Corpse of Discovery

Wow. That was very good. Moving, really. And sad. Or happy? I don't know... For me, it was sad. Definitely recommended, particularly if you are a parent. I can only assume the 'mixed' rating has more to do with the audience than anything wrong with the game itself. I took it as a story about regret. That some things in life you never get back. Anyway, definitely a very good game.

Wow what a journey! I can understand why some people didn't like the game. I guess it has an auidience and I'm one of them! I love the little puzzles and tricks that I had to figure out, and all the message throughout was great. It definetely made me question some stuff in life. Thank you so much for a great game!

ps: It is better to be played with mouse, the controller sensitivity is too high and when I tried to adjust it, the game got crashed. But all is well! :D

Oof, okay, this will be interesting. First and foremost:

SPOILERS

So proceed only if you have already played the game, or don't care if the game is spoiled for you before playing it, or you have no plans of playing and for some reason are curious as to what I thought of it.

While I do reluctantly recommend playing this game, that recommendation comes with some pretty heavy caveats. On the one hand, I get what the game is trying to do. And the message is very much NOT wrong. It's very, very right. That's important. And it's worth hearing, which is why I recommend the game. It's pretty clear, also, that love was put into making this game, so I also tend to recommend games for that reason: experience someone else's perspective, maybe we'll learn something new.

On the other hand though, I'm very conflicted about how this message was delivered, and how meta the game ends up being. You see, the main character is you. No, not you, playing some nameless character in a game, but the literal you, sitting in front of the screen, at your keyboard/gamepad, playing the game. Like I said, very meta.

The message of the game is essentially this: "stop wasting your time in meaningless pursuits, appreciate what you have in front of you, and go out and touch grass." Also like I said, a very good message. The game presents this message in various ways, predominantly through "bonus flashbacks" - the little pink markers that are NOT the main marker, and also the running commentary from the A.V.A. bot that "helps" you. On the surface, the story is about an explorer (employed to the Corps of Discovery company) - you - and each "chapter" is you, waking up on a planet, and you have go find 5 map markers. These are beacons in one chapter, distress beacons in another chapter, pieces of a ship in another, and so on. There are also extra pink markers that, despite being on alien planets (that all look different, despite having the same name), refer back to your normal life on earth - they will be a pizza, or some sort of coffee beverage, or a stroller, etc. Before you start each mission, you have a message from your family (a wife, and 3 kids) that essentially all say "we miss you, when are you coming home, we haven't heard from you, please contact us, we love you, come home." So your journey starts out as "working" one mission for the company with the expectation of a huge payday and retirement to set up you and your family financially, to eventually just trying to find a way home. Upon completion of this one mission (which ends up being like 5 missions repeated), the company has promised that a ship will be waiting for you to take you home with all your money you earned to retire and enjoy life with your family. Except, at the end of each mission, there is no ship. There is never a ship. You sort of die, or pass out or something, wake up in your habitat, time has passed, and you have a new "only this one mission" mission to complete (I was getting serious Sam Rockwell Moon vibes from this). It doesn't end. I was actually worried for a little bit that the game would really embrace it's meta-nature and not actually have an ending - that the "levels" are generated and the game will just continue for as long as I played it, thinking, like the character in the game, that this next mission will actually be the last. But: the game does finally end. With your teddy bear, a unicorn horn, and sometime that death himself provides, to get you home. No, seriously. Oh, also, there are two voice cameos - one from Chris Rock and the other Mathew McConaughey - both claiming that they are NOT the celebrities that they sound like. It's super weird, and I have yet to look up if these actors were actually part of this game; I suspect not, the Mathew impersonation was a little off to me, though Chris Rock was nailed. If what a lot of what I have typed so far seems ridiculous, you are right. See below.

Okay, so that's pretty much the game in a nutshell. So what's my problem with it, if the message is ultimately good? The problem I have with it is that the game is chastising YOU, the person playing it, for sitting there playing it, and not spending time with your friends/family/loved ones. Instead, you are doing these meaningless tasks in this game - and YES, the tasks are meaningless, they only serve the single purpose of delivering the message of wasting time...by wasting your time. The game itself is quite ridiculous, especially the ending. The game is literally wasting your time, telling you it's wasting your time, and telling you to go do something meaningful. And when it ends, it's the character - again YOU you - "going home" - in other words, the game is over, credits roll, you can get your literal butt out of your literal chair and go do something else, like return to your family. "Hey dad/mom/son/brother/etc. we missed you, welcome back!" Do you get it? See what they did there? Very meta.

Some might think OMG this is pure genius. And while I do agree on a couple levels it's very clever, overall I found it to be quite irritating. And here's why: personally, I play games to escape reality for a bit. It's like reading a book, or watching a movie, except I get to interact (though I do also enjoy reading and movies). I am knowingly suspending my in-real-life for a bit to engage in this activity. It's on purpose. I don't have infinite time, as I do have a family that I enjoy being around and spending time with, so when I do elect to play a game, I don't have a lot of free time. I must choose carefully which games I play. And here, with this game, I have been trolled for the past 5+ hours. Yes, it's 5 hours I won't get back. And yes, it ended up being mostly meaningless specifically BECAUSE the game wasted my time. I didn't get a cool story, or a fun bit of mystery, or something entertaining. Instead, I got guilt-tripped. So, for me, this game wasn't a lot of fun. And that's a big no-no. If it's not fun, why play the game? Even games with good, powerful messages MUST be fun. Otherwise, it's just a lecture.

Now, if YOU happen to be the kind of person that is constantly in pursuit of something because you think it will lead to a better life at the expense of things that do matter (like family), then maybe this game will hit a little differently for you.

To circle back to the ridiculousness of the game, this is exactly why. It doesn't explain anything - who the character is (remember, because it's the actual YOU), why the character keeps blacking out, why the planet visuals drastically change but it's still the same named planet, why you can't get home, why your ship is perpetually crashed, where the kids drawings are coming from - it's all pointless. Nothing is explained because there is nothing to explain.

The voice acting, what little there is, is decent, A.V.A. being the absolute standout. The visuals are well done. The music is well done. The story - is non-existent. The story is "You get your butt off the computer/console/deck and go do something else." That's the story. It's like having a significant other nag at you for something while you are trying to just relax for a bit, and it's made even worse because they are sort of right and you know it.

At the end of the day, I did NOT enjoy this game. I will never play it again. I'm not sure if I'm "glad" that I played it. I think I am not. But, as a parent, several of the "messages" in the game really hit home and I could certainly relate to them, and I admit that the messages reinforced certain desires and goals I already possess. From that perspective, it was worth it to me - but honestly the message could have been delivered in 2 hours rather than a little over 5.

I'm really curious to see what others thought of the game. If your experience was different, or if you think I'm missing the mark on the game, please feel free to comment.

Very badly optimized walking simulator with a memory leak that causes crashes, sounds jumping in and out of existence and jittery and stuttering FPS. World loads in as blocks in front of you, you can see things pop into existence as you get closer.

Sound is badly balanced, FX audio is very loud whilst dialogue audio is very low in comparison with no sliders to fix it, and it doesn't help that the subtitles are not very visible against most surfaces.

The story is supposed to be metaphor for corporate overlords, wasting your time working, you just being a worthless slave, stuff like that, however it's more than just a metaphor... that's ALL the dialogue is about. No matter what you are being banged on the head with that stuff. I don't know why the developer thought that was a good story, it's literally just the A.I robot following you around saying these things over and over as on the nose as possible constantly.

Meanwhile all you do is walk across the horribly bad looking planets to objectives to press X on them, do this 4-5 times per planet and start over.

The story is non-existent, it literally is just about you being a worthless human sent here to do work and it doesn't matter if you die, etc.
The developer found about 100 different ways to say it over and over back-to-back.

Voice-acting(except for the messages from your family) and soundtrack was pretty good.

The world is painfully slow to traverse between objectives and has pointless insta-death traps that you must avoid.

On a controller at least the Look sensitivity is broken. It resets between each planet and you must go into the settings each time and change it 1 number then back again and hit apply to fix it.

Curator page

No hate I just cant recommend this to your average gamer gamer.
Interesting little tech demo exploring the final moments of an astronaut caught in a temporal causality loop. I swear I can see some bits of Satisfactory's DNA here, sans the factory stuff. Unfortunately the corner-cutting is noticeable and takes away from the experience. It has the polish of a free VR 'game' or student project. Interesting, but purchasers should be aware going in.

So not a hard 'no' but a maybe? I'm taking a break since this 'walking simulator' has friggen 1st person platforming... ya... but If you can tolerate jank and find mystery more interesting than the end explanation that will leave more questions than answers to fire the imagination(I'm guessing ).

-think the movie Mission to Mars. Weak ending by modern story standards but old-old school sci-fi to a T - subverting your expectations with a pleasant ending. Showing your the monster for assuming the worst. Like something from Ray Bradbury or his peers, post their little green men phase. I'm guessing is whats in store.
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Good and even Great in certain regards, but also fairly Broken and Shambling in others.

I don't understand how this game is rated so poorly. Maybe it just resonated with me harder than others, but man was that a heavy story... The ending was amazing and completely changed my views on what was going on, but the very end left me a bit confused.

The only downside I can say is that the game suffers some performance issues at times. I noticed it got especially bad on the very last planet. I'm not sure if it was the rendering of all the grass or what. Either way, I was able to get through without too much trouble.

A fun cinematic walking simulator that can come across up-its-own-ass, but does genuinely have moments inviting emotional introspection

I felt like playing one of my regular go-to games, but was going to start this little game first to quickly see what it was like before resuming business as usual. But I totally underestimated how “Corpse of Discovery” would pull me in. I kept going for six and a half hours straight until it was done.

It turned out to be a truly remarkable exploration of, not just the alien landscapes on the screen, but also the meaning of life, what it means to be human and to be alive. It ponders our existence, our significance (and/or insignificance) in the universe; the meaning of family, of everyday choices, the existence of a higher power, our fate, the significance of artificial intelligence and what that holds for the future of human life.
Does the greatness of man’s accomplishments actually mean anything beyond the human context? Does the universe care about any of that? Are our technological advances actually taking us anywhere in the bigger scheme of things?

Gameplay-wise you will, as an astronaut (in 3D platforming style), explore the surfaces of mysterious alien planets and the lifeforms on them, aided by an AI drone, a jet pack and waypoints. You will encounter things that blurr the line between reality and fiction, between the present and the past, between visual observation and thought. Real historical recordings of famous speeches are incorporated, even surprise messages by famous actors.

“Corpse of Discovery” was a delight to play and intrigued me throughout. I was a bit frustrated with the platforming in the final level, but that was probably because I desperately wanted to see how the game ends, and I guess I was feeling fatigue setting in by then. Ultimately it was a very worthwhile experience. I am richer for it.

Great little game. Groundhog day over till you get out. Fun and enjoyable when your looking to just chill out . nothing too stressful and reasonable story, Overall a great game.

This game is a 3 hour first person walking sim with some parkour set on a planet in space. You have to follow instructions to slowly uncover your fate and that of your family.

The indoor station setting reminded me of Tacoma with that constant 2001:Space Odysse vibe. Once you get outside to discover the planet with your trusted robot AVA, the game reminded me of No Man's Sky. Movement is really good and exceptionally great with vertical parkour.

Each day you start in your station, get your mission and head out to fulfill your mission. There are obivous story elements with classical sci-fi topics. But there is also the underlying "real" story that will become obvious on your last mission. The developers do not force feed you the ending ... you will be left to decide what it really means.

I like walking sims and I like classical sci-fi topics. They did a good job blending both together and the robot goes full claptrap in the last mission.

Very unique game! If you like the works of Phillip K. Di*k, the Strugatzky brothers,
or David Lynch, this is your game.

If you are into the strange and unusual, I wholeheartedly recommend this game.

However, you have to listen and examine everything very carefully, take your time, check for small details and do all the side objectives, otherwise I guess the story might simply be confusing... But if you do take your time and are attentive, there is alot to find and everything fits together like a puzzle to create a very immersive and profound experience.

Pro:
-Intriguing story
-Lots and lots of cool details
-Very unique
-Atmospheric
-Beautiful music
-Great humor

Con:
-Not strictly a walking simulator
-Simple platforming involved
-Clunky controls (you will get used to it very quickly)

Achieves the impossible in making most of a 3hr game feel like filler. Incoherent story and sluggish movement mean that isolated well-executed vignettes (sarcastic AVA and planet of the pillars) can't save this walking simulator.

Feels wrong not to mention the horrific, game-breaking pop-in: platforming segments and even general exploration are almost impossible when you cannot see the ground around you.

Played through this game today.
It was a beautiful game with a fairly interesting story, although presented in a somewhat bizarre fashion. Sort of similar to Lifeless Planet in this regard. However, unlike Lifeless Planet, this game just kind of droned on. It took me a little less than three hours to complete, and I really wish it had taken about half that. It became a very boring affair going out to basically do the same things over and over with minor changes to your base in between. That actually kind of killed the immersion for me.

As far as the actual gameplay, it was pretty smooth. It's an exploration game, so you really just move about, jumping and when available, using your jetpack to navigate alien planets. You will interact with your objectives, but mostly you just take in the visuals and listen to what also seemed like overly long dialogue.

Now, I dont want to pan this too hard because it is evident that this game was a labor of love, and it definitely had its positives, but overall, I just ended up finding myself bored. The pacing never changes throughout. Just sort of you wandering at what amounts to a casual pace with, as mentioned before, somewhat droning dialogue.

I'd say it is worth checking out when you dont have anything else you'd like to play or simply want an interlude between other games, but I'd also bet you will end up feeling bored like I did.

5 out of 10 for me personally. I'm giving it a no as a recommendation because, like I say, it ends up just being boring.

If you found this review helpful and would be interested in supporting my Curator group, it would be appreciated. Cheers.
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32549618/

You control an astronaut waking up on a space station as a recorded voice wishes you good luck with your mission, after listening to a message from your family and your mission briefing you set on the planet while an hovering robot blurts out mission parameters and HR slogans.
The aforementioned story doesn't have to be taken at face value though as Corpse of Discovery wants to use it as a metaphor: while the game has an interesting premise and some good moments its dull gameplay and ham-fisted narrative hold it back.

PROS:

-the art style is pretty nice

-good soundtrack and voice acting

-the first levels are interesting

-there's a good amount of dark and vitriolic humor that makes you both smile and think

-some dialogues are pretty good and function as high points in the game

CONS:

-graphics are a bit of a mixed bag, while the levels look from decent to nice the draw distance is bad and there's some noticeable graphical glitches, the framerate can also be dodgy at times

-repetitiveness sets in after a couple levels, this is made worse by the amount of ground you have to cover between points of interest and some instadeath threats that'll see you go back to the previous checkpoint

-the narrative as a whole is pretty awkward, most of the time it's content to just be obscure but when it's time to make a point it comes out as too obvious and cliched

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=547984285

Corpse of Discovery is off to a strong start with its mistery story and weird locations to explore, sadly its attempt at a more active take on walking simulators doesn't always work well: jumping and jetpacking around is quite fun but it eventually grows dull when you realize there's quite alot of space between objectives, even more so if you want to explore optional stuff, and that getting there is for the most part a boring affair.

The story also takes a dive once you realize it's used as a metaphor about something else, sadly it's done in an unoriginal way for the most part: without spoiling anything the point the game tries to make also explains it being deadset on giving you task after task to grind through, too bad this intentional repetitiveness helps the point as much as it hurts the gameplay.

All things considered I can't recommend Corpse of Discovery, a few good points notwithstanding its story and ending were ultimately not good enough to make its dull gameplay worth slogging through over and over.

Interesting game that starts strong but ends weakly, a shame since is had such promise. The story lays out a lot of possible threads but never follows up on most. There is also a religious versus scientific thread that comes off as more lecture than debate, as if it was included just to expound on the writer's views. Side objectives are meant to expand on the story but most give you information already heard through the messages from home. No steam achievements makes finding them completely not worth the effort.

Your (voiced) companion AI and the music were easily the best part of this game, both are fantastic and make the journey worth taking. Another great addition was the gradual platforming that found it's way into the gameplay, making it less of a 'walking simulator' and more of an actual game. The jetpack physics are well designed and an enjoyable way to get around.

With such a strong start, I was hoping for a really great ending or a good twist. Something like Moon with Sam Rockwell or Oblivion with Tom Cruise. Unfortunately, what we get is a family message and a childish lullaby. Despite requiring only 4 hours to complete (some side objectives), I felt it dragged on for the last two missions and could have been summed up sooner. Had the story been stronger, this wouldn't have been a problem.

My personal taste in storytelling is responsible for what I primarily didn't like about the game and despite that I can easily recommend it. The $15 price tag is too much for what you get here, but a sale makes it an easy buy.

This game blasted me away - don't listen to the bad reviews, most of them did not understand the game. Maybe you have to have made a special kind of experience to aknowledge and value the metaphor that is being told. It is an extremely deep, meaningful gaming experience, that transports an important message to all workaholics and career-fetishists. Additionally it is filled with humour, witty comments, smart cross-references to pop-culture and the gaming industry.

If you like intellectual & philosophically challenging games like Ether One or Mindpath To Thalamus you definitly should give this title a try. Explore the details. Enjoy the weirdness. Wait for the mind fuck.

I highly recommend this title, although I fear that not many gamers will have the patience to experience the whole master piece (which is a pity). Thank you Phosphor Games for an utterly interesting game! I hope that you took the moral of your game to your heart during the development of this title itself ;)

Short.
Quickly uninteresting.
Repetitive.

I got this game not knowing anything anything about it. I was really excited for the first 15 minutes when I saw the impressive graphics of the living quarters. Then less and less excitement until I completed the game in about 3 hours feeling like I wasted time and money. I am fond of short games like Dear Ester, or To the Moon as long as they are thoughtful, rich and interesting. Corpse of Discovery isn't anything like that, however.

The dialog is very contrived, cliche, and forced, nearly to the point of being irritating. Whoever wrote the dialog in this game I am pretty sure knew this because the game even teases you about its own repetitiveness. It almost feels like the game has gotten bored of itself.

The gameplay mechanics consist of running and long jumping to points on the display. There are some floaty wrath creature things that do nothing but interfere with the running to the objective. On one level there is a radiation that drains your radiation bar if you're exposed in the sun too long.

I'm going to end this review half assed and lazy just like this game's ending. Take the few hours and watch a movie like Interstellar, Solaris, or Sunshine instead of bothering with this game.

After 2 hours I've seen the end. I think I've got about 70-80 % of the optional targets. The jump part of the game is mildly entertaining but no challange. The story is okay but has no surprises.

The game is playable, beside a moment where the character got stuck in the ground I haven't found any bugs.

All over all I've got a game with the length of a movie for the price of a movie. I think I'll choose the cinema next time.

This game is so weird, I have no Idea where to begin. Maybe I Should start with the bad things fisrt.

So I had two cons about this game

One, the optimization, Oh lord, the optimization is poor. My frame rate was terrible and I had to have my settings set to low the entire time, and I STILL had crap frames. It was terrible, but I paid the 15 dollars for it so, at first, I thought, ok lets just push through that and see what the game has to offer gameplay wise.

My second and only other gripe with the game was that I would occasionally glitch through the floor when I would jump, so nothing to out of the ordinary there.

As for the Pros, Well...

The first time you wake up you're on your ship. Its a pretty self sustained looking palce....but you've just crash landed due to some unseen force, so the automated messages play thoughout the ship and have you walk through for your mission breifing. after that, once those doors open, things get weird, The good kind of weird. Throughout the first half of the first planet you're on, this robot, the AVA if I remember correctly, walks you through your mission, which is placing becons on the planet to map it out while she calls for a distress signal. once you place the becons down, she says she can not find a signal and tells you that you will die alone. She then loses all he battery power and drops to the dirt, lifeless. and now you're all alone right?.....Right?

The events that happen after wards? well, you need to play this yourself if you can, because I woulnd't want to spoil it for you. Is it worth 15 buckaroos? I would wait for it to go on sale, maybe catch it at 10 or hell, I bought this at 10% off and Idont regret it. If you got the money to spend, I would recommend getting this and playing it through. From what I could tell, it controls nice, the story is incredibly amazing and as of this review, it leaves me wondering what happens next.

Oh, and if there just so happens to be a content creator ("youtuber") out there reading this. I think It would make for some pretty decent content.