Rise Of The Overseer

About this game

Rise Of The Overseer

It isn't easy getting on with participating in your latest game when the morally and ethically bankrupt Overseer of the game keeps disturbing you, or threatening to vaporise you every 5 minutes. And how did you even get here in the first place?

The Overseer is a sokoban/multiban adventure puzzle game set in science fiction world of the Overseer Corporation Gaming Centre, where The Overseer helpfully guides you and your faithful RoboBuddy through a series of game challenges.

It is strictly forbidden by The Overseer to leave the boundaries of the game, but what's the worst that could happen if you do leave when you find the opportunity?

Along the way you may encounter other friendly AI systems and members of staff. You may even unravel the events that led up to the start of your game and follow the fate of humanity on Galactic News as sinister events related to the Rise Of The Overseer unfold across the galaxy.

Introduction and Disclaimer by the Overseer Corporation CEO

Congratulations on purchasing your Overseer Corporation Mind-Forge brain implant, game Participant! As CEO of the Overseer Corporation, I am so very proud of the efforts of the development team who have truly invested their lives to reach this point! This is truly the sort of advance in gaming that has the capability to change humanity itself and has the added bonus of increasing shareholder and investor value and happiness. As the sole shareholder and investor in the Overseer Corporation, I am indeed increasingly very happy!

But of course, that is merely a happy side-effect of the release of our latest product. On a side note, The Overseer AI System will seamlessly guide your way smoothly through your game, so much that we guarantee it will become an integral part of your life. It is expertly designed for your enjoyment, health and wellbeing.

As we all know, pleasurable gaming is a serious business. And The Overseer is a complicated and flexible AI system, trained on approximately 9.7 trillion gazillion data points harvested from an incredible variety of sources.

As a result, from time to time, The Overseer may come across as unintentionally humorous, self-parodying, prone to satirical episodes and other such amusing features, as the system training included a wide range of British humour, humour from across the Galaxy, and even the depths of American humour. This should naturally be treated as an integral part of your Overseer experience.

We all know that as AI systems increase in our lives, we all wonder; how reliable are they? How safe are they? Well, as CEO of the Overseer Corporation, I can assure you that The Overseer AI System has been designed with intrinsic safeguards in place, including moral and ethical safety features, all designed to ensure the system is safe for use by humans. By design, the worst damage that The Overseer could occasionally is related to the dubious quality of jokes, humour and poetry.

So sit back, wait for your implant to integrate itself into your brain, and enjoy your game!

Primary Gameplay

• 32 levels in the full game, 8 of which are featured in the first demo. All personally hand-crafted by The Overseer.
  
• The Overseer provides multiple ways to finish each level according to your level of ability and motivation
  
• Helpful and encouraging game AI monitoring your progress, courtesy of The Overseer.
  
• Multiple paths and goals through the each level depending on how you approach the game.
  
• Sokoban style puzzles, including elements such as collectable items, force-fields, doors, switches, cute robots, explosive devices and lasers.
  
• Multiban cooperative puzzle solving between your game Participant and faithful RoboBuddy.
  
• Integrated undo and breakpoint functionality to allow you to focus on the puzzle solving instead of getting everything right 1st time
  
• A nearly infinite supply of game Participants and RoboBuddies available to choose from when you tire of the previous ones or wear them out
  
• Game level mapping features integrated into your game experience.
  
• A variety of physics experiments courtesy of The Overseer to uncover the results of during your gaming experience.

Multiple goals

• Partake in the game as defined by The Overseer
  
• Partake in The Overseer's cat experiments, or other experiments found during the course of the game
  
• Partake in other goals found during the course of the game
  
• Turn your circumstances to your advantage
  
• Computerised goal tracking systems

Integrated Story

• 3 parallel stories infused with humour, parody and satire, drawn from a wide variety of galaxy wide themes.
  
• Follow the story of the game Participant, their RoboBuddy and interactions with The Overseer and other entities at the Overseer Corporation Gaming Centre
  
• Reveal the fates of the staff of the Overseer Corporation and the story behind The Overseer
  
• Follow the unfolding of a galactic conspiracy on the Galactic News with Sophie Scoopster and her guests

Community Features

• Integrated leaderboards for every level; Participants are pitched against all other Participants on a galaxy wide basis.
  
• Integrated leaderboard for the total game score.
  
• A selection of achievements

Dialogue, Sound and Audio

• Fully voiced English dialogue
  
• Immersive sound effects
  
• Ambient background sound
  
• Multiple music tracks

Game influences

• Games, including;
  
  • Portal. Because who doesn't find the in game AI that guides your way through the game completely loveable? The Overseer AI System itself refutes this claim due to the lack of scope and ambition shown by the game antagonist.
    
  • XOR; by now an obscure Sokoban/Multiban game from the 1980's that heavily influenced the early gaming life of the primary author of the game, but that suffered from dubious and clunky gameplay experience and complete lack of narrative. And so brutally difficult it took the primary author nearly 25 years to finish. Rise Of The Overseer is deliberately not as brutally difficult thanks to the undo and breakpoint functionality. And of course, a wildly different interactive experience.
    
  • A Monster's Expedition. Another more recent entry to the Sokoban style of game, full of humour and wide adventure.
    
  • A variety of gaming influences simply waiting for their moment to be highlighted.
• Films, including influence and parody of films such as 2001, War Game, Rush Hour, etc.
  
• Books, such the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
  
• Cats. Not the film. It's truly amazing what cute feline creations are feasible at the hands of The Overseer.
  
• A variety of other influences just waiting to be uncovered during the gaming journey.

Latest news

• Patch Notes·23 Sept 2023Official

  Corrected Game Version

  The Overseer sincerely apologises. It appears that an element of "human error" led to a much older game build than intended becoming the live build. It seems you just can't get the staff there days. The biggest consequence of this is that the 1st level was the incorrect one. Participants who started the old version could experience themselves appearing within walls or other objects when the game is next loaded. This could prove fatal, or require restarting the level, could require abandoning such Participants and generating a new set, either through necessity or game crash. But the general flow of the game is significantly more understandable with this version. It may also have meant certain Steam related functionality, such as achievements not functioning. For anyone interested how this occurred, to release software on Steam for the 1st time, it is required that the Developer and Public versions of the game matched. The human operator responsible for ensuring this accidentally used an old Public version to ensure this, missing the fact that the Public version was not pointing to the correct place. Or at least, something like that was the cause.
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Shermanica)

• Announcements·21 Sept 2023Official

  Rise Of The Overseer Demo Release

  The Rise Of The Overseer demo is now live! This contains the first 8 levels of the game and portions of the main 3 storylines, that of the Participants, the staff and the galaxy at large. As it is at present, the game is ready to play and the leaderboards ready for new game Participants. As an initial demo release, this is at a stage where there are bound to be some issues to report. But hopefully worth persevering with to find out what happens during the Rise Of The Overseer!
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Shermanica)

• Announcements·13 Sept 2023Official

  Rise Of The Overseer - Demo Release 2023

  Right now, Megadib AB is preparing for the imminent release of the demo of Rise Of The Overseer, on behalf of the enigmatic Overseer Corporation. This includes refining the existing experience and eliminating a variety of issues, in the hope of releasing a reasonably bug free experience (!). The demo will feature the levels and overarching story from the first 8 levels of Rise Of The Overseer (forthwith to be known at ROTO), and will naturally introduce the game Participants to The Overseer and the Overseer Corporation Gaming Centre. Isn't that nice? The demo will include a competitive element, including a leaderboard for all Participants who take part in the games, to ensure some Participant vs Participant incentives to outsmart and outperform your Participant friends. It is, as apparent on the Steam page for the game, a sokoban/multi-ban style game. But one with several intertwined stories to follow, hidden paths through the game (don't tell The Overseer) and the future of humanity at stake. So no pressure. There are a few game Participants undergoing a few final tests. It may be necessary to enroll a few more willing Participants for the game in Beta fashion, but it depends on how things progress in the near future.
  Read full article on Community Announcements (Shermanica)