Insomnia: The Ark: Video Game Overview

The phrase “Russian Fallout“It has long been perceived as a mockery and synonym for ambitious, but not always high-quality domestic projects, the creators of which are unsuccessfully trying to repeat the success of one of the most popular role-playing series. Some understand this phrase literally and are trying to adapt the plot of the original to the journey of the Russian Favorites in the post-Soviet setting, others draw inspiration in the aesthetics itself and the entourage of the postpocalipsis. In both cases, the result is worse than I would like, – While no one from the domestic developers to achieve heights Black Isle Studios, Bethesda or Obsidian Entertainment failed.

In spite of everything, attempts to achieve success do not stop: last month we have already talked about Postworld, And now let’s get to know Insomnia: The Ark – RPG from Samara developers from Mono Studio.

Uzeki Universe

Of course, about similarity with Fallout In this case, it is worth saying only conditionally. Rather, this is a quality plank, which the creators of the game were striking. We promised the possibility of choosing, nonlinearity of the narrative, the original role-playing system, high complexity – and postpocalipsis, where so without it.

With the last B Insomnia Everything is simple – the scenarios decided not to be broken and rumbled the whole planet at once. To be more accurate, the global internecine war destroyed the native world of the people of the people, and the remnants of the survivors were forced to go to look for a new home inside the giant spacecraft-ark called “Object 6”.

Of course, despite its huge sizes, I could not accommodate all the “object 6”. During the departure of the ship, many managed to get on board illegally, having received a chance to survive, albeit in very difficult conditions – in the tesne and darkness of technical sectors, in the absence of normal food and water.

Four hundred years, the ship keeps his way to destination – some “evacuation point”. After the initial chaos caused by a hastily departure, the situation stabilized. In the center of “Object 6” is the URB – isolated from other areas the sector, populated by descendants of those who have received legal right to be on board during the outcome. Military dictatorship reigns here, the standard of living is the highest at the station. Initially planned isometric angle. It cannot be said that the change of camera on the view from a third party has benefited.
Middle radius spread around URBA – there are important technical objects necessary for the functioning of the station and the well-being of urbanites. The population is the very “hares”, illegally fallen on the ship, called the gaethers. Their life is uncomplicated and is a continuous service for the benefit of Urba, but it is much better than surviving in a landfill – territories outside the near radius. There is an anarchy and lawlessness ball there, and besides the gangsters and vagrants, it is possible to meet, except that the creek is a poisonous plant that serves as a source of food for residents of the landfill.

The game begins when the main character comes to himself after waking up from a large sleep. This is called the procedure of many years of anabiosis: three-quarters of the population are inside the special capsules in a huge storage called Limb. If you have a need for certain specialists, these people are removed from the capsules, which makes it possible to significantly save on food.

This time, an awakening is not at all planned – an explosion occurred in Limba, an inserted hundreds of lives. As you already guessed, it was our hero that would deal with the reasons for what happened that, as usual, will only be the beginning of a long history.

AR-Deco’s postpocalypse

The player, unlike the main character, is unknown that all these years was going on the walls of the capsule for sleep. Studying a rather unusual world will have to be independently, using conversations with NPC and monitoring what is happening on the “object”. However, it will not be possible to idle: We are immediately sent to perform one task, then another, the third … Someone may not like this course of the case – it is quite difficult to figure it out in the original setting, without hooking in the form of “Laura”, which creators Insomnia Share are not in a hurry. Given their love for the unusual names – the one more task. Trade system is implemented in the form of barter.
Not only the plot, but also a visual style, which turned out to be quite successful and memorable to create the desired atmosphere. Before us retrofuturism, but retrofuturism of early, unlike Spectrum Alien: Isolation. It is not even the 50-60s of the 20th century, but its very beginning. Perhaps the most vivid example of a similar style and one of the sources of inspiration of the artists – a dumb movie “Metropolis” Already 1927.

Cutting structures made of metal and plastic, massive doors and high ceilings, cars of streamlined forms and the overall non-sensibility of the environment achieved through lighting – this is exactly the case before us “Object 6”. If you leave questions to the rationality of such design and love artists to high ceilings on a spacecraft, where every square centimeter of space should be on the weight of gold, the result looks really original and beautiful.

From sound, waiting for no less, but you have to quickly disappoin. Surrounding sounds, firstly, very scarce and monotonous, secondly, too often repeated. It is good that in the settings you can unscrew the volume of the ambient in zero – otherwise it is not easy to withstand this monotonous.

Voiced dialogs do not wait – with the exception of several phrases all characters are stored sobbing silence. But the text is enough – however, it takes rather by quantity than quality. Before us as a typical Russian RPG “Old School” – NPC-fitted NPC, Standard Lines in the dialogs where you immediately notice which phrases are needed to create an entourage, and which may mean receiving a new quest. Enemies can be shown unpunished – even under a hail of bullets they will not change the position.
Nevertheless, behind the plot, despite the primitiveness of the filing and the static world, you can follow with interest, the benefit of any variability of what is happening is present. And the history of the main character, by the way, not so simple, as it seems at first glance. But the execution is lame with a terrible crunch.

On an honest word and on one wing

Said fairly not only for the plot, but in general for the whole project. To think only – eight years of development, three (!) campaigns on Kickstarter, and at the exit we get something only remotely resembling a modern game.

Convenience control? Forget – we have the original implementation of the camera, which does not allow you to change the vertical viewing angle. Overlooking the third person it does not allow normally to inspect really beautiful locations and is very interferes during the battle.

Battles and without it cause big questions – intelligence in enemies is amused primitive. On the shelling they react sluggishly, preferring to stand still, and not act. In the near battle, it is also not difficult if there is a shield: the main thing is to run to the enemy, without hitting the bullets. In general, the battle only at first look difficult – yes, you can kill with one queue, but it is worth understanding how enemies behave, and win it too easy. If there is where to hide, of course.Traveling on a global card can sometimes be interrupted by random meetings.
Problems do not end. Control buttons You can not reassign – lovers of non-standard layouts in span. “Lags” arising from nowhere during any contractions, even with one or two opponents, constant mistakes, including those that lead to the impossibility of completing the task, texture of terrible quality, disappearing satellites and objects, problems with sound ..

Overcome all these flaws for the sake of interesting history maybe it is worth it, but it will be very difficult. On one “visual”, no matter how beautiful it is, the game does not do. So with him, problems – if the environment still looks quite pretty (except for the sometimes encountered textures of very low permission), then the characters – as if from the last century.

Well, forget that about errors and inconvenience – maybe Insomnia Excellent role-playing component! RPG system is quite simple and something reminds classic s.P.E.FROM.AND.BUT.L. from the same Fallout – there are basic attributes and pumped skills, both peaceful and combat, affecting not only damage or health, but also to talk with NPC or interaction with objects. The character has the desired number of skill points – a new line can appear in the dialog, opening another version of the conversation. Similarly – when actions with environment elements, like doors or terminals.Beautiful places, in fact, grabs. But due to the wretched implementation of the camera, it is necessary to consider the terrible model of the main character, and not the surrounding.
On the map there are no magical pointers of the goal of the current quest – this is a conscious step towards the same “Oldskul” RPG, where the player did not ceremony. Have to be credited to the dialogs and memorize keywords to know exactly where to go on. There are no signs of conversations, but it does not matter – the task log will always tell me what to do. You can even come to terms with the fact that there is no division into the main and side tasks in this magazine. But the lack of at least some “log” of the battle is much worse – the effectiveness of a weapon in a fight with different opponents has to determine almost “on the eyes”. Periodically need to sink hunger and thirst, but nor see their current indicators, nor know how they affect the character, it will not work – such information is simply no.

At the moment Insomnia Looks like a typical “early access” (although it is not formally), which is equal to the mortal sentence – there is enough such good now. It seems that the developers from the last forces dotted the game to the release, deciding to release at least something, instead of finishing the already prolonged long-term. Wait for patches? The project and so stayed in the development of indecent time, it is unlikely that the extra six months – a year will make candy out of it. Mystics in the game is full, nothing that science fiction. I have already said that the plot can surprise?***
It seems that Mono Studio Not enough experience: on the own recognition of the authors, they are not professional developers and this is their first and only game. No matter how it became the last – a good design and the plot to create it, but to complete it in a decent gameplay wrap, the forces were not enough.

I guess I mention too often Insomnia with old domestic projects of such a genre, but not to go away from such comparisons. If the Samartsy put the goal of creating an “oldskal” RPG, then they succeeded. After all, it was exactly that many games were at that time: often uncomfortable, full mistakes, but created on pure enthusiasm and, as they say, “with a soul”. It is a pity that now 2018, and not the 1998th.

Pros: visual style and design;plot.

Minuses: bugs;uncomfortable management and interface;Bad optimization;The game looks outdated for a couple of dozen years – both externally and essentially.