TARTARUS [Steam, Official Site] is a first-person sci-fi game about a spaceship about to crash into Neptune, will you be able to save the ship?
As of today, it officially released on Linux as you can see in this announcement. From the trailer below, it certain gives off a similar vibe to Alien Isolation. It looks pretty great graphically too, check it out:
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Looks like gamers are pretty mixed on it overall, with it having a "Mostly Positive" rating on Steam. It sounds like some puzzles might be quite difficult to solve.
I'm going to assume English isn't the developers first language, even the description felt a little odd to read, here's how they describe the game:
TARTARUS is a First Person game with Action elements, set in terrifyingly dark sci-fi universe. In TARTARUS, you will play as Cooper. You are trying to hack the ship's system's via using "Terminals". Hacking the ship is the real challenge. You have to use specific Terminal commands, which are very realistic, to make it work. Sometimes you have to search "Items" to get information which you need, to solve problems. TARTARUS has retro style elements like iconic sci-fi movies.
It's on Steam and it's currently 60% off in the Steam Winter Sale.
Thanks for the tip NuSuey!
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Tried it, bounced off pretty hard. I can understand games not holding your hand, but this game goes way too far with it. The puzzles take place in terminals where you type in commands. There is a help command which only gives you a list of other commands; it doesn't tell you what they are, what they do or why you might want to use them. As such, the only real way to progress is to try every single command/file combination possible and see what happens. Boring and frustrating.
Oh, one more thing. If you do decide to give it a shot, you'll need a pen and paper as the inventory is inaccessible while you are using a terminal and you'll be expected to enter passwords, numbers etc. from memory :/
Oh, one more thing. If you do decide to give it a shot, you'll need a pen and paper as the inventory is inaccessible while you are using a terminal and you'll be expected to enter passwords, numbers etc. from memory :/
4 Likes, Who?
qptain Nemo 22 Dec 2017
Does Neptune really need me to save it— oh.
Last edited by qptain Nemo on 22 Dec 2017 at 2:38 pm UTC
Last edited by qptain Nemo on 22 Dec 2017 at 2:38 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
walther von stolzing 22 Dec 2017
What does it mean for the terminal commands to be 'realistic'? Is it the 'realistic' emulation of a unix console? Or is 'realistic' a euphemism for BS obscurity?
2 Likes, Who?
Can't say the trailer really grabs me. It's well rendered to be sure, but "You get to walk down new and interesting hallways" set to music that suggests something more dramatic is happening leaves me kinda cold.
And then there's the entering commands via "terminals" thing which makes it sound like the pretty environments really don't have much to do with the actual gameplay.
And then there's the entering commands via "terminals" thing which makes it sound like the pretty environments really don't have much to do with the actual gameplay.
0 Likes
Kuduzkehpan 22 Dec 2017
Beautiful graphics with hardcore mechanics and unsparing gameplay underlaying. And Posible developed published by tartaRUSSIAN geeks.
yes they love hardcore.
Last edited by Kuduzkehpan on 22 Dec 2017 at 2:57 pm UTC
yes they love hardcore.
Last edited by Kuduzkehpan on 22 Dec 2017 at 2:57 pm UTC
0 Likes
lucifertdark 22 Dec 2017
Bought & downloading right now.
0 Likes
Sputnik_tr_02 22 Dec 2017
Beautiful graphics with hardcore mechanics and unsparing gameplay underlaying. And Posible developed published by tartaRUSSIAN geeks.If i remember correctly devs are from Turkey.
yes they love hardcore.
1 Likes, Who?
lucifertdark 22 Dec 2017
If i remember correctly devs are from Turkey.That would explain why the subtitles defaulted to Turkish when I started it for the first time just now.
0 Likes
Beautiful graphics with hardcore mechanics and unsparing gameplay underlaying. And Posible developed published by tartaRUSSIAN geeks.
yes they love hardcore.
They are from Turkey.
0 Likes
Kuduzkehpan 22 Dec 2017
Oh nice yes they were actually from Turkey. Good to hear my citizens supporting Linux nowadays.
ofc i'm buying it.
ofc i'm buying it.
0 Likes
Oh nice yes they were actually from Turkey. Good to hear my citizens supporting Linux nowadays.
ofc i'm buying it.
Same goes for me.
Monster Notebook is one of the sponsor if you look at their page. It is basically Clevo but let call it Monster...
0 Likes
rustybroomhandle 23 Dec 2017
Ah yes, tartarus. I like having that on some shrimpus and crabstickus.
1 Likes, Who?
The whole game sports some kind of retro-look, there are 8" floppy disks lying around. Which partly explains their design decision:
The terminals are basically DOS from the 1980ies, except that all the commands have been renamed, and every user-friendly feature has not been implemented. It's not in any way comparable to the user-friendliness of a UNIX shell/terminal from the same time. The game would actually be more enjoyable if they had just plugged in a tcsh from an 80ies UNIX instead of that DOS-chimera.
Basically, if this wasn't a game, this utter piece of shit of a command line interface would be totally unacceptable.
That said, the game itself is quite nice and the puzzles are rather difficult.
Last edited by Seegras on 23 Dec 2017 at 9:47 am UTC
The terminals are basically DOS from the 1980ies, except that all the commands have been renamed, and every user-friendly feature has not been implemented. It's not in any way comparable to the user-friendliness of a UNIX shell/terminal from the same time. The game would actually be more enjoyable if they had just plugged in a tcsh from an 80ies UNIX instead of that DOS-chimera.
Basically, if this wasn't a game, this utter piece of shit of a command line interface would be totally unacceptable.
That said, the game itself is quite nice and the puzzles are rather difficult.
Last edited by Seegras on 23 Dec 2017 at 9:47 am UTC
3 Likes, Who?
I had to refund this in the end. There just too many bugs and horrible design decisions:
Ultimately though, I think the biggest disappointment is that despite the really nice graphics and FPS dynamic, all you're really doing is walking a pre-set route from one puzzle (which locks you in the room until you solve it) to the next puzzle (which locks you in the room until you solve it). There's no exploration, no interaction with objects unless you're told to. It breaks the feeling of freedom that I usually expect from an first person perspective.
- Interactions are only available after a trigger in the story - so that floor panel you want to open? Nope, not until you're told to look for a floor panel...
- Sometimes those interactions fail to trigger. Restart your game..
- Mediocre voice acting
- You walk like a geriatric. You crawl even slower.
- The torch barely illuminates the 9cm circle it projects.
- In one scene, a jump-scare involving rats, there were no rats.
- In "linux-y" terminal puzzles, you don't "cd", you "sf". This was incredibly annoying. Might just be me. Also, no tab-completion. Also "list" instead of "ls" and "open" instead of "cat". It all added up to complete frustration
- The first 20 minutes of game has you listening to a constant, loud alarm, before you get to turn it off.
Ultimately though, I think the biggest disappointment is that despite the really nice graphics and FPS dynamic, all you're really doing is walking a pre-set route from one puzzle (which locks you in the room until you solve it) to the next puzzle (which locks you in the room until you solve it). There's no exploration, no interaction with objects unless you're told to. It breaks the feeling of freedom that I usually expect from an first person perspective.
2 Likes, Who?
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