Game:

Obscure (2004)

Duration: 9:56

1,138 views

3

Other than coming across this on a couple of abandonware sites, I can find literally nothing at all about this game on the web. Nothing on Mobygames, GameFAQs, Wikipedia, etc. Only a total of 4 USENET posts throughout the entirety of USENET's history make reference to this game (searching +HR2 +Artdink), and all four posts are in Japanese, though they all look like ads in the mid 1990s for buying and selling the game. Obscure indeed.

Not so obscure, perhaps, is the developer -- Artdink Software is a Japanese developer probably best known in the US for their game A-Train, published stateside by Maxis (back when Maxis was into making and publishing games that had educational value), though their other games have enjoyed only limited niche success outside of Japan.

Being somewhat interested in AI I thought I'd give this simulator a whirl. In this, you instruct robots individually programmed with different (and user-customizable) C-like source code on the basic steps that would amount to constructing a tower. Much like how termites, whose brains amount to very simplistic state machines, are capable of building elaborate dirt mounds of astonishing architectual complexity.

To my misfortune, however, the in-game manual is entirely in Japanese, and so here I post what amounts to a miserable, failed attempt at trying to figure out the interface. Still, I wanted to just get this game's existence out there, hopefully let it be re-known to the world, perhaps.

I can tell this is a game I would enjoy... if only I knew how to play it. Perhaps I will experiment with it a bit more and, once I deduce the interface a little better, I will post REAL gameplay showing some neat creations. But, that will take time...

The game's description on Home Of The Underdogs reads as follows:
[One of the more obscure games from Japanese developer Artdink, HR2 is a unique and interesting tower building simulator that shares a similar goal as Maxis' SimTower, but with a completely different emphasis.While your goal is to build a highrise building as tall as possible, your concerns are not with floor designs or business strategies. Instead, in HR2 your role is that of a contractor/engineer commissioned to build the tower. Therefore, your goal is to build the tower with structurally sound design to guarantee that it will not come crashing down once you get to the 10th floor.

The game is challenging not only for its realistic engineering concepts alone, but also for the importance of strategic planning and logistics. In order to build the tower, you must command a troop of robots. You can assign different programs to a robot to determine its role in the enterprise. For example, giving a robot the "PILLAR" program will make it build pillars. You can edit premade programs or create new ones using the game's built-in computer language (which looks like BASIC to me). You can place traffic signs and obstacles to confine the robots' area (and make sure they don't wander off to build the second tower), and switch control from automatic to manual if you prefer a hands-on approach.

With emphasis on programming and engineering issues, HR2 will appeal more to engineering-minded than business-minded gamers, or anyone who enjoys a realistic simulation or a unique programming exercise. Recommended, but only to a niche audience. ]

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgf7W8GuTaY
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmhvyUEiXiA
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eBMWsBzVdI

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