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This is an early look at a mod I've been working on. There will be bugs. (I already know about the western barrels transforming one, that one should be fixed soon.) Anyways, on to gameplay. There are ways to upgrade you're maximum ego (health) via secrets, but being secrets I'm not going to tell you what they are. There are 6 weapons in the pk3, only 3 can currently be acquired without cheating. There is the desert eagle, the assault rifle, (with grenade launcher) and the magnum revolver which can be fanned. There are 3 levels in the Demo, the first 2 are basically an intro and some plot, the third is where the action really starts. And ends cause this is just a demo.
I enjoyed it overall, and I think there's a lot of potential in this mod.
However, at this point, there are a lot of small annoyances, mostly to do with the weapons.
-The HUD looks nice, but it's horrible to use. The ammo count is a tiny thing shoved in the corner and it's hard to see during gameplay. It would be much better if it was twice as large and on the right side.
-Zoom without zoom sprites is really unnatural. I realize that if you don't have the sprites, you can't do it, but maybe you could do something like Fallout 3's fake ADS using close-enough centered sprites?
-Duke moves really slowly, and the difference between normal and sprint is nearly undetectable.
-The pistol seems to be more accurate and more powerful than the assault rifle. Once I got used to it, it was okay.
-Weapon ordering is a bit odd and the lack of a dedicated melee in slot 1 threw me off for a while.
-Ammo is generally scarce and enemies don't drop ammo. I'd like to see more ammo around. Strife is really cheap on ammo but Duke gives you plenty.
-Some of the object sprites seem to be palette raped, which is odd considering this mod is full of OpenGL effects.
-Duke doesn't say anything when using walls and often when falling.
-Dynamic music is a good idea but the timing doesn't always work out because it's activated by crossing linedefs instead of actual events or actions.
The maps were a mixed bag.
The first map I really liked. The start was obviously just the beginning of Strife, but it didn't seem too out of place. The rest of it felt like the first part of Duke Nukem 3D. It looked good and played well. My only real complaint is that it's too short- I would have preferred a longer fight through the streets. It also seemed too dark, but that might just be my settings.
The second map... not so much. It looked more like the inside of a mainframe from TRON or something than the abandoned bunker it was supposed to be. It begins with a long, featureless corridor that's inexplicably lit up bright blue that serves only to highlight Duke's slow run speed. The bar is neat but the command centre and the armory feel empty and lack detail. The space between them is open and featureless. I'd like to have seen more areas like the bar and command centre and more detail overall. Overall, it's really bland and it really shouldn't be.
The third map feels like a work in progress, and it was a bit of a disappointment. I was hoping to have some exploration and interaction in the vein of Strife, maybe a mini-hub in the time period. Then I walked through the gates and was immediately shot at. It's pretty fun to play but the whole town feels bland and featureless. The wall is okay and the rock outcroppings are neat, but with one exception (the saloon), the buildings are big empty boxes. There just isn't enough detail to make it convincing. Being able to climb up on them was cool, at least.
With all that being said, I think it could be a good mod once it overcomes its shortcomings, and I'm glad you released this demo for us to try.
EDIT: Played it through again, noticed a few more things, some good and some bad.
-The grenade launcher is nearly useless, but the gratuitous OpenGL effects cause a lot of slowdown.
-I don't mean to be unnecessarily harsh on the Wild West map. It's a fun map, but it looks terrible.
-I'm not sure why it's so big, because SLADE crashed when I tried to open the PK3. Not sure if it's the mod's fault or SLADE's.
Hey, thanks for the feedback.
-I'll probably update the hud with numbers and better viewability sometime.
-I did the zoom like that because I think it looks better. I'll experiment though.
-The slow movement is intentional, I like slower movement better.
-You will find a dedicated melee weapon later in the game.
-I find there to be way too much ammo actually.
-I'll look into fixing the palette raped stuff.
-I'll probably extend the first map somewhat.
-I'm going to turn the second map into a hud where you choose time zones in whatever order.
-Definitely going to improve the wild west map.
-The wild west music is from Call of Juarez Gunslinger.
You'll probably gonna like this: i tried to shrink some of your music files to half size while struggling against the quality loss. While it's very difficult to reduce size without losing quality, i did what i could in the mixing part, and i think the soundtrack remains very usable in game. Download it here, and see if you like it!
Also, you scored a critical hit with that version of opening theme. That music gone straight to my library as soon as i finished listening to it. Where did you get that?
xenoxols wrote:
-I'll probably update the hud with numbers and better viewability sometime.
I'm not sure if it was this project, but I seem to remember an earlier version of the HUD being much more usable.
xenoxols wrote:
-The slow movement is intentional, I like slower movement better.
Fair enough, but keep this in mind when you design maps. Long corridors do not play nicely with slow movement. I would also increase the difference between walking and running, even if that means slowing the walk speed down.
xenoxols wrote:
-You will find a dedicated melee weapon later in the game.
The empty slot feels odd. I would at least put a pure version of the kick there, much like DN3D did.
xenoxols wrote:
-I find there to be way too much ammo actually.
I may be missing some of it. Keep in mind that as the map designer, you know every nook and cranny, but the average player will probably miss a lot.
