Observation |OT| HAL 9000 Simulator

[Deleted member 5596]

Developer - No Code
Publisher - Devolver Digital
Platform(s) - PS4 & Steam Epic Game Store
Price - €20,99 (Currently on sale for €8.99)
Release Date - May 21, 2019

STORY

Observation is a sci-fi thriller uncovering what happened to Dr. Emma Fisher, and the crew of her mission, through the lens of the station's artificial intelligence S.A.M.

Players assume the role of S.A.M. by operating the station's control systems, cameras, and tools to assist Emma in discovering what is happening to the station, the vanished crew, and S.A.M. himself.​

RELEASE TRAILER

​

FAQ

Q: Wait! What about Steam!!?

A: Let's get this out of the way. Yeah, the game is exclusive for EGS for at least a few months (or 1 year). It sucks, we know it, but this is the OT.

Q: So you actually play as an A.I?

A: Yes, the main draw of the game is that you don't play an human character but rather the A.I that controls the station. So the UI and controls are a bit different from usual but is done quite well in replicating the experience of interacting through the world being a computer program.

Q: Another walking simulator?

A: Well, I don't like that term....I'd rather refer to it as a "sci-fi adventure" game. As other similar games is has a focus in storytelling and narrative but is plenty 'interactive' with (simple) puzzles and some light exploration.

Q: How long is it?

A: Around 6 or 8 hours. Is a short game, but is also quite cheap. It has good production values for an indie game so it really worth the money.

Q: So is any good?

A: We all know that aggregates scores decides how good a game is, so here's the

Review Thread so you can decide without playing if the game is good or not!

My own opinion: Is a nice little sci-fi game with an intriguing story and a nice setup. If you like sci-fi and adventure games this should be up your alley.

Q: Why did you make an OT?

A: Because I got the game, played it, liked it and thought it deserved an OT since it didn't have one.

Q: Did Epic bribe you to make the OT!?

A: I wish!

Q: What about Xbox One?

A: I don't know, ask Devolver Digital.

Q: This game would be perfect for the Switch...any possi---

A: Ok, that's enough.

RESOURCES

Epic Game Store Page
PSN Store Page
Review Thread
Official Web

Bonus - Alternate OT titles:
Observation |OT| The A.I sucks? Blame yourself!
Observation |OT| In space no one can hear you 010101010101
My first OT. It took more time that I thought it would take, but still was done quite hastily. Sorry.

 

[Chris1215]

Great OT! Game is fantastic and sadly seems to be flying under the radar

 

[Hella]

I beat Observation a few days ago and had a blast with it. It's got some fantastic production values, great VO in Emma Fisher, and a cool story. Also atmospheric as hell. Highly recommend it to anyone that likes adventure games, or just immersive games in general.


I should replay it to get all the collectibles. Missed a ton of 'em and I've no idea where they are.

 

[Deleted member 5596]

I beat Observation a few days ago and had a blast with it. It's got some fantastic production values, great VO in Emma Fisher, and a cool story. Also atmospheric as hell. Highly recommend it to anyone that likes adventure games, or just immersive games in general.


I should replay it to get all the collectibles. Missed a ton of 'em and I've no idea where they are.

Click to shrink...

There seem to be a few of them that you can only get them at certain part of the game or you miss them. I missed a few, but I don't think I'll try again until there's a guide for all of them.

 

[Binster]

Nice OT!

I played it and had a great time. For new players on PC, I'd recommend you play on a gamepad - the mouse and keys controls don't feel as good, which is weird for such a 'techy' game.

I'm still thinking about the game, a week or so after completion. Clearly it got its hooks in me.

 

[sredgrin]

Game is great, aside from some of the "spacewalk" segments. Very easy to get lost or disoriented there, not to mention figure out what exactly the game wants of you.

 

[Ubik]

There were a few "wtf am I supposed to do now?" moments and some navigation/control awkwardness, but as a lover of sci-fi and waking sim/narrative adventure games I absolutely had a blast and highly recommend.

 

[Deleted member 1656]

My 2¢ from the story trailer thread:

The format of this game is... actually rather old school cinematic adventure. There is basically pixel hunting in this when rummaging for items and interfaces in the environment. So things are a little too concealed sometimes, but it's not too bad. I wonder if No Code is aware of The Daedalus Encounter (1995)—another puzzler where you play as a hovering camera in space assisting human crew—and if it was in any way an influence.

As carlsojo mentioned when you're on the exterior of the station the game becomes kind of awful temporarily. I like that the direction of the player is loose, but it's very strange there's no exterior map and there really should've been placeable waypoints out there. For anyone who gets lost outside it helps to look for the labels on the modules (i.e. EUS-1, RUS-2) but it's still way too difficult to navigate.

Also, I found the game a little buggy. I had a crash occur near the end and I got sent back an aggravating distance due to the poor checkpointing that others have mentioned.

All that said, I really enjoyed the game overall. It has some pretty rad shit in it. The price it's going for via the EGS "Mega Sale" ($12.49) is a steal too. It's probably my second favorite new game I've played this year so far.

Spoiler

I'll never see hexagons the same way again.

Click to shrink...

 

[R dott B]

Played a bit and it's good so far aside from some where do I go moments.

 

[dm101]

I just bought observation on ps4. This looks incredible.

 

[HouseDragon]

Great game! After Stories Untold, No Code is definitely a 'developer to watch' for me, as they keep using interesting themes and stories inside their games designed with an old fashioned sensibility (text adventure and point and click adventure), making them really special pieces of gaming.

For anyone open to a different kind of game to break up the usual open-world 'save the world' romp nowadays, this one is a must, I had a great time with it!

 

[Dan L]

Wonderful game. Great OT.

My number 3 game of the year so far. 2019 has been a hell of a year for Dan games. (Number one Metro Exodus number two plague tale innocence and 3 observation/Outer Wilds [having just finished outer wilds I need to sit on what game I enjoyed more])

Would be higher, story is insanely good, performances are incredible but some of the objectives can be really obtuse and hard to figure out what exactly you need to do but it's never unfair. The sense of immersion is so good I'm glad they didn't change it as it would suck you out.

Story is incredible hard scifi. I love this game so much.

Spoiler: Observation major ending spoilers

oh man it's such good scifi. Love the 2001 inspiration. and then throwing in the many world quantum theory stuff. With the symbols you've been seeing explaining the whole situation. Fucking masterpiece.

 

[Deleted member 1656]

Would be higher, story is insanely good, performances are incredible but some of the objectives can be really obtuse and hard to figure out what exactly you need to do but it's never unfair.

Click to shrink...

The acting is great but the characters look rough sometimes. Although I super duper appreciate that there are visible characters since a lot of games of this nature and stature don't have them (cuz they're hard and cost money lol). So I forgive them; the acting compensates for the most part.

 

[Binster]

Spoiler: Observation major ending spoilers

oh man it's such good scifi. Love the 2001 inspiration. and then throwing in the many world quantum theory stuff. With the symbols you've been seeing explaining the whole situation. Fucking masterpiece.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler: Major ending spoilers continued

I only really started to twig that the symbols had meaning after an embarrassingly long time. I'd like to see a breakdown of what people think they mean, see if we're all interpreting them the same :)

 

[chrominance]

So far I'm digging it, though I'm only an hour and change in so far. However, there are a few things that take me out of the experience a bit. Character animations are kind of rough compared to the realistic video-camera look of everything else. Easy to forgive, though; not everyone has access to a mocap studio or the resources to use it effectively. A bigger issue is how terribly you perform as an AI. I love the look of all the interfaces you have to interact with to do stuff around the station, and the puzzles are neat so far, but I find it difficult to shake the idea that as an AI, you should be able to do all this instantaneously without a graphical UI, and the fact that no one has commented on how slow or terrible I am in any way so far is weird. There's a section early on where Emma's reciting a long string of numbers that you're supposed to input in order to get a response code. I got it wrong three times. I'm an AI. Why am I getting it wrong? This is exactly the sort of thing a computer is supposed to do WELL. My struggles with the game's challenges feel out of sync with how I'd expect an AI to work at times.

But that's really more an academic concern than something that really impacts my enjoyment. In other words, I dig the vibe a lot. The only thing I'd really change: please let me know how long it's been since I last saved. I finished the spacewalk section near the beginning and quit the game, assuming that the last checkpoint was after I repressurized the airlock. Nope; the last checkpoint was from BEFORE THE SPACEWALK. So I have another episode of Lost In Space to look forward to in my next play session.

 

[Deleted member 5596]

So far I'm digging it, though I'm only an hour and change in so far. However, there are a few things that take me out of the experience a bit. Character animations are kind of rough compared to the realistic video-camera look of everything else. Easy to forgive, though; not everyone has access to a mocap studio or the resources to use it effectively. A bigger issue is how terribly you perform as an AI. I love the look of all the interfaces you have to interact with to do stuff around the station, and the puzzles are neat so far, but I find it difficult to shake the idea that as an AI, you should be able to do all this instantaneously without a graphical UI, and the fact that no one has commented on how slow or terrible I am in any way so far is weird. There's a section early on where Emma's reciting a long string of numbers that you're supposed to input in order to get a response code. I got it wrong three times. I'm an AI. Why am I getting it wrong? This is exactly the sort of thing a computer is supposed to do WELL. My struggles with the game's challenges feel out of sync with how I'd expect an AI to work at times.

But that's really more an academic concern than something that really impacts my enjoyment. In other words, I dig the vibe a lot. The only thing I'd really change: please let me know how long it's been since I last saved. I finished the spacewalk section near the beginning and quit the game, assuming that the last checkpoint was after I repressurized the airlock. Nope; the last checkpoint was from BEFORE THE SPACEWALK. So I have another episode of Lost In Space to look forward to in my next play session.

Click to shrink...

I feel the game tries to give an explanation for your concern, at least that's how I interpreted it. Keep playing it ;)

Yeah, the navigation in some parts of the game, the slow camera movement and the saves are the weakest points of the game. The really slow camera movement really got my nerves a couple of times, specially when looking for documents, I guess is somewhat realistic, still affects the pacing quite a bit. Is still a very enjoyable experience though and I really liked.

 

[Deleted member 1656]

Spoiler

For me this game has one of the most accurate representations of sleep paralysis in media when the entity appears and locks you into communicating with it. That's pretty much how it happens for me; I see a dark, sometimes large shape. The buzzing is kind of representative too.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Will I like this if I found Stories Untold really shallow mechanically and didn't even finish it? It certainly felt like a tech demo for a relatively larger project like this.

 

[Deleted member 5596]

Will I like this if I found Stories Untold really shallow mechanically and didn't even finish it? It certainly felt like a tech demo for a relatively larger project like this.

Click to shrink...

I didn't played Untold Stories, but Observation is a relatively simple adventure game, with light puzzles and some exploration. So I guess it depends of your expectations? I think the gameplay is fine, but is not FTL or something akin to more complex genres.

 

[InaudibleWhisper]

Will I like this if I found Stories Untold really shallow mechanically and didn't even finish it? It certainly felt like a tech demo for a relatively larger project like this.

Click to shrink...

It will really depend on how gripped you are by the story. Mechanically the puzzles aren't a great departure from Stories Untold, but if you were put off by looking at a static frame Observation has more free movement and generally more going on in terms of animation and cinematics.

 

[chrominance]

Finished the game today. It has some neat ideas and it oozes sci-fi atmosphere. I find it hard to dislike. But at the same time, it feels like less than the sum of its parts somehow. It never really addresses my concern about "shouldn't I be better at being an AI," and indeed at one point it gets WORSE. And I think the last third of the game is by far the weakest; I think Observation's answers to what the hell is going on are ultimately unsatisfying. Though

Spoiler

maybe if I knew what the symbols represented I'd change my tune maybe?

That said, we really don't get enough games that do this kind of sci-fi thriller/horror well, and the ones that come to mind all stick pretty close to the System Shock 2 template. It's nice to see something in the neighbourhood that has a very different style of gameplay and storytelling to it.

As an aside: this reminds me a bit of Lone Echo. Ultimately different in intent and tone, but the basic premise of "space station AI must help resourceful British astronaut woman survive a mysterious cataclysmic event" links the two.

EDIT: Oh, also, one puzzle in particular still bugs me:

Spoiler: UC-02 puzzle

What's up with the Command Interface? You're supposed to link protocols to bypass switches, but it was never clear to me HOW you were supposed to do this. It's definitely not whether lines connect the protocols to the switches, because a bunch of obvious choices never seemed to work. I don't think it's proximity either. I ended up brute-forcing the last protocol for alpha, and the whole time felt pretty sad that there were basically no other options short of learning how electrical diagrams work in real life.

 

[mcwizardry]

EDIT: Oh, also, one puzzle in particular still bugs me:

Spoiler: UC-02 puzzle

What's up with the Command Interface? You're supposed to link protocols to bypass switches, but it was never clear to me HOW you were supposed to do this. It's definitely not whether lines connect the protocols to the switches, because a bunch of obvious choices never seemed to work. I don't think it's proximity either. I ended up brute-forcing the last protocol for alpha, and the whole time felt pretty sad that there were basically no other options short of learning how electrical diagrams work in real life.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler: UC-02 puzzle

I think the electric circuit diagram is not necessary for this puzzle. You just input the protocol address and the position of that code in the list of codes starting at 1. Example Gamma: Protocol Address: E-43, Bypass Switch: 2 Here's a video of it: Video

 

[chrominance]

Spoiler: UC-02 puzzle

I think the electric circuit diagram is not necessary for this puzzle. You just input the protocol address and the position of that code in the list of codes starting at 1. Example Gamma: Protocol Address: E-43, Bypass Switch: 2 Here's a video of it: Video

Click to shrink...

Spoiler: UC-02 puzzle

Holy christ that is bad puzzle design then. There are literally controls dedicated to panning the diagram, and you're telling me it doesn't matter at all?

ACTUALLY never mind, it turns out you DO need the diagram, or at the very least it's not completely pointless: https://imgur.com/R9yVnhd

 

[Reedirect]

Oh neat, I though there wasn't an OT for this game. Just started playing this yesterday and it's pretty good, although I'm already a bit confused at what Emma wants me to do sometimes, so I just end up panning around the station until I find something. For being relatively light on actual gameplay, this game requires 100% of your attention when it comes to listening, unless you want to look like a really dumb AI that asks for repeated commands every two minutes.

 

[Guybrush Threewood]

Bumping this because I think it's a very nice game and hope folks are playing it.

I have no idea how far along I am. I can't decide if it seems like it'll be short or if it'll overstay its welcome.

Anyway, I'm playing this at the same time as Outer Wilds and I keep dreading turning a corner and hearing a harmonica.

 

[Deleted member 1656]

I have no idea how far along I am. I can't decide if it seems like it'll be short or if it'll overstay its welcome.

Click to shrink...

It slumps a bit here and there—particularly in the side of the early middle—but I think it's about the perfect length.

 

[Hella]

Bumping this because I think it's a very nice game and hope folks are playing it.

I have no idea how far along I am. I can't decide if it seems like it'll be short or if it'll overstay its welcome.

Anyway, I'm playing this at the same time as Outer Wilds and I keep dreading turning a corner and hearing a harmonica.

Click to shrink...

I'd say Observation is a pretty good length, suitable for the story being told. The puzzles can kinda drag if you don't understand them (which happened to me more than I care to admit, and only one was the game's fault), but the story keeps you motivated all the way through. And the presentation is so cool all the way through--the whole HAL thing is just so much fun.

And heck yeah, Outer Wilds! Observation blew me away unexpectedly, but Outer Wilds is on a whole 'nother level. Both are great adventure games, but for entirely different reasons.

Spoiler: UC-02 puzzle

Holy christ that is bad puzzle design then. There are literally controls dedicated to panning the diagram, and you're telling me it doesn't matter at all?

ACTUALLY never mind, it turns out you DO need the diagram, or at the very least it's not completely pointless: https://imgur.com/R9yVnhd

Click to shrink...

Huh.

Spoiler: UC-02 puzzle

Is... is that really how it works? I'd swear I tried that and the logic didn't pan out for all of 'em.

Don't actually remember how I figured it out, but it was half-guesswork even at the best of times.

 

[Guybrush Threewood]

Well, I have seen credits. It did not really overstay its welcome. As cramped as the game itself can feel, it did have a couple great cinematic shots during cut scenes that I loved. Game play got a little convoluted but solvable.

I liked it a lot. Definitely worth the price as it is on EGS right now.

 

[btkadams]

I had a great time with this game tonight. My only complaints are:

Spoiler

I got lost outside in the first spacewalk (sounds like I'm not alone) and I truly did not understand the astrophysical measurement terminal.... I had to look up what to do both times. Other than that, everything went fairly smooth.

 

[wsbceo]

I just finished the game. I'm surprised this OT is one page? Wow. The game is great. It's a wonderful space sim with tons of atmosphere. My main gripe are the trash PC mkb controls. The mouse sensitivity is really, really bad.

For the price I paid, I'm very happy with my experience. It's a shame more here haven't played it.

 

[Zem]

I played Stories Untold and Observation back to back but found Observation less satisfying in the ending and story parts than Stories Untold. Still a good game but I definitely prefer their first. A developer to look out for in the future that's for sure.

 

[piratepwnsninja]

How is this not getting talked about more? I just finished it and found it to be a pretty amazing adventure game with some all around great writing.

 

[john titor]

I loved Untold Stories and was really looking forward to Observation.
Just got to

Spoiler

the second station

and I'm really enjoying it so far.

Too bad it doesn't receive enough love.

 

[Areal]

Just a heads up that this is $14.99 (down from $24.99) on PSN. Two hours in and enjoying it so far. Great atmosphere.

 

[Genetrik]

So I was really looking forward to this game after all these reviews and personally I love nothing more than atmospheric single player story games. But despite a very interesting overall package, the frustrations that came along with it make it a very mixed bag

Positives:
- amazing and mysterious setting
- fantastic voice over performances by the chosen actors
- wonderful premise of who you play as the player
- super cool looking visuals for the puzzles
- overall a great concept
- the ending was given good time and care (VS a quick sequence + fade to black)

Negatives:
- it drove me NUTS that the game never helps you out with clear pointers where to go! The info on where to go and / or what do to is very often not clear AT ALL. This leads to situations where you keep going through the entire station back and forth, which sucks the life out of you. This is game breaking for me especially in later parts of the game where you get more movement freedom and it can be really confusing on top of the existing problem to navigate properly and not instead after a turn, go right back where you came from
- As amazing looking the visuals for some puzzles look, they can be also super cryptic.

Really unfortunate that these couple of negatives weigh so heavy that they destroyed my perceived fun of the game, especially during the last quarter where i simply used a guide to get it over with.
However, a wonderfully created sci-fi atmosphere still allows me to recommend this game. But my overall score would be 6/10.

 

[Titanpaul]

Gave this two hours with it being on Gamepass. Presentation is excellent and I really am interested in the narrative but I find it too slow and the controls (Xbox) are too weight / heavy (I understand this is antigrav, but I prefer Outer Wilds approach). Don't think it's for me, but I'm glad some of y'all enjoyed it.

 

[fanboy]

So, the lip sync is awfully off right? Otherwise, its quite interesting.

 

[Wouwie]

I'm trying this out with PS+ and it's a mixed bag so far. I like the atmosphere, the visuals, the presentation and the voice acting. And i'm curious to find out how the story unfolds. However, while i generally have no problem with slow games, some tasks take way too much time and it becomes repetitive. Scanning a room with a very slow moving camera searching for a code is testing my patience. The developer wanted to aim for realism, i guess. Also, i have trouble orientating and finding things in the outside area. And sometimes it's unclear what to do next which means i'm just wandering around way too long.

I'm not sure if i'll continue playing due to the issues i have with the gameplay but i still think it's an interesting game.