SSR: System Shock Kickstarter

[674067760f2ffJosiahJack]

Cyberspace is intended to be a traversable data visualization. I avoided watching the ND cyberspace preview until now since I didn't want to unintentionally emulate them, but there's not much danger of that actually.


The good:
- Nicer layouts
- Sound effects (the original was rather quiet)
- It's not as hard to tell where the walls are so they've at least addressed a major grievance with the original
- Doesn't look like they spin your view much either which was the main complaint of the original cyberspace
- The shooting of nodes to open doors is good.  A good reinterpretation of the one instance where in the original you shoot cyber hunter killer instead of a node to open a door.
- The wind lines in the tubes were a neat effect but I had trouble reading the directionality.

The bad:
- Very busy.  Hard to distinguish separate objects for sure.  Bit of a mess visually.  It's neat but really needs some eye rest.  The original at least had longer more empy panes in the vertical direction which reduces business.
- Effects and feel is too realistic...it looks too much like normal meatspace, especially the fireball explosions as ZB mentioned.  The walls look like walls rather than data abstractions.
- Were there any cyber constructs???  All I saw were what looked like mines.  Nothing shot at you...or did it?  Really hard to read what was going on with the interaction of some of those mines.  They all blew up like mines though so they must have just been mines.  Right?

@bigfatfrog605 the cyberspace elements do show a lot of work put in.  The shaders look fairly complex such as the way color faded away after the core thing was destroyed.  The level layouts were also unique rather than copies of the original cyberspace layouts which were cool although a bit longer than normal. That said, I agree with your sentiment that it doesn't look like they have more than half done and this with a scope that looks less than the original.  I'm sure they just haven't shown it yet and have more done.

[674067760f57eBriareos H]

Another cool thing is that it seems to still have Conway's game of life, this time on impacts. As for the absence of abstraction, it feels like they have eschewed any attempt at making sense of the environment in favor of something that looks cool. If you can't make a believable cyberspace, the next best thing you can do is make a fun Descent minigame clone, I guess.

[674067760f73bicemann]

I love the arcadey action, but it seems a little too easy. And it all looks a little too meat world with different textures on top. Maze like levels without any landmarks = getting lost often.

Nice to have some actual friggin music. The meat world Medical background audio is not what I would classify as music. Ambience is not music.

I can see myself playing the original music and switching the ambience off when I get to play the finished product.

[674067760fc53ZylonBane]

The wind lines in the tubes were a neat effect but I had trouble reading the directionality.

I thought the directionality was pretty clear, but it was bizarre that they chose something as analog-looking as swooshy wind lines when simple trails of ones and zeroes would have been far more thematically consistent.

Now a reminder of how bad their intentionally-pixelated aesthetic looks...

It's just incomprehensible to me that on the one hand they're sticking to their guns with the misguided retro gimmick for the world textures, but then for the cyberspace levels they went with this migraine-inducing maximalist visual vomit.

[674067760fe51Kolya]

I mean, it's not that surprising that Cyberspace would look different on account of it being another world and all.
And maybe it's that I'm a sucker for everything glowy or maybe it's the extremely cool and urgent soundtrack. But I like what I see here. Certainly a lot more than that Rez video with it's false guitar riff and the dreary look of a beginners 3D tutorial.

Of course I expect the enemies to fight back in future updates and yeah, the walls look weirdly solid at times. But this is the first time I was convinced that this game could be fun, the first time they kicked out the jams. The demo and most other other things I saw looked good but played like with one hand tied to the back: sluggish, imprecise, lacking feedback. I was content just watching that. But cyberspace I actually wanna play. Pew pew!

[674067760ffc2icemann]

Here's a question - If they had ditched the first person view, and gone for more of a top down mini-game or retro 8-bit game for cyberspace. How would you feel about it?

Or for retro but going for 3rd person:

[67406776100d8ZylonBane]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRZXq0yNwNA
In retrospect, this was perhaps not the best use of my time.

[6740677610234voodoo47]

I'm using that as my epitaph. I mean the text, not the video.

[6740677610353Kolya]

I know you did this to show how migraine inducing it is. But I like the transparency. Looks like you could see the holodeck behind the projections.

Also I really hope you'll post this on /r/systemshock, because I can see all the kids swooning over it and Steven Kick praising your 'hommage'. And all the time you'll be like: NO! THIS IS BAAAD!!!  BAD!

 

[67406776104ddZylonBane]

That was exactly my concern. Stupid kids with no capacity to differentiate between a visual effect that looks cool in moderation, vs plastered over every square inch of an environment.

[6740677610639Nameless Voice]

I kind of like it, but it's way too busy.
Might be quite a nice effect if, well, used in moderation.

[6740677610779Creamy]

High effort shitposting. I respect the hustle!

[67406776108bcStarspawn]

Gives me the same vibes as that Deep Dream mod for Doom

[6740677610b84icemann]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRZXq0yNwNA
In retrospect, this was perhaps not the best use of my time.

I like it. I get that you hate it, but its less of a static look visually. Gives off a Tron-like electric circuit kinda thing.

[6740677610f49ZylonBane]

I like it. I get that you hate it, but its less of a static look visually. Gives off a Tron-like electric circuit kinda thing.

So you're saying that anything "less static" automatically looks good, no matter how ridiculously busy and visually distracting? Scrolling hamster dance GIFs perhaps? Casino carpets?

Look, this is how Tron presented its environments (and this is one of the more detailed areas):

Glowing lines for edges, surface features, etc.  Spot insets to break up large areas of blackness. Just enough detail to let the viewer easily grasp the layout of the space.

Now, you see those blue patterns on the left and right? Imagine either of those uniformly covering every square inch of the scene. A solid field of blazing noisy blue. Are you saying that would actually look good to you?

The hard fact is that busy, high-contrast environments place a greater strain on your visual system because they take more effort to interpret. They are, after a while, literally exhausting to look at. That's why most environments are designed to NOT look like that.

Why do I even have to explain this?

[674067761105eicemann]

That Deus Ex matrix bit looks awful. So no that did not look good to me. The SS2 one looked better.

The rest I'm mixed on. Case by case basis.

[6740677611162JosiahJack]

I'm with ZB on this one.  And it makes me wonder why he never cared to do a SSHTUP project for SS1 so I could have used it.  Mad skillz gone to the wayside

[6740677611257voodoo47]

iirc, very few SS1 objects where better textures would actually improve something.

[6740677611351Kolya]

I'm with the casino carpets.

[67406776114ebfox]

Certainly more on the Tron-side here.

[6740677611664Kolya]

Really? I mean look at this. This is actual casino carpet you can buy. It's a work of art.
Just because something's busy it doesn't automatically suck. There doesn't have to be a balance in everything. Some things are great because they go all out. And it's not like you spend hours in cyberspace.

[67406776117aafox]

I'm a guy who thinks any updated sci-fi scenario should favour AR over VR for anything outside of pure entertainment. Either way, it shouldn't be primarily about art but about usability and readability first and foremost. Industrial design principles basically.

[6740677611894icemann]

Bring on holodeck tech. Hope that's the next big thing.

[6740677611dd6JDoran]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRZXq0yNwNA
In retrospect, this was perhaps not the best use of my time.

ZB, that video's effect is amazing! For the first couple of seconds of the detailed, animated walls, I thought it was really nice, but then it did get... something. Not tiring, or irritating, or painful, but I could almost feel a change, mentally, when it goes back to the plain walls. I've never thought about my mind as having to do varying amounts of work depending on the visual signals it receives, of course, but it does make sense. I mean, obviously recognising and understanding relevant things such as writing or
road signs takes some extra processing, but somehow I'd never consciously thought about it.

Why do I even have to explain this?

To be fair, I've never seen anyone mention it, be it in a book, or a TV program, or in school or a social situation. I doubt most people have thought about it at all.