My thoughts as well! Its almost perfect, a game that has a completely different perspective from the lonesome terror that is in VotV. Timeline wise, I can see VotV being like a sequel (Story-wise) after the chaos that is happening in Abiotic Factor.
Ive never had a personal headcannon this strong for something. I guess the reference along with everything else in both games just clicked with me.
Ive just found a terminal in Abiotic Factor that is either referencing VotV or is oddly a direct lead to it.
I havent completed AF just yet but after playing as much as I have, I wouldnt be surprised that the games could be tied to each other. I think it would be awesome as both games kinda have the same subject matter. Not only that, both games are "Half-Life" and "SCP" related/Inspired in however they did it. Both games also have similar-ish gameplay... A quasi survival game with a day-night cycle. The vibes too with being funny/horror.
Im a bit in glee at the thought that these two games could be related cus it makes so much sense. Ide love if the developers handshake at making each others games loosely tied. Just the idea behind both games actually taking place in the same world is so perfect, I cant stress this enough for those who havent played AF.
Just dont bring the Leyak to Voices of the Void, Ide really hate that.
Okay finally gonna write more in detail after having played seemingly several days even on the last day.
-Great new terrain! Would like the new trees to go with it. Makes me memorize and characterize the landscape better. I do think it needs more rocky/nature assets in order to hide imperfections of the jaggedy parts of the new terrain. Oh right, its fairly jagged looking and feeling in a lot of places.
The new terrain is great, it makes the environment more memorable and recognizable, just want the new trees to go with it. It is still jaggedy in a lot of places, if anything those places could use more nature assets.
Mushrooms are a lot harder to spot, and the new smokes from the Transformers make it possible to navigate. The wind turbines are kind of pointless at the moment, but they do serve as a good landmark from anywhere.
-New upgrade prices are really good although would need some more upgrades. There are certain upgrades that are kind of useless, like the radar history one (I always sell that). The increase in prices are good, but not so good for upgrades that arent that great. Resulting in tactically figuring out what is good, what is not. So some more pricing balancing would be appreciated towards those that are fairly useless. Might I suggest ATV handling upgrades? What about door upgrades? Dont really know what those would do but it an expansion in what we can spend our points on would be better than having to spend 16 points in the same thing.
-I still do not know if trash selling has been nerfed. I wish it is not, especially since you can shovel garbage for more useful trash. I think a trade off where selling the trash means you loose out on potentially great crafting material but get points. Speaking of! Let us buy crafting books! Yes! Books that give you some things you can craft. Like, a book that uses lots of paper scrap for some decorations you can craft, or a wood scrap one for survivalist thing, or furniture. Of course as well for metal and what not.
-I like the new transformer buildings, they have some diversity now and are personified. But especially for the satellites. Especially-ESPECIALLY the furthest satellites. They need some personality, maybe one of them had a guy stationed at it at all times, maybe another is heavily barricaded, and another has a fence and working on its platform, and maybe, one has a door under it that leads to somewhere with the use of the keycard that you find, oOOoo!
-The pacing of the days do start to feel incredibly slow and bare after day 30-40+. At this point, you do get used to the game, and are subjected to the invasion of those glowy suns. I do not know what plans there are for the hole and going in it, but after being subjected to this invasion, you are stripped from this invasion and it all gets peaceful, and boring again. This happens again with the pigs, and the roaming boss. Its the same, but maybe more appropriate.
My suggestion would be to have another visitor, maybe unfriendly, that is making some kind of progress. It does something in one part of the map, and it will do something else in another part of the map. Not a real entity, more like some environments update and leaving behind traces of evidence to it. It does something new per day when the player finds each thing. The cue may be a sound, or a light, or something that gets the player to investigate (Satellite gets downed for instance). You know, something that makes the world feel like something is happening, rather than just, random. The Arirals visiting is probably the only thing similar to this.
-The boss sucks. Straight up. After 3 days of prepping to get at him...
I found him outside of the radar, flipped out in the river near the start. So, I took out one fuel can off of him, then he spun too fast to do it again. So I gravity gunned him out, had a fair molotov cocktail sunlock fight (Really annoying that it does not hit it), did some damage, and it flipped out again, and then I ended his misery however I managed. What a boring boss thing. I can assume, Arirals would lend us their gun (for real this time) to use it against him after a few days, but that would take away the pleasure of doing it yourself. Hooks didnt work against him, many other tools didnt work. It just sucked fighting against him. Would be funny to pin him against a tree like spiderman and his victims with hooks and have him just be there forever as part of the forest.
-Need more signals! Interesting signals, mundane signals. Even on my first playtrough in 0.7 Ive come across many of the same signals. Most of the game has you finding signals and it is what rewards you, would love to make signal hunting interesting again. But how about more unique signals, notes, locations that have something to do with each other. A note that points to where one should scan and how many times for a signal that can activate/give something.
Other than bad kerfur/O-Kerfur pathing now, some few buggy events, crumbled/paperscrap not being able to be used for molotov etc. This is a 'good' update. If this is 0.8, then 0.9 and 1.0 is going to be a huge leap cus, you dont have the new trees yet, satellites still feel bare, lots of the story is not revealed yet. I just hope that there are not many moon-logic discoveries. The CotL plushy and how to get it? Crazy elaborate for something so... disappointing? I get why you have some of these crazy moon-logic, hard to find things in the game, so that people talk but... that, ruins the mystery :| You kinda want people to discover and engage with the game themselves, not find these tidbits on youtube.
Just writing down very short ver of what I will write more about later.
-Great new terrain! Would like the new trees to go with it. Makes me memorize and characterize the landscape better. I do think it needs more rocky/nature assets in order to hide imperfections of the jaggedy parts of the new terrain. Oh right, its fairly jagged looking and feeling in a lot of places.
-New upgrade prices are great!
-Nerf to selling trash is a bummer. Did you nerf it? It feels nerfed. Maybe I just wasted more money with new things to spend on.
-New transformer buildings are great. Extend this to the satellites! Satellites, especially the ones that arent closest to base needs some personality. Something to discover about one or two of them. A basement in one, or a broken catwalk (Kerfur denying satellite) and of course some environmental story telling.
-The pacing of the days do start to feel incredibly slow and bare after day 30-40+. I think I know why, and my solution would be to give us something to work towards.
-The uh, boss? Is kinda boring and difficult. I like the idea, I personally wish we had more tools against it (couldnt hook it).
-Theres more things to investigate, but cannot find the how or what on interacting with them. Please dont make too many moon-logic solutions for things that we investigate if it is thee case.
-Need more signals! Interesting signals, mundane signals. Even on my first playtrough in 0.7 Ive come across many of the same signals.
-More signals+ Signals, notes, locations that have something to do with each other. A note that points to where one should scan and how many times for a signal that can activate/give something.
Annoyances
-Normal kerfur cant hop over those very small curbs of the satellites, resulting in controlling them often.
-O-Kerfur has spots where they stop and gawk from their location. Particularly when it goes from Romeo to Tango, it will stop somewhere in-between, and if you control him and give back control, he will loop back to Romeo. (This was a Report gathering command).
-An event that I think is supposed to re-position the ATV on a bridge with 200 fuel instead leaves it lodged into a wall, destroying itself for -billion damage. I barely unglitched it out of the wall.
-Tonemapper Film filter makes everything more dark and In my opinion, does not fit the aesthetics of Voices of the Void. Colour filter also turned off. These filters perhaps need sliders or turned off by default. I dont know what these filters try to achieve aesthetically.
-Not all papers work for creating molotovs (crumpled note papers, paper scrap).
-Getting drunk needs to work differently. Drinking too much beer leads to not being able to play properly for a fairly long time. A limit to the drunk effect and perhaps a limit to how much we can drink needs to be put in place.
I loved the game. Like a lot!
It was my first time playing on this version of the game and I am happy that it was.
However, my biggest gripe with this pre-alpha is that the "end" achievement should appear earlier. Some late story based events could have closed this one off, but instead I felt dragged over uneventful days before getting the achievement.
Other thing is physics bugging out so much making us loose certain items, or have them become unusable. Those are necessary to fix.
Thirdly, and this is a bit nitpicky, the nature of some moonlogics of the game make exploring its secrets not that fun. The internet will always provide the necessary steps to explore the game 100%, but would be nice for many mysterious activatable elements to be 1st, worth it. And 2nd, be interacted with in more than 1 way. The game is pretty much an Immersive Sim, and would like to see you incorporate the mindset of an Immersive Sim game to some of these secrets and elements. It would make more players find more ways and discover more things in the game world without the use of the internet. An example is the locked Bunker. If that card gets shoved out of view, you hardcoded a solution where it teleports on top. Not good at all and is really a bad solution. Make it possible to enter the bunker in more ways.
No spoilers, or exploits or big hidden knowledges.
You can also call this the "Starter Cleaning Guide".
For anyone that stumbles upon this, this guide will make you feel like a Forest Ranger.
1- Start
Get to the base with the suitcase held. Explore the base, turn on lights etc.
What it is you really want to do is wait around for fixing 2 server issues. Fixing a server issue rewards you 5 points, you will want 10.
While waiting, find a signal and turn the knobs to start downloading it. With no upgrades, you will wait a long while for a signal to download and discover. While also waiting for a signal, you can start Cleaning.
2- Cleaning and Routine Start
Go south of the base outside along its wall. You will find some Green Trash bins. You can alternatively also use a square crate on the balcony. Use these items to store any Pickup trash. Trash that you pickup and then add into your inventory.
Take the green Trash Bin or the crate to wherever you are that has you collecting these pickup trash. For the Green trash bin, you can place items in it seemingly infinitely, and can pull the items out by 'use'ing it on the top hole.
While cleaning the base, occasionally look for servers that need to be fixed, either at base or sv.ping at the console for a satellite fix. Also check if the signal is done downloading/discovering, and load the info into a drive that goes into a drive box.
3- 10 point Get
After finally getting 2 server issues fixed and now have 10 points, use those 10 points to buy an Item box (under Essentials).
When you get the Item box, fill it to max with all the trash you are willing to part away with. Afterwards, place the item box on the target of the garage and call the drone.
4- First Point Reward
You will get more than 200 points. Use these points wisely. But also use them on Garbage Bag Rolls (under Misc > Sanitary).
Buy 1 item box, 1 Digital Map, Bunch of Garbage Bag Rolls.
Put away the map somewhere, you wont need it, it is a reward to make your gameplay easier for the future.
The Garbage Bag Rolls will be used to get rid of those non-pickup trash that are piled around everywhere.
To use a Garbage bag roll, hold it, and then Left click a trash pile. You will transform it into a filled Garbage Bag which can be Collected. It has no volume, and thus you can carry thousands on you and can place in the item box until you run out of Garbage Bag Rolls.
Sell anymore pickup trash, and non-pickup trash turned into garbage bags.
If it becomes Day-Time, use the map to get to your required satalites for fixing, or for finding Hash codes to put in a report paper.
5- Second Point Reward
When you get the next big Reward, it might be well off a big deal.
However you use these points is up to you, but I recommend you keep getting garbage bags, as well as 3 beacons (under Tools) if possible.
But continue to get Garbage Bag rolls and a new item box.
6- Daytime Ranger
So now you know the rewards for actually cleaning the base gives you and the means to routinely do Signals, Servers and Cleaning.
During the day, finish all daily tasks as ordered (Correct amount of drives + Hash report paper). Get the 50+75 extra points for doing exact daily tasks, and continue to clean and fix servers.
The 3 Beacons that I advise you to get, you can place at the 3 Transformer locations. Follow the "phone" wires to find them. And activate+place the beacons on each area. You can track where they are via the Radar, Digital map and the ATV motorbike without having to follow the wires again.
At the Transformer locations, you can choose to clean these areas as a bonus and I do advise this. Whenever you visit these locations, keep in mind what it is required for you to clean them and always bring back the trash to sell (or use).
Final- End Goal
Doing this cleaning routine will grant you a lot of points at the start real fast. This will grant you enough points to also upgrade, and get modules. I also highly advise to use the points on a Kerfur, as well as get a Hook and learn how to use that and a Drive Rack. There should also be a Bucket and a Sponge in the base for you to use to clean smudges and stains on floors/walls. This is just a side thing to make your base even more clean. (Use by filling bucket with water at the Emergency Shower, dip sponge in bucket water and Grab rub it over the desired surface).
In general the items you can get by Day 3 is:
1 Digital Map (Easy daytime exploration)
3 Beacons (Easy Transformer building finds)
1 Hook (Makes exploration easy, and some parts of base accessible early)
1 Kerfur (No longer need to fix servers yourself, so just sell any server fix disks, and are fun to control)
1 Drive Rack (Keep your drives in an orderly place)
I got myself a mini fridge since I bugged out my actual fridge. But I also advise a Coffee machine and coffee bag + Cup.
You can (should) sell the front door camera, it is terrible and should be sold for extra money.
Assuming that you didn't destroy the boxes, and that you got rid of the stains and smudges, the base should look REALLY clean and nice and the fegshui cleanliness of the base should inspire you to decorate it with whatever else you want using custom posters and stuff. As well as have fun continuing forward with Voices of the Void in a clean environment...
Until stuff happens
Day 48, I got the "Pre-alpha Completed" achievement.
There was no reason to drag me any further than the last big obvious event at around day 35-38 and then give me the achievement. I either got the same spooky signals or a single event per day that lasted for a second. The pacing of the story mode related events were great, but things really did start to die down and honestly, could have been given the achievement a while ago.
It was REALLY building up as well, so I was anticipating some kind of cliffhanger ending, sticking around for 10+ more days, and it just... trickles down and then gives me the "completed" achievement.
I know there is a lot more stuff to find, but by golly do I not feel like it. Will play again in a future update, will come to support the dev.
I was absolutely hooked into this game (ver7) and I was stoked to see what the game was offering me as the ending.
Things started to die down in terms of events and stuff after like day 35 or something, and I was getting bored. Same old signals and no real events happening. And suddenly, in day 44 I couldnt save or pause the game. I waited the entire day and nothing.
Day 45, nothing.
Its day 46 now.
Because, apparently theres an ending in Day 44? It seemed right.
I think my save is completely bugged due. There is a red blip right outside my base that is even closer than the golden/red beacon that arrived explosively. Almost looks like the closer red blip should be right outside the door, but there was nothing yet it stayed there for the entirety of my game ever since it arrived...
Im... awfully disappointed. I was loving this game so much, is the ending broken?
