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Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn - open world ARPG from Ashen devs

Gandalf

Arbiter
Joined
Sep 1, 2020
Messages
530
The protagonist remind me of Forspoken (I think that was the game's title), Jaheira from Baldur's Gate 2 and Diablo II's Amazon girl a bit.
 

Lemming42

Arcane
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Messages
6,616
Location
The Satellite Of Love
Playing the demo and the mechanics feel very weak and floaty, which is a shame because the setting and visual design are really cool. I really like the six-armed thing that serves the coffee, and the character design of the minor god who joins you, and the deformed little chocobo-esque bird that pulls the wagon, very nice striking visuals and a great departure from the generic stuff in a lot of other games. Story seems okay too, protagonist is a bit generic and fits the tried-and-true mold of "cocky idiot who accidentally gets everyone killed and suddenly isn't so cocky anymore" but she's not outright annoying or anything, and the little god companion is fun.

It feels like they've just overloaded the game with too much stuff, a grabbag of trends from the last decade of gaming. It's quasi-open world even though it'd probably be served better by being a more linear experience, it's got soulslike elements even though it'd work best as a straightforward third person shooter/slasher, it's got a perk tree because everyone's got a perk tree nowadays, it's got a crafting system because of course it does. Just a checklist of stuff. Even has white paint on climbable surfaces, almost like a parody.

If they're still developing this and it's still open to pre-release changes, they really need to make the melee combat a bit more impactful and make the hero's dodge more responsive, those two changes alone would do a lot to lift it up.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
16,038
Location
Frostfell
I used to complain about wow clones, but I miss when people complained successful games(even the bad ones), now people are copying Forspoken... Same Mary Sue protagonist and same awful writing and gameplay...
 

Bad Sector

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 25, 2012
Messages
2,314
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Playing the demo and the mechanics feel very weak and floaty, which is a shame because the setting and visual design are really cool.

Yeah, i also tried the demo and the game overall looks good (especially considering the company has 50 or so people according to one of those "company evaluation" sites - and i guess this includes non-production staff like accountants), but the controls felt a bit off. Not something i wasn't able to get used to (i've played worse), but there were cases where i didn't feel "in control" so to speak.

It feels like they've just overloaded the game with too much stuff, a grabbag of trends from the last decade of gaming.

Agree, especially near the start i felt like every couple of steps you get a popup about "you can also do this" and "this enemy cannot be fought normally so you need to do that special thingie which relies on filling that bar".

I did like the idea of releasing areas from monsters or whatever those are and making them "habitable" for shops, etc to open though. But i'd prefer a more lean and focused core combat loop.

The setting of flintlocks vs magic is unusual, if nothing else, though the entire premise so far barely managed to keep me interested. Initially i wasn't drawn at all and only stuck with it because i already spent more than an hour waiting for the download to finish (as time moves forward i often think that getting rid of the physical limitations imposed by distributing games on DVD was a mistake :-P).
 

Lemming42

Arcane
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Messages
6,616
Location
The Satellite Of Love
I did like the idea of releasing areas from monsters or whatever those are and making them "habitable" for shops, etc to open though. But i'd prefer a more lean and focused core combat loop.
Yeah, it feels like a lot of cool ideas smashed together really awkwardly into some kind of gestalt entity of every gaming trend in the last ten years.

The world they've come up with is really cool but even that feels like it's being watered down by the presence of the Ubisoft-y open world, I bet if they concentrated all these story and setting ideas down into a more linear style of game then they could come up with something very memorable and unique but instead it feels like a low budget attempt at the kind of thing every other dev has been doing.

I finished the demo and I have no idea if I'll buy the game, which is kind of amazing after such a lengthy and detailed demo. I liked it despite the weak mechanics but I dunno if it'll sustain itself for a whole game.
 

Bad Sector

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 25, 2012
Messages
2,314
Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
if they concentrated all these story and setting ideas down into a more linear style of game

I think the linear style wouldn't work as well with the releasing areas from monsters aspect, though at the same time i don't know how deep this aspect is. What i'd like to see (i doubt this is how it'd be in this game as i feel it will only be the simplest of implementations) is that you could theoretically visit any area (of course taking into account that not the entire map will be of the same difficulty) but the more you leave areas occupied, the harder these areas will be later on - especially if they are surrounded by other occupied areas - and the worse their condition after you release them (which could end up with, e.g., shops having higher prices). Story reasons as well as resources (e.g. some resources/items/whatever might only be available at specific parts of the map) would incentivize going after these areas (completionism aside).

Now obviously i'm basically describing a different game, but i think this would work fine with a soulslike combat loop (or really any hack-and-slash combat loop). Besides, if you are supposed to be some sort of chosen one might as well have a bit more influence on the game world (mechanically) than hitting harder and soaking more damage.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
7,231
Oh wow. Really. Who could've foreseen this coming.

1721246263662.png
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
7,231
So I skimmed the ACG video and uh...

>be compared to Forespoken
>being compared unfavorably to Forespoken

:deadhorse:
 

Elttharion

Learned
Joined
Jan 10, 2023
Messages
2,178
They do keep pumping millions into those manly black woman protagonist games that no one plays
I think it's legacy of the last development cycle. Like how woke media kept getting worse even after the high-water mark passed. If this was announced in 2022, it was probably pitched in 2020 and greenlit in 2021.
Most games releasing in 2023/2024/2025 probably started development around the summer of love, when BLM, nigger worship and DEI initiatives were at their peak. I dont expect things to get better anytime soon but this helps contextualize the current gaming landscape. For investors and execs at the time it was probably a no brainer greenlighting this sort of stuff. Now their games will launch in completely different societal conditions. The best ones and the games from established franchises will probably still sell well enough but simply having a black woman protagonist will not give them enough positive marketing anymore.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
7,231
Imagine being the devs having to work on the most obvious 6/10 trainwreck for like five years in slowmotion.

#itsjustapaycheck

I'm pretty certain that working in mainstream gamedev strips away all your passion, talent, and fucks.

At this point it's just another lousy office job with all the usual annoyances.
 

sosmoflux

Educated
Joined
Apr 16, 2022
Messages
330
You are one hundred percent correct.
It's more than half the reason nobody outside of Japan or backwater Europa towns can make anything good anymore. Packed to the brim with #itsjustapaycheck people.

Just sucks for those poor suckers that have any passion/talent and have to suffer this dogshit industry.
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
7,231
This game launched on Steam at a really weird time. Like, wtf? Are they banking on a Japanese audience for this shit? Oh wait, they're from the New Zealand, okay. Still stupid.

Also, much success.

1721286619243.png
 

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