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HROT - Quake-inspired shooter set in socialist Czechoslovakia

Bad Sector

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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.
I just can't bring myself to cough up the money for it to try it, to be honest.

There is a demo on Steam you can try, i wasn't convinced about it until i tried the demo.

Though i haven't bought the EA since i prefer to buy games after EA (and on a DRM-free platform if possible).

But i am convinced to buy it at some point :-P
 
Glory to Ukraine
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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming!
Tried the demo - honestly the price seems to be rather steep for what it is (I mean there are all these Doom mods like Total Chaos and other things that do similar stuff for free), but the game is certainly fun. I played on Hard and combat was very challenging, fast-paced and fun. Enemies aren’t hit-scan which rewards skill, even the basic enemies hit pretty hard, but at the same time arent bullet sponges. I like that when you engage enemies with ranged weapons in close combat, they switch to making melee attacks.

As for the setting, the game certainly does a lot of things right (like using the correct 1980s names for the metro stations), I especially appreciated inclusion of Czech weapons like vz. 52 pistol and vz. 23 SMG (both of which would be extremely outdated by 1986 but I guess that people would still get them from some People´s Militia armouries in a post-apoc scenario), I was repeatedly forced to wear one of those gas masks with long hose in front for the "defense preparation" as a kid in elementary school... those were fun times, milk in those shitty plastic bags being used as medkits is a great move too. Of course most of the cultural references that the game makes will fly over the heads of the western audience, who at best will likely be like “wow, cool soviet stuff,” but as someone with hazy memories of what the late 1980s Czechoslovakia was like, I can say that the game does what it wants to do competently in this regard.

All in all its a respectable effort, will definitely get it at some point.
 
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Curratum

Guest
I actually played the demo and hereby revert my cooler opinion that was based just on observations. Bought the full game too.

The game is good, the enemies have ungodly response times even on just Hard and I actually died a few times and am usually struggling to stay alive. The engine does a great job, the atmosphere and lighting are spot-on and I have only a few minor complaints about gun balance, but nothing big. :incline:
 

Curratum

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My two things would be that I wish the shotgun was a bit more accurate at the distance where you'd consider short range to start becoming medium range in this sort of game, let's say 3-4 real-life meters, as the enemy shotgunners can take like 4-5 shotgun shots at that range before they go down. Dispersion seems a bit too much and the enemy shotgunner is beefy as hell too, surviving perfect thrown nades and anything but a perfect rocket.

That's my impressions after getting to the "gymnasium" level, will post more when I finish episode 1, but I don't want to rush it, it feels great and I'm enjoying it so much, I want to savor it.

I don't think I've ever died so much on a non-nightmare-respawn / one-shot difficulty in this sort of game. I'm playing on Hard.
 

Curratum

Guest
Another EAccess throwback shooter, another disappointment on the content development front.

In the eight months since it launched into EAccess, the game has added one new level to its original content. The levels are more or less on the same level of brush detail as Dusk was, i.e. exceedingly simple, and the texturing in Hrot is even less elaborate and varied.

Stay tuned for the full game sometime in 2024, I suppose.
 

Bad Sector

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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.
Another EAccess throwback shooter, another disappointment on the content development front.

TBH i just don't understand why you keep buying those early access games and then complain about them being developed slowly :-P

Why not just wait until they're out and finished? You get the final product, have more opinions for its quality available and chances are you'll find it in a sale.
 

Riskbreaker

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Another EAccess throwback shooter, another disappointment on the content development front.

In the eight months since it launched into EAccess, the game has added one new level to its original content. The levels are more or less on the same level of brush detail as Dusk was, i.e. exceedingly simple, and the texturing in Hrot is even less elaborate and varied.

Stay tuned for the full game sometime in 2024, I suppose.
Eh, it really ain't that bad. He's communicating with the players and offering constant updates - even if they oft boil down to minor bugfixes or say touched-up water texture - and there's thus the impression of sustained, ongoing development.
Keep in mind that, originally, the game was meant to contain solely that one episode he initially released, on which he was working on and off for some time. None of his earlier games attracted much attention. Once the demo gained some popularity and the game got picked up by popular 'tubers, what was meant to be the whole campaign became E1, what was meant to be full release became early access.

In any case, things could've been much, much worse. Just look at Wrath.
 

Curratum

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I don't see how that's any different than Wrath.

Sure, it's been stuck in EA longer, but it has also released more content while there. If Hrot came with just that one episode, I don't see how it could have been sold for more than, let's say 5 EUR, honestly

I didn't know this was not originally planned as a multi-episode game, honestly. I am afraid the guy has run out of ideas for new levels if he didn't have anything pre-planned and it's gonna be a loooong time until this releases.
 

Curratum

Guest
people need to stop sucking off Dusk...

If it comes off as such, it's only because it didn't stay in EA forever and it mostly lived up to its hype, plus it was still in the first wave of those retro revivals, so people were more enthusiastic about it.
 

Jenkem

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I don't see how that's any different than Wrath.

Sure, it's been stuck in EA longer, but it has also released more content while there. If Hrot came with just that one episode, I don't see how it could have been sold for more than, let's say 5 EUR, honestly

I didn't know this was not originally planned as a multi-episode game, honestly. I am afraid the guy has run out of ideas for new levels if he didn't have anything pre-planned and it's gonna be a loooong time until this releases.

Wrath is an entire team of people and backed by a publisher. HROT is just one guy, there's a substantial difference.

Wrath came into EA on Nov 22, 2019 It released with 1 hub world, 2 levels. The first update was three months later and added 1 level. Three months later they added 1 more level and also stated the release date would be "February 25, 2021." The last update, January of this year added 1 more level, for a total of 5. Also they pushed the full release date to a vague "Summer 2021" (lol)
new roadmap when they delayed the game
e090a5cbe8f7494748dcc65e2d9796594a1dd850.png
So only a sliver of the game was available at launch and they've added a whopping THREE (3) levels since Nov 2019, delayed the game and still plan on dumping 3 hub worlds, 15 new levels and more at release.

$24.99 and they plan to increase the price when it leaves EA, vs $19.99 for HROT and the price will not go up.

As for HROT, it was always stated in the Early Access FAQ that it was planned to be 3 episodes as far as I can remember.

Jan 29, 2021 - Released into Early Access, it's last update was July 18, 2021
Will be in EA "9-18 months" as stated in the FAQ, the dev is still within the margin of finishing on time and has released about two updates a month and recently put in the first level of Ep 2 in as a teaser.

This is how it is different from Wrath.

as a bonus:
Dusk - Released into EA - Jan 11, 2018 w/ Episodes 1 and 2
Dusk - Release out of EA - Dec 10, 2018 added Episode 3

one year for one episode (which was already partially completed when the game launched in EA,) and yet HROT is apparently taking forever... What exactly do you have against the HROT dev?
 
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Curratum

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Dusk was one guy too, it released with a lot more content when it kicked off EAccess and it was content-complete within less than 12 months.

See you in Jan 2022 when Hrot will have maybe half if its second episode.

I don't have anything specifically against Hrot's dev.

All those early access indie shooters are a trainwreck when it comes to development, content and time frames.

Amid Evil was on the verge of embarrassment as well. Now it's well within the margin of embarrassment with Black Labyrinth.
Hrot is slow. Ion Fury was painfully slow, the expansion is nowhere to be seen.
Wrath is slow and I highly doubt they'll drop 15 levels in "summer 2021". We'd be lucky if it does come out in 2021.
Ultrakill seems to be moving at a reasonable pace, but there's always time to drop the ball.

Gloomwood released a demo and keeps leaking screenshots and dev news like a bad water pipe, but they don't even have an early access date, even though the demo's been out for over a year.

Sure, I understand the "don't buy incomplete games" sentiment, but you have to also understand the "don't show and make store pages and try to make hype for games that are in pre-ahpha and are 3 years away from release" sentiment as well.
 
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Jenkem

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Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I helped put crap in Monomyth
Dusk was one guy too, it released with a lot more content when it kicked off EAccess and it was content-complete within less than 12 months.

See you in Jan 2022 when Hrot will have maybe half if its second episode.

I don't have anything specifically against Hrot's dev.

All those early access indie shooters are a trainwreck when it comes to development, content and time frames.

Amid Evil was on the verge of embarrassment as well. Now it's well within the margin of embarrassment with Black Labyrinth.
Hrot is slow. Ion Fury was painfully slow, the expansion is nowhere to be seen.
Wrath is slow and I highly doubt they'll drop 15 levels in "summer 2021". We'd be lucky if it does come out in 2021.
Ultrakill seems to be moving at a reasonable pace, but there's always time to drop the ball.

Gloomwood released a demo and keeps leaking screenshots and dev news like a bad water pipe, but they don't even have an early access date, even though the demo's been out for over a year.

Sure, I understand the "don't buy incomplete games" sentiment, but you have to also understand the "don't show and make store pages and try to make hype for games that are in pre-ahpha and are 3 years away from release" sentiment as well.

Dusk was one guy making levels in Unity and had the backing of a publisher. I agree it's a better comparison to HROT, but it's certainly not equal. Dusk was also set to come out in EA earlier than it did IIRC but the publisher kept delaying it (probably so that it would release with more content.) I just think you are getting mad at the development of HROT for no reason, or maybe because you want to play it and are impatient, but I think it's unreasonable to do so until the dev has gone past the time he said that it would take (which was visible when you bought the game) and it's not like he isn't updating it.

The comparison to Wrath bothered me because Wrath really doesn't have much content when you compare it to what they promise in the full version, has had sparse updates and barely any communication. This seems to be the norm for 3D Realms, where they release what is essentially a glorified demo as EA and then just release the full game later, as they did the same thing with Ion Maiden and are also doing for GRAVEN. I'd rather have a developer take time to change the game based on feedback and show they are working on it than the pump it and dump it until release strategy of 3DR.
 

Bad Sector

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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.
Amid Evil was on the verge of embarrassment as well. Now it's well within the margin of embarrassment with Black Labyrinth.
Hrot is slow. Ion Fury was painfully slow, the expansion is nowhere to be seen.
Wrath is slow and I highly doubt they'll drop 15 levels in "summer 2021". We'd be lucky if it does come out in 2021.
Ultrakill seems to be moving at a reasonable pace, but there's always time to drop the ball.
Gloomwood released a demo and keeps leaking screenshots and dev news like a bad water pipe, but they don't even have an early access date, even though the demo's been out for over a year.

Yes, making games takes a lot of time, especially when the game is being made by a single person or handful of people that are trying to make games similar to what used to take whole teams working fulltime for an established company back in the day.

Even id which wasn't that big of a company had Doom which was still made by 8 people (not including managers, etc) - and those were among the best in their class - and Chasm: The Rift (which is the closest inspiration for HROT) was made by 9 people (again not including managers, etc). Sure, modern tools can save you a bit of time, but wont make you 8 times faster. So it will take a lot more time to make something.

you have to also understand the "don't show and make store pages and try to make hype for games that are in pre-ahpha and are 3 years away from release" sentiment as well.

Why? The game is clearly labeled as unfinished pretty much everywhere.
 

Bad Sector

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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.
Aside from this and ATOM are there any other modern games that delve into the insanity of late Soviet life?

Does 11 year old count as "modern"? If so, maybe They are Alive? You are some Russian jobless dude who after an attack to some government building because you couldn't find a job you move to Moscow where you are given some They Live-like glasses by a pair of hobos that help you see the aliens that steal your jobs or something.
 

Wunderbar

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Sure, modern tools can save you a bit of time, but wont make you 8 times faster. So it will take a lot more time to make something.
and we don't even know how good HROT tools are, because dev wrote the engine by himself.
 

Riskbreaker

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Aside from this and ATOM are there any other modern games that delve into the insanity of late Soviet life?
Not exactly new or specifically -late- Soviet in theme, but "You Are Empty" might be worth a look. Think HROT if it was a HL2-era FPS.
 

Retardo

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Aside from this and ATOM are there any other modern games that delve into the insanity of late Soviet life?





Also, you could try Balabanov's movies, his "Cargo 200" is available with english subs. Set in 80s, it is based upon urban legends and rumours about Soviet era, and is crazy as fuck with heavy dose of shock content.
 
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