Codename: Terranova Reviews

I wrote a positive review 7 months ago, looking forward to future updates and improvements. Unfortunately, this isn't that game. The team has been focusing primarly on procedural level generation for a while, but they haven't added new levels, locations, game modes or mechanics. I feel like the game could have improved a lot more, it just didn't happen (yet). Maybe it wil get some major updates before the release, but I'm kinda hopeless at this point. Don't get me wrong, it's still a decent game overall (and it often gets discounted by -75%), but the premises were better than the current state of the game. For now, you'll likely enjoy the first 3/4 hours and uninstall the game.

Me and a buddy have recently been on a bit of a co-op puzzler binge, and after working our way through all the known titles (We Were Here and the like) we had thought we had ran out of options. Then by chance I spotted this game on offer and bought us both a copy to try out. Now technically you can get away with only owning one copy, as one of you will be using a website, but we found each owning a copy more fun as we could swap roles after a successful mission. Gameplay is split between the agent on the train (the one playing the game) and the operator (the browser based player) guiding the agent through, kind of like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes in that regard. You have to work together in order to solve the various trials within the time limit, and errors come with rather hefty time bonuses. The best way I can explain is by talking you through a hypothetical room. Firstly the operator needs to know the number of the carriage, and then they type. Currently there are 7 (I think) room types, ranging from standard passenger cars to cargo holds and even server rooms. Once the type has been identified, the operator will be given 4 variations of the floor plan of the carriage, This is where communication is vital, as later layouts can be quite similar to each other, requiring careful deduction of the correct one. Once the carriage is identified, the operator gets the floor plan and details of relevant obstacles that the agent must overcome. This could be as easy as pressing a button to open a door, to a complex series of buttons that the agent must press in the correct order. There are quite a few different puzzles, many of which having procedural solutions, meaning replaying a specific mission isn't as easy as memorizing all the passwords and such. Unfortunately, this level of procedural generation doesn't appear to influence the designs of the rooms themselves. Like I said there are 4 options the operator has to pick from, but after failing the same mission a few times, the level design is always the same, making exploration and description less important than it could be. I'm fully aware this is an early access title, so hopefully this will be addressed in the future. Now, as of me writing this little (ok, not so little) review, me and my buddy haven't actually finished the game yet. We thought we had, but as it turns out there is one last challenge ahead. To put it into perspective, standard levels have a time limit of 30 minutes, with the largest time penalties being 5 minutes...this final level we have to play has a time limit of 90 minutes, so assuming we fail at least once before finishing it, we have a ways to go yet. So would I recommend Codename: Terranova? Yeah, but that's with a little bit of a caveat. If you like puzzles and co-op gaming then sure, give this a go. However, if you are new to this type of game, I don't think I would start with this one right now. Add to your wish list for now, and come back after you have played some others, fingers crossed by then the kinks will have been worked out and a good game could become great. tl;dr version Fun little puzzle game to play with a friend, just be prepared to shout at each other for not following instructions.

I've spent about 150 hours playing the majority of co-op puzzle experiences available on Steam. I would not recommend purchasing this game in its current state. This game is very lacking. There is zero replay value and you need to subject yourself to time-wasting boredom re-doing levels in order to acquire achievements, unless you want to "cheat" and be your own Operator. Furthermore, the core co-op mechanic of interacting with the Operator/Agent is completely missing from the game itself. If you want to use text chat or voice chat to communicate with your teammate, you will need to use an external service, such as Discord. Even worse, the Operator's role isn't even part of the game; it's completely separate, performed in your web browser. This was a poorly executed endeavor that needs to be reworked. More time should have been spent implementing the gameplay into the actual game, even if via an embedded browser, and players should not need to re-play the game just to get the achievements that their partner got.

P.S.: I always played as the operator (never been the agent) - DIFFICULTY - 🔲 My 90 year old grandma could play it 🔲 Easy ☑️ Normal 🔲 Hard 🔲 "Dark Souls" - GRAPHICS - 🔲 "MS Paint" 🔲 Bad 🔲 Meh 🔲 Graphics don't matter in this game 🔲 Good 🔲 Beautiful ☑️ Masterpiece (but you better have Nvidia GT 710 or more) - MUSIC - 🔲 Bad ☑️ Not special 🔲 Good 🔲 Beautiful - STORY - 🔲 This game has no story ☑️ It's there for people who want it (but not noticeable) 🔲 Well written 🔲 Epic story - PRICE - 🔲 Free 🔲 Underpriced 🔲 Perfect price ☑️ Could be cheaper (I took it at 5,99$ though, so it was nice) 🔲 Overpriced 🔲 Complete waste of money - REQUIREMENTS - 🔲 You can run it on a microwave 🔲 Average ☑️ High end 🔲 "NASA" computer - LENGTH - 🔲 Very short (0 - 3 hours) ☑️ Short (3 - 15 hours) [for now] 🔲 Average (15 - 50 hours) 🔲 Long (50 - 90 hours) 🔲 Extremely long (90 - 110 hours) 🔲 No ending - COMMUNICATION - 🔲 Chat box included 🔲 Vocal communication included ☑️ Chat/Vocal communication through another platform (vocal com. is best) - DEVELOPPERS' TEAM - 🔲 Meh 🔲 Take weeks to respond 🔲 Replies as fast as Flash McQueen ☑️ Fun and responsive - FUN - 🔲 I'd rather watch paint dry 🔲 Hard to enjoy 🔲 Repetitive ☑️ Actually pretty amusing 🔲 Ride of your life - REPLAYABILITY - 🔲 It's a one - time experience 🔲 Only for achievements 🔲 If you wait a few months / years ☑️ Yes (with different steam and non-steam friends) 🔲 Infinitely replayable - WORTH BUYING - 🔲 No 🔲 Wait for sale ☑️ Yes Now, my personal comments: - Never played as an agent. So you'll see 0.0hrs probably there. Always played as an operator on my smartphone (my friends were the agents. I've got poor PC graphics, so yeah..) - No, your friends don't need Steam to play with you if you've got the game (just a smartphone/tablet/PC is fine) - If you love puzzles and being time challenged, you'll love this game. I love it 👍

I've held off on reviewing this game for a while, because it had so much potential, but it felt very unfinished and had almost zero replay value. After the new 2.0 update, I can confidently say; this game is great, it has a LOT more replay value, and I'm very excited to see what comes next. Here's how I'd explain Terranova. Imagine "Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes", but the aesthetics are much more computer-y and tech related. Kind of similar to "HEX: Hacking Simulator" if you've ever played that. Now take "HEX: Hacking Simulator", make the modules a little bit simpler, but a LOT more of them. Tons of variety. Now put one of the players in an actual 3D space. As of the 2.0 update, that's basically what Terranova is. Compared to previous versions, each level still has a general layout of which puzzles you can expect to find, and when. That said, on every attempt, most puzzle locations will be slightly different, and the answers will be unique as well. Sometimes you'll even spawn in a COMPLETELY different type of car, which is sick. Each time you attempt a level, you have to REALLY play the level. You can't memorize the solution from last time; Everything's changed. Figure it out again. Unfortunately, a lot of the interesting story and narrative from the older versions of the game seem to have completely disappeared. I really liked it... It was very interesting, gave the game a sense of purpose, and made everything much more intense. Hopefully it returns in future versions. Even if it doesn't though, the gameplay is still leaps and bounds ahead of what it used to be. If you like Co-op module-based puzzle games like KTANE or HEX:HS, give this one a shot. Super proud of the devs for what they've done, this is awesome.

Not fun. Annoying drones, boring operator's gameplay.

This game is such a hidden gem. I'm not sure what I expected when I paid $24 on an early-access co-op indie puzzle game, and to be honest I was worried it wouldn't be any good. However, my buddy and I (who usually do such puzzle games together) were VERY pleasantly surprised. It almost felt like "We Were Here" in a way. One player is the Agent, and they're the player that is required to buy the game. Their role is to move through the train room-by-room and solve puzzles given to them by the Operator, who doesn't actually need to buy the game, as they use a web application with all the answers. I guess it's also somewhat similar to "Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes" in that respect. My friend and I haven't had a chance to finish the game yet, but we've both purchased the game and enjoy alternating back and forth between Agent and Operator. One of the drawbacks we've seen so far is that the room layout is identical each playthrough. If he plays the Agent first and I play the Operator, then when we switch and replay the same level in opposite seats I already know most of the puzzles. There's a slight amount of variance as far as small things like combinations for a safe or sequences in which to press buttons, but the room layouts themselves are the same and it feels a little stale to be the second player through the operation. I understand this is early access, so the random-ness isn't going to be as much of a factor, and also the lack of levels (there are eight, one of which is a tutorial) means the game has very little replayability at this time. I still recommend this game, as it kept me and him hooked for a couple of hours already, and will likely keep us hooked until we finish the current content. However, if the developers read this, I beg of you to add more levels and mix up how the individual runs are laid out. I understand that there's a timing feature that records your most recent time and best time as an Agent through a level, but I don't honestly expect it'll be used very much, so I'd personally recommend favoring a little more randomness to runs over a "best time" system. But that's just my two cents. The game so far is very well made and I haven't experienced any bugs really.

This game is a lot like Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, but the Operator (the one that isn't moving around) is able to interact far more with the environment. For being early access, I feel it's quite polished in regards to visuals. No texture glitches seen while playing, no physics oddities, very smooth framerate. In terms of story, I think there's an overarching story told through the pre-level 'briefings.' The story however, seems somewhat fragmented and kind of hard to follow. Certain briefings seem contradictory to later briefings. Gameplay-wise, there are 8 levels as of this writing, one of which is tailored to be an actual tutorial. So far, I've reached and completed level 6 and each level leading up to this has taught the players new possible puzzles. Each level to this point has had the same 'rooms' but neither the same inner layouts nor puzzles, which increase replayability somewhat. The difficulty of puzzles between levels ramped up quite fast and was a great challenge. There were times the Operator couldn't help and the Agent had to figure out things themselves that they couldn't receive any help with. The implementation of the Operator being able to assist the Agent via either a smart device or webpage was a nice touch. I didn't try using a smart device, but after what I've seen, it'd probably be better as there's some quite long areas that require scrolling down a webpage. The small things <3 I hope to see full randomization with proper logic that can prolong replayability as this game continues to develop For an early access puzzle game, 9/10. Definite recommend if you want a co-op challenge.