Indie Quasimorph - dark turn-based extraction RPG - now available on Early Access

[Harthwain]

Disclaimer: the game is a procedurally generated turn-based roguelike (with Escape From Tarkov and Stoneshard elements) with RPG elements. It identifies itself as an RPG ("the extraction turn-based RPG"), so I am putting it in this section.

What you have above is the game. It isn't out yet. However, the demo is out, and it's excellent. I highly recommend it.

There was a whole bunch of changes between this and Quasimorphosis: Exordium:

• There are enemy mercenaries running around, so the gunplay is much more prevalent and the game got much more deadly. Cover is VERY important (as well as reloading and keeping your weapon in shape).
  
  
• The visuals have been upgraded.
  
  
• The demo offers you a bunch of missions and shows quite a few planets you can potentially visit in the full game.
  
  
• The RPG elements are very nominal. There are two classes in the demo and they have a fixed set of skill which effects you can unlock with use. It's not Jupiter Hell/DoomRL in this aspect, where you could pick your skills when leveling up. Here it's more akin to progression (which is why you want to keep your character's alive, by the way).
  
  
• It's very rapid-fire despite being turn-based. But make sure to use shortcuts to switch between running and operating ("<" and ">" and use spacebar to pass turns) to maximize your actions as you have to manage your hunger while exploring.
  
  
• It's worthwhile to extract if you have some decent equipment on you (akin to Escape From Tarkov), because otherwise all you have available to equip between missions are some generic starting items (although I think you can unlock some via pendrives you find on missions). The more time you spend lingering, the deadlier the quasimorphs become. Although you need to find certain unlocks for the game to allow you to extract (either that or complete the main mission). This is a second time-management aspect (besides hunger).
  
  
• The pixel art and injury system reminds me strongly of Stoneshard. It's nicely put together and requires of you to have certain medicinal items on you. It can make the game somewhat more annoying for people who tend to be pack-rats and can't decide what to prioritize.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

That is not something I expected when playing the 2 demos. It was kinda confusing as the first demo was dead space like in theme and the 2nd demo is some Aztec doomlike theme, but with above update of you essentially has freedom in choosing missions and all, it now kinda make sense.

 

[Harthwain]

and the 2nd demo is some Aztec doomlike theme

That demo was utter shit. The one where you had three separate missions with the possibility to take loot-data back with you was great.

 

[Tyranicon]

Huh, this is looking pretty interesting. Might have to get the demo.

 

[sser]

and the 2nd demo is some Aztec doomlike theme

That demo was utter shit. The one where you had three separate missions with the possibility to take loot-data back with you was great.

Yeah one of the demos may have done damage. The game has been remarkably improved since.

 

[Tyranicon]

So I got it, and the demo does play a lot like a more fast-paced, scifi Stoneshard.

 

[Serus]

A roguelike is by definition a subgenre of CRPG. And yes i'm aware that we don't have a definition but the roguelikes end in rpg disscussion. Saying "A rogulike with RPG elements" makes no sense at all. Even if someone thinks RLs are not rpg they certainly have strong RPG elements. It is saying "a RPG game".
What i'm saying - no need to explain the game having a thread here.
And sorry for the rant.

BTW, looks interesting.

 

[Tyranicon]

Played it some more and they made the end of the current demo quasi-impossible to finish, which is kind of an insulting way to make a demo tbh.

 

[Harthwain]

Played it some more and they made the end of the current demo quasi-impossible to finish, which is kind of an insulting way to make a demo tbh.

You can grind for the unlocks (extract with blue USBs whenever you get the chance), which makes the last map possible to finish.

 

[Infinitron]

Tomorrow:

 

[Tyranicon]

A tightly-designed little game. I'll probably grab it when it goes on sale.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

From "roguelike dead space" to the scifi-dystopia-doom roguelike thing that you never knew you wanted

I am pretty fucking hyped. Honestly I kinda wished this would be sort of Battle Brother thing instead of a roguelike after reading that roadmap, would be a pretty cool thing

 

[Harthwain]

I am disappointed this is EA release. I thought it will be 1.0 version. Oh, well... I will wait some more then.

 

[Tyranicon]

It's actually with the same publisher behind Stoneshard, Hypetrain Digital, which is interesting.

But I got it, will give thoughts later.

 

[Tyranicon]

I was going to praise this game, but then I got shot through a solid wall and died. Not sure if that was a bug or a feature.

Honestly this game is a delightful surprise. It's a dark scifi roguelike/tactical/extraction shooter with procgen elements. The gameplay is extremely solid and tightly-designed, with the main loop being you clearing a space station or whatever of enemies room to room, looting bodies, getting better gear, and leaving alive. The EA version is much easier than the demo, mostly because you get a lot more gear and ammo early on and the basic enemies are fodder.

The story is vague in a good way. Some kind of demonic apocalypse happened and corporations replaced nation states. There's a fair amount of lore injected into the game, but I don't know if it'll be fleshed out more later. You have interesting tidbits like a massive entertainment conglomerate that is anarcho-communist and openly produces propaganda in its media.

I have some minor quibbles. It's still somewhat buggy, the faction interactions seem minimal right now, and the "orbital cities" and other areas are all similar looking rooms in similar looking tilesets. The mechanic where you can't see in dark spaces is somewhat negated in that you can just sweep your mouse (or press alt) until it highlights the enemy. Some of the procgen missions are also really boring clear the map deals.

Also, there's no real in-game reason why only one merc goes on a mission at a time. You start with four. Clearly that's not what this game is built for and balanced around, because then it would be a squad-based tactical game.

But.... that would really open up your customer base if you added an extra mode. Maybe that's something in the works or I'm just not deep enough in the game yet.

 

[sser]

This game is about to get nuked in the reviews.

A bit of a shame as there is some gold here: it's like if you took Crusader and Tarkov, blended them into a roguelike, then threw some old True Lies-esque SNES graphics on top of it.

Problem is that it is very, very untuned and, adding fuel to that fire, unnecessarily opaque. Even worse, the game is not as fast-paced as one would expect. You can spend 30-60mins on any given mission, which is a lot of time when there's some weird crafting system in place. Not sure if I'm supposed to be crafting anything -- crafting ingredients usually eat 3-spaces in your already limited inventory. Alternatively, you could leave them on the ground, but that requires backtracking which eats your food which ultimately eats you. There's no way that crafting in-maps is superior to just picking things up as you go.

You can't leave missions once you're on them, so if shit goes sideways you're just stuck and die. Given the super limited resources at the start, if this happens early you should just quit and restart everything. Note, with Tarkov it's just your weapons and gear, but here it's that + actual RPG stats. This drives down an XCOM A-team effect where you'll basically be playing the game with 1-char who, if they die... you might as well restart.

My best run took about 60mins into one mission where I must have killed over 100 people/demons. Yet I still died because the game would not let me leave and wouldn't tell me why. With three massive floors to move around in, and the way hunger depletes so quickly, it just ran into a brick wall. In this case, I could not evac and the game had no reason as to why other than something was blocking the ship. Naturally, I went down to the ship to see if something was physically there, but that was not the case. That was 3 floors of travel, mind, at which point food reserves were exhausted.


The HP/health system is also a little aggressive. Everything jams up your guy's health over and over again. It's not as refined as something like the system in Dark Corners of the Earth where you really had to get clobbered to take on injuries. Additionally, the dmg input coming your way is a bit random. Sometimes you eat bullets for breakfast, other times they punch through and suddenly you're at like 5HP with wounds all over. Given the # of injury archetypes needing to match specific medical applications + infection meds + food, your inventory is pretty quickly jammed up with crap just to stay alive.

I'd come back to this one in a few unless you're alright with this sort of gameplay. I've seen this sort of whacky balancing in other roguelikes and ditch them pretty quick, but Quasimorph DOES have a fair bit of charm and uniqueness to it for whatever that's worth.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

My best run took about 60mins into one mission where I must have killed over 100 people/demons. Yet I still died because the game would not let me leave and wouldn't tell me why. With three massive floors to move around in, and the way hunger depletes so quickly, it just ran into a brick wall. In this case, I could not evac and the game had no reason as to why other than something was blocking the ship. Naturally, I went down to the ship to see if something was physically there, but that was not the case. That was 3 floors of travel, mind, at which point food reserves were exhausted.

I think the offensive mission is bugged as the floor 2 and 3 doesn't have target to achieve unlike the 1st floor. It's best to just play the Defense mission for now.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

But yeah overall impression is that balance is whack. There are also a lot of "noob trap" considering the game kinda has a strategic layer so you can get FUBARed and pretty much soft locked.

Few things to note is that:

1. Currently crafting resource is important. The tutorial mission has some nifty items but nothing is probably as important as disasembling trash loot to rags + thread so you can crafft backpack on ships. Going mission without backpack is pretty much crippling and downright impossible.

2. Never goes all in a mission, always only bring as much weapn/armor as you need. Your operator dies = you permanently lose the loot. And as such looking at some trash item you can craft and pick up the components in a mission is important. You can just salvage your way in a mission from enemies weapon drop but going into a mission naked with no weapon = guaranteed death. At the very least always pick up bladed thing to craft a knife. The Melee guy + Melee class can kill trash mobs easiily.

3. You need to craft the Syringe thing in ships if you go to offensive mission at all. It reduces the Quasimorph meter I think and it reduce the chance of spawning demons things when you kill mobs. This is very important as at high Quasimorph meter level, you are talking about some lol random some bullshit demon spawn and oneshot your guy. Craft free foods and ALWAYS bring sufficient food. Offensive mission I think would be good to have 2 full stacks of the free food.

Problem is that it is very, very untuned and, adding fuel to that fire, unnecessarily opaque. Even worse, the game is not as fast-paced as one would expect. You can spend 30-60mins on any given mission, which is a lot of time when there's some weird crafting system in place. Not sure if I'm supposed to be crafting anything -- crafting ingredients usually eat 3-spaces in your already limited inventory.

Those crafting table inside the mission is for you to salvage and create resource, especially bandages and splints which you can easily craft from disassembling stuff from the mobs. For the same reason you better just bring the antibiotics pills as those are uncraftable inside the mission. Having 3 of them you can craft medpack if needed in mission.

4. Defensive mission doesn't increase the quasimorph meter, other reaason playing it is preferable.

 

[sser]

My best run took about 60mins into one mission where I must have killed over 100 people/demons. Yet I still died because the game would not let me leave and wouldn't tell me why. With three massive floors to move around in, and the way hunger depletes so quickly, it just ran into a brick wall. In this case, I could not evac and the game had no reason as to why other than something was blocking the ship. Naturally, I went down to the ship to see if something was physically there, but that was not the case. That was 3 floors of travel, mind, at which point food reserves were exhausted.

I think the offensive mission is bugged as the floor 2 and 3 doesn't have target to achieve unlike the 1st floor. It's best to just play the Defense mission for now.

I found and killed the target, but after that I got a "Evac is stormy" type of message which simply never went away.

A bummer of a run, too, as I was pretty kitted out with weapons to remove most of what I was facing.

 

[Takamori]

I am disappointed this is EA release. I thought it will be 1.0 version. Oh, well... I will wait some more then.

Yeah when I played the demo thought they were blasting the 1.0. I ain't gonna buy it until is done, don't wanna end up with a stoneshard in my hands.

 

[Harthwain]

I was going to praise this game, but then I got shot through a solid wall and died. Not sure if that was a bug or a feature.

There aren't "solid walls" in the game that sense. You must've been at the corner of a wall. All it does is give you some cover via obstruction (while also making it harder to aim for you, by the way), but it won't protect you from getting shot. Otherwise you could've been shot from behind or something.

Not sure if I'm supposed to be crafting anything -- crafting ingredients usually eat 3-spaces in your already limited inventory. Alternatively, you could leave them on the ground, but that requires backtracking which eats your food which ultimately eats you. There's no way that crafting in-maps is superior to just picking things up as you go.

Crafting food is super important and it only takes two items: meat and an empty can. Other items are situationally useful (splints and bandages, which are easy to get, because you can disassemble boots, shirts, etc. to get what you need for it). Creating a weapon repair kit can be great, because it fully repairs a weapon without dropping down its durability, which is important in terms of how often you can fire from it before it breaks down again, but you need to hang on the required items for that, which can be somewhat problematic with limited space (and I don't know if you have access to what items you can craft without being physically at the crafting bench, which is pretty stupid design as it forces you to either write it all down or memorize it).

You can't leave missions once you're on them, so if shit goes sideways you're just stuck and die. Given the super limited resources at the start, if this happens early you should just quit and restart everything. Note, with Tarkov it's just your weapons and gear, but here it's that + actual RPG stats. This drives down an XCOM A-team effect where you'll basically be playing the game with 1-char who, if they die... you might as well restart.

Did they got rid of the USBs? In the demo you could evac if you found one, which permanenty unlocks a technology for everyone. Playing through a level with basic goon shouldn't be that much of a problem if you keep that in mind and play somewhat catiously. Just expect to die anyway until you scavenge better gear (and even then expect to die) or find USBs to extract with so you can take better gear with you from get-go.

I found and killed the target, but after that I got a "Evac is stormy" type of message which simply never went away.

Sounds like a bug.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Did they got rid of the USBs? In the demo you could evac if you found one, which permanenty unlocks a technology for everyone.

USB now unlocks item to craft, new character, new class. Each character has a quirck in this game (e.g. melee guy has 5 defense for all dmg type, some other guy immune to infection). You start with 2 class and can get more through chips.

Getting them in mission does allow you to extract. The problem is unlike the demo they are rare drop now

 

[Harthwain]

USB now unlocks item to craft

Huh. I guess they wanted to make each run matter more, but I feel like developers are shooting themselves in the foot by changing the previous approach to this. Do you at least have a better backpack at the beginning, to compensate for the need to carry extra crafting items?

 

[InD_ImaginE]

USB now unlocks item to craft

Huh. I guess they wanted to make each run matter more, but I feel like developers are shooting themselves in the foot by changing the previous approach to this. Do you at least have a better backpack at the beginning, to compensate for the need to carry extra crafting items?

There really isn't "each run", the game has sort of strategic layer now. You have a ship that can travel around taking mission from different corpo, each having different rewards. Unlocling new item chips allow you to craft them on ship.

You do start with one backpack. And as I said before, your priority in tutorial should be gathering rags+thread so you can craft backpack otherwise you get fucked if that one guy died with your 1 backpack on.

Right now the game has massive problem of softlocking you because certain items (like base trash pistol/knife/clothes) require material (which you can only get from mission by disassembling stuff like before). The first 1 or 2 missions after tutorial now becomes a check basically. If you fail both you ended up with naked clone with no weapon which pretty much a soft lock as you will get murdered in mission with no weapon.

THe dev really need to make base weapon (pistol/knife) free. Having no armor is kinda fine as truly base armor has only 1 damage reduction anway. But having no weapon is impossible

 

[Harthwain]

Right now the game has massive problem of softlocking you because certain items (like base trash pistol/knife/clothes) require material (which you can only get from mission by disassembling stuff like before). The first 1 or 2 missions after tutorial now becomes a check basically. If you fail both you ended up with naked clone with no weapon which pretty much a soft lock as you will get murdered in mission with no weapon.

THe dev really need to make base weapon (pistol/knife) free.

Dear Lord... The demo was nice, because at least it gave you some basic equipment in the beginning with the option to unlock other stuff. Now you can end up being literally naked? I can see the game getting mass negative review now. WTF has happened to the developers they thought it was a good idea to fix what wasn't broken?