Croteam | November 2014 - Croteam

Interest in The Talos Principle is growing larger every day and so is its Steam community!

Every few days we can hear some journalist getting thrilled after playing preview build of the game. Also, after releasing free The Talos Principle Public Test on Steam overwhelmingly positive user reviews are pouring every day spreading the excitement about it. Get it here!

We are now two weeks from the release and we want to return some of this love to our community. So, we decided to add 10 Steam keys for The Talos Principle game to 25.000 members giveaway milestone, together with previously announced 50 keys for various Serious Sam games and 10 keys for Hotline Miami.

To become member of The Talos Principle Steam community, you can either:

• Follow The Talos Principle game on Steam, or
• Join The Talos Principle official Steam group

If you want you can help us reach milestones in several different ways, first by joining our community, and then by inviting your friends into it, posting and sharing news and announcements from the group, etc
Only way to invite your friends into the community is through The Talos Principle official Steam group page. You will notice Invite friends option in the menu on the right side. There you can inivite some or all of your friends, who you think might be interested in The Talos Principle.

Check giveaway progress and see its road-map on this link:

About Disciples of The Talos Principle: Community Game Giveaway

Time flies when you’re having fun – someone said – and (s)he was certainly right, as the past few weeks have been nothing but fun for us! We’ve released Public Test, received very useful comments which helped us iron out all the small bugs and glitches that we just couldn’t have found alone, without your help. So we’d like to thank you all for your feedback and support, and let you know that mere 2 weeks are separating you from release of The Talos Principle.

But even after getting overwhelmingly positive comments on our Public Test, there’s still that little voice in every developer’s head, whispering “Are they gonna like it…?”

The first time I went to play Talos Principle is when the game reached alpha, story was finished and all the puzzles have been set. It took me several days to go through complete game, and I remember having many moments of epiphany (after solving puzzles that have been bothering me), or giggling and grinning while I spent my time in terminals trying to prove what it means to be human… After finishing the initial pass, I was soooo excited, and thought how amazing it was, and how no one outside of the team is gonna believe me, thinking I was biased ’cause I helped develop the game!

Seeing how Ian from GameTrailers spoke about Talos Principle in GameTrailers’s video preview, reminded me a lot of my experience and made me grin once again 🙂

If you still haven’t checked out that video, click on the link below

http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/jbfxcu/just-played-the-talos-principle

Damjan

With the impending release of The Talos Principle in less than one month, we’re giving another opportunity for you to increase your chances to win a free copy of The Talos Principle. We want to spark the creativity within our community and see what ideas unfold.
 
1. Join our Offical Group on Steam
http://steamcommunity.com/games/257510

2. Check under ‘Discussions’ tab – there is a pinned post there explaining everything you need to do in order to enter our contest.
 
Here is a cool pic from one of the entrants, just to give you some ideas what you could do!

If only I had some TNT…

 
Good luck!

The current number of reviews on Steam has reached 831 and our Public Test now has 97% positive reviews and status “Overwhelmingly Positive”. What can we say, but thank you all for believing in us! Here are top comments from the past two days!

“This is a hidden gem in the free to play list.”

“Excellent game, beautiful environment and fun puzzles.”

“This game is a very odd blend of thought inducing, challenging, odd, and beautiful. This public test client sold me on buying the full game. Good first person puzzlers are rare and this most definitely is one.”

“I believe this is the best puzzle game I’ve played in years. The atmosphere is great and the difficulty is spot on.”

“This game is ♥♥♥♥ing awesome, interesting puzzles and narrative. Cant wait for the full release!”

“Both the philosophical theme and the music create a great atmosphere for this excellent puzzle game.”

“I thought it was great! The puzzles were fun, I didn’t notice any bugs or problems, and I found the theme very interesting.”

“Play the public test while you still have a chance!”

“This game is absolutely brilliant and the overall design is stunning and smooth.”

“Difficult, Satisfying, and Adventurous.”

“A very fun and engaging game! I look forward to a full version in the future!”

“I highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a good puzzle game.”

“I can not stress any more the visual beauty of this game. I loved just walking or running through the enviroment. The puzzles did prove challenging, but did not take giant amounts of time. The voice acting was oddly soothing with the background music. I could honestly play this over and over.”

“I have always loved puzzle games. This will be the next in my collection.”

“I loved the puzzles, the way it looked, and everything about it.”
 

Don’t trust us. Don’t trust other players. Try it for yourself.

Earlier today we brought you top 10 comments related to Talos/Portal comparison.
 
But nothing beats this one:
 
Sakamoto 

The Talos Principle Public Test
When i started this game i thought this game was amazing. The graphics are amazing the puzzles are also unique to in many ways like concentraing beams to open doors,using jammers to hold open doors. I also think they should add that cat XD that would be funny a cat randomly appearing and following you and helping you with puzzles that would be great. I rate this game around 7.5 to 9.7. If you disagree with me thats fine im ok with that, we can have a discussion about that sometime later. Also i think this game would be a great succses good luck Valve putting more effort into this game.
 

Seems that a certain game is serving as a comparison to The Talos Principle, and we say this in a good way! It’s an honor being compared to such great title, and we hope to bring you same amount of fun you had when you played Portal for the first time. We bring you latest top 10 comments inspired by one of Valve’s best games:

“AMAZING GAME!! unique gameplay and puzzles reminded me of playing Portal”

“Nice puzzler ala Portal”

“Remember Portal? Two of them are enough to mess with your mind; remember those cubes, lasers, aerial faith plates, bridges? This game is just like those cubes, lasers, plates, and bridges; even without Portals; still messes with your mind. Never knew Portal minus Portals, is not equal to nothing?”

“For Portal, Antichamber, Stanley Parable, fans”

“At first the puzzle elements seem very Portal-esque (without the Portals of course), but it ends up being very original”

“It looks to me that this is going to be the new Portal, but more strange”

“The mystic stuff is more interesting to me than the puzzles.Yes puzzles were good but combining with that curiosity element, game becomes much better than Portal to me”

“Really great & interesting post-Portal First Person Puzzler, gorgeous graphics, great setting, loved every minute of it”

“I really do like this, it almost reminds me of Portal but it’s unique and fun”

“All I got to say is this is the next Portal quality puzzle game”

In case you are still wondering should you try the Public Test for yourself, ask yourself – did I love Portal? 😉

As of this moment, there are 526 threads regarding The Talos Principle Public Test on Steam community forums. Check for yourselves

Why do we mention that?

We’ve received some inquires from people wondering if all is legit. Seeing that SS3: BFE launched 3 years ago managed to open 269 threads so far, one could really be suspicious regarding Public Test and buzz it’s been generating for the past few days. Some of you compared this kind of activity to legendary Serious Sam HD: TFE trailer that managed to break down one famous trailer website when it was released in summer 2009, by quickly reaching more than 200,000 views in several hours, causing site servers malfunction and shutdown, which eventually resulted in trailer view counters being reset to zero upon relaunch…

Rest assured, all is legit here.

The best comparison would actually be initial Serious Sam: TFE Public Test which we released in the summer of 2000, which had quite a similar reception at first – fantastic comments and user raving about it all over the internet – all leading towards the Gamespot’s Game of the Year 2001 award for the full game.

Now, 14 years later, we are witnessing something similar with The Talos Principle Public Test. And we want to thank you all for being here with us at this moment.

We continue with our top 10 comments from players who had a chance to play our Public Test on Steam

“An amazing puzzle game with what seems to be a really deep back-story”

“The puzzles are clever and rewarding – I just wish that the Public Test was longer :)”

“This public test left me wanting more. A lot more.”

“This is like a fusion of Portal and Riven, the scenery and music where beautiful, and the puzzles where a challenge, yet fun to solve.”

“I just wanted to try that ‘demo’ because of the beautiful screenshots… 1 hour later I had finished the 4 puzzles and pre-purchased the game (something I almost never do).”

“THIS GAME IS AMAZING! At first I thought it was gonna be another early access game but I was very wrong. The puzzles are satisfying and it looks beautiful. I can’t wait to see more!”

“Great game in every way. A quality experience, just what I expected from Croteam and the Serious Engine. Will pre order this game for sure.”

“The game is very awesome with very good soundtracks. Also the story got me very intrigued.”

“Fun and entertaining, got my brain moving. I would recommend! Cannot wait for the full version!”

“Fantastic game So far. Requires a sharp mind and a watchful eye.”

And obligatory honorable mentions – this time only one:

“yes”

In case you are still wondering should you try the Public Test for yourself, we’ll save you the trouble – get it now!

The Talos Principle community is growing quickly! In less than a week our numbers doubled from 6,000 to 12,000 members! Congrats to all!

Out of first 12,000 members, we have chosen random 30 Steam IDs, and gave away 20 various Serious Sam games and 10 Luftrausers game keys.

This time we had to use bigger guns, so we had to improve our Analog Winner Generator ™ – check it out!

Let’s cut to the chase, winners are:

Luftrausers:

Makintia, redphx, snake699, nut4214, AUScythe, Black, Cont120616, fernandojrd, gking798, Hell MacGee

Serious Sam Complete Pack (all Serious Sam games ever released!)
Twilight_Nite, zNob, `Alouette, fabio.l.santana

Serious Sam 3 BFE
Infiniter3492, KiMi_도레미, mattzx97, Patrick Bateman

Serious Sam 2
tigersjaw, {FanCall}Javi, 2xenonite3, Anghelitus

Serious Sam HD The First Encounter
Blue Wolf, Diorama, hell raised christ, Kob Maimetr

Serious Sam HD The Second Encounter
Mc_Diomedes, Omega Zero, ReBoot, Tahel

We congratulate the winners! Expect to be contacted soon through your Steam profiles to receive your prizes.

All of you who weren’t lucky this time, don’t despair, you still have a chance to win games when we reach next milestone. You can help us reach next milestone in many ways, for example by inviting your friends to The Talos Principle official Steam group, sharing group announcements, posting about game and/or giveaway in activity feed, etc

Big thanks to all who participated! We are very thankful for your help!

Next milestone 25,000 members! Bigger we are, faster we grow! Let’s do it!

About Disciples of The Talos Principle: Community Game Giveaway

Instead of sharing what press has to say about our freshly released Public Test, we decided to post collection of top ten quotes from you, true gamers, and show the world what players have to say about The Talos Principle!

“Like Portal? Or Antichamber, or The Swapper or other Puzzle-Games like those? If your answer is yes, then you must try this. Thank me later.”

“Wow, this game is surprisingly fun. Challenging puzzles, beautiful atmosphere, hidden stars, hidden door at the end. This test was a blast. Do yourself a favor and get it now, I had a great 2 hour experience.”

“This game could win Puzzle GOTY easily.”

“Not only does the story seem interesting, the game looks beautiful, sounds beautiful, the puzzles are are fun and most important of all the game runs great!”

“This was probably the most breathtaking game I have ever played. And it was just the demo. If your PC can run it, Play it. Now.”

“This is why I still have faith in the gaming industry. Definitely a must buy!”

“It involves castles and laser beams. BUY NOW! it also has a picture of an Android holding a kitten. SOLD.”

“PORTAL 3!”

“Great puzzle game! I loved being dropped into an open world where there is no tutorial and I just had to figure things out.”

“So far this game is extremely impressive and beautiful! I can see it being a big hit once full released.”

And here are three more honorable mentions!

“I never expected a game to be so clever on so many levels.”

“The public test is a good glimpse into what the entire game could hold.”

“Finally, a game I really look forward to seeing released. Philosophical questions plus awesome puzzles, and also collectables. Couldn’t ask for more.”

In case you are still wondering should you try the Public Test for yourself, we’ll take the liberty of repeating quote nr. 2 – Do yourself a favor and get it now!

Disciples of The Talos Principle – rejoice – we are truly living in exciting times!

Our free Public Test has just been released on Steam – go and grab it here!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/330710/

Trailer:

We have more exciting news for you – now that the release date is set, and you can preorder our game, we’d like you to personally test Talos and see what’s all the fuss about. Our public test will be released on Nov 6th and is meant to serve as additional stress and compatibility testing before The Talos Principle launches later this year. Watch this space for updates.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/330710/