Info about End State: Official game description: EARLY ACCESS NOTIFICATION ------------------------- This game is still highly in development, if you want to have the full experience it's better to wait until full release. We hope you will give us feedback during development to help us improve the game. You can also join us at Discord for feedback at In END STATE you manage an international mercenary company hired to track down a network of terrorists in a war-torn country where warring rebel groups, criminal organizations and private security forces fight for power. HIGHLIGHTS ---------- * REACTION SYSTEM Opportunity Fire triggers a reaction test when an enemy walks in to view. All participants in these situations can choose to shoot which often to intense firefights. * BALLISTICS SIMULATION Each bullet is traced through the scene and react with the environment according to its penetration value and the resistances of walls and objects. DESCRIPTION ----------- The game features a strategic satellite map where you manage your organization, hire operatives, buy gear and find missions. Explore the Eastern European themed Brekovia, encounter enemy patrols, engage road blocks and make contact with the different factions operating within the country. When you enter a mission on the map, the game switches to tactical scenario where you control each of your soldiers in turn based tactical battle. There are many viable tactics to each scenario, ranging from stealthy take-downs, coordinated assaults, strategically positioned snipers to explosive entry using C-4. Choose the best approach for each mission. FEATURES -------- * Turn-based tactical combat, with action points and interruptions. * Strategic layer where you manage your operatives, skills, equipment, leads and missions. * Interactive levels with different types of cover, peeking around corners, climbing through windows. * Destructible environments. * Bullet penetration, different materials * 10+ weapons. Lots of armor, helmets, grenades and other equipment. * Character appearance customization. * Skills and experience. * Stealth with advanced visibility and hearing systems. Release date: 1 Dec, 2022 Categories: Turn-based Strategy, Tactical Combat, Strategic Planning, Resource Management, Character Customization, Character Progression, Stealth Gameplay, Squad Management - Hardware Profile: No data Feature extractions: - Community Price: No data - Playtime Metrics: No data - Time-to-fun: No data - Player Archetypes: No data Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - Strong Potential & Enjoyable Core (weight 0.78): Players find the game highly enjoyable in its current state, recognizing significant potential for future development. The core gameplay, graphics, and overall concept are well-received, with many expressing excitement for its evolution. - Excellent Tactical Combat (weight 0.46): The game's tactical combat system is a major highlight, frequently compared to XCOM and Jagged Alliance. Players appreciate its depth, challenge, and unique mechanics like reaction fire and overwatch, finding it both immersive and satisfying. - Good Visuals & Sound (weight 0.11): The graphics are generally praised for their quality, especially considering the game's early access stage. The sound design, particularly bullet and ricochet effects, also contributes positively to the experience. - Looting & Mission Rewards (weight 0.04): The ability to loot items while still receiving mission rewards is a liked feature, adding to player satisfaction. - Save Game Issues (weight 0.02): One player reported that the game became uninteresting after save games stopped working, indicating a critical bug that needs addressing. Common complaints: - Unpolished and Buggy State (weight 0.99): The game is frequently described as unpolished, janky, and riddled with bugs. Players experience issues like freezing, crashes, animation glitches, targeting problems, and general instability, indicating a need for significant development and quality assurance. - Game Lacks Core Content (weight 0.86): Players overwhelmingly report that the game is severely lacking in content, feeling more like a demo or pre-alpha than a full game. This includes missing features, limited maps, enemy diversity, story depth, and overall gameplay options, making it feel unfinished and repetitive. - Overpriced for Current State (weight 0.78): Many players feel the game is not worth its current price point, especially given its limited content and unpolished state. They suggest it's overpriced for what feels like an early access or even a demo version. - Lack of Narrative and Dialogue (weight 0.19): The game is criticized for its simple narrative, lack of engaging story, and absence of voice acting or character dialogue. This contributes to a feeling of a barebones experience without immersive storytelling. - Limited Mercenary Customization (weight 0.12): Players note a lack of personalization for mercenaries, including no female options and insufficient information about their stats or equipment. The inability to replace fallen mercenaries also limits strategic choices. - Unclear Level-Up System (weight 0.05): The level-up screen lacks clarity, with no option to reallocate points and insufficient information about the cost of increasing attributes. This makes character progression less intuitive and user-friendly. Gameplay feedback: - Familiar Turn-Based Tactical Gameplay (weight 0.2): Players consistently note the game's strong resemblance to established turn-based tactical franchises like XCOM and Jagged Alliance, particularly in its combat and pre-combat exploration mechanics. This suggests a familiar yet potentially refined experience for fans of the genre. - Detailed Stance and Aiming Mechanics (weight 0.11): The game incorporates a detailed system for character stances (standing, crouching, prone) that directly influences aiming percentages for different body parts. This adds a layer of tactical depth to combat encounters. - Basic Loot and Progression Systems (weight 0.09): The game includes a functional inventory system where players can loot items and receive mission rewards. Soldiers can also level up and gain skills through experience points, providing a basic sense of progression. - Reaction Time Combat System (weight 0.08): A unique 'reaction speed' system is implemented, determining initiative in overwatch and counter-fire scenarios. However, some feedback suggests this system can be inconsistent, particularly with non-linear enemy movement. - Good Stealth and Cover Mechanics (weight 0.08): The game features good stealth mechanics and functional cover, which are important elements for tactical gameplay. However, the cover system is noted as 'somewhat' working, implying potential minor issues. - Limited Overwatch Functionality (weight 0.04): The current overwatch system is restrictive, only allowing 90-degree angles for its area of effect. This limitation could hinder tactical planning and player flexibility. - Inconsistent Damage and Durability (weight 0.04): Players reported instances of highly inconsistent damage, such as enemies surviving multiple headshots while the player character dies instantly from a single pistol shot, despite wearing armor. This suggests a need for balancing. - Small and Repetitive Enemy Encounters (weight 0.04): Each map consistently features the same small number of enemies (five), which could lead to repetitive gameplay and a lack of variety in encounters. - Initial Squad Size of Three (weight 0.04): Players begin the game with a team of three mercenaries, which is a standard setup for tactical games of this type. - Limited Contextual Feedback (weight 0.02): This point is based on limited and low-quality feedback, providing only specific details about a player's mission progress and gear without offering broader insights into gameplay or mechanics. Performance notes: - Poor Performance and Stability (weight 0.13): Players are experiencing significant technical issues, including frequent crashes, random freezes, and low frame rates (15-20 FPS) even on high-end systems. These issues often necessitate force-closing the game and restarting scenarios, severely disrupting gameplay. Recommendations: - Game has strong future potential (weight 0.65): Many players acknowledge the game's potential and express excitement for its future development. However, they also caution that the current state is akin to an early alpha or demo, suggesting that those expecting a complete experience should wait for further updates and polish. - Recommended for genre fans (weight 0.15): Despite its early state, the game is recommended for fans of turn-based strategy, especially those who appreciate strategic depth and tension. Hardcore fans of the genre who understand the implications of an alpha build are more likely to enjoy it. - Purchase to support development (weight 0.13): A significant portion of the feedback indicates that purchasing the game in its current state is primarily an act of supporting the developers and their vision. Players are advised to buy only if they are willing to invest in the game's potential, rather than expecting a fully fleshed-out product. - Desire for Jagged Alliance features (weight 0.04): There's a clear desire for the game to evolve more towards a 'Jagged Alliance' style experience, particularly with customizable elements, rather than resembling an 'XCOM2' clone. Improved mercenary hiring is also a specific request. - Refunds considered/requested (weight 0.04): A small number of players have considered or requested refunds, indicating dissatisfaction with the game's current state. This suggests that for some, the game did not meet even basic expectations. - Developer communication is key (weight 0.02): One reviewer emphasized the importance of developers maintaining clear and consistent communication with players. This is crucial for building trust and demonstrating ongoing improvement throughout the game's development cycle. - Not for constant action seekers (weight 0.02): Players looking for continuous, high-intensity action may find this game unsuitable. This suggests the game's pacing or design might be more deliberate or tactical, which may not appeal to all players. Other player notes: - Very Early Access State (weight 0.29): Players consistently highlight that the game is in a very early Alpha or 'EARLY Early Access' stage, feeling more like a demo than a full game. This indicates a significant lack of content and polish, with many features appearing as placeholders. There's an expectation that the game will grow substantially with future updates. - Long Development History (weight 0.22): Many players have been following the game for years, noting its 6+ year development cycle, much of which was perceived as abandonment. Despite this, there's a 'grudging affection' for the developer's return and commitment, with hopes for a clear roadmap. - Developer Effort & Communication (weight 0.12): There's an acknowledgment that the developers are actively working on the game, with a recent major update bringing new features and bug fixes. However, some players desire a direct feedback mechanism and a clear roadmap to understand future development plans. - Suggested Gameplay Improvements (weight 0.09): Players are suggesting specific improvements for core gameplay, including the ability to create custom mercenaries, more varied item acquisition, and enhancements to melee combat, loot, random encounters, and tactical combat mechanics, such as color-coded movement radii. - Concerns About Abandonment (weight 0.02): Despite the developer's return, some players express concern that the game, in its current early state, might still be abandoned, a common fate for many Early Access titles. - Solo Developer Project (weight 0.02): The game appears to be a solo developer project, which might explain the extended development time and early state of the game. - Lack of Recent Improvements (weight 0.02): One piece of feedback, though limited, suggests a perceived lack of substantive improvements over several months, which could be a point of concern for some players. Emotions: - Disappointment (weight 0.24): Players are primarily disappointed by the game's unfinished state, characterized by a severe lack of content, missing basic features, and repetitive gameplay, especially given its price and long development time. Many feel the game was released too early, resembling a beta or demo rather than a complete experience, leading to unmet expectations regarding depth, dynamics, and overall quality. - Hope (weight 0.2): Despite current shortcomings, players express hope due to the game's perceived potential and the developers' ongoing efforts. They anticipate future updates and improvements, believing the game can evolve into a much better and more complete experience, particularly in areas like combat, content, and overall polish. - Frustration (weight 0.16): Frustration stems from numerous technical issues, including frequent crashes, game freezes, and unplayable states. Players are also frustrated by poorly implemented mechanics, unintelligent AI, repetitive gameplay, and a lack of clear tutorials or instructions, which collectively hinder the gameplay experience. - Satisfaction (weight 0.16): Players find satisfaction in the game's core concept, particularly its tactical combat system and resemblance to beloved titles like Jagged Alliance. Enjoyment is also derived from observing development progress, new features, and bug fixes, indicating a positive response to specific gameplay mechanics and the overall direction of the game. - Excitement (weight 0.08): Excitement is driven by the game's promising potential, unique combat mechanics, and strategic depth. Players are enthusiastic about future developments and anticipate the game evolving into a strong and refreshing entry in the tactics genre, appreciating its innovative ideas and smart AI. - Anger (weight 0.03): Anger arises from the game's extremely poor quality, numerous bugs, and the perception that it might be a scam. Players feel cheated by the game's unready state and express frustration over unfair game design elements, such as instant deaths despite having armor. - Anticipation (weight 0.02): Players are looking forward to the game's future development, including upcoming patches and content. There is a strong belief in its potential to become a significant title within its genre, driving a desire to see how it evolves over time. - Joy (weight 0.02): Joy is experienced by players who enjoy the challenging gameplay and appreciate finding a game that aligns with their preferred genre. This emotion is tied to the inherent fun derived from the game's core mechanics and type. - Mild disappointment (weight 0.02): This emotion is caused by the game's current unfinished state, which includes a lack of content, short length, and ease of gameplay. It reflects a less severe form of disappointment compared to the primary 'Disappointment' emotion, focusing on specific limitations rather than overall quality. - Concern (weight 0.01): Concern is primarily about the game's long development time and the possibility of it being abandoned. Players worry that the project might not reach its full potential or could be left incomplete by the developers. - Caution (weight 0.01): Players express caution to warn potential buyers about the game's current early alpha state and its limited value. This emotion is driven by a desire to inform others about the risks of purchasing an unfinished product that might be abandoned. - Confusion (weight 0.01): Confusion stems from a lack of guidance within the game, leaving players unsure of what to do. There is also confusion regarding the timing of the game's release in its current state, questioning the developers' decisions. - Skepticism (weight 0.01): Skepticism arises from doubts about the game's progress after a long development period and concerns about whether certain elements will ever be fully developed. Players question the developers' ability to deliver on promises and improve the game significantly. - Surprise (weight 0.01): Players are surprised by the game's release, particularly given its current unfinished state. This indicates an unexpected launch, especially considering the quality or completeness of the product. - Amusement (weight 0.01): Amusement is derived from the game's premise and the unexpected quick deaths experienced in gameplay. This suggests a lighthearted or ironic enjoyment of certain game elements. - Grudging affection (weight 0.01): This emotion describes players who, despite acknowledging the game's flaws, still purchase it due to an appreciation for the developers' efforts. It reflects a conflicted positive feeling, where loyalty or support outweighs the game's current shortcomings. - Encouragement (weight 0.01): Players express encouragement, desiring the developers to continue working on the game. This indicates a supportive stance, hoping for further development and improvements to the current product. - Regret (weight 0.01): Regret is felt by players who wish they could get a refund for the game. This emotion signifies dissatisfaction with the purchase and a desire to undo the transaction due to the game's quality or state. - Challenge (weight 0.01): This emotion is caused by the game's difficulty, indicating that players find the gameplay demanding. It suggests a positive engagement with the game's level of complexity and skill requirement. - Interest (weight 0.01): Interest is generated by the game's core concept. This indicates an initial attraction to the game's premise or idea, drawing players in to explore further.}