[Truck Stop Santa Claus]

that's odd
you should be able to pick any of the chapters you've beaten

[Zaxx]

Damn, then it's a bug.

Any cheats to do it?

[Truck Stop Santa Claus]

you could always load maps for the console
Let VoidPoint know about it, hope they can fix it for you

[LeoD]

Truck Stop Santa Claus, on 24 August 2019 - 02:03 PM, said:

Let VoidPoint know about it, hope they can fix it for you

Dealing with user-reported issues hasn't exactly been their area of expertise so far. Man who want pretty nurse must be patient.

[Forge]

LeoD, on 24 August 2019 - 11:20 AM, said:

Yup. I made a backup 5min after launch and no files have changed since.

Has been reported frequently, and happened to me as well yesterday. Bug.
Wild guess: something related to gamestate.bin, which holds the achievements, I assume.
I can't reproduce, but I had the impression that the "acceptance" of my saved games got lost one after another.

yay!
So all my progress is gone and the game basically thinks I've found zero secrets, and killed zero enemy.
but it didn't take my weapons away.
I have a crossbow from a secret I never found. awesome

before I throw everything in the trash and start over, maybe i can figure out the difference between a red puck and a green puck - since they seem to behave the same

[Danukem]

Forge, on 24 August 2019 - 04:21 PM, said:

before I throw everything in the trash and start over, maybe i can figure out the difference between a red puck and a green puck - since they seem to behave the same

I was wondering about that too. I thought maybe one was a proximity mine that would sit and wait for enemies to come by, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

[Phredreeke]

Red clusterpuck has more range/spread while green is more localised from what I can tell

[Forge]

Phredreeke, on 24 August 2019 - 04:28 PM, said:

Red clusterpuck has more range

okay
physically, the explosions looked the exact same size

not my favorite weapon for SP. alt-bowling bombs with a fuse work for me. Maybe they'll be more useful in mp when sticking them on the wall over spawn points (you know its going to happen)

[Truck Stop Santa Claus]

Just like the good old days of laser trip mine trolling

[Zaxx]

Some detailed thoughs on the game:

Pros:

- The level design is excellent (apart from one map but I'll get to that): it really feels like the next step in Build level design with its complexity and continous flow. It's interesting that the first bunch of zones are the what people usually like more because sure, there's some pretty amazing atmosphere in there but oh god zone 5 and 6 play like a dream.

- The art style is amazing, nuff said.

- The weapon balance is pretty great, you do have to switch around a lot to be effective. I still feel that the ion bow should pack a bit more punch though (mainly so it would feel just a bit better).

- Soundtrack: just like everyone else said it's a great job. World Builder is a true classic, In Your Interface and Broken System are awesome but really those are just the standout tracks for me, the whole ost is great listen.

- Shelly's cool: I like this more subtle character that's not so out there, I think it feels a bit more fresh than a Duke clone would have been.

Cons:

- Oh boy, some of the enemy designs I just don't like at all, mainly the spiders and tose flying brain fucks. They are cheap and boring to fight especially because their movement and hitbox are so unreliable that you just have to use the goddamn auto aim of the revolver all the time. This is especially true for the flying brain fucks because their movement is so erratic that I regulary miss them with the shotgun so "why bother? let's just the auto aim". To make things worse the flying brain fucks make no sound, blend into the environment and are dumb as fuck so lots of times you don't even notice that you've left one alive, just when it shoots you from up close. As for the spiders: there are just too fucking much of them sometimes, it's mainly because of them why I think that the first zone is the worst one in the game.

- I really don't like Cultural Divide and it pains me to say this because there is some amazing craftsmanship in there but it just plays like crap. Most of the time you don't even know where you're getting shot at, it's full of spiders and flying brain fucks and half of it is mosquito shooting like this:

I'm sorry but I can't see shit from this on my 24 inch monitor, the ion bow has no scope and those are guys with grenade launchers. And on top of this the secrets are centered around pressing random switches without you having any idea whatsoever on what they do, I think some of that shit is timed too or you have to push stuff in sequence. It's overcomplicated, it just made me angry so I gave up and moved on. Secrets should be hard but they shouldn't be this cheap and uninteresting, just tell me what I did (in text, like in Hexen, it works!) so I know what is the next step or at least know my progress.

It's the best and worst map of the game combined: it's amazing to look at it but almost every single element of its gameplay is quite bad and it's weird because maybe the map itself has nothing to do with it and the game just needs a zoom feature, slower moving flying brain fucks with sound and less or no goddamn spiders (really, those two enemy types absolutely destroy any kind of pacing the map could have).

- The enemy AI is pretty bad overall mostly because these guys hug walls like a motherfucker. This was always a thing in Build but in IF it's worse since the AI fucks those walls so hard that it's possible that you don't even notice them because for example an enemy sprite is between a locker and a corner. I got flanked countless times by this.

- Some exotic weapon would have been cool.

Overall IF is a fantastic game with a few annoying issues and exactly one bad map.

[Sanek]

Zaxx, on 25 August 2019 - 01:21 AM, said:

- The level design is excellent (apart from one map but I'll get to that): it really feels like the next step in Build level design with its complexity and continous flow. It's interesting that the first bunch of zones are the what people usually like more because sure, there's some pretty amazing atmosphere in there but oh god zone 5 and 6 play like a dream.

Some completely new features aside, it's not that different from the best maps that Duke community can offer (DavoX's/Gambini's/some AMC TC maps). The consistent level of high quality maps is something Duke mods can't quite match yet (AA comes close...maybe?) but it's just not fair to say "oh look at us how cool we are" when you don't have to worry about file size and can split megabytes-sized levels in any amount of parts you want. It's completely different beast.

I just finished the zone on the rooftop of Heskel's HQ...now I'm on the train of some sort. Looks like it was inspired by EP1 boss of DN: Manhattan Project, but it also looks that unfinished sector-based boss from Lameduke.

[NightFright]

It was more or less already mentioned, either here or in tests: The game could use a sniper weapon and a rocket launcher. Perfect material for a DLC. I am also curious about that voxel bonus pack.

[Zaxx]

NightFright, on 25 August 2019 - 01:51 AM, said:

The game could use a sniper weapon and a rocket launcher.

For sure but honestly instead of a sniper weapon I'd just be happy with zooming just a bit in order to eliminate pixel shots.

And really regarding those two secrets I was talking about on Cultural Divide: I looked up the solution and man there is absolutely 0% chance to figure that shit out without just randomly trying forever by yourself and I played the game that it references a lot. Give us some kind of a hint system because that's just terrible. You should be able to figure that out by yourself instead of looking up the solution on the internet.

[NightFright]

I actually thought those radar powerup thingies would reveal nearby secret areas as well, but afaik they are only good for locating nearby enemies. Honestly I am not really using them, they also don't last very long.

[SonicB00M]

Yeah, in my opinion the radar is completely useless unless you're trying to find the last remaining enemies for the 100% kills on the map. The bowling bombs are more effective in 'locating' enemies in your vicinity. It would be cool if the radar emitted a sound when you're near a secret though. But then again... what is a true Build engine game without a useless inventory item

[Putrid Pete]

Honestly, I completely forgot about the radar powerups during my first playthrough. I never felt like I needed them for something. If they lasted for a longer time maybe, but perhaps displaying other useful information could help make them more useful. Maybe they can indicate nearby ammo pick ups that aren't a secret but that you didn't notice or something like that.

[Jimmy]

Maybe radars could be used to help you find secrets? That would make them more useful.

[necroslut]

Ok, beat it now, and it was great.

Spoiler

It was a little disappointing not getting a 1-on-1 faceoff against Heskel after wrecking the dome, I felt.

There are some flaws, most of which others have already pointed out, that prevent it from taking the Build crown IMO, but for a "first outing" its an extremely strong work.
I kinda feel like the first "level" is a little more complex than it maybe should have been – IMO the Preview Campaign felt better in that regard – I can see how that could be a problem for people who haven't already played the preview to pieces like me.
I'll definitely buy whatever next thing you make without hesitation, and encourage everyone else to do so too.

[Zaxx]

Replaying the campaign on maxium fury now and based on my experience I find it a bit weird how the problem with these spider enemies were never caught during testing: this difficulty really shows just how negatively they can impact the game's pacing. You constantly want to move forward to get into some cool firefights but then they drop down and you have to back off, switch to the revolver or throw a bowling bomb, those rarely catch all of them so it becomes this janky cat and mouse game until you can return to fighting the guys you wanted to fight (at which point you'll most likely notice that one or two spiders didn't attack you because they got stuck on a wall...).

It's like these are supposed to be the pinky demons of the game in the sense that they are there to block you off from the ranged enemies, it's just that shooting pinky demons is fun and satisfying while these guys have a werid hitbox and they are jumping around.

Ways to solve this in my opinion:

- They should crowd together more so taking them out is easier and you don't get as many strays.
- They should be used a lot more sparingly and if there is a bigger content update for the game they should be mostly replaced with a new, low level charger enemy type that has a giant hitbox, is satisfying to kill and again: crowd together so the function of the spiders is there without the jank and the tedium.
- If you crowd them together more than there could be a differently colored "leader of the pack" and if you kill that one the rest just explode (= it's more satisfiying and a lot quicker to deal with them).

[Jimmy]

The more I play it I definitely think explosives damage radius aren't as effective as they should be. If you shot an RPG into a group of Octabrains, it kills them all. I think the same should happen to the Spiderfucks.

[Zaxx]

Yeah, I guess that would work too though on the other hand in Duke you have to be very careful with explosives because you can kill yourself easily with a badly placed rocket. Compared to that IF's grenade launcher feels better to me because if you score a direct hit you can still do a lot of damage without offing yourself.

And I dunno, the bowling bomb's alt fire seems very close to Duke's RPG radius and compared to where it explodes it still won't be able to take out a larger group of spiders. The cluster bomb's alt fire may be able to do the job though in most situations, it's just that you don't want to throw those because they are really good and you don't have much of them.

[Jim]

Lazy Dog, on 23 August 2019 - 12:59 PM, said:

Same level, when you look outside at certain angles, the windows/ the skybox do this:



Only happens in OpenGL.

EDIT: just tried to replicate it, and i can't. wtf

Anybody got a bug where instead of the skybox being corrupted, instead some frames of the flying drone enemy is corrupted instead? It only happens in opengl and it is hard to replicate. I suspect that these two bugs have the same source. the corruption looks exactly the same.

[Matthew]

On Corporate Chaos, does anyone experience odd slowdowns? I don't know why this occurs, but the part of the map where you get two grenade launcher guys in the elevators near the vent where you can get the one extra armor shard, anytime i look at the elevators my game slowsdown to almost like a picture show in the 1800s. It's even worse after the Revenant boss. My game becomes unresponsive if I wait in the level too long. I have to rush to the end or the game stops working. It doesn't crash. You can everything taking place as the frames drop, but you can't do anything. You can't even bring up the menu. So weird. Never had a game act up on me like this before.

[NNC]

I still haven't finished the game yet. Up until zone 6, I have to say that zone 1 was the weakest episode (yeah, Cultural Divide was the icing on the cake). I think the entire zone suffers from "usermapism" a bit, read: too many details, too many colours and too large space at the same time, it's very disorienting, and overall tiring experience (not to mention the problem with the flyers/spiders in these levels). Davox got a lot better in zone 2 with GDF base, it has some amazing parts and some nice gimmicks as well, like the shooting gallery, and the demo area with the plaza looked excellent, and much less problematic than zone 1.

Zone 3 (oasiz) is a bit confusing at times, and didn't always enjoy the Duke Hard/Going Down style experience, but I love the stylish design overall, and it had the most amazin boss level so far. Zone 4 was my favourite, I'm a total sucker for Daedolon's mapping style, it's just elegant, and despite using sewers and tunnels, I never got lost. Zone 5 was a much needed fresh air, loved the nature and less neon style of the world as well, so far I'm enjoying it a lot.

I think enemy placement should have been a bit smarter, ie. I would have followed the Allen Blum or Ian Boffin school, which means enemies are not randomly placed, but every area has it set of its own enemies, and they don't always need the entire gang to show up. Spiders are too frequent, and flyers are very erratic and annoying. The thing that speaks "german" (or feels like it speaks german) and throw you deadly grenades are easily my least favourite enemy in the Build Engine.

[SonicB00M]

So there was this article published a few hours ago... Is it true that Ion Fury sales are 'a mess'? Breaks by heart...

[Aristotle Gumball]

From the article: “If we had actually done everything their PR wanted us to do we’d be double plus fucked compared to where we are now.”

I really feel for you, guys. I've almost finished the game and while I didn't play on a high difficulty (I never do on a first playthrough), I appreciate that it wasn't "design by committee" and contains various quirks (makes it feel all 'home made' and stuff, like in the old days). TBH I can appreciate even outright fuckery now and then. The spiderbots are basically the spiders/scorpions from Powerslave and since that's one of my favorite games, they didn't bother me here either. Brilliant work and especially for a studio that's so spread out. First retro title that really captures the 90s IMO.

[Fox]

Matthew, on 26 August 2019 - 02:58 AM, said:

On Corporate Chaos, does anyone experience odd slowdowns? I don't know why this occurs, but the part of the map where you get two grenade launcher guys in the elevators near the vent where you can get the one extra armor shard, anytime i look at the elevators my game slowsdown to almost like a picture show in the 1800s. It's even worse after the Revenant boss. My game becomes unresponsive if I wait in the level too long. I have to rush to the end or the game stops working. It doesn't crash. You can everything taking place as the frames drop, but you can't do anything. You can't even bring up the menu. So weird. Never had a game act up on me like this before.

Yeah, I have heard of slowdowns in the office building. I'm not sure why it happens. One possibility is due to some unknown map corruption.

[t800]

Finally finished whole game. What a ride. Both gameplay experience and emotional wise (but lets put politics aside, not to sour things needlessly).

Spoiler

Where to start? So I said previously I played on Mac, so I used fury.grp, fury.grpinfo and fury.def files provided from my GoG copy of game with compiled synthesis build for Mac from Dukeworld dated August 17. I was warned previously by oasiz that I could experience crash caused by explosions. But now I can safely guarentee you, whole game is beatable without any crash, even final hectic battle.
But my previous criticism stands - you have to spam Enter to get into new game to acces main menu, because after launching game, you just get black screen with only sounds from intro splash screens. Minor inconvience but I got used to it eventually.

It was my first play so I used 2nd (normal) difficulty (and disabled autoaim) as I am used to for new games. Difficulty wise game seemed balanced nicely, didnt have any problems with lacking ammo as some players complained. (I am noticing that lot of players dont realize this game features headshot system. Propably confused by its oldschool look. )
Weapons balance is OK but I have few nitpicks. Crossbow really could use some zoomable scope for more accurate sniping (and fix those shots sometimes missing mark). And bombs would be much better with bigger radius of explosion. Not only they are kind of signature weapon right next to revolver for Shelly so they deserve it, but they would also make dealing with skullspiders more comfortable and would also excuse their lower maximum ammo count (compared to shotgun grenade shells).
My favourite enemies in this game are skullmask grenadaries, those hovering rocket skeleton-torsos, hyper aggresive leaping mutants and blue-skull "flesh" skeletons. Each of them made me repriotize situation and experiment more with weapons. Least favourite would be 3rd boss-turned ordinary enemy, tracked "brothers". (Spoiler for those who still not finished 4th episode.)

Spoiler

As boss enemy they kinda worked first, thanks to that cramped elevator area. But later they got laughable easy to dispose, just nuisance to kill with their slow cumbersome movement and easy to dodge attacks. Eating maybe 3 grenade shells and then finished. Even their later boss encounter in last episode was lackluster thanks to that bigger combat arena.

In next spoiler follows overview of levels in game.

Spoiler

First 3 episodes are truly strongest parts of game. They better convey theme of cyberpunk and (especially first 2) are more grandiose than rest of game. I am reading complaints about sniping enemies. While on 2nd diificulty this was bearable, maybe there could be system to limit their maximum range opening fire unless they get provoked first by player hittng them.
I also found Hospital and Heskels House of Horrors (There is glitch. After you finish it, you can return to it and all enemies get reset.) stick out very nicely. Wouldnt mind more maps in rural/small town/nature style to offset prevailing style of urban/underground/techno-labs.
Too bad so few players will get to experience secret level, thanks to cryptic "piano riddle". Even I have to admit, after finishing game, I returned to previous save and used knowledge from GameFAQ to solve it. Short and sweet and later little hectic level. It is just odd, that it spoils in advance appearance of 3rd boss as ordinary enemy.
Regarding last battle. I will be honest - lowest point of whole game. Heskel definitely deserved his own boss enemy character. Instead we just got area with tiring mobs of enemies and repetetive repeating of same action. Sorry, but really not big fan of horde shooting in enclosed arena and even less when this subtitutes for "boss encounter".

All in all, very nice return to 90s style of FPS games. Something rare to behold, game that not only looks "retro" but also understands their soul.
Graphically wise, would not mind putting in TOP 3 list next to Blood and Powerslave and gameplay wise it would be next to Duke3D and Shadow Warrior (which I feel this game has closest bonds).
I am just wondering now, where is Person of Color not raving about getting "new Sin game in Build engine"?

[Mblackwell]

Charge your bombs if you want them to have a bigger radius. The higher the velocity the bigger the blast. The alt fire also has an even bigger radius still.

[Danukem]

Mblackwell, on 27 August 2019 - 03:42 PM, said:

Charge your bombs if you want them to have a bigger radius. The higher the velocity the bigger the blast. The alt fire also has an even bigger radius still.

One little nitpick about the altfire. It's difficult to place a bomb in a specific place because they roll so far after bouncing. I've wasted some trying to blow up cracks because they bounce right off of the target wall and then go another 30 feet or so. EDIT: It would be cool if pressing regular fire while the altfire bomb is out caused the bomb to detonate.