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[Carnevil]

Greetings!

My name is Brad Carney, and I'm the lead developer behind a new indie FPS called Wrack, which is now out on Steam! It's currently in beta and is getting updates every two weeks.

As much as I would love to tell you about the game, wouldn't it be much better to show you? Yes, I thought so too! You can check out the game in action by watching the trailer

. (Sadly, I can't embed this!)

You can read more about the game here. Bottom line: It's a fast-paced arcade-style FPS complete with bosses and kill chains with all sorts of neat extras like a level editor. Fun!

MEDIA

Here are a few screenshots from the game:

   

AVAILABILITY

Hope you decide to check it out! If so, you can grab this off of Steam, and a few other places as well.

Questions and comments are appreciated.

Thanks everyone!

[Carnevil]

Oh, and as I mentioned, we're hard at work on some new content! Here's a WIP screenshot of one of the levels that will soon be included in the pre-order!

*image removed due to being old and sucky*

[Carnevil]

Well, some people were mentioning that some of the earlier levels were too dark (and like the latest one since it's brighter). We're starting to fix that problem, and already there's a world of difference. Here's a great before/after shot of the third level:

*image removed due to being old and sucky*

Quite an improvement, I'd say!

[57E]

My honest opinions:
Great job having Bobby Prince doing sounds and music. 

And levels are the classic... gray box variant just the way I hate it.
Looking the at the trailer and the screenshots at your media page dull maps are definetly the biggest flaw I see in this.


Everything looks like it is made of matte plastic.
Textures have no details, no signs of wear or use or indeed any sense of texture.
They look like placeholder graphics. Just a step above those orange box textures used by Valve in Hammer, something meant to illustrate the idea of what goes where.


Few years ago I would have just filed this under The "Things that are wrong with the cel-shaded graphics" and stayed silent, but then they released a game called Borderlands wich used the comicbook style and made it look good.
Sand looked like sand not yellowish paper. Wall bricks looked like they were actualy supposed to be bricks and not like they were drawn on gray plastic with black markers.


The bottomline is:
Textures do not need to be gritty, full of bulletholes and dirt, just detailed enought that they look moderately intresting on themselves even on image viever out of contex.
Or you can go all the way to the artistic style and make it look like Okami or Madworld.
But this way it just looks dull to my eyes.

//---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well that was some hopefuly not complitely needlessly hevy critique on my part.


On the plus side... :D

Your whole consept of first person platformer is something I find cool.
The gameplay looks great, Im all about wide and complex levels with keycards and hidden secrets of the good old times. Classic guns look and sound to their parts, but I hope you have some new ideas for the enemies and weapons too. Copying the old ideas is good, improving them is even better.
Keep the melee weapon as a formidable tactical choise for right situations and do not treat it just as a nearly harmless backup weapon in case of player runs out of bullets (that sucked in Duken Nukem 3D, Blood and Quake and ...).
I'd suggest adding point lights to those bright blue projectiles that enemies shoot. Look at the Quake II's blaster and hyperblaster weapons and tell me that it doesn't look good.

There are not enough games like his these days. Good luck.

[Carnevil]

Well, we don't exactly have the same budget or staff that Gearbox did for Borderlands. Sorry. I can say almost for damn sure that Wrack is a lot more fun to play, though. It doesn't take an unholy amount of time/effort and an army of artists to make something that's super fun to play (just look at VVVVVV or Super Meat Boy). Creating a vast, heavily-detailed 3D landscape however is a different story. We've gotta be realistic here.

Anyway, it probably looked dull to you because, well, there were some lighting/color issues with the maps. We've been working really hard to fix them, and I think we've got them all straightened out! I'm using a lot more hard shadows and brightly colored lights on the maps, and we've increased the brightness/saturation on the green/brown texture set seen on the 2nd and 3rd maps. Here are some examples:



How's that? What do you all think?

[rivon]

Looks good but more variety would really benefit the game. Try something different than the techno-military base.

[Udderdude]

I remember seeing this on Doomworld.  Nice to see you pressed ahead with development on this.

I'm looking forward to trying it out, hopefully it brings back some real Doom style gameplay and puts the imitators to shame.

[Carnevil]

Ah, yeah I've seen you there! How's it going? It's definitely got that fast-paced action like Doom does, and now would be a great time to check it out, because...

I'm happy announce that Wrack is ON SALE! It's a nice 50% off until the end of the weekend - bringing the price to less than $5!

In addition to that, we've put out a major update which overhauls the lighting (seen in the screenshots above), and adds a whole bunch of goodness, like map-defined secrets, new monster sounds, and a whole lot more!

Now's a great time, so I hope you guys check it out!

[Udderdude]

Bought.  I'll leave some feedback on the test/beta/demo/whatever version soon.

[deathtotheweird]

that looks really nice, I remember reading it...somewhere. RPS maybe. the last 3 screenshots look really nice. the videos look cool too, but I bet it looks better when you're actually playing?

[Carnevil]

Thanks udderdude! :D I'd love to hear what you think!

Thanks allen! Yeah, you probably saw it on RPS. The one time it got posted there we got more traffic than at any other point ever on the site But yeah, it really does look much better in person. YouTube doesn't really do colorful games that run at 60FPS that much justice. I know I was in a bit of shock at how good Marvel vs. Capcom 3 looked when I first saw it in person, just because it looked SO much smoother and so much more vibrant. It's part of why I'm excited to take Wrack to QuakeCon - people will get to see it in person... and on a properly-calibrated monitor!

[Paul Jeffries]

I think I was another one who first saw this on RPS.  I think the more recent videos you've posted above show a lot of improvement over what it looked like back then, which is encouraging.  The environments still seem a little generic-sci-fi-industrial cliche though, and the animations still look a bit stiff in places.  Really like the cel-shaded style though.

[Udderdude]

Ok, I gave it a try.  It was generally fun but did have some issues.  I liked how there was an attempt at a scoring system, even if it feels like you're just waiting for all the enemies to line up so you can shoot them all at once.

I got as far as Disposal Area 2 and got stuck after lowering a platform that reveals a switch.  I went back and hit the switch, then had no clue what to do next.

Right now I think the biggest issues are:

- The melee robot enemies make little to no sound, and don't even make sound when they're attacking you.  It's way too easy to get ambushed by them after you alert them and have no clue they're even there, they sneak up really fast.  I died more times to them when they attacked me in the back than I can count.  Even with the music off and the volume turned up, I could still barely hear them.  As they are really low to the ground, it's also very difficult to see them sneak up on you.  It makes things feel really trial and error, that or you have to slowly crawl around every hallway making sure you aren't about to get pounced on.  Not exactly what you want in a fast-paced FPS.  This really needs to be fixed; give them more sound effects and make them much louder!

- First time you fight the giant orange rapebots (That's what I'm calling them), it's very cramped and very easy to get cornered and killed almost immediately.  The player should get a chance to fight these in less difficult circumstances the first time around.  After some practice I was able to beat them by baiting out their attacks, but seeing as I had to die first, and if you die too many times you have to start the level over ..

- The enemy bullets are really small.  Consider making them larger, that will make them easier to see coming from a distance.

- The turrets are also really small and due to the cell shading, blend in with the ground/ceiling way too much.  At a distance it looks like bullets are coming out of nowhere.  And tt the start of disposal area 2, the turrets on the ceiling start shooting at you from your spawning position!  Very mean!

- The flying bot shot attacks seem really random; they should have some sort of pattern so the player can learn to attack them correctly instead of praying they don't get shot at that paticular moment.  In general, you should remove as much randomness as possible.

- The pulsar seemed useless for scoring since you can't multishot kill with it.  And trying to use it for anything involving distance is nigh impossible; you're just spraying into the air and hoping it hits something.  For the close combat areas where you're given it, it's useful, but outside of that it sucks.

- Some of the moving platforms over bottomless pits are difficult to see.  The first time I died was when I attempted to move on to one, and it started moving away just as I was getting on it, and I fell to my death.

- Precise movement is somewhat difficult with the amount of inertia the player has when trying to change directions.

- It's nice that some switches show cutscenes of what changed, but the environments all look so identical that it's still hard to tell where it was that changed just from the jump cut.  Suggest adding more detail to the areas around the door (colored lights, decals, etc.) to make them more memorable locations.

- A mini map would really help. :D

- The music sounds a little too much like generic MIDIs.  They're kind of boring and repetitive.  You should try to find something else to use.

[Carnevil]

Just wanted to let you guys know that we've just been released on Desura! To celebrate, we've put out a NEW TRAILER which you can view here:





Not only that, but we're also now on Steam Greenlight! If you like what you see and want to help us get on Steam, be sure to give us a vote! You can do that here:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=95521749

Thanks everyone!

[baconman]

Finally, a game bringing back the level design and depth of '90s-prime FPS games. You know how long I'd been waiting for one of these? Yeah, I'm sure you do.

[Carnevil]

Finally, a game bringing back the level design and depth of '90s-prime FPS games. You know how long I'd been waiting for one of these? Yeah, I'm sure you do.

I hear you! The absence of these sorts of games is what prompted me to make Wrack in the first place. The world doesn't need more brown, photorealistic, warfare-based shooters

Anyway, we've just put a big juicy new update! This one has the next level of Wrack - E1M5! In addition to that, it's got a new boss, a new HUD, sounds that play when you chain kill monsters, and a whole bunch more! Here's a shot of it:



You can check out all of the details and grab it here.

Also, don't forget to vote for us on Steam Greenlight! We're very close to breaking into the top 100, but could use your help!

Thanks everyone!

[Carnevil]

Just wanted to pass along that we've got a massive update on the way! This one adds all sorts of new stuff (new weapon, new level, new texture set, cutscenes, etc.)... and also upgrades a lot of what's already there as well! Here's a little taste of it:

*image removed due to being old and sucky*

You can find more screenshots and details about the update here. Feedback is appreciated!

Thanks everyone!

[Pineapple]

This looks wonderful! But I don't want to have to dish out $10 for it because I'm cheap. 

[rivon]

Looks good and everything is consistent, nice

[Carnevil]

This looks wonderful! But I don't want to have to dish out $10 for it because I'm cheap. 

Well, at least give us a vote on Steam Greenlight! That's free!