[jkas789]

Fair enough. On another news, we are finally, FINALLY getting that Dusk Switch port. I swear I almost though this was going to be vaporware what with the time it took to push it out.

[MusicallyInspired]

Yeah. And LRG preorders for the only physical edition run close on the 3rd. Get your preorders in now!

https://limitedrunga...ed-run-118-dusk

[Aleks]

What's the thing with Dusk anyway? I've tried watching a gameplay video of it and thought the game looked extremely dull and ugly, even if the theme was quite appealing - so why it's getting such positive reviews?

[Aristotle Gumball]

The gameplay is pretty fun tbh. Decent level design. It just looks really ugly. As for why the praise - I think it was a case of just being there first. It was the first big retro fps release as far as I remember. It got enough things right to be nostalgic for people.

[Ninety-Six]

I love DUSK for those first two reasons. Fun + good level design (that and DUSK probably has the best movement in any FPS I've ever played). All I really look for in these games. The graphical throwback doesn't register on my radar since I don't have nostalgia for games like Quake; I didn't play them until much later in life. The ones I grew up with were DN3D, Serious Sam TFE, and Half-Life + the expansions (Which I mostly used the HDP for) and sequels.

But by the same coin, by still coming back to play the FPSes I missed, I also don't really have a negative reaction to simpler graphics, intentional or not. It's not something I care about one way or the other. I'm only interested in the gameplay. By that metric DUSK is a home run for me.

[jkas789]

Aleks, on 01 October 2021 - 01:24 AM, said:

What's the thing with Dusk anyway? I've tried watching a gameplay video of it and thought the game looked extremely dull and ugly, even if the theme was quite appealing - so why it's getting such positive reviews?

TLDR: The gameplay is good, the artstyle is shit. Level design is a mixed bag. The earlier maps are not as good as the later ones were the game starts throwing at you non euclidean spaces and weird ass colorful architecture.

It gets praised a lot because it was the first really successful "retro" fps. To be honest, there are better "retro" fps like Ion Fury.

Also let's all ignore the fact the games are not really retro.

[jkas789]

Arthurian Legends is finally out.

[MusicallyInspired]

Dusk is great. It's just fun. I don't care what it looks like. Part of the charm. And it legitimately freaked me out in some places probably because of the art style. I'm just okay with it, especially for being made by 2 guys.

[NightFright]

Regarding Arthurian Legends: Cool, Witchaven 3.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Yeah, came here after playing the demo. Feels really good. Can't tell if the full game is out yet, though. Is it early access or actually the whole thing? Marketing seems kinda lacking.

[jkas789]

Futa Orc, on 04 October 2021 - 01:28 PM, said:

Yeah, came here after playing the demo. Feels really good. Can't tell if the full game is out yet, though. Is it early access or actually the whole thing? Marketing seems kinda lacking.

I haven't bought it yet because I'm at the office for pretty much all night today, however I believe it is the complete release. To be honest I'm not surprised it just dropped out of nowhere. O remember the dev (or one of the devs) was MIA and all work was pretty much halted. There was discussion about this in the discord.

In fact, I kinda found out it was releasing because I uploaded the Beta Demo from back in the day to the internet archive and I made a search for it afterwards out of curiosity.

[Malgon]

Wow, that did come out of nowhere, as I was starting to think it was never going to be released. I hope it plays as good as it looks!

Ps. I wonder who'll cover it first, Civvie or Gman?

[Kralex]

Tried playing it too but I'm getting kind of sick of this grim dark, semi realistic aesthetic that everyone is doing tbh. Only mild variations of brown, grey, dimly lit medieval colours and just this serious, manly vibe. No one even tries to have a sense of fun. And I don't mean fun like a fun story, I mean everything feels like a meme for renaissance fair obsessed nerds. Saw a lot of that in Realms Deep. Really bothersome and misses the point of a lot of those games I think.

[OpenMaw]

Kralex, on 12 October 2021 - 05:33 PM, said:

Tried playing it too but I'm getting kind of sick of this grim dark, semi realistic aesthetic that everyone is doing tbh. Only mild variations of brown, grey, dimly lit medieval colours and just this serious, manly vibe. No one even tries to have a sense of fun. And I don't mean fun like a fun story, I mean everything feels like a meme for renaissance fair obsessed nerds. Saw a lot of that in Realms Deep. Really bothersome and misses the point of a lot of those games I think.

It's the truth. We've got a lot of these games coming out now that are not only throwback FPS games, and it's getting REALLY stupid how many of them there are, but we have a lot of them following this same vibe of "gritty, nasty, ugly, evil themed" games. Dusk started the trend, but now we have Cultic and Craven and... There's so many now. It's ridiculous. Everything is Hell or Lovecraftian horror too. Overwhelmingly so. I've seen a few outliers that are no that, but Dear God it's everywhere... and then I saw this one being worked on called illwill, and... Almost immediately, I was hit with the fact that it was basically Dusk, without the precision movement, and prettier graphics.. But it was literally following the same formula as Dusk with the way the weapons were animated and the general tone of "something evil beneath." Even having a monster strapped in the middle of the world that looked like an HD version of one of the Dusk bosses. Don't get me wrong, it looks well made enough... But I do have to ask the question of where are the unique ideas? A lot of these games are basically "Hey, we made Quake... AGAIN!" All the GZDoom games that are basically like "We made Doom... But this time you have tits!"

I'm not saying we can't have old school shooters, but... It's getting so noisy I can't even keep track of how many there are. Realms Deep alone was a crazy amount. Some of those developers could actually join forces and make one really good game instead of a half dozen so-so/okay/more of the same games...

I think my biggest dissappoint is the lack of experimentation with new ideas... Or at least mixing some old ideas together in new ways. What if you took the speed of Quake, the mechanical nuances of Halo, and the attitude of Duke Nukem and put them all together? What would that look like?

[MusicallyInspired]

There is a huge oversaturation at the moment. Or perhaps things like Realms Deep are giving a voice to too many and not allowing them to be great in their own right. Dusk, Amid Evil, Ion Maiden, and a couple others earned their fame. I'm not particularly against the guys at Nu-3DR, at least not all of them, but perhaps in their attempt to jump on the bandwagon they've unintentionally swamped out the scene and made it unpalatable, forcing the bubble to burst too soon. I get it, they were trying to shine a light on stuff people were starting to really like. But...flying too close to the sun and all that.

[supergoofy]

Arthurian Legends (2021) - No Commentary Playthrough

https://www.youtube....Pzn9Wi0TX1jYyNs

[Aristotle Gumball]

Yeah, I'm not really a huge fan of just "dark" without anything else. So far almost all of these games miss a solid sense of humor and a memorable protagonist, so paying lip service to Build games (for example) with the overall look, but not really anything else. Remember when every game had a different theme? I mean, wildly different, to where even the cultural references had to be different, not only in terms of visuals. Again, I think it's because the studios are so small and people are desperately trying to release something before this retro craze ends. Btw, I was reading about the development of Blood and how Kevin Kilstrom was the main guy behind all the horror movie references. Apparently he'd keep showing scenes from horror movies to everyone and get them to include it in the game somehow.

Basically you need bigger teams and a way to recreate the in-person office environment in order to have all those cool things that give a game personality. More excitement and impulsivity. Less solitary autism.

OpenMaw, on 14 October 2021 - 05:32 PM, said:

I think my biggest dissappoint is the lack of experimentation with new ideas... Or at least mixing some old ideas together in new ways. What if you took the speed of Quake, the mechanical nuances of Halo, and the attitude of Duke Nukem and put them all together? What would that look like?

What are the mechanical nuances of Halo?

[MusicallyInspired]

I have to agree with that.

[OpenMaw]

Futa Orc, on 15 October 2021 - 02:57 AM, said:

What are the mechanical nuances of Halo?

Breaking down what I said in the whole.


Taking the movement of Quake: The fast movement, a bouncy jump, rocket jumping, circle strafing etc...


Halo nuances would be things like limiting player inventory, more story, a mixture of linear "journey" and non-linear "explore" missions, utilizing (good) vehicles in some levels, AI buddies. Enemies both in the level and dropping in from elsewhere. Little or no focus on the more arcade "racking up points" aspect.

Attitude of Duke doesn't not nessacary mean the same exact tone, but taking that irreverent posture with the game design. Letting it tonally be okay to grin and chuckle at what is going, but also leaving room for the tense moments, fear. Having a voiced protagonist with a backstory or at least a persona of some kind.

That's of course just one example. There are a lot of ways you could take old school and new school and combine them to come up with something that isn't just a clone of Quake, Doom, or Blood. Not every game needs to have the same mechanics either. I'm seeing so much Air-dashing and quick kicking it's ridiculous.

[Ninety-Six]

I feel like I'm the only one still genuinely happy to see this retro FPS boom continuing on strong. Like that one guy who was super into zombies back when zombies were so oversaturated they were being added to classical literature.

I'm hoping this turns into a proper subgenre, like an alternate reality where instead of going in the direction of Half-Life and later Halo and Modern Warfare, we get to see a completely different evolution. We just have to get past the clone phase again, just except this time instead of a doom-clone it's "every major 90s FPS staple game"-clones. Not that I mind the clone phase; I know what I like and what I don't, and I'm genuinely excited at the ever-widening selection. The differences are all in the nuances of each, and I think there is one or even several games bound to be to someone's tastes. Thanks in no small part to Doom 4's roaring success, many more people than ever are either rediscovering or even discovering for the first time the old classics, and finding there is a lot of merit to that school of game design. Is it the same as it was back then? Of course not. But there's a brighter future to see new game styles evolve from this old foundation. I'm excited to see what other paths could stem from the grandfather root.

In the meantime, since I'm more interested in the combat/movement of these games, I'm having a real riot while we ride out this clone phase. I think it's best to stop looking at this shooter boom as "all these games for this specific group" and more "all these games to choose from." I have no interest in "Fetish-Person Shooters", but for every Hedon or Citadel I couldn't care less about, there's a Viscerafest or Wrath to make up for it. I do genuinely believe there's something for everyone here, and the beauty of such a large pool is there's plenty of room for games you don't want to exist and not take space from the ones you do.


Or I'm just the super-stoked zombie guy except with guns and monsters. Either/or really.



Now allow me to pivot really hard to throw in my two cents regarding humor/tone. I do think there's something to be said for silent protagonists in a very dark setting. Quake is probably the most solid example of a game that has no real "laughing through gritted teeth" thing, and is probably better for it. Given its lovecraftian tone, having a protagonist with no voice only helped to make the atmosphere sink in all the more. Doom as well, to an extent.

[MusicallyInspired]

I'm just looking for a little more originality. I'm really into the first few that were released. But they're all just blurring together. I'm still psyched to play Wrath and Graven and even Gloomwood. But nothing else has grabbed my eye so far.

[jkas789]

I just want a "modern retro fps" that plays like Metroid Prime. That is it. Heck it doesn't have to be a "modern retro fps". It can be any fps.

I'm also burned out with the whole boomer shooter shtick.

[Skull-Haver]

Did any1 try the fallen aces demon on steam? Its alot more stealth then i'd imagined but the visual style is quite cool, i'd like to see more unique art styles like that as you've all said a lot of these are running together with either cutesy visuals or overly brown and grey. its hard to be original tho especially when ur also trying to tap into nostalgia. I wish I could fill the void but i cant program or paint to save my life

[OpenMaw]

Ninety-Six, on 15 October 2021 - 02:22 PM, said:

Now allow me to pivot really hard to throw in my two cents regarding humor/tone. I do think there's something to be said for silent protagonists in a very dark setting. Quake is probably the most solid example of a game that has no real "laughing through gritted teeth" thing, and is probably better for it. Given its lovecraftian tone, having a protagonist with no voice only helped to make the atmosphere sink in all the more. Doom as well, to an extent.

Yes, but we've had a lot of Quake styled recreations now. Dusk, Aske, IllWill, Wrath... The lovecraftian thing that doesn't quite make any coherent sense with lots of stone and wood and atonal atmospheric music is really getting played out rapidly.

The majority of voice protagonists in these boomer shooters that I have heard have been three women, two voiced by the same actress and all of them going for that "AHAHHAHAHA I'm so crazy and wild I just laugh like a nut at things, hahahahhaa!" Fuck man, there is room for something in between, yeah?

I'm not even upset that there are so many old school shooters, I'm upset that so many of them feel like they're glomming around, basically, Doom Blood and Quake. How about another crack at Redneck Rampage, or something more in the style of Dark Forces or as someone else said Metroid prime? There are other styles and tones to take from, and very few games are doing that.

[Ninety-Six]

OpenMaw, on 16 October 2021 - 12:07 PM, said:

Yes, but we've had a lot of Quake styled recreations now. Dusk, Aske, IllWill, Wrath... The lovecraftian thing that doesn't quite make any coherent sense with lots of stone and wood and atonal atmospheric music is really getting played out rapidly.

I'd actually say DUSK has a bit of the "Laughing through gritted teeth" thing. The protagonist isn't voiced but there are still the occasional text-based one liners and nods, plus some of the inherently ridiculous stuff like the gun twirling (which can actually be used as a melee option), the soap, the uncapped pitch while in mid-air...

DUSK also has a lot of Redneck Rampage in it. It may also be the best we'll get out of redneck theming for quite a while, as the whole redneck thing is culturally quite a bit different than it was in the 90s. In the best case scenario, it would be a lot of references that get lost on most players since the days of the Dukes of Hazard and the like are gone. In the worst case.... well, let's just say it would cause way more controversy than something as simple as redneck theming should ever be worth.

OpenMaw, on 16 October 2021 - 12:07 PM, said:

The majority of voice protagonists in these boomer shooters that I have heard have been three women, two voiced by the same actress and all of them going for that "AHAHHAHAHA I'm so crazy and wild I just laugh like a nut at things, hahahahhaa!" Fuck man, there is room for something in between, yeah?

I mean maybe? The two I can think of are Shelly, who is more like a female Duke Nukem (which makes sense given the origin) with the way she spouts one-liners and references, and then Caroline, who I will defend because I don't think we've had a completely psychotic maniac as a protag in one of these games before. The closest we've had is Caleb, but he talked more in a raspy whisper most of the time. Caroline is just a straight-up psycho and I kinda love her.

I'm not sure who the third one is, so I can't comment.

OpenMaw, on 16 October 2021 - 12:07 PM, said:

something more in the style of Dark Forces or as someone else said Metroid prime? There are other styles and tones to take from, and very few games are doing that.

A game in the style of Metroid Prime would be awesome (especially if it includes something like, bare minimum, the scan visor because going around and scanning things to add to a logbook was one of the single greatest worldbuilding tools ever devised, and made you feel like an archaeologist almost). I feel like that's inevitable though, and will just take a bit of time. MP came out in 2002, and we're still firmly in the 90s school of design yet. Whenever we inevitably starting moving into the "silver age" with games like Half-Life and such, we can probably expect to see games like Prime get aped.

It's more a matter of time than anything, I think. For right now it's more on the fast action and arenalike room design of games like Doom and such. Once the 2000s era becomes more nostalgic we will definitely see a Prime-like game.


As for Dark Forces, I'm not quite sure how that would even work, as a lot of DF is quite inseparable from its source material (especially the later games which added lightsaber combat and jedi stuff). I know that's ironic since the game follows its own plot in the SW universe, but a lot of that was the original DF's main appeal. Exploring the Star Wars universe, and then later getting the best taste of being a jedi you could really ask for.

As for the raw gameplay of the first game... DF was so ahead of its time that there isn't really much to take from it that isn't already in wide circulation. Mission objectives that end with you being extracted? Yeah that's like every major FPS since Halo. The best it can really have aped were the devs' intent to never use the same texture set between any two levels. Other than that there's really nothing to lift from DF that's not inextricably bound to Star Wars... and considering two of the most evil companies on the face of the entire planet hold joint custody on Star Wars games, good luck with that.

[OpenMaw]

Ninety-Six, on 16 October 2021 - 02:25 PM, said:

As for the raw gameplay of the first game... DF was so ahead of its time that there isn't really much to take from it that isn't already in wide circulation. Mission objectives that end with you being extracted? Yeah that's like every major FPS since Halo. The best it can really have aped were the devs' intent to never use the same texture set between any two levels. Other than that there's really nothing to lift from DF that's not inextricably bound to Star Wars... and considering two of the most evil companies on the face of the entire planet hold joint custody on Star Wars games, good luck with that.

An old school adventure that is an old school shooter with a an overarching story. There. That's how you do that.

[Ninety-Six]

OpenMaw, on 16 October 2021 - 05:46 PM, said:

An old school adventure that is an old school shooter with a an overarching story. There. That's how you do that.

Yeah, fair enough.

[Morpheus Kitami]

OpenMaw, on 16 October 2021 - 12:07 PM, said:

I'm not even upset that there are so many old school shooters, I'm upset that so many of them feel like they're glomming around, basically, Doom Blood and Quake. How about another crack at Redneck Rampage, or something more in the style of Dark Forces or as someone else said Metroid prime? There are other styles and tones to take from, and very few games are doing that.

Its funny, I remember 15 or 20 years ago Blood was this underplayed cult classic shooter, and now, about 50% of the shooters I heard about are heavily influenced by it. I can't help but feel some of these games would be better if they were a commercial levelset instead of a new game. Because in the '90s it was surprising how many companies did that. Wonder why nobody bothers doing that these days.
But I do think that one Blood clone, in a western setting looks cool. But then again, the only good western FPS is Outlaws, and that's 5 minutes long, that's a genre that's really been underutilized in FPS.

Ninety-Six, on 16 October 2021 - 02:25 PM, said:

I mean maybe? The two I can think of are Shelly, who is more like a female Duke Nukem (which makes sense given the origin) with the way she spouts one-liners and references, and then Caroline, who I will defend because I don't think we've had a completely psychotic maniac as a protag in one of these games before. The closest we've had is Caleb, but he talked more in a raspy whisper most of the time. Caroline is just a straight-up psycho and I kinda love her.

I'm not sure who the third one is, so I can't comment.

Is Caroline the one from that one upcoming game...Kur? I think? The one that's kind of Unreal-ish and the female lead is a psychotic Australian? I'm not following any of these games enough to know the names of their protagonists. I know Selaco is another Build-style one with an aggressive female lead who talks.

Quote

As for Dark Forces, I'm not quite sure how that would even work, as a lot of DF is quite inseparable from its source material (especially the later games which added lightsaber combat and jedi stuff). I know that's ironic since the game follows its own plot in the SW universe, but a lot of that was the original DF's main appeal. Exploring the Star Wars universe, and then later getting the best taste of being a jedi you could really ask for.

More of the whole epic space adventure plot would work in my opinion. Every level in the original Dark Forces takes place on a different planet, and there's significant galaxy trotting in its sequels. Which is probably not an option for most indie games since they chose one location out of cost-cutting rather than a grand artistic vision.

[Ninety-Six]

Morpheus Kitami, on 16 October 2021 - 06:01 PM, said:

I can't help but feel some of these games would be better if they were a commercial levelset instead of a new game. Because in the '90s it was surprising how many companies did that. Wonder why nobody bothers doing that these days.

Think it's a legality question now. Back in the 90s copyright regarding games was a lot looser when it came to the whole modding thing. The tools were freely available for anyone to use, and with copyleft supporters like John Carmack being the ones to open the modding floodgates...

Then commercial add-ons started to be expected to actually add new content since just levels were freely available, then modding itself became heavily de-emphasized as game development became a lot more corporatized, and with mass corporatization comes legions of lawyers looking for any excuse to sue literally anybody...

Morpheus Kitami, on 16 October 2021 - 06:01 PM, said:

Is Caroline the one from that one upcoming game...Kur? I think? The one that's kind of Unreal-ish and the female lead is a psychotic Australian? I'm not following any of these games enough to know the names of their protagonists. I know Selaco is another Build-style one with an aggressive female lead who talks.

Caroline is from Viscerafest, which is like Doom Eternal by way of Blood with some extra psychosis sprinkled in.

[Morpheus Kitami]

Ninety-Six, on 16 October 2021 - 07:13 PM, said:

Think it's a legality question now. Back in the 90s copyright regarding games was a lot looser when it came to the whole modding thing. The tools were freely available for anyone to use, and with copyleft supporters like John Carmack being the ones to open the modding floodgates...

Then commercial add-ons started to be expected to actually add new content since just levels were freely available, then modding itself became heavily de-emphasized as game development became a lot more corporatized, and with mass corporatization comes legions of lawyers looking for any excuse to sue literally anybody...

I spent some time thinking about this. There's not really a good answer to it. FreeDoom could be used to skirt around things, but Bethesda's lawyers are tenacious. Interestingly, there is something still being sold on the unofficial add-on front, for Microsoft Combat Simulator 3. But that said neither thing is sold on big channels to my knowledge, which may have an affect on things.