Industria

I recall vaguely watching Industria (or INDUSTRIA, as it is stylized in caps) being played. What I remember clearly, though, is that one of the game's few developers from Bleakmill was in chat and said that they had ran out of money and the finished product (funded by the Epic grant apparently) is a third of what they had wanted. I thought that was the end of Industria's story. But then a sequel was announced. I put the first game on my wishlist, Epic shortly after offering it for free.

A 4-hour FPS tech demo

Industria turned out to be a complete waste of time -- for the few hours it lasts. There's just not enough game here: a first person shooter with four basic guns, an axe, a batteries-chewing flashlight, and health vials. And that's about it as far as mechanics go. Enemies are a selection of different robots. One of them is the annoying, suicidal kind of enemy that runs to you to explode, which usually meant instant death at least on the harder difficulty I stupidly decided to play Industria on.

The game begins in Germany as the Wall is going down. The setting was a surprise because I had checked keybindings before starting and noted how assumed-flashlight key was labeled as 'torch'. I guess I don't know what I expected but it definitely was not Cold War era Germany. I think Bleakmill's few developers are from Germany and  the UK -- or they just slavishly used British English. I spotted few errors in the subtitles and in-game texts, too.

You play as Nora who works at a research facility that is experimenting with interdimensional travel or something along those lines. Your co-worker Walter disappears into the multiverse and you follow him. Walter apparently arrived in the parallel universe way before you and has become some sort of a national leader. Places are overrun with robots and there's mostly no living soul around as you try to find Walter.

Between chapters, there's always a dream-like interlude in a brutalist library that reminded me very much of the local city library here, just on a bigger scale.

The developers appear to be heavily inspired by Valve's Half-Life games. These days, I don't think it's enough to get even on the same level because Half-Life is not a terribly mechanics-rich title. You'd achieve a fairly entertaining, linear first person shooter at most. That would be an improvement for Industria but surely one could aim higher and be more interesting. Maybe they'll be able to do that in Industria II.