Project Warlock - retro inspired FPS, but expanded with character progression and upgrades

[Puukko]

Played for an hour so far and really liking it, it's scratching several itches I've had for a while. Graphics and music are solid, though granted it does look like something you'd expect to play on a mobile device at times. I'll see about forcing vsync to improve responsiveness - game also doesn't seem to support resolutions above 1080p? Just Unity things, I suppose.

Being mostly made by a 19 year old, too. Hella impressive.

 

[LESS T_T]

Steam page:

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Been extended demoing this in preparation to see if I wanna scoop it up on Steam, and it's a mixed bag. On one hand, the graphics, sound, and "Feel" of the weapons are all really well done. The graphics are a bit of a mixed bag (The poor lighting in so many areas makes me think he wasn't confident enough in the chunky pixel art, but it's animated well and stuff looks fairly nice overall so I wish it was shown off a bit more) but they're good, the sound is a mixed bag (Enemy/weapon sounds are peachy, the music not so much. It's not offensive but it doesn't really charge you up to shoot some monsters and it isn't moody enough to be particularly atmospheric) but the weapons just feel really solid. Nice animations, sounds, leave punchy gibs on enemies and damage on walls and shit. The magic system feels kind of like a pointless addition since just gunning shit down seems far better. Biggest issue with the game is that the level design is pretty awful. Feels roughly Blake Stone-tier, which is to say "Mildly fancier Wolf 3D with occasional buttons and shit". It's a little fancier since sometimes there are windows and things, but the level design really hurts it bad even though he's obviously going for level design of that era (Which I'm not sure why since the gunplay feels like later FPS. Maybe he hates making maps so I went easy on himself). It's also really fucking easy. I guess I should've played on the hardcore ironman mode but my gut feeling was "Well shit, I don't want to have permadeath" so I went for the next difficulty down which was normal which is a cakewalk.

It's super impressive it was done by a 19 year old, but the level design and difficulty are crippling. Since it's $12 (On GoG at least, I'll assume that'll hold for Steam as well) I may scoop it up anyway just to encourage him but it is a damn shame he (Or whoever the mapper was) can't do levels.

Edit: Just looked over the thread and it looks like a fair number of you have similar feelings toward it. I see the Serious Sam easter egg though, I should've snapped a screenshot of the Caleb easter egg I had earlier. It's in the second cemetery map IIRC. You spawn in a hallway with a health and mana pot flanking you on either side and a door on either side at the end of the hallway, and if you press the wall facing you at the end you get Caleb impaled on a hook so that's fun.

 

[LESS T_T]

Steam page:

It's out now.

 

[Valestein]

Game kept crashing for me on the final boss whenever i would use the "BFG", so I ended up having to gimp myself by not using it.

 

[Avonaeon]

I enjoyed the game for the most part, but the last episode by far had the worst levels. Up until that point you generally had plenty of room to move around and get around enemies, and then in the last episodes they introduce pitfalls (Without being able to jump over them) that really limits that movement, which slowed the game down. That and the last episode was more a mish mash of textures and didn't really have a coherent style compared to the other episodes, which were all great.

 

[luj1]

Good gameplay concept I guess but the fuck is up with these Metal Slug graphics, what an awful combination oh my gerd

I have completely changed my mind after trying this game. This is a fantastic little game.

Every weapon feels fantastic. When enemies die it feels very satisfying. The music is great. The style is great. Magic, guns and cybernetics. This game has some of the best foley effects I have ever heard. Incredible. Boss fights are hard. This game is like a mix of Blood, Hexen and RPG elements on top.

 

[luj1]

Hi everyone. I'm the graphic guy of this game. The game is in very early alpha but we do appreciate feedback. Regarding some of the concerns about this game: This is a small game with a lot of limitations. We do not aspire to make another Quake or Blood. Such games are beyond our current capacity and experience. This is why the levels are flat and we use sprites instead of 3d models. We know our limits so we're making a game that we are actually able to finish. It's possible that with the experience we gain from this project we will be able to create something more ambitious next time. Looking back I guess that saying this game is inspired by Quake and Blood was a poor choice of words, as it implied we are making a game of a similar caliber. That's on us.

As for the art style, it had to be both simple and time efficient to produce. And since it's a simple game, simple pixel art was the perfect choice. Altough I do my best to make it look decent. It's the first pixel art project I took, so I had to learn many things on the fly. It was not my goal to mimick any existing game or style. This is why this game does look different than other doom clones. We never wanted to recreate a game from the past. We are making our own game using some of the design templates and inspirations from existing games. We have specifically chosen the comodore palette so this game would look different. And because it fits the dark and gloomy themes that we want to convey. And I always wanted to use this color set for a game. I agree that it's a very specific art style. You have to be into that sort of thing to enjoy it.

Oh and I was 10 when Hexen came out

Thanks for the insight.

 

[Dayyālu]

I have completely changed my mind after trying this game. This is a fantastic little game.

Every weapon feels fantastic. When enemies die it feels very satisfying. The music is great. The style is great. Magic, guns and cybernetics. This game has some of the best foley effects I have ever heard. Incredible. Boss fights are hard. This game is like a mix of Blood, Hexen and RPG elements on top.

Have they patched it extensively? It has been a while, but if they focused on the right stuff (weapon balance, remake some early maps, redo the upgrade system, shoot the soundtrack guy) it would be worth another try.

 

[LESS T_T]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/893680/announcements/detail/2656473309485174085

Difficult-y Delivery

Alright. “following weeks” turned into “months” and we went underground to make sure the next time we wrote something was precisely when announcing the new patch. Which in hindsight wasn’t the best idea as this resulted in the longest spell of silence on our end.

After last patch we began working on three things at the same time – a new, reworked demo that we showed during ’19 PAX East (and one that will be available at a later date), a new batch of fixes including the oft requested new difficulty level, and a bunch of new cosmetic features for the game that coalesced into something more substantial.

Unfortunately this all happened at the same time and we did not choose the juggling order. Or perhaps choose it poorly, as the work on each started before the previous task was finished. As you realise Buckshot is actually one man army programming wise and this proved to be too much.
In short – we planned poorly, work started on all three, eventually so did the Q&A and this amounted to a torrent of things that needed to be incorporated at the same time. Which lead to cycles of bug squashing, resubmitting and reworking things that seemed to never end. Until yesterday.


So: The patch is launching today.
The demo should be available in June.
The cosmetic coalescence – a bit after that.

Without further ado:

v1.0.1.0 Changelog

Features

• Added new difficulty level

Improvements

• Balanced the starting area of E1M1
  
• Balanced the after-elevator-area in E1M1 after getting the yellow key
  
• Improved the hitbox of Ceiling Decorations in Medieval setting
  
• Improved the hitbox of the Street Lamps in Industrial setting
  
• Adjusted the time before "press any key" is activated after a level is finished
  
• Adjusted thorn bushes in Cemetery to better show its damage state and to minimize confusion
  
• Adjusted font size in difficulty description window
  
• Changed the Hardcore Difficulty icon in Difficulty menu to fit the achievements icon

Bugs

• Fixed a bug where CRT shader settings would not save between the levels
  
• Fixed a bug where look would not work on a gamepad
  
• Fixed a bug where the player could not view the stages info in the roadmap with the controller
  
• Fixed a bug where the player could not buy perks with the controller
  
• Fixed a bug where the player could not select pause menu options after death
  
• Fixed a bug where "Controls" title would not be translated to other languages in main menu
  
• Fixed a bug where value for "Curve" in CRT Shader would not display properly
  
• Fixed a bug where it was possible to bring up the Main Menu while loading the game
  
• Fixed an exploit where enemies could boost the player up to skip the red key in E2M1
  
• Fixed a bug where enemies could not enter the tunnel in E2M1
  
• Fixed a bug where the game would render unresponsive due to pause menu when alt+tabbing the game in the pre-mission screen
  
• Fixed a small texture flicker in E5M9
  
• Fixed a bug where player score would not be properly displayed at intermission screen
  
• Fixed a bug where grave decorations that are not destroyable would have collision with the player
  
• Fixed texture flicker in E5M1 for the secret doors
  
• Fixed a misplaced wall texture in E1M2
  
• Fixed missing wall textures in E5M2
  
• Fixed a bug where gallery tab would not close the previously opened art on pressing the "esc" button
  
• Fixed the missing minimap in E5M11
  
• Fixed a bug where camera would clip through lava in E5M11
  
• Removed redundant double "You Died" message on death
  
• Fixed a bug where the minigun turret would not attack the evil seal
  
• Fixed a visual bug where the firelance would not display the VFX correctly when aimed to the sky
  
• Fixed an UI selection bug for the confirmation window when buying upgrades
  
• Fixed various blockers where the player would not be able to get out of a room when the player got over the wall through collision exploits in E5
  
• Fixed a bug where the evil seal would not be visible from its other side
  
• Fixed a bug where player would be moved up upon collision with enemies

 

[DalekFlay]

Just got this in the GOG sale and played the first 5 or so levels. Really enjoying it. It is too easy as I see others have said, but with the limited lives and permadeath as factors I don't think they could get away with it being frustratingly hard. It's weird for me to play a game like this without quicksave, so I feel like if I really worried about having to redo whole levels frequently I'd be like "fuck that." I like that melee is a valid playstyle, and it feels really satisfying to hit monsters with the big ax. I love the music, and the look of the game is nice as well. I don't get the complaints there. My only issue with it is I feel like I have some mild input lag, but I'll google about that.

 

[Puukko]

Mild input lag, also known as Unity.

 

[unfairlight]

retro inspired FPS

More shit for the shitheads.

 

[luj1]

Just finished it. I liked it better than Amid Evil. Very cleverly designed little game. Basically my only complaints are (from the GOG forums):

1. Game is definitely too dark. I have to hold Mouse 2 constantly to keep the Light spell up (instead of shooting), because I don't see where I'm going. Please consider giving Light spell a duration or adding a new perk to make it constant.

2. Holy Guard spell darkens the screen. Is this really necessary? Most levels are already pretty dark. Perhaps you could make the effect more subtle and less obtrusive. It's hard to see clearly with Holy Guard up.

3. Please consider making ammo visible in the weapons HUD. This is so we could have a sense of which weapon is usable without guessing. In tough situations cycling weapons can be costly, let alone at higher difficulties. Here is an example I made quickly: https://i.imgur.com/a3geJzC.jpg.

4. I hope you won't remove head bobbing. Instead, make the head bobbing optional. I understand some players are experiencing motion sickness, but some of us like it because it reminds us of classic games like Doom. There is already a strong spirit of optionality in the game.

EDIT:

5. Soul Collector perk is a waste of points. Not only do mana droplets disappear after 1s, they also provide a measly amount (1 point). When using ranged weapons it's impossible to pick them up in time. Either make them give more mana (and disappear quickly) or just make them persist for longer.

 

[Dayyālu]

Just finished it. I liked it better than Amid Evil. Very cleverly designed little game. Basically my only complaints are (from the GOG forums):

Ohh, I forgot about this.

Did they fix the mediocre level design in the first levels, the useless upgrade system, the magic system, and the soundtrack?

It could be worth another try if if they fixed that.

 

[luj1]

Did they fix the mediocre level design in the first levels

I wasn't playing the latest version so I dunno. There is a changelog two posts above yours

the useless upgrade system, the magic system, and the soundtrack?

I doubt they... revamped the whole game. I think it's best you move on.

 

[DalekFlay]

The darkness seems to be some setting I don't have on, because my game is nowhere near as dark as some of the videos I've seen and I haven't used the light spell once. My gamma is calibrated for 2.2 so it's not a PC issue, but maybe an in-game setting I have on or something? I dunno, but I watched a couple gameplay videos and was amazed at how different it looked in them.

Also saying this is better than Amid Evil makes me

 

[k0syak]

Supposedly, the darkness was caused by one of the graphic quality settings being set to high, but should have been fixed already. Played through it a couple of weeks ago and no issues whatsoever, didn't even use the light spell besides a few spots.

 

[DalekFlay]

How the hell do you play an outdated build of a game in 2019?

 

[Curratum]

Piracy, mate. Smaller releases often get stuck with their launch version if you pirate.

I did pirate Warlock, glad I did because it saved me another refund on Steam. Game is almost ok but there's far better stuff out there to waste time on it.

 

[DalekFlay]

Who the fuck is lame enough to pirate a $10 indie game ffs.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

I was pretty alarmed at the "Like it more than Amid Evil" statement too, but I've been playing a bit more since I grabbed it during the sale. The harder (Hardest non-ironman) difficulty added by the patch is... Okay. Most of my complaints with the game when I first tried it months ago are still there, and I arguably even have some new complaints because of that difficulty jump (Still not that much harder, just have to be quicker on the draw when killing things which means less time to enjoy the excellent sprites) but I dunno. I am still mostly liking the game. Even though it does feel more "Blake Stone throwback" rather than "Doom throwback" the weapons do feel nice, the graphics are solid, music and sound is nice, and finding secrets is enjoyable.

Still leery on liking it more than Amid Evil, but I haven't finished either game yet so I'll see how I feel later on. I'd still put Dusk at the top of these throwback shooters. Though I still haven't tried Ion Maiden.

 

[DalekFlay]

I like this game a good bit actually. The save system annoys the shit out of me and it's too easy, but other than that I think it's solid. I just also think Amid Evil is on a whole other level.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Alright, just beat this today. Still haven't gone through Amid Evil since oddly enough once I started playing Warlock I wanted to finish it up, but eh.

Firstly, it's still too easy, and it's the kind of easy they'd have to do a major/complete overhaul of the game to try to fix. Just the nature of Warlock's levels means they'd be hard pressed to do anything to wacky with the balancing. Currently even on hard you can basically just soak up damage while mowing down hundreds of baddies and not give a shit, and until the final episode almost everything dies so quickly that there's little reason/concern to swap weapons, you just swap because you ran out of ammo rather than wanting a certain weapon for a certain monster. Episode 5 does get a little harder, but that's just due to the enemies finally starting to have some HP and the fact that they'll throw so many of them at you at once, including spawners. All that said I only died twice through the playthrough, once to the episode 1 boss (Because oddly enough I couldn't seem to dodge his final form's attacks. Don't know if there was a gimmick I was missing or if it was an issue with hard mode boosting his speed up so I couldn't dodge) and once in episode 5 due to walking off a cliff into some lava during a fight.

Weapons remained pretty fun throughout. The BFG-equivalent is really satisfying to use even though the game's so easy it doesn't need it.

The levels were too simple to be all that interesting to play in, but they did do a good job of making the different levels and episodes feel fairly distinct (Except for episode 5 which reuses stuff from the previous episodes). Unlike Dusk where a lot of the levels felt distinct and had memorable gameplay moments, the only thing they really nailed in Warlock was changing the atmosphere/feel of a level. Given how simple Warlock levels are that's nicely done, but still a bit of a letdown.

Overall I had an enjoyable time but it's in the "Fun game if you get it in a bundle or a deep sale" category. And even then it might only be worth it if you've got nostalgia glasses on. It isn't in the same neck of the woods as the big name shooters, but the thing it was doing the most for me was giving me that feeling of buying a random-ass Apogee shooter and having fun with it, which is probably a narrow band of nostalgia to hit for someone. I probably should've played this every time I launched the game just to enhance that feeling.

 

[LESS T_T]

Demo and cheats: https://steamcommunity.com/games/893680/announcements/detail/3267843285189360917

Demo dropping, cheats coming

Hi everybody!

Two things today.

First of all we released the demo that is a tweaked version of one of the Arctic levels. It has an extra helping of weapons that aren’t usually found on this particular level to give a better way taste of things to come in the full game. Which is handily available on this very steam page for everyone who would like to get their hands on the real deal.

Plus the demo level’s snowy setting is to balance out the HUGE SCORCHING BALL OF SUN that is still bbqing us outside.

Second thing we’re dropping today is the official Project Warlock codes. This wouldn’t have been a proper tribute to the games of old without some additional commands you could input to get some of those spells, weapons and keys, would it now?

You enter the codes by punching them in on the keyboard during the game:

• ihet - weapons, ammo, keys, 1 upgrade point, 1 stats point, refills health and mana pools
  
• ihtk - keys
  
• ihats - all the spells
  
• gotoeXmYY - teleports the player to a set level, where X stands for the episode (where X is a number from 1-5), and where YY stands for the map number (where YY can be any number between 01-12, with level five going up to 11 only)