Gravepicker

Deadliest Dem(o(li)tio)n has fuzzy, low-health revivable archviles and I loved them. Their sounds are unchanged, so if you have any experience with regular archviles you'll be on the lookout (hearout?) for them, and they're squishy enough that a few chaingun bullets or a single shotgun shell can take care of them, so they're not as dangerous as you may initially think. On the other hand, the fuzz effect makes them easier to loose track of in crowds, and since they can revive each other and be revived by regular archies as well, you really have to hunt them down or else. I think they're pretty much a more "extreme" archvile in that you have to prioritize them even more, especially if there's more that two of them and they have access to open space/large rooms, but once found they're pretty easy to deal with most of the time. For those who played the wad, I had quite a lot of trouble with the "archvile archive", but it was fun to struggle on it nonetheless: cramped fights with time pressure are quick to finish (either by beating them or dying to them) so saving before it made it a lot more fun for me. Had I tried to do a saveless run of that map on UV, my opinion would probably be a lot more salty heheheh.

Fair enough. I probably shouldn't be shitting all over a game I mostly enjoyed, even if I personally don't really like the direction it takes the series in. Sorry for being an overly negative dickhead in that earlier comment. About the state of AAA game development, a lot has been said already in this thread, and I certainly don't have any insider info or insight into it. But I do agree with the view that the way it's going is absolutely unsustainable longterm, even for those companies that are doing fine right now. Or at least I really wish it will be. Trained and tested professionals should be a commodity to companies, not just a fungible resource. As a teenager, I dreamed of entering the field of videogame development, as probably a lot of other posters of this site did. My life took a different path pretty early, but when I see the state of the industry right now, can't help but think that it was for the best. I would have liked to be working as idSoft was back in the early/mid nineties: in games that me and the whole team really wanted to play. Triple A companies, which is probably where most people in the industry work, don't seem to have that environment at all.

Except now you get to do it in a barren open world fighting endless retrains of the same bosses and mini-bosses. And if you get bored of that, you have 40+ copy-pasted dungeons. All that just to stretch what could have been a well-paced 40-60 hour game into a 120 hour marathon of sameyness. Exagerated a bit for effect, yeah, but Elden Ring reeks of "end of an era" for FromSoft, even if I would like it otherwise. As for the topic at hand, not much to add but echo the sentiments that if the AAA industry can't afford much experimentation with their current business model, they're gonna have to get accustomed to not taking my money. Which won't hurt them, as there are endless consumers for their products. Maybe a shame, but whaddaya gonna do.

MAP08 of Swift Death. I was having trouble with some of the maps up to that point (the two switch sequence for getting to MAP01's exit made me realize I'm bad at turning quickly and precisely, for instance), but with some perseverance I got there. Now all I can see is too much hurtfloor, too much platforming, too much archvlie right behind you overlooking almost the whole map. Not saying the map is bad, it's me who needs to up his game, but damn, I hadn't needed this many tries on all the other maps combined. Only map in the .wad up to that point that still kills me in the first 5-6 seconds sometimes even knowing where things are. Well, not really now that I think about it, but MAP06 only did that to me cause I'm blind and didn't see the super shotty until the map was 90% clear of enemies.

Absolutely recommended on my part. If I remember correctly (I played it around 7 or 8 years ago) it had a conversation system in which your character is mute, but you can let either one of you two faerie friends talk at any given time, one of them being more aggressive and distrustful and the other being nicer and more caring. I wouldn't, from memory, say that its a masterpiece of storytelling, but a pretty neat spin on the "your character has 2/3 personalities and you can choose which one to use in every social interaction" trope of say, Mass Effect or The Walking Dead. As a platformer/metroidvania it was solid, I remember enjoying it through to 80/90% completion. I should probably revisit it and try to finish it. Not much to say about this one other than just try it. It was a pretty grueling experience for the first two hours for me, but once you get used to the graphics, sounds and controls, you get one of the most bonkers (dunno if in a good or bad way) criticisms of capitalism I've seen in long while. Oh, and once you have most of the unlocks you become satisfyingly overpowered. As for my contribution to the topic, I'll go with Devil Daggers, an FPS in which you are trapped in an arena killing increasingly more foes. You die in one hit, and while the waves are somewhat randomized, you can guess what's coming next with like 90% certainty once you know the game. The objective is to survive as long as you can, with the WR being at 45mins last time I checked (ages ago though). I didn't play it that much because I was pretty busy IRL at the time, but learning how to survive for longer and longer was pretty fun. I hear there's a sequel/spiritual successor by the same developer/team, but can't remember it's name from the top of my head and haven't played it. edit, to Maribo's reply: thx for the corrections. I certainly didn't remember it properly, but I could have researched it a bit before spreading falsehoods.

I just love watching PEs overwhelm cacos with lost souls. I hate having to clean up afterwards, but I've deluded myself into thinking it's worth my time.

I kind of agree with both accounts. I wouldn't say the "simple pieces" approach is good design, or better than the alternative (which, btw, seems a little of a strawman, as at least later the OP clarified that they wouldn't want overly complex pieces and would use them in moderation). I do think that it leaves more design space, as in, it leaves more room to design different combat encounters (please, any game designers/people with actual game design knowledge, correct my use of "design space" if it was inaccurate). And I actually also think that a system that allows for more design space is desirable for a community like this one, that isn't trying to make one single game/mod but releases hundreds or even thousands of maps every year. Monster designs that are simple but fill a new role in the game seem to me far more likely to be found useful by other creators. Even then, it's not like we have to choose, either collectively or as individual creators. tl; dr: I prefer the first choice given by Gez, but do what you like. Though do it knowing that you can either go Nuts or go Doom Eternal.

Yep, flats are separate from wall textures. The screenshots look really nice, I'll download it, but I'm pretty busy lately so I don't know if I'll have much time for playing it. Still, just from the screenies I'd say good job.

Did mouldy do the music for that? Not gonna lie, it's weird for an ad, but I kinda love it.

I remember being in love with Electro Cute Bunny around 12 years ago. Listened to it again now that I was reminded of The Dark Side of Phobos by this thread... I guess my tastes have changed, doesn't live up to my memories. Also loved the remix albums of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Seasons, very nostalgic games for me. Essence of Lemon/Lime if I'm not mistaken. Maybe I shouldn't revisit those, keep the good memories intact hehe. Still, listened to OCR albums quite a lot back then, hadn't visited the site in years, as others have said. Wouldn't have heard the news if not for this post.

Haven't played it in a while, had forgotten about it until I read the topic's titular question, but here goes: Proteus. It's a walking simulator set in a procedurally generated alien world. You just go places and see weird and beautiful things. Used to use it to relax when I got home from university some ten years back. I should probably go back to it, it's already downloaded while I typed this reply.

I'm in love with what I've seen (trough pictures) and heard from Chile. It has like, pretty much every climate and ecosystem on the planet. In a single country. How cool is that? About my country, Spain is pretty diverse too. Where I live the climate is humid and temperate, so there's green everywhere. Nothing like D2ISO hehehe. Don't have photos lying around, but it's called Galicia, if anyone's interested. It's also a country with a lot of historical buildings, from ancient times to today. So it certainly has a lot to see, for my taste at least. I would ramble for a couple paragraphs about my country's political climate, but I'll just go with the positives. I can already complain about that with my fellow spaniards.

Don't. Unless you want an action-RPG in which most enemies are really spongy and their attacks seem either completely unavoidable or hilariously slow and telegraphed, don't. I liked the story, and the setting is one of my favorites among medieval fantasy; but the gameplay is, if the memory of my 1.5 playthroughs serves, atrocious. You can move Geralt around and time your hits, but the combat ends up being pretty by-the-numbers because the combat mechanics and enemy movesets are really unpolished. Shame, I really wanted to enjoy that game. On the other hand, I've heard that the second and especially third games in the franchise are a lot better. So maybe if you started with that initial abomination you'd have liked The Witcher 2 more. Maybe, but at what cost?

I had the exact same impression about them, and then I decided to try them. Really enjoyed what I've played so far. For me, the beauty in that series' combat is that contrary to what most people seem to think (git gud and all that), they're not that demanding mechanically. They do force you to pay attention to the enemy's actions, prioritize defense over offense (less so as the series went on), and especially to keep you cool. Panicking is the most expedient way to death in those games; and since the environments are bleak, the enemies scary and the punishment for death is severe, it's easy to get tense and indecisive. But if you stay calm and have a plan, it's not that difficult to beat. In that way, it reminds me of slaughtermaps (or what I've played of those). And like in those, some encounters are really difficult without foreknowledge, which is frustrating to some, but unless you died before all the enemies in the encounter showed up (a lot more uncommon in Dark Souls than in slaughtermaps in my experience hehe) you'll probably come up with a plan good enough to get your souls back and even beat them next try. For my answer, I'll stick with FromSoft: Elden Ring. I wouldn't say I hate it, and plan on finishing it, but the open world aspect and the repeat bosses really diminished the experience for me. Combat was what I'd expect from DS4 (DS3 but with the freedom to go a bit faster: the jump as both a way to dodge low attacks and deliver stronger hits yourself), but if you're fighting the same enemies over and over it gets a lot more tiring. I spent about 120h I think playing through most of it, including optional areas, but while there were really high points, I'd rather have had those condensed into 60-80h like in the Dark Souls series. Going off memory for the playtimes so maybe I'm way off, but ER definitely dragged on IMHO.

Aristotle will remember that. Seriously though, if maybe not for absolutely everything (too much philosophy for me in that question), I think you're right when it comes to art. Art is made to elicit emotional response, but the response depends substantially on the person doing the "experiencing" of the piece of art. The first Doom titles were made to be scary, but the palette and technical limitations have made it so that, for most people today, they're not that scary anymore. Still, 10 years ago, when I first played Doom I & II, the dark maze of E1M2 was pretty scary to me, maybe to do with the fact that I was going though a rough patch and was a very excitable young man. And I bet that if you get someone younger than 8-10 years old playing that section they will be scared. To me, when I first played them, the classic Doom games appeared to be really fast and over the top FPS games. But I think it was because: 1. They were fast and over the top compared to other shooters I had played up until then. 2. When I started reading people's opinions on the games online, those were the qualities that seemed to pop up the most. So Doom is a million different things to a just as many different doomers, which is what I got away from Maribo's post. And with its modability and enduring modding community, it's becoming more and more of that as we speak. And I love it.