With the recent updates to Portal 2 I got a needy feeling for more first-person puzzle goodness and thankfully The GoD Unit seems to deliver on that. Note: key provided by the developer.
The idea here is that you're going to be playing with mass. Using the tried and tested weighted cubes from Portal and other puzzle games, you run around rooms moving cubes around to press down buttons. However, there's quite a bit more than meets the eye here. You're constantly messing around with the mass of these cubes, making them weigh more or less using the special tech in the facility.
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It sprinkles in the humour nicely too, with the narrator joking with you as you go along. There's many clear nods to Portal and other games but due to the design in The GoD Unit it still managed to feel firmly unique. The GoD Unit has been quite a joy to play through. Graphically a bit bland perhaps but it makes up for it with the cleverly designed puzzles and the situations it puts you in, plus the various props used for the puzzles themselves are quite amusing at times.
You'll be doing a big ol' mix of throwing yourself and cubes across the screen on bouncing pads, making some sort of laser fire to power up various equipment and much more. The variety that it offers it great, and it uses the mass mechanic very nicely. As you go through, different buttons require different mass weight and you can change the mass by throwing cubes through a special kind of field that changes it. However, the levels also need you to work through them to activate these fields or to reach them in awkward places. Some are a bit of a maze!
Features:
- Unique mechanics combinations that encourage out-of-the-box thinking
- 42+ levels ranging from fairly simple to "I just want to lie down and cry" challenging
- Scattered pieces of lore that reward the most attentive players
- Jokes that are hopefully funny to anyone besides the authors
Cat Floor Studio, the developer, is a solo studio too which is surprising given how much thought went into this i would have expected at least 3-4 people on it. Always surprises me what tiny teams and solo developers can do. The GoD Unit might be one of my bigger surprises so far this year, as something I definitely wasn't expecting to be this good. It's not on the level of The Talos Principle or Portal but it's absolutely worth picking up if those are the types of titles you enjoy.
You can buy it on Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
no_information_here Mar 4, 2021
(I do miss Portal and Talos.)
Sway, GNOME and gamescope running under Xorg all ended up with the session getting locked up and AMD gfx ring timeouts in dmesg. Gamescope + Xorg combo managed to "recover" when the game eventually crashed, but all window textures were corrupted and you were essentially forced to reboot. This could be a driver bug somewhere, but I have never before seen a game do something like this, so I'm inclined to believe it's at least doing something unexpected to trigger these sorts of effects.
Hm, they should be careful with the resemblance to the USB logo...Hey, Gobo!
Do you have any concrete information on that, by any chance? When designing the logo, I've searched all over the internet, but it seems that the whole trident concept (circle, arrow, and square) is not patented in any way, and I don't think such a generic image may even be patented at all. There are specific USB logos that are patented, but not the trident itself.
If you know something more about it, please let me know.
Thank you!
I love first person puzzlers, but they really need to work on their lighting (and textures)… This looks really bad.Thanks, stan. I know I might look better (maybe it does look a bit better now, since the trailer is about 6 months old), but the main focus was puzzle design, lore & plot, and gameplay. As for the visual design, that's not really my cup of tea. However, I can see that some players have already invested 30-40 hours into the game, so don't let the visuals scare you away =)
BTW, now that the game is released and all major bugs are fixed, I can focus on the visual part a bit more and make the game more appealing to those who just see it in the trailers.
Thank you for your feedback, it's really helpful.
walther von stolzing Mar 6, 2021
Seeing them bending gravity and light in the trailer was cool. Wishlisted!
(I do miss Portal and Talos.)
Have you played 'DeadCore'? https://store.steampowered.com/app/284460/DeadCore/ it's like a cross between puzzler & speed runner -- and *very* difficult. But it does scratch the portal-like itch a *little* bit.
Also, they're not Linux native, but you might want to check out the 'Qube' games.
Hm, they should be careful with the resemblance to the USB logo...Hey, Gobo!
Do you have any concrete information on that, by any chance? When designing the logo, I've searched all over the internet, but it seems that the whole trident concept (circle, arrow, and square) is not patented in any way, and I don't think such a generic image may even be patented at all. There are specific USB logos that are patented, but not the trident itself.
If you know something more about it, please let me know.
Thank you!
From the first first search result for "usb logo" on Google:
You must use the logos exactly as they are shown in the USB-IF digital artwork files; you may not imitate the USB Logo(s), the SuperSpeed USB Logo(s), the SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps Logo(s), the USB Type-CTM Charging Trident Logo(s), the Certified USB Charger Logo(s), or the Certified USB Fast Charger Logo(s) in any of your materials.
You may not combine the USB Logo(s), the SuperSpeed USB Logo(s), the SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps Logo( s), the USB Type-CTM Charging Trident Logo(s),the Certified USB Charger Logo(s), or the Certified USB Fast Charger Logo(s) with any other feature, including other marks, words, graphics, photos, slogans, numbers, design features, or symbols.
From the first first search result for "usb logo" on Google:
It was different enough for me not to notice it. The only thing it really has in common is a circle, a triangle and a square. Not exactly the ground breaking part of the design I would say.
Philadelphus Mar 7, 2021
From the first first search result for "usb logo" on Google:Now, the standard I Am Not A Lawyer disclaimer applies, but the link, which leads to a document called "USB Logo Usage Guidelines", looks like a guideline for companies who want to use the USB logo correctly, i.e., companies making USB equipment who want to correctly put the USB logo on it. The "you may not imitate the USB Logo(s)" bit, in context, seems to me to be saying "You must exactly reproduce the logos as shown here if you want to use them at all, without deviating from them in any way", rather a blanket pronouncement that the the USB logo cannot be imitated by someone explicitly not claiming to to USB-affiliated in any way.
You must use the logos exactly as they are shown in the USB-IF digital artwork files; you may not imitate the USB Logo(s), the SuperSpeed USB Logo(s), the SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps Logo(s), the USB Type-CTM Charging Trident Logo(s), the Certified USB Charger Logo(s), or the Certified USB Fast Charger Logo(s) in any of your materials.
You may not combine the USB Logo(s), the SuperSpeed USB Logo(s), the SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps Logo( s), the USB Type-CTM Charging Trident Logo(s),the Certified USB Charger Logo(s), or the Certified USB Fast Charger Logo(s) with any other feature, including other marks, words, graphics, photos, slogans, numbers, design features, or symbols.
But again, IANAL, and don't take this as legal advice! It may very well be protected in some other fashion that I'm not aware of.
On another note, what engine is the game in? Or is it something home-made?
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