A great puzzle game, about hacking and low-level programming. There are 35 problems to solve plus a few challenges vs AI. The problems are well-thought and fun to solve, for who like that sort of things. The last one is a real treat. The programming is very simple and doesn't require any prior knowledge, it's very much like assembly language. It's very well done, easy and allows you to focus on the main concepts without having to write long programs. Two PDF documents are provided with the specifications of the "cpu" and information on different platforms to hack; they're presented like "zines" of the hacking culture, with news and articles. As in all their games, solving the problem shows where you stand in execution time, program size and network usage vs other players with histograms. This is a real trap because it's tempting to spend a lot of time optimizing to get a good position. That's how I ended up spending 40 hours on the game ;) There is a short story, which wasn't necessary but provides a nice thread to the game, along with a few other extras. Quite polished overall, it's the second-best of their games after Opus Magnum for the presentation, but my favourite for the gameplay.
(156 hours of play, about half in Early Access) Despite several good releases this year, Encased is one of my very few favourites. It does not have the depth and breadth of other games made by larger teams, but it has ambition, character, and it is very enjoyable. This game begs you to try different options and have fun doing it. You can try to achieve an objective by the book, or by using stealth, or by killing everyone in your way. You can do it alone or with companions. And even if you mess up, you know that the game will not punish you too hard - who knows, it may even reward you for it! It is also in great part about fun, because even though you cannot exit the Dome, even though you witnessed a cataclysm and a lunatic maelstrom is threatening to wipe everything out... well, people around you still live on, and society is depicted as a cliché that you can exploit, laugh at or be part of. The developers have pushed the outside of the envelope in some directions, trying to give choices, numerous dialogues, varied quests and exploration, but the price to pay is uneven depth in many of those elements. It feels a little bit as if they threw everything they had in the first half of the game, got worn out and couldn't keep quite the same standard until the end. The base is very strong though; even if the mechanics need tuning, the skill system is sound, and the UI, the graphics and the locations are well crafted. Dark Crystal Games is still working on Encased. The two next major patches will flesh out the content (patch #3) and tune the game mechanics (patch #4), so hopefully they will cover most of these little shortcomings. Pros: - Good balance of story, quest, exploration and combat - Variety of quests and dialogues - Multiple approaches in quests, exploration, dialogues - Design of locations, setting theme - UI and game presentation Cons - Decreased content in the 2nd half - Overall difficulty tuning (too easy) - Shallow companions - Poor AI / pathfinding
I tried to play this game on Windows 7, but there are many problems with the controls (keyboard / mouse). It was so distracting that I can hardly enjoy playing it. I had played the original and one DLC when the game was initially released and it was fine. After contacting Obsidian, they made it clear the game was not supported anymore and that I should check with the community. In summary, if you buy this you are on your own, so I can't recommend it. Wait until Beamdog restores it, if they even plan to (not planned for now, to my knowledge).
