I had a lot of fun! The music & aesthetics go together really well with the gameplay to create the boomer shooter experience. The movement is very agile and feels great, and goes perfectly with the rapid gunfights. I will say, the putting the red keycard by the death pit was a dick move. My first run I fell in and then I instinctively avoided the hole the second and had a lot of trouble finding the red keycard. It might be nice to make items like keycards emit a bit of light because the level is dark. Here's a video of my playthrough, I hope it helps! I didn't get the RPG & plasma gun in time to use it in the recording but I did another run through of the level and I used them & really liked them. The plasma gun stunning for its secondary is intersting & combos great with melee. Also: shotgun?
Play game
Ctesiphon's itch.io pageComments
That's great to hear! I'm glad I picked this back up because a lot of people have enjoyed it.
I will say, the putting the red keycard by the death pit was a dick move.
Heheh. I won't do that again in this game unless it's for a secret
It might be nice to make items like keycards emit a bit of light because the level is dark.
This has been a very common complaint, it all looks highly visible on my monitor but its a TN so the darks aren't very dark. I might put in a gamma ramp for testing to make sure its all visible. Some secrets however will remain obscured on purpose.
Here's a video of my playthrough, I hope it helps!
It does actually, I noticed there wasn't a pickup sound on guns you already have if auto-switch is enabled
shotgun?
You ran right past it 😉
Great to hear! Timesplitters and Perfect Dark are accidental influences, I was more trying to ape Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior Classic. I've never even played Timesplitters, but I appreciate being compared to them, it's a much beloved series.
Thank you for adding a shortcut to loop back to the start after you get the red key.
This is a major design goal that I'm going out of my way to force into the level layouts. I don't claim to be a level design guru but you can expect more of this for sure.
Very nice, but the Level is just too short. Page says testing Level tho, so thats to be expected I guess. Same with some of the Environment that could use some work.
The Weapons feel nice, but I had to go into Wireframe to find the Shotgun, your Darks are too dark if you have no Flashlight or anything planned.
Screw you for putting a deathtrap pit right behind the red Keycard in the Dark, don't do that.
Everything feels rather good, a bit more feedback on getting hit might be nice tho.
No Idea why the main menu has a back Button that just takes you to the Press Space Option.
Didn't encounter any Bugs or anything, but you can look around when Dead which feels a bit weird.
I wish I had more to say, but its very short and pretty polished. I can't talk about Bugs or make many improvement Suggestions, other then on the Level itself, but thats a Placeholder.
Maybe that the SubmachineGun looks more like an AssaultRifle to me. And the secondary Firemodes all seem rather tame. Scope isn't needed at least in that Level, and makes little Sense on a SMG, Rocket as Grenades is fine, but autofire/rapidfire would be cooler I think, Plasma I could just use to PlasmaJump, and Shotgun seems like just another grenade Launcher.
But the Systems itself, which is basically all that can really be tested at this Point all work nice and well. You can clip your Camera through Walls in alternate Camera mode tho, and your Assets are freely accessible, don't know if any of that is intended.
Thanks for playing!
Very nice, but the Level is just too short. Page says testing Level tho, so thats to be expected I guess. Same with some of the Environment that could use some work.This is my big focus for this year, making the levels and content to fill them with.
The Weapons feel nice, but I had to go into Wireframe to find the Shotgun, your Darks are too dark if you have no Flashlight or anything planned.I'm probably getting thrown off by using a TN monitor. I will be intending on using some purposely dark areas for secrets, but I may also add a throwable flare as an item.
Screw you for putting a deathtrap pit right behind the red Keycard in the Dark, don't do that.
Heh heh. For key items I don't intend on doing that in the future. At least not in this game.
No Idea why the main menu has a back Button that just takes you to the Press Space Option.
Doom and Vanquish do this sort of thing. I intend on having an actual 3D scene in the main menu at some point where it will probably make more sense.
the secondary Firemodes all seem rather tame.
This is something that's been nagging me since well before this demo. I have a few other ideas I want to experiment with as I make more assets.
You can clip your Camera through Walls in alternate Camera mode tho
That's just a debug feature so you can see your own collider. I forgot to disable them in release builds.
your Assets are freely accessible
This is intentional for easier control with PhysFS. As a bonus it allows mod-support in a manner similar to Elder Scrolls games without me having to do anything.
played for a bit, I like the fast pace, reminded me of a fps from the past that I forgot the name of. Enemy design is really cool. I stopped playing because I died twice in the same spot, when picking up the red key card, she just fell into a hole somehow, that frustrated me and I stopped. Love the secrets, you get the rocket launcher as a reward for exploring corners, excellent! Graphics needs to be a tad more grimy, don't know if that's the official term :)
Thanks for playing!
I stopped playing because I died twice in the same spot, when picking up the red key card, she just fell into a hole somehow, that frustrated me and I stopped.
I promise not to be this much of a dick with the level design when it comes to vital stuff like keycards. At least in this game anyway, heh heh.
Love the secrets, you get the rocket launcher as a reward for exploring corners, excellent!
I plan to have these as tracked secrets like in the Build Engine games too, I hope to have each map have at least half a dozen of them.
Graphics needs to be a tad more grimy, don't know if that's the official term :)
I'm mostly a programmer so I don't know any official term either. I know what you mean though, I particularly want an uglier concrete texture to use on this map.
Thanks for playing!
Very cool. I really like the enemy design: “Buffering” in particular gave me a nice chuckle.
Heh, yeah I had that as my profile pic on twitter for years.
Had a lot of fun using that data spike.
That's excellent. I wanted the melee weapon to be fun to use instead of a last resort like the knife from RTCW. Your momentum also gives a slight damage boost which is enough to one-shot the regular goon enemies if they're not alert yet.
I agree with the sentiment that I kept feeling like I needed a flashlight.
I'm not sure about a flashlight as I don't really want to add actual shadows to the renderer. But I might instead add some small-radius flares, and there will definitely be dynamic lights for muzzle flashes and so on. That said, this is supposed to just be one of the darker levels in the first place, and it will be getting refinements as I add more light source statics.
Some random thoughts. I didn't read the comments, so I'm sure there's a lot you've already heard.
- Shouldn't switch to SMG every time I pick it up if I already have it. Just give me the ammo.
- Art style is very appealing. As long as you keep texel size consistent it will look great. Only missing link for me right now is the skybox.
- Love the details like the shells and mags you leave behind.
- Movement and shooting feel great. Very solid foundation.
- Enemies should probably hear your footsteps when you're running - you can run around behind the guys in the convience store and they won't notice. Might also give them a higher detection FOV, or modulate this stuff by a difficulty setting.
- Keeps feeling like I need a flashlight - but if you'd rather not add a flashlight for level design purposes I get it. Maybe a very dim point light that follows the player would be good to help differentiate walls when in pitch darkness. You could also make shooting generate a flash of light.
- Death sound is excessive but funny.
- Level design is good so far, I like the way things loop back around on eachother sometimes. I like the variety in encounters - larger, more open areas contrasting with the tight corridor parts. I feel Duke Nukem influence.
- Weapons are all somewhat interesting, but do still fall into the generic "standard boomer shooter" archetypes. I like things like the plasma gun's stun feature, although I'm not sure how often it would come in handy unless there's bosses.
Overall: Nice entry - I'd like to see more.
Thanks for trying it out! It's great to see people enjoying it after me leaving it on hiatus for so long. I finally have a vision of where I want to take this game so I'm committed to finishing it.
I've written a ton of these responses so I'll just stick to stuff other people haven't already brought up here.
Shouldn't switch to SMG every time I pick it up if I already have it. Just give me the ammo
Yeah this was from before when enemies didn't drop weapons. You can turn off auto-switch in the options, but in the hotfix I've also made it now that the switch will only kick in on new weapons or ones that completely ran out of ammo.
As long as you keep texel size consistent it will look great. Only missing link for me right now is the skybox.
I kinda screwed it up with the APCs, but I'm focused on adding more assets before I go back fixing stuff. The skybox will also get an overhaul when I add directional lights
Level design is good so far, I like the way things loop back around on eachother sometimes. I like the variety in encounters - larger, more open areas contrasting with the tight corridor parts. I feel Duke Nukem influence.Duke and especially the classic Shadow Warrior are huge inspirations for this game so it's great to see that coming across. I'll be adding some consumable items like medi-packs and grenades in the future too.
Weapons are all somewhat interesting, but do still fall into the generic "standard boomer shooter" archetypes. I like things like the plasma gun's stun feature, although I'm not sure how often it would come in handy unless there's bosses.It's really tough to break out of that pattern. The plasmagun's alt-fire is getting replaced regardless, I want to make it into a flamethrower instead. That will probably be more generic than what it is now, but like you've just implied the stun-wave thing doesn't have a lot of utility compared to just shooting.
I completed the mission and wrote some miscellaneous thoughts down while playing - feel free to take them or leave them
- Shooting feels really good in the game, I like the weapon variety and just how the guns feel
- In the apartment building with garbage bags blocking stairs going up, I accidentally found the stairs going down and didn't realize they were there, this is either a secret or needs to be more prominent
- Keybinds for 1, 2 weapon switching works, but once you pick up a third weapon you have to use scrollwheel
- Falling in a pit and dying/restarting didn't feel great, was just trying to explore and there was no indication of danger
- Pickups need to be more visually prominent with vfx, it's really hard to see what you can pickup. Also this made me unsure if I just missed one of the keycards or hadn't found the area for it yet. Turned out I just missed it, I was looking for the blue card for a long time but I'd been to that area several times already
- Since this is a movement shooter, it would be really fun if there were more projectiles to dodge instead of hitscan
Overall it was really well polished though, it felt like playing a better-feeling Time Splitters game, which I love
Thanks for playing, glad you liked it!
In the apartment building with garbage bags blocking stairs going up, I accidentally found the stairs going down and didn't realize they were there, this is either a secret or needs to be more prominentI will be adding a balustrade to all the stairwells in that building which should help. But either way I think it should be more obvious if I just swap which way the stairs wind so you can see more clearly that there's a way down when you first walk past it.
Keybinds for 1, 2 weapon switching works, but once you pick up a third weapon you have to use scrollwheel
It's Quake/Duke-style weapon slots, 3 and 4 are the shotgun and rocket launcher, while the plasmagun is 5. The other two are in the map but you have to search for them a little
Falling in a pit and dying/restarting didn't feel great, was just trying to explore and there was no indication of danger
Nearly everyone has been falling into that thing, lol. I'll at least put a warning sign there, but the level will be going through a few more design passes before I'm really happy with it anyway, and that pit in particular might not be at a dead end in the future.
Pickups need to be more visually prominent with vfx, it's really hard to see what you can pickup.
This is something I'm hesitant about. I really don't want any sort of animated glint or highlight because I find it condescending. None of the keycard positions in particular are final, and I'm intending to rely on level design to communicate their locations later. For now they're scattered around just so you have to go through the whole map before you leave.
Since this is a movement shooter, it would be really fun if there were more projectiles to dodge instead of hitscan
This is already the plan, there will be enemies with slower rockets and plasma in the future. In the meantime the way it works is that circle-strafing is super-powerful up close and you can abuse the stagger system to stunlock enemies.
The gunplay feels very nice, and the music is great too. The damage feels a bit random (sometimes you take a ton of damage and sometimes very little) but that could be me sucking at FPS games. I wandered the level trying to find the grey keycard only to realize I already had it lol. Also found a bug where when I died, the "death scream" played multiple times at once like an echo.
The damage feels a bit random (sometimes you take a ton of damage and sometimes very little)
The individual projectiles do a fixed amount of damage, but they have a random spread. I've seen some streamers play very carefully, trying to pick off the enemies from afar. But this game really rewards getting in close and circle-strafing, the enemies don't deal with that very well.
I wandered the level trying to find the grey keycard only to realize I already had it lol.
Heh, yeah I want some more intentional looking placement for them, the level's obviously not finished.
Also found a bug where when I died, the "death scream" played multiple times at once like an echo.
Oh, that's a new one. I'll see about preventing that.
UI and in game visuals look nice. Though consider adding numbers to the FOV slider, it may add unnecessary trial and error to get it right for the player if they customize from the main menu. Level design was basic but entertaining to clear. The red card location was dark so I couldn't tell there was a pit and walked off by mistake the first time. Gunplay felt decent, maybe a bit too easy to stunlock the enemies, though I imagine that's intended since they otherwise have a good aim. I particularly liked the market area since it had a fun knife stabbing combo to execute.
Thanks for playing!
Though consider adding numbers to the FOV slider, it may add unnecessary trial and error to get it right for the player if they customize from the main menu
It updates automatically if you do it in the pause menu, I think that would be more indicative than the angle number.
The red card location was dark so I couldn't tell there was a pit and walked off by mistake the first time.
This map in particular will probably remain dark as its gimmick, though none of the pickups are in their final positions
Gunplay felt decent, maybe a bit too easy to stunlock the enemies, though I imagine that's intended since they otherwise have a good aim.
Yeah that's more or less the idea. I do want to make them a bit less accurate but as they fire projectiles it's a little different to hitscan as the projectiles will just still physically hit you up close.
I particularly liked the market area since it had a fun knife stabbing combo to execute.
I love doing that too. The enemies will be made a little more aware in the future but for now it's really satisfying to catch them off guard.
Wow, it's been some time, but I've seen some updates recently so I knew it's not dead. I don't even remember the previous demo after such a long time.
Technically there's nothing to complain about, so it's actually polished for something made from ground up.
It plays ok so far. Enemy stagger state really makes the combat for me, and it feeds nicely into both ranged and melee combat.
The level is too dark. Just when I got the last, red, keycard I managed to fall to my death (even if I knew what I was doing, I would try to jump down since I assumed you can't reach the way back out of the corridor - Half Life gave me some really bad habits).
From bugs, robots sometimes try to shoot you through walls and they hit the back face in the spot that would be the exit hole.
Wow, it's been some time, but I've seen some updates recently so I knew it's not dead. I don't even remember the previous demo after such a long time.
I'm glad to be back working on it. Had a huge creative block that I've now overcome so I have a consistent plan to finish the game in the next year or so.
Technically there's nothing to complain about, so it's actually polished for something made from ground up.
I'm glad you liked it, I must be on to something! There's occasional glitches with the player controller when going over steps but I've yet to see anyone comment on it so fixing that's been put to the bottom of the to-do list.
The level is too dark.
The darkness is probably going to end up being the gimmick for this level in particular.
Just when I got the last, red, keycard I managed to fall to my death (even if I knew what I was doing, I would try to jump down since I assumed you can't reach the way back out of the corridor - Half Life gave me some really bad habits).
There's still some more work to be done on the level, I'd say it's only about half blocked out. This is a very good point though in that I realize now it doesn't look quite like a dead-end. I'm going to rethink the layout of that passageway and maybe add a subtle hazard stripe and a sign to warn of a deadly drop.
robots sometimes try to shoot you through walls and they hit the back face in the spot that would be the exit hole.
I know what's causing this, the robot colliders need a larger radius. Though it annoys me in many other areas, Bullet3D having collision locked to double-sided at least prevents the projectiles phasing all the way through and giving the AI wallhacks.
Fun game. Ran away from some of the robot guys and could still hear them trying to shoot at me through walls from the other side of the map. Also didn't see the death pit behind the red card and ran right into it. But moving is fun and shooting is fun
Also the top button on the pause menu being restart instead of resume almost got me a few times
Thanks for playing! The AI is the one of the last placeholder parts of the codebase so they will be getting more attention. It'll probably just have to wait while I asset grind.
Also didn't see the death pit behind the red card and ran right into it.
You're not the first, lol. I recently came up with an idea for the other half of the level so none of the keycard locations are final.
Also the top button on the pause menu being restart instead of resume almost got me a few times
Yeah I could see that happening. I put it in the same spot as Back in every menu so you can spam it to back all the way out.
friends and i have decided that this title is pronounced steven
Played through it, there's only one level right? Nice fast movement, felt pretty good to jump around kill some dudes. The robots seemed to get stuck staring at the wall sometimes. I don't think I ever saw a keycard, picked them all up by accident. The plasma gun could have a more noticeable, more satisfying projectile. Didn't find a shotgun.
Had fun, great job.
Thanks for trying it out! Just the one level, yes.
The robots seemed to get stuck staring at the wall sometimes.
The AI hasn't had pathfinding added yet and so has very bad spatial awareness. I'm hoping to just use recast later to add quick pathfinding so I can keep focused on assets.
I don't think I ever saw a keycard, picked them all up by accident.
They're not terribly visible, I know. I want to change the colors anyway so I can add emissive maps then too to make them more obvious.
The plasma gun could have a more noticeable, more satisfying projectile.
The plasma gun in general needs a rework, I'm not very happy with it. I'm thinking of redoing the model from scratch and I'm definitely going to change the alt-fire to a flamethrower.
Didn't find a shotgun.
I'm sure you've gone past it, it's just in a shady spot ;)
- I thought the checkboxes in the settings were unticked until I clicked on one.
- Options menu needs some tooltips; what exactly does "lock mouse axes" mean?
- Needs a windowed fullscreen option.
- Why is there no number on the FoV slider?
- RMB should go back in menus.
- Jumping needs input buffering.
- You can jump out of the level next to the building that needs the keycards.
- The locks need to stand out more. Make them glow in their corresponding colors.
- Does bunnyhopping make you slower?
- Weapon drops from enemies should rotate instead of being perfectly static.
- The keycards also need to stand out more. I picked up 2/3 without even seeing them.
- Picked up the red keycard and fell into a death pit that I couldn't see because it was so dark.
- The player death scream is terrible.
- Enemies need to be more perceptive. The enemies in the store can't hear gunshots from 10m away. They also don't notice your footsteps or even you touching them.
- Why does the SMG have a star-shaped muzzle flash when it doesn't have a muzzle brake to create that shape?
- Player acceleration needs to be a bit lower to make precise movement easier.
- For the same reason, jump height should be variable.
- Put blocking volumes in corners to make movement through tight spaces smoother.
- Muzzle flashes should produce light.
- Enemies should also leave behind shell casings.
- Scoured the level, but I couldn't find a shotgun even though there are shotgun shells.
- Needs to show how much ammo you have for all weapons without having to switch to them to check.
I thought the checkboxes in the settings were unticked until I clicked on one.
That's good point, they need a gap between the border and the fill.
Options menu needs some tooltips; what exactly does "lock mouse axes" mean?
Noted, should be easy. "Lock mouse axes" means when you change the X sensitivity it also sets the Y to match, turning it off allows you to tweak them independently.
Needs a windowed fullscreen option.
The fullscreen option already is borderless windowed, what exact functionality would you want? "Exclusive" as far as I know is just a flag you pass to DirectX which changes a few hints in the background, though rumor has it that doesn't even do anything anymore. I'm using OpenGL so I don't even have access to it anyway.
Why is there no number on the FoV slider?
It didn't neatly match the aesthetic of the GUI set, it's listed as a number in the config file. I can put the range in a tooltip though.
RMB should go back in menus.
Mouse 4 already does, keeping it consistent with how it works in a web browser
Jumping needs input buffering.
To lightly discourage bunny-hopping, it's not getting it.
You can jump out of the level next to the building that needs the keycards.
Yeah I know, that part's getting a big lintel in the next pass. The barrier itself will be retractable later and the level end will be on the other side.
The locks need to stand out more. Make them glow in their corresponding colors.
The keycards also need to stand out more. I picked up 2/3 without even seeing them.
Picked up the red keycard and fell into a death pit that I couldn't see because it was so dark.
They won't usually be tucked away in dark corners like that, I just didn't have any good places to put them yet.
Does bunnyhopping make you slower?
Sort of. Acceleration is limited with a sqrt instead of a dot so there's no strafe-jumping, and you accelerate at a much reduced rate in mid-air as well.
Weapon drops from enemies should rotate instead of being perfectly static.
I'm actually going to make them temporary physics objects that clatter around on the ground for a moment like the casings and other debris do.
The player death scream is terrible.
I know, it's perfect. If you don't want to hear it, don't get yourself killed!
Enemies need to be more perceptive. The enemies in the store can't hear gunshots from 10m away. They also don't notice your footsteps or even you touching them.The AI in general are getting a big pass when I add pathfinding. It'll get further refactors as I add more enemies too.
Why does the SMG have a star-shaped muzzle flash when it doesn't have a muzzle brake to create that shape?
Because it looks cool. Duh! You might as well ask why everybody is shooting from the hip.
Player acceleration needs to be a bit lower to make precise movement easier.
You can walk with shift or crouch with ctrl. Are those not enough?
For the same reason, jump height should be variable.
I could see this detracting from the game, it's difficult to give precise control to something so fast and prevents you developing a good judgement of exactly how far you can jump unless you use the full-power jump every time. You can already get a little more height by crouching in mid-air which allows you to mantle up objects slightly higher than your head.
Put blocking volumes in corners to make movement through tight spaces smoother.
I'll have to think about this one, I don't think the added workflow time would make enough of a difference to justify it.
Muzzle flashes should produce light.
Enemies should also leave behind shell casings.
Needs to show how much ammo you have for all weapons without having to switch to them to check.
These are all on the to-do list
Scoured the level, but I couldn't find a shotgun even though there are shotgun shells.
I guarantee you've walked past it, it's just hard to see. Again, the positioning of all the items isn't final, I just wanted the whole arsenal to be in the demo.
>The fullscreen option already is borderless windowed
Oh yeah, you're right. I just immediately assumed it was exclusive because the screen goes black for a split second when you tab to the game.
>It didn't neatly match the aesthetic of the GUI set, it's listed as a number in the config file. I can put the range in a tooltip though.
I don't think it would look out of place if you put it on the right of the + button.
>You can walk with shift or crouch with ctrl. Are those not enough?
Sure, but that's an unnecessary extra button. I think turning down the acceleration just a little bit would make tapping the movement keys feel more consistent.
>I could see this detracting from the game, it's difficult to give precise control to something so fast and prevents you developing a good judgement of exactly how far you can jump unless you use the full-power jump every time.
I don't think anyone has ever said this about Mario.
>I'll have to think about this one, I don't think the added workflow time would make enough of a difference to justify it.
It definitely makes a difference in doorways like the one leading to the room with the plasma gun, and you can just copy and paste the blockers.
didn't play the DD15/28 version so this all new to me. was a lot of fun and was able to complete the mission without much hassle.
movement is fast and feels nice, the railgun was very fun to use too, there's enemy variety, all in all a fun time. i was able to beat the mission in about 10minutes of playtime.
my only suggestion would be to lower the visual feedback on hitting enemies. having both a red flash and a stagger is too much, you could probably do only one of those and convey the same information, especially since the animations are very clear. personally, i'd lower or get rid of the red shader effect.
everything else is smooth, i had 0 bugs or errors.
keep up the good work
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.