Chris InglisLudoNarraCon is a digital narrative games festival by indie games publisher Fellow Traveller. It’s being held on Steam over May 4-8 and contains a huge 43 exhibiting narrative games will give behind-the-scenes insights via live streams on their store pages, with 36 developers providing playable demos. I’ve been sent a whole heap of demos to check out, so I started with one called The Invincible. I’ve had this game on my wishlist since the early announcements in 2020 and I was excited to jump in for the first time.
Developed by Starward Industries and published by 11 bit studios, The Invincible is a story-driven adventure set in a hard sci-fi world by Stanisław Lem. Discover planet Regis III as scientist Yasna, use atompunk tools looking for a missing crew and face unforeseen threats. Make choices in a philosophical story that’s driven by science. The playable demo available on Steam is set just a short while after the opening sequence of the game, but this is described in text to us before we start playing. Once in-game, I had a few graphics jolts but once I had looked around Yasna’s position once, it smoothed out.
We have a radar device that guides us to a campsite in this smoky and windy alien land, and an Androbot is walking around malfunctioning. We have no communications as her equipment is malfunctioning, so she talks through her procedures as if there’s a recording log. Inside the camp tents we see a habitat room that has Dr Krauta in it, looking delusional. We use his radio receiver which restablishes connection to a man named Novik on the other end of the line.
We are next tasked with exploring our surroundings and trying to find other members of the camp. It’s very atmospheric and moody as we explore the unknown with a map from Dr Krauta highlighted some key areas. We can use tools like a metal detector to find metallic parts and a telemeter which act like a binocular, and eventually find the backpack belonging to another member. We see a scene in front of us and my heart starts racing as I run over to investigate, and then the demo is over. What a rush! It’s got me even more hooked now for release.
LudoNarraCon is currently running on Steam with 36 demos available to experience some great narrative games for yourself. I highly recommend checking out The Invincible on Steam if you like games like Firewatch or Observation. Thanks to Fellow Traveller for the demo keys.
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