Firmament

I’ve only played a short while and will update my review once I’m further into the game. I’m a big fan of Cyan’s work, including the classics like Myst and Riven as well as the more recent Obduction. This game seems promising, but in its current state, the shader compilation stutter (SCS) is near constant, and it really impacts the flow of the game. It’s a known issue with UE4 games, but I’m getting SCS nearly every minute or so as I traverse through the world. I’m now going to wait for a patch before progressing further. With a game this small, I would happily wait for the shaders to pre-compile in advance of my first playthrough of the game. I really hope Cyan sorts this out, because this game seemingly deserves to be enjoyed.

Look, if I read this review I wouldn't believe it either. I have been a huge Cyan fan my whole life. This game is quite frankly shocking. I am so disappointed and I my expectations were already very reasonable. It might be good for generating wallpapers, but I find it hard to say much else positive. I was a kickstarter backer and I knew it was going to be late and probably small, but I was okay with another Obduction. This is significantly less than Obduction. While How Long to Beat clocks Obduction in at around 13 hours, Firmament comes in at just 8.5. And it isn't just about the quantity, but the quality of the time spent. The worldbuilding is almost non-existent. The bugs make many puzzles very tedious - I had to restart and load previous saves when I got permanently blocked or the game just stopped working entirely. The story had a lot of potential, but it never really went anywhere. They threw in a "twist" that was so small and predictable that I assumed it was going to be a mid-game reveal and not the finale. And really that's how I felt about the game. It is like half of a game. Where is the other half? The half with the rest of the story and gameplay? They generated in-game journals and lore using AI, and while in the future that will probably be the norm - but this is supposed to be a handcrafted game about story and exploration. There's not that much content in it, there's not that much writing in it, and yet they created filler for it?? How?? 5 years for this?? In the VR world as a tech demo, it is probably ok, maybe even good. But as a real game, it fails to deliver. Pick it up on deep discount if at all. I'm sorry Rand, I can't recommend this and I don't know how it could be fixed.

Right from the get go things feel a little off. The main menu looks like it was quickly thrown together at the last minute. Interacting with objects in the world sometimes make a sound, and then with some objects, it suddenly doesn't. Most of the puzzles involve classic machine puzzles that start in a non-working configuration that you have to fix, but almost all of these you can just solve on the spot, no knowledge of the world is really required. You only need to acquire the abilities for the tool machine on your arm. I ran into multiple issues, both bugs with puzzles, and bugs that allow you to easily mess up the loading state of parts of the levels, allowing you to fall out of the level if you're not careful. Supposedly there's also narration from a voice that presents itself in the form of a particle, but I only saw it once at the start of the game, after that, there was no narration to speak of. There was a book in the starting area, but when you flip the pages the text becomes all blurry for half a second thanks to the temporal restoration techniques that were used. On the bright side, the interiors look very nice in certain places. I don't recommend the game, it feels like it was rushed out when it needed more time in the tank. It's a shame because I do remember enjoying playing Obduction, and of course the older games in the Myst series.

The bad: * Too short (7.5 hours, far less than Obduction which took me about ~20) * Couple of puzzles are "tedious" meaning you know how to solve, but have to do some repetitive task to complete it. This isn't super common though. * Strictly first-person isn't good. There were a couple sections where a third-person high view would have drastically improved the gameplay, and it could have been easily explained lore-wise. I know that they have some aversion because of both VR and their heritage, but I think some rules bending needed to happen. * Very linear. Only one order you can progress in, as far as I can tell. * The puzzles are too easy. I only had to break out pen and paper once, and a lot of the puzzles are brute-forceable and don't require much thinking or deduction. Cyan games are a niche product for puzzle game fans, most of whom are older now. I think they could easily aim for a higher difficulty with no serious issues. (That's what hints and guides are for) To me, this is the largest sin that Firmament creates. I REALLY wanted to have some tough puzzles that I had to approach from multiple angles, go back and try again while working on another puzzle, consider the problem again and again, maybe sleep on it a day or two and then have that awesome AH-HAH! moment. But that just almost never happened. That's the core joy of a puzzle game to me, so it's a bummer to not have that. Some complain about technical state (stutter, falling into terrain, etc), but it's not bad for most players and will be fixed in the next few weeks, so I see no point in dwelling on it. The good: * The graphics are gorgeous, and the art style is definitively Cyan * The architecture is beautiful and fascinating to see * The sound and music are on point * The adjudicator feels very satisfying to sling around and control Despite my complaints, I enjoyed this game and REALLY hope they do more. I just want more bite next time! (Even if graphics or otherwise have to be sacrificed)