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KickStarter Prodeus - retro FPS by ex-Raven devs

LESS T_T

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Codex 2014
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/prodeus/prodeus/

http://www.prodeusgame.com




https://af.gog.com/game/prodeus?as=1649904300

An indie retro FPS made by Michael Voeller (Raven, id, Bluepoint) and Jason Mojica (Raven, Irrational, Overkill). Well, they're 2000s Raven devs than 90s, but the game looks pretty cool.



https://twitter.com/ProdeusGame/status/1041127301902213121
https://twitter.com/generalvivi/status/1050422259201073152

Details are very scant right now but it looks like they're going to Early Access route:

https://twitter.com/ProdeusGame/status/1049465647292387328
 
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Hobo Elf

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Once again I fail to see the retro in it and only see the imitation of retro as created by people who haven't actually experienced that which they attempt to recreate.
 

lightbane

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Looks like a better Strafe (not to be confused with Strife, as that one was actually good). Not much of an accomplishment.
 

Durandal

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
don't see what makes this one so special
by the time development is finished on this game the market will already have been saturated with RETROBACK THROWSCHOOL FPS games and you'd sure look silly trying to bank your game being just old-school with no other strings attached once everybody else is doing it at the same time too with the novelty wearing off and everything wanting to play something other than a doom clone again
at least indie devs aren't falling for the roguelite meme as much anymore

I'd advise aspiring FPS developers to rescind from the doom clone meme and make something wildly different from Doom/Quake/whatever and gain massive attention for being different from every other FPS on the market after the saturation sets in

25 years since Doom, and the only way people know how to make 'good' pure first-person shooters is to copy the old-school again
It'd be like if the only good platformers released nowadays are just Mario clones again
 

Cross

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don't see what makes this one so special
by the time development is finished on this game the market will already have been saturated with RETROBACK THROWSCHOOL FPS games and you'd sure look silly trying to bank your game being just old-school with no other strings attached once everybody else is doing it at the same time too with the novelty wearing off and everything wanting to play something other than a doom clone again
at least indie devs aren't falling for the roguelite meme as much anymore

I'd advise aspiring FPS developers to rescind from the doom clone meme and make something wildly different from Doom/Quake/whatever and gain massive attention for being different from every other FPS on the market after the saturation sets in
What oversaturation? Apart from a handful of titles like Dusk and Ion Maiden, what FPS are deliberate throwbacks? This 'Prodeus' game certainly doesn't look like it's attempting to be that.

Compare that handful to other subgenres of retro indie games, like say 2d platformers/side-scrollers, which easily number in the thousands.

25 years since Doom, and the only way people know how to make 'good' pure first-person shooters is to copy the old-school again
It'd be like if the only good platformers released nowadays are just Mario clones again
That analogy would only be accurate if after the first few Mario games, all the developers of other platformers had decided to adopt a 'realistic' military aesthetic and gameplay style.
 
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JarlFrank

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wtf is with the huge HUD
oldschool FPS didn't have huge hugs that block your view
C8JJh.jpg

Proves what I said because the HUD doesn't cover the actual playing window at all.
 

Durandal

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
What oversaturation? Apart from a handful of titles like Dusk and Ion Maiden, what FPS are deliberate throwbacks? This 'Prodeus' game certainly doesn't look like it's attempting to be that.

Compare that handful to other subgenres of retro indie games, like say 2d platformers/side-scrollers, which easily number in the thousands.
There's Overload, Amid Evil, Ion Maiden, Dusk, Project Warlock, Hellbound, Quarantined: Viscerafest, the Descent reboot (if being part of an actual old school FPS series counts), HellScreen, Apocryph, Intrude, this game...
That's counting games with actual hand-made levels, no procgen roguelite crap.

That may not seem like much, but then the total amount of indie singleplayer first-person shooters released per year isn't as large as the amount of side-scrollers released per year. So if you're into singleplayer first-person shooters which are actually about shooting, these are pretty much the only choices you have. The last indie shooters to really break the mold were Devil Daggers and DESYNC, the first one being a 10/10 arena survival shooter that realized the concept in a way no other survival mode shooter ever quite did, and the second one being an FPS with arena level design about killing things with style which was kind of rough around the edges, so I showed the developer my review of it and he told me on Discord that he was making a big redux patch for some time which might incorporate some of the things I said, so who knows how it's going to turn out in the future.

I don't believe that these throwback shooters are bad, or that being a throwback shooter makes them worse, god knows Overload is the best FPS released in the past decade or two, but I can already foresee how this trend is going to progress and how after a year or four we'll be completely sick of these kinds of games once the more soulless hacks start latching on. Even amongst these throwback shooters you will hardly find any examples which are innovative within the old-school style of FPS design. You can find more of that innovation in Doom WADs, I'd love to see a full game based on Demonsteele or Project MSX.

The last AAA shooter to break the mold would be nuDoom, but nobody even realized its potential. Up top everyone was too swept up with the hype of finally playing an FPS 'purely about action and no bullshit' (their words) while treating nuDoom as the herald of the return of the old-school, even though it played radically different from the old-school. Except nobody realized what. Almost nobody realized the potential of arena combat and the shift towards a more beat 'em up-esque approach to enemy combat and enemy design where you're locked in with highly mobile and reactive enemies. Almost nobody even acknowledged how nuDoom had the least worst boss fights in any FPS. Not even id software realized this.

Grognards shat on the game, unrightfully with the criticism that arena level design is inherently shit while subtly implying that Doom/Quake-style non-linear maze-like level design is The One And True Path For FPS Level Design, and rightfully because the actual implementation of arena level design and combat in nuDoom failed on many counts. I sincerely hope that id gets it properly right next time with Doom Eternal, though I doubt it well end up being a strong enough improvement over nuDoom for people to start noticing any excellence in design for game design youtube channel nerds to start making videos about it. Unless the Japanese step in to show their own approach to first-person shooters, or until maybe someone realizes how F.E.A.R. realized combat with hitscan enemies everywhere really well, then we're going to be stuck with developers whose only notion of what makes a good FPS is by copying Quake/Doom for quite some time.
 

Siveon

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There's Overload, Amid Evil, Ion Maiden, Dusk, Project Warlock, Hellbound, Quarantined: Viscerafest, the Descent reboot (if being part of an actual old school FPS series counts), HellScreen, Apocryph, Intrude, this game...


Also a good 'un
 

soulburner

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Has Raven Software been doing anything recently? Are any of their developers responsible for the Hexens or something newer like Quake 4 even working there?
 

LESS T_T

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Trailer and Steam page:





(Make sure you full-screen the screenshots above for HD resolution)

Prodeus is the first person shooter of old, re-imagined using modern rendering techniques. It reaches the quality you expect from a AAA experience while adhering to some of the aesthetic technical limits of older hardware.

Our Art Style:
  • High Quality 3D Retro Aesthetic
  • A focus on over the top visual effects.
  • Awesome dismemberment system
  • Infinite blood (go crazy, paint the walls red!)

editor_test_10.gif


Gameplay:
  • Fast pace action
  • Hellish destruction
  • Dynamic Soundtrack
  • Visceral and engaging combat scenarios
  • Heavy duty weaponry
  • A multitude of secrets to discover

editor_test_7a.gif

editor_test_12.gif


Replayability:
  • Continuous support
  • User generated content
  • Easy to use Level Editor

editor_test_9.gif


The Team:
Prodeus is being developed by Michael Voeller and Jason Mojica of Bounding Box Software who have a combined 25 years FPS development experience, along with talented freelance artists and designers.
 
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udm

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I dig the aesthetics (retro done right), but this looks to be another arena shooter...?
 

A horse of course

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Has Raven Software been doing anything recently? Are any of their developers responsible for the Hexens or something newer like Quake 4 even working there?

The last great game Raven Software made was Jedi Outcast (Academy is practically an expansion pack). Singularity, Quake 4 and Wolf 09 were mediocre at best.

I didn't get super into FPS games until the late 90s so Raven were basically the id/Epic of my teenage years. Sad!
 

Jaedar

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Project: Eternity Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Wolf 09 were mediocre at best.
I think wolf09 was actually a fun slaughterfest. Had lots of neat weapons with unique killing animations and the like.

Would replay to see if it stacks up, but the later wolfensteins deleted it from the world. Rip.
 

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