Dusk, the retro FPS (aping Doom, Quake and Blood) has released the 1.0 version, getting out of early access.
As content, that means it now has three episodes of 10 levels (+1 secret) each as the single player campaign (with 5 difficulty levels), an Endless game mode, and Duskworld, a mp mode which to be honest it barely has anyone playing and the netcode isn’t good so forget about it.
My impressions
The game has planned mod support and co-op for 2019 in post-release support.
It supports already high framerate, high fov for ultra widescreen, and controller (lol) support.
So this is great. Just did two levels, which I’m going to REDO to find all the secrets. GREAT level design, sound design, gunplay, violence, just ALL great.
Loading the game for the first time was both a surprise and delight, I’ll just say that.
-To find secrets: be aware of misaligned wall textures, press E in walls/objects, some ‘walls’ are illusions and can be passed just moving forward, be aware of damaged-looking walls and use something explosive on them, try to crouch on water to really check if there is a passage or not, sometimes you hear an angelical sound near a extra health object that could indicate a secret is close by, remember you can lift boxes or barrels and use them to vault over stuff.
-The secret level entrance of the fist episode is in the second level, you have to use a crate to jump to a high zone, I will only say that.
-You can move upwards or downwards the mouse while jumping to do a flip-over or backwards flip. It doesn’t have a gameplay function but it looks damn cool. :)
-The first episode is actually easier than I thought it was going to be for this type of game, so you may want to start directly on the fourth difficulty, if you are a veteran of fast paced shooters. And it helps to make the experience a bit longer as the game is short.
-You can throw around stuff and it does a good amount of damage. The soap object is special and does 9k damage. The gas canister is an thrown explosive.
-You can both strafe jump and rocket jump.
-Crates can contain an object inside you break them… if you don’t have to use them to climb over anything.
-In every episode you start again from zero, so no reason to save rockets.
Ok, I may have to modify my previous advice of ‘play it on Hard!’. That’s only for the first episode, the game has a good jump of difficulty the moment you start on the second episode.
The first episode was solid as a retro FPS, but the second episode… damn, there is a good jump in the quality of level design. Second Episode quality is very high, with more variety in types of locations and types of encounters, more moments that impact you more and an incredible horror atmosphere in some of the levels.
Sigil isn’t released. Sigil will also have to compete with a million Doom wads, while this has it own feel.
I just finished it. It was around 8 hours, that given the intensity is pretty good.
Great game, I will only ding it because the enemies, both visually (100 polygons don’t cut it, and their animations are pretty amateur) and gameplay wise they suffered of a bit of seaminess. Comparing with the master, Doom, it needed a few more original enemies, like the Pain Elemental (enemy spawner) or the Archvile (los attack + resurrector).
I think I liked more the second episode than the third one. The third also has some very good levels, but they are a bit all over the place, while I loved the second because the cohesiveness and the slow in crescendo that it has.
I’ll just add my voice to choir of praise - DUSK is so good. It’s smart about what it lifts from old games, and what it brings in from new ones, it knows how to vary its rhythms, the level design gets more and more creative, and there were so many moments where I just laughed with glee.
I’m enjoying Dusk a lot but I have also been playing the EA of the other game they have in the hopper - Amid Evil. It seems to be a spiritual successor to games like Heretic. Right now the retro shooter market is pretty robust.
