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Comment by Paul_S | Hacker News Reader

Amazing novel but this is neither a direct adaptation nor faithful to the novel's message and ideas. It's a modern walking simulator with a the most surface level veneer of what we now consider retro futurism but otherwise modern in its messaging. I'd rather they kept the core and modernised the paint.

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I really wish HN would have less of this negative bile you just spewed on someone elses work because it didn't conform to your every whim.

I played the game and didn't like it, you're welcome to disagree and engage with me by showing examples that disprove my assertions from my original post.

I think I'm on safe grounds calling it a walking simulator. The gameplay is limited to walking down a linear path and clicking on things until all combinations are exhausted - western equivalent of a visual novel (but with less branching).

It's a perfectly valid point of view IMHO. The game is called The Invincible and marketed as being based on the Lem book, which builds up certain expectations which the game doesn't deliver.

It's a decent game / visual novel on its own, but it has absolutely nothing in common with Lem's Invincible except the name and that one core idea (which by now has become a common science fiction trope anyway - like most of Lem's ideas).

It also pulls a future Cold War scenario out of thin air which (as far as I remember) isn't even remotely mentioned in the book (which is more like a whodunit scifi crime novel which then becomes a tech thriller).

Also the decision to use a retro-future lollipop art style similar to The Jetsons is 'controversial' to say the least.

All in all, interesting and decent game (or rather "interactive graphics novel"), but marketing it as being based on Lem's book when in reality it's something entirely different (not just a book adaption with 'artistic freedom', but something entirely different) is a bit too much IMHO.

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