Wrack currently available on Steam at -60% discount

Like the topic says. I just thought some of you might be interested.

Since I don't own the game yet I will gladly buy it. I'm sort of fed up with story-driven slow-paced FPS games. I don't mean they're bad, but I need something fast and arcade'y for a change :)

Damn, that's a steal!

Perfect opportunity! I've been meaning to buy it recently and this will seal the deal.

Out of pure curiosity I wonder how much profit is taken out of Carn's hands when they run sales like these. Is it entirely at the discretion of Valve?

You missed the Bundle Stars Wrack Bundle for $5 that included Dark and I think 6 or 8 other games.

Kirby said:

Out of pure curiosity I wonder how much profit is taken out of Carn's hands when they run sales like these. Is it entirely at the discretion of Valve?

No, this was my doing. I approached them about doing some sort of sale, and this is what they recommended. And uh, I assure you it's not robbing me of any sort of profit. Still 3.5 hours left in the Valve day and it's already one of, if not the most profitable day in the game's history. Why didn't I do this sooner?! :P

Kirby said:

Perfect opportunity! I've been meaning to buy it recently and this will seal the deal.

Out of pure curiosity I wonder how much profit is taken out of Carn's hands when they run sales like these. Is it entirely at the discretion of Valve?

My insider understanding says no. Publishers choose if they want to participate in Steam sales or offer discounts. If Steam were to decide that for you, it'd have to be coming out of their share of the money I think.

EDIT: sniped :P

So with a discount of negative 60 percent, what does the final price end up being?

It came out to $6.79 CDN for me.

Bloodshedder said:

So with a discount of negative 60 percent, what does the final price end up being?

$23.99. Why are all these people buying it?! YOU FOOLS!

Anyway, sold more copies on Steam yesterday than any other day so far. Pretty cool! (We're still not doing episode 2.)

Carnevil said:

$23.99. Why are all these people buying it?! YOU FOOLS!

Well, we've all been wanting to support you for a long time, but figured "damn... Carnevil is selling this game so cheap.... I'd better wait for a negative discount...." and it finally happened :D

Bought it for the $6. It's fun but I have one question. Is it possible to disable the "cutscenes" that remind me about a door opening 3 feet away from me? It's borderline insulting to my intelligence. I'm glad I was able to disable the camera movement. That shit got nauseating fast.

Carnevil said:

$23.99. Why are all these people buying it?! YOU FOOLS!

Anyway, sold more copies on Steam yesterday than any other day so far. Pretty cool! (We're still not doing episode 2.)

I'm happy for you Carn :-)

Bought it, having loads of fun. Very colorful and full of fun action.

I'm digging the fast pace. It's plays pretty good with a controller too for a PC FPS.

BlackFish said:

Is it possible to disable the "cutscenes" that remind me about a door opening 3 feet away from me? It's borderline insulting to my intelligence.

It did remind me of a Zdoom wad. At least tapping activate will immediately skip it.

Doomkid said:
Damn, that's a steal!

On the contrary, a -60% discount means we have to pay 160% the price!

"Negative 60% discount", "minus/subtract 60% discount", semantics.

SYS said:
semantics.

Hah, and humor also uses that, and it often has a point!

To boot, in this context the "-" in -60% stands for "discount", semantically. Confusing language often stems from not observing such details. Although, at least, what you replied does unveil where Patrol1985's contradictory redundancy came from.

HEIL SPELLCHECKER

Is this a one-time purchase that includes future updates, or will future episodes be sold separately?

Megalyth said:

Is this a one-time purchase that includes future updates, or will future episodes be sold separately?

There are no other episodes.

rf` said:

There are no other episodes.

Right, not yet anyway. I was under the impression that the game was still in development.

Nope. Moving on to other things (that I think will end up being better anyway).

I've played this game. It's not "awful", but it's frankly really hard to recommend it to anyone (yes, even doom fans) because it is really just extremely bland. The level design is extremely boring and uninteresting; rather than the weird, abstract, and twisting designs you might find in Doom, this is once again just loads of corridors and square rooms. The only thing that separates this game's design from contemporary shooters is that most of the spaces are "roomy" to facilitate your extra speed, but that speaks more to the fact that the designers had no idea what speed is for than to the fact that the game is trying desperately hard to be an "old school" shooter.

On top of all that, the creature design is boring, the game wastes your time with minutes of unfunny and uninteresting character dialogue, there are only FOUR (yes, count em) weapons in the entire game, there is no multiplayer, there are extremely few levels, etc.

Really the only reason anyone here might want to get this game is because it's "fast" like Doom and Bobby Prince worked on it. But honestly, this game is barely worth five dollars and they're selling it for like, 20 bucks. Pass, pass, a thousand times pass. You can put this game and Doom on the same level and Doom will beat this game in every way a million times over. No, really.

If you're looking for a really good indie shooter I'd recommend Natural Selection 2 instead.

Well, I'm sorry you don't like it. I'm glad you at least have a game you enjoy playing more, but I've got to jump in on one thing you said:

sheridan said:

... the game is trying desperately hard to be an "old school" shooter.

It's actually quite the opposite. The game definitely started off as an "old school" shooter, but since then we've tried to make the game as different and new as possible. It's a big reason there's such an emphasis on the arcade elements of the game (chains, combos, bosses, score, lives, checkpoints, finishers, flashy colors, etc.) and why we've tried to distance ourselves from Doom as much as possible - to the point of not even including Romero's "Wrack is great!" quote in the trailer. Ultimately, Doom casts too big of a shadow to escape from and we weren't able to do it in the minds of many (to this day, by far the most popular mod is the Doom E1 remake - *sigh*).

I think a lot of the elements unique to Wrack over Doom would be better served in a genre different from "old school" shooters, which is why we're changing gears completely.

(Oh, also, the is *not* $20).

Wow, I didn't realize you were a developer on the project. I'm really sorry for the harsh criticism, though obviously my opinion of your game isn't changing.

Also, sorry I forgot what the actual price of your game is, all I can remember is the distinct feeling afterwards that I paid twice or perhaps three times as much for it as I should have. Which is a terrible thing to say but its the best explanation I've got.

Having said all that, I don't blame you if you're not interested in hearing the rest of my criticism, because I know by this point you have your own thoughts and criticisms that you've taken from the game at this point and in fact you've probably done a lot more thinking about it than I have, but I have good reasons for disliking your game (especially as a game that wants to feel like megaman as it apparently does) so if you actually do feel like listening further just feel free to read on I guess.

The way I see it, if you didn't want to be seen as a typical old school shooter, you shouldn't have relied as heavily as you did on all the fundamental tropes and mechanics that make shooters shooters in the first place. If you really did shoot for a "megaman" vibe, then it was clearly only as an after thought, because regardless of your intentions this game screams "DOOM" unequivocally.

I think one reason that's the case is because you're not realizing that one of megaman's biggest driving mechanics is its distinct sense of progression, namely, its stage select system. Megaman's actual levels are basically little more than stupid jumpy 2D obstacle course things. They are EXTREMELY LINEAR and as easy to navigate as you can imagine. I mean, for the most part all you have to do is walk to the right and you're guaranteed to win. Right?

WRONG. You might get through a whole level in megaman just fine but when you get to the end boss you will probably be fucked the first time you play because they're throwing all kinds of potent shit at you and you can't counter them whatsoever. NOTHING in the entire level gave you what you needed to fight the guy you are now fighting. SO WHERE DID YOU GO WRONG?!

Well, you probably picked the wrong stage. If you had picked a different stage, you might have beaten it instead and gotten a new power that would give you an edge on some other stage. THAT is what makes megaman's stage select so unique! You can only beat the game if you beat every single stage, and you can only beat every single stage if you play them in the right order. Moreover, the game gives the player absolutely no indication of what order they should play each stage in, which is obviously CRUCIAL to the game's strategy. So the only way you can get good at the game and BEAT IT is by figuring out what order to play the stages in!

Your game, on the other hand, has none of that. YES, you can select which stage to play on in your game. But there is NO strategy to playing the game in any particular order whatsoever. If anything, the game DISCOURAGES you from playing the game in any order other than a linear sequence because you will skip sections of the game's plot and stuff.

And as long as we're still talking about being able to select your level: even DOOM has that. And there's no strategy to playing DOOM in a different order either. Hence, your game is 1000x more like DOOM than it is like Megaman or anything else.

Now. This is a change of subject, but since I'm more or less done talking about your game, I thought I'd give an example of a really good game which actually managed to retain its predecessor's core gameplay even through a transition from 2D action-platformer to 3D FPS. That game (WHICH IS REALLY SUPER GOOD) is called Metroid Prime.

Metroid Prime is a WONDERFUL game. But it is also a wonderful METROID game because it understands what metroid games are all about. Specifically, it understood that Metroid's SENSE OF PROGRESSION comes from exploring a big, open, complicated world with tons of branching paths that is filled with platforms and vertical segments and enemies that are better described as extremely predictable moving obstacles than free-roaming monsters. It understood that Metroid is about exploring this world to collect powerups which unlock MORE parts of this world, to create a feedback loop of exploring the world and collecting powerups until you reach THE END OF THE WORLD, where you defeat the big bad boss and blow up the planet and WIN THE GAME.

That is what the ENTIRE game is about, and that is why Metroid Prime resembles Super Metroid so damnably well even though Super Metroid looks like this:
http://siliconsasquatch.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/super_metroid_screen.png

And Metroid Prime looks like this:
http://i.imgur.com/3jEoLRf.jpg

So... YEAH. If you want to learn how to make a game that resembles another game: PLAY THAT GAME FIRST. And then build your game so that it proceeds just like the other game does. And I guarantee you people will come out of your game thinking "Gee, your game is just like X." Because guess what. IT IS.

First of all, who said anything about Mega Man? The game is a hybrid of Doom-style games and platformer games like Mega Man - not Mega Man specifically. This includes games like Contra and Castlevania - none of which have a stage selection mechanic. They all have their little twists on the gameplay (in Contra you die in one hit, in Castlevania you have one-at-a-time weapon pickups), and Wrack does the same (combos, chains, finishers).

Second, I didn't realize stage selection order was the defining characteristic of Mega Man games. I mean, you can play the levels in order to take advantage of the boss weaknesses, but you don't have to. I've never played the games that way. You have to kill at least one of them without using a counter weapon anyway, and if you can do it on one, why not all 8? As long as you learn the boss patterns, you can pretty much take them down with the buster without a problem... oh gee, just like in Wrack.

Saying that because we don't have this one arbitrary characteristic in common, therefore we're nothing alike, is really silly IMO. That's like saying "Well, Mega Man was made by Japanese people, and DOOM was made by Americans, hence your game is 1000x more like DOOM than it is anything else."

Third, just because you don't see a resemblance to Mega Man games doesn't mean it's not there. For instance, one trope common to platformer games is themed levels - every level having its own unique environment and gameplay mechanics. Well, Wrack has that too. It's got the Metroplex (basically a tutorial), the Disposal Area (damaging floors, exploding barrels), the Recycling Center (conveyor belts, smashing walls, smashing ceilings), and the Fusion Plant (force fields) - all of which have their own unique texture set. If you want to counter and say that Wrack's levels don't feel all that different, that's a perfectly fair criticism (and one I might even agree with), but that doesn't mean it's not there.

I can get even more specific in ways Wrack is similar to Mega Man games. Storyboards? X6. Cutscenes? X4. Metroplex? First level of X4 (complete with the returning miniboss and post-boss visit from bad guy). Recycling Center's smashing ceiling mechanic? Metal Shark Player's stage from X6. But yeah, maybe I should have played these games first......

Finally, you want to know who saw the resemblance right away? Keiji Inafune himself. He was at SGC last year where we were showing off Wrack (note the Wrack poster in the background) and was gracious enough to come by. He actually took pictures of the game and that big poster (of the guy who is totally not cyborg Dr. Wily), and told us (through his translator) that the game seemed like first-person Mega Man. It was awesome to say the least!

I wouldn't expect your opinion change (human nature pretty much ensures that), but I did want to at least better explain what we were going for with the game. We weren't trying to deliberately make an "oldschool" shooter, nor were we trying to explicitly make first-person Mega Man (though there are inspirations from the platformer game genre) - it's somewhere in between. Hope that clears things up.

Sorry, I read somewhere (think it was your website) that the game supposedly takes big cues from megaman. Guess I got carried away, but the point is, I still don't see the resemblance.

And I'm going to preface this by saying I am sorry for having upset you, because even though I don't like the game I seriously respect you and your team and some of the stuff you did for the project is really good. Like the art, and the fact that it's original tech, and the smooth, bug-free gameplay. That's all well-done.

That being said I generally feel like the asian guy in this video when I criticize your stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsyfYJ5Ou3g&feature=youtu.be&t=2m23s

Carnevil said:

Second, I didn't realize stage selection order was the defining characteristic of Mega Man games. I mean, you can play the levels in order to take advantage of the boss weaknesses, but you don't have to. I've never played the games that way. You have to kill at least one of them without using a counter weapon anyway, and if you can do it on one, why not all 8? As long as you learn the boss patterns, you can pretty much take them down with the buster without a problem... oh gee, just like in Wrack.

You're missing the point, which is that the strategy both exists and is a very well known part of Megaman's design. People think megaman and they think of a guy who jumps and shoots and collects powers from bosses to defeat other bosses.

Fig. 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEItCGjqcmc

Yeah, if you're really good at the game of course you can beat it in any order with nothing but a buster, but if you go to literally any megaman website anywhere they have all the charts that show you the "easy ways" to beat the game versus the generally accepted "hard ways". Because that's what the game's all about.

And to clarify: I don't think you lack resemblance to megaman visually, because Wrack certainly DOES fit its art style pretty much to a tee, but in both this post and the previous one I was talking purely about these games from a gameplay perspective. Which actually is significant and not arbitrary as you say it is.

You know it is cool that Keiji Inafune told you your game looks like megaman from a glance (and I won't take that away from you because holy fuck that is cool) but don't confuse that with thinking your game actually plays like megaman on some level. Because holy shit it don't.

Carnevil said:

I wouldn't expect your opinion change (human nature pretty much ensures that)

Human nature doesn't ensure that and my opinion could change if it had a good reason to do sometime (which it might, you know I'm not suggesting my logic is completely water tight here).

I mean all I'm getting at is that you seem to be disappointed on some level that your game is compared to Doom so much even though it has killstreaks and a megaman art style and all these things that are *not* doom. And I'm like, how are you even? Because the biggest and most recognizable part of Doom from a gameplay perspective isn't the *lack* of killstreaks and cartoony art. It's the speed and the linear level progression, wherein every level is a self-contained 3D stage full of monsters that you gotta navigate quickly and do keyhunts in and stuff.

Which... is exactly what your game is. Right?

I mean I can draw more parallels if you want me to but is it really that hard to distinguish the differences in what you actually do in these games?

sheridan said:

I mean I can draw more parallels if you want me to but is it really that hard to distinguish the differences in what you actually do in these games?

I don't recall doing any jumping puzzles in Doom. I mean, hell, Wrack has an entire level built around rocket jumping puzzles; if that wasn't enough to not feel like Doom, I don't know what to tell you.

I don't really see the Mega Man influence much myself, but that may be because I never cared much for those games aside from MM2. I've always said that it feels more like an FPS Dodonpachi to me, to the point that it surprised me when Carn told me he's never played Dodonpachi. It "feels like" Doom to the extent that it's a fast movement-based FPS, but that's true of about a thousand other games.

(Also, Wrack has five weapons, not four)

Cynical said:

I mean, hell, Wrack has an entire level built around rocket jumping puzzles; if that wasn't enough to not feel like Doom, I don't know what to tell you.

I'm sorry, but are you perhaps unaware of dedicated rocket jumping wads for advanced ports? I mean, Carn made Skulltag and they used to be pretty big there too. Zdoom has Defrag literally as ridiculous as the Quake one.