Recent reviews by nullzero

- WIS : I overheard on the streets there's a new game called Ebb

- CON : *GROWL* Discusting. Reminds me of a rotten egg I had last night

- WIS : They compare it to some other obscure game...

Testing lore: :d20: **SUCCESS**

- INT : Ah Disco Elysium. Modern classic.

- STR : Oh the one with far too many words...not that many action.

- DEX : (Interrupting) Well it has wonderful art too!

- INT : It would be easier if you had found the spell "comprehend languages"

- CHA : Why not mention some characters you can flirt on

- STR : That's more manly

- INT : Back to the topic at hand. Other reference people point to are Discworld and D&D

- CHA : Isn't that for nerds?

- CON : *BLURB* my belly still hurts from my last D&D night pizza leftovers...

- DEX : oh come on, just try it already!



The game plays a bit like the an isometric point and click adventure and the dialogue above. Some say it's a Disco Elysium-like (main dev included), with some adding that it might even the best one so far, but I didn’t play it (too many words, internal owner & creators fiasco, etc.) so I'll stick the "plays like a D&D in person campaign" with "funny Discworld-like humour & feel". At start it even reminded me of a light-hearted Ultima VIII.


(warning: spoilers below in this section about one monster you should not be looking for)

As in Temple of Elemental Evil tactical combat mechanics implementation? No! Think it more like a player reacting / narrative theatre of the mind kind of way.

Example: You're being attacked. You roll DEX to evade, succeed on the roll and wait.. you still got hit!?. Oh. but your success leads to other available options to choose from on the next round. It's like the DM is using the rolls to push the narrative forward, even if we're in combat rolls.

Otherwise it mechanically and lexically resembles and feels like it: Rolls, Advantage, Death Saves (great implementation btw!), flavourful classic D&D spells, almost insta-kill gelatinous cube that you can stumble upon as a 1st lvl character (game has plenty of auto-saves don't worry!) and most of all, it feels like an in-person RPG game.

Originally posted by DM:

Say... You saw a hole and want to just jump into it like that, without even looking? Are you sure? OK then, I won't pretend that will surely not end well, but, lets see how it goes...

Oh, and you can learn all spells regardless of class, to unlock extra options. So all in all, good adaptation / compromise of D&D into a point & click adventure + narrative computer game.



It uses political views for each of the fantasy factions in the city and also ties them some of the stats you roll. Apparently an apolitical path for the charisma sleazy ones exist. In any case it serves well the purpose to give life and dressing to those factions, and many of the options are nice to read even if you choose to go for a non typical one. And it does so with humour. Good for me.


It feels like an RPG. It is a love letter to an RPG. But it's not an RPG. It's a point n click adventure game. You can rolls yours stats, you can mix gear to distribute bonus like you want. But in the end of the day, this is like playing through the lens of one particular character, a cleric of a dead god in melting pot city that saw better days, tasked to keep things civil for the first election taking place in 5 days time.


Didn't finish yet, I'll play to see what happens. In any case the ride has already been worth it. Great demo. Had to insta-buy & play on the steam deck. When I finish, maybe I look into this Disco Elysium thing people keep point out to...

P.S.: Hope this game goes well enough for devs + publisher to get voice acting for all those lines. Would be the (missing) cherry on top. *chef's kiss*

[EDIT]: Typos and formatting

:superninja: - They say ninjas can't catch you if you're in a bullet hell... but I'm no ninja... and suck at bullet hell games!

That said, it's a perfectly executed coffe-break action game. You'll die a lot sure, but each time unlocking diferent skills and traits that are added into the bonus pickup pools you find out, making each further runs actually quite different than the first ones, even though all the games is about mindlessly shooting... running... and... shooting... and surprisingly... I really like it.

Have I ever finished it? NO! Will I ever finish it? Probably not! Will I play again? Surely!

It was certainly the "most Fun with a Machine” (TM) I ever had! Everytime I play this sweet liitle roguelike it really shows it is a "Labour of Love". It has some of the “Best Environments” for any 2D roguelike around. The sound and hacker style really add to the immersion.

Some games are "Better with Friends” but with this one you want to forsake them and simply climb up the leaderboard with all the bolts and pieces from the scraps that you either found or made.

Undoubtedly it is certainly "Game of the Year” material, that is, once this fine dev actually stops pumping new stuff and finally call his day off and realeases 1.0, in order to jump back into XcomRL and make Chrysallids great again! ^_^

It is just sad that Steam Awards don't let'me me vote Josh "Kyzrati" for "Best Developer” or that the 2D hacker visuals are just to good to forsake a 3D version so that one and “VR Game of the Year” awards are currently of the table. For everything else you've got my praise!

Disclaimer #1: I bought the game in alpha/beta stages before steam and most of the hours playing was with the drm-free (steamless) version. But it is nonetheless getting better and better.

Disclaimer #2: I promissed this review many times before, and to get the Steam Awards final card I had to review a game that I nominated (can you guess what?) So it seems the day finally came.

Anyway DO play it, it is that good!

Interesting use of rabbits!

TLDR; I've been playing this since the Kickstarter, Alpha, and now beta on Steam Early Access. Played a bit, liked, pledged. played some more, bought, played even more, upgraded to founder status, played still more and and now on steam I also play it. Things got broken more that once, every time things got fixed, devs are easy to interact with and I have faith they make it through. Through the experience, it has been fun, and without doubt it was the game I played the most in 2014.

Now the obligatory Early Access Warning, and then the full review:

- - -
WARNING: The game was in alpha stage just a few months ago, and just entered Early Access. Things can / will break. Devs are fixing and adding stuff constantly.
- - -

Now for the complete review:

I've been with these guys since the Kickstarter. It had a very strange way to promote itself as FPD Game creation kit, and more than a few (myself included) initially though it was more like a game engine than a full game.

It came with a demo, and I loved it. Very intuitive level building, very old school multiplayer deathmatch.

They latter got a free to play alpha with founder levels for complete game content. After playing and having a great deal of fun map making (never had I such fun doing it since the days of Duke Nukem 3D build engine) I upgraded to silver and then gold founder.

The game brings the feel and themes from a lot of sources, which touch specially those very found of the earlier years of FPS gaming, and wrap it up in a new engine and looks and make the players able to combine and the inspired themes into new wonders single player missions, multiplayer (internet and local) arena matches.

If anyone played the PS2 Time Splitters it maybe shares more to it than another game in separate. Like it, it has many different themes and some wacky avatars from each one (and more to come). But while Timesplitters tryies to match varied times (Ancient Egypt, Chinatown NY, Future space station, wild west, Chicago gansters, etc. Gunscape ties each team to a partigular game or type of FPS games that shaped the game history.

• Wofenstein -> Bierenstein - blue or red clay tiled castle walls and dungeons, iron doors, and WW2 weapons incluning an awesome minigun, along with a quasi gestapo touch.
  
  
• Doom / Quake -> Tremor theme - with green toxic hazards, demonic blood colored symbols, a trusty shotgun and rocket laucher and the equivalent to the BFG (BIG F***** GUN) along with level jump pads for the frenetic quake DM scene.
  
  
• Team Fortress / Counter Strike -> Final Fortress : urban / industrial setting setting with cliffs, garage doors, containers colored red and blue team zones, and soon to feature turrets.
  
  
• Bioshock -> Bathyscape - A noir underwater battlescape, with an electrified harpoon launcher a cool "icethrower" and a tommy gun.

There are were also a few half done themes with only tiles:

• Minecraft -> Siegecraft: a mix of dirt, stone, ice, sand blocks, more as a complement to other theme.
  
• Halflife/Portal -> Orifice: minimalist clean and sanitized tiles

Some time latter they added two themes

• Turok / Tomb Rider -> Too Rockin' Jungle forests, stone temples filled with green vines , flaming torches, and in the near future some dinos, arrows and bows.
  
  
• Halo / Marathon -> Corona : Sci-fi flashy weapons, varied tech blocks, with buttons, computers and blinking lights. I dont know much about the inspiring games, but from my childwood memory the blocks actually remind me more of Descent.

Then, in the official forum, the devs even asked the comunity for sugesting and voting the next themes to make[playgunscape.com], based on:

• Tron
  
• Alien vs Predator
  
• Portal
  
• Unreal Tournament
  
• Golden Eye 64
  
• System Shock

Then they added the start of:

• Tron -> Electro - with minimalist neon lighted flashy blocks

and are now teasing for a Golden Eye -> L007 a 007 / Golden Eye kind of theme with a 007 like song in soundcloud[soundcloud.com].
[/list]

A more seems in the ways, either through seasonal themes, like the New Chinese Year, or partners like the free but limited issue Alienware theme.

The good things is that you can mix at will these themes in your level (if you have them as playing is free but themes for mapmaking are paid for) you can achive really good combination of levels, with the simplicity of a minecraft (as in a 6yrs kid can do it) but the playability of a quake game. Its easier the cube/sauerbrauten, and I hadn't such fun mapmaking since the days of Duke Nukem 3D build engine.

Its still at the start and I saw remake from known levels from Doom, Quake, UT99, and even one Daggerfall dungeon (privateers Hold) still WIP *cough* *cough*

Now BUGs.... yes there are many... but a lot came and a lot were fixed. First with adding new tile options (ramps for example), then for adding member accounts. They recently overhauled the UI that still is being fixed and changed the network code completly, with all sort of bugs that are still plaguing the game (blocks disapering due to conection issues, inability to log in, etc.)

But like the other times that things were fixes, I have no doubt that they will get the upper hand again. Theres also a bug thread in the official forum[playgunscape.com] and even a Trello board[trello.com] to see what the team is working on and what is the future road map.

In particular the last 2 months were the most buggiest and things are starting to be calm again, so for the impatient or perfectionists you can and try a bit now and then a bit later down the road, since playing user levels is free.

:)

To conclude... I have a lot of games, and played a lot of indies, and this has been without doubt the game I played most in 2014 even with its bugs and initially limited content... and ... I HAD FUN!

Keep the good work guys,

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EDIT: Fixed URLs

Just like the description: Alien breed top down experience mixed with an Unreal Tournament FPS arena gameplay. Also good for those 5 minute break instant skirmeshes with bots.

Double kill! Triple Kill! Rampage!