Moebius Demo Highlight
by antonymity on Apr.02, 2014, under featured, moebius
Last week there came a big update for Moebius in the form of the game’s official pre-order launch. This also gave the ability to download, for free, a demo of the upcoming adventure title. On the official Phoenix Online site as well as on Steam, this is a demo of Chapter 2; those who pre-order on GOG.com are able to play the demos of both Chapter 1 and 2.
Below we’ll take a brief look into each chapter, display the PC and Mac system requirements to run the game, discuss the different types of puzzles you’ll encounter, explain the hotspot icons, and answer a common question about save files.
Chapter 1 Brief
Chapter 1 begins shortly after the end of intro comic, which you can find accessible from the demo’s main menu. Malachi Rector returns from his latest overseas appraisal bruised but otherwise well. He immediately inquires about new clients from his assistant Gretchen. Amid her failed persuasions that Malachi take time off, or at least find a bodyguard first, she reluctantly gives him the name of his next client, Amble Dexter.
He soon finds himself in Amble’s office and is given a rather odd task. Given a complete biography of someone, can he determine if this person’s biography matches anyone in history? Malachi’s many questions are dismissed, and reluctantly he agrees to perform the task. Satisfied with Malachi’s results, Amble sends him off to Venice to conduct the same type of research on a recently murdered woman. Malachi continues his barrage of questions, but is simply told that he’ll learn more once he returns.
Chapter 2 Brief
Malachi has been summoned to the Egyptian city of Cairo to inspect the authenticity of a very rare Egyptian relic. After landing in Egypt he takes a jeep through the desert, but unfortunately it breaks down. With a rare twist of luck, a man named David Walker appears out of the sweltering heat like a mirage, fixes Malachi’s jeep, and disappears without payment. Malachi continues his journey and arrives in Cairo, settling into his hotel.
The appraisal takes place in a building across from his hotel the next morning, so to pass the time he heads to the nearby bar for a drink and a chat with the locals. As the night wears on he is surprised to find David being attacked in an alley behind the bar. David fights off his attackers and Malachi offers him a rest at his hotel room. He explains his upcoming appraisal job and asks David to accompany him should anything go wrong. The next morning they meet up outside of Malachi’s client’s building and head in together to appraise the artifact.
System Requirements
PC System Requirements (Minimum / Recommended)
- OS: XP/Vista/7
- Processor: 2.0 GHz
- Memory: 2 GB RAM / 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: ATI or NVidia with 512 MB RAM / 1 GB RAM *
- Hard Drive: 4 GB available space
- * Not recommended for play on Intel systems with integrated/shared video memory
- OS: Snow Leopard (10.6.X)
- Processor: 2.0 GHz *
- Memory: 2 GB RAM / 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: ATI or NVidia with 512 MB RAM / 1 GB RAM **
- Hard Drive: 4 GB available space
- * For Mac systems, an Intel-based processor is required.
- ** Not recommended for play on Intel systems with integrated/shared video memory
Interactive Hotspots
As you play through the demo, you’ll find that you can click on a variety of different objects, which can present to you different icons. Here’s what those icons mean:
Look at the subject |
Talk to the person |
Interact with the item |
Begin an analysis |
Pick up the item |
Use your currently selected inventory item |
Analysis Puzzles
You will be presented with a variety of analysis puzzles as you play through the game. Here’s a quick overview of what you’ll encounter and how to get through them.
Personal Analysis
This type of analysis has you looking over a person to pick up on hidden subtleties about their personality. Do bruised knuckles indicate that the person has been in a fight, or maybe they hurt themselves on the job? That shirt is very nice, but it’s not tucked in – are they not comfortable dressing up? Sometimes this type of analysis is required to progress the story as it can open up dialogue options, but sometimes it’s there to just help flesh out the character and the world of Moebius.
Appraisal
This is Malachi Rector’s bread and butter: appraising antique relics. This works in much the same way as analyzing people: you will inspect certain aspects of the object and use your knowledge of historical artifacts to accurately determine its characteristics. Is this material ivory, or marble? That type of handle was commonly found on objects from 14th century France, so why is it on this 18th century African piece?
Pattern Analysis
This is the big one. After you have gathered all of the data points that you can about a person, you then compare those to people from history. Each data point will be compared individually to others to find potential matches. If two people don’t seem to be a match, you will click a – button on that person’s image to remove them from the list. Once you have narrowed the list down to three people, you will be given a chance to look over these three to find the one closest to all the data points. Select this person and complete the analysis.
Save Files
A common question we’ve received is whether or not save files from the demo will work with the full game upon release. Due to the nature of the demo having to stand alone from the rest of the game, a number of things that would be flagged in the save file are simply not there, so you wouldn’t be able to play through the rest of the game properly.
Give Us Your Feedback
We are excited to have you playing the demo and we love all the feedback we have been receiving. We take it all to heart and do our best to create the best game for you that we can. Please don’t hesitate to tell us what you think. If you played the Steam demo, you can talk to us on our official Steam forums. We also have our own forum on our website, and you can of course always reach us on Twitter and Facebook.
Drew Beardall
Social Media Associate
Phoenix Online Studios
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