My little indie retro fps just launched on steam

[radian]

Hey everybody, I wasn't sure whether to post this under creative works or here, so I thought maybe here. Anyway, I made a little indie retro fps and just released it on steam. It's kinda like a cross between ZDoom and Megazeux. It's got a classic 2.5D line based engine like Doom or the Build engine. It's pretty simple. I had to use the Freedoom weapons (and other open source graphics) because I'm a programmer not an artist. Nevertheless, I thought you might be interested. It has a pretty cool built in editor and some nice features for level editing and stuff. Here's a link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1213150/Break/

 

I actually used the doomworld forum during development whenever I needed info on this or that. Whenever I was stuck on programming something, I often tried to find out how it was done in Doom or Quake, and sometimes ended up here reading through old threads on Doom. I also looked at some threads about what people do and don't like about Doom and Quake, that sort of thing. The thread about movement in doom came in particularly handy. 

 

Anyway, I understand if the open source graphics and stuff don't appeal to you, no big deal. I would have liked to use better weapon graphics, I just wasn't able to come up with any. Not really much of an artist. I hope you might find it kinda cool anyway. Thanks for everything.

[omx32x]

nice one! im trying to get my feet into game design too so its always nice to see new projects from indie devs.

 

just a tip: if you want to keep making games i do recommend you to invest into learning how to make game assets (like models and textures). free assets are great but i think they should be touched up a little so they can blend better with each other.

 

that being said i kinda like how it looks. it reminds me of the fake video games movies and shows had before the 2000s and i kinda like the visuals because of that.

 

and the game looks fun to play too.

[radian]

Thanks! Yeah, I would have liked to improve the weapons. I tried a couple of times, but always ended up with something a lot worse. Weapons are hard, at least for a non-artist like me. In the future, maybe I need to collaborate with an artist or something.

[Jello]

I'm going to have to be honest here. And I'm sorry if I come across as an ass, but this is my honest opinion. I think it's really cool that you developed your own level builder, and engine for this, that's no small feet. I could never program anything like that, so I'm really happy for you. However:

 

You really lost me at the $24.00 asking price, while saying that most of the sprites are ripped from other games, and it's meant to be a building block for other games. I'm sorry, that's not really worth the money you're asking for, especially if you can't show off anything more than giant rooms with little to no height variances or architectural embellishments.

 

Again, I don't want to discourage you, making what you did is impressive. But, in my opinion, releasing it on Steam as a $24.00 game is far too much to ask for.

 

Because either it's a game you want to sell, but most of the assets are pulled from other sources and it comes across as something that could've just been a Doom mod to begin with. Or an engine/level editor that you want to sell; in which case it seems very basic compared to other engines available, so you need to figure how it's going to compete with them.

 

I really don't want to be a downer. When I started watching the video I thought "Hey, this looks kind of fun". I read that you created the engine and the level editor, and that is really cool. And then I saw the price, and I was taken aback, and then read that you didn't create most of the art assets and sprites in the game. And then I wondered what I would be paying for? 24ish levels of bouncing around using assets made by other people to test an engine? I can't see many people buying it, especially not at that price.

 

So those are my thoughts. I don't want to be mean, this would make a great game as a freeware project to help you get feedback on improvement. But charging $24.00 for it on Steam is really... off.

 

I wish you the best of luck though, I just wanted to share my thoughts. I hope you can use some of the things I've said to improve the projects; and if I've completely missed the point, let me know.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Jello

[Silhouette 03]

I just saw the trailer and I really like the smooth, almost floaty, movement on display here. The usage of stock game assets is a bit of a turn off, though as it doesn't really fit aesthetically in my opinion. The price could also be a bit less due to the game being purely experimental and uses stock Freedoom assets. I do think the game has a lot of potential, and I can see you clearly put a lot of care in this project. 

 

By the way, it seems someone left a review on your steam page you linked in the OP. I'm not sure if they're being a troll or not, since the feedback in the review is less than critical. Just thought I'd let you know.

[AndrewB]

I would recommend immediately cutting the price to no more than $2-$3, possibly free, or it will end up pretty well immediately forgotten and buried.

[azerty]

It looks lovely!

[whybmonotacrab]

Jesus Christ that AU price:

 

 

 The game itself looks decent, but no one is going to pay that much for it. I just bought the new Serious Sam game for $10 less. I could get Dusk or Amid Evil for $7 less. Ion Fury is the same price as this game. I'm sorry to sound overly negative. Your game looks cool, and I'd love to support it, but I can't justify paying that much for it.

[AndrewB]

Given that he's ripped off assets and code without proper permission, it's probably better for him if he sells nothing.

[DrWho42]

congratulations!

[whybmonotacrab]

10 hours ago, AndrewB said:

Given that he's ripped off assets and code without proper permission, it's probably better for him if he sells nothing.

It says they used open source assets. That's not the same as ripping off assets at all. Nothing was stolen. I have zero problem with this if it's done well - especially if you're a single person dev team. 

[hybridial]

I think the lack of unique assets kind of shows badly, this isn't something I would buy in its current state (though that said the lack of controller support is also an issue but that one is pretty specific to me), but in particular;

 

Dusk costs less than this. Hedon costs less than this. Severed Steel costs less than this. I think Amid Evil and Ion Fury cost about the same, maybe.

 

I would have to concur that realistically, something like this would need to be about 1/4 the price it currently is. And that most of the money should be invested back into it to create real assets for it; which would be a good idea because to give these kind of indy retro releases legs and so they don't sink without a trace within the black hole that is the Steam store. I'm hoping in the long run you get somewhere, but the price could be a major roadblock to that. 

[AndrewB]

20 hours ago, whybmonotacrab said:

It says they used open source assets. That's not the same as ripping off assets at all. Nothing was stolen. I have zero problem with this if it's done well - especially if you're a single person dev team. 

 

Open source doesn't necessarily mean it's OK to use it for commercial purposes, and even then there are usually strict conditions.

[dmdr]

4 hours ago, AndrewB said:

Open source doesn't necessarily mean it's OK to use it for commercial purposes, and even then there are usually strict conditions.

 

Well it's just as well we know the source of (some of) the assets then, isn't it?

 

Freedoom is liberally licensed under the BSD license - all that is required is that you include a short copyright statement that credits the Freedoom project.

 

Since Freedoom is free, some other projects have used Freedoom’s assets. We think this is a great use of the project and should be encouraged. If you use portions of Freedoom in your project, please let us know by filing an issue or pull request on Freedoom’s website project page

 

a bit of digging reveals the BSD license mentioned is the 3-clause version which has 0 about commercial stuff. As long as he's got the notice he should be good (doesn't look like he put in the 'issue or pull request' but I don't believe that's a legal requirement and I didn't look all that hard anyway, so maybe he did).

 

As far as the monster grafx go I feel like I've seen them before but don't know where. Perhaps someone else knows and can tell us what license they're under.

 

you also accused him of

 

On 1/26/2022 at 11:57 PM, AndrewB said:

ripp[ing] off... code without proper permission

 

which is an evidence-free assertion as far as I can tell. That said, if there's any reason to doubt his claim that the engine is 'totally custom from scratch' then please share.

 

In conclusion, don't make these kinds of accusations so casually.

ps. @radian your game is way too expensive bro god damn.

[AndrewB]

Yeah I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the engine is a copy-paste from one of the open source Doom ports, certainly not "custom from scratch". If that's not blazingly obvious to you after watching his gameplay video, then we'll have to agree to disagree.

[El Juancho]

20,99€ huh?... 

 

You even use sprites from freedom and other projects, is this a joke?

Edited January 28, 2022 by El juancho

[Noiser]

1 hour ago, El juancho said:

You even stole sprites from freedom and other projects

Do you even know the purpose of Freedoom?

[Lizardcommando]

The gun sprites and the cartoony enemy sprites and level textures do not match at all. I hope the guns are just placeholder and you will replace them eventually.

[Jello]

If anyone knows about cartoony sprites, it's Lizardcommando.

[El Juancho]

15 hours ago, Noiser said:

Do you even know the purpose of Freedoom?

yes, to play doom wads without the need to buy an iwad, not to sell your crappy game for 20€, even if it is legal.

[Noiser]

12 hours ago, El juancho said:

yes, to play doom wads without the need to buy an iwad

Wrong.

 

12 hours ago, El juancho said:

not to sell your crappy game for 20€, even if it is legal.

Don't try to change the meaning of your allegation. You said he was "stealing assets from Freedoom".
I don't care what you think about the game. This is a serious, yet false accusation.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Noiser

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

It looks somewhat fun, but let's be realistic: there are GzDoom mods that are either free or a fraction of the asking price you want that are much more polished and have much more original artwork and assets. I'll go through some of your quotes from Steam:

 

Quote

It has about 24 non-secret levels

About?

 

Quote

The editor is pretty cool, I spent a lot of time refining it. It has a custom scripting language which is intentionally similar to ZDoom's scripting language

So why would people pay thirty dollars to use yours instead of GzDoom, which they're already familiar with?

 

Oh:

Quote

Break follows a minimalistic philosophy compared to something like ZDoom. I tried to keep everything minimalistic so that it would be as easy as possible to make custom content for.

Minimalistic usually means "less capable". In this case, I'm guessing it means "less capable, but for thirty dollars more than the free alternative (which is already known to be relatively beginner-friendly).

 

Quote

easy importing and exporting of maps, incredibly simple file formats, insanely easy texture importing, a what you see is what you get style editor, and so on.

All of this can be used to describe mapping for DOOM.

 

Quote

Whenever I played Doom as a kid, I always wanted a built in editor that was fun and easy to use instead of complex and difficult like most level editors were back then. In Break, I tried to create the kind of editor that I always wanted as a kid.

I'm guessing it's been a while since you were a kid. "Back then" are the key words here. Today, we have kids that are eleven years old coming here and releasing maps for DOOM that are oftentimes more complex than the ones that you are showing. Why? Because modern editing tools are a lot different than the ones you had available as a kid.

 

Quote

I didn't want to just throw together another Doom clone. If you really care about those old games, you don't want just another clone. I think you want something lovingly handcrafted.

"Lovingly handcrafted" usually isn't used to describe products that primarily use free open resources.

 

Quote

This is a game for people who dream about going back to the glory days of Doom and Quake, for people who miss the good old days, for people who want to try to resurrect the past, at least a little.

It's not a dream, man. There's nothing to resurrect because, as you can see, it never died.

 

Besides all of that:

-Bland, boring, monotonous textures

-Lack of height variation

-Lack of any detail

-Poor architecture

-No aesthetic, style is all over the place. Looks like a poor version of Hocus Pocus DOOM

-No controller support

-Floaty physics

-Unsatisfying weapons

 

Edited January 30, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[The BMFG]

you should definitely lower the price of your game. 25 us dollars???????????