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General discussion (archive)Release: CLARC(65 posts)(65 posts)
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Posted May 15, 2014
Drunken robots, nuclear bombs, what can possibly go wrong?

CLARC, a charming, grid-based puzzle game with fast-paced arcade action, is now available for $5.99 (25% off the full price) on GOG.com until 7:59 PM GMT 22 May 2014.

Have you ever been the only sober guy at a raucous party? It's tough being the designated savior of a factory full of robots who found out that diesel not only works as a fuel but also gets them drunk three sheets to the wind. With the supervising supercomputer gone missing, the rowdy robots have stopped working altogether. All of them except our humble hero, Clarc. It's up to him to save the day as a gigantic spaceship that seems to specialize in dismantling out-of-control nuclear bomb factories arrives to spoil the party. He'll have to break his programming, rescue his co-workers, and save the girl (she's literally the bomb!) while solving a slew of mind-bending puzzles.

Join CLARC on his puzzling adventure to save his friends and his girl for only $5.99 (25% of the full price) until 7:59 PM GMT 22 May 2014.
Posted May 15, 2014
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real.geizterfahr: The first time I saw Wall-E... nah, that's not right... EVERY time I see Wall-E, "Number 5" comes to my mind. Have a look for yourself:
http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/j5upload.jpg
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130404034120/puppet/images/0/09/Johnny5.jpg

edit: Just saw that yyahoo had the same thoughts. Glad someone else remembers these great movies from the eigthies.
Holy cow, you're right. The similarities between Number 5 and Wall-E are uncanny.

Worst part is that I saw the Short Circuit movie and its sequel with my gf a few months ago and the similarity didn't even occur to us then!

Clearly, Wall-E didn't make enough of an impact on us, though it was definitely a good animated movie :P.
Post edited May 15, 2014 by Magnitus
Posted May 15, 2014
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Magnitus: Noooooo! Yet another game I want to play!

It never ends :P.

Sometimes, I almost envy gamers who are stuck in a very narrow range of genres.
*nods head in agreement*

Amen to that.
Posted May 15, 2014
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IronArcturus: Looks pretty cool! Does it work with an Xbox 360 Controller by any chance?
I'd like to know that too.
Posted May 15, 2014
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Breja: Aw my. Look, I get it, everyone loved Wall-E, but this... this is just shameless. Could they be any more blatant? The game itself maybe fine, maybe great even, but it's impossible to look at it and not think "what a brazen rip-off". I'd recommend getting at least a new cover graphic, so that it's not as distastefully obvious.
Wall-E and original in one sentence? Seriously, kids these days...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_5

Of course if you want to make a robot appear innocent and sympathetic to humans you'll give if huge eyes with robot eyebrows and a body with wheels. It looks much cuter more life-like that way.
Post edited May 15, 2014 by HiPhish
Posted May 15, 2014
Cool. Finally a new release of interest. =P I'm not averse to mobile games making the jump to PC as long as they're genuinely good games - the wonderful two Ace Patrol games by Firaxis come to mind - and I remember reading good things about this one. It also helps that it does look charming.

I think I shall be buying. :)
Post edited May 15, 2014 by mistermumbles
Posted May 15, 2014
GOG, there's an error in the game card which needs fixing:

> Overview:
> CLARC is an isometric, grid-based puzzle game

This game is clearly not isometric.

I've seen this a few times in different places recently, and I'm starting to think that people don't know what the word means; but for future reference, the chances of any game using a 3D engine being isometric are vanishingly small (ahem).
Post edited May 15, 2014 by Shadowcat
Posted May 15, 2014
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Shadowcat: GOG, there's a typo(?) in the game card which needs fixing:

> Overview:
> CLARC is an isometric, grid-based puzzle game

This game is clearly not isometric.

I've seen this a few times in different places recently, and I'm starting to think that people don't know what the word means; but for future reference, the chances of any game using a 3D engine being isometric are vanishingly small (ahem).
I get what you're saying, and technically it's true. However, looking at the screenshots, it doesn't appear that the camera perspective or angle or anything changes throughout the game. In fact, the position of the game character on screen doesn't even appear to vary but just a teeny tiny bit. All things considered, calling it an isometric perspective isn't that entirely inaccurate...
Posted May 15, 2014
Ah yes, Wall-E. The film where a little robot spent most of its time deflecting laser beams with blocks in an attempt to save the drunken party robots from a hostile attack. I remember it well.
Posted May 15, 2014
Looks fun. I've added it to my Wishlist, since money is a bit tight right now.
Posted May 15, 2014
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Magnitus: You know what they say. At this point, the vast majority of ideas that you'll have, even those that seem original to you, will have been explored.
It's not as much about the idea as it is about the way it's presented. Just look at the "cover". A robot that bears a striking resemblance to Wall-E and the title/robot's name ClarC. It just looks like a poster for one of those mockbuster movies. You know, "Transmorphers" instead of "Transformers".

It's not even the rip-off that annoys me, it's how blatant it is. Maybe the game itself isn't even really a rip-off of Wall-E, but that's what it looks like, for marketing purposes assuredly.

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Breja: Aw my. Look, I get it, everyone loved Wall-E, but this... this is just shameless. Could they be any more blatant? The game itself maybe fine, maybe great even, but it's impossible to look at it and not think "what a brazen rip-off". I'd recommend getting at least a new cover graphic, so that it's not as distastefully obvious.
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HiPhish: Wall-E and original in one sentence? Seriously, kids these days...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_5
Actually I didn't use the word "orignal" in that sentence :D Also rip-off of a rip-off is no less of a rip-off. Rip-offception!
Post edited May 15, 2014 by Breja
Posted May 15, 2014
Neat, but I´m broke now after the promo...
Posted May 15, 2014
This looks quite original and look at those gorgeous cell shaded graphics.
Posted May 15, 2014
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Pumbassa: This looks quite original and look at those gorgeous cell shaded graphics.
It would be nice to see hi-res screens to see what it looks like on PC.
Posted May 15, 2014
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yyahoo: I get what you're saying, and technically it's true. However, looking at the screenshots, it doesn't appear that the camera perspective or angle or anything changes throughout the game. In fact, the position of the game character on screen doesn't even appear to vary but just a teeny tiny bit. All things considered, calling it an isometric perspective isn't that entirely inaccurate...
Well....... it is entirely inaccurate. If you have real 3D perspective then it isn't (cannot be) isometric. Whether the camera angle changes doesn't matter (obviously you couldn't have camera angle changes in isometric games, but a fixed camera angle doesn't make something isometric).

I think I see where you're coming from, and it's certainly the sort of game which would have used isometric graphics had it been made in the 8-bit or 16-bit era. That was always just the cheap way of faking 3D perspective (because the position of an element in the scene has no effect on its visual appearance, so no sprite scaling or distortion is necessary, and you can guarantee that everything looks good). You probably wouldn't have animated scene rotations in that version of the game, of course.

Basically, 3D is cheap nowadays, so games simply never use isometric projection because there's no advantage to resorting to it. Indeed, doing so might very well be a more difficult option these days.
Posted May 15, 2014
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yyahoo: I get what you're saying, and technically it's true. However, looking at the screenshots, it doesn't appear that the camera perspective or angle or anything changes throughout the game. In fact, the position of the game character on screen doesn't even appear to vary but just a teeny tiny bit. All things considered, calling it an isometric perspective isn't that entirely inaccurate...
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Shadowcat: Well....... it is entirely inaccurate. If you have real 3D perspective then it isn't (cannot be) isometric. Whether the camera angle changes doesn't matter (obviously you couldn't have camera angle changes in isometric games, but a fixed camera angle doesn't make something isometric).

I think I see where you're coming from, and it's certainly the sort of game which would have used isometric graphics had it been made in the 8-bit or 16-bit era. That was always just the cheap way of faking 3D perspective (because the position of an element in the scene has no effect on its visual appearance, so no sprite scaling or distortion is necessary, and you can guarantee that everything looks good). You probably wouldn't have animated scene rotations in that version of the game, of course.

Basically, 3D is cheap nowadays, so games simply never use isometric projection because there's no advantage to resorting to it. Indeed, doing so might very well be a more difficult option these days.
I think that the layman view is that when you have a view from that specific fixed angle then it is an "isometric" perspective regardless of how it is technically achieved. If you can't change the camera angle, the general user doesn't care if it's technically 3D or isometric. That's all I'm saying.
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Community
General discussion (archive)Release: CLARC(65 posts)(65 posts)
(65 posts)