Trine developer Frozenbyte has announced its next game, a new fantasy stealth IP called Shadwen.
You play as an assassin named Shadwen tasked with killing the king. Along the way you'll partner up with a little girl, leading to ethical conundrums about whether slaying guards is perhaps not leading the best example upon your surrogate daughter. As such, there will always be non-lethal options.
Shadwen's most unique mechanic is time manipulation. Like Superhot, time in Shadwen only moves when the character moves. You'll even have the option to rewind time (which I assume will be limited, but perhaps it will be more of a Braid-like puzzle affair).
As was the case with Trine before it, Shadwen will emphasise physics manipulation as you can use ropes to drag and topple objects, creating cover and traps.
"The stealth genre has been in a slump for years. Guns blazing and invincible heroes is not stealth. Yearly revisions like sports roster updates is a crap way of doing games," said Frozenbyte CEO Lauri Hyvärinen. "Shadwen will bring the genre back to its roots, with sneaking and hiding the main course of action. We will also explore the moral consequences of killing through our characters."
Take a look at how Shadwen looks in action in its debut trailer below:
edit:
Just tried the demo, the game is pretty interesting, it's rough around the edges and physics need some tuning (although the wonkiness has its charm xD), but it's a lot of fun.
It's pure stealth and the time stops when you're not moving, like SuperHot (pressing Ctrl however "disables" it). I don't know if the levels will be varied enough in the final package but if you like stealth this is a decent option.
Played the demo a little and it seems like a promising game. I guess many players will be bothered about the time stop mechanic which keeps everything on place when the player doesn't perform any actions, but I'm cool with that. It's something different and it could lead to interesting moments.
After that community event, where people had to play the demo to reduce the launch price, it now is known:
Such an event is a cool idea. But as i can't imagine the devs gaining anything when people play their demo, i fear that this might indeed turn out like another Trine 3 (low content wise).
It's a PR move, they got free advertisement out of this. Lots of high profile websites covered the event attracting players into checking the demo. They must have had a professional doing the statistics for them so they would have an idea of the price after the event.
Hell, they probably even scored some points with their upset fanbase, after all we got a demo (something rare nowadays) and the "chance" to receive a cheaper game.
they will polish it up + it's the trine devs. even when its short and unfinished, it still has that whimsically magical feel that no one nails like them.
A stealth game with braindead and tunnelvision AI, what a surprise.
Example at 6:49: Barrels falling down with a loud noise, yet the guard some meters away doesn't notice a thing. Also doesn't see the player at all with his narrow vision when the player moves to him.
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I don't really give much about the current critics shown, but it gives a good idea of how the game sadly seems to be.
It's basically a escort-mission turned into a full game, paired with a shitty AI in an overall too easy game. Meh.
First Trine 3 was pretty shit, now this. I guess soon it's over for Frozenbyte .
Damn, definitely sounds like the entire game is basically a rinse-and-repeat version of the demo..silly Frozenbyte
(I'll try it as well out of curiosity as soon as I have some time^^)
great game, almost had feeling like in thief 3, but with less weapons, in this game crafting is useless, but everything else it's ok, i finished it in 5-6 hours, way to short, but overall for one afternoon it's ok.
I don't really give much about the current critics shown, but it gives a good idea of how the game sadly seems to be.
It's basically a escort-mission turned into a full game, paired with a shitty AI in an overall too easy game. Meh.
First Trine 3 was pretty shit, now this. I guess soon it's over for Frozenbyte .
Wow it really looks retarded in that gameplay video. Daaaamn are they serious?
Just prancing about knocking barrels around again and again and the soldiers are like "Huh?" "Is this a prank?" "Hmm? What?" "Who is that?" and running around like buffoons
Been playing this today. casual fun, like all frozenbyte games. will comment more once I finish it.
Here's a tiny gtx970 performance showcase for the game.
As with the Trine series, supersampling will cook your GPU, so watch the temps if you OC a lot on air coolers.
settings used for constant 55-60 fps. I'm just on the edge with near constant 90%+ GPU usage, so expect easy 60 fps at 1080p with some supersampling added or 1440p with no supersampling.
Just to follow up with a mini review so I can finally reuse the brain cells that are storing fresh memories of this game.
As a side note, I've followed the game up with Trine 3 by the same studio, so I've now played everything these guys have made.
I would say Shadwen is the weakest game they've made, but even as such, it has enough charm and game design quality that put it into the worth playing category.
As usual, Frozenbyte does great with the voice acting, music, and sound in general. Same with the art direction. there is a ton of budget induced reuse of assets, but what is there, is pretty, and done with a recognizable signature. Whimsical fantasy setting with bright colors and a slant toward an animated movie look, with just enough realism left so it doesn't veer into kid cartoon territory.
To my surprise, considering the Trine series, the animations here looked unfinished and of much lower quality than expected. The protagonist running and the drag body animations are especially jarring. They were either lazy or rushed the game, as they can and have done much better work in this department.
Gameplay itself is strangely contrasting as well. The full good ending way of playing is by far the weakest. it turns the game into a phsyx puzzle with objects, mostly wooden barrels and crates. And you will see the game's flaws exposed the most if you play this way.
The character you baby sit will walk up to guards, stand in the open, and completely break realism and immersion at almost every step. Not to mention that the rudimentary AI basically turns the game into essentially this: Pull an object close to a guard. walk around the object when he comes to investigate. That's it. you do this for 15 levels, with each having 3 large areas on average.
On the other hand, you have the stealth assassin playthrough. You leave the first guy next to the NPC alive, so she won't move, and you go forward, exploring the level, and finding out cool ways to kill the guards and then stash them. The AI is crap this way as well, make no mistake, but the verticality of the levels, and the amount of hiding places make the activity very enjoyable.
If you opt for this approach, the game feels like styx mixed with the thief from Trine series. Sneaking, traversing ledges, jumping from dangerous heights to kill guards, or use the rope arrow to swing around and drop onto guards.
It has to said though, the rewind feature is really well done. doesn't affect performance, looks amazing, and really makes the gameplay flow once you play around with it. It essentially replaces quick loading and I quite like it this way. Improves the quality of life in the game and reduces annoyance.
The story is minimal but well done, with intelligently subdued dark tones. Most of the stuff is infered, never stated, which I very much enjoyed. It's not a kids tale, but the wording is always done in a way that a child could watch you play and it would feel like a kids story. and this works within the context of this game as the way you play reflects on the age rating of the resulting story that unfolds on screen.
There is gadget crafting in the game, however, due to the simple AI and a lack of challenge, they aren't needed at all, but can be fun using it in imaginative ways.
Coupled with the engines physics, this ends up feeling very satisfying. I could see people just having fun with the physics in a sandboxy kind of way.
So overall, the game is definitely not bad, but I wouldn't say it's essential for a stealth gamer or a dev fan. There is fun to be had here, but the lack of challenge, AI issues and the unfinished/rushed feeling in several areas, prevent it from being anything more than a niche game both in audience and profit.
Removed the game now from my wishlist, as you just approved my previous complaints and observations: Weak AI and stealth mechanic, constant babysitting and this all repeats itself over and over again.
Even if the story would be somewhat good, bad gameplay like that would annoy me more than i could enjoy the story.
It's a shame about the AI and lack of challenge, it sounds like a sad trombone (I was hoping they could tune it since it was very exploitable in the demo). The stealth assassin playthrough is alluring though, that was my plan anyway, the (literal) sandbox approach.
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