Skyshine's BEDLAM - Review @ Eurogamer

HiddenX

HiddenX

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Chris Bratt (Eurogamer) has some problems with BEDLAM:

Skyshine's Bedlam brings together a number of ideas that sound fantastic on paper, but in reality, prove frustrating.

Permadeath can make all the difference. With the right game built around it this one simple not-really-a-word can transform a player's experience into something that feels consistently important. Screw up and you suffer the consequences, but if you make the right call, you'll be that much more satisfied in your victory. It's the reason that many of us fell in love with XCOM three years ago - but it's important to remember that it wasn't the only reason. You see, for permadeath to work, almost everything else needs to be designed around it and in Skyshine's Bedlam, that isn't always the case.

Which is a shame! Because at first glance, I think Bedlam has a lot going for it. Set in one of those post-apocalyptic worlds that video games like so much, you're tasked with crossing the nuclear wasteland in hopes of salvation. Reach Aztec City, they tell you, and you might survive. Alright, okay, this isn't an entirely new concept, but it does provide all of the necessary context for a world that contains cyborgs, mutants, cyborg mutants, and characters that didn't quite make it into the latest Mad Max. And anyway, regardless of all that, the means of transport is brill: a giant rolling fortress, known as a 'Dozer'.

[…]

Skyshine Games are already talking about their first major patch, and hopefully some of these problems will be addressed - along with some of the more significant bugs. As it stands right now, you can expect the game to crash at least once or twice during a run through the wastelands of Bedlam, and I've also run into a number of encounters in which the enemy simply refused to fight back.

I'd be surprised if these issues weren't eventually fixed, but even then, I'd struggle to recommend Skyshine's Bedlam. It does have some interesting ideas and it's a fantastic setting to play around in, but fundamentally, there's a mix of ideas here that just doesn't quite work. I like that it's a difficult game, but it needs to be a fair one as well.
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This game needed a bit more time before release.

The developers sent out keys to Kickstarter backers, like me, less than a week before release. They started changing the game, and balancing, based on the feedback they received during those few days. It's never a good sign when a developer starts changing and tweaking so many things so shortly before release, and the "final" release showed that. And they are still changing the game. Maybe they were running out of funds, and needed the game out the door, but they should have labelled the game "early access" until they properly polish the game.

As it stands, the game does some things rights, but for others its a game in search of identity. Visually, it looks great, and the soundtrack is pretty cool as well. But currently, the actual gameplay, particularly the random encounters, are very unpolished. The developers are still changing things like number of turns, hitpoints of classes, damage done, (…). Plus, the loading times for these encounters are a bit annoying, and make the game slower paced than it should, considering they clearly based much of the game around FTL-style gameplay.

I hope I didn't sound too negative. The game still shows the same promise that made me back it on Kickstarter in the first place, but currently, as it stands, it just doesn't feel at all finished. I'm sure the developers can add the needed polish, bug fixing and balancing in the next few weeks, and hopefully by late October, the game will be in a shape that will fulfil its promise.
 
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Players who like fun, fulfilling games that don't try to terrorize your lil' heart with horrible Permadeath can now simply ALT+TAB, save a copy of 'resume.save.json' located in "c:\Users\your_username\AppData\Roaming\SkyshinesBedlam\Local Store\save\saga1\0\".

Save it often. Loading loses POIs - points of interest - but it doesn't matter, since you can always backtrack and get infinite POIs.

Grinding - visiting every inch of the map via backtracking and discovering all major entry points - with high-level ELITE units can result in food and crude in the thousands.

Quite a fun game this way! Doesn't drain/vampirize you with the stress of Permadeath, when you expect a leisure fun time without any stress actually and a good fun recharge of your energy.

Currently I'm hunting for a robotic ELITE unit - randomly popping up in POI encounters on the land of savage AIs -, which easily decimated my level 24 Chunderok (31-HP hit). I would like it on my team. Sweet Centauri Alliance memories!
 
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Playing a roguelike with savescumming defeats the purpose of the game.
Like playing a shooter with IDDQD activated.

I mean if you have fun with that go ahead, I personally would ruin the game even further by doing so.
 
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