Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags

Doisch

8
Posts
6
Following
A member registered Aug 06, 2020

Recent community posts

Thanks for the reply as well. Really love the potential on this so far and wish you all the best!

I really want to play and like this game but in its current state, I can't. Right now, any controls outside of an Xbox controller (mine is a cheaper one from Logitech) or PC controls either need tuning up (moving too fast on analog sticks) or have no instructions (PC controls). Would be easy to resolve if the demo came with a way to map keys or change sensitivity.

It also seems to eat a ton of resources (maybe because it's still a vertical slice?). My 3070 skyrocketed into higher temps just from starting the game.

Also, there seems to be a scene missing from the beginning of the demo. Audio plays but the screen sort of stays stuck with UI and a black screen for a minute.

Hoping to showcase this in the future! It looks super cool.

(3 edits)

Loved playing it so here's a pretty long review! It's a potentially great game with a lot of little issues in design and optimizations holding it back at the moment. TL;DR: At its current state, Necrofugitive's demo feels like it struggles to decide for itself what kind of game it wants to be - torn between a hardcore tactical beat em' up or a grimdark stealthy parasitic killer. More consistent combat/stealth rules, animations, ledge detection, hitreg. better UX and a fix to the AP costs would really help. The graphics are gorgeous and the biggest standout of this game.

COMBAT
Your character has a lot of resources to juggle between both Stamina and AP (I feel like calling this Blood would make more sense tbh). You need Stamina to dodge and guard for better openings for better combos which leads to regaining AP which leads to cool moments when you chain in a Special Ability.

For Special Abilities, you get: Tendril Yank (for pulling in far enemies), Tendril Lash (hitting far enemies), Dash (a half-screen wide sweep attack). Impale is a heavy hitter but more used for stealth play.

On paper, it looks like a solid combat loop. That's until you realize your abilities aren't that worth it (for now). Tendril Yank and Lash only hit the *furthest* enemies on the stage. They don't do well in a crowd and work best against a faraway enemy like an archer or melee guy running away. Dash is the best ability if you want to hit a crowd of enemies and clear room. But it seems to only register hits here and there in the sweep which means you end up vulnerable in recovery animation when those two guys out of six not caught in the sweep immediately turn around to get you.

You also need to keep in mind your AP recovery which only comes in chunks rather than a gauge filling up so you can easily get into situations where you have no get out buttons. In those cases, the dodge and guard which use stamina come into play but can fall short since their i-frames are pretty short. Archers and Polearms will tear you apart before you can dive out completely so your better choice is to guard and hope you can get some hits in without being staggered.

Combine this with combos only staggering enemies half the time (it feels sort of hit-and-miss even with shieldless enemies) and all enemy attacks able to interrupt you, the game sort of discourages you from crowd fights with more than two enemies. Staggering can also feel moot because they only last as long as it takes for you to end your Heavy attack animation which means either you dodge out of a combo and give up pressure or risk another Heavy hoping they don't attack you too quickly out of stagger.

You also can't hit downed enemies sometimes even with heavy attacks which means knockdowns should be used to let you prioritize other enemies not down yet while the initial enemies take time to get up. This happens with all your moves, you either have hit-or-miss registrations or enemies will sometimes 'glide' past your animations or inconsistently stumble outside of them leading to a missed attack and a counterattack.

Slaughter Demon is only unlocked if you kill a ton of enemies and it feels GREAT. You get to summon enemies as fodder so you don't get hit anymore + Hellfire, Clobber and Stampede are great for clearing out a wave of enemies. The only issue there is you can't Assimilate anymore so you can't recover health unless you morph back into your weaker form.

I'm assuming here that these shortfalls could be due to the lack of 'upgrades' that the full game says it has. So maybe your attacks get more worth it over time?

STEALTH

In stealth, I had little inconsistencies ruining the Prison run like:

  • Enemy vision cones being sort of unclear. Sometimes I got spotted at the edge of a screen even with the detection eye saying there wasn't any light to make me more spottable. The vision also sometimes seemed to 'pierce' through ground and spot me even where there weren't grates. It'd be great if there was a way to visualize the enemy vision.
  • Noise feels weird. Stalking makes everything silent but jumping sometimes alerts enemies. This means platforming out of an incoming enemy's vision isn't a great move. Better to run away - into another enemy's vision. I've had moments where landing out of a jump alerted the enemy below me.
  • Jump detection against platforms is weird as well. In the beginning of the prison, a running jump will get you on the first platform. But immediately doing another running jump has consistently made me hit the wall and not let me climb up. I notice when this happens, it's usually because my top half is higher than the wall edge so it seems like you only get the climb up when the top of your head meets the bottom of the edge, not when you meet it from the side?
  • The ledges that jut out are way harder to jump into because if your head hits the corner where the bottom of the brick meets the wall, you just bounce off of it instead of grabbing on. This doesn't happen when the ledge is just a clean sharp corner.
  • Sometimes when stealth turns to combat, some enemies will straight up break a stagger and just glide past your attack towards the alarm.
  • I notice once I alert one enemy and they didn't find me, they would for some reason get 'stuck' in either two positions where they jitter a lot over a grate or just keep walking into the edge of a far wall.

Stuff that seemed weak in combat are strong in stealth. Yank and Lash are great for last hits and enemies escaping to the alarm. Their utility feels redundant sometimes though because the enemies outside your vision can sometimes detect the fight and enter alert which seems to also send others into alert, reducing chances of stopping the alarm. The same registration issues also happen so sometimes your Yank/Lash fails even when they seem like they touch the enemy. You're also screwed if they happen to run up a few steps on stairs because it seems your attacks will completely miss hitreg outside of the torso-to-bottom-half-of-head range?

You get to instant kill enemies in stealth with Impale but it takes half your AP bar so you can do two kills with some time apart. On the prison map where enemy patrols are very overlapped, you're better off Shapeshifting after Assimilating an enemy, run off to a corner then wait for your AP bar to rise while suspicion drops to Shapeshift and find another corner to hide in again. The current loop and mechanics as a result makes stealthing a very make-or-break. You either go into full combat mode or take the long route. Alarms don't seem to reset either so problem-solving feels less possible.

Also, a small thing that makes stealth frustrating at the moment is that the stalk button (ALT or LT) clashes with using Impale (TAB + A or L2 + X). This means if you want to stealth kill, you'll need to extend three fingers on the same side on the keyboard (ALT + TAB + A) and the controller (LT + L2 + Joystick for moving to the enemy). It feels like a oversight and I had to cramp my fingers a lot to avoid accidentally running and alerting the enemy right next to me.

SUGGESTIONS

  • More consistent combat rules. Do light attacks stagger enemies? Do they still stagger when enemies enter an attack animation (I notice they sometimes don't stagger during this)? Do 'heavier' enemies (Polearms and Crossbows) have different rules? Do my light attacks knockback enemies and I have to adjust my movement to keep them in stagger? Do my enemies also have i-frames like me?
  • More consistent stealth rules. If I'm engaging an enemy, do they prioritize fighting back or will they straight up run past me for the alarm? I've had both happen. Can I stealth kill all characters? I found out the hard way that you can't impale Crossbowmen lol.
  • Some moves from Slaughter Demon feel like they'd have more utility in default form. A lesser form of Summon Demons would really help in stealth and combat to distract enemies. Likewise, Yank feels like it would have a place as an upgraded version in Demon form.
  • AP recovery might feel better if it was a constantly filling gauge rather than the chunk-over-time style currently. This would let you do more snappy moves in stealth and combat rather than waiting the extra second and fumbling. There might be concern of spamming Shapeshift to cheese levels but with how enemies go alert the moment they see you, I don't think there will be issues?
  • Assimilation feels super not worth it in stealth. In combat, the cost of AP in exchange for health makes sense. In stealth, I'll be Impaling after Shapeshifting then Assimilating and Shapeshifting again. Each step has an AP cost which means it's very hard to pull this off consistently unless I have the perfect amount of AP (which means having to wait outside of enemy vision doing nothing while recovering AP). Maybe in stealth, Impaling/Assimilating could award AP instead or cost nothing if you succeed?
  • A better way to visualize enemy vision and alert would be great. Maybe a slowly opening eye above an enemy? At the moment, stealth feels very do-or-die.
  • I notice bodies make enemies go for the alarm which in turn makes everyone swarm on you. It feels a bit like a break in logic. Maybe it'd be better for enemies to enter into a 'search' stage first instead of immediately homing in on me since they don't know where I am? The same 'homing' logic might also explain the strange stuck enemies who run into walls and jitter in one spot. I noticed when this happens, they're locked-on to the spot right below me but they can't see me because I'm on another platform out of their reach.
  • Better explain how stealth states work. There seems to be four: question mark, exclamation, yellow sparks and red sparks. No idea what these really indicate so far outside of ? = searching, ! = fully spotted and going for alarm.
  • An indicator that an alerted enemy is running outside of screen to an alarm like a red arrow that tells you the direction relative to you would help avoid unfair alarms when you think you've finished off the alerted enemies only to realize a random one outside your view was alerted by one of your initial enemies.
  • Some enemies currently have way too much health to match their appearances. Regular guards take LLLH+LLL to kill or LLLH+H which seem more suitable for a mid-level enemy. Crossbowmen take more than 3 or 4 combos it seems? It might be nice to have a HP meter/Stagger meter or visual feedback (gore/blood) of some kind to understand how quick these guys can go down.

A short demo but with plenty of goodies inside. The movement is smooth as butter, the guns are satisfying and varied with two very interesting enemies to take on. All in all, it's already self-sufficient as a demo. There's a very solid FPS here and looking forward to seeing what comes from it!

Had a great time with this! The inspired 90s and early 2000s feel really shines through. There's a lot of good stuff being put into the lore, hacker plot setup, music and look of the game. At the moment though, it's pretty obvious that this is still sort of a game jam build. I've been seeing a lot of the upcoming mechanics on Twitter and looking forward to them.

The multigun is a cool idea but it feels just a bit bland right now due to the same textures and color being repeated throughout the modes. Some of them also look and feel a bit too similar (the two shotty-style guns). They also seem to lack the punch in their sounds and don't have tracer rounds to help you understand your aim. For some reason, they just feel sorta clunky as a result? The lack of particles on hit against enemies (I don't seem to notice any at least) also makes feedback a bit awkward in fights.

The current second level stands out from the rest right now because it feels a bit basic. The first level was a vertical travel and so is the second one except you don't have as many places to explore so you get to skip the whole level without any surprises or challenge.

This might also be due to the current enemy designs. The major enemies (virus and turrets) are both projectile-based but easy to dodge and outrun so junction points take a lot of difficulty out of combat. Is this why the final battles are tight spaces with wave-based spawns currently without any junction points? They also seem to aim at you regardless of walls instead of walking around them in the current build so you can easily camp them without putting yourself in danger. A sniper enemy who tracks and hitscans you would immediately spice things up.

Btw, I notice junction points/grappling can be a bit awkward sometimes? I would grapple on a point but it wouldn't detect my input quick enough so I'd end up falling out of range and dying.

Would love to see more Goldsource stuff in this too! Melee combat, bunny-hopping, crouch jumps/dashes, enemies based off those nostalgic games, etc. Keep it up!

(1 edit)

Love it so far! The visuals, sound design, roguelike elements and gunplay fit really well. There's also this nostalgic, adrenaline-driven Time Crisis feel that just really hits the spot. Would appreciate maybe a control scheme for mouse and keyboard though? I have no idea how to salvage and it's been cutting my runs short. Wishlisting this definitely.


Edit: A small vid of some of the cooler things I got to do in the demo.

(3 edits)

Pretty damn fantastic. Simple game with very simple mechanics and super fun to play. The slow-mo plus basic guns gives you lots to try.

The biggest flaw holding it back are the spray patterns on guns and the unreliable aim. Your bullets don't start off accurate on even the first shot (even when standing still) and I noticed they all seem to favor spraying into the far right on the reticle. This makes you miss crucial shots in otherwise perfectly timed moments even at closer ranges. The intention here might be to make you prioritize close, point-blank shots. But even then, the accuracy still feels more than unreliable.

The iron sights also seem misaligned and a bit faulty - moving around will make the model permanently sway into a whole different angle unless you re-aim the sights. The MP5 ironsights are misaligned for the entire game and the bullets travel much higher than your iron sights.

Otherwise, small QOL additions like hit markers, damage indicators (or damage sounds) and maybe more movement options would be amazing. The health and time UI could maybe communicate better? It took me several tries until I realized the red was your damage filling up instead of telling you your remaining health lol.

There's a great game here that has the potential to go fully standalone shooter if the gunplay gets more attention. Speedrunners and arena shooter fans would eat this up so fast with a leaderboard function. Keep it up!

(2 edits)

Goddamn.

I haven't even been able to finish through the first half of this and I can already tell how ridiculously good of a shooter it is. The difficulty is brutal but fair and challenging. Ammo can feel scarce at first until you realize the game is teaching you fire control. Once you do, you have more than enough bullets to make it through with precision shooting. Also, the soundtrack is simple but it already slaps.

There's only two weapons available at the moment but they both stand out on their own. You get a machine gun that spits lead as hard as it chews through your ammo, and a grenade launcher shotgun hybrid that absolutely GIBS everything. Forget the fists btw, trying to melee in this makes you feel like a suicidal ice skater. Your health can get immediately shredded if you take any shots and the most common health syringes only heal you for single digits. Make use of that super speed strafe if you wanna make it through.

Had an initial gripe with how the shotgun doesn't go in a circle spread - it goes in a horizontal line and forces you up close to land all your shots while still letting you crowd control. The game doesn't come with an instruction screen so it took some time for me to realize there was a grenade function (and a kick??) lol.

Would love to see some accessibility options in the future for mouse sensitivity and maybe a checkpoint system (please have mercy). Brutal shooters are great but the demo can feel a bit much at the moment if you're not experienced with high-paced shooters. One of the first enemies you encounter can be super annoying because their projectiles are blood red (just like almost all of the level) so you can barely see it coming. I can't even tell if it's actually hitscan or the projectiles just come too fast. The vertical movement/platforming in combat feels a bit redundant until you get into the towers level with the bouncing pads.

All in all, this game is seriously underrated and really deserves to stand out more on itchio. The fact that the DEMO has this much quality is awesome. It's got tons of potential to sit up there with New Blood shooters and all the boomer shooters in rage right now.