It may come across as strange for a developer to write a review of their own game. I decided, as part of my process on working towards a full post-mortem on the project, to attempt to write a very honest self-appraisal of our work.

I named this Steam account after our company, but my name is actually Gregory MacMartin and I am the C.E.O. and lead game designer for iDGi. To see the other stuff I've worked on in my career, checking out my LinkedIn profile is probably a good place to start: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drschelter

CONSORTIUM is the greatest achievement of my career. It was also by far the most difficult project. I'm proud of nearly every game I've contributed to, but almost nothing touches this one in terms of my professional and personal pride. It is a completely original and unheard of experience that follows no genre conventions, and I can say with all honesty that no "big money, low risk" publisher would have ever approved this.

I formed iDGi in 2006 with the goal of making truly story driven single-player games with a strong moral compass. Games that treated violence seriously, and games in which there are actual consequences to killing or causing general mayhem. In particular after working on the extremely violent title “Scarface: The World is Yours,” I was becoming quite sick of meaningless violence in games.

CONSORTIUM is the first result of this intention, a game where violence is only an option, and not forced upon the player. It has in many ways surpassed what I originally envisioned. The final experience itself is also quite different from what I originally envisioned.

The game accomplishes something that I've been striving to do my entire career: seamlessly blend interactivity and narrative. It relies heavily on player action, inaction and dialog to move forward, and the game stays "out of the way" of the player as much as possible. The result of this is that when you complete a play-through, the precise experience you had is quite unique to you. Due to the mass of variables in play, it is almost impossible for any two players to have the same experience, and the replay value is very high. You really need to play it at least twice (making different decisions and doing different things each time) to get a strong sense for what the game is really all about.

That said, this fusion has left some gamers, in particular those who play it like any other game and only go from objective to objective, with a very short experience that could leave some unfulfilled or even downright confused. In particular the fact that you can "finish" the game without solving one of the core story threads (a murder mystery) causes some to think that the game doesn't ALLOW players to solve the mystery. Looking back, I would have put more work into the murder mystery solving aspect to allow for more ways to solve it across the story, rather than only having one opportunity to choose the culprit after handling the investigation and before its resolution one way or the other.

Without a doubt, our game puts the "role-playing" back into RPG. We consciously shed all of the pen&paper conventions that pretty much all CRPGs still use to this day. The focus of this game is largely built around realistically interacting with virtual people. My brother Steve MacMartin wrote the entire interactive screenplay (over 500 pages long!), and while we worked closely together throughout, the game's characters and dialog are as good as they are largely because of his focus, dedication and passion for what we were trying to do. We had a lot of fun working with the voice actors as well, both of us casting and directing them through all 4,500 lines of dialogue, who equally enjoyed the game's concept and the often unexpected or unusual lines they had to work with.

The system we invented is far from perfect, however... with tweaks to how it works for the sequel, we will be able to branch much more and allow for much deeper conversations that affect the overall story in more tangible ways. The game also originally had players able to upgrade their gear, but this was cut fairly early on for scope reasons. You can bet that this level of gear customization is one of the key features of the sequel!

Quite literally, everything in CONSORTIUM is there to serve the story and world. Absolutely nothing whatsoever is "gamey,” meaning everything you do, see and hear are fully explained as being in-game. The result being that CONSORTIUM is not really a "game" at all, but is truly an interactive narrative experience. If you like to immerse yourself into a game world, then this game is for you.

A common criticism leveled at the game is that the combat experience is lacking. We developed a ton of combat mechanics and related systems, but many of them do not really get a chance to *shine* during a playthrough. While this depends largely on player choices, it is still very true that the constrained environment of Zenlil does not lend itself very well to particularly interesting or engaging combat scenarios that make use of all the Consortium Bishop mechanics. While I AM proud of the fact that combat only happens based on whether the player takes the story there (see above), the flexibility of the combat and enemy A.I systems don't become apparent until many playthroughs . Obviously, this is one of the things we'll be addressing directly in the sequel, which will be taking place across a huge and open environment. I must also admit that the virtual trainer (VT) stuff did not turn out as good as it could have been. The overall mechanics of the Civilian Defense scenario could have been far more fleshed out on its own, but time and resources worked hard against this. We had also originally envisioned multiple different VT scenarios being in the game, and even had another designer and a concept artist working on this, but it simply wasn't a sustainable effort and I had to end up taking on the VT stuff entirely on my own.

Game One of the iDGi-1 Trilogy originally included a large skyscraper environment as part of the first game. It took us a year of production to realize that this was an impossible goal. We therefore heavily expanded the story of what happens aboard Zenlil to compensate for the loss of the tower, which ultimately resulted in the game having the deep and multi-threaded story that makes it what it is. We worked hard to try and make the story as self-contained as possible despite the game ending in a cliffhangar. I think we partially succeeded with this goal, but if I could go back I would simplify or cut the entire mission briefing altogether and only instead hint at the next game. I would have focused us instead on wrapping up and providing a more definitive ending to the Zenlil story.

I recommend this game! ;-) Seriously though, at the very least I can pretty much guarantee that you have never played anything like CONSORTIUM before. If you like science-fiction and single-player story driven games, you simply MUST play our game. Trust me, it will be a true treat! Because I made it, I can easily see the missing pieces, many of which account for some of the criticism of the game (technical issues notwithstanding). But this first game firmly establishes the core game mechanics, world, characters, GUI and the beginning of a powerful interactive narrative that we're driven to complete! With that groundwork firmly laid, the path to making the second game is very clear from a development perspective. I for one am excited to be able to take everything we've made and refine and expand the hell out of it, taking into account all of the incredibly helpful feedback we've received since launch.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the experience!

An awsome game that reminds me of a good Star trek episode, and like star trek, this game's story feels like a first episode in a series with it's to be continued ending four hours in. In truth, this game alone is not worth the $20 asking price and should be bought on sale for around the basic price tag for a dlc. Around $10. Gameplay wise, with everything patched all I had to complain about is some subpar graphics, but this can be forgiven from a indie developer when everything else is this well done.

In short
Good Story though short, Poor graphics, great soundtrack, great controls, but over priced.
7.5/10

Consortium isn't a terrible game anymore, but it's still a terrible rip-off. When originally released, it was filled with game-breaking bugs. Now, after many patches, it has some minor bugs, occasional graphical glitches, and rare crashes remaining, but for the most part it works. However the game is only 3 hours long and the replayability isn't all that great. You may profitably replay it once, or maybe twice. And it isn't a complete game; very few of the story elements are really resolved by the time you get to the end. It just tells you to buy the next game. The game is so short in fact that you get to the mission briefing for your first mission about 15 minutes before the end of the game, and you never get to play that mission. Apparently your first mission as a Bishop is in a sequel that may or may not ever be released.

Some people say the game is ugly, but I find the graphics to be stylish. The voice acting is mostly good.

In short, it's kind of fun to talk to people, but it's a complete rip-off at $20 for 3 hours of gameplay that result in nothing really being resolved. If you can get it for $5 or less, go for it. Otherwise, I can't recommend this game.

This game is a truly unique experience. It seems like an RPG and an FPS but in reality its neither and both at the same time! Its atmospheric, well conceived, extremely charismatic and has an immense replay value. Also you get to witness the consequences for your branching actions fairly soon.
Now the game is not perfect, particularly its extremely short that would be my biggest complain, its just criminal to show me this amazing product and not be able to enjoy more of it! Inventory system seems vastly redundant, same goes for some other things, like energy conversion.
The NPCs in this game are extremely believable and charismatic. Each with their own 'thing' going for them. Particularly the slavic hobo! The man is oozing confident demeanour while being interesting all around.
The action elements in the game are interestingly done, - the plane shootout was incredible fun, but was cut short quick, while ground combat seemed to need more polish.
Overall its an incredibly solid 8.5 it would easily be 10 had it a bit more content to explore and if the ground combat was ...better.
VERY RECOMMENDED. Eagerly awaiting part 2 of this masterpiece.

What an awesome game!

I read about this game before it launched and the idea was intriguing so I added it to my wishlist. A few months later I noticed it was part of Groupies Be Mine 14 Bundle so I paid $5 and picked it up.

For the next few months CONSORTIUM languished in my game queue until last week when I finally decided to dive in--and dive into another reality I did!

CONSORTIUM's story kept me guessing until the end. In fact, I need to replay the game or parts of it to unlock sections of the story I didn't find during my first play-through.

And the ending... Holy crap! When is CONSORTIUM 2 coming out? I want to play it right now!

Before I started my play-through I read about CONSORTIUM's rough launch and all the bugs people encountered but, after 12+ hours of playtime I have yet to encounter a single problem; it looks like just about everything was fixed.

Even though CONSORTIUM doesn't have state-of-the-art graphics I can't help but think the game is beautiful. The character models' cartoony style is perfect and they don't detract from the story, voice acting or gameplay.

I appreciate that Interdimensional Games Inc. focused on the more meaningful parts of the game, e.g: story, mechanics, and UI, rather than trying to (as an indie studio with a small budget) create a game with out-of-this-world graphics.

CONSORTIUM is one of the best games I've played in the last year.

Thank you Interdimensional Games Inc. for providing the experience. I'm looking forward to CONSORTIUM 2--don't disappoint me!

If Mass Effect had a baby and showed up on Maury, Omikron would be the father.

This game is tightly knitted with a story that has the capacity to grow into a very large and perverse world of backstabbery, blaming, love and discord. Unfortunately, this is only part one that is prefacing the anticipated sequel. The game only lasts about four hours (including the secondary objectives and some exploring), however, it is an amazing four hours and you will want more.

Expect little combat and appreciate this fine work of art.

Today, I’m talking about a little first-person action-adventure game called CONSORTIUM. Developed and self-published by Interdimensional Games, Inc. The games development had its start in a successful Kickstarter campaign, which leads us to what we have today. CONSORTIUM’s story starts off with you, the player, travelling forward through time, and to a parallel universe, thanks to a satellite that allows us to connect to a sentient A.I. that exists in the other universe. In this future universe, it seems that everything is just about perfect. Global hunger, energy, and poverty problems has been resolved for the most part, and all forms of war have almost completely ceased. We have people living in space, on the moon, on Mars, you name it. But can things ever really be perfect?

Consortium1You take the role of someone named Bishop Six, a field agent and peacekeeper of sorts in the Consortium, a society dedicated to protecting the galaxy or something. But all is not well, as soon after you arrive on your ship, the Zenlil, one of your shipmates is found dead in their bunkroom. Believing them to have been murdered by another shipmate, you are commanded to begin interrogating your shipmates to find out who the traitor is. If that weren’t enough, you also have the problem of a band of outlaws currently looking to take down your ship. It’s up to you to solve the mystery behind the murder, and take down the outlaws, among other things. But you better watch out, nobody can know where you’re really from, otherwise you might end up causing a temporal breakdown and destroy the universe!

So, let me tell you right now: Gameplay is where this game really shines. CONSORTIUM really isn’t an action game, so much as it is an immersive story told through its great character dialogue, its mysteries, and the in-game lore that comes with it. You communicate to the other characters on the ship through simple button presses, similar to a Telltale game. Alternatively, you can choose to say nothing and make everything awkward with your constant silence. Like I said before, one of the major goals is trying to find out who the murderer on your ship is, but naturally, things can never just be that simple. News gets spread fast on Zenlil, and before you know it, everybody on the ship knows what has happened, which naturally freaks them out. As you question and get to know your shipmates, you find that quite a few of them are less trustworthy than they appear, and others seem way too nervous or in some cases, optimistic about the whole situation. But, for those of you out there who decide that there isn’t enough shooting involved, there ARE action segments included with the game. Depending on how you choose to interact with other characters, you will be forced to engage in combat with bloodthirsty mercenaries who invade your ship, or shoot down enemy spaceships. You are also given the choice of capturing, or outright killing their leader. Just remember: Gameplay, as well as the story itself, might turn out differently depending on what you’ve chosen to do or not do.Consortium3

Everything looks decent in terms of graphics, but the game was built on the constantly aging Source Engine, so you probably shouldn’t expect anything too fancy. Because it IS Source though, you can be almost certain that CONSORTIUM will run on even the lowest-end of gaming PCs. The sound effects are pretty good too, really helping encapsulate that claustrophobic feeling of being on a small little spaceship. The music is absolutely fantastic, but what do you expect when it’s composed by none other than Jeremy Soule, the same guy who did the music for such great games as Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Knights of the Old Republic? The developers really use the music to their advantage here when it comes to telling the story, and really puts an emphasis on the importance of what’s going on around you.

If there was one major flaw I could point out about this game, it’s that it was too short for my tastes. If you want a short, but good little immersive plot-central game, I recommend you try out CONSORTIUM. It’s currently on sale on Steam for $19.99.

http://wtbfun.com/consortium-review/

First playthrough, 10 hours. I am not sure how many playthroughs I will need, until I know enough of the story.
I think I was 5 hours only reading the news and reports.

There is always happening something, it is even worse, you always think somewhere else is something happening and you should be there. I think, in most cases, that is even true.

You play as a Bishop, a fighter in high tech armor. But the game is not about fighting. It is about talking to different people. It is about finding out what happened, who is hiding what.

If you like to read a lot, if you like good characters, if you do not need to shoot all the time to be happy, then this game is a must for you. This is the world of tomorrow and now you have the chance to help change it for the better.

You will really like or dislike some guys/girls, you will curse because some dialogs went wrong, you will not understand all that happens. You will have a great time in this game.

Get it!

(No, it is NOT open world, it is NOT a shooter, it is NOT a point and click adventure and NO, there is NO multiplayer, go away)

Consortium is the kind of game with huge replay value, and the layers of sub-plots and mystery kept me hooked throughout the playthrough, so much so that as soon as I finished my first time round, I immediately created a new save to uncover everything I missed. There's enough exposition to allow you to understand the ship and the world's current situation, but there remains the uneasy feeling that, being a traveller from another dimension, you really are out of your depth, and learning more is key to getting a grip on what's going on.

The voice acting is very good, and the usual tropes are avoided in the cast of well-rounded, interesting characters. A special mention must also be given to the soundtrack, which heightens tension in all the right places. "Almost as good as Morrowind's OST," I mused, before I closed the game and discovered it was Jeremy Soule himself who composed Consortium's score. Excellent selection, developers; I'll be buying the soundtrack shortly!

The gunplay, admittedly, feels a little janky, and the inventory menu was confusing in my opinion. This gave me the incentive to avoid fights and settle problems using diplomacy and cunning - I think this ended up being the better choice, but if combat is mandatory in the second game as I reckon it will be, I hope the HUD improves. However, it wasn't a major concern for me.

All in all, I'm really looking forward to the next installment of this. The developers of this game have created something brilliant - I hate to make comparisons, but I can't help but draw a parallel between this and the story-driven TellTalle games of recent years. If you like those, you will LOVE Consortium.

Now, I have some mysteries to solve...

It's an interesting idea for a game... mixing genres like adventure games, cRPGs and shooters together. It's fun and fairly engaging for a while. The problem however with it (aside from not that great usage of Source Engine and terrible optimization), is that the story develops waaay to slow and there is not enough depth in dialogue choices, to make it worthwhile. It's still a decent game to grab on a sale. For a full price however - I'd say no.

Decision Making at one of it's best.

Many games try to pull off the whole convseration simlulator route and while this one far from perfect it comes pretty close. The problem with most decision making games is that the choices tend to fall with the whole black/white or good/evil route. Few truly understand how to manuiplate the whole mass of grey area that comes with conversation.

Consortium is a RPG unlike any others. The best way I can put this game into perspective is to think of the Mass effect series games, reduces its scope to just one setting but focus entirely on dialogues choices and characters interaction. The setting you are playing on, a huge command plane similar to the BUS in Agents of SHIELD, is full of interesting characters, of which all of them are voiced over. The people you encountered are all believable; each has interesting thing to say either about themselves, their colleagues and the world around them. Conservations seem life-like as the choices are timed so you can’t be holding on to decide what to say next, and “say nothing” is always present for all dialogue options. You can even walk away during a conversation and the characters would react to it. Talking to them is a lot of fun; the dialogues are entertaining as well as giving background story about the world. There’s even a part which your answer is breaking the fourth wall, and at first it seem like a joke response to one of the character inquiry but to my surprise, later on the game the character actually referred back to your response and if you persist enough will become one of the subplot.

Now the story, essentially you are trying to solve a murder happened shortly while you are on board but as the story unfold it hinted on a larger mystery / conspiracy hangs in the shadow. The story is engaging but slow at the beginning, it picked up pace around the middle but ended in a cliff hanger. I would say that’s the only negative thing about the game.

Combat is simple and basic but it is not irrelevant. It does feel dated as it is still using the source engine. With that said combat has a choice of lethal and non-lethal and a fairly basic inventory system. But seeing that you can actually complete the game without firing a single shot, there is definitely less emphasis on combat.

All in all I would definitely recommend this game as it mixed rpg, adventure game, and FPS into something that is quite unique.

The most reactive game since Alpha Protocol. The only flaw is the shooting is kinda sucky, but that part is very very short so it's a slight ding on the game

How to review a game like Consortium that is packd with so many great ideas? Well first off I will say that I really enjoyed the play throughs I have made so far.

Consortium puts you - Quantum Leap style - in the body of an operative called Bishop-6 onboard a high tech aircraft flying to Dublin. The entire game takes place during the flight and can play out differently every time depending on your actions. There are no right or wrong actions, just different versions of reality. You are confronted with a number of plots to solve - or ignore - which I won't spoiler. What I will say is that they are excellent, and enjoyable.

Consortium is an excellent example of the "One Block RPG" where everything takes place in a small area with well developed characters but within that scope the player has great freedom. Consortium benefits from many play throughs as you explore diferent possibilities and in fact the game makes a virtue of this and saves them as detailed versions for you to look back on.

Oh did I mention it has a soundtrack by Jeremy Soule?

The game had a rough launch - the team who developed it are very small - but they stuck with ut and turned it into a gem that should not be missed.

If you like good, thoughtful RPGs: buy it. If you love interesting sci-fi setups: buy it. If you like good writing: buy it, If you like soundtracks by Jeremy Soule: buy it.

I'm going to go and have another playthrough now.

Gripping scenario and interesting characters. Had a blast playing this. Always looking forward to going through and playing a different way. Just a bit short, and the combat's a bit underwhelming.

It's a visual Novel with a shooty bit in the middle.

i was unsure whether to click the thumbs up or down button. in the end i don't think it's worth paying money.

tl;dr version:
great game mechanics, setting and the story don't make up for the 15 minutes gamelay. it was a big disappointement for me

the actual review:
don't get me wrong, it's not all that terrible. it's kind of a fun game with interesting dialogues and some minor combat but after finishing the game it feels like i've been playing tutorial all along and the game should come now. instead, the ending creding credits roll in.

there has been so much effort put into character development and combat/inventory mechanics that there is actually no game at all. where is the actual level design? there is a small plot twist in this futuristic plane with a great story setting but you end up walking down a few halls a couple of minutes while investigating this twist and that's it. the game ends.

it's like watching one of those short 15 minutes hitchcock stories. great indeed but is this really it? so much of effort of hud and game develpment for just this? sure there is some fighting simulation game (to which you don't even necessarily have to get the chance to play by the way) but that doesn't give you any satisafaction of using the action mechanics.

all in all, it was a disappointedment for me. with such a great potential i expected more just a big tutorial. and no, encouraging the players to "TRY TO FINISH GAME IN DIFFERENT WAYS, LIKE TALK TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE AND SUCH" is definitely not a satisfying fulfillment of what expectancies have these great mechanics built-in inside us.

definitely would not recommend buying. maybe get it for free/humble bundle from somewhere or something

I flirted with a chick. She told me she was married. Made her way into a crawl-space. Then slammed the door in my face.

10/10 for realism
1/10 for the heartbreak

Consortium nails the communication with NPC part of RPGs. If you enjoy the conversation part of games like Mass Effect but want it to be more meaningful you will love this game. Unfortunately the combat is sparse, flat and buggy and the animations cartoonish. The voice acting is decent which is huge since that’s most of the game. On my first attempt I ended up in a shootout after a bunch of talking to NPCs, however there was a bug and the NPC bad guy was shooting before I even got close, so I started over. On my second attempt I noticed that my changes in dialog really affected the direction of the story, unfortunately the story and dialog choices never interested me and I never felt engaged in my role, felt more like I was part of a Saturday morning cartoon world. In addition the bugs and cartoony graphics really killed the immersion for me, which in a game where you spend most of the time talking to NPCs without immersion there is really no point. I ended up getting bored and moved on to other games.

Consortium is alright I guess to see how conversation trees leading to different paths should be done, and I hope all the devs and talent involved in that aspect catch on with other studiosn (cough...bioware...cough) and impart some of Consortiums success on to big budget games in RPGs when it comes to dialog. But as a game in its own right nailing the conversation aspect of RPGs only gets you so far when every other aspect of the game is bland or broken.

This kind of felt like a High Concept game. Other than a few bugs, I found my first playthrough to be very enjoyable. The story and choices were fun aspects. The universe and technology was really interesting. The theme, while initially was a little challenging to follow, turned out to be very facinating. By the time the game was done, I was begging for more. And that's actually where the problem comes in.

The game invites you to play it over-and-over, but I couldn't. But the game length wasn't long enough to justify it another play through. Even despite the different choices and the mechanism of the narrative changing story and gameplay, the overarching story will be the same. And it just feels too samey with the other playthroughs.

When the game ended, I was disappointed. It felt like I just finished the very entertaining and scene setting prolog, and it was game over.

Other criticisms include the fourth wall being broken; that just never seems to quite work. I want to get immersed in an RPG-like game, I don't want it to point out "Hey. You're playing a video game!" - Let me be a part of this beautiful world. I fullly grasp the attempt at the metaplot. But it just didn't work for me.

There's so much potential in this game.

Ultimately, Consortium creates a beautiful setting, with smart game mechinisms. I would absolutely recommend people play it. But due to short narrative, unsatisifying cliff-hanger, and a few other minor things, I would only suggest picking it up when it is on sale.