Quick Look: Rogue Shooter: The FPS Roguelike

Liking how it looks, gameplay seems quite relaxing and stressful at the same time.

Blake Stone, Doom, Duke and the other big games of this era looked considerably better than this, but they weren't the only FPSes to be released at the time. There was an FPS construction kit called Pie in the Sky 3D Game Creation System in 1992 that spawned a whole bunch of games, many released commercially in limited quantities, that looked pretty much on par with this. Stuff like Lethal Tender, Terminal Terror and Red Babe. So, it's kinda era appropriate, just evoking indie (or maybe shovelware) games of that era rather than the big names.

Looks like shit, sounds like shit, and looks boring as all hell. I resent the comparison to Doom, a masterpiece of careful level design, enemy placement, weapon balance, and monster art. Doom is NOT just a maze of narrow intersecting corridors in every direction, without any variety or thought. It's about navigating complex environments, and managing multiple enemies, often at different heights in the level, often in wide open play-spaces where you have room to maneuver and have to dodge projectile weapons.

This is closer to Wolf 3D, except again, that game has way better art, music, and sound-effects (the awful weapon sounds, level music, and lack of monster audio really bothers me in rogue shooter), and doesn't telegraph all its enemies with a radar system.

If this is a throwback to anything, it's a throwback to awful wolf3D knockoffs of the early 90s that took that engine and didn't know what to do with it.

Gwendolynn Haight is super cute. Just sayin'.

Also, you guys are crazy, Tower of Guns was NOT better than this. An entire game where you fight various turrets is fundamentally the most boring FPS possible. Also it was basically three dimensional bullet hell and the spike balls are enormous so that's also a deeply flawed concept.

Game looks ugly and boring.

This looks like a greenlite game beta. At least make the songs loop ;__;

I think I watched a completely different quick look than the majority of the comments here. This game looks awesome!

Haha those grindcore drums are hilarious.

This game's aesthetic is fucking fantastic.

Kinda wish people would accept games like this for what they are. It's a cheap little Doom-era FPS throwback with some cool RPG hooks to it. I can imagine putting down five bucks for this and getting a few hours with it.

Oh man, I'm so into everything in this. No, it doesn't look like Doom or even Blake Stone, but it looks like one of those long forgotten but sometimes really fun indie shooters that came on shareware compilation discs.

I'd rather just play a Zandronum roguelike mod instead.

Reception from the staff seems much warmer than the audience.

I'm with Brad. As soon as I saw those sprite-based enemies, I was entranced.

I want to like this game but it's music and weapon sound is bumming me out.

It's completely unfair to visually compare a game in the 90s to a game today. Doom didn't look like
"shit" at the time "because it had to." Doom was cutting edge at the time.

You could say this about any game, ever. "Game X wouldn't have done this if technology was more powerful." What's your point? Doom was doing the best it could at the time with the hardware that existed. It was pretty darn good-looking game at that moment in time.

You want a roguelike Doom? Get yourself Doom 2 ($5 on Steam, if you somehow don't own it) and ZDoom, generate some maps with OBLIGE, then add DoomRL Arsenal for an RPG-style loot system. I don't know of a WAD that will enforce permadeath, so just start over if you die.

To be clear, I'm not saying it wasn't impressive at the time. I'm saying the compromises were pretty clear even at the time, and the style hasn't aged well. It's one thing for a game to emulate the style of mid-90s 2D games, because at that point 2D games were technologically mature; it's quite another to emulate early 3D games, which at that point were extremely limited by the mass-market hardware of the day. I was specifically referring to the 2D sprites, which I'm guessing Carmack and Romero didn't use for artistic reasons.

To put it another way, I bet Star Fox was impressive in its day, but it's probably unbearable by modern standards. If someone put out a game now with SuperFX-style 3D, I'd feel exaclty the same way.

Wow somebody managed to make a first person shooter that is visually, sonically and mechanically worse than the original Wolfenstein3D in 2014. Poor developper, at least if this was sports he would have had his ass handed to him a long time ago and quit before engaging too far on his road to failure.

I was thinking the same as larrydavis, but this isn't it. The specific high-resolution cartoony guns are what remind me of... something. Can't put my finger on it. It was definitely a Doom-like game, in that the gun was at the center of the screen and I played it roughly around the time (give or take a few years) those other game were released.

That being said, ZPC looks pretty cool, actually. I might try to play it.

Speaking of all the Doom talk I would be willing to bet this has its roots in some source port like zDoom. Right off the bat I had flashbacks to Ken's Labrynth.

Anyway, it looks like forgettable Steam trash; but if you can find the Dopefish then this game will totally redeem itself.

I would like to add that if this were 1999 or thereabouts I would be playing this a lot.

Doom still looks great to me. It's still arguably the best shooter ever, which is pretty incredible for a 20 year old game made for $200,000 with two artists. Even today, it would be very difficult to improve upon Doom in any meaningful way.

This reminds me of the first game in Die Hard Trilogy. Why am I obsessed with Die Hard Trilogy!?

@development: I actually think I know of the thing you're talking about too, but can't remember its name either. Shooters were everywhere, man. ZPC was definitely the one I was talking about, though.

edit: Maybe you're thinking of PO'ed? I was thinking something that looked more like... Chex Quest or something. I'm just trying to look through lists of FPS games from back then and seeing what looks familiar.

Can anyone explain why this has any appeal at all? Seems like garbage.

These colours make me think Commander Keen, but in first person.

Fair enough. I regret saying "looked like shit" because that's more than a bit hyperbolic. I tried to change my post after rereading it, but the comment thread wasn't updating and I couldn't get at it until it was too late.

I think I'm in agreement with you here.

That said, this game looked kind of fun to me. The audio is a huge turn off though. :/

I can't comment about the game's mechanics, I haven't played it and I doubt I will. One can see what they're trying to mimic with the graphics, now whether that's because they want to look like Doom or lack the art talent to create higher quality assets is beyond me. You can make a sprite based FPS look good if you put in the effort and I don't honestly think they did. Audio is trash. The effects and music doesn't add anything to the already bland game. So yea, pass.

People hate on Rouges but I love the gameplay

I don't think there's anything wrong with the visual design, but the UI design reaally doesn't match what they're going for. Even something as archaic looking as Doom has a sense of cohesion with all its elements, this just has way too many odd conflicts in color/typeface usage.

I feel like this could be something very cool with a bit more time in the oven though.

I like the idea. Why would you ever stop the music, even though its nothing special, after killing every enemy?

I'm getting mad Chex Quest vibes from this. And sweet Blake Stone reference, @brad

Needs more Bobby Prince.

This could be tightened up a little, loop the music and put some better sounds for the guns and I wouldn't have a problem running around and it looks ok as is for the right price, like 1-3 dollars.

He released a game and half the people here sound like they like it along with Jeff, Brad, and Vinny. Sounds like complete success to me.

Yes, me too.

It's true that this game doesn't look as good as Doom or Wolfenstein 3D… but it totally nails the Chex Quest look.

is that live percussion I'm hearing?

@grantheaslip said:

I don't like RTS games, but I'm okay with them existing.

Maybe my first impression of this game was too harsh. It definitely needs better art because those monsters look lame, get rid of the hands on the gun sprites; hands are totally unnecessary, make the soundtrack more metal and just straight up rip sound effects from Doom and you have a kind of decent game.

It looked pretty boring for most of the quick look until Jeff got to level 5 and things went bananas. It should be that crazy from the start.

This needs to look like Child of Light.

I kind of like everything about this.

I never said I wasn't okay with this existing. I'm just saying the way it looks does absolutely nothing for me, and I'm honestly kind of baffled by the retro appeal in a way that I'm usually not.

Others obviously like it, and all the power to them, especially when they're supporting an indie developer.

I think the environments look fine for what they're going for, but the hands & the weapons look bad and don't fit the rest of the aesthetic. The monsters don't really fit well, either.

The sound design is just awful.

I dunno. Looks kinda fun I guess. Maybe I'll try it.

God once the drums kicked in, I couldn't stop laughing.

Also agree, every part of the look of this game is pretty bad, from the enemies to the weapons. Wish it didn't bother me so much but it's a full deal breaker.

Looks fun to me

this game looks like a lot of fun but also looks like it was drawn in paint