripped me after leaving such a bad initial impression. the traversal of the game's spaces are cumbersome, the language decoding wasn't as deep as I was hoping, the characters feet fade out into transparency (???), and the protagonist is consistently pretty rude. still, Inkle's narrative design is so compelling that I stuck around until the end, slowly pulling apart the mystery. the world and characters they've built are both deep and unique, and uncovering its past is exciting. looking at the plot more closely, just like in Sorcery! and 80 Days, the player is constantly guiding their protagonist through difficult dilemmas of choice, turning mere fiction (well, deftly written fiction) into a very cerebral activity for the player.
A rich world and story delivered far too slowly through some seriously tedious traversal and exploration mechanics. It’s a cool game to read and a poor one to play.
This review contains spoilers
Ambitious game that I do not think quite pulls it off. Love exploring new areas and deciphering the ancient language.
The dialog trees feel awkward and like you are constantly missing options that appear or disappear at the last second. Sailing started out relaxing but became tedious as it takes so long.
The concept of the story looping is great, but my first loop took 26 hours! I was ready to be done, not jump back in.
The dialog trees feel awkward and like you are constantly missing options that appear or disappear at the last second. Sailing started out relaxing but became tedious as it takes so long.
The concept of the story looping is great, but my first loop took 26 hours! I was ready to be done, not jump back in.
Inkles archaeological mystery buckles under the weight of its ambition.
I had heard the world was fascinating, and uncovering its secrets an interesting language puzzle. The problem is that pretty much everything about the actual game is poorly implemented and dampens any motivation to proceed, from the laborious and repetitive ship sailing to the clunky UI.
A fantastic concept let down by a severe lack of polish and an abundance of utterly tedious gameplay.
I had heard the world was fascinating, and uncovering its secrets an interesting language puzzle. The problem is that pretty much everything about the actual game is poorly implemented and dampens any motivation to proceed, from the laborious and repetitive ship sailing to the clunky UI.
A fantastic concept let down by a severe lack of polish and an abundance of utterly tedious gameplay.
Habe eigentlich erwartet, dass sich das Spiel komplett um die Übersetzungen dreht, stattdessen bekam ich eine Sci-Fi Geschichte, welche einen in die Rolle einer Archäologin schlüpfen lässt.
Insgesamt war es eine eindrucksvolle Erfahrung, welche mich immer wieder mit Situationen überrascht hat, welche ich nicht erwartet habe. Zudem führt ein das Spiel auch an beeindruckende Orte und gibt einem viel Raum zum Rätseln und Spekulieren.
Insgesamt war es eine eindrucksvolle Erfahrung, welche mich immer wieder mit Situationen überrascht hat, welche ich nicht erwartet habe. Zudem führt ein das Spiel auch an beeindruckende Orte und gibt einem viel Raum zum Rätseln und Spekulieren.
Even being myself, someone who feels strongly about the unrealized potential of video games as a medium, I am truly lost in the beauty of what I just played. I didn't know storytelling and worldbuilding this intricate and nuanced was something that we figured out how to do yet in this form.
I didn't think that games as a medium had matured to a point where this was possible, but here we are.
I didn't think that games as a medium had matured to a point where this was possible, but here we are.
The game is quite good, and relatively open ended. Your decisions have consequences and all, but in the end the story is the mostly the same. The language part is what I would say is the most important, because the game can theoretically be completed without a complete understanding of the history of the game. The language is very well crafted, with symbols meaning simple ideas combining to form complex ones, almost reminiscent of kanji? Good game overall, give it a try!
Great little idea but the clunkiness of the movement and mechanics made it a bit of a slog throughout the whole thing
I had to play this for a class. I remember really hating the controls, and although I like the ideas this game's world presents, playing it just... was not fun to me at all.
This review contains spoilers
This is an immensely cool concept that only barely manages to rise above the janky and frustrating gameplay it's behind. I'll save actually listing all of my complains for the end of the review so that you don't have to scroll past it, but for now suffice to say that the game is extremely slow and tedious, you're constantly being interrupted and having to wait. It was bad enough that I couldn't bear repeating it for a second playthrough, even though I was excited by the prospect of a New Game+ with deeper puzzles.
Visually, the game's artstyle looks unique and great in stills, but in motion, in gameplay, I found it very jarring, with the minimal animations, leaving behind inexplicable specters as you walk, and awkward camera issues as the game tries to dynamically make a cutscene out of wherever you're standing.
So then, the concept that redeems all this. Even with the shallow nature of the conlang, and the puzzles often being more about guessing what words make sense rather than interpreting the glyphs, it was still a fun, satisfying mechanic, and I was always motivated to push through the tedium of the rest of the game in the hopes of getting to more inscriptions. The setting and history are really engaging too, especially with the way you uncover it being a fundamental part of the game's flow.
I was also impressed with how dynamic and open the game seemed, with you able to learn new information in radically different orders, and in conversation Aliya's dialogue will reflect that.
As far as the actual plot goes though - Iiiii dunno. The secret hyperadvanced precursor society - if you can call it a society - is a pretty played-out trope, and the focus on the entropy of the universe kind of undermines the importance of looking at history and learning the language. Unless I missed it, you don't even get offered the chance to translate the huge amounts of ancient script in the Vault. Nothing you learned matters, because everything is doomed and you need to either leave it all behind or (I assume) die for your principles if you refuse to. In general, the last minute ending split tends to be a red flag.
I do love the "Vault" wordplay - secrets hiding in plain sight on the cover and all that - but the very fact it's wordplay relies on the shallowness of the conlang. Why would "safe-underground-place" and "travel-high-far-fast" be the same word in such an ideographic language?
Right: Time to whine. Each of these complaints is individually minor, but they add up to a tedious, frustrating experience. It's a mix of small one-time things and game-spanning quibbles that never go away.
As already mentioned, the game's visual style is pretty strange in motion.
The dialogue system is really slowly paced, unvoiced, and doesn't have the best contrast against the background. Lines appear one-by-one far slower than I'd like, with no option I could find to bring up the next line early. Voiced lines are extremely rare, and don't always seem important enough to get that distinction, compared to the conversations that go unvoiced.
Aliya is... kind of a dick, sometimes to an unwarranted degree, and sometimes you don't really have any good choices, or you don't realise a choice will go where it does. I like to try to be nice! This does have the upside of making Aliya a distinct character, but the amount of game you spend choosing responses feels at odds.
The game doesn't seem to like alt-tabbing very much.
I'm not sure if it was a related issue or just intentional design, but when I played the game, a lot of it was almost silent. Not just the lack of dialogue, but few-to-no music or sound effects. It was eerie, and not in situations where it would be intentionally so.
The game likes to take control away from you to walk down stairs or through doorways and such. This increases the feeling that you spend a lot of time waiting, without player agency. Additionally, if you're in the middle of a conversation, which can usually play out while you walk, you'll stop dead in your tracks until it plays out in full, including any responses.
Six bugs you to return to the ship almost every time you cross a threshold once you've cleared one plot flag on a moon, even if you're trying to walk directly another one.
I don't know that there's much benefit to doing so anyway, but does Huang have to walk away slowly with each individual artefact I give him when he knows I have five more?
Like I said, I have some mechanical gripes with the translation mechanic. When you're trying to define word boundaries, I couldn't figure out a way to make the game try it even if I knew everything left I could add was wrong. And every time you do get it wrong, often being just forced to, you have to sit through Aliya or Six chiming in with the slow dialogue system, then all of your progress is discarded and you have to place it all back again.
Also, I wanted to be able to search inscriptions by words. If a definition is rejected and I need to choose a new one, I want to be able to see the context I previously defined it in, and if the definition of a word updates, I want to review other inscriptions it was in, even if it's not all locked in yet.
When sailing, the slow dialogue system will sometimes make you miss turns. They could have taken more care to keep those lines shorter so that the important thing is always in the first message.
Visually, the game's artstyle looks unique and great in stills, but in motion, in gameplay, I found it very jarring, with the minimal animations, leaving behind inexplicable specters as you walk, and awkward camera issues as the game tries to dynamically make a cutscene out of wherever you're standing.
So then, the concept that redeems all this. Even with the shallow nature of the conlang, and the puzzles often being more about guessing what words make sense rather than interpreting the glyphs, it was still a fun, satisfying mechanic, and I was always motivated to push through the tedium of the rest of the game in the hopes of getting to more inscriptions. The setting and history are really engaging too, especially with the way you uncover it being a fundamental part of the game's flow.
I was also impressed with how dynamic and open the game seemed, with you able to learn new information in radically different orders, and in conversation Aliya's dialogue will reflect that.
As far as the actual plot goes though - Iiiii dunno. The secret hyperadvanced precursor society - if you can call it a society - is a pretty played-out trope, and the focus on the entropy of the universe kind of undermines the importance of looking at history and learning the language. Unless I missed it, you don't even get offered the chance to translate the huge amounts of ancient script in the Vault. Nothing you learned matters, because everything is doomed and you need to either leave it all behind or (I assume) die for your principles if you refuse to. In general, the last minute ending split tends to be a red flag.
I do love the "Vault" wordplay - secrets hiding in plain sight on the cover and all that - but the very fact it's wordplay relies on the shallowness of the conlang. Why would "safe-underground-place" and "travel-high-far-fast" be the same word in such an ideographic language?
Right: Time to whine. Each of these complaints is individually minor, but they add up to a tedious, frustrating experience. It's a mix of small one-time things and game-spanning quibbles that never go away.
As already mentioned, the game's visual style is pretty strange in motion.
The dialogue system is really slowly paced, unvoiced, and doesn't have the best contrast against the background. Lines appear one-by-one far slower than I'd like, with no option I could find to bring up the next line early. Voiced lines are extremely rare, and don't always seem important enough to get that distinction, compared to the conversations that go unvoiced.
Aliya is... kind of a dick, sometimes to an unwarranted degree, and sometimes you don't really have any good choices, or you don't realise a choice will go where it does. I like to try to be nice! This does have the upside of making Aliya a distinct character, but the amount of game you spend choosing responses feels at odds.
The game doesn't seem to like alt-tabbing very much.
I'm not sure if it was a related issue or just intentional design, but when I played the game, a lot of it was almost silent. Not just the lack of dialogue, but few-to-no music or sound effects. It was eerie, and not in situations where it would be intentionally so.
The game likes to take control away from you to walk down stairs or through doorways and such. This increases the feeling that you spend a lot of time waiting, without player agency. Additionally, if you're in the middle of a conversation, which can usually play out while you walk, you'll stop dead in your tracks until it plays out in full, including any responses.
Six bugs you to return to the ship almost every time you cross a threshold once you've cleared one plot flag on a moon, even if you're trying to walk directly another one.
I don't know that there's much benefit to doing so anyway, but does Huang have to walk away slowly with each individual artefact I give him when he knows I have five more?
Like I said, I have some mechanical gripes with the translation mechanic. When you're trying to define word boundaries, I couldn't figure out a way to make the game try it even if I knew everything left I could add was wrong. And every time you do get it wrong, often being just forced to, you have to sit through Aliya or Six chiming in with the slow dialogue system, then all of your progress is discarded and you have to place it all back again.
Also, I wanted to be able to search inscriptions by words. If a definition is rejected and I need to choose a new one, I want to be able to see the context I previously defined it in, and if the definition of a word updates, I want to review other inscriptions it was in, even if it's not all locked in yet.
When sailing, the slow dialogue system will sometimes make you miss turns. They could have taken more care to keep those lines shorter so that the important thing is always in the first message.
I have mixed feelings about this game.
All the information the game communicates to you comes from written dialogue, as the visual presentation is barebones with only flavour-text voice acting on occasion. The three ways of gameplay found being; ship traversal, branching dialogue and "match the shape" translation puzzles, all suffer from not demanding much engagement from the player in order to make progress. At last, dialogue choices can feel unsatifying at times due to you playing an established character, Aliya is a character with her own beliefs and values, which are not going to change due to a buttonprompt. This is not a roleplaying game, despite 1/3 of the game being dedicated to branching dialogue.
On the other hand, the story and worldbuilding of the game was very enjoyable to me. The game tells a story of an archeologist, dealing with all the luggage the profession can bring with it. The world on display is unique and full of its own problems, bringing a hostile and tense atmosphere to every conversation. The game will reward tought-out decision making with new knowledge about the universe and its past. You are really making discoveries about the past and present that matter, and make you think about the history, creation, nature and future of this universe.
Heavens Vault is a memorable game that I wish other devs would notice, and try to improve on the concepts and ideas shown in it. Translation is such a cool idea for a from of gameplay, and this game only scratches the surface of it.
All the information the game communicates to you comes from written dialogue, as the visual presentation is barebones with only flavour-text voice acting on occasion. The three ways of gameplay found being; ship traversal, branching dialogue and "match the shape" translation puzzles, all suffer from not demanding much engagement from the player in order to make progress. At last, dialogue choices can feel unsatifying at times due to you playing an established character, Aliya is a character with her own beliefs and values, which are not going to change due to a buttonprompt. This is not a roleplaying game, despite 1/3 of the game being dedicated to branching dialogue.
On the other hand, the story and worldbuilding of the game was very enjoyable to me. The game tells a story of an archeologist, dealing with all the luggage the profession can bring with it. The world on display is unique and full of its own problems, bringing a hostile and tense atmosphere to every conversation. The game will reward tought-out decision making with new knowledge about the universe and its past. You are really making discoveries about the past and present that matter, and make you think about the history, creation, nature and future of this universe.
Heavens Vault is a memorable game that I wish other devs would notice, and try to improve on the concepts and ideas shown in it. Translation is such a cool idea for a from of gameplay, and this game only scratches the surface of it.
Meu save corrompeu e agora preciso deixar ele na prateleira temporariamente
Soundtrack was great, I want to keep surfing those star oceans between planets. Lots of well written dialogue as well.
Wonderfully delivers on the concept of playing as an archaeologist uncovering the history and the lost language of the world you're placed in, and unlike most games, Heaven's Vault really does let you explore and uncover history rather than just passively collect logs and notes. An essential difference is that this game will allow you to speculate and be wrong, and put your wrong assumptions on the timeline the same way it would correct ones, and have reactions and unique dialogue prepared for them, which means that you as a player do actually need to pay attention, and amend past mistakes, and cross-reference your knowledge to reach proper conclusions. This is present in both the translation minigame and the general exploration/dialogue portions.
The meat of the gameplay is deciphering an ancient language, and in my view, it's executed wonderfully. There are literally hundreds of samples of text for you to collect and reference, and by the end of the game you are likely to actually be able to read this (actually functional) language and recognize most of the graphemes, which feels incredibly gratifying. The game also provides a few opportunities to flex this knowledge in more... practical applications which serves to further that sense of real accomplishment as well.
The other major part of the game is exploring and talking to people with some (relatively light, depending on how you choose to approach it) investigation elements. Things are more standard in this part with not as many interesting mechanics, but it's worth noting that the writing and the mystery itself are top of the range in terms of what you may generally see in videogames. It's very rare to be able to play a game and say "The writing here is good" without having to add "...for a game". Basically, what I'm saying is that I would still be able to recommend Heaven's Vault even if it were a book.
This recommendation comes with a qualifier that the game DOES still feel about as smooth to play as chewing a bag of nails when you're starting out. The amount of little (and not so little) annoyances during gameplay is immense, and there is so much space for quality-of-life improvements (list of known graphemes for translations, better indication of what your character is about to say on any given generic "remark" or "question" prompt, etc.), and yet the good parts were good enough to win me over, despite me very much being a gameplay-first person. You have to teach yourself to trust this game: trust that it will bring up that one topic you didn't get to explore in a conversation, that it will remember one of your previous actions, that it will give you a chance to correct a mistake in deduction with new information, and so on; and once you get used to this approach, as well as the unconventional dialogue flow, and make peace with inability to manually save and try things out, you're in for a truly unique experience.
The meat of the gameplay is deciphering an ancient language, and in my view, it's executed wonderfully. There are literally hundreds of samples of text for you to collect and reference, and by the end of the game you are likely to actually be able to read this (actually functional) language and recognize most of the graphemes, which feels incredibly gratifying. The game also provides a few opportunities to flex this knowledge in more... practical applications which serves to further that sense of real accomplishment as well.
The other major part of the game is exploring and talking to people with some (relatively light, depending on how you choose to approach it) investigation elements. Things are more standard in this part with not as many interesting mechanics, but it's worth noting that the writing and the mystery itself are top of the range in terms of what you may generally see in videogames. It's very rare to be able to play a game and say "The writing here is good" without having to add "...for a game". Basically, what I'm saying is that I would still be able to recommend Heaven's Vault even if it were a book.
This recommendation comes with a qualifier that the game DOES still feel about as smooth to play as chewing a bag of nails when you're starting out. The amount of little (and not so little) annoyances during gameplay is immense, and there is so much space for quality-of-life improvements (list of known graphemes for translations, better indication of what your character is about to say on any given generic "remark" or "question" prompt, etc.), and yet the good parts were good enough to win me over, despite me very much being a gameplay-first person. You have to teach yourself to trust this game: trust that it will bring up that one topic you didn't get to explore in a conversation, that it will remember one of your previous actions, that it will give you a chance to correct a mistake in deduction with new information, and so on; and once you get used to this approach, as well as the unconventional dialogue flow, and make peace with inability to manually save and try things out, you're in for a truly unique experience.
Comecei a jogar pela experiência de tradução/descoberta da língua; infelizmente a mecânica de traduzir não é baseada no entendimento e dedução pessoais das palavras, o que foi uma quebra de expectativa muito ruim.
Continuei jogando o jogo mesmo assim por causa da escrita e do worldbuilding, que são muito muito legais mesmo. É ótimo ler esse jogo
Abandonei o jogo porque o gamefeel é infelizmente horrível :'D Não tem efeito sonoro de nada e é tudo muuuuuuitooooo deeeeeeeevaaaagaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrr
Continuei jogando o jogo mesmo assim por causa da escrita e do worldbuilding, que são muito muito legais mesmo. É ótimo ler esse jogo
Abandonei o jogo porque o gamefeel é infelizmente horrível :'D Não tem efeito sonoro de nada e é tudo muuuuuuitooooo deeeeeeeevaaaagaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrr
If you want a translation puzzle game that isn't just blind guessing between multiple choice options play Chants of Sennaar instead.
If you like being held hostage by painfully slow character movement so an npc with no personality can talk at you incessantly you might like this
If you like being held hostage by painfully slow character movement so an npc with no personality can talk at you incessantly you might like this
Getting my robot killed was my bad i shouldn't have done that.
Translating everything is really fun, i picked up on things the game never required me to. I would've played new game+ if i actually knew what the last few symbols meant i never did figure them out.
Translating everything is really fun, i picked up on things the game never required me to. I would've played new game+ if i actually knew what the last few symbols meant i never did figure them out.
Bajo la inestabilidad de este programa se encuentra una de las mejores adaptaciones que he visto de la experiencia arqueológica al videojuego. Con una premisa interesante, un mundo amplio y fascinante, y unos personajes atrayentes y complejos, Heaven's Vault te sumerge en la experiencia de deducción, especulación y, en última instancia, incertidumbre que implica la labor historiográfica. Es posible que esta inestabilidad se sienta como un error de diseño para alguien acostumbrade a la cuidadosa experiencia turistificada de Chants of Sennaar, pero para mí, es ese no saber, ese tener que asumir que tu traducción es correcta y tener que volver a ella una y otra vez para ver si no te has alejado, es la clave de todo. Este juego ofrece un apoyo similar al que Paradise Killer ofrecía con Lady Love Dies y su capacidad de deducción, en el sentido de que Aliya y Six siempre estarán ahí para decirte cuando algo se está traduciendo correctamente. Pero hay una diferencia importante entre servirte de apoyo, y construir un mundo en torno a un lenguaje que acaba sintiéndose demasiado artificial.
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Underneath the jankiness of this program lies one of the best adaptations I've seen of the archaeological experience in a video game. With an interesting premise, a complex and fascinating world, and engaging and complicated characters, Heaven's Vault immerses in a session of deduction, speculation, and the uncertainty that historiographical work entails. It's possible that this instability might feel like a design flaw to someone used to the carefully turistic experience of Chants of Sennaar, but for me, it's that not knowing, that having to assume that your translations are correct, and having to go back to them again to see you haven't wronged too much, is the key to it all. This game offers something similar to what Paradise Killer did with Lady Love Dies and her deductional powers, in that Aliya and Six will always be there to tell you when something is translating correctly. But there's an important difference between supporting you, and building a world around a language that feels way too artificial for its own good.
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Underneath the jankiness of this program lies one of the best adaptations I've seen of the archaeological experience in a video game. With an interesting premise, a complex and fascinating world, and engaging and complicated characters, Heaven's Vault immerses in a session of deduction, speculation, and the uncertainty that historiographical work entails. It's possible that this instability might feel like a design flaw to someone used to the carefully turistic experience of Chants of Sennaar, but for me, it's that not knowing, that having to assume that your translations are correct, and having to go back to them again to see you haven't wronged too much, is the key to it all. This game offers something similar to what Paradise Killer did with Lady Love Dies and her deductional powers, in that Aliya and Six will always be there to tell you when something is translating correctly. But there's an important difference between supporting you, and building a world around a language that feels way too artificial for its own good.
After thoroughly enjoying the excellent Chants of Sennaar, I was sure this game would be straight up my alley, but unfortunately that didn’t end up being the case.
While both games involve deciphering foreign languages by adding meanings to glyphs through context, those mechanics play a different role in both games. Chants of Sennaar revolves around this mechanic, in Heaven’s Vault it is presented as the main mechanic but in fact it is merely optional - a way to infer more context and lore around the history of its setting. Of course, that is not a bad thing - but if you’re looking for more glyph-sleuthing like me, you might end up disappointed.
Instead, Heaven’s Vault feels more like a point-and-click adventure. You progress by talking to characters and by searching every nook and cranny for artifacts that will lead you to new places with even more artifacts. These artifacts are usually “invisible”, meaning you don’t see them in the game world or in Aliya’s hands when she finds them (they are conveyed simply as a thing you can interact with by pressing the action button), but Aliya will automatically decipher what period and historical site it belongs to, and they sometimes come with a little glyph puzzle. When you have correctly guessed the meaning of a word in two different situations, that translation will be considered accurate and added to your dictionary.
Finding out the meanings of the glyphs, adding more vocabulary, and then going back to the phrases I found previously and seeing how they finally start to make sense, was for me the high point of the game. That’s why I was disappointed that unraveling the Ancients’ language was not a key factor in progressing the story.
That’s clearly a deliberate choice by developer Inkle, because the game is designed in a way that you can completely miss lots of dialogue, meeting characters and even entire locations if you skip over a lot of artifacts or constantly incorrectly guess the meaning of glyphs. Making the glyph translation mandatory for progression would mean certain players could get locked out of progression and completion of the game.
The gameplay that remains, was simply not engaging enough for me. I was constantly fighting the camera and did not feel in control of Aliya as she constantly moved around on her own, sometimes even locking me out of areas that I wasn’t done exploring. I played this on Nintendo Switch and I really regret it - the constant stuttering was driving me insane and the game even crashed twice (luckily the autosave is good). Audio kept cutting out as well though that problem doesn’t seem to be limited to the Switch. All of these technical and control issues make a game revolved around exploring very tough to enjoy.
The story and writing however, did not disappoint. It’s almost a shame how the tedious gameplay kept overshadowing the best parts of the game.
I feel like I would have appreciated this game more if it was presented as a traditional 2D point and click adventure. I still commend Inkle for making a game that is so rich in dialogue and branching paths and the language of the Ancients is incredibly clever and worth piecing together. Good faith to them!
While both games involve deciphering foreign languages by adding meanings to glyphs through context, those mechanics play a different role in both games. Chants of Sennaar revolves around this mechanic, in Heaven’s Vault it is presented as the main mechanic but in fact it is merely optional - a way to infer more context and lore around the history of its setting. Of course, that is not a bad thing - but if you’re looking for more glyph-sleuthing like me, you might end up disappointed.
Instead, Heaven’s Vault feels more like a point-and-click adventure. You progress by talking to characters and by searching every nook and cranny for artifacts that will lead you to new places with even more artifacts. These artifacts are usually “invisible”, meaning you don’t see them in the game world or in Aliya’s hands when she finds them (they are conveyed simply as a thing you can interact with by pressing the action button), but Aliya will automatically decipher what period and historical site it belongs to, and they sometimes come with a little glyph puzzle. When you have correctly guessed the meaning of a word in two different situations, that translation will be considered accurate and added to your dictionary.
Finding out the meanings of the glyphs, adding more vocabulary, and then going back to the phrases I found previously and seeing how they finally start to make sense, was for me the high point of the game. That’s why I was disappointed that unraveling the Ancients’ language was not a key factor in progressing the story.
That’s clearly a deliberate choice by developer Inkle, because the game is designed in a way that you can completely miss lots of dialogue, meeting characters and even entire locations if you skip over a lot of artifacts or constantly incorrectly guess the meaning of glyphs. Making the glyph translation mandatory for progression would mean certain players could get locked out of progression and completion of the game.
The gameplay that remains, was simply not engaging enough for me. I was constantly fighting the camera and did not feel in control of Aliya as she constantly moved around on her own, sometimes even locking me out of areas that I wasn’t done exploring. I played this on Nintendo Switch and I really regret it - the constant stuttering was driving me insane and the game even crashed twice (luckily the autosave is good). Audio kept cutting out as well though that problem doesn’t seem to be limited to the Switch. All of these technical and control issues make a game revolved around exploring very tough to enjoy.
The story and writing however, did not disappoint. It’s almost a shame how the tedious gameplay kept overshadowing the best parts of the game.
I feel like I would have appreciated this game more if it was presented as a traditional 2D point and click adventure. I still commend Inkle for making a game that is so rich in dialogue and branching paths and the language of the Ancients is incredibly clever and worth piecing together. Good faith to them!
A bounty of unrealized potential. The high point is that you can really botch conversations with characters and close off possibilities; it's no boot-licking completionist fantasy. But Heaven's Vault should be a 2D point-and-click title – its CG spaces feel unjustified, and your avatar is constantly shifted into auto-travel without warning. The main feature – learning ancient glyphs – is neutered by the hand-holding, multiple-guess system. The game ends with a unsurprising twist that has been in vogue since the Battlestar Galactica remake. You know what would be a daring story? One with ancient non-Lovecraftian gods that turn out to be real.
I really enjoyed the story of this game and its vibes. I replayed it some more trying to unlock more of the language since language knowledge persists between playthroughs, but my save got deleted at one point and I didn’t continue. Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly recommend this game!
I think there is a fantastic game in here somewhere, and I really enjoyed my time playing it. The mystery and world are fun and fascinating to uncover and explore, the music is perfect for the setting, the writing is great and the character interactions in particular are endlessly intriguing to watch unfold. The core game mechanic of translation is fun and novel, and is the closest I've had a game come to making me feel like a real archaeologist. Despite all the problems I'm about to list I really liked this one and do highly recommend it.
Unfortunately, the game just really isn't made very well at all. I was constantly battling with cameras clipping through terrain, music cutting out for no real reason or characters getting stuck in corners and glitching out completely. While the presumably hand-drawn character models are great (albeit with an animation style that wasnt to my taste), a lot of the scenery textures seem weirdly low-fidelity. These things combine to make the game feel quite dated at points, despite its 2019 release date.
There are also a lot of design choices in the game that are... frankly, a bit baffling. The game loves taking control away from you to autowalk the character for sometimes only a few metres, and the sudden lack of control can be quite jarring. A lot of things that it would be nice to be able to do (e.g. put the ship on auto-fly, teleport back to ship after finishing a location, etc etc) feel like they should be things the player can choose to activate, but most of the time you just have to sit there and hope you hit the cryptic conditions for the relevant prompt to appear for you for 2 seconds. And I would give my left foot for a dictionary mode where you can just see all the words you have translations or guesses for; there even /is/ a dictionary in universe for God's sake, Aliya very regularly mentions it, so why can't I see it?
Then there are more quality of life things. Why can you not revisit locations? I guess I can understand not wanting the player to revisit dig-sites to keep the game flowing, but at least 2 locations are populated towns that you can't go back to unless the game itself deems you have cause to. Certain actions in the game seem to take far more of your time than is respectful (e.g. Huang looking through his lists to show you an artefact, Six being silenced). And /by God/ does the player character move slowly; a real irritant in some of the larger locations in the game.
Early in the game, I really thought all these things would get to me. But by the end, I barely noticed most of the problems were there. Despite everything, the game totally sucked me into its world. And if a game's core can shine so brightly through so many layers of problems, then that truly must be a bright core indeed.
Unfortunately, the game just really isn't made very well at all. I was constantly battling with cameras clipping through terrain, music cutting out for no real reason or characters getting stuck in corners and glitching out completely. While the presumably hand-drawn character models are great (albeit with an animation style that wasnt to my taste), a lot of the scenery textures seem weirdly low-fidelity. These things combine to make the game feel quite dated at points, despite its 2019 release date.
There are also a lot of design choices in the game that are... frankly, a bit baffling. The game loves taking control away from you to autowalk the character for sometimes only a few metres, and the sudden lack of control can be quite jarring. A lot of things that it would be nice to be able to do (e.g. put the ship on auto-fly, teleport back to ship after finishing a location, etc etc) feel like they should be things the player can choose to activate, but most of the time you just have to sit there and hope you hit the cryptic conditions for the relevant prompt to appear for you for 2 seconds. And I would give my left foot for a dictionary mode where you can just see all the words you have translations or guesses for; there even /is/ a dictionary in universe for God's sake, Aliya very regularly mentions it, so why can't I see it?
Then there are more quality of life things. Why can you not revisit locations? I guess I can understand not wanting the player to revisit dig-sites to keep the game flowing, but at least 2 locations are populated towns that you can't go back to unless the game itself deems you have cause to. Certain actions in the game seem to take far more of your time than is respectful (e.g. Huang looking through his lists to show you an artefact, Six being silenced). And /by God/ does the player character move slowly; a real irritant in some of the larger locations in the game.
Early in the game, I really thought all these things would get to me. But by the end, I barely noticed most of the problems were there. Despite everything, the game totally sucked me into its world. And if a game's core can shine so brightly through so many layers of problems, then that truly must be a bright core indeed.
You may like one piece because of luffy or zoro, but this is robin time.
Interesting enough to hold my attention. I appreciate them trying something new with the game play. The controls are bad.
What a weird-ass game this one is. I highly recommend it just for how unique and imaginative (a legitimately rare trait when it comes to games!) it is, despite it also being slow and clunky and often a time-waster. You get to decipher a conlang which is cool as shit despite it being a fairly shallow one, but I assume that was required to make this work as a full game. This game is very organic and your playthrough will not be the same as mine, or anyone else's, from what I've seen.
A game I respect slightly more than I enjoy. I think it does a lot of things very well but I would have been happier had I ended perhaps 2 or 3 hours earlier, as the core mechanic has kind of outstayed its welcome by the end. Its nevertheless a very engaging archeology game with none of that dumb hollywood schlock, you just have a notebook and a desire for learning. It also does some interesting, spoilery things with its narrative, so I will say no more