Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer

[Rudolph]

 

[Rudolph]

I have not played Hypnospace Outlaw from the same developers, which I hear is actually good, so I am not sure how to feel about this one: on one hand, I am all for retro shooters, but on the other hand, the game looks like way too ambitious and polished for what is supposed to be a pastiche of a bad 90s first-person shooter made by an edgy teenager. Hell To Pay, for example, was made by professional game developers and it looks nowhere near as good.

[Redneckerz]

^^ I think the edgyness is on purpose as a really bad pun.

 

Having said that, looks delightfully trashy, and it also looks a lot like GZDoom, but given there is mention of multiple platforms, i suspect Unity.

[Rudolph]

Yeah, I hope the gameplay itself is not trash. 

[Kinsie]

20 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

^^ I think the edgyness is on purpose as a really bad pun.

 

Having said that, looks delightfully trashy, and it also looks a lot like GZDoom, but given there is mention of multiple platforms, i suspect Unity.

It's Unity (for ease of localization and multi-platform porting) with custom editor tools and such to help them pretend to be something older and grungier.

 

 

[Redneckerz]

51 minutes ago, Kinsie said:

It's Unity (for ease of localization and multi-platform porting) with custom editor tools and such to help them pretend to be something older and grungier.

Hah, called it :)

 

Seems to be somewhat more common to use Unity as a ground layer and then do custom tooling to get it not only look retro but even design retro. Kingpin Reloaded has a similar premise.

 

thanks for this.

[Rudolph]

Aha! A demo for the game has been released for the June Next Fest 2022.

Edited June 13, 2022 by Rudolph

[Rudolph]

That was a pretty good demo!

 

A few questionable decisions aside, the game really does feel like an authentic obscure 90s Doom clone and even offers some unique mechanics, like the Shotgun weapon using glass shards as ammo - which you can obtain from smashing windows and computer screens - and the Sludge Launcher, which grenades also spawns rats that will attack nearby enemies. The game is also fully committed to its trashy aesthetics, down to making actual mutant turds into common enemies. The music and sound design are legitimately great, even if the volume mixing is a bit weird.

 

And props to the developers for finding a way to make something vulgar without being offensive!

Edited June 14, 2022 by Rudolph

[Toilet_Wine_Connoisseur]

played the demo yesterday, love it. now i wanna go play Hypnospace Outlaw

[Noiser]

Parody or not, this looks awesome! And seems pretty accurate to the time period as well, which is kinda rare on the retro shooter scene.
 

On 4/5/2022 at 4:40 PM, Rudolph said:

I have not played Hypnospace Outlaw from the same developers, which I hear is actually good, so I am not sure how to feel about this one: on one hand, I am all for retro shooters, but on the other hand, the game looks like way too ambitious and polished for what is supposed to be a pastiche of a bad 90s first-person shooter made by an edgy teenager. Hell To Pay, for example, was made by professional game developers and it looks nowhere near as good.

I think they are aiming for the late 90's. Quake was already a thing in 1996 and if you compare it with titles like Disruptor or PO'ed (games with full 3D environments and 2D assets) I think it feels right at home.

[Rudolph]

Yeah, like I said, no pretentious teenager of that era would have been able to single-handedly design a game as polished and creative.

 

I mean, that is a good thing for us the players, as the pastiche is generally successful, but I just wish they had come up with a more plausible backstory - e.g. a Duke Nukem 3D clone that failed to be picked up by a publisher - and especially a more concise title! :P

[JayTholen]

On 6/15/2022 at 11:40 PM, Rudolph said:

Yeah, like I said, no pretentious teenager of that era would have been able to single-handedly design a game as polished and creative.

 

I mean, that is a good thing for us the players, as the pastiche is generally successful, but I just wish they had come up with a more plausible backstory - e.g. a Duke Nukem 3D clone that failed to be picked up by a publisher - and especially a more concise title! :P

 

Hi! So the lore of this one is that Zane designed the whole thing out in a notebook and then he and his much smarter high school friend were working on it as a TC mod for the 1995 game Kataklysm. (Kataklysm being our world's Doom, though it had Duke elements.) 

 

The mod was thought to be lost until a CD-R was recovered and now Zane (now in his late 30s) has roped his old high school buddy into helping him finish it.

 

Glad to hear you've all been enjoying the demo. We just added an automap at the end of the week and a bunch of gameplay refinements.

[Rudolph]

@JayTholen Oh, you are involved in the game's development? Thanks for the demo! It is quite fun to play.

 

Any chance of Kataklysm being made into an actual game, though, seeing how Slayers X is supposed to be a total conversion?

[Rudolph]

A new demo has been released just a few days ago!

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1931020/Slayers_X_Terminal_Aftermath_Vengance_of_the_Slayer/