Looks really cool killpixel, love the little touches like the subtle colored lighting, reflective blood, blood running in the grout, and lightning.

Is this Darkplaces ran or something else? 

@quakis - Excellent feedback, thank you. I strongly agree with all your points.

I understand its probably too early to bring up art related stuff

Is it ever too early? :P

You're example is precisely what I had in mind. The small scale of item pickups is an artifact of early paper designs where *everything* was intended to be as close to a realistic scale as possible. I quickly found out that this does not work in practice, at all. And yes, most of the art in the demo is temp. The next demonstration will have, aside from actual gameplay, a more unique, cohesive and functional aesthetic.

@Shambler - I appreciate the kind words! Still, what's in the video is very basic, I'm confident that later iterations will be much better!

@Qmaster - Thanks! Yes, it's running in DP currently. 

 

For what you are doing, should work nicely. Do you plan to/do use csqc for the hud? 

It does the trick. Yeah, the hud is csqc. The game is retro to the core, literally! 

Finally watched this all the way through today. Looks great even at this early stage. 

Will you be doing mostly realistic layouts or go for more Quake style fantastical levels?

Gameplay feels like Doom, looks like AD mixed with Hexen. Nice! 

WRATH. I keep going back and watching the video again. Keep it up killpixel. 

So I just watched your test compilation video. One thing I've noticed is that the game seems to require items (soul tethers) to allow saving. IMHO free (and perhaps more importantly quick) saves are preferable in an FPS, especially if you're aiming for oldschool. 

@Qmaster - Levels are fantastic/abstract, much like Doom and Quake, since gameplay largely dictates the shape of the level. I'm refraining from writing 4 paragraphs detailing the enemy mechanics, weapons, artifacts and level design as I think those are the coolest aspects the entire project :P Just be assured that gameplay is the core pillar of Wrath and everything about the game is designed to that end. Glad you dig the project!

@Mugwump - Yeah, I realize that is a bit weird. As someone who uses quicksaves liberally and appreciates the option, I do think unlimited saving has a couple problems: 1) quicksave spam or 'save scumming', which fundamentally undermines the game itself and 2) saving is fairly disintegrated from the game, especially for being such an intrinsic part of it. My solution to this is to integrate saving both thematically and mechanically.

In Wrath, there are two forms of saving: Shrines and Soul Tethers. Shrines are checkpoints. When a shrine is 'illuminated', progress is saved and the player receives a boon (such as full health). Depending on level size, there can be 1-3 shrines in a given level. Soul Tethers are item-based quicksaves and are one of the 8 artifacts found in the game. Their rarity is such that the player will have enough to save when needed, but not enough to savescum. They are also valuable items that further incentivize exploration and completion of various areas/challenges. I think this is a reasonable fix, though I understand why others may feel differently. 

That is fine, but you should still allow the player to save whenever they want, it is about giving the player a choice like old school shooters 

That is fine, but you should still allow the player to save whenever they want, it is about giving the player a choice like old school shooters

I'd say include a hard save option at least. Some of us have to play in short spurts when we can grab a few minutes here and there. You could limit the amount of saves or give the player a budget of soul tethers to begin with. I'd be very careful with making players frustrated. 

I'd be very careful with making players frustrated.
My point exactly. The soul tether system could be fine, provided these items aren't too scarcely distributed. This will require a fair amount of balancing for each level and difficulty setting. 

I hear you guys loud and clear. Just to reiterate: saves are limited, not removed entirely. The player will have the to option to save, just not 15 times in the space of a couple minutes.

It's too early to tell how well this will work. We're doing more testing. Player feedback, once they get their hands on the demo, will help out here as well. 

you are just limiting the number of saves, not their location, or number of loadings, so i think it work well for your objective. 

I think that will work. Plus it spurs actual progress 

Do cheat or developers only quick saving? ;) 

Basically, I need to confirm no more bugs are left before the map is released.

It will be quite hard (but cheating is fine). 

vulgaris 

^^madfox that looks awesome! Venus flytap?

I've got a gallery of a couple new screens from my AD map. I've been playing with the fog settings to give some ambience. The colour changes based on locations in the map, having triggers everywhere gets tricky.

Gallery: http://imgur.com/a/Enpt5

Its really tough to get an idea of how lighting looks based on screens, and my own monitor. I have a waterfall that was being turned into a grey mess by the fog. Its func_illusionary with _minlight, _minlight_color and _lightignore set. This makes it more visible despite the fog. Any suggestions let me know. 

 

plumivitius fluctuarish.

It's a model mfx was looking for his deepgreen serenades. 

That plant looks awesome Madfox

and even if you can't extract the chasm monsters, hopefully you'll use them as inspiration for when you create new monsters! 

is that a vulva on a stick ? 

That all looks good. Fog is generally fine, the bright room is a bit bright but that's probably deliberate.

One thing I would say is try to put more design interest into the overall shapes and layouts of the rooms as well as details and structures inside them, if that makes sense?