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[Martin 2BAM]

The Duke Beta 4.1

A game that will make you want to kick yourself in the nuts.


DOWNLOAD (Beta 4.1)
(Aprox: 15MB)
Download mirrors

VIDEO Teaser (Beta 3.1: old, it's more polished now)
(Aprox: 1 min.)

Thread for voting

Story
Once upon a time, there was a duke
And he was elected by the people for his AWESOMENESS.
And yea, he cared for the people of his domains.

One day, an evil force came to disrupt the peace.
The king and most of his people were slaughtered.
And verily, the duke was pissed.

Controls
Space/Up arrow/I/W  - Jump
   Left arrow / J / A - Run left
  Right arrow / L / D - Run right
         Mouse Cursor - Aim
           Left Click - Shoot
         Alt + Return - Fullscreen or windowed
                  Esc - Exit

Background

It was at first an entry for a mashup game competition.
I picked out a bunch of my old favourites and this game is the result.
The intention was to include Duke Nukem's attitude, Abuse's gameplay and Golden Axe's enemies and era.

The music was made by Christoff, a cool dude I met in a gaming conference here in Argentina. He studies musical composition, has a little company that produces music and sounds for games (see below in Team) but did the music for the game for free!

The voice was performed by the user Noyb from this forums. I came here and asked for someone that had a voice like Duke Nukem's to join the project. And he did both! He has a badass voice and was really cool to make those recordings even thou we never met in person.

Personally I like to thank both this guys, because without them, the game probably would have ended up being another lost, unfinished game for some competition.

If you want to support it by voting, I could add some instructions (as the forum is in spanish).

The team

Christoff (Forging Sounds Productions) - Original music
Nitram (Two bananas and milk) - Designer, programmer, graphics, maps, etc.
Noyb (http://realnoyb.googlepages.com/) - Voice actor, engrish corrector

Everything is handcrafted except for the enemies, background (From SEGA's Golden Axe) and some sounds (from freesound.org users).


Minimum requirements
1 Ghz Processor
Windows 2K / XP / Vista
3D graphics card
256 MB RAM


Cheats
(Main menu)
Ctrl+Shift 1-7: Starts from that level.

(In game)
           End: Skip to next level
       Page up: Lot's of life

     Shift + 1: Adds the Fireblaster Weapon
     Shift + 2: Adds the Smoker Weapon
     Shift + 3: Adds the Cannon Weapon
     Shift + 4: Adds the Death Spreader Weapon

     Shift + T: Teleport al crosshair

You're warned that the game doesn't like cheaters very much xD (in a funny way, it won't do anything nasty to your PC, promise)

Known bugs (Please refer to these before posting them, thanks!)

* The game has some collision bugs in certain 45° tiles junctions. I'm on my way, it's in the roadmap to solve as soon as posible.
* Enemies are dumb. Yeah, like "lemmings" dumb. But they're a whole lot. That's compensated with quantity. The final boss is somewhat smarter.
* Also some enemies seem to be Michael Jackson fans. Even at that age...Awesome.
* The duke's gun-arm superimposes with the backward arm when aiming back and running/jumping. These graphics still need much rework.


I, speaking for the team, thank you you for your time. We hope you like it.

Cheers 
-Martín (I'm this guy)

[Noyb]

It's time to kick ass and give feedback... and I'm all out of feedback. 

Wall of text and vote pleading aside, it's an old school action game with an unforgiving difficulty curve and my faux-gravelly voice trying to imitate

. I'm honestly curious what you think of it.

[Martin 2BAM]

Maybe guys around here would be more willing to try it it if I had posted these screenshots instead :





Just kidding 

[PsySal]

Hoom, feedback, hoom. Some things:

- I like the running speed.
- Gun feels a bit underpowered for how many enemies there are. If you're going to have tons of enemies I think the gun should mow them down a little bit more easily.
- Or... fewer enemies that move a bit more slowly?

I think it's pretty slick little game but... it's not quite my thing! =) So maybe my feedback isn't too useful. Good job, however!

[Alec S.]

Yeah, there was definitely something off with the gun damage, the speed of the enemies, and the amount of enemies.  Each game ended up with my character getting mobbed.  I think if you had slower enemies, and make a lot of the enemies long range fighters (using bow and arrow or something like that), the game would work much better.  Also, try to make the enemies respond to your attacks.  Try to add some knock-back when they get hit.

I think this is a good start, but it needs some tweaking.

[Martin 2BAM]

First of all, thanks for your feedback and for trying the game!

PsySal:
The default gun power is "just enough" to get you by (at least in "I liek puppies (hard)" mode).
The idea is to practice your aim and try to get as many powerups/secrets in the level as possible.
Nevertheless, I've been said this before, I'll consider it. I just don't want to be a "difficulty sellout" 

Fewer enemies are out of the question, I considered adding more (that inflict less damage, of course)... as I like the carnage.
And of course your feedback is useful! Thanks!

malec2b:
I can't make long range fighters as the enemies are taken from Golden Axe (this being a sort of homage). It was a beat 'em up game, with all enemies only having melee attacks (or in some cases "specials").
Having long range guys would be awesome, but would require a lot of work on the character's animations.

The point of the game is being one man army, so being mobbed is expected, although you could try to get some of them off your back before moving forward (as there is no time limit whatsoever).

The knock-back was a feature in earlier "alphas", but due to some collision response errors I had to temporarily disable it.
I'm working on collision response now and perhaps on the near future I can re-enable it.

Thanks again for your comments!
-Martín 

[Alec S.]

The reason that it works in Golden Axe, though, is you have melee attacks in that that can hold off close range enemies.

Probably an easy way to make the enemies have long range attacks without changing the sprites would be to give them throwing axes and such.

See, I'm all for really difficult games, but not frustrating ones.  The way your game is now, the gun seems to go through the enemies, and the bullets are small enough that they're hard to see when they first come out, and the enemies don't really react to getting shot.  The game would be greatly improved by some sort of feedback to say that you're actually dealing damage.  For now, while you don't have knockback, you should make it so they briefly turn red when hit.

As for adding more, weaker, enemies, I would say that you should weaken their health rather than their damage.  If you have a lot of enemies on screen, it's more satisfying for the player if they can take out enemies at a rapid pace.

I think this game has a lot of promise, but it needs some work.