No-One Said There'd Be Spiders... | Penumbra: Overture - Foreman Plays Stuff
2Stumbling around in the dark, making explosives, isn't the most conventional way to spend Halloween.
I genuinely enjoyed my time with Penumbra. The environment is suitably unsettling, it manages to be frightening without being too aggressive and the puzzles are reasonably clever without being too complex.
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Penumbra: Overture is the first in a series of episodic survival horror games developed by Frictional Games.[2] It was originally intended as the first episode of a trilogy. With the announcement of the second episode, Penumbra: Black Plague, it was stated that the second game would be the final chapter.[3] However, an expansion has been released since then: Penumbra: Requiem, technically giving the series a third chapter.
Although Frictional Games describes Penumbra: Overture as a first-person adventure,[5] the game blends the genres of survival horror, psychological horror, and adventure. The use of the Newton Game Dynamics physics engine emphasizes physics-based puzzles as well as physics-based combat.[6] The game also takes advantage of advanced artificial intelligence to respond realistically to noises and light, creating stealth-based gameplay. There are no firearms in the game, so during combat the player is limited to improvised melee fighting with a hammer or pickaxe,[7] or throwing objects at attacking creatures. The game is designed to emphasize stealth and avoidance over direct conflict. For example, Philip can close doors behind him to temporarily hold off attacking enemies.[1]
The game's main focus is on exploration and classic adventure game object interaction: examining and collecting objects and using them to solve puzzles.[8] These mostly involve finding keys or other objects that can either be used by themselves or in combination with each other to solve certain problems. In addition to these standard inventory based puzzles, Overture also offers several physics-based puzzles where certain objects must be moved or manipulated in real time. Environmental objects such as doors, desk drawers, and switches on machinery must be opened or manipulated using realistic movements mirroring their use in the real world, and certain obstructions can only be cleared by utilizing certain objects in a specific way; for example, in order to solve one of the game's puzzles a player may choose to stack boxes and barrels in such a manner as to allow for the player to be able to leap past an obstacle, such as an electrical fence, or to reach a certain area normally too high to reach.
Essential to puzzle solving is the ability to read written notes scattered around the mine by its previous inhabitants, which often offer clues or solutions as to how to get past a certain area, as well as providing plot exposition and character development. The player also has access to a notebook where important information and the players goals and objectives are recorded.
Penumbra: Overture is based on Frictional Games' earlier game Penumbra, a short tech demo meant to demonstrate the capabilities of the company's HPL Engine 1.
The developers admitted to making significant modifications of the original engine to accommodate the 3D graphics in this game, "The engine is built from an engine created when making a thesis job which resulted in the platform game Energetic. Before moving into the 3rd dimension I made some cleanup of the engine (which was quite rushed in some places) and started to add a base for 3D rendering. I would not say that the original 2D engine was modified to add 3D, but rather a 3D layer was added so all of the 2D stuff is still there. It is still possible to make a 2D tile game using our engine."[11]
While not initially intended to be a commercial product, Penumbra was received exceedingly well, and Frictional decided to develop it into a full-length game.
he first episode of Penumbra was released on 30 March 2007, through various online distribution websites. The game was simultaneously released in a boxed edition in the United Kingdom, and the boxed release in the United States was shipped to retailers on 8 May 2007.[12] On 30 May 2007, the full version for Linux was released on the Frictional Games store.
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