Lobotomy Corporation | Monster Management Simulation

So realized to my amazement that there isn't thread for this game and trope page hasn't been updated in ages O_o I don't think its most obscure obscure game I've seen, so weirded out by that since its very unique game.

Anyway, so yeah, title pretty much says what it is, its Korean made rogue-lite SCP style simulation game currently on early access. It is pretty awesome(and creepy) game and I've lost way too many times(especially since I retry day each time agent dies) in "Hah, victory is in my gras- WHY DID I JUST DO THAT NUUU" way :P Like accidentally touching "Do Not Touch Me" when I had basically won. Dunno how it differs from old legacy version, just mildly annoyed about how trope page is mostly about legacy version

Aand now its released <_< Would be nice to get discussion on this but I guess I'm just not very good at making opening posts

It looks like a bit of an endless miner mixed with one of the Fallout: Shelter- alikes.

Possibly some dwarf fortress in there too?

It looks like it could be an interesting distraction for a wee bit. But not sure if it's £20 worth of fun? If it was on mobile I'd be all over it.

Its not endless game(though it does have challenge mode which is endless), it does actually have story and such with multiple endings apparently. Its like I said, SCP management simulation game, not a tycoon game.

I'd say its definitely worth it, but I'm person who doesn't play mobile games at all in first place. Either way, according to steam, I've played it for 95 hours by now

edited 13th Apr '18 5:29:03 AM by SpookyMask

It's on my wishlist actually, but yeah, I'm still wondering if it's really worth 22 $.

And besides, I have already wayyyyy too many games on my Steam account. Meh, I might succumb eventually, I guess.

I definitely think this should be more popular than what it seems to be, but be prepared for the clunky english translation when you try it out eventually.

I do have to say that I'm starting to worry about indie game scene if 20 for game like this is too much nowadays <_< People are really devaluing games nowadays

Must be the abundance of Steam sales and other bundles. When everything's dirt cheap, 1 € more feels like a ripoff.

That definitely has something to do with it. Especially as new releases on PC seem to be reaching to £50 mark.

I'm odd when it comes to Indie games - I'm, personally, not a great fan of the whole 2d side-view thing, but always willing to give things a whirl at least once.

Hmm, heard that apparently reason why English translation is what it is is because whatever company they hired to do the translation basically gave not that good job and then run with the money ._.

That really makes me angry since biggest entry barrier for English native speakers at least seems to be the translation.

Oh wow, that's shitty. I did buy the game, eventually, and I was going to say that the poor translation was making it hard for me to get into it, but that changes everything.

I'm only on day 4, but I have the hardest time understanding what the objective of that day is ("accomplish the Ordeal of Dusk" ? Wha ?)

Do note thought that that is rumor I heard, so it could be totally off, I did post that while I was still mad at hearing about it and didn't think of trying to check on it. Like, maybe devs just run out of budget or something. I do know that they did have money problem and that team got smaller during development and that money problems are why after 7 "tumblbug"(seems to be some sort of korean site? Not sure if its crowdfunding or what) dlc abnormalities they released yesterday they are done with the game new content wise, though seem like they still gonna do bug fixes and quality of life stuff. Though they did express interest in doing more games in same universe, so I guess we'll see if they manage to get through.

Anyway, I'll try to explain that: You know qlippoth counter? The meter that when full usually triggers qlippoth meltdowns? Well if you have noticed, it sometimes says "dawn" and when qlippoth counter becomes full, an ordeal spawns.

There are four levels of ordeals: Dawn, noon, dusk, midnight. There are also five colors that show which type of ordeal shows up, them being amber(the worm ones) crimson(the clowns), green (machines), indigo(sweepers) and violet(eldritch thingies).

I'd recommend on the first playthrough just keeping playing the game to familiarize with mechanics instead of intentionally trying to trigger ordeal of dusk.

edited 22nd Apr '18 1:21:12 PM by SpookyMask

Ah, seems like I heard right first time around, it was case of professional translators they hired turning out to be worse than google translate

(apparently according to some people, google translate really did translate script better than the professional version <_<)

And here I give shit to people who use Google Translate to scanlate manga.

But yeah, the developers are Korean, and I almost had an easier time just reading the Korean text in the earlier betas than the translated stuff. The game is quite tough, and I find myself always losing my experienced personnel whenever I have to puzzle out some new SCP—I mean anomaly.

Heh. I remember how I decided to start over on my first playthrough because I managed to get combos of abnormalities(including Punishing Bird, Big Bird and Bird of Judgement at same time) that was really pain to deal with. Was really surprised to learn that everything but employees carry over since back then I thought it was just encyclopedia entries, didn't realize its also the missions and rewards that carry over.

I played a bit of this, didn't get far before getting annoyed at it, though. I dislike how you can continue the day indefinitely, which promotes grinding long days so you have all that you need from one anomaly at a time. This leads the game to feel pretty slow and tedious.

Also, is there a way to tell the current HP/Sanity of the workers? All I can seem to find are the max values. Is more detailed information revealed by an upgrade or something later on?

I wouldn't recommend grinding though especially on first playthrough, mostly because 1) upgrades you unlock make you regret doing it, 2) you can't 100% game on first playthrough anyway and 3) game is long enough that you have time to unlock everything from abnormalities later on anyway, so if you grind on purpose to unlock everything, you are just wasting time.

And yeah, that is one of information team(second department you unlock) research upgrades.

edited 24th Apr '18 12:53:47 AM by SpookyMask

So I'm happy that this isn't most obscure thing on steam anymore. Still probably not best seller, but nice to see it doing better than indie games that just get forgotten by everyone. I do wonder if it would have done better if translation had been better, like is it more popular in original language than the English version

Well this game got new translation all of a sudden :O I dunno if it means the game was popular or if just has dedicated fanbase, but nice!

Finally planning to get back to finishing this game, been playing library of ruina too

Hopefully I finally figure out what the Seed of Light thing was about, translation years ago was pretty weird :p

I wish I enjoyed this game but so far I just don't. I send my staff to do their jobs, stuff happens, they die, I get yelled at. I have one go crazy and the rest of my staff chase them around with batons, completely too slow to actually do anything. I kinda get the mechanics, either the game is badly translated or too dense with the Kabbalah terms, but it feels like I have no idea what the game is doing at any moment.

And why does the information team get a separate set of monsters to babysit? Shouldn't they be in laboratories or something? It seems really weird to be expanding what should be a support staff on the main task; like having scientists in X-COM shooting aliens my soldiers can't fight.

Translation in Library of Ruina definitely feels more enjoyable to read, but I still haven't replayed first game when they had the new translation patch so I don't really know how different updated translation is from first one