• Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:

    1. The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
    2. Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration

    Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.

SABLE — a ligne claire in the sand

conchobhar

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?

Sable is a coming-of-age tale of discovery through exploration across a strikingly rendered open world desert. Go on a deeply personal journey across an alien planet as the young Sable, exploring ancient monuments, ruined architecture, and ships fallen from the cosmos, all while learning the history of its inhabitants and discovering her place in the world.
Click to expand...

The unbelievably gorgeous Sable charmed many back at when it was unveiled at E3 2018, but seemed to disappear from sight after a couple of delays. So it was a pleasant surprise to get a Steam notification that Sable is out today (for PC and Xbox X|S).

Another surprise: this is a much meatier game than it first appeared. Though still very much a game about wandering the desert and exploring ruins (there is no combat at all), there are also towns to visit, people to interact with and even some basic quests to do. I had thought this game would be similar to Journey, but reviewers are keen to liken it to Breath of the Wild. (I mean, don't read too much into that comparison, but you get the idea.)

The reviews I've seen are positive; some have misgivings over the game being a little too aimless, but I see the confidence in its world as a feature and not a bug. So I'm very much looking forward to playing this finally. Anyone else going to pick it up?

giphy+%285%29.gif
giphy+%283%29.gif
giphy+%2810%29.gif
 
Last edited:
Exposition Owl

Exposition Owl

more posts about buildings and food
(he/him/his)
I adored the demo, so I'm very much looking forward to picking this up when I have the money. I could definitely stand to take a good Moebius trip (eh? eh?)
 
lincolnic

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
I keep seeing people say that this is out for Mac, but Steam is only showing it as a PC release. Does anyone know if it's actually coming to Mac? Because I would love to play this, but I don't have an Xbox or a PC.
 
conchobhar

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?
lincolnic said:
I keep seeing people say that this is out for Mac, but Steam is only showing it as a PC release. Does anyone know if it's actually coming to Mac? Because I would love to play this, but I don't have an Xbox or a PC.
Click to expand...
Oh, what. That's odd. It definitely was announced as coming to Mac, way back when (which is probably why every outlet is reporting it's out on Mac now), but now Shedworks is a bit quiet on it. This tweet is all I can find acknowledging the lack of a Mac version, and it's ambiguous if one's coming or not.

Shedworks is a two-person outfit, so I can hardly fault them for prioritizing Windows, but I really hope a Mac version does come out. I was counting on it!
 
Last edited:
lincolnic

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
Hopefully that means "we'll get the Mac version out as soon as we can". Thanks for digging up the tweet!
 
Kirin

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Super intrigued by this but, uh, my current platforms are PS4 and Switch, so if it's a 2-person team with a Microsoft deal I'm assuming it'll be a good long while before any more ports turn up.
 
Violentvixen

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I mean there's essentially 3 types of Macs now: the ones that can play 32-bit stuff, the ones that are 64-bit and the M1 chip ones. It makes shopping on Steam extremely confusing. Especially since a lot of the time Steam will tell me my Mac can't play a game and then I can, and also a lot of the time it won't say anything but then I can't play it.
 
conchobhar

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?
Violentvixen said:
Oh? I thought I read that some games couldn't work on M1 chips but could be wrong.
Click to expand...
I was referring to universal binary, which is basically Apple's fancy way of saying "you can compile a program to run natively on both Intel and ARM processors". I haven't used an Apple Silicon Mac yet, but their previous universal binary (that enabled PPC apps to run on Intel computers) worked like a charm. I'm sure it adds a bit of complexity for the developer, and maybe there's some incompatibilities, but my point is just that Mac apps are not a massively fragmented market.
 
Last edited:
lincolnic

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
conchobhar said:
I was referring to universal binary, which is basically Apple's fancy way of saying "you can compile a program to run natively on both Intel and ARM processors". I haven't used an Apple Silicon Mac yet, but their previous universal binary (that enables PPC apps to run on Intel computers) worked like a charm. I'm sure it adds a bit of complexity for the developer, and maybe there's some incompatibilities, but my point is just that Mac apps are not a massively fragmented market.
Click to expand...
There's at least one point of fragmentation: I'm pretty sure any Mac updated to Big Sur won't run 32-bit programs, which is why a lot of people have been holding off on that update.
 
conchobhar

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?
lincolnic said:
There's at least one point of fragmentation: I'm pretty sure any Mac updated to Big Sur won't run 32-bit programs, which is why a lot of people have been holding off on that update.
Click to expand...
It's actually the prior version, Catalina, that dropped 32-bit support but that's otherwise correct (and why I'm still on Mojave); however, those older OSes still run 64-bit programs no issue. Hence why I said "a 64-bit Intel program can run on all three".
 
lincolnic

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
conchobhar said:
It's actually the prior version, Catalina, that dropped 32-bit support but that's otherwise correct (and why I'm still on Mojave); however, those older OSes still run 64-bit programs no issue. Hence why I said "a 64-bit Intel program can run on all three".
Click to expand...
You're correct on all counts! What I was thinking (but didn't really say) is that a lot of users may have upgraded to Catalina or beyond without realizing they could be locked out of 32-bit programs, that's all.
 
Violentvixen

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
I have this on Gamepass and it's just not clicking for me. I think I'm in the "too aimless" camp. Going to give it a little longer because I still think there's some interesting stuff here, but there's just too much emptiness in between the interesting things for me.
 
Falselogic

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
I picked this up over the weekend and am just loving it. But then I'm realizing that I love traversing the landscapes of open world games and looking at them from different angles and this game provides so much of it. I especially, enjoy leaping from high points and floating down while rotating the camera around the protag just soaking in all the beautiful landscapes they've constructed.

I love the puzzles that are the Cartographer's balloons. And then the puzzle of siting other locations to explore from the vantage point of the balloon.

I would encourage you to keep at it. Especially once you get to a couple of villages as they provide the story hooks you might need to help push you through the terrain. It is open, but I think there is enough there for people who want a little bit of structure that they can construct it from the quest lines. For me though, plunking markers down on locations I can just barely make out on the horizon and then going out to them and doing it again is enough to keep me playing right now.

The puzzles you find at some of those locations are real good too though!
 
Exposition Owl

Exposition Owl

more posts about buildings and food
(he/him/his)
This ended up being one of my favorite games of the year. Gorgeous art, intriguing environments, and a setting that kept me wanting to know more. More than any other open world game except maybe Breath of the Wild, it made just traveling from Point A to Point B a fun and beautiful thing to do. I didn't realize until relatively late in the game that it had a fast travel system, just because it didn't occur to me to want one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top