[Zaxx]

It's being developed by one guy and this is his first game so you know, stock sound effects are pretty much expected. But yep, better sound design in general would be cool.

[Jblade]

of course, just that they stand out too much, hopefully he'll at least modify them a bit more in time.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Not bad. It's got a nice layer of filth on everything.

[the_raven]

Not sure if anyone mentioned it already, but there's Ultrakill. Based on what I've seen from some videos, it gave me Quake2-mixed-with-Superhot vibes, I think.
Check it out here, it's still in development but has a demo version available - https://hakita.itch....trakill-prelude

Off-topic: I'd format the text to be more readable, but for some reason, I have no formatting buttons in the full post editor.

[Zaxx]

Uh, those graphics look a bit too messy with that low rendering resolution or whatever, it's at a point where it seriously affects the game's readability.

[OpenMaw]

the_raven, on 16 January 2020 - 03:43 AM, said:

Not sure if anyone mentioned it already, but there's Ultrakill. Based on what I've seen from some videos, it gave me Quake2-mixed-with-Superhot vibes, I think.
Check it out here, it's still in development but has a demo version available - https://hakita.itch....trakill-prelude

Going for a PS1 look with that affine texture warping it looks like.

[HulkNukem]

Looks like Strafe

[BloodGuy]

Age of Empires II as Shooter on Duke3D graphics!
Don't know if this was posted before

[MrFlibble]

Suddenly I vaguely remembered an FPS game that was, possibly, discussed here and I think came out or was developed around the same time as STRAFE, or maybe shortly thereafter. Somehow I was thinking that it was Devil Daggers but that appears to be a completely different title.

I only remember a short video with some tech-style environment and a mostly red-lit room, possibly with a big green tube in it, with a level of detail similar to STRAFE (IIRC), but the protagonist seemed to have some magical attack, with the hand being black or covered in something black. The enemies could have also been black shapes or something. Anyone have any idea what that could be? Certainly not Dusk or other titles listed here.

[Fauch]

Exodemon ?

[MrFlibble]

Thanks!

I just watched a brief video and actually it's pretty cool.

[Tea Monster]

Dusk annoys me. I've not played it, but I've seen Civvie's video. Retro doesn't have to mean crap graphics. Quake, SiN and a lot of other old, 90's retro shooters had old, but good-for-the-time models with artistic texturing.

There is no excuse for some of the janky crap seen in Dusk. Just making it low-poly and low-pixel isn't enough.

[NightFright]

Dusk wasn't bad, but I found it to have little replayability value, so after one playthrough I called it a day. Some levels are tricky when everything keeps flipping and suddenly walls or ceiling are the new floor. There was also the start of one of the later levels where a tornado totally wrecks a church which was impressive. Other than that and the fact it has Stephan Weyte voice-acting the end boss, it's nothing special. Doom, Duke3D and also Quake certainly look prettier.

[OpenMaw]

Tea Monster, on 21 March 2020 - 05:59 AM, said:

Dusk annoys me. I've not played it, but I've seen Civvie's video. Retro doesn't have to mean crap graphics. Quake, SiN and a lot of other old, 90's retro shooters had old, but good-for-the-time models with artistic texturing.

There is no excuse for some of the janky crap seen in Dusk. Just making it low-poly and low-pixel isn't enough.

Dusk is a well oiled machine, though. It plays so damn smooth.

Dusk doesn't aim to push a graphical envelop. It stays fairly true to the feel of Quake 1's graphical design. Yes, it's low rent, but you also have to consider that everything in Dusk was one man's work. Levels, textures, sounds, models. It's all David Szmansky, and he was also fighting Unity the whole way to get it to be as good as it is. I can't fault him for not pushing for a higher graphical fidelity. Better to settle for sketch quality models and complete the game, than try for higher fidelity and never get it done due to burn out and an excessive work load.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Dusk is a huge accomplishment IMO. Yes it looks like ass, but as Nukem said, it was all done by one guy. It inspired me to get into game dev too.

[MrFlibble]

I never tried out Dusk because I never really liked what was shown, and the playthroughs when it came out either. It's not about the visuals alone though. From the start I had the impression that it was paying homage to some Quake TCs that I never played, because the level design appeared rather far away from either Quake itself or its 2.5D predecessors that were alluded to in the trailer.

thricecursed, on 21 March 2020 - 08:50 AM, said:

Dusk is a huge accomplishment IMO. Yes it looks like ass, but as Nukem said, it was all done by one guy.

As a matter of fact, I have the impression (maybe a wrong one) that the author consciously aimed exactly for the style that was created, and it is not because of a lack of manpower or artistic skill.

After all, Harmony or REKKR were also each done by one guy but they quite closely follow both the visual aesthetics/look and feel and the level design principles of mid-90s 2.5D shooter.

[NightFright]

I saw you can play Quake and Half Life in Dusk, too. Wicked.

[Morpheus Kitami]

I seem to recall seeing a model the Dusk guy did that wasn't for Dusk and looked pretty bad. So, it is possible that he was merely making the best of his limited modeling abilities. I'd say from what I've seen of it the guy made the most of his limited abilities, were that the case. Something a lot of other retro-style shooters didn't do. Scratch that, a lot of retro-style games in general. I will say that Dusk briefly made me consider breaking my no-digital rule for games.

[MusicallyInspired]

Dusk was super fun. I love the gunplay, the secrets, the level design. I don't care what it looks like as long as it's got a coherent and consistent art direction, which it does.

[Fauch]

I started episode 3 of Dusk, I like it. It's not the most amazing game, but there isn't too much I can fault for a game made mostly by one guy. The step height being too low, meaning you get stuck on stuff you should be able to walk over (fortunately not frequent, maps of the 90's tend to be pretty clear of small objects that can block you), or the weight of objects being all wrong, that's not too bad.
I'm not too picky about graphics, I like the mix of realistic and abstract, it often works best for me, when it looks like the map has a purpose and makes sense in the context of the game.

I'm currently watching the Dusk one year anniversary stream, David said he wasn't very experienced in modelling and was struggling. it's also why Duskdude has no hands. Also it was his first time doing animations. However he had experience with sounds and music.

I'm working on a retro FPS too, mostly inspired by Duke, Half Life and immersive sims. https://fauch.itch.io/zombaliens I focus mostly on AI, interactivity and systems. There are several ways to approach each situation, and I think AI is more complex than in other modern retro FPS (on which of course, I try to keep an eye).

[Aristotle Gumball]

MrFlibble, on 22 March 2020 - 08:35 AM, said:

As a matter of fact, I have the impression (maybe a wrong one) that the author consciously aimed exactly for the style that was created, and it is not because of a lack of manpower or artistic skill.

Nah, I've listened to interviews with Szymanski and it was because of time/labor/skill constraints, but of course he purposely aimed for that style, so he could focus more on gameplay and level design. It was a compromise.

Edit: Man, those other games you listed look pretty rough IMO. Harmony lags pretty hard even in the promotional video and I can't find any Youtube playthroughs of it. OK, maybe they got the art style closer to what a 2.5D game looked like, but it seems quite badly done in other ways. REKKR seems better, but it follows quite closely the Doom formula, whereas Dusk had a lot of crazy abilities and physics stuff.

Lately I've been keeping my eye on this project: https://store.steamp...940/Core_Decay/

[NightFright]

Excellent find! That one will go to my Steam watchlist as well.

[Fauch]

Core Decay is intriguing. The author said one of the inspiration is Deus Ex and it doesn't only focus on combat, unlike other modern retro FPS. Actually it would be slower paced. I'm not very drawn to the upcoming wave of super fast indie FPS, Core Decay may be more for me.

Harmony doesn't look very interesting to me, but then it's from 2009 I see.

No reaction to my game? I wonder if I'm doing good.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Fauch, on 24 March 2020 - 02:31 PM, said:

No reaction to my game? I wonder if I'm doing good.

Depends entirely on how far along you are. I don't know if I should judge it as a near-finished game or an early prototype.

[Fauch]

Ah, I'm not sure that sounds good. I put a lot of work, but since I don't get much feedbacks, I'm not sure if I'm close or pretty far from what would be considered a finished game (well, rather a finished episode), but I'm guessing that means there are some problems. (The pictures and video are a good 6 months old at least, though it doesn't look extremly different from now. The difference are obvious when playing but I don't know if they would show that well in video)

[Aristotle Gumball]

I haven't the time to play it atm, but if I do I'll let you know. Just based on the video and the screenshots I'd say the main problem is the artistic direction, or lack thereof. All the models and textures look like placeholders, but I did like the part where you blew the door off the hinges and I noticed you could bait enemies into traps, so there is that interactive sim element to it. All in all you seem like the programmer type and I think if you paired up with an artist, your project could really take off.

[Fauch]

Yeah, I'm more into programming. I made lots of maps and some models in the past too, but it's new for me making (almost) everything from scratch, like when you make stuff for an existing game, you can use existing textures and models.

I would also like to stand out from other retro FPS, so nothing looking too much like Doom or Quake. Well the setting is inspired mostly by Duke and Half Life, with episode 1 being urban and episode 2 a mix of Black Mesa and Lunar Apocalypse.

[Morpheus Kitami]

I couldn't get very far into it, since it was making my Windows emulator lag like crazy. I did like the destructible objects. I couldn't far enough to tell if the AI was really any good or not, but they seemed to have problems with stairwells.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Fauch, on 25 March 2020 - 12:48 PM, said:

I would also like to stand out from other retro FPS, so nothing looking too much like Doom or Quake. Well the setting is inspired mostly by Duke and Half Life, with episode 1 being urban and episode 2 a mix of Black Mesa and Lunar Apocalypse.

The only thing it really reminds me of stylistically is some kind of very early 90s 3D game, like what you get if you google search for "early 3D". The animations are also very stiff and unrealistic. Again, the art direction will be the biggest turn off to anyone thinking of trying this, so perhaps try to improve your chops there, or like I said, find someone who wants to work with you. There are tons of artists who would welcome the opportunity IMO. You just have to more aggressively go about creating interest for your game and don't be discouraged by any negativity.

[Fauch]

I checked the zombi in the first staircase, he seemed to work as intended. No problem that I could see with the stairs. I think the thing is they are coded to not be very clever. Since the staircase is dark, I think he couldn't see you anymore, he would still move to the last place where he saw you, and then would just randomly wander. Their reaction time is also very slow, they have to look at you pretty long before realizing you are here, and when they lose track it resets their reaction time. However I noticed the door at the top could block him from reaching 2nd floor.

I searched art direction, it seems to be a lot about cohesiveness, though, from what I understand the problem is more in technical skills. However it's confusing because one of the thing with modern retro FPS is they aren't technically impressive, it's not infrequent they are called ugly or even accused of looking worse than games they take inspiration from, yet for some of them, it didn't prevent them from succeeding.