[cactusfriend]

I am going to write a short little bit (I lied) about Miasmata now, and post like one middling screenshot (I lied again); if people want to know a bit more I'll take more screenshots of the various mechanics, as they are what really set this game apart.

Miasmata is an indie island adventure game set in a first person perspective, created by two brothers. The premise is that you are a fairly bad dude who has also had bad things happen to him, including contracting a plague, from which you will surely die in due time.



The game starts with you washing up on an island, apparently deposited via a small ship that has run ashore. The island is home to a variety of plants that promise a possible cure for this disease, and is/was home to various explorers and scientists attempting to create such a cure.

The typical fps controls work as you might expect, but with a much larger emphasis on the terrain and how it affects your momentum. You can most certainly fall to your death, or trip and fall and hurt yourself. If you run down a hill at full speed, momentum might not allow you to stop at a ledge. You also have to worry about keeping hydrated, day/night cycles (it gets DARK at night), and of course, the effects of your disease (such as fever). You can also hold various things in either hand, such as light sources, plant samples, and weapons. Also, you can take a peek at your watch and compass when necessary.

As you might guess, the survival aspect plays a large role in this game, to a degree that I haven't quite seen before. For instance, mapping in the game is not an automatic function but a purely voluntary and effort-filled endeavor. You must triangulate using (at least two) previously-discovered landmarks and a compass to determine your current location. Luckily, you come into contact with maps drawn by the fellows who have explored the area before you, detailing various campsites or where a certain interesting strain of vegetation may be growing.

This leads to another really interesting mechanic: research and synthesis of medication/drugs using the local plant life. Prior research papers found on the island can give you a head start here, but for the most part, you're still going to be relying upon your own first-person research. It works like this: while out and about, you may find an interesting plant, of which you can pick a sample. You can hold up to 3 various plant samples (in-hand) and can store 6 in tents/cabins (in a shared inventory system across locations, similar to Resident Evil's stash mechanics). To research a sample, you take a slice, put it in between glass slides, and take a peek using a somewhat steampunk-looking microscope. You then record your findings in your notebook (where you also collect the various papers you find). From here, if you've found a useful combination of ingredients, you can synthesize them using a (thankfully) vague chemistry table setup.

You can make various strength fever reducers (island aspirin, basically), temporary or permanent stat boosters (the stats tracked being mental awareness, endurance, and strength), and of course...various components of the cure to your disease (which is your main goal).

Of course, as you play, secondary goals (such as protecting yourself from a strange, antlered jungle feline that seems quite adept at stalking you) become apparent. Many times, I've found myself running from this beast only to later realize that I am now completely lost (again, no automap) or feverish (exertion and falling tend to accelerate the effects) or fucking dead (from drowning, a nasty bump to the head, or of course being mauled). It's also a sad small tragedy to realize that you've dropped the particular strain of fungus that you found in the swamp in your research for the cure. Luckily, over time you can develop/cultivate a sort of stealth mechanic that alerts you to the creature's line of sight, direction, and that sort of thing.



As for the look of the game, it's actually quite nice for a two-man dev team. The time of day and weather effects are done well, the textures and geometry are serviceable, and various effects such as light shafts filtering in through the canopy from the sun are actually useful in telling your direction and time of day. Color/tone mapping (although maybe a bit overdone) are also helpful in immersing you into the game, as are the fever effects.

Given the fact that you're exploring an island, with a focus on science and environment, one might call this game an evolution of the Myst concept, and that wouldn't be far off, really - though the realtime aspect of it is quite emphasized. As there's a predator stalking you, and you're quite sick, it ventures into survival horror, as well.

[CubaLibre]

I also think this borrows heavily from Day Z.

I should have bought this game when it popped up on my Steam as being on sale, but I didn't. I already regret it.
_________________
Let's Play, starring me.

[cactusfriend]

Ah, yeah. I haven't yet played Day Z but the whole FPS survival theme seems to be shared between them for sure. I'm going to post some screenshots of some of the various crafting/researching/mapping mechanics next.

[cactusfriend]

These are large screenshots; going to link directly to the steam host for them:

An example of lightshafts in the forest as well as mild fever effects

Oh no! I took a dive and am disoriented/fevered

Early morning outside my tent

This is the nearest thing to a 'HUD' that this game has.

My lovely shared specimen tray

Handy hands

Discovery

Due diligence

Research results!

Zoomed-in map

A cabin

Trying my latest concoction

Hmph. Banging pots and pans does not seem like an effective strategy.

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

interesting! Thanks for pointing this game out, I'm a big fan of wilderness survival games (although not necessarily actually playing them).

The presentation seems pretty stellar. Finding stuff for experiments reminds me of scavenging through the spaceship in System Shock 2, keeping an eye out for items to research and places to safely research them. In fact, this game seems to kind of fall into a space between that, Stranded II, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. I'm curious as to how most people are reacting to the danger of reckless physical movement...

Is the only wildlife the stalking beast, or are there other incidental (and presumably harmless) animals?

[cactusfriend]

There are indeed harmless animals: butterflies, bunnies, beetles, and presumably those that don't start with 'b' but none that I can think of currently. Oh! Frogs.

[luvcraft]

oh man, that actually sounds awesome! I voted this up on greenlight without really knowing much about it, and I saw that it got released on both Steam and GoG shortly after getting greenlit. I will pick it up!
_________________

[cactusfriend]

Thanks for voting it up! I saw it promoted on steam as a greenlight 'winner/recipient/whatever' and the trailer intrigued me. It's all that I had hoped for!

[luvcraft]

reposted from KOP:

Played a bunch of Miasmata this weekend. Conceptually, there's a lot of stuff I like in this game. It's really neat having to constantly figure out for myself where I am on the map, and build a lot of the map myself by triangulating landmarks. It's fun to gather flowers and mushrooms and analyze them to figure out what combinations make various medicines. It's cool that most of the hazards in the game involve not wandering over the edges of cliffs, and you have to fight inertia going downhill.

I have a bunch of minor frustrations with each of these innovative aspects, though, and I keep waffling between being intrigued enough by the game's systems to keep playing, and annoyed enough by the game's systems to quit. On the upside, the game has been much nicer to play since I mapped the controls to my 360 controller (my keyboard and desk are really not conducive to WASD), but on the downside I just got the bio-luminescent moss and I don't know where to go next, and the whole "map it yourself" thing makes it really hard to explore. I'm also getting really annoyed by the whole "you can only carry one dose worth of each flower" thing, since I'm popping fever medicine pretty regularly, and don't have the faintest clue where to get the health upgrade (I've upgraded my perception once, but I'm unclear on whether I can use another dose of the same medicine to upgrade it further, or if I have to find a different medicine).

I'm planning to play more of it tonight, though, so I guess I'm not too sick of it yet!
_________________

[Mikey]

So is there permadeath in this game or is the consequence merely save & reload?

[luvcraft]

[:cryface:]

You can also save by putting a torch in some of the pillars, which is the coolest way to save.

I'm not even going to search for plants, running down steep hills and tumbling is oddly fun.

[luvcraft]

yeah, I'm done with this game. What a tedious fucking slog. These guys really need an actual game designer to come along and make better use of their cool technology than "fetch quests back and forth over a giant empty island, while your vision goes blurry and you lose control of your actions every five minutes".
_________________

[Touran]

[luvcraft]

[:cryface:]

Not a fan.

The plague effects are so constant that it's a chore to leave the safety of the first cabin.

This would be a lot cooler if your goal for survival wasn't based on something that makes your screen ugly and hampers all enjoyment you can get out of what little you can do in the world. For a game that mostly relies on your enjoyment being directly related to looking and scrolling over it, they make it really fucking bothersome to do either.

At least you can still stumble down hills and enjoy tumbling. What a good tumble.

[cactusfriend]

Wow, what a turnaround!

Well, as for the not knowing where to go next after getting the bioluminescent moss, that's by design. I know, I know ... took me a while to A) figure that out and B) be cool with it. In fact, I stopped playing for a week or so since I had no clue as to where to go next. Last night, I played a lot more and my train of thought went like this ...
1 ... hm, I must have missed a clue somewhere, but I'll keep going along this path.
2 ... hm, here's a new area, with some plot details, I hope I don't keep following along this stuff here whilst having missed something that screws the game up later or sequence-breaks ...
3 ... oh, progress! oh, man! I can do all of this in any order! There's no way to sequence break...which makes perfect sense; this is an exploration/survival game, after all!
4 ... all this freedom is awesome! Woah, I just found this crazy-ass place! Gah, I died! Oh, man, I wonder if it's worth going back to that place for that weird plant that I don't know what to do with yet (and may have no use whatsoever). I have to carefully weigh the risk versus the possible reward. And ... since I couldn't find a good enough vantage point with enough known landmarks, I couldn't map it properly, so if I am to go back there, I need to go back SOON while I still remember how to, and I better hope that the creature doesn't decide to be around there, too!

Also, yeah, you die a lot. And yes, the fever effects are brutal. You can prevent them by taking care of yourself as in not being dehydrated (if there's not fresh water nearby, your canteen holds 5 'drinks' worth and can be filled at any house/tent that has water, so it's no big deal), not falling on your damn fool head (I believe I mentioned the momentum to the controls in my first post ... well, they are ROUGH ... I die from/after falls fairly often), and also with temporary or permanent status increases that you make for yourself.

I'm a really big fan of exploration, adventure, and risk, in games. I feel bad because I thought I did a good job of explaining these aspects of the game...but it seems like maybe that's not the case. I definitely recommend that anyone who gets frustrated by it, just keep in mind that everything up to that first ingredient is a tutorial and if it's feeling hard, there's a chance you might not have learned one of the mechanics properly (for instance, you can right click and keep your watch and compass up while walking - a sort of 'voluntary HUD' - took me a while to learn that one). The rest of the ingredients are on a "whenever you get them, that's cool" basis. Also, once you up your stats with some shady homemade injections, you won't have to worry about getting tired/disoriented so often.

If I'm going to give the game any knocks, they would be these: despite the engine being pretty cool, it could run a bit better - also, the farther-away LOD stuff looks a bit pattern-y. There exist a few annoying scripting bugs that make it feel more like a mod sometimes than an actual full-fledged title - that said, the devs have already noted and responded to them and have fixes on the way (if they're not already out...seems like both bugs I noticed are already gone). The transition between "here is where you should go next" and "okay, now you're on your own" could be a bit more gradual or at least announced, somehow. That point seemed to bug Luvcraft and also gummed up my gears, too.

All that aside, this is a rough game in terms of difficulty! I'm reiterating it here a few times since maybe I neglected to in my first post. Yes, as I said in the first post, you are required to fill in your own map using triangulation. Yes, this is hard - sometimes seemingly impossible in certain areas. Also, it requires climbing to higher ground to get a good vantage point, and this can be exhausting on the way up, and dangerous on the way down (momentum!). Thankfully, you will find pretty detailed maps from prior island occupants that will help a lot, as well as unmistakeable landmarks. I'm REALLY enjoying the small triumphs I feel when I know where I am after a particularly frightful experience or a mad dash. The feeling of becoming comfortable with your surroundings but being itched at by your wanderlust to head out and be exposed and in harm's way is REALLY fun (for me, at least). Now that there's no set course of events, I'm just having a great time trying to be safe and collecting clues about what happened to the others on this island and my own possible fate.

The game is harsh, but it also equips you with everything you need to stay safe and on top of things if you bother to do them. When checking the game forums (to see the status of the bug fix patch), I noticed that there's now a wiki. I'll never visit it. For a game like this, I think a wiki is a bad idea since it really is all about research and exploration. I found out about the stat enhancers by reading the journals of earlier explorers. The island is full of plants that I can research or find 'recipes' for from other inhabitants. I can make my own maps, but really important maps from campsite A to cool plant site B are almost always available, as well. Dying is frustrating - especially drowning; I haven't been able to permanently enhance my strength stat so I can't swim very far at all - but it needs to be so, so that you try hard to avoid it! The 'limited' save points are actually good, if you ask me ... there's been a few times where I've been out in the wilderness, half dead, and make a judgement call - do I want to keep going, and hobble back to camp or forward in hope of a new camp at a super slow pace so I don't accelerate my fever, and hope there's no huge hills to climb up? Or do I want to load my save from camp and have to go get this rare plant again, and hopefully be in a better state by this point next time? Maybe I'll reload and make sure I bring some extra strength island aspirin along with me, or a mental clarity tonic. If you were able to save anywhere, there's a good chance you might actually have to load an earlier save anyhow, once you realize what a wretched state your character was in during that last save. Okay, now I feel like I'm over-describing, but these are basically my thoughts as I play!

p.s. maybe I'm not understanding correctly, but I don't really think the plague effects are constant. You can subdue them by drinking water, and you can remove them by taking medicine (the first medicine you learn to make in the game) or sleeping in bed. I typically don't get feverish very often currently since it's so easy to keep it in check.

[cactusfriend]

More screenshots for the heck of it:

I have been finding a lot more ruins lately, up in the north...
New tree leaf colors! Surprising variety of flora in this game.
I could take a nap here.
Politics in my island survival game :/

[luvcraft]

did you find the ruins with the purple cactuses yet?
_________________

[luvcraft]

fine, reinstalling now.
_________________

[luvcraft]

OK, I finally made the Agent Y. The first time I found the orchid I didn't know I could sprint, so I thought I needed to come back for it later, and went all the way down and got the moss, and then realized that I could sprint to get the orchid. So, now I've done that, and made the Agent Y. And now I really have no idea where to go next. I'm kinda thinking maybe I should explore more East of the first camp...
_________________

[cactusfriend]

I haven't tried going back for the purple cactus just yet...I think the next time I play (probably tonight or tomorrow), I'll spend my time trying to fill in the gaping blank spots on my poor map. Glad you got Agent Y made! That's pretty much where I'm at.

[luvcraft]

Did you get the perception serum yet? I stumbled into the ingredients (which are really close to each other) before I got either of the ingredients for Agent Y.

The purple cactus isn't particularly special, it's just a neat area, and... ya know... your username. :)
_________________

[cactusfriend]

Yep, the stat enhancers are great (especially the permanent injections). Keep in mind that the permanent ones only bring you up to 'normal', and can't stack to 'high' permanently - but that's for all time, so it's pretty cool!

[cactusfriend]

Okay, I feel like I am getting pretty close to finishing up ... I realized you can't map some branches of the island properly while you are ON them, but rather you need to give it a go while you get a good vantage point from ACROSS the island. Then, the next time you go to that branch you should be able to orienteer better. Sheesh! But I have half of the ingredients each for the two remaining agents.

[luvcraft]

beta update available. I'm downloading it now.

Also, reposted from "games you played today":

I played a bunch of Miasmata last night, and enjoyed it lots, even though the fucking creature is pretty much constantly on my ass at this point. I'm almost done (only one plant left the find, and I know where the boat is, because I stumbled onto its location very early in the game) and I'm glad I stuck it out. The game still has some problems, but now that I've come to terms with some of the obtuseness I'm digging it.
_________________

[luvcraft]

Just finished it. I beat it at night, so I couldn't actually see anything in the ending, and had to watch a youtube video of someone beating it during the day to actually figure out what happened. Interesting, and my suspicions about the plot were confirmed.
_________________

[cactusfriend]

Just wanted to quickly mention that this game is half off on steam right now. For this price, it's very worth it.

That said, dang - maybe I should beat it today or this week - haven't touched it since I got back from vacation.

[DaleNixon]

I picked this up for $5.99 over the weekend and find myself hopelessly addicted. I love exploration and the map/triangulation mechanic is oddly satisfying.

I could easily be this guy for halloween. Just hold a bunch of flowers and mushrooms in your left hand and a knife in your right hand and wear no shirt.
_________________

[DaleNixon]

Some beautiful sunrises in this game.
_________________

[luvcraft]

[bleak]

man, i so wish i had a computer that could run games. this game looks pretty neat
_________________

[luvcraft]

75% off.
_________________

[Touran]

[evekii]

[bza]

Bought this on sale and played for a couple of hours last night, it really draws you in! I haven't experienced any horrible disease effects yet but I have seen the creature a couple times D:
_________________

[Touran]

Picked it up, but have to wait till tomorrow to give it a fair shake


I'll keep in mind the running bit
_________________
Man, I'm sorry.

[CubaLibre]

Also, don't get wet.
_________________
Let's Play, starring me.

[AntonioCandido]

[bza]

Miasmata starts you off with just a few vague words on who you are and what your goal is then you're ingame sick and bruised. You look down at your dirty raw hands and up at the note in front of you speaking of a cure for the sickness that plagues you. A destroyed boat sits on the shore nearby, a trail of blood stretches from the small shack to a corpse with a knife in its back. You pull the knife out. Immediately you're wondering who killed this man, why am I seriously ill on this island, where is the quest tracker, where is the compass. Do I need to level up?

Okay maybe that last part doesn't apply to everyone, but it was incredibly refreshing to start off a new game confused and unsure of what I was supposed to be doing. You are directed down a path to the first of many outposts you'll find, but past that the game tells you nothing about how to progress. A basic chemistry lab is nearby, you discover that your character is a scientist and can study the various plants growing on the island. A learned man at the very least, but who is he? You'll need to explore the rest of the island to find out, and that's when you start realizing the depth of the game.



Within minutes you'll discover just how much the plague has affected your body as you slip down a minor incline then tumble into the ground, eyes blurred and ears ringing. Inertia is dangerous. You're very weak, you can barely run or swim, you need water and medicine. Medicine that can conveniently be synthesized at the labs with common plants. Stronger medicines can be created with rarer plants, even infusions that permanently enhance your strength, endurance, or mental acuity. Why would you need to improve yourself so drastically if all you need to do is collect plants on an island?

Well, there's something on the island besides the odd squirrel or bird you'll find. It's not a fan of your being on the island, so any help you can get to stay one step ahead of it is quite useful. You can't fight in the state you're in so avoidance and stealth are all you've got. It'd be too spoiler-y to talk in detail about it, but let's just say one of the low points of the game is when the creature's AI bugs out and totally breaks the sense of danger. Other than the creature being dumb a few times I didn't run into any bugs but others have reported seriously game breaking things like random crashes.

As you explore further you realize the map isn't automatically revealed for you as you explore, you must find two known landmarks to triangulate your position from. You'll learn how important mapping the island is once the creature surprises you at night and you make a mad dash for safety with rare medicine ingredients in hand only to lose them as you tumble over a cliff. You've escaped the monster, but as you stand up and brush yourself off you realize you have no idea where you are. You see a seemingly man-made pillar in the distance and climb up to it but have no reference to draw from to figure out where this pillar stands on the island. Even further in the distance on the coast is a huge stone head- something you DO remember passing earlier so you walk towards it and pull out your map. Sadly, you never actually found out where that head was on your map so you're still lost. Use your map and fill it out!



In the end the plot is revealed to be exactly what I expected it to be based on early analysis of the various notes I found, but I wouldn't say that's a bad thing. The game is about the journey and fear of being lost in an entirely alien landscape. I'd argue that the plague aspect of the game isn't as much a driving force as the sense of exploration, wonder, and panic as a growl suddenly erupts from somewhere in the trees. By the time you synthesize the cure you've long been able to deal with everything the game throws at you, and probably even have the island mostly mapped out too. The various ruins, notes, and distinct areas of the island with unique flora to match did more for me than the fact that you're deathly ill.

I'd recommend the game, it's impressive even before you realize it was made by two brothers from scratch over the course of a few years. Sure the graphics are a mixed bag, but you don't play a game like Miasmata for the visuals. This game scratched an itch I've had for quite a while now, and I can't wait to hear more about the developers' next project.

[AntonioCandido]

Good write up BZA.

Just wanna reiterate that the game is a rough gem. You may have to give it some time to enjoy the game.

So far I only got the Brain Emphasis Drug, and saw the beast once. Considering walking all over the shores and triangulating all of it before delving into the forest.