[Zaxx]

axl, on 15 December 2018 - 05:43 AM, said:

The levels also have great atmosphere.

If you're at the beginning (finished the first episode maybe?) then you've seen nothing yet. I've just finished the last episode and I've never seen level design quite like that.

[axl]

Zaxx, on 15 December 2018 - 08:42 AM, said:

If you're at the beginning (finished the first episode maybe?) then you've seen nothing yet. I've just finished the last episode and I've never seen level design quite like that.

Aha. Good to know ! I just finished episode 1 and had a blast !

[Ninety-Six]

Am I the only one that thinks the weapon models look better than Quake's? I mean, to each their own of course, but I don't really think they're all that ugly. Case in point, the shotguns at least look like shotguns as opposed to bricks with lightning rods glued to them.

[VGA]

Ninety-Six, on 17 December 2018 - 06:05 AM, said:

Am I the only one that thinks the weapon models look better than Quake's? I mean, to each their own of course, but I don't really think they're all that ugly. Case in point, the shotguns at least look like shotguns as opposed to bricks with lightning rods glued to them.

Quake weapon feel, models and feedback/animation are all crap. Especially the shotguns are like placeholders.

[Zaxx]

Ninety-Six, on 17 December 2018 - 06:05 AM, said:

Am I the only one that thinks the weapon models look better than Quake's? I mean, to each their own of course, but I don't really think they're all that ugly. Case in point, the shotguns at least look like shotguns as opposed to bricks with lightning rods glued to them.

As for the models themselves: sure, they feel cool, they offer a lot better feedback than Q1's arsenal. What I don't like in the game though is that there is no weapon I could look at and say "wow, that's some very unique stuff there". It's a pretty standard arsenal, only the sword sticks out as something special because it has a lot of variety in how you can use it but that's all.

[Zaxx]

Anyway when it comes to the game apart from the weapons being a bit too standard for my liking I only have good things to say and I'm geniunely surprised by that because I did not have a lot of faith in DUSK being any good, really.

The thing is that from the trailers it looks like a metal-driven, old school FPS romp that really can't offer anything interesting but then you start playing and that impression changes fast. Yep, there is metal, there is action and that's all good and dandy but DUSk also has a great atmosphere backed up by some great sound design and cool ambient tracks from Hulshult. Sometimes the game feels a lot like Blood where it is genuinely scary and uses horror elements pretty well. Also: the game actually has a story that you can piece together, it works a bit like how in Doom 2016 you felt that you got some lore stuff from the campaign only so that you'd feel that there is a bigger world out there.

It's also cool that from a gameplay perspective Unity actually matters because even though the graphics are chunky there are some features that would not be possible on a retro engine. It's great that you can destroy or pick up almost every object in the environment and the game uses this interactivity well. For example on a lot of the maps you can light campfires and if you find some viscera you can carry that to the fire and cook it for some extra HP: really cool shit. I loved that just like Doom the game has infighting but in DUSK there are these green crystals that you can break near a group of enemies to make them go crazy and trigger infighting.

The level design is a bit standard in the first episode but it gets more and more crazy as you go along up to the point where it's downright abstract (for example there is a map that was inspired by MC Escher's paintings). Loved that shit too, especially after the wall climbing ability got introduced.

[Bloodshot]

Ninety-Six, on 17 December 2018 - 06:05 AM, said:

Am I the only one that thinks the weapon models look better than Quake's? I mean, to each their own of course, but I don't really think they're all that ugly. Case in point, the shotguns at least look like shotguns as opposed to bricks with lightning rods glued to them.

I mean if you are talking about the regular SG maybe but the SSG in quake is noticeably higher poly, it's just a little short





in fact dusk's SSG looks almost exactly like the low poly 3rd person SSG model in Quake 1

And the regular SG has less detail



DUSK definitely has better sound design for shotguns and bullet weapons (though the mortar/RL/Crossbow sound are just kind of there) but not just the models, the weapon textures are also lower res, which overall makes them look worse.

Not to rag on the game, I'm playing it now and I think it's an awesome Quake/Blood feeling combo with excellent atmosphere and sound design but visually the weapons are my main complaint - especially the mortar and riveter could've used some more painted detail at least. I mean even the first Jedi Knight game (which looked more blocky than Quake) had more texture detail in its weapons.

[Ninety-Six]

Bloodshot, on 17 December 2018 - 10:02 AM, said:

I mean if you are talking about the regular SG maybe but the SSG in quake is noticeably higher poly, it's just a little short

in fact dusk's SSG looks almost exactly like the low poly 3rd person SSG model in Quake 1

And the regular SG has less detail

DUSK definitely has better sound design for shotguns and bullet weapons (though the mortar/RL/Crossbow sound are just kind of there) but not just the models, the weapon textures are also lower res, which overall makes them look worse.

Not to rag on the game, I'm playing it now and I think it's an awesome Quake/Blood feeling combo with excellent atmosphere and sound design but visually the weapons are my main complaint - especially the mortar and riveter could've used some more painted detail at least. I mean even the first Jedi Knight game (which looked more blocky than Quake) had more texture detail in its weapons.

I dunno. To me, poly counts and texture detail means less when the end result is, again, "a brick with lightning rods glued to it".

Sure, Quake's SSG may have more polygons, but show that to anyone who didn't already know that was supposed to be a double-barrelled shotgun, and chances are they would stare at it for quite some time before figuring it out, if they figure it out at all.

The normal Dusk shotgun may have less texture detail than Quake's, but again, it at least resembles a shotgun.

[NightFright]

I think comparing Dusk weapons to those of Quake or any other classic shooter isn't the right approach. The game follows a minimalistic path and weapon design reflects that.

For me, focus is on interesting levels - which is where Dusk shines. In general, sounds, music and levels are its strengths. Enemies and weapons do what they should, not much more, but it's enough.

[Aristotle Gumball]

I think the purposeful "shittyness" is part of it's charm, really. The recent slew of retro shooters all display somewhat anachronistic design.

[Bloodshot]

Ninety-Six, on 17 December 2018 - 10:08 AM, said:

I dunno. To me, poly counts and texture detail means less when the end result is, again, "a brick with lightning rods glued to it".

Sure, Quake's SSG may have more polygons, but show that to anyone who didn't already know that was supposed to be a double-barrelled shotgun, and chances are they would stare at it for quite some time before figuring it out, if they figure it out at all.

The normal Dusk shotgun may have less texture detail than Quake's, but again, it at least resembles a shotgun.

But that's exactly my point, the normal dusk shotgun in first person does not resemble a shotgun, it's literally a pipe. The animation is good and tells you what it is but until I saw that I didn't even know what it was.

Also I disagree, while the quake 1 shotgun looks nothing like a shotgun the SSG is pretty clearly a double barrel, not much different than dusk's. You can even see where the shells would be loaded.

Not even considering the fact that dusk's shotgun is on the right and not centered like Q1's, if you centered the shotgun and then compared it with the bolt action rifle without seeing it in action they would almost look like the same weapon.

I'm not saying any of this makes Dusk's weapons bad by any means but adding a few extra polygons and some more texture contrast would hardly detract from the aesthetic

[Zaxx]

Bloodshot, on 17 December 2018 - 01:38 PM, said:

the normal dusk shotgun in first person does not resemble a shotgun, it's literally a pipe.

Hey, credit where credit is due: it's a pipe with a wooden handle!

[OpenMaw]

[Zaxx]

Okay, DUSK is officially part of the classic FPS family now:

[TheZombieKiller]

Commando Nukem, on 17 December 2018 - 02:05 PM, said:

That's actually exactly what inspired Dusk's current shotguns. Originally it was just a single pump-action shotty (and very closely resembled the hunting rifle):



These are shots from a super old build of the game from 2016.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Essentially it was made by one guy, right? From an interview I saw a couple of months ago, it seemed he got help with creative direction, but basically had to develop everything himself, except for the music. I find that really impressive.

[TheZombieKiller]

Pretty much. The singleplayer portion of the game, aside from the music, is the work of one man: David Szymanski.
Dave Oshry is the game's producer and basically gave David creative input, pointed out what sucked and what didn't, etc.
The multiplayer on the other hand is more of a group effort, and has maps from multiple different people.

[axl]

TheZombieKiller, on 18 December 2018 - 05:01 AM, said:

Pretty much. The singleplayer portion of the game, aside from the music, is the work of one man: David Szymanski.
Dave Oshry is the game's producer and basically gave David creative input, pointed out what sucked and what didn't, etc.
The multiplayer on the other hand is more of a group effort, and has maps from multiple different people.

That's quite incredible !

I'm now into Episode 3. I loved the first one. The second episode was a bit of a letdown for me. But the third one is again an absolute blast.

[NightFright]

I assume they will open up the game for modding after the game went final now, so we can get user levels and episodes. Dunno what the author's plans are from here, but Dusk was definitely one of the retro game highlights this year. I liked "Warlock" at first, too, but it got too easy later on with all the upgrades. Not Dusk.

[Aristotle Gumball]

NightFright, on 18 December 2018 - 01:30 PM, said:

I assume they will open up the game for modding after the game went final now, so we can get user levels and episodes. Dunno what the author's plans are from here, but Dusk was definitely one of the retro game highlights this year. I liked "Warlock" at first, too, but it got too easy later on with all the upgrades. Not Dusk.

Ditto on Warlock. Enjoying Dusk a lot so far, it's a nice pastiche of everything I like in shooters. I think Yahtzee said that if it had come out in the 90s, it wouldn't have garnered much attention, but I'm not too sure. Mechanically it works much better than Blood 2 for example, which got decent reviews at the time. There's also some nice variety with the enemies and maps.

[NightFright]

I just finally completely the third episode and gotta say it was worth waiting for it. Especially the beginning of "Blasphemy" completely blew me away - never expected effects like this to be possible in a small game like that!
My only criticism was that the first boss fight in E3M10 (the one with dozens of enemy waves) was overly hard, at least for me. Gratefully the game even gives you achievements if you cheat, so what the hell... xD

[mrDUKE!zone]

The graphics could be even more blocky you know. This is a screenshot from an even older build.

[fgsfds]

Looks like Chasm The Rift.

[OpenMaw]

mrDUKE!zone, on 19 December 2018 - 06:24 AM, said:

The graphics could be even more blocky you know. This is a screenshot from an even older build.

quakegame.png

That's what Dusk looks like on a PS1.

[Zaxx]

NightFright, on 19 December 2018 - 06:08 AM, said:

My only criticism was that the first boss fight in E3M10 (the one with dozens of enemy waves) was overly hard, at least for me.

Yep, that fight was a bit bonkers on Cero Miedo, I can't even imagine how can you complete it on Duskmare.

[NightFright]

If they had completely left out the enemy waves and just let you deal with the gate guardians, that Jacob guy and the "Stephen Weyte voice-acted demon god thingie", I would have said it's OK. But 250 enemies even on the lowest difficulty in all kind of combinations just took it way over the top. Would at least need more health and a LOT more ammo. But less enemies would be the better solution. Gotta mention that in the Steam forums maybe.

[Zaxx]

NightFright, on 19 December 2018 - 11:42 AM, said:

If they had completely left out the enemy waves and just let you deal with the gate guardians, that Jacob guy and the "Stephen Weyte voice-acted demon god thingie", I would have said it's OK. But 250 enemies even on the lowest difficulty in all kind of combinations just took it way over the top. Would at least need more health and a LOT more ammo. But less enemies would be the better solution. Gotta mention that in the Steam forums maybe.

I think the problem is that the game doesn't prepare you for fighting a Serious Sam horde and on top of that it's just not a super well designed part of the game.

First: the fight is not segmented well. For example in Serious Sam if you're facing wave after wave in an arena you get ammo and health after you've finished with a wave and the next one will be triggered by picking up those items. In DUSK the same thing happens: ammo and health appear in the center of the map but the next wave will just start coming at you after a few seconds so if you shoot down the last guy at the edge of the arena you'll most likely won't have time to bunny hop to the center and pick up the items before the next wave starts coming.

Second: I definitely had a problem with visibility on that map, sometimes I did not see stuff clearly because of the weird terrain with the black background.

Third: I don't like if there is arena combat where you have to strafe jump around like crazy AND you can fall off the map. It's not a biggie because the game gives you a lot of air control but I still managed to do it twice by simply hopping to my death because I did not see that the edge of the map was behind me.

[Daedolon]

mrDUKE!zone, on 19 December 2018 - 06:24 AM, said:

quakegame.png

Am I the only one who thinks these guns look much more detailed than the final ones?

[Aristotle Gumball]

fgsfds, on 19 December 2018 - 06:31 AM, said:

Looks like Chasm The Rift.

Szymanski digs that game, said it was an influence. Probably moreso on the early builds.

[NightFright]

In the Steam forums, Szymanski says the following about E3M10:

- Since you don't die when falling off the map, it's actually a strategy.
- Infighting is supposed to be the key here (TBH that didn't work for me, especially with homing projectiles).
- They expected the map to be polarizing, but like it the way it is right now unless there is enough user feedback to justify tweaking.
- It's also possible to just skip the level (which isn't a really good option IMHO).
- One user indicated the strategy is actually to kill all enemies except one, then collect the purple health flasks dropped by dead mobs, then kill the remaining one to trigger the next wave.