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

[Morgoth]

I see misaligned flats there.

Not an oversight, just meticulous faithfulness to the glory of DromEd.

 

[MuscleSpark]

Are you guys sure you really like the aesthetic?

Say what you will, but it's good enough to fool one of the world's most sophisticated AIs.

 

[OctavianRomulus]

I see misaligned flats there.

Not an oversight, just meticulous faithfulness to the glory of DromEd.

That does nothing to calm my autism.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

That's something anyone on this board could make, and I mean that.

DO IT *******.

 

[Psych0sis]

That's something anyone on this board could make, and I mean that.

DO IT *******.

sure, took me about 10 minutes using the closest base thief2 textures (not going to import textures in for a shitpost) and I had to stop because I started vomiting at how ugly it was.

 

[Krilmar]

I'm going to get the game and probably compare it's levels with the base Thief levels and all the great missions the community made so far. It might not be fair to the Gloomwood team but they were sure pushing the Thief comparison plus in my opinion level design might be a top characteristic of an "immersive sim". As for the screenshot it might be saved with better lighting, I liked the outside/sewer shots.

 

[Curratum]

Fuck off, Psychosis! It's a one-man dev like Dusk. I like high-poly NuDark FMs as well but you know perfectly well you can't make a whole game with that detail on your own.

 

[Child of Malkav]

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...

 

[Curratum]

The reason I believe Gloomwood is going to be good is Dave Oshry. The man sure likes to meme a lot and post goofy shit, but he knows his shit and understands what made the old games good.

He put his faith in Dusk and Amid Evil and thanks to him we now have the only two retro-revival shooters that are REALLY worth playing. Ion Maiden and WRATH can go suck a dick frankly. I bought them out of some dumb loyalty and a desire to see more of those games, not so much because they are great games.

But Dusk is fucking amazing and Amid Evil is my favorite shooter of the past 15 or so years so yeah... Trust that Oshry picks good games and devs and knows how to steer them in the right direction.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

What is nuDark FM?

 

[Curratum]

What is nuDark FM?

Thief fan missions that push the original engine's limits in terms of detail and polygons and require the fan-patch / NuDark engine to work.

 

[†††]

Millions of Thief-likes, and not a single Splinter Cell-like. Life is suffering, man.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Millions of Thief-likes, and not a single Splinter Cell-like. Life is suffering, man.

styx is slintercel-like.

 

[Curratum]

Third person is the herald of decline.

 

[Ghulgothas]

Deadly Shadows is that way.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Millions of Thief-likes, and not a single Splinter Cell-like. Life is suffering, man.

styx is slintercel-like.

Hardly. No multiple movement speeds, no sound indicator, no non lethal takedowns, no interrogations etc.
Styx does shine however when you coordinate with your clone for various actions and I noticed in Styx 2 that they brought back the visibility meter, kinda. A bit. But still, progress. I really hate the reuse of levels.
And I read a rumor, a comment somewhere that Styx 3 will be announced this year with a 2022 release date. Take this with a huge grain of salt. It's most likely nothing.
Also, Ghost of a Tale is a really good stealth game. Combines line of sight mechanics with disguises. And an adorable mouse.

 

[Morgoth]

Only the first Splinter Cell was brilliant, then it went downhill from there.

And that is all there is to say about Splinter Cell.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Only the first Splinter Cell was brilliant, then it went downhill from there.

And that is all there is to say about Splinter Cell.

So, in your opinion, Chaos Theory sucked?

 

[Wunderbar]

plays like Thief

it looks more like "get from A to B while either fighting or avoiding enemies" kind of game. 1800s Deus Ex.

 

[Psych0sis]

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...

I will admit the gameplay footage is what is keeping me hooked and excited to try it out myself, though I think the AI is a bit clunky and silly based off that bottle throwing video in the OP. I also don't like how they have lights shining from their eyes to both indicate where they are looking (this seems like it was implemented to be easier for babby-tier players) and their alert levels, which is a bit of a shame. The atmosphere is looking awesome and some of the soundscape seems to be right on point to suck me in.

Just one thing, but it doesn't look like thief in a good amount of the screenshots, unless you consider a typical Beltzer FM to be the representation of the thief art aesthetic (hint: his missions look like dogshit). It seems you are trying to misrepresent Melan and I's concerns as "muh graphix" and that's just missing the point. If I wanted to complain about graphics I'd point out how boxy and flat some of the exterior shots look, or how the enemies look goofy and low-poly. Those things don't matter to me just like they don't matter to me in Thief. It's all about that art direction, and it is objectively ass in a lot of places. Textures look too soft and like they're made of out clay, or belong in a cell-shaded game. They're flat and lifeless, and a bit too jarring when it comes to the Gothic/Victorian grit the Developer seems to be advertising the game to be (based on the store page art).

Some areas look great, like this screenshot -> https://i.imgur.com/jCVDwpl.jpg . But that one I posted on the last page is absolutely, unforgivably horrendous and laughable.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

The only reason why I chimed in at that is because you don't promote your game with something that amateurish. Its one thing to have improperly aligned textures, I understand that. No one is perfect, especially in a one-man project. Its another thing to promote your game with a screenshot containing obvious unaligned textures. Not just the lights, the pillars look funky too. Anyone who does that deserves any crap they get. Which isn't getting into the details. The carpet? Maybe its just a bad angle, but it looks like it doesn't have any height difference from the tile its on-top of. There's nothing really separating the carpet from the floor. The one thing I know how to do with carpets is have them have an edge of some kind. And look at the ceiling, its the carpet. These aren't nitpicks. If I'm bopping along in a game and I see this I'm stopping to laugh.

 

[Bad Sector]

Outside of lighting (which looks a bit too flat), it looks acceptable to me. But of course i'm biased since i know too well how hard and time consuming is to make everything yourself. Even minor things that by themselves take a few minutes to do add up quickly :-/. So i usually tend to overlook graphics if they aren't getting in the way and the game feels fun anyway.

(i mean, ~14 years ago i was spending a TON of time for months playing Cube and that game uses random assets the developer found for free on the internet :-P - but it is very fun to play for a quick mindless match)

 

[Morgoth]

Only the first Splinter Cell was brilliant, then it went downhill from there.

And that is all there is to say about Splinter Cell.

So, in your opinion, Chaos Theory sucked?

It had a strong start but then bored me already after the first mission. SC1 actually kept getting better.

 

[Melan]

The problem with that shot - and there are more, if not worse - is not the low poly look, it is the visually incoherent uncanny valley clash of simplistic but high-res textures and the low-effort architecture (low poly != lazy), the shoddy lighting... that's not even mentioning the hideous use of colours.

Consider the following:

This is Joe Wintergreen's never-ever. It is obviously blocky, and has the retro pixel aesthetic, but it holds together well because the individual elements do not clash. (It does simplify Thief's aesthetic to blue-vs-yellow, but that's a different can of worms.) The pixelation actually adds a pleasant noise that makes things look old and dirty.

In contrast, Gloomwood's texture work and models look flat, too clean, and artificial. This was a problem with many of Thief 2's default textures (many of which, we can assume, came about thanks to the adverse conditions the game was made under.) What we have seen of Gloomwood just amplifies this problem. For a game that's no longer a proof of concept but something about to be released "SOON™", it looks seriously bad. You can't blame it on the budget. You can get a ton of excellent textures from something like CGTextures for a relative pittance. The Dark Mod has a significantly better texture library as a freeware game, making even simplistic levels look quite good.

I will likely buy the game because duh, not many good stealth games are being developed these days. But I really wish they reconsidered their choices when it comes to assets and the overall "look".

 

[Child of Malkav]

Only the first Splinter Cell was brilliant, then it went downhill from there.

And that is all there is to say about Splinter Cell.

So, in your opinion, Chaos Theory sucked?

It had a strong start but then bored me already after the first mission. SC1 actually kept getting better.

Well, the stories weren't anything to write home about but the mechanics though. They were top notch. Still are. Literally no other stealth game has everything SC3 had. Well, except Thief. And Mark of the Ninja comes very close. But that's about it.