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I didn't realize the 10th game came out! Thanks for letting us know. This series has been a lot of fun to return to over the years. Early last year I "re-discovered" it and bought all the HD versions so that I could go through them in a couple days' time. Just as good as I remember and the puzzles just get more and more clever as they go. Sometimes the answers get really obtuse but it's not often. Most of the time you just need to apply a good logical mind, especially later in the series when the puzzles seem to shift focus away from items and more around a central mechanic inherent to whatever episode you're playing. The story is also very strange and like many others I don't really know what to make of it beyond fan musings. Gonna follow along with this. For anyone who hasn't seen the series before and doesn't plan to play them on their own, you're in for a treat.
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Jan 29, 2016 16:51
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 05:21 |
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In regards to the image size, I think they're too small now. It's very difficult to see the smaller details in the game with the image size being what it is. You may have to cut your losses on the 3-image-wide parts just for the sake of general clarity.
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Jan 31, 2016 03:22
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I've played before and know what it's asking so I'll put my response in bars. If m = 845 and c = 3 and we're trying to solve for e, e = mc^2. Therefore e = 845*(3)^2 or 7605.
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Jan 31, 2016 17:32
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I feel like Submachine 2 does a good job in setting the tone of the series and showing its expectations of the player. The lighthouse is confusing in itself due to the fact it appears to be buried and then you have this mysterous Mur who lost and found an arm, a cat and some girl Mur mentions letting you know that the story definitely does not end here and it is only going to get more and more complicated as you go. The puzzles aren't too difficult yet but they can be complicated and involved and do require backtracking to previous areas as well as making the player carefully pay attention to their surroundings. Basically, this is a really good series as has been mentioned more than a few times by now. Now if only i could figure out how to beat the last game...
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Feb 3, 2016 22:44
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Submachine 4 is really where the series kicks off for me and we'll see why soon. It just hits all the right notes for me. The Loop feels like a weak entry in terms of gameplay but it does teach you that the answers to puzzles will sometimes require you to be smart about your answers instead of just trying to use items on everything. It also establishes the weird Loop setting too which does seem to be a pretty important part of the series setting as a whole.
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Feb 13, 2016 01:09
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I don't think I remembered that tidbit about the extra room in the HD version. Makes me want to go back and check it out for myself because without that knowledge there's nothing suggesting that this area is part of the Submachine as a whole.
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Feb 22, 2016 21:18
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I'm not sure if 4 is my favorite but it's very high up there. This game does a great job of introducing its central mechanic and it's really cool exploring these weird places with the teleporter. This is a really strong entry in the series.
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Mar 6, 2016 04:44
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This was always a weird entry to me but considering its origins, its weirdness makes sense. Still cool that it's tangentially connected to the rest of the games, even if the connection is mostly theory on the part of its players. And yeah, what's up with that ball? It's the only place it shows up in the entire series and it does nothing. Weird.
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Apr 10, 2016 16:19
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I feel like this Part is one of the more confusing ones but I really like the cipher plate mechanic. It ties in so well with the whole "oldest submachine" setting.
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Apr 30, 2016 23:05
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I think that lightbulb was probably one of the things that stumped me for the longest time. It's not particularly obvious even with the hint from 2,1.
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May 8, 2016 19:01
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Maybe this whole thing takes place in the mind of our protagonist after they've gone crazy. We did wake up in a padded cell in FLF.
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May 15, 2016 16:34
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Oh nice, this is back. I spent some time last month going back through games 6-10 and finally beating the series. It's one hell of a trip, especially the last one, so I'm looking forward to that eventually. The Root is kind of weird as games in the series go. It's not super interesting overall but it has narrative importance for the coming entries. I'll have more to say towards the end of it.
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Jun 19, 2016 21:25
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Yeah, most of the games end on cliffhangers. It's more enticing that way. When they were all slowly releasing, the cliffhangers kept people interested and made them play the series over and over looking for new hints about what was going on in the Submachine. Submachine Universe was also released at this point and helped bridge the time between 6 and 7 even though it didn't have any real plot-advancing elements to it. I'm going to put any details of it in spoilers because CD has said they may or may not show at the end if they can figure out a way to do so since it's an exploration game instead of a plot focused one. I figure it's ok to talk about here because there aren't currently plans to show it off and this is the point at which it was released but if CD wants me to get rid of it I will. It's interesting because it involves the portal device from Submachine 4 and 5 and allowed players to explore all over old rooms and a bunch of new ones to try and uncover new places. In those rooms you'd often find pieces of paper lying around with notes on them theorizing about the mystery of the submachine. Apparently those theories came from the Submachine forums themselves, so it was a cool sort of Alternate Reality Game-style of user integration. It also got updated periodically so players would go back to it every couple months and there might be new rooms with new theories to uncover. I don't think it was updated much longer after 7 released but it was a neat timewaster that you could easily spend a good few hours on exploring around and seeing what weird stuff was hiding in parts of the submachine the main games never went to. If you managed to follow a long chain of room hints you eventually found your way to what later became the beginning rooms of Submachine 7, with a note that congratulated you on finding the area and expressed hope that you were looking forward to the next game. CD, was 32 Chambers released before or after Sub7? I could have sworn it was released after 7 but I might be wrong.
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Jul 3, 2016 19:54
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Yeah I always got a "you've outlived your usefulness" vibe out of the end of Sub6. It's interesting because up to this point, Mur has been pretty much our only outside communication and has seemed relatively benevolent until this chapter.Carbon dioxide posted:Unrelatedly, I think FPZero is the first person who abbreviates my name as 'CD' instead of 'CO2' 
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Jul 4, 2016 00:46
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This is a neat little side entry but it's pretty frustrating if you haven't been able to find the jadeite easily. I had no clue that all of those Mayan glyphs meant a variety of things, including hints, but this is Submachine; I should expect that everything has a purpose or meaning.
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Jul 17, 2016 05:01
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I've been interested in visiting one of those places here in DC sometime. Just need to get my friends together and go.
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Jul 17, 2016 07:23
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I'm also very glad that this is still going. Every once in a while I purge my thread bookmarks but I kept this one in last time in hopes you'd make a new update sometime. The Core is a really interesting setting. I agree that those fluorescent plants really help contribute an alien feeling to this garden. It's a big change from the rusty, metallic areas we're accustomed to exploring. That fork in the road definitely confused me the first time I played, as did the puzzle you mentioned we couldn't do yet.
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Oct 16, 2016 23:02
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It's around this point in the series that I felt the need to really start taking notes when playing. This puzzle is somewhat difficult to decipher, but not particularly hard once you know what you're doing.
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Oct 24, 2016 20:54
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I missed this update a week ago. I'm definitely looking forward to Sub8 because it has one of the most interesting central mechanics in the entire series. It's really well-designed and causes the game to go into full "what the gently caress is this series" mode from here on out. Also, this note is interesting:  It's a copy of a note we found all the way back in Sub2:  Looks like Liz got the note after all.
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Nov 6, 2016 16:37
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I absolutely loved this particular installment of the series. It's got such a simple concept of changing Layers but it's so mind-bending at the same time. The whole thing is really well done and messes around with your expectations just enough to keep driving you forward. Oh and the Navigator? For whatever reason, the zoomed in graphic for it ingame just completely creeps me out. It's just really unsettling to me for some unexplained reason. I guess he just did a good job of making what looks like a weird, rusty, potentially unreliable object that you're forced to put on your body and something about that combination just makes me go "Nope" about it more than anything else in this series. Still didn't stop me from finishing the game, but I definitely did say No to putting the electrodes on my temples. 
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Nov 20, 2016 22:16
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As I mentioned before, Sub8 is really well put together. There's a lot of obtuse thinking introduced with the layers mechanic and I think the series benefited from it. Not only do you have to use normal puzzle logic, but you also have to use some spatial reasoning to solve these puzzles. It's a really good entry and sets us up for the next game really well. Looking forward to it.
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Nov 27, 2016 23:32
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9 and 10 only get bigger than the rest so that's not surprising. They're both pretty good overall so take your time!
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Jan 8, 2017 18:54
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The design in this game feels very tight and compact since we're exploring this pyramid. Almost every room to this point has a purpose or a puzzle hidden within it, requiring the player to explore, find and remember. It's a really strong entry overall, and the unsettling feeling you get going deeper and deeper into this mysterious pyramid in a place where the layers are almost identical is unlike anything the past games conjured up. At least, that's how it was for me the first time I played.
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Jan 15, 2017 23:19
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I certainly wasn't expecting to uncover Murtaugh's tomb when I played this for the first time. The music down in the Temple really sells the spookiness too.
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Jan 23, 2017 00:24
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Carbon dioxide posted:I'm glad you're enjoying it. And yes we do, but there's only a few more posts to go, so that shouldn't be a problem. Boom, let me help you with that!
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Jan 23, 2017 07:18
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The secrets in this game are really difficult to uncover. The missable one is especially mean. Looking forward to seeing what's hiding down below...
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Jan 28, 2017 23:46
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Oh no, just what I needed: to be sucked into Universe again. I've always loved how the games intertwine. Taking the portal to the mover with the wisdom gems is completely unexpected but such a cool little callback. That said, how did one of those portals get there to begin with? In fact, there did they all come from? Should we assume Murtaugh's been making them? But isn't he dead? If so, were they all placed preemptively so that we'd be able to follow? When you start thinking about the questions in this game, you realize five more pop into your head. I'd better leave it there for now.
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Feb 4, 2017 17:00
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The Binary portal device is a really cool addition even if it's not much more than a simple warp. I really liked using the Portal device in Sub4, 5 and Universe. It was a really cool feeling to slowly discover new locations as you go. The feeling isn't completely replicated here but it comes close at times. This entry is extremely long but is super interesting as a culmination. As someone who played the games for years it hits a lot of the right notes for me. We're in the home stretch now.
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Mar 12, 2017 22:45
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These looping traps were so difficult to work with. I was also unaware that the majority of their puzzles could be solved without going to other zones, so I found myself coming back here multiple times with more items to try and solve things. Blindly stumbling upon new rooms was a challenge since I wasn't aware most of them had patterns to follow.
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Mar 19, 2017 23:03
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Seems to be working again. Just checked my old uploads and one of yours. If you're worried about Tindeck's stability, I can recommend Clyp as a service. I've moved all my audio hosting over to there and there's no 100-upload limit like with tindeck.
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Mar 25, 2017 16:00
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I don't remember the microscope or petri dish actually being involved in anything, though I could be misremembering. That AAA battery is stupidly hard to notice by the way. It's so tiny and is mixed in with a bunch of other mess.
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Mar 27, 2017 03:46
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I love how small bits of all the other games are beginning to show up. It really drives home the point that this is the final game that ties everything together.
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Apr 2, 2017 04:14
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Man I forgot the true extent of backtracking and item puzzles that this game has. I must've been in a complete haze during the 2-3 hours I spent completing this one the first time. It's still a super good conclusion to the series though.
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Apr 15, 2017 16:46
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I think one of the most unsettling things about Sub10 is revisiting areas you were in just recently. Like, I'd expect the Sub2 lighthouse digouts to be fairly changed by now but we just left the Sub9 tombs not too long ago. And yet everything is filling with resin at approximately the same rate. Or take the Sub7 Winter Palace. Why are so many things suddenly broken? Is someone following us, destroying the machines we used to progress? Of course, who knows if time even flows linearly in the submachine. Or if it flows at all. The other question, and I can't remember if it's addressed or not, is what's the deal with the resin? Where did it come from and why is it filling up all these previous locations? I always thought it was sand and represented the supposed burying of the lighthouse that we learned about way back in Sub2. Like, maybe it all just broke in through the boarded windows. But that doesn't explain how it got to all the other areas of the machine. Though now that I'm actually typing...what if the lighthouse is the location of the submachine itself, so as it fills with sand, so do all the other areas? I've beaten the game but I've never started piecing together elements before so these are genuine questions I don't know or remember the answers to.
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Apr 17, 2017 21:28
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This is as good enough an update for me to give you a question to ask Mateusz: How far in advance did you plan the games? I imagine at some point there must have been some serious planning done considering items from Sub1 become useful in Sub10. ----- This isn't a question for him. I'm just musing now. I wonder if the Light Spheres somehow transformed from the Wisdow Gems? We've seen two of them in locations we left or discovered wisdom gems in the past: one in the lighthouse digouts and one in the basement. They must be connected somehow unless someone is moving around behind the scenes, grabbing the gems and leaving us the spheres. I forgot about the Infernal Basement. It's pretty unsettling in that color scheme. Revisiting the Basement is a really cool part of this game since all of the puzzles are broken and all the pieces can be picked up again. It's definitely been a long time since we were here last.
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Apr 22, 2017 20:12
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My assumption is that we got sucked through the Karma portal there and don't remember it.
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Apr 24, 2017 18:48
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Hold up a second, I just found something. This might be exclusive to the HD versions I bought a while back, but when you put all four tiles into the slots in Sub 1, you're teleported to the Infernal Basement for a moment before you step into the elevator.  There are no doors to other areas yet, but this definitely happens as soon as you put in all four tiles. So it's definitely the same elevator. That means that we did get warped through a karma portal to the infernal basement, but we couldn't see it. Just like we couldn't see the one that took us to the lighthouse.
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Apr 24, 2017 21:32
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It's no wonder I never found all the secrets in this game. They're all over the place!
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Apr 28, 2017 21:28
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The relationship between the player, Murtaugh and Elizabeth is a really strange one. From Sub 1 to Sub 5, Mur seems helpful, guiding you to safety and then seemingly assigning you a mission in Sub5. But after that he seems to become the antagonist and it appears he's chasing Elizabeth, trying to kill her and her notes to the player seem to support that. The invasion in her lab in Sub7 show that at least *something* happened between her and someone else, presumably Mur. But by Sub9/10, the notes being left show conversations between the two of them and their main topic is you and whether or not you would escape with them. And then obviously, they're standing there together and cordially greet you when you leave the submachine. I've always been impressed at how well this series has been able to evoke feelings of fear, dread and wonder through nothing but notes, ambient music and architecture. You never meet Mur or Liz before the end but you feel like you know them and their motivations. Two questions I just want to ask the thread because honestly I doubt Mateusz would answer them and they're probably better never answered definitively. 1. Where are we now? There were two celestial bodies up in the sky. 2. How did we even get into the Basement, and by extension the Submachine, in the first place? I don't really have answers for either of those questions but maybe someone else has some ideas. Thank you so much for LPing this series CO2. I love this series and that brief replay I did of Sub1 to get that screenshot of the INfernal Basement has made me want to replay them once more, even though you just finished the LP. It took a while to get here and it took a while for us to know enough to seriously discuss the game, but it was totally worth it in the end. This series rules.
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May 6, 2017 18:26
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 05:21 |
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Interesting to see that the games might be ported to Steam. I might have bought them all in HD already but I'll definitely have to keep an eye out. Thanks for all the hard work on the LP! It was very well done and I enjoyed the trip down memory lane.
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May 25, 2017 19:47
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