I think the best way forward with this game would have been to focus efforts on building an in-game level designer (ala LittleBigPlanet or Dreams). Then you ship the game with a handful of demo levels, and let the community run wild building more levels.
I'm glad you made Scanner over this. I still think it is a hidden gem in the walking simulator genre. It was deep in a way that Wrong Wire isn't. It's too bad you lost money over it... I hope over time Scanner gets some of the recognition I think it deserves.
Watching the timer tick down while you guys chat was killing me - I wanted to listen and enjoy the chat, but part of me wanted to wrench m&k away from you and disarm the bomb XD
When you guys were working on scanner, I was following all your videos about it. You guys released it but didnt send out a video saying it was out, or if you did I missed it. I only found out years later that it was out, and bought it.
Yes ! Another Fail Masterclass. Love these series ! Question: At what point during the dev you decide that it is a fail ? Also with some prototypes, you seemed to know that it would be a fail but keep going, why ? Cheers!
I really want to see more VR games that are stationary and about doing stuff with your hands picking things up and moving them around. There's this VR puzzle game on steam called bending the light that has a lot of interesting ideas.
@@dY5FUNCT10N4L They sold PA for an amount large enough to do almost anything else they might wish to do. Sipping cocktails on a beach for the rest of their life, or perhaps making something else with no direct pressure from life. Not as much as Notch got for Minecraft, but plenty none the less. I certainly don't blame them for selling out in that way.
@@GlanderBrondurg Listen, I paid to put my name in the game. I gave I.S permission for that. Not paradox interactive, who now owns my name as a piece of IP... you can sit here and stroke ego till your arm comes off but these boys scan as pricks to me.
I've played the Wrong Wire prototype included in Sombre the other day and am craving more of it, would love for the idea to be expanded on in the future.
This game has a feel a lot like Zachtronic's Rukingenur series. It's very fun to play with the various puzzles involving strange electronics, but the effort to make levels vastly outstripped the amount of time a player needed to go through (If you were to speedrun with full knowledge of everything, I bet you could play through all 3 games in about 15 minutes), so he decided to cut the idea loose so he could put his time toward something else.
Great to be able play this. I wonder how many people are similar to me in that they only play certain types of games on PC. For me, the PC is for games like Rollercoaster Tycoon, Theme Hospital, AoE, PA... Games where you don't walk around. I feel like Wrong Wire is the sort of thing I would have played on a PC, whereas SS was something I'd play on a console. That's what I always thought stopped the army of PA players from picking up Scanner, not UA-camrs.
I think the bomb itself as a puzzle could easily get stale quite fast, but if you were to tie in a few of your other ideas that actually creates working infrastructure and allows you to interact with the world at large, you could have a really interesting game. Something like a reverse escape room where you have to break into a building complex and find the bomb on the correct floor and then defuse it, circumventing a series of boobytraps along the way. I imagine that even with actual bomb defusal (naively, with nothing but hollywood tropes to lean on), there's only so many ways that you're going to see a circuit put together, but along the way you pick up on a particular style and preference that infers who made it or what school of engineering is behind it. I always remember back to your videos on Subversion where the systems broadly speaking allowed you to do anything, but subsequently nothing ever quite stopped you from just blowing a hole in the wall. Perhaps coupling those systems into something like this could lead to a much greater replayability and keep the game more than just x one-shot puzzles
I agree with others already posted that if modding was added, it would of gone on to do good numbers. It would of initially needed say 20+ levels created by yourselves but sold at a low-ish price with modding or a simple level designer then it could of been picked up by the community and had a life of a good few years of popularity.
I so wanted wrong wire back in the voting days. And seeing some of the puzzle elements I want it even more. The eeprom stuff (electronics in general) is amazing.
There is a game called "Bomb Squad Academy" on Steam that is based on same concept (but there is no context/story behind each puzzle). I don't know if they got inspired by Wrong Wire demo or not.
In Megaprocessor you were building things, in this you're analyzing something that's already built to take it apart. Both are satisfying but in a very different way. Kind of like the difference between PA's sandbox and escape modes.
I wish escape mode was more of a simulation rather than an arcade mode. Sort of "live in your prison". It feels very gamey in a way that the main game doesn't.
I think the Unity discussion is fair. It's a really cool, comprehensive tool but on the other hand it does sort of lean people into doing things a certain way: specifically, what does Unity allow for me to do? That's what I'll do then. It's liberating to be able to get something up and running easily, but it can also be creatively confining since the answer to a problem is usually to see if Unity does it for you rather than really understanding what you want to accomplish and building something that does that. This is probably amplified towards aspiring programmers, as people with a lot of experience know when to leverage the tools and when to write their own, but I can appreciate Chris' Unity aversion on those grounds.
I think going with Somber was the right move since there are a few similar games to wrong wire where as there are NO games similar to Somber. Somber is a beautifully unique game
I Expect You To Die is the only other VR game I can think of that's even close to this design. Though it has more humor and less simulation, I believe.
The way you describe doing a database of objects with a separate renderer etc... I assume you've looked at ECS? :) It's Unity's new architecture, and it sounds much more like how you're used to thinking about games.
Its a shame. This was my most anticipated new game from you guys lol. Well least I know not to look forward to it haha!! Well, hopefully someone will make an awesome bomb detenation game soon!!!
There were a series of Flash games called Kaitai Dismantlement at one point which were a very similar concept to Wrong Wire, with bombs hidden in various household objects you needed to first dismantle and then defuse. They were fairly popular, I think, but I guess they're gone now because Flash.
Most of them aren't there, but a couple of Dismantlement games made it into Flashpoint Infinity. It's been a big wave of nostalgia browsing through for what they do have preserved.
This game reminds me of zachtronics Ruckingenur II it's the same thing, but in 3D and with realistic graphics, also a more messed up master mind. I remember defusing a Atomic bomb that made my brain go "boom" several times on it. same it doesn't have a continuation P.S.: it did used real "debug code", unlike yours... guess isn't same thing, however is very similar.
Tried the Atom Bomb puzzle and didn't realize that was defusing it since there were all those yellow ones left to cut... just sat there for another 10 minutes thinking about it and then cutting ... and then just cutting everything until I gave up and came here. Looks like I did it but didn't have much info that I did? lol.
Have you considered selling the code and the rights of Wrong Wire to an indy studio that would thrive on this sort of game? Because a good chunk of logic and assets are already made. I could imagine that some devs that can make puzzles could make something really nice from this start.
You guys should fully release this game and add a steam workshop feature where people can craft their own bombs in it's own environment to be put on the workshop so the game has near unlimited playability and maybe it could become the next Prison Architect* *on the No. of sales that is
I am just amazed I didn't play scanner. I would have bought it too, but I just don't know why. I think scanner got something wrong with discoverability for buyers, like me.
Also having seen all these videos, just buy a license for "three body problem" and let him loose. It's clearly the game he wants to make, and the popularity of that series will explode in 3 years when Netflix get around to it.
31:26 - On the subject of watching a game vs playing it, if I may offer some insight? I watch a ton of youtube, mostly gameplay, and the kind of games I watch that I then go on to play are the ones where I get to tinker with systems and mechanics. I see someone building a vehicle in Stormworks for example and think 'I could do that better', or 'that gives me an idea', and the more I feel that the more likely I am to pick up a game to play myself. I do love a great story in a game and I play a lot of RPGs, but I pretty much never watch gameplay of RPGs. I feel like horror/'experience' games and even puzzle games fall into a similar category - the fun is in the doing, and watching someone else do it is just less engaging. I dunno how common my outlook is though.
Was this really a game about "diffusing" bombs (i.e., spreading them out), or did you just fail consistently at writing "defusal" (removing a fuse)? :-P
Wonder if you could have gone with the "Mario Maker" route with this game. Have players make levels/puzzles and watch 99% of players make hot garbage while 1% make truly astonishing stuff
I'm certain there's a hunger in the market for games where you can easily make levels for other people that's not locked behind nintendo. Some of the contraptions and designs people come up with in Mario Maker is incredible despite having no language and only "set" pieces ua-cam.com/video/I0WaecObsFk/v-deo.html
Its like the room game but bomb focused and more complicated systems. if you simplified the back end you could churn out more content and have something
Hey Chris or Mark: I've been trying to contact support about getting my forum account deleted. No response at all. My original request was via the forum contact form on the 21st of Feb. I've made a number of follow-up emails but no-one responds. Why?
I never understood how you were basically tricked to make Scanner Sombre (at least it feels like it from looking in from the outside). Maybe it was an interesting game to make, but it would never be a big success.
i have a fair few thoughts especially after this game's demo and some of the stuff they talk about firstly, i feel chris focuses way too much on technicalities and details before building out game systems that are fun. here it's plainly obvious that before figuring out the game portion of this game, he went right deep into how various components would interact and trying to make them realistic. with all the other space, moon and other prototypes, the focus seemed way too deep into details of how the things would work rather than abstractions they could build out and make fun. so much work into detailed systems meant unlike something like "keep talking and nobody explodes" where the abstractions meant discrete components with mechanics that could be randomised and enabled new ones to be modded into the game, this game offers a linear, controlled experience. prison architect, uplink and other games worked because the details were abstracted to an extent. in PA, you weren't really in control of the prison but gave a vague sense of direction to the data and they behaved accordingly. the systems being fairly hands-off meant you were free to experiment with layouts and behaviours to either make a utiopia (as far as prisons go) or a totalitarian hellscape. this brings me to the other point you need to be able to build stories with these games. their assessment of short narrative driven games seems almost completely off the mark. i've not played scanner sombre but at first glance, it looks like such a dry shallow game. when you look at other narrative driven games, most of them are either driven by compelling characters or an interesting story, both of which are evocative and produce emotional responses in the player. something that can be shared by youtube let's-players and streamers but can also prompt people to buy the game too. something like among us is a perfect example of viewers looking to make their own stories and experiences. dyson sphere program, factorio, rimworld and PA allowed for that sort of stories to emerge. here, again, the linear controlled experience looks dry and sanitised. but this could have worked if there were far more puzzles that were less hand-holdy and simplistic but looking at how much effort it took to make just 4 of these, i suppose that would have far too difficult to execute ultimately, for most of these, i find myself agreeing with mark a lot. this looks like a fun start to the game but even chris realised he didn't know how to take it forward. i'm very happy that someone like mark is there to ground chris and both of them know it too
I remember the vote: Wrong Wire vs Scanner Sombre
I was really sad when Wrong Wire lost. But Scanner Sombre is a really good game so I'm not complaining.
Scanner is a textbook case of style over substance
I think the best way forward with this game would have been to focus efforts on building an in-game level designer (ala LittleBigPlanet or Dreams). Then you ship the game with a handful of demo levels, and let the community run wild building more levels.
This was exactly my thought as well
That would sell. I'd love to see them go for it.
Love the little photo of Dr Strangelove inside the atomic bomb.
I'm glad you made Scanner over this. I still think it is a hidden gem in the walking simulator genre. It was deep in a way that Wrong Wire isn't. It's too bad you lost money over it... I hope over time Scanner gets some of the recognition I think it deserves.
Lol, I loved that, "is like, we just want someone else to make it so then we can play it", perfect.
tbh I voted for Wrong Wire back in the day and was kinda mad you guys went with Scanner lol
Yeah, me too. Even refused to play it for a long time. And hated it after finally playing it.
Me too. Haven't touched Scanner because it looks naff.
Watching the timer tick down while you guys chat was killing me - I wanted to listen and enjoy the chat, but part of me wanted to wrench m&k away from you and disarm the bomb XD
I loved lethal weapon 3! Great childhood film. Thanks for sharing your insight in these videos, I finally got around to watching them!
I've been missing this game since the poll you made of it vs Scanner Sombre lol
When you guys were working on scanner, I was following all your videos about it. You guys released it but didnt send out a video saying it was out, or if you did I missed it. I only found out years later that it was out, and bought it.
Yes ! Another Fail Masterclass. Love these series !
Question: At what point during the dev you decide that it is a fail ? Also with some prototypes, you seemed to know that it would be a fail but keep going, why ?
Cheers!
I really want to see more VR games that are stationary and about doing stuff with your hands picking things up and moving them around. There's this VR puzzle game on steam called bending the light that has a lot of interesting ideas.
I seriously can't understand why these videos aren't as popular as they clearly should be
These videos are popular....
Well I cant understand why they sold Prison architect without telling anyone they were going to do it.
@@dY5FUNCT10N4L They sold PA for an amount large enough to do almost anything else they might wish to do. Sipping cocktails on a beach for the rest of their life, or perhaps making something else with no direct pressure from life.
Not as much as Notch got for Minecraft, but plenty none the less. I certainly don't blame them for selling out in that way.
@@GlanderBrondurg
Listen, I paid to put my name in the game. I gave I.S permission for that. Not paradox interactive, who now owns my name as a piece of IP... you can sit here and stroke ego till your arm comes off but these boys scan as pricks to me.
@@GlanderBrondurg and just cause you've no moral compass dont expect me to accept disgraceful behaviour
I've played the Wrong Wire prototype included in Sombre the other day and am craving more of it, would love for the idea to be expanded on in the future.
You could have created a level editor for Wrong Wire, then put the game on Steam with Workshop. Endless game.
+7 Generic Approval Points
This game has a feel a lot like Zachtronic's Rukingenur series. It's very fun to play with the various puzzles involving strange electronics, but the effort to make levels vastly outstripped the amount of time a player needed to go through (If you were to speedrun with full knowledge of everything, I bet you could play through all 3 games in about 15 minutes), so he decided to cut the idea loose so he could put his time toward something else.
Great to be able play this. I wonder how many people are similar to me in that they only play certain types of games on PC. For me, the PC is for games like Rollercoaster Tycoon, Theme Hospital, AoE, PA... Games where you don't walk around. I feel like Wrong Wire is the sort of thing I would have played on a PC, whereas SS was something I'd play on a console. That's what I always thought stopped the army of PA players from picking up Scanner, not UA-camrs.
I think the bomb itself as a puzzle could easily get stale quite fast, but if you were to tie in a few of your other ideas that actually creates working infrastructure and allows you to interact with the world at large, you could have a really interesting game. Something like a reverse escape room where you have to break into a building complex and find the bomb on the correct floor and then defuse it, circumventing a series of boobytraps along the way.
I imagine that even with actual bomb defusal (naively, with nothing but hollywood tropes to lean on), there's only so many ways that you're going to see a circuit put together, but along the way you pick up on a particular style and preference that infers who made it or what school of engineering is behind it.
I always remember back to your videos on Subversion where the systems broadly speaking allowed you to do anything, but subsequently nothing ever quite stopped you from just blowing a hole in the wall. Perhaps coupling those systems into something like this could lead to a much greater replayability and keep the game more than just x one-shot puzzles
FINALLY A CHANCE TO PLAY THIS
There was a way to play this before. I remember playing it somehow.
I agree with others already posted that if modding was added, it would of gone on to do good numbers.
It would of initially needed say 20+ levels created by yourselves but sold at a low-ish price with modding or a simple level designer then it could of been picked up by the community and had a life of a good few years of popularity.
I so wanted wrong wire back in the voting days. And seeing some of the puzzle elements I want it even more. The eeprom stuff (electronics in general) is amazing.
There is a game called "Bomb Squad Academy" on Steam that is based on same concept (but there is no context/story behind each puzzle).
I don't know if they got inspired by Wrong Wire demo or not.
A short and enjoyable puzzle game! Conceptually the opposite to this more "cinematic" approach, though.
In Megaprocessor you were building things, in this you're analyzing something that's already built to take it apart. Both are satisfying but in a very different way. Kind of like the difference between PA's sandbox and escape modes.
I wish escape mode was more of a simulation rather than an arcade mode. Sort of "live in your prison". It feels very gamey in a way that the main game doesn't.
I think the Unity discussion is fair. It's a really cool, comprehensive tool but on the other hand it does sort of lean people into doing things a certain way: specifically, what does Unity allow for me to do? That's what I'll do then. It's liberating to be able to get something up and running easily, but it can also be creatively confining since the answer to a problem is usually to see if Unity does it for you rather than really understanding what you want to accomplish and building something that does that. This is probably amplified towards aspiring programmers, as people with a lot of experience know when to leverage the tools and when to write their own, but I can appreciate Chris' Unity aversion on those grounds.
I really enjoyed scanner sombre as it was such a unique experience, real shame it didn't do very well
Just the video I needed before work, cheers all at Introversion 😁
I finally get to play wrong wire?!?! best friday ever.
I think going with Somber was the right move since there are a few similar games to wrong wire where as there are NO games similar to Somber. Somber is a beautifully unique game
I Expect You To Die is the only other VR game I can think of that's even close to this design. Though it has more humor and less simulation, I believe.
Your prototypes are better and look better than 90% of games on steam Oo
Hey, it's the prototype I voted for that one time!
The puzzle style reminds me of The Room series of games. I've also no idea how they managed to make so much content in their levels.
The graphic assets came from the internet. Cheap or free. That's how.
The way you describe doing a database of objects with a separate renderer etc... I assume you've looked at ECS? :) It's Unity's new architecture, and it sounds much more like how you're used to thinking about games.
Scanner Sombre was great (still want a editor for that game, please make one and lets us create new storys in it).
Its a shame. This was my most anticipated new game from you guys lol. Well least I know not to look forward to it haha!! Well, hopefully someone will make an awesome bomb detenation game soon!!!
Nice and atmospheric, but I can maybe see why did not take this forward. Conceptually it reminds me quite a lot of those puzzle box games...The Room.
There were a series of Flash games called Kaitai Dismantlement at one point which were a very similar concept to Wrong Wire, with bombs hidden in various household objects you needed to first dismantle and then defuse. They were fairly popular, I think, but I guess they're gone now because Flash.
so much lost with the death of flash ;_;
Most of them aren't there, but a couple of Dismantlement games made it into Flashpoint Infinity. It's been a big wave of nostalgia browsing through for what they do have preserved.
My main issue with this is that bombs are defused, not diffused. I mean, a bomb being diffused is what happens when it isn't defused.
I would love to see this Wong Wire completed with mod support.
Played Scanner for the first time on PCVR recently. Still an amazing game, would probably do well on Oculus Game Lab.
Make this in VR and you win game development
This game reminds me of zachtronics Ruckingenur II
it's the same thing, but in 3D and with realistic graphics, also a more messed up master mind.
I remember defusing a Atomic bomb that made my brain go "boom" several times on it.
same it doesn't have a continuation
P.S.: it did used real "debug code", unlike yours... guess isn't same thing, however is very similar.
Tried the Atom Bomb puzzle and didn't realize that was defusing it since there were all those yellow ones left to cut... just sat there for another 10 minutes thinking about it and then cutting ... and then just cutting everything until I gave up and came here. Looks like I did it but didn't have much info that I did? lol.
Prototypes :D
you defiantly would've made your money back
This game reminds me of Infinifactory. It lacks a certain repeatability inherent in that game but it has the same feel to me.
Have you considered selling the code and the rights of Wrong Wire to an indy studio that would thrive on this sort of game? Because a good chunk of logic and assets are already made. I could imagine that some devs that can make puzzles could make something really nice from this start.
More please PRISON ARCHITECT! And you can post on Apple store and Google play prison architect(pc version)?
They sold the rights to PA to another company.
@@miquelfire Yes. It belongs to Paradox now and they've been releasing DLC.
Hmm... where did I see this before...
You guys should fully release this game and add a steam workshop feature where people can craft their own bombs in it's own environment to be put on the workshop so the game has near unlimited playability and maybe it could become the next Prison Architect*
*on the No. of sales that is
This looks great, similar to I expect you to die. Most of these "failed" games are better than a lot of games that actually do release!
I am just amazed I didn't play scanner. I would have bought it too, but I just don't know why. I think scanner got something wrong with discoverability for buyers, like me.
Also having seen all these videos, just buy a license for "three body problem" and let him loose. It's clearly the game he wants to make, and the popularity of that series will explode in 3 years when Netflix get around to it.
31:26 - On the subject of watching a game vs playing it, if I may offer some insight? I watch a ton of youtube, mostly gameplay, and the kind of games I watch that I then go on to play are the ones where I get to tinker with systems and mechanics. I see someone building a vehicle in Stormworks for example and think 'I could do that better', or 'that gives me an idea', and the more I feel that the more likely I am to pick up a game to play myself. I do love a great story in a game and I play a lot of RPGs, but I pretty much never watch gameplay of RPGs. I feel like horror/'experience' games and even puzzle games fall into a similar category - the fun is in the doing, and watching someone else do it is just less engaging. I dunno how common my outlook is though.
Mark is wrong because he's not right!!
Was this really a game about "diffusing" bombs (i.e., spreading them out), or did you just fail consistently at writing "defusal" (removing a fuse)? :-P
Wonder if you could have gone with the "Mario Maker" route with this game. Have players make levels/puzzles and watch 99% of players make hot garbage while 1% make truly astonishing stuff
I'm certain there's a hunger in the market for games where you can easily make levels for other people that's not locked behind nintendo. Some of the contraptions and designs people come up with in Mario Maker is incredible despite having no language and only "set" pieces
ua-cam.com/video/I0WaecObsFk/v-deo.html
Scanner Sombre was a mistake.
Its like the room game but bomb focused and more complicated systems. if you simplified the back end you could churn out more content and have something
#ChrisArmy
Didn't Scanner Sombre end up failing in the end.
guiz
UPLINK OS should be a Facebook game
Hey Chris or Mark: I've been trying to contact support about getting my forum account deleted. No response at all. My original request was via the forum contact form on the 21st of Feb. I've made a number of follow-up emails but no-one responds. Why?
I never understood how you were basically tricked to make Scanner Sombre (at least it feels like it from looking in from the outside). Maybe it was an interesting game to make, but it would never be a big success.
i have a fair few thoughts especially after this game's demo and some of the stuff they talk about
firstly, i feel chris focuses way too much on technicalities and details before building out game systems that are fun. here it's plainly obvious that before figuring out the game portion of this game, he went right deep into how various components would interact and trying to make them realistic. with all the other space, moon and other prototypes, the focus seemed way too deep into details of how the things would work rather than abstractions they could build out and make fun. so much work into detailed systems meant unlike something like "keep talking and nobody explodes" where the abstractions meant discrete components with mechanics that could be randomised and enabled new ones to be modded into the game, this game offers a linear, controlled experience. prison architect, uplink and other games worked because the details were abstracted to an extent. in PA, you weren't really in control of the prison but gave a vague sense of direction to the data and they behaved accordingly. the systems being fairly hands-off meant you were free to experiment with layouts and behaviours to either make a utiopia (as far as prisons go) or a totalitarian hellscape. this brings me to the other point
you need to be able to build stories with these games. their assessment of short narrative driven games seems almost completely off the mark. i've not played scanner sombre but at first glance, it looks like such a dry shallow game. when you look at other narrative driven games, most of them are either driven by compelling characters or an interesting story, both of which are evocative and produce emotional responses in the player. something that can be shared by youtube let's-players and streamers but can also prompt people to buy the game too. something like among us is a perfect example of viewers looking to make their own stories and experiences. dyson sphere program, factorio, rimworld and PA allowed for that sort of stories to emerge. here, again, the linear controlled experience looks dry and sanitised. but this could have worked if there were far more puzzles that were less hand-holdy and simplistic but looking at how much effort it took to make just 4 of these, i suppose that would have far too difficult to execute
ultimately, for most of these, i find myself agreeing with mark a lot. this looks like a fun start to the game but even chris realised he didn't know how to take it forward. i'm very happy that someone like mark is there to ground chris and both of them know it too
"expired"
Why doesn’t Mobil hav escape mode
Guys, stop.
Everyone has LONG since lost interest....
wym? This series is getting pretty consistent views. Don't project your own feelings on everyone. You're welcome to unsub.
Awddd fddd, everyone who is still here has NOT lost interest. If you aren't interested, don't click.
@@Huntracony 2k views.
Breathtaking
@@jjknave
Sorry I mean "everyone who matters"
@@dY5FUNCT10N4L You are forgiven for your misstatement of your incorrect view.