Scanner Sombre: Analysis of a Flawed but Underappreciated Game

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] this is scanner somber a game where your character wakes up to escape a Cave System he descended into these caves to discover these almost mythical ruins of an ancient cult nearly lost to time he had been looking for this place for decades and now he finally found it now he just needs to go back the way he came and get out your only means of hiking your way through the cave system is a rather unique exploration tool called liar or light detection and ranging you have a gun that sprays lasers in semi- random directions and a computer calculates the distance of each hit and then represents that information information back to you in the form of a color gradient on your visor with enough laser hits you can map out the Contours of the cave and navigate your way around it but as you're witnessing the science and Technical detail of how this works is way less interesting than the perception of actually playing it the visual dichotomy of beautiful and color dot patterns marking the cave system versus the complete and utter Blackness of everything else not mapped the auditory dichotomy of the constant wine of the lar gun firing hundreds of lasers in random directions every minute versus the howling wind of the cave system and your own footsteps as you walk [Music] around loneliness you're meant to feel alone exploring these caves shrouded in darkness with your liar gun and is your only friend this game is effectively a walking simulator with elements of horror and desolation though this is also a unique kind of Storytelling and atmosphere that can only be Express of such a simple interface you can't see anything until you mapped it out for yourself until that point it's all just darkness and the sounds of the cave [Music] bellowing scanner somber was made in 2017 by introversion software a UK based Indie developer Studio known for darwinia a somewhat cutesy but semi-serious real-time strategy game about a community of AI programs trying to survive different corrupted entities spawned from a computer virus and perhaps even better known for prison architect a somewhat cutesy but semi-serious prison management Sim which was widly successful 2 million copies sold but this was a change of pace for them after 4 years of development on Prison Architect before its release and another two years of continuous support and development afterwards introversion wanted to do something different indeed scanner somber is a much different tone than their other games and I welcome the kind of creative experimentation on display here this game looked to be inner versions 4 a into more serious storytelling perhaps sometimes stumbling with certain elements here and there but useful as a pilot to learn from and produce even better story Centric games if you haven't played scanner somber and any of this interests you I encourage you to just pick up a copy on Steam it's six bucks includes the soundtrack and a single walkthrough is only 3 to 4 hours the gameplay of scanner somber is really just walking around exploring the different parts of the cave as you find your way upwards the wandering around reminds me of halflife and the many fpss that followed it where you're not quite sure where you need to go but you're invisibly pushed into a linear Direction you'll typically just find the areas you haven't mapped out yet with your light on and go there you do get upgrades for your lighter setup which makes exploring a bit easier eventually you get a map which is neat to look at to see how far you've come but I found that I've actually didn't need to use it that much though sometimes you do get turned around and it can save you a lot of backtracking if you don't really recognize where you've been before one of the most useful upgrades is the burst scan which blasts a large field of lasers in front of you in a grid leaving these strange Moray interference patterns as the 2D scan of the lasers lands on the 3D landscape it greatly improves your ability to map out the caves and you'll be constantly eager for that burst to charge back up before you can hit it once more feeling that tiny hit of Serotonin as your pitch black canvas gets painted with a power of hundreds of laser lines but it's not not all lonely exploration while you artfully paint the caves in rainbow colors this was the former home of a rather sacrificial cult and they may have gone extinct a thousand years ago but strange apparitions and ghosts in the machine show up on your visor sometimes you map out a region and notice a certain humanlike shape block your lasers producing these Shadows on the walls but you're never quite sure what is actively hostile and what isn't are these ghosts moving are they following you or are they going to leave you [Applause] alone is it safe to go here nope nope nope [ __ ] no definitely not safe there [Applause] scanner sommer's visual design is impressive with how little the developers are working with the colorful rainbow of dots is Beautiful by default even if it is a functional representation of depth blue dots still show up as a path of your travels farther away the ghosts and apparitions are still creepy and scary looking achieving their goal of keeping you on edge as you find these things breaking up the quiet Solitude of mapping your area winding through the tunnels and avoiding large pits [Music] [Music] in fact you'll lose yourself in the dots enough that you might forget that most of the game is Just unmapped polygons a studio that doesn't really dive into firstperson games or fully realized 3D environments might not have the expertise in large complicated 3D modeling with face maps and shadows and Ray tracing and God rays and facial animations that map to voice lines and all the rest of that nonsense so like don't do any of that just strip away everything until complete pitch black darkness remains and paint the environment in dots colorful dots Green Dots white dots the absence of dots the subtraction of information to let your imagination wander in horrible directions you paint the objects and there is just enough information to figure out what you're looking at and no more why show more why break the illusion your mind is already filling in the gaps it's a brilliant idea that plays to their strengths while covering up their weaknesses oh and did I mention this game is in VR yep the VR version comes with the game and if you like scaring yourself completely with 360 VR vision and a pair of headphones that's definitely an option the sound design is also doing a lot of heavy lifting here most of the time you'll hear the whine of your lar gun shooting lasers all over the place sometimes in a lower pitch widespread pattern but you can change your aperture to a focus beam and get this higher pitch sound the burst scan has a satisfying sound when it's active and this charging up wine as you wait for it to recover every footstep in this place matches the material you're walking on giving you more information about your environment most of the time it's just the unforgiving Cave [Music] Rock but there is the splash of water the slos of Mud The Familiar clunk of wood planks rocks getting kicked over the side the dangerous sound of sliding down a hill despite not fully seeing what it is most of the time you can still hear the materials and objects as you walk on it and of course the sounds of the Cave the rush of [Music] wind that seems to get louder as you approach a large bottomless ASM everything Echoes perfectly small caves and tunnels feel claustrophobic while the increased reverberation of a larger cave forces you to watch your step as you approach the Phantoms that live here also have their own uneasy and terrifying sounds [Applause] too another integral part of the sound design is scanner sombra's music most of the playthrough you're just hearing the loneliness of the Cave System among your own footsteps and the sound of the scanner but during certain Discovery points a song will start causing you to pay attention to the details the music is dark and brooding breaking the days of walking quietly through the cave replacing it with a more Sinister tone of unease and Malice and well like halflife again the infrequent use of Music elevates the moments of Discovery the music was written by Alister Lindsay who is also responsible for the sound design of the game some may recognize that name as the one who wrote The Wonderful soundtrack for rimor a game I've put way too much time into and thoroughly enjoy the music while I was playing it so let me indulge in a few songs for a game that isn't even scanner somber but I assure you this will become relevant in a minute [Music] [Music] you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] he also created the soundtrack to in version's big hit Prison Architect although what you might not know is the personal condition he was in when he had to make those sound tracks in his own words just prior to commencing work on scanos somra I had experienced an intensely busy and emotionally brutal couple of years which I had lost to terminal illness all three of my cats my dog and then finally my father two during this period I had designed sounds and composed music for several games most notably Rim world made by lugan and introver ba award-winning prison architect to stay professionally positive and therefore be able to write the mostly emotionally neutral or happy music that these gains required was not easy but was nonetheless essential just imagine having to deal with that loss and working in a creative outlet that requires these emotional components to feed into that outlet but all you can really do is just bury what you're feeling and continue to produce music that would evoke feelings of what the story is supposed to contain the fact that rim World soundtrack is as good as it is well that's really a testament to his talent as a composer as it turned out we just finished Prison Architect when my father passed away what should have been a time for Joy Jubilation and a sense of Pride and victory was instead usurped by feelings of nausea anger and devastating loss and again that's true I mean it sounds like a very sad story um sounds like I'm almost looking for sympathy or something I'm not but uh yeah I've been working on these games for quite a long time you know some of them for years and releasing a game of finishing it it's a great occasion it really is you put your heart and soul into these things and um and it's a great team effort as well and there's that feeling of we've all been in this together and and here we are we've done it we've made it and actually it's pretty good what we've done they had this massive conflict this big dichotomy kind of like something that you know should be a massive event almost felt like it's being taken from you so after finishing these projects Alistair started working on the sound and music of scanner somber it was an unusual opportunity to take on a project that well fit his current state of mind or at least he was able to take all of these dark and negative emotions and channel them into music that needed that sort of oppressive hostility what I needed was a bottomless pit of NeverEnding Doom where all hope must be abandoned where only pain and grief can Thrive somewhere that would need the kind of music I had wanted to give birth to for an entire year and that was scanner somber it was absolutely perfect for me to work on at that time um I had wanted to write music that was disturbing and dystopian and dark and uh lost and oppressive and claustrophobic and lonely and angry though despite channeling all of that anger and grief into the soundtrack Alistair could still produce moments of Serenity and Tranquility for certain pivotal scenes [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay I'm going to be spoiling the whole story here in this section this is your last chance to just stop the video and try out the game for yourself again it's $6 on Steam it's a quick playthrough and you get both the soundtrack and VR version of of the game with that still here all right I warned you so let's get into it our protagonist starts off waking up in his tent a family photo by his side he walks outside and picks up his light art gun and visor ready to make his way back [Applause] up also he's not really named in the game but they call him Ethan in the game asset so I'll just use that while the environment in each distinct section of the Cave System silently tells its own story Ethan explains most of the context as he explores he explains how he managed to hike his way deep into the caverns a single soul lost in the darkness trying to make his way back up to the surface nobody had been as deep as this for thousands of years I was LLY alone no call for help would ever reach the [Music] surface my friends all told me I was crazy my wife couldn't understand my obsession but I had to know if the myths were true he seems to imply he's an amateur archaeologist searching for signs of a particular civilization in various cave systems this was not his first time delving into these kind of caverns but this was the first time he found what he was looking for [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] after traversing thousand-year-old ancient ruins and old broken down Bridges you find your first lighter upgrade aperture control with this you can tighten or widen the beam of the laser dots you can tighten the beam to be able to quickly expose an object or widen the beam all the way to get a general picture in front of you could this place have been even older than the legend suggested the resolution was astonishing never before had such a powerful geological scanner been available after you get past a tunnel or two you ENC enounter your first Supernatural Apparition this ghostly figure of a man in this weird te- pose glitching out your liar gun every time you fire dots at it more exploration through these Stone ruins of tall pillars until you find a series of old Broken Bridges this is your first encounter of something that could kill you gravity a bottomless pit Bellows and you have to make your way through these crickety wooden bridges until finally you find the one that you can drop down to reach the exit for this bridge maze and then the game gives you a cheeky little jump scare one that may just cause you to run and fall off the first time you see it thankfully the game doesn't employ such cheap and overused tactics again choosing to scare or unsettle you in other ways they never did iron out all the the glitches sometimes you'd see sensor Echoes from days earlier calibrations turned into ghosts but even so I never could explain everything I saw he calls these things glitches but I think we all know they're not really just glitches further on down you spot another upgrade in front of a large Chasm after carefully moving across the left ledge you see more of these so-called glitches apparitions of people falling down the chasm [Music] this is a pretty good psychological trick because right at the spot where you see these people fall you have to make the jump across the other side yourself once you make it and go back the other direction you finally get everybody's favorite upgrade first scan a rock slide and some more jumping across a very large pit [Music] later you find the heart of these ancient temples already giving you a sense of scale of what was actually hidden here an entire civilization so lost a myth that barely anybody knew about him and this one man was dedicated to finding signs of their existence the temple must have been over a thousand years old I knew they existed I'd searched for the cultist all my life but to finally see it in person to be the first a cult in northeast America that predated even the earliest European settlers yet they created a home for themselves in these malignant Caverns if they lived in the darkness for so long it was no wonder that nobody really noticed when they disappeared but as you find out later a few of the early settlers did secretly know about this place [Music] [Music] But first you happen upon an altar and see exactly why they were known as a sacrificial [Music] cult this was where they performed the SA [Music] Rices the more I scanned around the altar the more it revealed you see Shadows of priests in their strange headgear and staffs [Music] [Music] right right before you pick up the map upgrade you see a replay of the sacrifice being thrown down the pit [Applause] using your new map upgrade you find it's the very same pit where you saw these people fall to their deaths earlier he remarks on the grizzly scene I always wondered how many poor bastards they threw over the edge later on you find the ruins of where they lived the cultists believed that the cave itself was malevolent that the dead could never Escape their victims were doomed to relive their final tortured hours [Music] forever no wonder people went mad down here you find more metal structures stools and beds after getting past the Maze of Fallen [Music] structures you cross past the altar again and find a large area with some beds where he reveals that mon discovered and took over this place after the cultist Disappeared the cultist slept and ate here like the monks who came after they spent their time in silent prayer to an unanswering God now why monks would take over a cave system with creepy human deer hybrid statues Beyond me but hey it's free real estate we're giving you land it's free we're giving you okay it's real estate free fre for you monks this is free real estate it's free you unlock the door to your free we got you the real estate house free real estate I'll pee my pants come get your damn land fre I got real estate get better than this monks Cav monks Cav C it's free real estate anyway pass several tunnels and you'll find a river running through the caverns teaching you that water tends to be bad for your electronics [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] then you discover the cages in the Water The Witch Trials came much later they used to drag witches down here and purge them in huge numbers evil throughout the ages there's no doubt they believed in the myths it was no accident they chose this cave they wanted to imprison the evil down here as Eternal punishment of course there are Witch Trials you suddenly discover that the water here is a bit more responsive [Applause] I did wonder if it was true of course no way these were just [Music] glitches that much death occurring in such a confined space what Horrors must they have seen in their final moments past here is a much bigger Lake and getting into the water is just as hostile angry Spirits Echo their howls in the cave as you try to cross from one Island to another this part is definitely the scariest part you'll encounter [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] everything [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] halfway through here is an upgrade to increase the speed of your gun you finally make your way past all the little islands and the spirits let out a final howl as if they were pissed they weren't able to drag you down in the [Applause] water entering the smaller Cave opening you find a boat which you climb on and it FES you down the game gives you a respite for all the angry witches behind you as you sail down a river of Souls [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Applause] after you exit the lake you make your way up to a new area with a new type of ghostly Apparition to greet you [Music] [Music] this is right next to the last upgrade the material [Music] scanner so many have died down here the miners that came for work they were just as superstitious they were terrified of this place [Music] all those that lost their lives to negligence are they trapped down here too as you explore you find mine carts and collapse Bridges [Music] [Music] obviously the greedy company that employed these miners weren't too keen on safety protocols [Music] [Music] [Music] making your way up the shoddy wooden and metal structures you get your first hint that something's off with your journey to the top does it matter that all of this is in my memory does it make it any less real [Music] I was there I was the first what does he mean all in his memory aren't we trying to get to the surface or are we just playing back some recording of his perhaps he was just playing some footage of his journey to the top captured from his visor to catalog what he [Music] found more jump scares on rickety wooden bridges and apparitions of death caused by nearly non-existent safety protocols [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] past the main Bridges we see that they tried to turn this place into a memorial or Museum of some sort for the miners who died which given how close it is to the massive pit and shaky wooden bridge probably wasn't a good idea either I'm guessing they had some sort of gate to wall off the pit and and that was the end of the museum goers Journey after it as sent down through the other rooms of statues and plaques or maybe it was just Memorials of the people who died while the mining operation was still going on we never really get an explanation for this one right now Ethan is focused on more personal [Music] matters he recalls his journey down here I remember coming down like it was yesterday hoping I'd find something below hoping it wouldn't be another empty [Music] cave just wish I'd been better prepared the foreshadowing is coming on quick now as we enter the final section just a series of pipe Works connected to an elevator you have to activate the power generator on each side to power the elevator before you can operate it not too difficult a task especially with a fully powered lar gun and your material scanner now it's time for the ascent up [Music] [Music] I [Music] [Music] but this journey isn't a joyful experience for Ethan how many times do I have to relive this uhoh always the same Rock the same metal the same stale air and the guilt H I just want to see my family again a [ __ ] he didn't make it did he well at least we found the cave entrance if this isn't going to be our Escape let's see where this takes us I don't know how I died all right that confirms [Music] that oh man is that his family down there of all the memories I forced to relive it's the one thing I don't remember okay so he's reliving his journey through the caves but he doesn't remember how he died but it breaks my heart knowing that I left my family behind yep that's them isn't it they are always here for me [Music] there's just one last upgrade to collect [Applause] here I know I've never coming [Music] back damn and they don't even know how he died no body no burial just sadness and loss and the guilt of a father and husband abandoning his family [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh oh [Music] oh oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] h [Music] [Music] [Music] a [Applause] [Music] that was scanner somber just what did we witness here what is happening to Ethan you remember what Ethan remarked on about halfway through our journey the cultists believed that the cave itself was mevolent that the dead could never Escape their victims were doomed to relive their final tortured hours forever that's mostly true Ethan is repeating this journey upward and is doomed to repeat it forever but he never actually survived any sort of Journey to the surface it's not like he went up to the surface and died in fact when you start a new game plus which starts your game with your upgrades intact you have the material sensor upgrade and right at the very beginning of the base camp is Ethan's body you wouldn't have noticed on a first playthrough because the basic distance scanner masks the body among the rocks but now it's clearly visible Ethan said that he didn't remember his death but now we know where he died what is Ethan actually reliving forever remember all those upgrades we get on the journey upwards imagine if Ethan is actually making the journey downwards imagine if all those upgrades are actually downgrades Ethan starts at the mouth of the cave finds the miners and their doomed mining operation he sets up lar scanners because he thinks this is important then his material sensor breaks not a big deal he thinks since he can still see just fine in distance mode he finds and crosses the river with the boat and finds the large lake with all of these witch cages and all the Hostile ghosts maybe he thinks there are real or just unexplainable glitches in his lar system halfway into the lake his lar gun degrades not shooting as fast as it's supposed to but he's obsessed with his journey downward he thinks he finally found the right cave that was home to this cult he's been searching for why is this light our system breaking maybe exposure to water is causing problems maybe the curse of the cave itself and its Spirits are slowly breaking as liar perhaps the curse itself is feeding on his obsession luring him further down as a fresh victim so he continues downward and finds what he's looking for the cultists and their sleeping quarters their sacrificial altars their temples all the while the only thing given him vision is breaking Peace by piece he loses his map his burst scan his aperture control he puts down another set of liar scanners near a bridge eventually he decides he needs a setup camp and rest when Ethan wakes up the next day he sets off for his journey upwards but he discovers to his whor that his scanner is now completely broken the one thing that gave him real Vision through the darkness of the cave is now broke he tries to stumble around in the darkness perhaps he had a primitive light source to use to try to see through the cave but it didn't compare to his full liar system we know he didn't make it very far from his base camp there's a ledge right next to his body stumbling around he walks off the ledge and sustains a fatal injury I was utterly alone no call for help would ever reach the surface as he dies he imagines going back upward and reaching the surface but these memories become the final tortured hours he's forced to relive again and again and again a series of dots fad into the black nothingness of the cave a memory of losing the only sight he had which cost him his life and his eternal [Applause] Freedom scanner somber was released on April 26 2017 within a month the game was already declared a failure that quote bombed in a big way since it had only sold $6,000 copies contrast that to prison architect's 2 million copies sold at that point here's Mark and Chris from introversion software after that month talking about the sales so in the old days a sales figures were you know hidden and tucked away but now anybody in the world can just look up scan ofra on steamspy yeah and find out how many see the see the extent to which we have failed cuz it hasn't done very well has it no it's bombed it's bombed in a how many units how many units have we shipped now I don't know 6,000 or something six yeah 6,000 yeah so I didn't think that was possible you know after it's not that I arrogantly believe we're the best people in the world or anything it's that it's that our last game sold over 2 million so I I kind of wrongly assumed that that would just give us a minimum number of people looking at our game you know that numbers like that would be impossible you know I thought there was just a a minimum number of people floating around on Steam yeah you know and if you did a sort of reasonably good job on a game that you were going to get a reasonably big audience to I mean so what happened with this game and its launch but let me start with a few personal criticisms first this game wasn't really well advertised they had a trailer and a few articles that talked about the trailer and its launch but I think there was an expectation that word of mouth would just carry it forward a few streamers ended up playing it including Jack septic eye but it wasn't enough of a draw to encourage people to buy it or maybe they just decided to watch the whole playthrough and not bother buying it of course word of mouth isn't going to promote a flawed game and honestly the game was incorrectly priced at launch at $12 this was a short game taking about 2 to 4 hours to complete on a single playthrough and while New Game Plus is a feature that gives you a chance to re-explore the cavern again with your complete set of upgrades there isn't all that much reason reason to run through a second playthrough besides encountering the body at the beginning of the game you get the same ending and besides seeing some of the earlier sites for the material scanner there's really nothing new to discover I get it though the game didn't want to oversay its welcome the whole liar exploration mechanic can only go so far before all the ideas have been exhausted if the game was stretched out for another 2 to 4 hours it would have just gotten monotonous and repetitive and it's not like indie games of this sort were unusual on their Steam page they list two games as inspiration gone home and Dear Esther both of these were maybe 1 to 3 hours long narratively focused walking simulators with similar price points and they both garnered a ton of Praise gonome even won two awards for a 2-hour game that cost 15 bucks but scanner somber is admittedly rather shallow on story what I've detailed in this video is about as complete of an analysis as anybody could muster on this story because its dialogue could basically fit on one page the reality is that the game has less focus on its story and most of the time was centered around the cave exploration as a sort of longterm development experiment Chris and Mark even admit this on their post-release video yeah but I think I think you can pick it apart more than that right I don't think we weren't sat there thinking oh we need a story we'll just bdge one in you know I think what actually happened was was was you had the concept the scanner concept idea and Dean did a really good job of putting the levels together and you did as well you know and then we had the problem of ending it you know how does this game finish and the ending that you came up with when we were running it through the uh the play tests just didn't resonate with anybody and the and the hypothesis was that it didn't resonate because there had been no story up to that point you know there was no context for anybody people just didn't understand why they're in the cave or who they were or or what was happening so so the ending that suddenly dropped this narrative requirement down um that's what caused us to suddenly need some narrative in there but I think that certainly from my perspective I didn't want scanner to take another year and I think that's what it would have taken you know yeah yeah well I think yeah I think you're possibly right on that I think that I think you're right that we were we were caught off guard by that I think we didn't with in in the original plans there was no narrative whatsoever in this game it was narrative free you know it was just a exploring experience you know but it wasn't meant to be a story or anything and I think that that didn't work and so we kind of responded by trying to add a story that would that would be sufficient you know but I think that you can't you can't just uh you can't make stories that way you know I think the the story should have come in earlier and we should have when we should have got somebody in that's a talented uh story writer to actually do some story writing for us um because we have some skills between us you and I but I don't think storywriting is one of them so in the end scanner Sombra story was something put into the game after the main development process was finished there's also hints that the storytelling aspect wasn't completely figured out as the text font can sometimes get lost with the liar and you could potentially lose important story beats with the text shoved to the side corner all the time I think adding a real voice actor better than what I did with this video would have also improved the experience but I also think that Chris and Mark sell themselves short here what they accomplished in less than a year of development was a wonderful premise in a new direction that was worth exploring further the story as basic as it was dig successfully hooked me in and the audio presentation in both sound effects and music elevated the emotion and overall experience like holy [ __ ] that ending still hits me hard the overall story may have been just a couple of paragraphs of dialogue but a proper ghost story doesn't need much to carry it along I think if scanner somber was even mildly successful it would have given him motivation to go further into this concept with a better planned story and enough confidence to spend more time and budget on a game like this but it didn't scanner somber made so little money that a big Indy developer like iners didn't even think it was possible to bomb this hard and I think that was undeserved iners software the company that brought us wildly successful Indie titles like Prison Architect and darwinia wouldn't make another game for seven years they are currently Alpha Testing a new game called the last Starship a somewhat cutesy but semi-serious spaceship management simulator that seems to borrow elements from FTL and Ral save our ship mod so the public successfully punched in verion software back into its box and that's kind of sad really scanner somber is a game about a victim of a curse forever burned by venturing too far off the beaten path now forced to relive the same memories over and over again just like the game Studio that created it [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: MetaStatistical

Views: 1,784

Keywords: ScannerSombre, Scanner Sombre, IntroversionSoftware, Introversion Software, LiDAR, LiDAR.EXE

Id: RFuXFLY3BIw

Length: 66min 52sec (4012 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 20 2024