Gloomwood - Thief-ish stealth horror game from New Blood Interactive - now available on Early Access

[Krilmar]

Damn you guys are making me wet about a game I couldn't care about before. How do the glowing eyes work in-game though? I really don't like alert/vision markers.

You can disable it in the menu and the option is disabled by default on higher difficulties.

Game has a lot of promise, hope we'll see some interesting weapons and equipment.

 

[Bad Sector]

If you can 360 noscope quicksave every 5 seconds you COULD restrain yourself, or you could use it and then talk about shit easy game.

The ability to quicksave should not make a game easier, the difficulty should be based on what you can do and what you can fail to do (if anything being able to quicksave can enable a game to be harder).

If someone feels the need to quicksave+load (note that it is the load that makes the difference, not the quicksave) every few steps and then complains about the game being easy they are in no position to expect their complaints to be taken seriously. If the game was easy, they wouldn't need to load all the time. So you can ignore those.

 

[Tigranes]

DID SOMEBODY SAY THIEF???? OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OKAY. OKAY!!

 

[RNGsus]

Why this when you can play fms?

 

[Wunderbar]

Why this when you can play fms?

because this isn't Thief. Gloomwood is more of a survival horror with stealth elements.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

So, you can only save on bonfires? Is this a souls-like?

 

[Child of Malkav]

Yeah, at phonographs. On the easiest difficulty apparently you can save anywhere since you have a portable thingy with you. I only played on Blood Moon difficulty but gonna switch it on Full Moon.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

I just finished the demo and I gotta say that it turned out to be quiet better than I thought. The game manages to scratch that Thief itch while still retain its own character. Level design in the demo is schematically logical and aesthetically pleasant. Dillon Rogers said that he also plans to include a harpoon gun (as substitute for rope arrows) and that the full game will have a more sprawling level design and multiple ways to finish objectives. And don't get me started about those soothing Steam Audio-powered marble echoes. Nostalgia for the ears.

I'm soooo gonna buy that once it hits EA.

 

[Child of Malkav]

I just finished the demo and I gotta say that it turned out to be quiet better than I thought. The game manages to scratch that Thief itch while still retain its own character. Level design in the demo is schematically logical and aesthetically pleasant. Dillon Rogers said that he also plans to include a harpoon gun (as substitute for rope arrows) and that the full game will have a more sprawling level design and multiple ways to finish objectives. And don't get me started about those soothing Steam Audio-powered marble echoes. Nostalgia for the ears.

I'm soooo gonna buy that once it hits EA.

You'll be able to use the harpoon like the rope arrows?

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

You'll be able to use the harpoon like the rope arrows?

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1150760/discussions/0/2440336228802521753/#c2440336228802530569

We arent ready to reveal the entire players toolset, but you can look forward to more weapons, more tools, and more ways to traverse your environment, like a harpoon gun that shoots ropes you can climb to the rooftops with!

 

[Infinitron]

Gloomwood on the Escapist Indie Showcase:

 

[Durandal]

I somehow beat the last room in Gloomwood on my first try while on the highest difficulty, on 1HP and being barely able to see shit. Pure instinct led me to survival when the elevator came down ringing and the Crowmen came running. One of the most ass-clamping gaming experiences I ever had.

From what I hear the lack of guard voices is just because it's WIP, but it has made it difficult for me to ascertain whether the AI is actually capable of reacting to seeing me opening doors or swiping shit right in front of their face, or that they just got aggro'd because of something else. I like the fact that charging up a sword strike for a backstab takes a while and makes you move like a snail, meaning that unlike Thief it's very risky to knock guards out because they will just move faster than you can move while readying a sword strike (you can move at about equal speed if you walk while charging instead of crouching while charging, but this makes you more visible to guards), and forces you to plan around stops in their patrol, or manipulate them into stopping and slowing down by making some noise with thrown objects as you sneak up on them from another direction. Hence my disappointment that stabbing unaware guards from the front deals as much damage as stabbing them in the back, and that running up to guards with your sword charged will make the guards hear your approach and stop moving, but not turn around fast enough to catch you trying to stab them in the back.

The melee combat has been made lenient enough in a way where it's effortless to survive any 1v1 once you figure out the rhythm of stab twice -> block -> stab twice -> block -> repeat until enemy is dead, or stab once -> block -> etc. with the Crowmen. It's not particularly engaging.

I do think that some of the later portions of the level are a bit too dark and lacking in light sources to properly orient yourself with. (Quite frankly, I'm not sure how I survived the final dark-ass maze with all the Crowmen; I think I was saved by the AI being unable to detect you in the dark by bumping into you even if you're 100% covered in darkness.) I like the risk/reward system of having to use the lantern to actually see shit around you at the expense of making yourself more visible, and I didn't want to ruin this by turning the gamma/brightness all the way up and remove the need for any lightsource to begin with (so I would put out my lantern whenever I saw a natural lightsource ahead in order to avoid accidentally alerting enemies). However, when you're surrounded by enemies, using your lantern becomes suicidal, so to make figuring out a path through the room reasonable instead of being a matter of trial and error, ideally some more lightsources to allow you to make informed decisions would be nice. Perhaps the actual problem with the last room is the lack of a vantage point, since you enter it from the very bottom and can hardly make up the enemy patrols on the higher floors (unless I missed out on an alternate route).

On the highest difficulty ammo and health was scarce enough that I couldn't just rambo my way through, and the level design utilizes several chokepoints where you often need to pass through a point tightly surrounded by guards where making some noise or making yourself visible is an inevitability (such as entering the Cistern where you have to noisily break open some wooden barricades to get in, that are well within hearing range of the nearby guards), forcing you to rethink your approach and figure out how you can manipulate the AI to create an opening to squeeze through or stabbity them one-by-one, instead of boorishly placing a nearby ventilation duct that lets you easily sneak past everything with no effort.

Also, no savescumming! Only the easiest difficulty allows you to savescum, which is what savescummers deserve to play on (I have read in this thread that savescumming will be present on all difficulties for the final release, but please let me have this moment). I do take some issue with infinitely reusable savepoints, as they tend to promote lots of backtracking towards them if you don't want to lose out on any progress. If the save points were one-time use only, or if it worked like with the ink ribbons in Resident Evil, then players would have a reason not to constantly backtrack for every little thing.

Gloomwood certainly does nail the late 90's bilinear texturing look of Thief, though the gameplay is a bit barebones at the moment. There aren't a lot of ways to manipulate the AI or the environment beyond your standard stealth staples, but the level design seems promising. I'll probably buy this the moment it comes to Early Access.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Well, I'll try the demo later, but, is there a story, context somewhere?

One of the aspects I like about thief is that you have readables, eavesdropping conversations, a storyline. The levels were more than just well done architecture.

I feel that in gloomwood looks like we have silent protagonist, and this is a doom/quake fps that has stealth... How's interaction with light sources?

Anyway, gonna probably buy and play it, but I won't expect a thief 4...

 

[DalekFlay]

RoSoDude you're aware Deus Ex has quicksave, right? Or is that one of your coming changes?

 

[Krilmar]

Played some more and yeah the crowmen nest was spooky. That damn elevator.. Did anyone manage to find all the coins for the coin-operated room? Also.. WHERE IS MY LEAN FORWARD BUTTON?

 

[RoSoDude]

RoSoDude you're aware Deus Ex has quicksave, right? Or is that one of your coming changes?

GMDX already has a Hardcore mode which disables manual saving in favor of level transition autosaves and single-use save points hand-placed throughout the levels. This is a huge improvement to Deus Ex. Thief would also benefit enormously from designer checkpointing, as half of its gameplay only occurs when getting caught and having to adapt to the situation using your tools, but a large proportion of players evidently reduce all interaction with enemies to a dry patrol route timing minigame by way of savescumming. I played both Thief games with extremely limited saving (maximum one mid-level save for most missions, usually zero for missions with no obvious breakpoint e.g. The Bank, exceptions made for bullshit trial and error sections like Trace the Courier or slogs like Soulforge), because any other schema felt like a slippery slope to abuse. The games would have been even better if they had actually had this fundamental feature of challenge design in mind, rather than offloading the task entirely to the player. I'd go as far as to say the lack of checkpoint design is Thief's greatest flaw, as it discourages many players to ever engage with its best facets of gameplay.

You may at this juncture argue that there should be modes for Save Anywhere and modes for hardcore save restriction, as GMDX has. I've even offered some supportive reasoning for this in the past, particularly for games where a lot of trial and error experimentation is required to learn the game systems. But if I'm being honest, the main reason to do it is because the majority of PC gamers have deluded themselves that Save Anywhere is a must-have """quality of life""" feature rather than a console command exploit at best or a total abdication of responsibility for proper challenge pacing by the designer at worst. Caving into these demands is a necessary evil to sell copies, but it is decline nonetheless. From a local perspective, though, the fact that Gloomwood is being designed from the ground up with checkpoint saving as the intended way to play is a very good sign, indicating that the developer understands and values these aspects, even if some of his players will opt out and cheat themselves out of a deeper experience. Oh well.

 

[Boleskine]

ShillMan impressions:

 

[RNGsus]

Does it matter? If it looks like Thief, plays like Thief, has the same(ish) atmosphere like Thief, we're getting basically Thief 4 and you're all bitching about graphics.
Damn, I constantly have to check these days if I'm still on Codex, I swear some of you...

The gist I'm getting of the criticism is level design, which is going to break this kind of game in two.

Sent from my SM-J327VPP using Tapatalk

 

[Curratum]

Everyone who calls manual saves savescumming needs to set themselves on fire and die a slow and painful death.

 

[Deflowerer]

Everyone who calls manual saves savescumming needs to set themselves on fire and die a slow and painful death.

Unlimited saving is degenerate.

 

[DalekFlay]

You may at this juncture argue that there should be modes for Save Anywhere and modes for hardcore save restriction, as GMDX has. I've even offered some supportive reasoning for this in the past, particularly for games where a lot of trial and error experimentation is required to learn the game systems. But if I'm being honest, the main reason to do it is because the majority of PC gamers have deluded themselves that Save Anywhere is a must-have """quality of life""" feature rather than a console command exploit at best or a total abdication of responsibility for proper challenge pacing by the designer at worst. Caving into these demands is a necessary evil to sell copies, but it is decline nonetheless. From a local perspective, though, the fact that Gloomwood is being designed from the ground up with checkpoint saving as the intended way to play is a very good sign, indicating that the developer understands and values these aspects, even if some of his players will opt out and cheat themselves out of a deeper experience. Oh well.

In my experience the people who like the "tension" of losing progress and the people who don't will never see eye-to-eye, so I'm not going to debate your points too much. I'll just say for me it's more about having limited time to play games due to real life, and not wanting to spend that time doing things I've already done to get back to the part I died at. Generous checkpoints are okay, but purposely limited save points are a big no-go when my kid could run into the room at any time. But again... no one ever changes anyone's mind on this stuff. I'm happy he'll be including more save options in the final game, so I can play on hard mode but save after encounters. Giving everyone the means to play their way is incline IMO.

 

[Bad Sector]

a large proportion of players evidently reduce all interaction with enemies to a dry patrol route timing minigame by way of savescumming.[...]Caving into these demands is a necessary evil to sell copies

Considering that you can simply not savescum and roll with the punches (like many older games recommended while at the same time allow quicksaving), isn't removing quicksaving catering to those who cannot resist the urge to reload at the expense of those who save only when they feel like they reached a point where their skills might be tested?

But if I'm being honest, the main reason to do it is because the majority of PC gamers have deluded themselves that Save Anywhere is a must-have """quality of life""" feature rather than a console command exploit at best or a total abdication of responsibility for proper challenge pacing by the designer at worst..

Well, it is neither. It is a must have feature, at least for most games, but not a quality of life feature. It is a tool to avoid repeating challenges you have already overcome as there is nothing fun about repeating a part of a game you just beat because you failed to overcome an unrelated challenge a few minutes later and the designer didn't think of placing a checkpoint or whatever in-between. Designers aren't gods, they make mistakes - especially when it comes to pacing - so if nothing else, quicksaving allows to work around those mistakes while enjoying the rest of the level that can be perfectly fine. This is especially important in games that encourage exploring the environment - like pretty much every immersive sim and related game - since you can spend a lot of time after some challenge to find hidden items, clues or whatever without moving forward with the game.

Personally i have been in that situation in some games where i was exploring a level for more than half an hour, eventually decided to move forward only to be killed in a situation immediately after and because i forgot to quicksave before moving forward, i lost all that progress. There is nothing fun about repeating such a section since i already did it, but usually i do not remember 100% where everything was so i need to search for all the stuff anyway. Usually i just get irritated (and sometimes i stop playing the game for a bit) - and that is despite this being my own fault for forgetting to quicksave.

Having a game force me redo all that stuff, not because i forgot to quicksave but rather because the designer thinks they know when i can save, is just not something i'll ever consider anything other than masochistic. There is nothing that is tested there outside my patience.

Honestly, IMO the only reason to not have quicksaving is either developer incompetence, technical limitations or artificial extension of the game's playtime to excuse the asking price and the rest are just developer excuses pretty much of the same caliber as micro-transactions giving you a sense of pride and accomplishment.

(also as a sidenote, games allowing to save you everywhere was a thing in games LONG before Quake had a console, going back to text adventure games like Zork and perhaps earlier)

 

[HoboForEternity]

yes! YES YES!

 

[ADL]

I haven't played this yet. Is it an immersive sim?

 

[DalekFlay]

I haven't played this yet. Is it an immersive sim?

I'd say so, the lead dev calls it that on Twitter. It's a hybrid with stealth and survival horror though. Everything's a hybrid now, genres are an aging concept.