Dusk - Hexen + Quake + Doom

[Varis Alpha]

It does look more fun to play than Strafe tbh. I'm not a fan of the whole speedrun thing Strafe has going for it (which is why Arcade Mode on Doom 4 didnt excite me much either). This looks like it has at least some more classic semblances to it. Still, i'll be cautious about it until it comes out.

[DoomKnight1984]

9 hours ago, MrGlide said:

looks neat to me, as long as it's a fair price I'll prolly get it on release. I will be honest that I'm a bit more excited about strafe then this one.

I'll buy that for a dollar...maybe $5.

 

 

[Touchdown]

Heads up everyone, Dusk has a release date! And it's December 10th (yeah, really).

 

On 11/5/2016 at 9:16 PM, Touchdown said:

So I have watched this video a while ago and I think this game looks like total crap. It's the very definition of trying too desperately hard to be oldschool and completely missing the point in the process. Yet another nostalgia bait for people who can't get over the fact that we're not in the 90s anymore. DOOM! Quake! Heretic! Notice me senpai!

 

Oh come on, did I really say that? Fuck off, past-me, this game is awesome.

[Jello]

7 hours ago, Touchdown said:

Heads up everyone, Dusk has a release date! And it's December 10th (yeah, really).

 

 

Oh come on, did I really say that? Fuck off, past-me, this game is awesome.

Don't feel too bad. The first time I had heard about Dusk was from this thread back in 2016 and I thought pretty much the same thing. Then on a whim I bought in August of last year, either right before or right after E2 was made available. I figured if I didn't like it, I could always refund it. But I ended up loving it.

 

Out of the "big 3" of Dusk, Ion Maiden, and Amid Evil, Dusk is easily my favorite. It just plays well. I have absolutely no issues with the gameplay, it's fluid, it's fun, the enemies are interesting and varied. Yeah, the graphics are simple, but it works for it. The only complaint I have is the relatively horizontal level design, there aren't a lot of levels with vertical level design like in Quake. That's not to say it doesn't exist, but I think it could be more pronounced.

 

On the upside, once the SDK is released after launch, you can use Quake level editors like trenchbroom, jackhammer, the hammer editor, or worldcraft to make levels for it (well, you can make Quake levels for it now, and then add in textures/entities/etc... once the SDK is released and port it to Dusk). So hopefully some enterprising Quake mappers will make some neat stuff... or I'll have to get back into Quake mapping.

 

But yeah, I was really surprised with how fun it is. I remember seeing this thread two years ago and thinking that it looked like a poor nostalgia cash-grab; but it was made by one guy who just really loved 90s shooters, and the love is palpable.

[[McD] James]

I wonder if all the people who said this game was going to suck still feel that way. Besides Touchdown, obviously. 

[Sparktimus]

It's funny, 'cuz I thought that DUSK was just gonna be nostalgia fuel with no substance while STRAFE was gonna be the more authentic experience. Turned out to be a complete reversal.

[D4NUK1]

On 11/1/2018 at 9:10 PM, Sparktimus said:

It's funny, 'cuz I thought that DUSK was just gonna be nostalgia fuel with no substance while STRAFE was gonna be the more authentic experience. Turned out to be a complete reversal.

 

This, i loved Dusk from the first trailer, and worked to get that game when EP2 was out. But $$ is hard here, and with a help of friend, and magic from the Developers, i get a key for Dusk. And Dude, that game is a blast to play.

Also, they retouched some early levels, to polish some empty areas and make a good game desing.

I was laugthing and the commentary of the game being a mish mash of enemys, when i feel the enemys are like Quake 1, they are in fuction of the chapter: 

 

Ep1 is more a earth farm level, that ends on the city. Have enemy like cultist, chainsaws killers, Scarecrows with shotguns, mad cows. Ending with twisted enemys like Wendigos and the later enemy being the military, like cleaning up the mess of this cultist town that got more power of the military and city.

Ep2. is like a Half Life with Stalker maps, being a gritty facility that turns of being more and more a industrial mess and hellish facility. Also fuck the level flesh and bones! New enemys like the weilder, or Mama and mini iron maidens are like a great desing to the military tweasted theme. Also big John best joke boss to that climatic level.

 

EP3 will be a Quake with hellish maps, and with that enemy for the survival im sure will be the more action horror one!

Going be a blast. Also modding will be soon. No like Strafe.

[Koko Ricky]

On 10/1/2016 at 9:13 AM, Urthar said:

The N64's texture filtering was itself not a problem, it just had a lack of memory being cartridge based, so it used low-res textures which made things very blurry.

The problem was more in that the game looks aesthetically better (to quite a few) by turning off the texture filtering, something that was either impossible to do with the N64 hardware, or was rarely done. On a related note... The awarded medals that appear in the solar system/overworld in Starfox 64 are nearest-neighbor, while the planets are filtered. It's the only instance I saw in an N64 game where something wasn't filtered. So it could be an extremely obscure bit of code or something, as far as toggling it goes.

[ketmar]

so they want to SELL this to me? O_O fuck it, there are DooM mods out there that looks better, plays better, and they are free!

 

seriously, i am very tired of that "retro aesthetics" trend. if you're doing a free mod/game... ok, go on. but if you want my money, do some fuckin' work for it! i don't mind less-then-spectacular graphics for a hobby project, but if you're going "pro" (and you are, 'cause you're selling your shit), give me something i can look at without making my eyes bleeding!

[Immorpher]

The "retro" graphics trend annoys me too. For example the game Butcher is so pixelated that it is often hard for me to even see what's going on. I want to get into Dusk too but it's blocky and the enemies move weird to me. I can understand why indy developers are going this way though because you can produce games in a reasonable amount of time. It takes too much effort to fully utilize a powerful modern graphics processor and gameplay suffers. I think that's what happened with the game Agony, which ended up having bad gameplay and even then the graphics were not the greatest. There are cases where retro style is merged with a bit of modern aesthetics with great results. For example I think "Axiom Verge" and "Amid Evil" are absolutely beautiful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlLggsjGbo0

[leodoom85]

42 minutes ago, ketmar said:

so they want to SELL this to me? O_O fuck it, there are DooM mods out there that looks better, plays better, and they are free!

 

seriously, i am very tired of that "retro aesthetics" trend. if you're doing a free mod/game... ok, go on. but if you want my money, do some fuckin' work for it! i don't mind less-then-spectacular graphics for a hobby project, but if you're going "pro" (and you are, 'cause you're selling your shit), give me something i can look at without making my eyes bleeding!

Uhhh.....if you're tired and complaining, why commenting here in the first place? Chill out and there's no reason for hate imo...

[ketmar]

it is not about Dusk authors per se, it is about the things i don't like in modern indie scene in general. Dusk is just an example. like @Immorpher said, Axiom Verge, for example, is great. i'm ok with actually buying it -- its aesthetics is gorgeous. and Dusk just looks cheap.

 

too bad that many indie devs cannot tell the difference between stylish minimalictic graphics, and cheap trashy pixels.

 

as i said, i am willing to accept shitty graphics in free work -- it is ok, i didn't spent my money on that, and authors did it all in their spare time. for free.

 

but when it comes for commercial release, i want something worth my money. 'cause you know, i don't have some magical well full of gold to take coins from it, i spent alot of efforts to get those money, and i don't want to just throw it away. and no, i don't mean "Spectacular AAA Super-NextNextGen Graphics", no. i just don't want shitty pixels. Ion Maiden, for example, is completely fine.

 

indie devs should do their homework before trying to sell me their creations.

 

p.s.: as for Amid Evil, it is hard to tell from a trailer. i need to at least watch some longplay of it (or play it myself) to tell if that trailer is not a lie. but yeah, the trailer shows some very quality graphical low-poly 3d content.

Edited November 22, 2018 by ketmar

[Immorpher]

I think one issue with 2D games these days is that the modern graphics engines don't support vector graphics well. Unity is trying to get something out for it next year. I think that convinces many indie developers to just to do pixel graphics only. And once they commit to a certain resolution they're stuck with it.

[ketmar]

tbh, vector graphics in 2d platformers most of the time looks like a cheap set of rotating cards. but here i may be completely unfair, 'cause i really HAET this style of graphics. to the extent of: "vectors? gtfo, won't even try!"

[whirledtsar]

3 hours ago, ketmar said:

so they want to SELL this to me? O_O fuck it, there are DooM mods out there that looks better, plays better, and they are free!

 

seriously, i am very tired of that "retro aesthetics" trend. if you're doing a free mod/game... ok, go on. but if you want my money, do some fuckin' work for it! i don't mind less-then-spectacular graphics for a hobby project, but if you're going "pro" (and you are, 'cause you're selling your shit), give me something i can look at without making my eyes bleeding!

It's a full new game that took a lot of time & effort by many people, not a mod. It's fine if you don't like it, but of course it's not free, they're professional developers not a charity.

[ketmar]

10 minutes ago, whirledtsar said:

they're professional developers

the whole my rant is about they're not even close to "professional developers", judging by this product. alot of amateurs mod did better job than those "pro devs". meh.

[Alter]

1 hour ago, ketmar said:

the whole my rant is about they're not even close to "professional developers", judging by this product. alot of amateurs mod did better job than those "pro devs". meh.

Clearly those mods cannot be sold because they use commercial third party assets, thus they do not count.

[ketmar]

so you essentialy said that people doing it for free without any chance to get money from their work still do their job better than "pro devs". exactly what i said, yeah.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

Alter's point wasn't that people doing it for free "do their job better." It was that these people are doing it for free because their mods are using commercialized third-party assets, and so they couldn't monetize their works even if they wanted to because it's against Copyright Law to do so without a license (this license being a written contract or proof of permission).

 

The developers who are making these games are doing so with royalty-free (read: non-copyrighted or public domain) resources, or those they produced themselves. It's insane to suggest that the work of one person, who likely has limited funds and time, will always be equivalent to that of ten people, or a hundred people, with an entire corporation's assets at their disposal and as much time as need be, assuming their higher ups aren't inclined to rush them.

 

What you're saying is a "better job" from modders is done with already strong assets, whereas these "poor performing pro devs" don't have that luxury and have to work with what they can produce or find on their own. Making a game from the ground up is more difficult than making a mod of the same scale by several orders of magnitude.

What these indie devs are producing is impressive, given these restrictions and difficulties. I wouldn't put down their efforts.

[ketmar]

what is really insane is demanding money for such "professional work". i absolutely don't care about devs problems (and i know that very well, i am a developer myself, and i know how much work one need to make a decent videogame), 'cause you know, devs don't care where i'll get money to pay them. so i want some good value for my money, and nobody payed me to think about how devs were working hard.

 

that is the whole point of my rants: i don't mind issues in free mods, 'cause mod authors don't want my money. i don't care why they're doing mods for free, i only care about the fact. and Dusk author wants my money. so i want him to really... you know... earn it. author of Axom Verge did it right. authors of Ghost 1.0 did it right. authors of Ion Maiden did it right. note, it doesn't mean that i love all those games, it means that i didn't feel cheated for buying them.

 

"but ketmar", i hear somebody saying, "authors of Ion Maiden were supported by 3d realms, and had some other backup resources, and Dusk author did it almost by himself!" fair point. which means: if you cannot deliver quality content for money, don't do it! cancel project, or make it free. but i don't care about your problems exactly like you don't care about mine. want to go commercial route? then get my usual demands from a commercial title.

[leodoom85]

So basically, the whole rant is about money...of course.

You kinda choose the wrong job...and that's quite a narrow-minded point of view if I have to be honest with you.

[ketmar]

so do you mean that if i'll have free money, everything will magically change? do you really think that i should stop demanding good value for my money if i'll get plenty of gold in my pockets? that is exactly the way of thinking that leads mankind into hellhole of tolerating shitty goods, 'cause "hey, but it is cheap, and i have money to buy!"

 

i've been on both sides of poverty, but neither side did change my opinion: if you want money for your work, that should be damn good work.

 

now i am off this thread, i have to code a new GC for k8VaVoom. still for free.

[Xaser]

All this talk about Dusk's graphics. Y'all are aware that games have gameplay, right?

[ketmar]

audiovisuals is an integral part of a game. or, in another words: can i get a discount for shitty visuals? if not, i don't see why i shouldn't judge visuals.

[[McD] James]

I usually prefer retro graphics over modern graphics. Older graphics ≠ "shitty visuals". It's also a strange fallacy to conflate someone utilizing older technologies with laziness. 

Edited November 23, 2018 by Ajora

[Nine Inch Heels]

18 minutes ago, ketmar said:

audiovisuals is an integral part of a game. or, in another words: can i get a discount for shitty visuals? if not, i don't see why i shouldn't judge visuals.

Yeah, well, since AAA titles cost 60$, and dusk only costs like 20$ or less even, I'd say you have your discount already. Wanna spend less? Don't buy it. End of story.

[ketmar]

@Ajora may i ask you to read my previous posts here? about Axiom Verge, or Ion Maiden? just to make sure that you understood that i am not talking about "old tech == shit".

 

@Nine Inch Heels $2 is fair price. $20? meh. and yep, this is exactly what i am against for: when people think that Dusk costs more than $2. you may not realize it, but this is why we have, for example, overpriced crap like no man's sky.

[Marcaek]

now i am off this thread

[Nine Inch Heels]

7 minutes ago, ketmar said:

$2 is fair price. $20? meh. and yep, this is exactly what i am against for: when people think that Dusk costs more than $2. you may not realize it, but this is why we have, for example, overpriced crap like no man's sky.

No man's sky has been overpriced primarily because Sony hyped the crap out of it while the lead developer pulled lovely stories about features out of his ass that never made the cut. So that was an entirely different situation in the first place, you may not realize it, but dusk isn't promising anything it doesn't deliver.

Another thing you may not realize is that 2$ for a game made from scratch is basically asking the devs to sell their time spent at a lower hourly rate than a child knitting carpets in China. While I'm at it, you bloody well don't get to decide how much somebody else's time is worth. By the way, if you are willing to "sell" your time for less than 2$/hour, I hear amazon is hiring.

[ketmar]

@Marcaek new GC is working perfectly. it took less time than i thought.

 

17 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

No man's sky has been overpriced primarily because

...people are ready to buy shit for that price.

 

18 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

2$ for a game made from scratch is basically asking the devs to sell their time spent at a lower hourly rate than a child knitting carpets in China

and that is exatly how much it worth. it doesn't matter how hard devs worked on it, and i wrote about that before.

 

19 minutes ago, Nine Inch Heels said:

By the way, if you are willing to "sell" your time for less than 2$/hour

you can't beat $0/hour -- that is exactly how much i have from k8VaVoom development. which takes ~12-18 hours/day now.