About This Game The Technician is a VR action puzzle game about hacking your way through security systems. Usually while being shot at.Break, hack, crack, solder, and logic your way through circuit puzzles. Careful, though; security is onto you and bypassing systems doesn't get any easier when you're ducking behind cover. Cross the wrong wire or flip the wrong switch and watchdogs in the circuitry will only make the armed response more aggressive.FeaturesFrantic, under-pressure puzzle solving - You know that scene in every action movie where the gang is holding off all the bad guys while the hacker tries to open the door and get them all out? Well I hope so, because that's what I'm trying to do here.Immersive, physics-based interactions - VR is fun and physical; just plugging cables and throwing switches can feel good, and boy do I ever have a lot of switches for you to throw.In-game level editor - create your own circuits and challenges to share with other technicians.Morrre - It’s early yet, and who knows where we’ll go from here. Hop into the forums and let me know what you think! a09c17d780 Title: The TechnicianGenre: Action, Indie, Early AccessDeveloper:Dumb Game CompanyPublisher:Dumb Game CompanyRelease Date: 10 Dec, 2018 The Technician Download Setup Exe Excellent game. The gameplay is innovative and exciting but sometimes the constant gunfire can be a bit too much and it'll have you stuck on a simple problem far too long because you can't dedicate enough brain power for it.Multi-tasking is fun with a gun in one hand and using the other for solving the puzzle itself. You can use the gun itself to flip switches and hold buttons down so it's not necessary to drop it to solve the puzzle. This is a HUGE plus and a great game design choice, helps with the feel of the game. It's not a wave shooter and a puzzle game, it's both combined and it's obvious that the merge has been performed well.The wire physics seem to be fairly taxing however. My system, with a GTX 1070 and i5 4690 seem to struggle to keep 90 FPS in some areas.All in all, this game is way underpriced for what it's worth. There's lots of room for content and the story itself (haven't finished yet) seems to be only composed of an outside hacker talking to you through a prompt, however the monologue they send you is fairly funny at points. They leave to get pizza rather than give you instructions!Some critiques for the dev:-Enemies sometimes hang out behind the panel, where you can't shoot them, this is pretty annoying-Interactions are a bit unclear, such as detaching the wire from the three-digit computer thing. A visible laser or sphere that shows the interaction zone would help with that.-When pointing, the finger extends past the open hand pose, this is pretty disorienting at first. I think the whole hand should close leaving the pointer finger as it is, seems more intuitive that way.-The pistol's sights would be better if they were more brightly illuminated and in a different colour than the laser. Maybe green?. FAIR WARNING! YOU WILL NEED A ROOM SCALE SET-UP TO PLAY THIS GAME!Definitely a interesting gem of a VR game, The Technician scratches that little itch of a VR game that can mix two seemingly unusual tasks together stunningly well.First off, the tools and the UI/Menus.They are some of the coolest UI and VR elements i have seen in a VR game. The Menus feels smooth and natural to navigate with it's slide bar design, making for a interesting and intuitive style for the UI, fitting perfectly into the cyberpunk theme. The tools are just flat amazing. I don't think any other VR game has tools that seem to be as precise with interactions like they do in this game. Judging by these two alone the game gets a huge recommendation from me, as most VR games have a very clumsy UI with radial wheels and all sorts of rubbish.Secondly, the gameplay.I'll say it, it's not for everyone. You have to know basic logic gate functions and pre-algebra math as well as some advanced computing in order to get through some of the harder puzzles. And believe me when i say... it get's HARD. Trying to figure out what goes where with guards shooting from 2 different directions at you is quite a dizzying rush of fear and pride when you pull it off. It's definitely a bit too hectic at times, i recommend turning down the difficulty to 50% until you get a handle on things and maybe play through the alpha levels once.Thirdly, bugs/glitches/crashes.As a early access game, expect unstable gameplay. I have had multiple times where the game has just given up. Once was the game just insta-crashed when trying to pull out a wire. Another time both my hands became stuck in a weird state where they were transparent blue and could not interact with items or objects anymore. And various other smaller bugs, like physics freaking out a bit on wires and such.The music isn't too fantastic, could be improved a bit by simply adding in another track that plays. Sounds are alright, can't hear much over gunfire usually though.All in all, it's a good game with some flaws, mostly the short size of it and the bugs/crashes do ruin the fun somewhat. I recommend it if you really like "Hacking" style games, but wanted something more then just text... and are willing to deal with the nature of early access games (as of the time of writing this review).Score: 7.75/10. I haven't advanced too much because flipping switches feels so good. It's almost therapeutic. A great logic based game that's also slightly educational (turns out you learn a hell of a lot faster when you're being shot at!). I don't know if it's just the fact that I suck at video games, but combat feels a bit too punishing/distracting. Thankfully the difficulty slider solves the problem without being condescending. So far the game is great and the dev is active and friendly. It's one of those games that's beautifully executed in VR, even if the content isn't there (yet). It just FEELS good to flip switches, press buttons and unplug stuff. I'd love something that helps with the combat a bit (Maybe a turret that breaks after a while and you have to fix it a similar way you work on the main panel?) Tall people beware, the lowers panels will involve a lot of crouching. Overall I'm enjoying it and I'm looking forward to more updates!. quot;Do you mind? I'm trying to THINK over here!"Do you like VR?Do you like digital logic puzzles?Do you like math?Do you like cyberpunk?Do you like trying to do digital logic puzzles and math in a VR cyberpunk setting while people are SHOOTING at you?If you answered yes to all of those, first of all that's a weird thing to be into.Second of all, check out The Technician today!It's currently in alpha, so there's no story as such. The setting is that you're on an elevator trying to get to the top of the stalk. What's up there? No idea. There are a lot of angry people who would rather that you not get to the top, and a bunch of digital logic puzzles in your way. The guys are infinite, but they can be persuaded to at least give you a moment's reprise by offering them some high speed lead. It starts off simple, with simple logic, but eventually you'll be rewriting flash cards and jacking into the panels yourself. Just don't ignore the grenade that landed at your feet.It's stressful, trying to balance shooting and hacking. Sometimes it's useful to just stop hacking and shoot everyone. They'll be back, but you can get yourself up to 30 seconds of quiet to think before they do return.Fun game, and I'm eager to see what comes in the future.. a bit expensive for what it is but that the sort of thing i like to play Development Update: Simplifying Circuitry: This is the first in a series of development updates that I'm going to be posting roughly monthly to keep everyone apprised on the game's progress, talk openly about how I'm trying to solve game design problems as a first time game designer, and hopefully elicit some feedback and excitement for things to come. For this first entry, I want to talk about some new circuit components I've added to not only expand the types of puzzles in the game, but also to make the puzzles more interactive, more accessible, and simpler to design - without sacrificing challenge. I'm also going to talk about circuits and logic on a more rudimentary level in this post in the hopes that it will help people (who might be unfamiliar with things like logic circuits) understand and feel comfortable with The Technician's gameplay.(This post also available with higher quality images over at the DGC website)[dumbgame.company])The Basics. 0.2.7: As I mentioned in a previous post, this month's update is fairly light since I'm tangled up in a bunch of other life activity at the moment. However, I did manage to put together a couple of things to push out: Fixed a bug with Elevator Lock handles flipping out in some specific circumstances. New component, the potentiometer: a dial that can be adjusted to modify incoming data values from 0% to 100% of their original value. New puzzle: 'Dialing It In' Increased hand touch radius in some areas to aid in grabbing while pointing. Tweaked baseline audio levels. Added sound effects and music volume control options.Next month should be the last small update before things (hopefully) calm down enough for me to fall back into a regular, albeit reduced, cadence.. 0.2.5: The v0.2.5 update is now live in the preview branch! Assuming all goes well, this update will make its way out to the public branch in a couple days. 0.2.5's major focus was smoothing some of the rough edges off the editor experience so that it could make it out to the rest of the player base, but it also includes a handful of smaller fixes from some fo the Early Access feedback I've received thus far. You'll find more details on the editor below, as well as notes on the rest of the changes in 0.2.5 and some info on what I'm focusing on for the next update.The Editor and Custom Content. 0.2.6: 0.2.5 just got pushed last week, but it's already time for 0.2.6! Since the goal of this update is to improve the overall control experience of selecting and grabbing objects, I decided to get it out as soon as possible so I could see how it does and iterate on it more in the next update if necessary.Always Be Pointing. Early Access Tomorrow!: The Technician's Early Access release date is tomorrow! I'm excited to see what people think of the game, and anxious to see how I can make it better.A few things I want to cover about the state of the game, what to expect, and where I'm planning to go from here: Price is $15 USD This is an early alpha, so content is limited to around 20 levels, about half tutorials and half challenges. The in-game editor won't be ready quite in time for launch, but it is in a final round of testing to make sure it's at least passably functional so it'll be along shortly! If you want to help out by being an early tester for it, see the details at the end of this post. The primary goal right now is to get player feedback, so please let me know what you think by sending an email to support@dumbgame.company[dumbgame.company] or by starting a thread on the discussions page. Seriously, send it; I can't make a great game without your input! The issues I plan on tackling for the next couple updates: Further improvements to the editor (better chip configuration and Steamworks support for sharing). A couple additional components that are near-ready, and some puzzles to go with them. Some video clips or gifs to accompany some of the more complicated tutorials and informational messages. Whatever I hear back from you folks, so go check it out and tell me about it:Elevator Core Security is hiring engineers!. DGC @ PCConnects Seattle: The Technician will be at PCConnects Seattle on May 13th and 14th; if you’re at the show then feel free to come say hi! I’ll presumably be in a booth somewhere, but beyond that you know about as much as I do.
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