Divine Frequency - GZDoom-powered Schizo Cosmic Horror Boomer Shooter

[toughasnails]

Story​

You are invited to the seat of the World's consciousness. But first, you have to get out from whatever hole your actual physical body is in...

Features​

• Weird, Uncanny Worlds
  Dive through layers of ever-mounting darkness. Discover secrets, brave optional encounters, and piece together the story of the world before you. Break through the thin glass of the ordinary into unstable realities beyond the Perimeter.
• A Particular Narrative
  Not everything is out to get you. Discover a deep and surreal tale of cosmic horror, existential conundrums, and off-kilter characters. When you stare into the abyss, the abyss more often than not maniacally cackles back.
• Visceral Combat
  A wide variety of tools are at your disposal, from forgotten experimental weapons to your very own fists. Unleash strange and devastating psychic attacks, and exploit your enemies' weaknesses while being mindful of your own... They are, after all, a forsaken world's relics.
• Deep Character System
  Choose between three different primary Stats: Strength, Wits, and Physique. The game will react accordingly to your choices, and present unique challenges and discoveries for each.
• Souls-like Boss Encounters
  Defeat those who would challenge your destiny through arena duels that require consistent execution. But beware, for not all hopefuls play by the same rules..

 

[Morgoth]

3DRealms is becoming the Electronic Arts of the Retro-shooter wave. Lame, uninspiring shovelware.

 

[toughasnails]

3DRealms is becoming the Electronic Arts of the Retro-shooter wave. Lame, uninspiring shovelware.

You sure this comment ain't meant for another thread?
3DR isn't publishing this.

 

[Morgoth]

3DRealms is becoming the Electronic Arts of the Retro-shooter wave. Lame, uninspiring shovelware.

You sure this comment ain't meant for another thread?
3DR isn't publishing this.

Right, I muddled this up with the Realms Deep stuff.

Still looks lame with the try-hard post-fx filters and all.

 

[Ash]

• Deep Character System
  Choose between three different primary Stats: Strength, Wits, and Physique. The game will react accordingly to your choices, and present unique challenges and discoveries for each.

3 stats, why even bother at that point? What's this, Skyrim with guns?

Still, doing my best to hold off judgement for now.

 

[toughasnails]

Eh, one thing there that could perhaps cause some discomfort is that the second sentence could easily be taken as a sexier way to say "level scaling".
We'll see.

 

[toughasnails]

Demo!

 

[Fedora Master]

Disclaimer: I played this for all of 10 minutes

It sure likes its obtuse story telling and unskippable cutscenes. No combat tho.
Weird but I feel its more on the pretentious side than anything.

Also VHS filters are cancer.

 

[Spukrian]

Scorn meets E.Y.E: Divine CYbermancy? Interesting...

 

[zunethedark]

disclaimer: played this while feeling very sick - was waiting for my neighbors to calm the heck down so I could sleep (this was a terrible decision due to the nausea)

==========================================================================================================================================================

so, spent like 30-45 minutes in total I think; fiddled around with the opening and kept jump-scaring myself waiting for the first enemy to appear. This doesn't occur for like... 15-20 minutes? And when it does, it's a small swarm of them, so the game is pretty slow and esoteric up until that point. Enemies move really friggin' fast, a bit too fast in my opinion; since a lot of the starting ones are melee-based and both early types inflict a sort of debuff that eventually pops off. I picked the Wits character and somehow managed to stumble through the game just kinda ignoring the gentle headache and churning stomach.

Turned the VHS thing off, literally does not need to be there. From what I can grasp, it's not even really something that fits in-universe or in the context of the game, so it's kinda pointless.

All that being said, I think the thing that got me most invested, ironically, was when your character kind of just stumbles into a room and accesses a computer necessary to advance- And it hands you a few pages of the Bestiary. The few pages it hands you are basically the enemies you'll encounter soon / in the demo and reading them basically lays out the bare minimum plot of what's going on through more esoteric gobbeldy-gook. However, I don't know if I can say that that is a good thing, especially given I'm kinda sick and loopy at the moment, so I can't guarentee other players will even pause to read the bestiary in it's entirety or gather what's being said... And sadly, the opening bits of a game really are the most important.

It's weird, creepy and wants really badly to be confusing yet intriguing, but it's a very, very slow start- And I don't know if it eventually ramps up into full on Doom-like combat with groups of enemies everywhere or if it's kinda slow the whole way through.

==========================================================================================================================================================

TLDR: Interesting premise, very slow start, I don't blame anyone for being inherently offput with how generally unclear and unhelpful the game is at the start beyond just telling you to "follow the candles" (Which is what I did)- However, I'd still recommend poking a little deeper if you haven't already.

 

[Harthwain]

3DRealms is becoming the Electronic Arts of the Retro-shooter wave. Lame, uninspiring shovelware.

You sure this comment ain't meant for another thread?
3DR isn't publishing this.

Right, I muddled this up with the Realms Deep stuff.

Still looks lame with the try-hard post-fx filters and all.

I actually like what I see. For a few reasons:

1) The visuals are interesting.

It is 2D, but almost feels like good quality 3D. Almost photorealistic even. I don't know why, but I do seem to have some kind of affinity to this style.

2) I like how deliberate the combat is.

Firing really sends your gun flying, which means you have to constantly readjust your aim (unless you're too close for comfort). The high lethality (for you and your foes) combined with low amount of enemies makes it a nice change from your usual DOOM clones where you are a Terminator gunning down hordes. This also helps the atmosphere, because less constant action gives more room for the mind to think.

All in all, Divine Frequency reminds me in some ways of Nosferatu: The Wrath of Malachi. Especially the early parts, when you don't have so many good weapons that make combat a cakewalk. I think we need more shooters (not just boomer shooters, I mean shooters in generals) that are more deliberate in their pacing.

 

[Puukko]

Has there been any new development on this? Quick glance through Steam and Twitter shows nothing new since last year.