PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

[Brett]

Hey folks. I made a game called PATHOS that came out on Steam the other day. I thought some other old fogies like me might enjoy it since it's uber-inspired by Psychopath. It might be the hardest puzzle game on Steam but hopefully it's just as fun.

Tim Halbert, who did the original music for Psychopath, did our soundtrack and local legend DarkManticoreX2 helped test/destroy 75%of my original solutions.

It's $6.29 for another 5ish days. It'll drop to $4.89 whenever the next Steam sale pops up (not Christmas, we don't qualify since we're new).

http://store.steampowered.com/app/679300/PATHOS/

[VisD]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

Ooh, hype. I might pick it up when it goes on sale - I loved the original pp & pp2 and am kind of sad the whole thing has just died.

Out of curiosity, who wrote the hardest puzzles?

[rushyrulz]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

This actually looks pretty fun.

[Rapta]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

Would buy if had money

[Brett]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

All the puzzles were designed by me -- you miiiiight remember my name KingOreO from pp1 and a little pp2. There's about 170 total, though a handful are 'cinematic' and whatnot. You can disable story elements if that ain't your thing.

[Hakulyte]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

Is PATHOS more or less difficult than Psychopath ?

[Brett]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

The first half of the game is easier on the whole I'd say, mainly because we're introducing new mechanics -- giant blocks, ice blocks, rotten, etc. and we wanted the solutions to be more fun than punishing. We took the difficulty curve seriously, as you don't need to complete every level to continue on.

The second half has some nice hard levels, classic pp1 and pp2 stuff, as well as some real devious solutions using a bunch of the new mechanics all at once.

There's also 24 lateral thinking 'puzzle' achievements, 2 in each world. There's a hidden world, secrets sprinkled across the game and even some stuff that breaks the 4th wall. /end salesman

[YoshL]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

i think i'll actually check this out because psychopath was great fun

played for 45 mins so far
level select is a bit too segregated, i liked being able to see every single level at once to see the progression - having to scroll through all the different level sets feels wonky

imo the level start screen, where you have to hit start to play the level is a bit unnecessary as well, as all that information can be contained in the actual level screen (difficulty, and level name) without needing the extra 7 seconds of downtime. since there's nothing stopping the user from quitting out safely from wherever they want to stop, it feels like that screen can be taken out.

there was a weird progression issue in terms of level difficulty curve where a bunch of the early levels use the 3 block "lock" that really isn't a lock, and can just be maneuvered around otherwise, then all of a sudden, an actual 3 block lock pops up, with backtracking needed and it felt weird not introducing the simple concept in its entirety before jumping into the good psychopath stuff

i digress, i'm on honeycomb atm and i'm having fun reliving the psychopath days

oh also the lateral thinking puzzle achievements is very convoluted, and the way they're named "Breakthrough" made it seem almost like i would be "skipping" a level if i pressed 'B' which i didn't want to do. That screen itself is kinda confusing as well, given that i've gotten like 1 of them, and after visiting the screen, can't really distinguish the one that I got from the rest of them

[Brett]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

ey YoshL, I knew pp vets would give me the best criticism.

A couple of the menu things were consequence of a couple different overhauls. We initially had all the level info on the 'world select' screen but it looked insanely busy. There was probably a way to work it out but we just couldn't find one.

I know what you're talking about with the 3 block locks, and all I have to blame is Manti for at least one of those where I intended something else.

The breakthroughs may get a name change, never thought about skipping. There's a bug where achievements aren't making a ding noise and the pictures aren't turning to color once solved. Should be fixed tonight or tomorrow afternoon.

Glad you're having fun with some of it though!

[YoshL]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

yeah once you figure out that you can just back into the menu and pick anything, it becomes clear that breakthroughs aren't actually level skips or anything lol

[DarkManticoreX2]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

I know what you're talking about with the 3 block locks, and all I have to blame is Manti for at least one of those where I intended something else

[VisD]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

tb to pp1 27 and then LiNk To ThE PaSt

i definitely do remember you (kingoreo) actually - think you made some really hard pp2 levels i could never do lol

as an estimate - how hard would the hardest levels be? like pp1 late 60s, or maybe even comparable to forgive me/pp2 masters?

[Brett]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

I'd say not quite as hard as pp2 master except for maybe 4-5 levels. Also, I don't have a clue how to embed images on this thing.

But here's a level from each of the last 4 worlds not including super final world and the hidden one: http://www.kingoreo.com/randomscreens.jpg

[DarkManticoreX2]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

The warp level is evil

[Reach]

Re: PATHOS - A puzzle game like Psychopath

Looking forward to playing it

Edit: Honeycomb was solid