An indie studio created a game based on Stanislaw Lem's novel

by mgl • 2 years ago

134 55 2 years ago

dragonfax• 2 years ago

Its a prequel to the novel actually. But I don't think the advertising makes that apparent enough.

Its a walking simulator for the most part. (For those that know what that means) Think of it as a journey you take part it. But there are a few choices you can make to change a bit of who dies, and a affect a slight change in the ending.

I enjoyed it thorougly. And felt it was a great representation of the retrofuturistic world the book presented, and stayed mostly in the style of that era.

foggyToads• 2 years ago

May I ask that you please add a spoiler warning? :)

andrewflnr3• 2 years ago

The spoiler is that non-zero characters die? Or did they edit their post?

buffington• 2 years ago

The site for the game shows the skull of a human inside of a helmet.

Suggesting that your choices will impact who dies in the game is about as much a spoiler as knowing you shoot guns in Call of Duty.

Frankly, if you don't want to risk reading spoilers, don't engage in conversations about the medium at risk of being spoiled for you.

eleveriven2• 2 years ago

I think the "walking simulator" format sounds fitting here

0x38B2• 2 years ago

I haven't played the game because my 11th-gen Intel Framework 13 isn't that fast for running newer games, but I love the story - here's an excerpt from one of my favorite scenes in the book, the battle between the Invincible's Cyclops and the dark cloud of nano-machines:

In principle it was not used on the surface of a planet, and the truth was that the Invincible had never once mobilized its Cyclops. Situations that called for such an eventuality, even on a scale of the entire tonnage of the space base, could be counted on the fingers of one hand. In the jargon used on board, sending out the Cyclops for some task meant the same certainty as entrusting it to the Devil himself. No one had ever heard of any Cyclops failing.
the black scrub on the slopes began to smoke and set off in waves toward the vehicle from Earth, coming on with such vehemence that in the first instant the Cyclops disappeared completely, concealed by what looked like a cape of tarry smoke flung from above. At once, however, a ragged flash lit up the entire breadth of the attacking cloud. This was not the Cyclops using its terrible weaponry, merely the cloud’s energy fields striking against the force field.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rohan saw the commander open his mouth to ask the Chief Engineer standing next to him if the field would hold out—but the words didn’t come. He didn’t have time.
The black whirlwind, the walls of the ravine, the bushes—all of it disappeared in a split second. It looked as if a volcano breathing fire had opened up in a fissure in the rock. A column of smoke and frothing lava, shattered rocks, and finally, immense white billows of steam that probably came from the boiling waters of the stream, soared a mile into the air to where the TV relay was hovering. The Cyclops had activated its antimatter cannon.

braiamp• 2 years ago

I haven't played the game because my 11th-gen Intel Framework 13 isn't that fast for running newer games

Interesting. There's nothing on the system requirement that would suggest so. Are laptop chips that underpowered?

scblock2• 2 years ago

Depends on the laptop chip. I've never tried it on my 11th-gen Framework 13, but it plays well on the Steam Deck.

0x38B2• 2 years ago

Maybe I'll give it a shot. My system really struggles to run Satisfactory, and even Rimworld can slow down when there's a lot happening. I've been considering a mainboard upgrade to an AMD Ryzen chip for speed & better built-in graphics. Other than graphics have been happy with my Intel system.

71bw• 2 years ago

Are laptop chips that underpowered?

Yes and especially Intel ones.

flohofwoe5• 2 years ago

FWIW the game wasn't running all that great on my (somewhat outdated) gaming PC with RTX2070 either. I can't imagine it being more than a slideshow on anything with an integrated GPU - I played it before some of the later patches though, maybe the team optimized rendering since then.

ASalazarMX• 2 years ago

Can confirm that, although it might be a different combination of issues in my case. I played it in a laptop, on Linux, through Proton. There's a certain driving scene that consistently slows and eventually freezes my computer, so haven't been able to finish the game.

The weird thing is, it doesn't look like a resource-intensive game, but somehow it is. I've been waiting months and eagerly trying every game/proton update, and it still happens. Pity because it has been a really nice story-driven game so far.

flohofwoe5• 2 years ago

The game isn't really based on the story though, which at least to me was a bit disappointing, the only common element is the 'smart dust'. It also went for a 50's pop-culture retro look which doesn't really fit together with Lem's stories.

Other then that, I had a decent amount of fun with the game once I realized that it's more of an interactive graphics novel.

shmeeed2• 2 years ago

Curious as to why you feel the retro look doesn't fit? In my head canon, Lem's worlds look just about like that, because they were written in the era. It might be because I tend to glance over details in descriptions, though...

Pet_Ant• 2 years ago

Lem is highly underrated for not being published in America during sci-fi’s heyday.

raddan• 2 years ago

Interesting. I read this book over the summer (and also discovered in the process that my library also has a collection of Lem in Polish too! Too bad I don’t know Polish). I suppose as long as they are focusing on an “atmospheric retelling” of the story, it doesn’t really matter that none of Lem’s stories ever end in human triumph. This one ends mostly in confusion and failure.

I also recently learned that there was a new English translation of Solaris. This version is much-hyped for being closer to the original, but as I read it, I am finding that I preferred the original translation (even though Lem himself reportedly did not like it). Anyway, huge Lem fan. Maybe an immersive game-like experience will better serve Lem’s visions. I was sorely disappointed in Soderbergh’s awful film version of Solaris. It just didn’t capture the terror of the story at all.

scblock2• 2 years ago

The game is told from another perspective to the novel, and it happens just before the Invincible lands (so just before the book really starts). It's one of my recent favorites.

mlsu• 2 years ago

On Solaris movies. You may find better luck with the Mosfilm adaptation. It's very beautiful, slow, contemplative.

RandomThoughts3• 2 years ago

Tarkovsky’s adaptation is incredible but it is only loosely based on the book (for the better as far as I’m concerned but Lem fans might disagree).

ehnto3• 2 years ago

It's incredible, maybe not for everyone though.

It is slow, it takes a few large story beats to really kick off the story. If you are in the right headspace, and are a patient player who is able to sink into the atmosphere, you will be gripped by the pacing.

The atmosphere is thick, dripping with retro-futurism, chilling environmental storytelling as well as thrilling story moments. The music will raise the hair on your skin.

If you don't want to dive in, I recommend giving the OST a listen on spotify/YouTube. It stands on it's own and is a pretty good representation of the feeling of the game.

Vespasian3• 2 years ago

Quick question. Do you remember any jump scares or the likes?

I love the setting and the aesthetics but for my live I can't stand some monster/zombie/etc bursting suddenly out of a cupboard.

izacus2• 2 years ago

No, I don't remember anything like that - there might be some tension when exploring things, but I remember no cases where things jump in your face.

ehnto3• 2 years ago

Potential spoilers ahead but I will try to be vaugue. I recall only one instance of a surprise, it was not a monster but a very large machine falling through a wall, in a sense.

But there's no monsters, creepy crawlies or anything like that. It's a more tech-focusses sci-fi story.

zuminator• 2 years ago

I agree, the videogame does a good job conveying a Lem-like sense of inscrutable alienness mixed with pervasive unease.

Just a bit of advice, there was one section maybe about 75% through the game where you hit a fork and you're meant to turn left, but I got turned around in the map and turned right instead. And instead of notifying me that I was going the wrong way, the game's atmospherics started very gradually getting foggier and foggier and it became harder and harder to move forward. Eventually I came to a region where my vision was so grayed-out that I could barely see a foot ahead of me. I had to ditch the rover and proceed on foot, but even then it felt like I was walking through molasses and that the way forward was somehow eluding me like a hidden passage.

I mistakenly thought that was just an expected part of the journey and I stubbornly tried to slog on in the wrong direction for what seemed like a couple of weeks. I became frustrated and was ready to give up playing and then just decided on a whim to go all the way back to the fork and try the other direction, whereupon to my surprise it became immediately obvious that I was now on the correct route, and the game proceeded normally.

That whole misadventure became to me a core part in how I experienced the game even though it effectively nothing more than a side quest to nowhere. If you ever read his (in my opinion) greatest work, "Memoirs Found in a Bathtub," it felt in some way very much like that book, pushing forward with no sense of progress but a vague sense of something very wrong.

ehnto3• 2 years ago

I think I did something similar actually, I definitely got very lost. Even in the first player controlled sequence, I was really unsure what to do. I think I self-propelled into the valley rather than trying to get out. I loved the experience. Games are really reluctant to stop guiding players, which I get is to avoid frustration. But I enjoy games that let the player experience their mistakes properly.

procflora• 2 years ago

For anyone who's read the book and played the game, a question. I have done neither but bought both last year for a rainy weekend's fun. Anybody have strong feelings about which I should start with?

karczex• 2 years ago

As always, it depends. I would suggest to start with the book, as the game is kind of spoiler. Also it allows you to better compare your own vision of this cool retro futuristic world with game creators vision.

flohofwoe5• 2 years ago

The two things are quite unrelated and only connected by one important story element. Definitely read the book first (also to let your imagination not be 'poisoned' by the game's art style), but then be prepared that the game doesn't have much in common with the book except this one story element.

shmeeed2• 2 years ago

TL;DR: if you're on the fence, go read the book. It's good and short to boot.

I have to admit I've only seen part of a playthrough of /The Invicible/, but haven't played the game myself.

Still, as a general rule, I personally would (almost) always recommend starting with the book form before trying a visual adaption.

Having seen the visuals first will heavily influence your imagination and internal vision of the writing, which would deprive you of one of the greatest joys of reading. This book in particular paints some truly awesome mental pictures that I wouldn't want to have spoiled in any way.

Another reasoning goes that the experience that came first tends to "win out" regarding your perception of the material. To me at least, a book is somehow less polarizing than a movie or a game. It stands for itself, and oftentimes (as is the case with /The Invicible/) has been standing as a recognised work for decades; it doesn't need to prove itself and can be taken as an artistic expression more or less free from the kind of economic incentives that necessarily plague a larger production.

Any adaption comes with changes and, quite possibly, shortcomings that can be more or less individually tolerable. If you play the game and don't like it for the way it tells the story, its art style, a clunky UI or whatnot, you take that baggage with you to reading the book, or in the worst case even lose interest and forego doing so altogether. That would (arguably) be a much greater loss than the other way around.

Adaptions do have their advantages, mainly in creating an impressive audiovisual environment, which can evoke some very immediate emotions. But those themes have been chosen and interpreted by the adaptor and are not necessarily identical to the original author's intentions.

Condensation in adaption to a different medium generally comes at a loss of depth that IMHO makes it hard to re-experience the source material without bias, and thus encumbers its full appreciation; not least because even in the best case it forestalls the setting, and often the twists and the conclusion as well.

In the end I would argue that a book tends to give a humanistically richer experience. It gives ample time to fathom its themes, to reflect and interpret them without visual distractions. Adaptions of great works can be great in their own right, but not too many stand the test of time as well as the books that came before them, and in that light I myself prefer to keep that order.

kstrauser2• 2 years ago

Is this the same one you’ve already posted about 5 times before?

withinrafael• 2 years ago

Loved the game (superb voice acting by Daisy May), reading the book now. The studio also sells a sweet snow globe, highly recommend! https://store.11bitstudios.com/product/snow-globe-the-invinc...

schmorptron2• 2 years ago

Looks really cool, but on a side note: is this self-promotion? There is a ?hn tag at the end of the link.

eru• 2 years ago

Self-promotion within reasonable limits is perfectly fine on HN.

schmorptron2• 2 years ago

Yeah, absolutely! Just thought it would have to be tagged as such somehow?

kstrauser2• 2 years ago

It is, but notice that every one of this person’s posts is self-promotion and they hardly interact with HN otherwise.

Edit: You have to turn on showdead to see most of their posts.

TeMPOraL• 2 years ago

More like dupe detector buster - the link has been submitted some 4 months ago[0]; adding ?hn is a semi-conventional way to get it to appear as a new submission instead of counting as an upvote towards the older story.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40921398

krige• 2 years ago

The game is superb. I was approaching it from a highly critical standpoint, between the choice of a new story in the same setting, and overall rather poor track of Lem adaptations to other media than books, which I felt either didn't try to be faithful, didn't have any budget, or both.

But the game won me over near instantly. Its pacing, presentation, and writing are top notch. Overall I feel that it's worth a try whether you know the original story or not. Knowing the book will spoil a lot of the, let's call them twists, very quickly, but will also provide interesting context for things shown before the protagonist finds things out on her own.

blueflow• 2 years ago

This is nowhere near canon, but the Planet from "The Invincible" could easily be Fulgora from "Factorio: Space Age", some tenths of thousand years later. The oily oceans have decomposed into water and methane, the construction robots have evolved, the planets resources and ruins eaten up. The "rust layer" in the sediments was the planet-spanning factory. The engineer has its origin in the Lyra civilisation, which went extinct before the Invincible showed up.

adrianhon• 2 years ago

Since this has been reposted by the same poster several times, I don't feel bad about reposting my review calling it a "glorious failure": https://mssv.net/2023/12/26/the-invincible/

tl,dr: It looks incredible, like no other game you'll see today, and it grapples with deeply interesting themes – but it's extremely annoying to play and suffers from a serious lack of editing. There's just too much friction to become truly immersed. Still, other games can only wish their failures were this daring.

(Last time I made this comment it was immediately downvoted to oblivion. Shortly thereafter, the post itself disappeared from the HN front page, perhaps due to some kind of brigade-detection?)

ceving• 2 years ago

If it is truly following Stanislaw Lem's ideas it will be quite frustrating, because no player will be able to succeed.

anonzzzies• 2 years ago

This would be nice in VR.

eleveriven2• 2 years ago

VR would be perfect for this kind of atmospheric game...

virtualritz• 2 years ago

"The Invisible" was the first adult sci-fi book I read. I think I was in 2nd grade and had just learned how to read. Very early 80's.

I recall that my arts teacher told me about Lem in 4th grade when I was drawing some spaceship and I told her I already read some books by him. She didn't believe me until I told her details about the stories.

"The Invincible" was mind blowing at that age and set a pretty high standard for everything in that genre I read after.

I still think my dad left it laying on the living room table intentionally for me to find. He had almost everything Lem had written until then and was probably fed up with me reading the pulp kids/teen sci-fi that I was at the time.

As I grew up in Germany pretty much all of Lems works were readily available in German, which definitely helped.

Speaking of Lem adaptions: I was already doing computer graphics/VFX in my early 20's when I gave reading "Solaris" another try (it had been too long in the tooth for me in parts as a teen).

And I recall the visual description of the ocean at multiple scales (it's two pages or more) and though: that will take years for VFX tools to get to the stage where we can visualize that.

I'd say we've only been there since less than a decade.

Paul_S2• 2 years ago

Amazing novel but this is neither a direct adaptation nor faithful to the novel's message and ideas. It's a modern walking simulator with a the most surface level veneer of what we now consider retro futurism but otherwise modern in its messaging. I'd rather they kept the core and modernised the paint.

izacus2• 2 years ago

I really wish HN would have less of this negative bile you just spewed on someone elses work because it didn't conform to your every whim.

Paul_S2• 2 years ago

I played the game and didn't like it, you're welcome to disagree and engage with me by showing examples that disprove my assertions from my original post.

I think I'm on safe grounds calling it a walking simulator. The gameplay is limited to walking down a linear path and clicking on things until all combinations are exhausted - western equivalent of a visual novel (but with less branching).

flohofwoe5• 2 years ago

It's a perfectly valid point of view IMHO. The game is called The Invincible and marketed as being based on the Lem book, which builds up certain expectations which the game doesn't deliver.

It's a decent game / visual novel on its own, but it has absolutely nothing in common with Lem's Invincible except the name and that one core idea (which by now has become a common science fiction trope anyway - like most of Lem's ideas).

It also pulls a future Cold War scenario out of thin air which (as far as I remember) isn't even remotely mentioned in the book (which is more like a whodunit scifi crime novel which then becomes a tech thriller).

Also the decision to use a retro-future lollipop art style similar to The Jetsons is 'controversial' to say the least.

All in all, interesting and decent game (or rather "interactive graphics novel"), but marketing it as being based on Lem's book when in reality it's something entirely different (not just a book adaption with 'artistic freedom', but something entirely different) is a bit too much IMHO.

An indie studio created a game based on Stanislaw Lem's novel

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