I know at least two other people around here are currently playing this. It seems notable enough to deserve a mention outside the catch-all threads.
The game’s official description is “A mix between Portal, Zelda, and Metroid.” It does contain elements of those three games, though it reminds me a little more of The Talos Principle than Portal because it mostly takes place outdoors.
In making that comparison, however, I have to mention that Supraland’s story consists mainly of a series of jokes, many of which include popular (and less popular) culture references. So I guess in being comedy-oriented, maybe it’s closer to Portal after all. If you can tolerate said references, the game is creative and fun.
Although I have a completion rate of only about 20% on my save and I’m probably not even halfway through the game, I can already say that the world is large and entertaining to explore. I’ve spent maybe the last hour wondering when I’ll be able to revisit an earlier area.
My old computer had trouble with this game initially, but I turned some of the video settings down a notch and now it only chokes occasionally. So I’d assume that most any machine can play it with some adjustments.
Looks really good but my computer can’t run it. Hopefully they bring it to console which I think they’ve said is an option given how well it’s reviewing.
I picked it up last week and played for about 40 minutes, and am not yet feeling a huge draw to it. I’ll probably try it some more this week and see if it grabs me and if I can form a more concrete opinion about it.
I’m at 40% now. I beat the first boss and then found the purple beam after spending way too long on an electricity puzzle. When I reached a large Portal-looking room with switches and things all over the place, I decided it was a good time to stop for now.
Folks who’ve played a good amount of this game, does it maintain the quality over the long term? I’m considering snagging this cuz my left thumb is too fucked up for controllers right now but can probably handle FPS controls.
I think the best thing about this is how much out of bounds play it loves and encourages, that rare strand of 3D platformer almost extinct by polish.
It really feels like a golden-age 3D platformer strung into one continuous world; I’m getting the same pleasantly soporific feel of moving and poking without being challenged, only now it flows together without any stopping points at all, a dangerous elixir.
If you would like a hint that’s not the outright solution, there are three anvils total and maybe one more thing that you can bring back from the previous area.
It’s funny that the puzzle I thought looked complicated at first glance took about 30 seconds to solve. I guess it was just seeing six switches close together that made me assume there was more to it.
I ended up stopping halfway(?) through that carrot area last night. I think I know what I need to to next (find a small crystal and paint it purple so that I can transfer flies to the blocking carrots, and somehow use a sponge to bring acid from the pool to the machine (I thought maybe I needed to use the giant sponge instead of the small ones, but it appears that if I can move it at all, it’s only using the product of the aforementioned machine)), but I could be wrong.
it’s not a bad area but it’s a) quite big which makes for lots of trekking, b) very much its own self contained adventure game, c) has some ambiguous solutions especially to make progress right at the start, and d) doesn’t have too many actual secrets, so I found it a bit more fatiguing than the rest of the game up to now. minor complaint though it’s a little demoralizing that my completion % barely budged all that time because it’s an almost entirely treasureless diversion.
100%ed this game not because it was particularly great but because it was an easy low effort way to spend time.
It’s good for what it is. Only like two puzzles made me think, the rest was just kind of blithely doing the most obvious (to me) thing the entire game. The area I was stuck on the longest, blueville, wasn’t because I had any difficulties with the puzzles, but because I wouldn’t realize I had solved a puzzle for like half an hour, each time. Maybe this is because I was half asleep when I was playing, but I kept forgetting that I had to go back and buy my upgrades again
This feels like the stereotypical indie game darling; unadventurous, full of references to other games, beloved by rockpapershotgun, an expansive puzzle platformer that doesn’t aspire to anything more than that.
ANYWAY onto some more specific criticisms. For a game that encourages exploration and discovery, there sure are a lot of invisible walls and surfaces you can’t stand on. The gamer humor is really really thick and the game was at its best when I pretended it wasn’t there. This game runs like garbage on my computer and its the only game that does, which is ridiculous for something so 2008 looking. Its still extremely buggy. Combat is never good in this game and I feel like the game is only half aware of how bad it feels.
Good parts: When you find a new way to use some of your verbs, late in the game, that lets you solve puzzles with unintended solutions. So many areas have multiple puzzles and optional routes compounded into a seemingly simple room. Going back through an area I rushed through only to find I missed 3 or 4 chests feels good.
Oh yeah I beat this game. I thought it was pretty fun and breezy, nice exploration and Portal-y tools. I thought it had great movement too. Though like other metroidvanias like these once I finished the game I didn’t really have any motivation to go back and go item hunting.
I was just thinking this morning that it’s a shame this game doesn’t have decent writing* to go along with its puzzle concepts, along the lines of The Talos Principle. The throwaway narrative and comedy focus is going to keep it from being as memorable as it might otherwise be, though I find it entertaining in the moment.
That said, I will always have affection for an ambitious indie game in which the creator has just kept adding content, tossing in every idea that’s come to mind during development. That’s the impression I get here. (Not to imply that the ideas are not refined. The mechanics and their interactions must have required a lot of thought.)
*Initially I had thought that either a good story or no story at all might be an improvement, but the latter might not work. For example, I remember Antichamber seeming to have clever design, but I quit the first time I got stuck and never played it again. If that game had a story, I don’t remember it.
oh I’m not sure about that! I just did the “your mom is worried” puzzle which I liked much better than Jubert’s cognitive science 101 stuff
Tulpa do you just play these start to finish all night or what, I have no idea how you’d steamroll something like this and not be compelled to take a break
Also somewhat surprised that you’d be completely immune to the charms of eg getting the red macguffin which is like the best a 3D platformer level has felt to me outside of grow home in years and years
The combat is definitely kind of bad and the enemies respawn too much but the way you swing your sword brokenly fast really endears me to it
