dreadout
yes, it is a janky clone of fatal frame in a different setting, but it’s also more creative with haunt variety and the ways you use the camera. they’ve opted to include a greater variety of haunts from indonesian lore than just transparent white dressed ghosts, which is a bit like if fatal frame dared break it’s theme and had stranger youkai and demon’s in really ghoulish interpretations alongside their floating specters.
the keepers of the dark expansion is also worth it.
Teenagers want to win, and will thus ascribe the pejorative du jour (“camper,” in mid-90s FPS dominated online multiplayer parlance) to anyone who makes them not win. It’s not an attempt at an objective description of behavior, it’s just rage. If they were playing now they would’ve called him toxic, or something.
Just want to say i really love this thread rudie!!
Anyway! I recommend DUSK!!
i’m 2/3 episodes in and so far it’s a blast. I was surprised when i searched here and found no discussion of it! I wonder if it got passed over because it looked like too much of a cliche throwback. it draws most obviously from quake 1 and doom/doom 2 — low-poly 3D visual style, swarms of enemies popping out of monster closets, you run a million miles an hour (and there’s no fall damage) — but it’s pulling from all kinds of 90s/early 00s FPS design, there’s notes of half life 1 and 2, blood, deus ex, system shock, thief… I think it collages together all these games in a way that’s really entertaining. It basically feels like a really ambitious doom megawad that incorporates stuff like a flashlight, picking up/throwing objects, proper aiming and sniping, etc. There is a level midway through the first episode that fulfills the promise of Sandy Peterson’s city maps by modeling a block essentially in the deus ex style, and it’s very good and fun. it also has a kickass hard rock/metal soundtrack and looks gorgeous. I have no idea how the real doom murderheads will feel about DUSK but i hope they give it a shot sometime.
I’ve always been curious but heard one vaguely negative thing about it and instantly thought “oh yay another new game I can ignore” with a huge sense of relief
Now I need to play it. Damn it
Yeah tbf i am someone who passed it over because it looked like a cliche throwback when it’s actually an excellent throwback
The third episode rules btw, im cracking into it now. Each episode feels very distinct, they use different assets and enemy types to give them their own flavor. Should also note that you can start any episode whenever you want just like you can in Doom, and there’s a built-in toggle to start each mission with only your melee weapon if that’s your kind of challenge (it is my kind of challenge, i love pistol starting). And in place of a reload key you can twirl your weapons around for fun. And you get double pistols/shotguns. And there’s a super shotgun and it is A REALLY GOOD VIDEOGAME SHOTGUN
one of the enemies barks is “HERETIC” and i always want to whisper back “HEXEN”
I’ve heard only good things about Dusk but have never tried it myself. It’s on the list but I got the impression it was more Serious Sam-like than Quake-like but maybe that’s completely wrong. I feel like I should at least buy it just to support the developer and old FPS style games in general even if I don’t end up playing it much.
I do know that the developers have released the sdk so you can load custom levels (and create your own using the awesome Quake mapping tool Trenchbroom) so it’s definitely fully in the original spirit of the games it takes inspiration from.
Serious Sam + Quake is not a bad way to put it… You get some wide open areas (though certainly not the hordes of enemies in Sam) and some claustrophobic corridors. I’ve enjoyed it so far (though I’m stuck at a point about halfway through the game having run out of ammo, probably just need to restart the level). I hate to pull the cost card (I’m on a really tight budget) but idk if I would personally pay $20 as it is now. I got in on sale for I think $10 and that was well worth it. From what little I’ve seen of the second half of the game, I really ought to power through as it seems to get way freakier.
Edit: I think it’s worth $20. Clearly a lot of passion and community accommodation has gone into it. The price thing is pretty subjective to me and my situation.
I do see now it’s on a bundle on steam with Amid Evil for $35, which was another throwback style FPS I’ve been meaning to check out, so I’m going to snap those up.
There’s a lot to like about Dusk, I was surprised by how well put together and thoughtful it was but honestly, the next game New Blood made, Amid Evil, is way more to my taste.
I’m curious about amid evil because i never got much into heretic or hexen, despite wanting to like them a lot. I could see a similarly thoughtful modern take working for me
heretic and hexen are both v flawed games that still appeal to me because the fantasy theming feels right for the kind of game a doom era fps was (ie they’re all action dungeon crawlers sprinters)
I played the first five maps of episode 1 of Dusk. It’s really good! There’s a lot of personality here. I love the music and the voice samples the enemies bark at you. The gun sound effects are great too and the guns I’ve used so far feel pretty good in general. It’s a stylish game. It was worth the price of admission and I’m definitely going to play more of it. Probably even all of it. I have a great hankering for the type of games from which Dusk so successfully draws inspiration.
But if I may don my critic’s hat for a moment I couldn’t help but notice while I was playing it that it kind of encourages you to fight at the long range which made a few parts feel like a shooting gallery. You trigger a group of enemies and your first instinct is to backpedal the way you just came rather than move in close. Basically I kept asking myself “Does this game have a solution to the Door Problem?” and I couldn’t really formulate an answer just yet based on the first half of the first episode.
Based on the bit I played I think it makes a good attempt. Mainly in that there are not a bunch of situations in Dusk where you will find it more convenient to just hang out in a doorway sniping the enemies as they come through rather than move forward and engage. In the link I posted Andrew Yoder talks about this as a problem in good level design. So far Dusk has great use of space with wide open arenas connected by valleys and interspersed with claustrophobic corridors and interiors. Enemies pop out at you but most of their attacks are from the medium to long range. I do appreciate that all the projectiles fired from enemy weapons, even the shotguns, are actual projectiles you can physically dodge with the right reflexes but so far they’re feeling a little samey.
I may be unfairly comparing it to Quake but Quake is kind of the gold standard here because it does so much with technically so little. I’ll play more of Dusk before making more direct comparisons but I figured I’d get some thoughts out there while they were fresh. When I do compare them more directly (if I do) I’ll be looking at things like
I also played a bit of the first stage of Amid Evil and that is also a really cool game. It took some finessing to get it to run smoothly on my computer without looking like a mess of pixelated soup. I like that it has the option to make it look pixely but it’s not a pixel art game and to my eye looks way better with a sharper image. I’ll be playing more of this one too.
******* melty blood
This game literally destroyed one of my speakers then destroyed the replacement I retrieved from the closet. 11/10 It was definitely worth it!