This isn’t to say that there are too few choices – quite the contrary, most quests provide a bevvy of dialog options, and the game smartly lets the player know if a response requires a certain skill check or minimum reputation level. The issues in Encased aren’t bugs, but instead, design choices, mechanics, and balance.Ĭhief among the problems is that dialog options for quests frequently don’t have enough viable solutions. The game world is a fully rendered 3D affair with a smooth 360 degrees of camera rotation. Unfortunately, in its early release form, the game just isn’t anywhere close to realizing its potential. The graphics and controls for turn-based combat look and feel exactly like those in Harebrained Schemes’ Shadowrun games, and players familiar with those titles are going to feel right at home. From that point on, the player needs to selectively utilize their Action Points and Combat Abilities to eliminate threats, or otherwise end hostilities. As soon as combat is initiated, the turn-based mechanics kick in. Gameplay & QuestsĪs is standard for most turn-based RPG’s, the player character is free to roam around the game world in real-time, entering into dialog with other NPC’s, looting containers, and performing quests. Most dialog options require a Skill check or a specific Reputation, making it difficult for some character builds to get involved with certain quests. Whether this is a good or bad thing is unclear at this time. Thus, this progression system guides players toward more versatile builds and discourages them from specializing. Spending points in Light Guns, and only Light Guns, would leave a character without some useful firearm-related abilities. The result of this system is that characters cannot hyper-specialize in a small set of skills. Thus, unlocking the Rapid Reload ability doesn’t just require a minimum score in Light Guns, but also requires a minimum score in Heavy Guns and High-Tech Weapons. In Encased, abilities can be unlocked in non-linear order, provided the character possesses the required minimum scores in multiple skills. Players save skill points, and when they have enough available they unlock the next ability in the sequence. Shadowrun, for instance, uses a linear gatekeeping mechanic to control progression. How these abilities become unlocked is where Encased separates itself from other similar titles. Skills govern a variety of abilities that the player can unlock. Plan ahead, and spend your points wisely. Unlocking Abilities requires minimum scores in three Skills. The game takes place in a closed dome over one such alien visitation site, and the player is recruited by the Cronus corporation to join their enterprise in researching the technology and unlocking the secrets left behind. In the novel, a superior alien species has briefly stopped by Earth (like people on a roadside picnic), leaving behind what is surely junk to them, but is dangerous and powerful technology to us humans. StoryĮncased borrows its premise directly from Roadside Picnic, a science-fiction novel written by Soviet-Russian authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky and published in 1972. One of the better looking isometric games to come out in recent memory. Play it for a few hours and one can see the possibilities, but also just how far it has to left to go. So what’s wrong with it? Simple: at this point, it’s mostly potential. And unlike many Early Access titles, it actually has very few bugs. The game world appears primed for all sorts of interesting characters, quests and adventures, and the engine it’s built on looks great and runs smooth. And like a tantalizing athlete, at first blush, it looks the part: it has an intriguing sci-fi setting copped from a novel, strong character customization, an interwoven progression system, and dialog trees with multiple options. It aspires to be a spiritual successor to the original Fallout titles, borrowing everything from the character creation screen and color palette to the turn-based combat and atmospheric music. Encased, an isometric RPG by Dark Crystal Games that is currently in Early Access on Steam, shows a lot of potential.
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