Exanima: Second Impressions

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When I first played the Exanima beta I wasn’t kind; first impressions were less than stellar and I was left feeling more than a little disappointed.

But now time has passed, the sun has shone and I’ve reflected on what I experienced. In the light of a new day all is not quite so bad as it first seemed.

After some back-and-forth on Twitter I sat back and went over how I felt about the prelude and why. It soon became apparent that aside from a few technical gripes and nitpicks, all of my frustrations and misgivings stemmed from the same source: I really had no idea what I was doing and had no idea if what I tried was right or not. The game gives no guidance on what to do and then gives you no feedback when you try something. This is true at all levels: mechanical, ludic and narrative. What’s my goal? No idea. How do my character achieve it? No idea. How do I achieve it? You see the pattern.

All of this would be solved by the game providing you with more information. Now, here lies a debate I’ve no intention of entering simply because it’s old and worn, with no objectively right answer. How much information is too much, and how much is too little? Some players – and I suspect the intersection of Sui Generis players and early adopters will fall heavily in this category – like to figure things out for themselves with little prompting. Fair enough, I can totally understand that. Other players are at the other extreme, which is also understandable. Most fall somewhere in between.

From the “let me figure it out myself” group you often get somewhat patronising and defensive terms like mollycoddling or hand-holding, which is a misrepresentation of what I’m talking about. Nobody can accuse Dark Souls, XCOM or Darkest Dungeon of coddling players simply because they give you tutorials and explain their mechanics. FTL isn’t suddenly a wussy casual experience because it gives you gameplay hints.

But Exanima gives you nothing. I’ve gone back and played again, and again, and got further each time, but I still haven’t killed anything. I still don’t know if I’m meant to be able to, and I couldn’t even honestly tell you if I’ve actually landed a blow on an enemy. You know those games where you’re fighting a level boss which has no health bar and you’ve no idea if your stream of bullets is doing any damage or there’s something you’re meant to do first to bring down shields, expose the core, or whatever? Exanima is an entire game of that. I don’t want to be railroaded or mollycoddled (urgh), I just want to some information. Anything.

Technically, Exanima is an impressive demo of what Bare Mettle are working on. The physics and graphics are both outstanding, the approach to character models refreshing, and the art style very promising. I fully understand that the developers have other priorities right now than to add significant UI work, a tutorial and narrative to a beta of a prelude to a game still in development, but unfortunately that has left Exanima seriously underselling itself. Yes it’s only a prelude, but it’s a prelude designed to promote Sui Generis, and I can only hope that my negative first impressions are unrepresentative of those of the wider audience.

In conclusion, I stand by my first impressions, but with the added caveat that I’m much more confident than I was that the frustrations I experienced won’t be reflected in the finished product. The physics are everything the dev team promised and the graphics engine is pretty, smooth and leave me really quite desperate to experience it in a wider range of settings than dank corridors. What we’ve seen with Exanima is solid proof that Bare Mettle have made real progress on a very interesting game and the promises they built their successful kickstarter on are being comprehensively met. With everything still to be added Sui Generis is definitely something to watch.

tldr: I’m no longer worried I wasted my money on their kickstarter. Bring on the game. But seriously guys, take a moment to really look at the user experience before it gets too late.

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