Scanner Sombre 
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Official Soundtrack released, free to downloadAug 15, 2018 - Community AnnouncementsGreetings, We wanted to say a big thank-you to everyone who has supported Introversion through the years, and especially to those that love our oddball art exploration game Scanner Sombre. We were all in a pretty dark place after working on Prison Architect for five years plus, and something sinister and dark was just dying to come out. Scanner Sombre is how we felt! As a thank-you gift we have released the Official Soundtrack as a free download, for anyone who owns Scanner Sombre. Thank you so much! https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28572655/6c71685ed3b7a6db8d57cc050e9941fcbab5083c.jpg Track Listing: 1 As Above So Below (Surface Ending) 2 Know our Truth (Temple Ending) 3 The Souls of the Many (River) 4 Don't Fall in (Lake Part 4) 5 Somebody Was Here Before (Base Camp) 6 A Serpent Bites its Own Tail (Base Camp) 7 Halls of the Fallen (The Mine) 8 The Ascent (Lift Shaft) 9 What Darkness Awaits You (Lake Part 2) 10 Behind the scenes with the composer We'll leave you with these words from our head of audio, and composer of the Scanner Sombre soundtrack, Alistair Lindsay. Thanks and enjoy! Just prior to commencing work on Scanner Sombre I had experienced an intensely busy and emotionally brutal couple of years in which I had lost, to terminal illness, all three of my cats, my dog, and finally my Father too. During this period I had designed sounds and composed music for several games most notably Ludeon's 'RimWorld', and Introversion's BAFTA Award winning 'Prison Architect'. To stay 'professionally positive', and therefore be able to write the (mostly) emotionally neutral or happy music that these games required was not easy but was nonetheless essential. On many such occasions, alone in my studio, I could feel the proverbial thumbs of my own truth pressing remorselessly ever harder into the eyeballs of my soul, as I forced myself not to externalise (in my musical compositions) the pain and loss I was feeling inside. As it turned out we had just finished Prison Architect when my Father died. What should have been a time for joy, jubilation, and a sense of pride and victory was instead usurped by feelings of nausea, anger, and devastating loss. In all truth henceforth what I desperately needed most of all was to be authentic. I needed a new project to write for that could offer me a legitimate vessel into which I might pour all of that dark, rancid, despair and negative energy that I had bottled up inside for so long. What I needed was a bottomless pit of never-ending doom, where all hope must be abandoned, where only pain and grief can thrive. Somewhere that would need the kind of music I had wanted to give birth to for an entire year! And that, ladies and gentlemen, turned out to be Scanner Sombre. All the best, and, er....enjoy the music? Alistair Lindsay. Head Of Audio. Introversion. Scanner Sombre VR mode now available in betaJun 24, 2017 - PC GamerScanner Sombre, as it turns out, hasn't sold very well, at least compared to Introversion's previous game: the 2-million-copies-sold-and-counting Prison Architect. By comparison, the developer's first-person cave-mapping game Scanner Sombre has only rustled up around 6,000, or in the words of Introversion's Chris Delay, "It's bombed". Delay, and Introversion co-founder Mark Morris, chatted about the game, and its sales, in a frank new YouTube video, while also finding the time to show off Scanner's previously teased VR mode, which is now live in beta form, and playable on HTC Vice or Oculus Rift. Click here to learn how to opt in to that beta on Steam. Here's Delay speaking about Scanner Sombre's sales, via Gamasutra: "It's bombed. I didn't think that was possible. It's not that I arrogantly believe we're the best people in the world or anything, it's that our last game sold over 2 million. So I kind of wrongly assumed that would just give us a minimum number of people looking at our game. So that numbers like would be impossible." Scanner Sombre is currently 50% off in the Steam Summer sale. You can read Tom Marks' review here. VR mode released into beta!Jun 23, 2017 - Community AnnouncementsWe are very proud to announce you can now play Scanner Sombre in VR, using a HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. We've been busy working on this since Scanner Sombre launched, and we think it's one of the most atmospheric experiences we have ever created. Let us know what you think! Mark & Chris made a video demonstrating the new Vr mode, and also discussing the critical and commercial response to the games launch. It's a difficult but honest discussion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4a7K-I-F5s This update is on the steam branch 'beta', meaning you must manually switch to that branch to see this new version. - Right click on Scanner Sombre in your games list - Click 'Properties' - Click 'Betas' - Select 'beta' from the list. (Restart steam if it doesn't show up) - The update will then download. Full list of changes - Experimental VR mode Supports HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. - Translations The game has been translated into this massive list of languages: Bulgarian Czech Danish Dutch Finish French German Greek Hungarian Italian Japanese Korean Norwegian Polish Portugese Portugese-Brazil Romanian Russian Simplified Chinese Spanish Swedish Thai Traditional Chinese Turkish Ukranian - You can now invert your mouse Y axis (options menu, 'Invert Y axis') - Experimental Linux support added Stay up to date: Like us on the FB Subscribe to our Blog Subscribe to our Youtube channel Follow us on Twitter Join our mailing list Follow our twitch.tv livestream - we sometimes code live on twitch VR mode released into beta!Jun 23, 2017 - Community AnnouncementsWe are very proud to announce you can now play Scanner Sombre in VR, using a HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. We've been busy working on this since Scanner Sombre launched, and we think it's one of the most atmospheric experiences we have ever created. Let us know what you think! Mark & Chris made a video demonstrating the new Vr mode, and also discussing the critical and commercial response to the games launch. It's a difficult but honest discussion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4a7K-I-F5s This update is on the steam branch 'beta', meaning you must manually switch to that branch to see this new version. - Right click on Scanner Sombre in your games list - Click 'Properties' - Click 'Betas' - Select 'beta' from the list. (Restart steam if it doesn't show up) - The update will then download. Full list of changes - Experimental VR mode Supports HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. - Translations The game has been translated into this massive list of languages: Bulgarian Czech Danish Dutch Finish French German Greek Hungarian Italian Japanese Korean Norwegian Polish Portugese Portugese-Brazil Romanian Russian Simplified Chinese Spanish Swedish Thai Traditional Chinese Turkish Ukranian - You can now invert your mouse Y axis (options menu, 'Invert Y axis') - Experimental Linux support added Stay up to date: Like us on the FB Subscribe to our Blog Subscribe to our Youtube channel Follow us on Twitter Join our mailing list Follow our twitch.tv livestream - we sometimes code live on twitch 13 recent games that run well on terrible laptopsMay 25, 2017 - Rock, Paper, Shotgun‘Terrible’ only in the sense of their gaming capability. Honestly, I’m sure your laptop is lovely to look at and it was definitely a extremely sensible idea to spend all that money on it instead of buying a holiday or helping to save the pandas. Truth is, though, that playing recently-released games on the vast majority of laptops is about as effective as starting an online petition to uncancel your favourite television show. A little discretion goes a long way, however. Sure, you may be denied the glossiest of exploding viscera, but it is entirely possible to keep up with the Joneses even on a Terrible Laptop that has no dedicated graphics card. Here are but twelve contemporary games – either recently released or still-evolving going concerns – that will indeed run on your glammed-up toaster. Additional suggestions below are entirely welcome. … Scanner Sombre is coming to VRMay 13, 2017 - PC GamerIntroversion Software surprised us recently by releasing its first-person adventure Scanner Sombre just a few days after announcing its existence, an interesting move considering Introversion's last game, Prison Architect, spent about six years in Early Access. Now comes the news that Scanner Sombre will soon be available to play in VR, which Introversion's co-founder, Mark Morris, didn't formally announce but simply mentioned to me during a conversation at PDXCon this week in Stockholm, Sweden. The news arrived when I asked Morris and fellow co-founder Chris Delay if they were still experimenting with VR, since the developers had expressed excitement about VR on our podcast in 2015 and released Defcon VR back in February of this year. While Morris is definitely a fan of VR technology, he also admits it's still a bit of a niche market. "I think about seven people downloaded ," Morris told me. "That's the reality of VR. So, we're not doing exclusive VR games, I think that would be just nuts at the moment." Hence Introversion's decision to release Scanner Sombre for PC first, and hold off on making it a VR compatible game until later. "We deliberately didn't want people thinking Scanner Sombre is a VR game and then not buying it thinking 'I've got to have a headset.' It's a PC game, but if you happen to have a headset you'll be able to play Scanner ." It seems like a good strategy: I don't own a VR headset, and so when browsing games on Steam I pretty much ignore anything labeled as a VR game. Even if a game says it can be played both with or without a headset, if it's made for VR I usually assume that's the optimal way to play it. And so I don't play it. As for when it's coming, it won't be long, as Introversion plans to have the game VR-ready in approximately six weeks. It'll be compatible with both Oculus Rift and Vive. I expect Tom will certainly be happy to play it again in VR, as he called Scanner Sombre "tense and captivating" in his review. Wot I Think: Scanner SombreMay 10, 2017 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunA beautiful and novel game suffering from something of an identity crisis, Scanner Sombre is the latest from Introversion Software, making a play for artfulness after a few years of successfully popularising themselves with Prison Architect. But though Scanner’s central conceit – using a laser scanner to ‘paint’ dot-array colours and shape onto your pitch black, subterranean surroundings – is gloriously atmospheric, it lacks the lightness of touch needed to achieve the emotional clout it so clearly wants to have. … Chris Delay on the dotty world of Scanner SombreApr 26, 2017 - Rock, Paper, Shotgun Scanner Sombre is Introversion’s curious LIDAR-inspired exploration game. It caught my eye last year at Rezzed because it had such an unusual art style – the only thing close to it is A Light In Chorus and that does very different things with the specks of colour which make up its environments. In Scanner Sombre you use a scanning gun to reveal the world around you and to navigate its secrets. A spectrum of colour helps you parse the terrain with bluer areas being far away and reds indicating what’s nearest. Yellows and greens mark out the middle ground. It’s an atmospheric game although it cleaves to a narrative I wasn’t particularly interested in. That said, it managed to get under my skin to the point where I quit out forever about halfway through because I was TOO SCARED. But the art style is the thing which drew me in and which continues to absolutely fascinate me. Chris Delay, one of the studio’s directors, was on hand to talk more so we delved into particle systems, maps and the secret mouse button function: … Now Available on Steam - Scanner Sombre, 20% off!Apr 26, 2017 - Product ReleaseScanner Sombre is Now Available on Steam and is 20% off!* Inspired by Gone Home and Dear Esther, Scanner Sombre is a cave exploration experience. With stunning visuals and a terrifying theme, it is the 6th major video game released by Introversion Software - creators of the BAFTA award winning Prison Architect as well as Uplink, Darwinia and DEFCON. *Offer ends May 3 at 10AM Pacific Time Scanner SombreApr 24, 2017 - Community AnnouncementsWe are very excited to announce that our sixth game ‘Scanner Sombre’ is finished, and is launching this Wednesday 26th April! Watch our launch trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NFlo9FEfaY Scanner Sombre began life as a short experimental prototype, created in a little over a week during the long Prison Architect alpha. We wanted to create something completely different to Prison Architect, and very different from any game we’d made before. Scanner Sombre is intended to be a deeply atmospheric experience, inspired by similar games such as Gone Home, Dear Esther, and Proteus. Armed only with a LIDAR gun, you must explore and ultimately escape the cave. As you explore your ‘point cloud’ becomes more and more detailed and expansive. http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb1.jpg http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb2.jpg http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb3.jpg http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb4.jpg http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb5.jpg http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb6.jpg Scanner Sombre will be on sale on Wednesday 26th April. The price will be $11.99, reduced to $9.99 for launch. We hope you enjoy playing our latest game! http://www.scanner-sombre.com Stay up to date: Subscribe to our Blog Subscribe to our Youtube channel Follow us on Twitter Join our mailing list Follow our twitch.tv livestream - we sometimes code live on twitch Scanner SombreApr 24, 2017 - Community AnnouncementsWe are very excited to announce that our sixth game ‘Scanner Sombre’ is finished, and is launching this Wednesday 26th April! Watch our launch trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NFlo9FEfaY Scanner Sombre began life as a short experimental prototype, created in a little over a week during the long Prison Architect alpha. We wanted to create something completely different to Prison Architect, and very different from any game we’d made before. Scanner Sombre is intended to be a deeply atmospheric experience, inspired by similar games such as Gone Home, Dear Esther, and Proteus. Armed only with a LIDAR gun, you must explore and ultimately escape the cave. As you explore your ‘point cloud’ becomes more and more detailed and expansive. http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb1.jpg http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb2.jpg http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb3.jpg http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb4.jpg http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb5.jpg http://cdn.introversion.co.uk/introversion/images/screenshots/scannersombre/thumb6.jpg Scanner Sombre will be on sale on Wednesday 26th April. The price will be $11.99, reduced to $9.99 for launch. We hope you enjoy playing our latest game! http://www.scanner-sombre.com Stay up to date: Subscribe to our Blog Subscribe to our Youtube channel Follow us on Twitter Join our mailing list Follow our twitch.tv livestream - we sometimes code live on twitch Introversion s Scanner Sombre surfacing on WednesdayApr 24, 2017 - Rock, Paper, ShotgunFirst-person spelunker Scanner Sombre will launch this very Wednesday, April 26th, developers Introversion Software announced today. They’re sending us to explore a deep and dark cave network with the aid of a LIDAR scanner that visualises the world with squillions of coloured dots. It’s a curious game to see from Introversion, who are known far more for exploring systems than places in games like Prison Architect, Uplink, and Defcon. I like the concept and look but I have premonitions of lurking horrors and do not want to know. … Prison Architect developer's next game is coming out later this weekApr 24, 2017 - PC GamerAfter developing Prison Architect for six years, three of which were in Early Access, developer Introversion Software's next game is getting a much quicker turnaround. In fact, the first-person exploration game called Scanner Sombre will be coming out this Wednesday, April 26. No Early Access, no beta, just a full launch later this week for what Introversion's lead designer Chris Delay tells us is a "palate cleanser" after Prison Architect. Scanner Sombre uses a unique visual mechanic that mimics a real-life LIDAR scanner . The game's world is completely invisible, but you can send out thousands of points of light to cover the landscape and slowly reveal the space around you. Delay told us the whole game is essentially one giant particle cloud with no limit to the number of LIDAR dots you can create, and every dot's position is saved exactly where you put them. A rainbow color scheme indicates distance and depth as you slowly work your way through the game's mysterious cave system. Scanner Sombre is a shorter game compared to ones Introversion has made in the past, obviously with a much shorter development cycle than Prison Architect, and Delay said that was the goal from the very beginning. "We've actually spent longer on it than we initially intended. We wanted it to be a really quick turnaround, nice breath of fresh air, nice palate cleanser as we called it internally." It was also apparently no small task to get this particle effect working. "It was really hard," Delay said. "It took us ages. We started out using a particle system that stopped working after about 10,000 particles, and then ended up basically entirely from scratch just so that we could have enough particles on screen to make it look as dense as it does." We'll have a full review of Scanner Sombre when it comes out on Wednesday. You can read the whole interview here with Delay and Introversion's producer Mark Morris, where they talk about the inspiration behind the LIDAR effect, the game's incredible audio design, and how they feel about Prison Architect "clones" like RimWorld. Introversion Software on why Scanner Sombre is its Prison Architect 'palate cleanser'Apr 24, 2017 - PC GamerAfter six years of working on Prison Architect, developer Introversion Software announced today that its next game would be coming out in just a couple days on April 26. Scanner Sombre is a short first-person adventure game with one of the most unique mechanics I've ever seen: the game's world is pitch black, and you have to send out thousands of dots of light using a LIDAR scanner to reveal the terrain around you. It's a beautiful game, and we'll have a full review when it launches this Wednesday. But before that I got a chance to speak with Introversion's lead designer Chris Delay and producer Mark Morris about the inspiration behind Scanner Sombre, its incredible audio design, how making games is (and has always been) hard, and how working on the studio's sixth game was a "palate cleanser" after Prison Architect. PC Gamer: Where'd you get the idea to make a game with this LIDAR mechanic? Chris Delay: It's quite an old idea, it's a pre-Prison Architect idea actually. And although it may seem like an odd source of inspiration, it's actually based on a music video that was m ade by Radiohead . They used this crazy LIDAR effect to kind of—they got hold of some city data or some data of buildings and trees and things, and they just kind of had it blowing around in the wind whilst this Radiohead track was playing over it making everyone really sad. There's just something about the look of it that I really like, like all humanity has been taken out of it somehow and all you're left with is just the raw data of what's in the area. I just really wanted to use it to represent a game world, you know? Because I thought that we would be able to create a really strange atmosphere and a really strange feeling in the players when they were playing in that in that world. How'd the structure around that mechanic come around then? We're trying to create a certain feeling in the player, and I wouldn't quite want to say exactly what that feeling is... Chris Delay CD: During Prison Architect we were getting a little bit burned out, and so I took a month out from Prison Architect and I took Alistair, our audio guy, and Leander, another programmer, and we kind of just holed up in my house for like a month and made these two prototypes. And one of them was Scanner Sombre, and the other one was a bomb defusal game called Wrong Wire, and I think we prototyped Scanner Sombre in about eight days. And that was the first time we had taken the concept of a world rendered in LIDAR or a world rendered as a point cloud and actually made a game out of it. Because it seemed to me that you would naturally need to have a reason as to why there's absolutely no light. Like why can't you just see the geometry around you? Why can't you see everything? Well the answer in this particular case is that you're so deep underground that there is no light. Scanner Sombre ha...
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