Firmament

While not as long as I expected it would be, Firmament definitely has that Cyan touch. The story was different than I anticipated, and I enjoyed the mystery gnawing at my mind on what it was all about. The ending caught me quite by surprise. It would have been nice for the end scene to be a mid-game goalpost, followed on by further fleshing out the story. Some of the puzzles are challenging because the physics system requires you line things up just right. The graphics were ok, but not as antialiased or smooth as I expected and personally reminded me of Riven. Overall, I'm satisfied with this game. Still glad Cyan is doing their thing. I've played all the Myst games over the years and love them. Firmament could have only been better if it were longer. Perhaps a sequel is in order, eh Cyan?

I really enjoyed playing this game. The scenery is lovely, although I would say more variety would have been welcome. The voice acting is very good as well. The puzzles are just the right difficulty for me. I don't like banging my head against a wall for days on end on one puzzle, but I didn't breeze right through it, either. The storyline was mysterious and interesting, but you do start feeling like there's been enough teasing, where are the answers. As other reviewers have mentioned, there are also the bugs. A lot of problems with collisions, things and people clipping through walls/falling through the ground. It seems like this is more of a problem with the VR version, and I played 2D. I did get one piece of equipment irretrievably wedged, and occasionally random textures would disappear. Wait a couple of weeks until the bugs are patched, then give it a buy.

So I was a backer of the Kickstarter and let me just say to begin with that I do not regret funding this. I loved my time with this game, but sadly as much as I want to give it 5 stars due to my love of Cyan's works, there are a few reasons why I cannot. First, performance in both VR and flat-screen is very poor. Unlike what another reviewer said I do not believe this game has shader compilation stutter but rather I think he was noticing streaming/traversal stutter, since it happens consistently when walking through specific areas. Strangely this seemed to be worse in flat-screen mode, but that might have been due to reprojection hiding it a bit in VR. Past that I have a pretty beefy computer but in VR I could not run it above low settings, and even then it struggled due to what appears to be a CPU bottleneck. Worse is the visual anomalies in VR. As of the third patch shadows straight up don't work right on anything above low, and things like fog render differently in each eye resulting in shimmering. Flatscreen has some minor visual anomalies mostly due to their over-reliance on screenspace effects, but it's not as bad as I remember it being in Obduction. Past the performance issues, the gameplay is fun if somewhat gimmicky-feeling, and the story is captivating if spotty in parts. The worlds are a delight to wander around as in any Cyan game, and I do genuinely recommend it. It's far from their best game, and honestly I think it might, in my opinion, be their weakest, but it's still got that signature Cyan feel to it, so if you loved the Myst series and Obduction, and keep your expectations realistic, you're sure to have a good time with this one.

J'ai Kickstarter le jeu pour avoir l'édition physique (qu'on attends toujours) et maintenant que j'ai finis le jeu je me dis que j'aurais pu m'abstenir. Les mondes sont assez beaux (quoi que mal optimisés) avec une belle esthétique steampunk, le lore "semble" intéressant (j'y reviens) mais par contre qu'est-ce que le gameplay est plat ! Il n'y a qu'une seule mécanique de jeu : on met le bidule dans une prise et on tourne à droite ou à gauche pour activer un ascenseur, une valve, et coupe-circuit, le tout dans des puzzles "géants" qui semblent posés au hasard dans l'environnement. Ici, passé les quelques secondes à admirer l'environnement, ils pourraient très bien être au fond d'une cave que ça ne feraient aucune différence. Bien sur ça n'aide pas la durée de vie qui est de... 6-7 heures. Il n'y aucune difficulté, il s'agit juste de tourner les manettes dans le bon ordre, et s'il y en a une qui ne marche pas ben on essaye la suivante. (j'en ai vu qui y ont passé plus de 40 heures sur le forum Steam, ça m'échappe) Parlons de l'histoire maintenant... parce que le jeu lui n'en parle pas ! Le fond est très intéressant mais on n'en gratte que la surface, il n'y a pas de livre ou de note pour vous raconter l'histoire de ces mondes, et on finit le jeu avec un gout d’inachevé, là ou dans Obduction on était récompensés par une compréhension assez complète du monde. Il y a bien une narratrice tout au long du jeu mais son monologue n'a aucun intérêt, elle ne parle pas au joueur mais à elle même, sans contexte, et on finit par ne plus l'écouter. Peut être que tout ceci vient de la volonté de développer ce jeu en VR-first, car il est assez comparables en terme d'écriture et de durée de vie à Red Matter, Wanderer, Torn. Mais ce n'est pas ce qu'on (je, en tout cas) attends de Cyan.

I am not a true gamer. I rarely play games. But I do rely on Cyan imagery to take me into other worlds so I can get away from the real world. Cyan knows how to relieve my stress so I can relax and enjoy a fantasy but realistic world, and maybe help out a little where I can. I probably end up looking more at the scenery and detail than I do trying to solve the puzzles. What I like about the puzzles in Firmament though, is they become part of the world. Well, at least after my first 4-5 hours of playing. The game was very smooth and I did not run into any glitches. The thought into the gameplay was really well-done, and I loved the commentary throughout. Funny and clever. And the special added touch in the game was the periodic announcement over the loudspeaker. The sound is awesome, but it was even better when I decided to plug in my stereo headphones into my Mac. As far as the visuals, from what I have seen so far, I was blown away by beauty but at the same time, I realized how high I was which sent chills up my spine. At one point it was snowing pretty heavily and it was so realistic, it made me wonder if I should start looking for a good place to relax. And wow, I actually found a magnificent indoor area with food and sleeping quarters according to the narrator that likes to talk to me. The place was so relaxing. I could have sat down for an hour and just chilled while watching the huge globe-like device spinning slowly in front of me. The room is big enough for 300 people easily. It was a sight to behold. The atmospheric effects are truly amazing making the world seem more vast than it probably really is. I hear lots of water running but I have yet to see any. I love the peacefulness of running water visually and audibly. Every time I look around, I see huge icicles 100-200 feet long forming along the contour of the cliffs. It is a sight to behold. There are a lot of great visuals but I do not want to give too much away. But the world awaits your discovery.