Information Demise: Ascension Monster Competition, New Demo Available

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Demise - Rise of the Ku'tan; Demise: Ascension

A new demo has been released recently for the unique dungeon crawling RPG Demise: Ascension, spiritual successor to Mordor and the original Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan, and you can download it here:

http://www.decklinsdemise.com/patches.php

The demo contains the full game, but it will only run for 14 days or 20 play sessions. The final release is currently scheduled for sometime this Fall (yeah I know it's been postponed quite a few times already). We also have a thread about Demise: Ascension on the forums if you're looking for more info - in particular, check out Rpgsaurus Rex's OP in that thread for some basic facts about the game.

Aside from the demo, there is the ongoing Monster Competition, which ends on August 31st. (I should've posted the announcement earlier, but I only learned about it today.) Long story short, you can talk to monsters in Ascension using [Alt+T], and to enter the competition you must submit the lines you want a particular in-game monster to say. Details available here:

Ascension monsters are able to say different things as companions than they say as regular free monsters going about their nefarious ways. Assuming all humanoid monsters have things to say send us the monster name and something you think it would say if it said something - each entry must name one monster and provide alternate responses. The field is "wide open" after all, in Ascension even Tykes have something to say. [...]

All entries become property of Decklin's Domain, many entries may make it into the final version but the best 10 in the twisted dwarf's view (make me snort my Anchor Steam through my nose while I'm sitting here at the Cafe Trieste and you're a WINNER!) will get licenses for the person of their choice.

Monster Facts: 600 of them in Ascension.

18 Categories - Humanoid, Slime, Demon, Devil, Elemental, Reptile, Dragon, Animal, Insect, Undead, Water-Dweller, Giant, Mythical, Lycanthrope, Thief, Mage, Warrior and Indigini.

12 Languages - Common, Goble, Orcish, Elvish, Dwarvish, Necromic, La-Sai, Kruelk, Morkal, Tu'gak, Morani and Issori.

Monsters that talk at you may respond according to your current Alignment, Race, Guild or Sex. They may say different things if you carry a specific item or have a specific companion. In addition they may leave after saying something, attack you after saying something or attack you if you don't leave! In addition to conversation - monsters may taunt by insulting you or performing an insulting action.​

Here you can have a look at a few of the entries submitted so far.

 

[Severian Silk]

That's a nice competition. Too bad my imagination sucks.

 

[Xi]

This was not developed by the same guy. The rights were purchased by a fan, and in fact, a Mr. David Allen has absolutely no hand in anything beyond artifact entertainments version of Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan. The copyright is now owned by a Mr. Decklin who also is the one developing new content.

 

[HiddenX]

This was not developed by the same guy. The rights were purchased by a fan, and in fact, a Mr. David Allen has absolutely no hand in anything beyond artifact entertainments version of Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan. The copyright is now owned by a Mr. Decklin who also is the one developing new content.

yep -> Mr. Decklin = Richard Whitwell

 

[Crooked Bee]

This was not developed by the same guy. The rights were purchased by a fan, and in fact, a Mr. David Allen has absolutely no hand in anything beyond artifact entertainments version of Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan. The copyright is now owned by a Mr. Decklin who also is the one developing new content.

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that; corrected now.

 

[Dorateen]

Probably the most memorable cRPG I've played since last summer, waiting for the next wave of glorious incline. Ascension deserves a considerable look. The example just of how characters can interact with monsters in the dungeon shows there was more than grinding and killing. And character/party development is right up there with Wizardry standards, with the class/guild switching and race/alignment restrictions. Unforgiving as a proper old school romp should be.

I think I will enter some conversation ideas for the Dwarven mines.

This is welcome news about the demo!

 

[Coriolanus]

Demise: Ascension is very good, even if the gameplay gets a bit too cheesy at high levels. I remember an amulet that gave you pretty much infinite mana. I spent so many hours farming tarantulas in the graveyard with those big spells... felt very satisfying. Got bored at post-game and uninstalled. It's insanely ambitious with some ideas and designs, but unfortunately core gameplay breaks down into a single player MMO style and farming specific spots for XP/items once you figure it out.

It's also a game where you pretty much have to spoil yourself before playing. There quite a few ways you can get stuck/screw up your character/party if you don't know what you're doing.

 

[Alchemist]

That's cool that they have a demo out now. I bought the game a while back when it was on sale and quite enjoyed the bit of it that I played. It has a great old-school feel all around (mechanics, art style, complexity, etc.) I should get back to it sometime.

 

[crawlkill]

Mordor! Yes! Downloading!

 

[Stabwound]

This was not developed by the same guy. The rights were purchased by a fan, and in fact, a Mr. David Allen has absolutely no hand in anything beyond artifact entertainments version of Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan. The copyright is now owned by a Mr. Decklin who also is the one developing new content.

Yep. David Allen turned out to be a tool, but Decklin was a huge fan of the games and bought the rights and continued development. Let's just say that he's not exactly a competent developer, either, but at least he kept the game going. Assuming he had the source code, there's no reason why he couldn't have overhauled the horrific windows-95 based UI, which was clearly done in visual basic, increased the display resolution between 1024x768, etc. You can modify a dll to make the game 1920x1080, but it fucks up because there are missing art pieces. He could do it, he's just fucking awful at development. I think all he knows how to do is use the dev tools to create new monsters and art.

The fact he charges $33 USD for the game is pretty ridiculous. This is a 10+ year old game with a very niche fanbase. And he couldn't even modernize the game to make it feel like it's not from the Windows 98 era (which it is). A little work on the UI and things besides in-game mechanics would go a long way.

And FUCK the pin system. Also, the general consensus outside of rabid Demise fanboys is that the added content Decklin added is pretty subpar compared to the original.

 

[felipepepe]

So.... this:

Rules are simple - email decklin @ pacbell.net subject Monster Competition
Provide forum ID and legacy Demise key
Send one monster ID and suggested talk or send many or send many emails with what comes up.

I mean, really? I'm being a dumb popamole in need of a quest compass, or does this means that the competition to win the game requires you to buy the goddamn game? o_O

All entries become property of Decklin's Domain, many entries may make it into the final version but the best 10 in the twisted dwarf's view (make me snort my Anchor Steam through my nose while I'm sitting here at the Cafe Trieste and you're a WINNER!) will get licenses for the person of their choice.

Person of their choice. NOT yourself, obviously, because you had to buy it to be able to enter the competition... OBVIOUSLY.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

To enter the competition to win the new game (Demise: Ascension), you need to own a key of the original (Demise: Rise of Blahblah).

A new demo has been released recently for the unique dungeon crawling RPG Demise: Ascension, spiritual successor to Mordor and the original Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan, and you can download it here:

 

[Metro]

Had my eye on this one.

 

[felipepepe]

To enter the competition to win the new game (Demise: Ascension), you need to own a key of the original (Demise: Rise of Blahblah).

But you can't buy the original, is only sold together with the new one... for $32,50.

So, instead of a big contest to drawn in people from other forums and newcomers, trying to expand a very niche playerbase, all that this competition does is give game keys to people that already have game keys...

 

[Stabwound]

Loooool, wow. I dunno about Decklin, man. The guy is definitely a bit eccentric. This entire competition is going to appeal to about 10 people in total: those that bought the original Demise aeons ago and cared enough to keep up with the forums, but not enough to pay for the expansion. Great promotion here.

I like that Decklin kept the game up, but he did a pretty shitty job at it. I guess something is better than nothing. And he did give me a free copy of Ascension. He promised me a disc-based version, said he sent it in the mail, and it never arrived, but I did get a free Ascension upgrade as a digital download, so that is a huge thumbs up in my books and a pretty cool move on his part.

He definitely overcharges for the games, though. $15 for Mordor? The game is literally from the Windows 3.1 era and won't even run on anything modern. You need to virtualize Windows XP to get it to run. It should be freeware, or maybe a buck, not $15. And Demise is sure as hell not worth the price of a modern game.

 

[Maiandros]

Since this has resurfaced, i would like some info if anyone can provide it please..

- Offensive spellcasting used to be balanced tending towards overpowered during the first levels. Going lower and lower in the dungeon however, you soon found out it was pretty much useless. Mobs' resistances were definitely not favouring clothies. The typical 'FU, you spellcaster wannabe' attitude, in favour of 'balance' (i hate that word..). Is that still the case in the current iteration? Don't pass excuses such as buffing is always useful, it's offensive spellcasting in particular i am enquiring over ^^

- Used to be you were unable to initiate combat with offensive spells (even if you -did- firstly press F and activate it). Is that still the case?

- I see complaints about the running to and forth every 2 levels i think it was here and in our older thread. Anyone here on Legacy status that can verify if it is still so?

Also, Devlin needs to hire Surf Solar
Horrid 3D is just..horrid 3D. Fuck evolution, stick with what you know works. Really.

 

[Overboard]

A horrendously overpriced grind-a-thon? This is what people look forward to?

Also last time I played pinning was still there, which is one of the most retarded mechanics I've ever encountered.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I prefer stylised graphics to out-right shit graphics.

 

[Elwro]

The game's a huge time sink. Clearing the first 3 levels (not even touching the new things from the expansions) will take you many hours. It is fun to have the feeling of slowly mapping a huge dungeon with generations of adventurers, but the lack of variety and general tediousness always wear me down at some point.

 

[crawlkill]

it looked better in 2D than this weird low-fi 3D =\ oh well. some things are better when you're eight.