Thunderbird: The Legend Begins

Would have been mind blowing even in it's unfinished state if it had released back in 2015 when we were drooling over the videos, but by 2017 it was far too late, so many incredible VR games had come out, just like skyrim vr

So short, if you blink it is over. We were promised more free content but it never happened after years of waiting. Do not buy this.

i dont know whats going on here, but i get to the bottom of the lift and then the games ends there is this all there is, if this is all there is then how could anybody in thier right mind recommend this game to antbody

Being a Myst fan I fell for the sales pitch, paid to play the demo on SteamVR ages ago, terrific, loved it; but not one update in 2 years from the then 17 year old Tony Davidson's "father and son team" on any forum; they seem to have fizzled out without even the courtesy of being honest & braving up to inform paying Steam customers why. Such a shame & so dissapointing.

Now this Kickstarter style method of 'pay as you go' funding seems to be taking off, I wish Steam had a policy in place like Kickstarter that if Devs don't regulary update customers projects or their projects come to nothing they have to refund the backers; otherwise it encourages rougues to create a short sequence, trawl a few grand then vanish in the night.

I'm not buying anymore 'in developement' games unless they have an official website with a customer contact or an active Discord forum.

Unplayable due to a game breaking bug causing a misalignment of the periscope.
I spent less than an hour in the game, about 95% of which was trying and failing to work around the bug. It's unfortunate that I'm now outside the refund period.

Even if you're lucky enough not to encounter the bug, the game only offers about 10 minutes of playtime.

Way too short, just a tech demo, looks really nice and shows promise but the cost is too high until more content is available.

The 'game' is more a technical demo than a real game.

The graphics are very nice and the beginning looks very promissing ... unfortunatelly after you are past the introductory tasks the credits show up and it is already over :-/

As a demo (what it in reality seems to be) it´s nice and looks promising. I hope they add real content to their demo

==> way to short for a 'game' to pay real money for

The controls are really terrible. You grab something and your in-game hand is turned around backwards from how your real hand is. You try to turn things but your in-game hand just lets go of what you're holding. Teleporting would sometimes work, sometimes not. Important transitional moments are not obvious, like there's one point where a turtle shell is coming toward you, but you can't see it because it's so dark, and nothing else is happening on the screen so you're not sure if you did the puzzle correctly or not, or if it's a bug. Ugh.

For a game that relies on puzzle solving mechanics, the actual mechainics are poorly done and buggy.

I had a lot of hope for this game, I really did. I'm sorry to say I don't recommend it, at any price.

Way too short for the pricetag, also very frustrating mechanics. Lights are very difficult to move and line up.

This game chapter is a beautiful beginning to what could be the next Myst. The puzzles are intuitive and fun, the graphics are highly polished and the hands-on interaction is natural. I really enjoyed this chapter and look forward to the next!

This game is very short, but offers some interesting visuals and mechanics. The grabbing and teleport code seems to have some glitches, but the developers are working to correct these.

Having a lot of bright lights in dark spaces, does lead to some pretty distracting lense glare in the HMD. I would recommend that the light level be brought down a bit, and some more ambient light added to the interior to even out the lighting a little.

Overall, while it's a bit pricey for what feels like a demo, I still think it's a worth while purchase as long as you understand that you're only getting 10-15 minutes of playtime.

the "game" is like 10 minutes long wtf

Edit: dev gave me a refund and a free key and they're adding more content

Fantastic experience with great graphics, beautiful light effects and interesting puzzles. There is a constant feeling of suspense in the air while you are exploring a long lost secret temple hidden within the mountain. Use of music and sound effects are great and adds to the suspension.

On the flip side: The menu select at the start could have been more intuitive. Its also not clear how to start the game when entering the snowy landscape at the very start. Handling of the mirror inside is a bit awkward, almost to the point of being bugged.

Currently the game is very short (It says "to be continued") and Im eagerly looking forward to experiencing more content. Can't wait to travel deeper into the mountain and reveal more of it secrets!

This is replacement to my first review which was based on the game's day-one release. On that day, it was basically unplayable due to a plethora of bugs. Those bugs have been fixed and pushed to Steam.

I will reiterate from my first comment that I had played part of a demo at GDC 2015 and eagerly waited for the final release. With the bugs fixed, I was able to get through this VERY short experience (about 10 minutes.) For some reason Steam continues to log time for every game I play, even after I quite, so don't look at my time played as anything of consequence.

What Thunderbird has going for it are nice graphics, and what I hope will be a good series once it is completed. Is it worth the $6. That's a tough call. Unfortunately, this particular release is not much more than a glorious way to demonstrate VR for friends and family who want to dip into something for a very brief time. If the series grows (as the developers promise) then I can imagine that it will be a fulfilling puzzle game. Currently the puzzles are two easy, but that is okay if they progressively become more difficult.

It is hard to tell from this if there will be a story, or just a series of puzzles to solve. I am also not clear on the business/release model. Are we going to pay $6 for each installment? I don't know how many installments there will be, and I'd have to say that if it's going to be 4 releases totaling $24, then I question the value, unless there is something about it that blows my mind.

There are still a few bugs in the game, but not "game breakers" like on initial release. Some collision volumes are still active, when they shouldn't be, triggering a sound that should not be played. The developer should check all locations where objects are retrieved.

In general, the mechanics are pretty good, but some of them required too much precision, especially when placing objects. If you don't have it just right, it can fail. Sometimes needing the object respawned.

Room Scale or Standing? Apparently the problem with the original release was some sort of mixup between the two locomotion versions. The issue I have with room scale is that if your boundaries are close to the edge of the game's minimum Room Scale requirements, then you are often looking at Chaperone Lines. This breaks the immersion. I would allow teleporting in Room Scale.

I think there is better value for your money elsewhere, however, I think with a few adjustments, this can be a nice thing to have around for a quick, easy to use demonstration, and that is worth $6 to me.

SPOILER:

Be advised this "game" goes no further than getting you in the front door.

The game looks like it will be pretty fun, but it is a very short experience if you are familiar with this type of puzzle mechanic.

It says "to be continued" at the completion. Well, I am certainly looking forward to seeing more.

12 minutes of play is what you get right now. I am told more gameplay will be added for no additional cost, so perhaps it is not a bad deal if you want to take an early peek.

edited: To be less negative due to active developer responses.

Puzzles are way to simple (literally 10 seconds) or buggy and baffling. Its just not fun.

Beautiful and worth a look if its on very cheap (don't forget most 2min arcade machines can cost ya a quid or two!) - but go into it knowing what it is, basically less of a game and more of an interactable experience. Its a handful of light based "puzzles" which you can trial and error your way through - and once you know how to pass them the entire title is completeable in roughly 10 minutes with little to no replay value.

However the game world is very pretty (turn up the graphics option as soon as the game launches) and the music is suitably hauntingly soulful, and the game starts to build up an air of mystery - but then just comes to a very abrupt ending.

I've bought this again (on sale) to try it again as I'm sure the bugs have been fixed by now. Yes it's short but for showing newcomers to VR it's worth it as it is quite cool! Also, look forward to later chapters too!

--old review/issue report below (now out of date)--

Not so much a review as the reason why I refunded (for now, will buy again if fixed and give a recommendation)

I've got nothing against the format (4 times 15 minute installations etc) although it is a little bit short..

I refunded because there are some major issues when playing with teleport like not being able to walk on to the *last object* (no spoilers) because you can't teleport at that point or also the bit before it too.

This means it's not intuitive for some one who has had VR for many months let alone the people I would love to show this too. I know this is probably a non issue without teleport but a lot of us don't quite have 4 metres of space! :)

Also menu select at the start could have been more intuitive. the "start" hit box could have maybe been bigger as I thought I was looking at it but had to raise my head quite a bit to get it to work. I t also wasn't aware that was what you had to do and same with the teleport.

Fix these bugs and I'll buy it again as I've been waiting for this game to come out before I even got the vive and it was a major reason that finally convinced me. :) Looking forward to the other parts and hope they come soon.

***UPDATE***

So the developers are very responsive and are working quickly to squash bugs in the game. They have already fixed and addressed the bugs I mentioned in my below review. I will continue to test the game. I can say they are working to correct issues.

***ORIGINAL POST***

I really wanted to like this game. The intro was ok and graphics looked great. However that is where the dream ended.

I was presented with the first bug after the first light puzzle and blinked forward to enter the door. The door closed but I was presented with a turn around graphic and then white cube room of no escape. The second bug appeared after entering a getting set on the down elevator when working the lever the thing flipped around to the other side! I got the mirror disk in it but I had to reach around the back to work it!. After at least 20 minutes of positioning the light in different spots with the concave and convex sides of the mirror, I am convinced the game is too buggy and seems like it was rushed to publish without proper QA and bug-sqaushing. Very disappointing. My advice for the time being would be to stay away until they either fix it, which I hope they do or to bypass it.

This game has alot of promise and does look like it could be a great game, it was on my wish list since the early videos appeared as it looked great, but unfortunatly it is really short. and I mean REALLY short.

My experience was this:

Game loads and I get asked if i want roomscale or standing, I went for the standing option and i get shown how to teleport.
The teleportation is standard stuff thats in alot of VR games so I jumped a couple of times and wanted to start the game waiting for it to continue. it was only until I had satisfied the game and teleported several times more that it presented me with the start option.
Looking at the word "start" did nothing and pressing a few buttons on the controller only gave me Resolution options (which was nice), but I was unable to change the resolution.. I managed to discover that scrolling on the track pad highlighted a different resolution to pick, but I couldnt actually select it.
Finally i found that I was just off the games "prefered" standing position (which is marked on the floor) - finally I could get into the game.

Now, other than a very short clip of the game with the first puzzle I hadnt watched any other videos about the game - dont want to spoil a puzzle game by seeing other people complete the puzzles and make the game a walk through.

The game loads and the first puzzle is solved within a few seconds and i went onto the next.. the game is quite dimly lit after the first puzzle, so there isnt much in the way of amazing views.
The second puzzle (no spoilers) was very obvious and again it was just a few seconds to solve.
The 3rd puzzle got me for the longest time out of all of the puzzles, but as soon as I saw 1 item it all fell into place and that was solved.
4th Puzzle was solved within a few seconds once again

I do hope they add more do this game as it does look good, but if you want to see what you get for your money at the moment (and see the puzzles solved), UploadVR has the entire game in 12 minutes on Youtube (which was uploaded over a year ago 12/Jan/2016). After the Youtube video ends, in the actual game it says "to be continued" and you get the credits.

At the moment this game feels like a Demo. I really do hope they add more at some point.

My total play time for this (including going through the teleportation tutorial) was 23 minutes - 5 minutes was before and game play + setting up broardcasting (twice, first time failed) so a friend could watch