Beyond Sunset - DEMO OUT NOW

[Redneckerz]

The Beyond Sunset Demo is coming to Steam on January 21st, 2022.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1665 ... nd_Sunset/

Wishlist if you haven't already!

Wishlisted1

[Custodian]

Walls Disappearing?

If you are playing the demo and the walls start disappearing, this is likely a known bug with GZDoom and we're doing everything on our power to fix it. In the meantime there are several workarounds you can try. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. We strive to provide the highest-possible quality experience possible, and we know that this bug can render your game unplayable. Thanks for your patience and support!


If you have an NVIDIA graphics card:

• Press Esc to return to the main menu. Select Options.
• If the menu is not accessible, move into an area where the bug is not present and attempt to open the menu again.
• From the options menu select Graphics Options.
• From the Graphics Options menu, select Preferred Rendering API and choose OpenGL.
• Close out of your game and return to desktop. Once the application is closed, relaunch the game.
• Return to the Graphics Options menu to confirm the game is now set to OpenGL.

If the problem persists, please let us know immediately.

If you have an AMD graphics card:

• Press Esc to return to the main menu. Select Options.
• If the menu is not accessible, move into an area where the bug is not present and attempt to open the menu again.
• From the options menu select Graphics Options.
• From the Graphics Options menu, select Preferred Rendering API and choose GLES.
• Close out of your game and return to desktop. Once the application is closed, relaunch the game.
• Return to the Graphics Options menu to confirm the game is now set to GLES.

If the problem persists, please let us know immediately

If you are using an AMD graphics card, if your drivers are newer than Radeon 20.12.1 we recommend that you use the GLES renderer. If your drivers are 20.12.1 or lower, we recommend using the OpenGL renderer.

For the best possible experience on AMD cards, install Radeon 20.12.1 drivers. AMD's latest updates broke the OpenGL renderer and we are powerless to resolve this issue without direct support from AMD.

[Kinsie]

Just played the demo. Quite enjoyed it, though a bit concerned with the usage of ZMovement, considering the rather sizable disclaimer in its thread's OP. Did you get some special permission?

[neoworm]

I played through first map from demo and it saddens me to say it but there are some problems.
Even early I really struggled with the movement system. DooM is really not build for platformers and this show it. Limiting player air control with DooM inherent floatiness makes miserable experience.
And the combat is really not that good either. I get that you go for fast and punishing combat, maybe even something like Hotline Miami. But it just doesn't work so far. There are too many small annoyances that make it miserable as a whole. You get stuck on walls, you get stuck on enemies, you get stuck when jumping over enemies, charge pistol zoom is disorienting and useless since you don't have to snipe most of the time anyway, weapon switch to katana is pretty much death sentence in many cases, ammo is so tight you mostly have to use pistol and katana etc...
I kinda have an opinion that if the game has to implement a rechargable health of some kind to ballance out damage that player is innevitably recieving than it's not really designed that well. And all the health and armor that drops from all the enemies kinda tells me this is also that case. There has to be some more consistent way to let player avoid damage. Will it slow the game down? Most likely. Will it make the game more rewarding when you can go through whole encounter without taking hit? Definitely. Right now it's almost impossible to get through any encounter without taking chip damage. Swarming robots are waste of ammo but are almost impossible to take out by katana without getting hit few times, bullet enemies will hit you even when perfectly parrying with katana and arenas are so crowded you will get hit from behind or the enemies will swarm you etc. This needs some heavy ballancing right now, maybe even some cuts and reworks.
I like the visuals a lot. Atmosphere is perfect. So I powered through first level (I think) till the combat after the second phone call. By that time I was no longer enjoying the game anymore and when I got to next level in the lobby and immediately got jumped by pretty much the same ammount of enemies again I just closed it. It was busywork by that point.

[Custodian]

Just played the demo. Quite enjoyed it, though a bit concerned with the usage of ZMovement, considering the rather sizable disclaimer in its thread's OP. Did you get some special permission?

I reached out to ivoryduke and got confirmation that I can use it under the condition that I make some fixes to the code.

But regarding the movement, some fun stuff to note:
The original implementation of the movement is actually from here

The dash movement is kinematic, and is sourced from here

Glad you had fun!

[Custodian]

I played through first map from demo and it saddens me to say it but there are some problems.
Even early I really struggled with the movement system. DooM is really not build for platformers and this show it. Limiting player air control with DooM inherent floatiness makes miserable experience.

Sorry to hear you didn't have a good time with it! I know the platforming is divisive, but I stand behind the decision to include it. The full game has even more platforming. This might not be the game for you, sadly. But, It is highly moddable, so if you want to release a "No platforming" mod, you have my blessing!

And the combat is really not that good either. I get that you go for fast and punishing combat, maybe even something like Hotline Miami. But it just doesn't work so far. There are too many small annoyances that make it miserable as a whole. You get stuck on walls, you get stuck on enemies, you get stuck when jumping over enemies, charge pistol zoom is disorienting and useless since you don't have to snipe most of the time anyway, weapon switch to katana is pretty much death sentence in many cases, ammo is so tight you mostly have to use pistol and katana etc...
I kinda have an opinion that if the game has to implement a rechargable health of some kind to ballance out damage that player is innevitably recieving than it's not really designed that well. And all the health and armor that drops from all the enemies kinda tells me this is also that case. There has to be some more consistent way to let player avoid damage

Did you use the dash? The dash grants brief immunity from damage, and the enemy attacks are timed in such a way that you can use the dash to evade them effectively. This has been rigorously tested.
EDIT: I should also note that the dash breaks the melee stun. If you get stunned by a bladebot, dashing away from them immediately clears the stun.

Did you use the Powerkill? The Powerkill is an essential feature. If you don't use it regularly, you will run out of health and ammo quickly. The powerkill also grants temporary invulnerability, and recharges roughly every 15 seconds.

If you didn't use these features, what can I do to communicate their necessity more clearly?

EDIT: fixed some grammar

[Custodian]

Also for the love of god, please steal assets from the demo and use them in your mods, you monsters.

[Kinsie]

I reached out to ivoryduke and got confirmation that I can use it under the condition that I make some fixes to the code.

Okay, cool, I was just worried about future drama. Good to hear everything's squared.

For more detailed commentary:

• I can't say I was huge on the platforming, something about it (slipperiness or air control?) caused me to overshoot my target a bunch.
• Weapons were effective, but for the most part didn't have a lot of audiovisual punch to them. Pistol and SMG might need a little bit of extra bass/LFE to up the satisfaction of their use.
• Finding the second set of cooling tanks after destroying the ones under the ICE Mainframe was oddly difficult for me, but I'm willing to attribute that to my clinical lack of sense of direction.
• Liked the visual style a lot more than I thought I would from screenshots.
• Really enjoyed the final boss. Haven't seen a lot of fixed-attack-pattern bosses in Doom-based things before, it works remarkably well.

[ZikShadow]

The boss is very cool indeed. Giving me flashbacks of Touhou Doom. Most intrigued to see what the other bosses are capable of in the final game.

[Enjay]

To throw my £0.02 into the hat on a couple of issues that have been discussed.

Platforming:
I have never really liked platforming games, and have never been good at them. Going right back to 2D platformers on arcade machines, side-scrolling platformers (I hate that moustached plumber), the jumping section in Half-Life, all of them. I suck royally at them. Don't like 'em, can't (and don't want to) play 'em.

However, when playing the demo, I gritted my teeth and got on with it. Much to my surprise, the platforming sections were better than I expected - still not to my taste, but I could cope without rage-quitting and defenestrating my PC. I've played through a few times and I'd even go as far as to say that I'm getting the hang of it. I'm still not good, and I'm glad when that first section* is behind me, but I can now make most of the jumps at first attempt.

*I'm not sure that the first section being so platform-heavy is the best way to start the game in as much as it isn't particularly representative of the game as a whole and gives it a bit of a slow start. (Not Daikatana swamp maps and mosquitoes slow and unrepresentative though. That really was a game-opener misstep.) On the other hand, it does force you to learn the skills.

The reason, I think, that I did take to it reasonably well is because of the altered movement code. Despite some of the comments in this thread, I actually found the movement code really good and I feel that it helped me to cope with the platforming sections.

As custodian said, platforming can be divisive (and clearly this is the case). However, I think it is worth remembering that this is a Doom forum. People here are attracted to Doom and the gameplay it offers. Doom is not a platforming game (indeed, its slippery physics can make platforming particularly problematic IMO). So it's worth remembering that, although I'm sure there are many people on here who like platform games, this forum might give platforming a harsher reception than other places.

Combat:
I enjoyed the combat. I found the different attack modes interesting and, overall, I found combat quite technical (for a Doom-based game). I have always been fond of games/mods where the enemies feel about right as humans - i.e. it doesn't take too many shots to take them down because you have weapons that should be able to take down a human reasonably quickly, but they too can hit back with reasonable ferocity too* (making dodging, ducking, using cover etc part of the gameplay). In fact, I really don't like bullet-sponge enemies unless they have an obvious reason to be bullet sponges (like the guys with shields, or robots). I actually think that Beyond Sunset manages to hit, or at least get very close, the the sweet spot on this (for me anyway).

*This, of course, has to be offset by the fact that there are hundreds of them and only one of you, so they shouldn't be as tough as a player. Otherwise you are playing team deathmatch with you on one team and several hundred guys on the other.


I think that both of my points above were underlined by the game's tutorial. When I first started played I was like "ugh! a tutorial, I can't be bothered, just let me kill some bad guys already." However, I quickly came around to "if there is a tutorial, then Custodian obviously wants to teach me something important before I play the game. So, with that attitude, I engaged properly with the tutorial and made sure that I learned its lessons.

The game is not Doom and, therefore, it doesn't behave like Doom. You move differently, and have additional movement options too. The combat is more intricate and also has more options. All of these are important. If you don't learn them, and don't use them, the game will be frustrating - if not near impossible - to play. If you do learn and use the features, you end up playing the game as it was meant to be played. I did that and, perhaps as a consequence, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and actually found it more enjoyable than many of the Doom mods that I have played. But, again, to emphasise the point, the game is not Doom. It is it's own entity and plays in its own way. So to get the most from it, I feel that it is best to approach it that way.

[neoworm]

Ok, maybe some clarifications are due. I wrote the post yesterday after having miserable time with the game and maybe was too harsh. I still stand behind few things I said though.

Platforming is ok. It is interesting and I like that. What I don't like is simply running off a platform only to be carried by momentum into the abyss. It happened more than once. Just running off a platform can get you onto a vector that will kill you. That should not happen. I also think jumping off a slopes have some quirks, like not registering jump imput in some cases etc. Making you use double jump instead of a normal jump, which can kill you. Maybe you got used to those quirks and don't see them anymore, but for somebody that just came to the game, those are flaws and are patently obvious.

For the combat, I did not use powerkill nearly as much as you probably expect players to do. It just doesn't come naturally for me. Almost like the mechanic is not really natural part of the combat loop and needs serious getting used to. But the milion of small annoyances I mentioned I think are still a problem.
Getting stuck on walls is an inherent problem of Doom engine, but when you desing a game around not being stuck, it makes this flaw more serious than in vanilla Doom. Getting stuck on enemies is another inherent problem of DooM physics. You graze enemy with your dash and you stop. You jump height is in the sweet spot that it's often not enough to get over enemies and since you usually jump and dash, your dash ends where it started and now you are stuck in between enemies without dash. I think choosing GZDooM for this kind of game may be the problem, it's just not made for this.

Also one small thing that I forgot yesterday - charged pistol projectile is quite large, I was hitting walls when firing it near one and it often grazed some column in the level and hit a wall instead of the enemy right behind.

Last thing, the chip damage you are constantly recieving is for me personaly a complete deal breaker. As I said if the game needs a mechanic to constantly replenish health it is badly designed to begin with. It is regenerating health done differently. If you take damage it should be a mostly player's fault. And in this it seems it just can't be avoided. Maybe if I play for tens of hours, but I won't because the game just annoys me too much. I think this is kinda a trap for designers. You have to let player be good in the game before you pump up the difficulty. Here I always felt like I am powering through the game, not enjoying it, because anything I try is never enough. Always loosing health randomly, always runing out of ammo, always getting stuck somewhere.

Yeah, the game is obviously not for me. I am really not into that much of an arcady style of games even though I like dynamic jumping, dodging games like Warframe for example. Yet I think some of the stuff I said are real problems that will be mentioned by more people than just me once you let this out into the world.

[Custodian]

I do feel that I can do more to ease people into the combat loop. I've generally found that most people who give it a second play after the first time find it far more enjoyable and often raise the difficulty level. I give immediate access to a whole host of abilities which are non-standard in games like this. Introducing them all at once may not give the player adequate time to adapt and learn to use them as intended, especially for people who come into the game with the expectation that it will play similarly to doom.

I've been poking around people's twitch streams since the demo release and have noticed that relatively few people are using the powerkill to kill clusters of enemies. One of the big features of the powerkill (and I hope an improvement over the mechanic that inspired it, Doom 2016's chainsaw/glory kill) is that it has a broad killzone which can kill up to 16 enemies in one sweep. It is immensely satisfying to wipe a cluster of bladebots out of existence with a single attack. I had hoped that the floating skull icon would encourage people to use it more, but I think I could do more to emphasize its use, maybe some kind of hud element or button prompt whenever the ability is recharged?

[m1lk]

well steam wont let me download the demo because im on mac. any way to download the pk3 and run it through gzdoom?

[Captain J]

Recently played the demo and my goodness it exceeds my expectations. Cyberpunk genre gets benefit from awesome, slim looking mechanical designs and vibrant colors. This game has everything so it's satisfying! I love reading the lore inside Computers that hold more than just Security Camera feeds too. Also i do love the fact that you can enter the cyberworld called Xanadu and the whole atmosphere gets a lot different. Action is good, Storytelling is good. It's a good game.

And pardon my silly ramblings but i'd like to call it, A Spiritual Sequel to Hacx done right. Because it also has cyberpunk theme, japanese stuff, cyberworld and all.

---

- This Crystal in Tutorial displays "You got a Pickup" message upon pick up. Also, is there any way to skip the whole Tutorial in Prelude?


- The first level starts off with this platforming section but this right here, made me realize that i actually can climb the platforms over, instead of doing the double jump. I don't think this was mentioned in Xanadu, though.

- Computers provide extra view on Security Cameras and that's useful. However, it automatically returns to the menu after few seconds once i click one of them. And maybe it's a glitch? I don't know but it goes nuts when i call the menu by pressing Use key during the feed and keep clicking on random cameras.

- I know that there are multiple ways to deal with Shield Mooks, like using the Alt-Fire of Laser Pistol or doing Killmove but their quick firing is quite hard to comprehend when they're in group.

- And speaking of Killmove, enemies do gib and the visual effect is neat. But audio-wise? Not so much. Laser Pistol's firing sound and explosion sound might also need more power to it. But it's just my thought.


- In Xanadu? Has this big yellow laser that hurts you if come near it. Also it blocks the view, hence hiding the enemy projectile.

- The first boss is fairly balanced. But i just don't know when to dodge the blade attack. The visual feedback is there. But audio wise, it's either quiet or hard to listen. Defeating it wasn't so satisfying too because it silently collapsed like a ragdoll.

I definitely dig the atmosphere plus robot designs this game has. I'm a massive fan of robots and stuff so it suits me right! I'll be looking forward to it. Keep up the good work!

[Custodian]

If you're someone who has a way to get in contact with the original HacX team / Banjo Software, please shoot me a DM! I am interested in licensing/buying the IP for HacX.