Quick Look: Earth's Dawn

The only good bug is a dead one.

Is this going to be a stand-up fight, sir, or another bug hunt?

I find it hard to believe a game would have four player characters on screen and make three of them completely useless. That makes absolutely no sense at all, jason has to be missing something.

This doesn't seem like a good thing at all.

And Jason, that rocket launcher has leech, so it heals you when you attack with it.

Kinda looks like budget Vanillaware. The proximity of the camera to the characters looks really uncomfortable, and your allies doing nothing is weird. They're primarily a smartphone developer, maybe that explains some of the weird choices.

Still, it actually seems kinda fun. There's just something endearing about these small Japanese games, like Mitsurugi Kamui Hikae or Momodora.

From Jason's description on the Bombcast, I thought this might be up my alley, but I'm glad I waited for the quick look because, man - this looks clunky as shit.

Seems like this is 90% of the way to a damned good game, but that 10% just kills it. Pity :(

The visual style of this game is really not my cup of tea. Does seem like there are some potentially neat ideas in there though.

The art style of this game is so bad. Vanillaware with no finesse.

The animation looks really bad, yeesh

Bored within 5 minutes, but to be fair, I was extremely put off by the closeness of the camera within 10 seconds.

I was thinking the same thing; like Brad pointed out, they have little health bars and everything. I mean, I suppose it's possible that the developers had half-created a system for them and then run out of money, or time?

This art does not thrill me. This does not seem cool at all. This is the one time where I cannot say I'm on the same page as Jason.

Nothing about that game clicks right for me at all. It makes me sad to even watch it being played.

Looks like the dev's ambition exceeded their skill with this one.

Looks well made, but its downfall will be my inevitable comparisons to Muramasa and Odin Sphere's combat.

Cool music.

Come to think of it, is this game even complete? There's a lot of out-of-place developer code which probably shouldn't be visible floating on the left-hand side of the screen; stuff like,

$Boost.Charged

$Capacity.0.02

$DestroyAttack

$Fuel.60E

That sort of stuff screams, "We can't meet our deadline and no time for QA; let's just shove this out the door and charge full price anyway!" :b

This has a real nice look to it, but it seems like it would get repetitive pretty fast and it's way too fiddly with it's ability system. The last thing I want to do in a game this style is fiddle around with combo chains and minor stat boosts constantly /=

Would you like to know more?

.... I mean kinda...

"The only good bug is a dead bug."

That's how it is supposed to go. Sorry. I cannot abide misquoting Starship Troopers.

When the guy who plays monster hunters says your game is to grindy....and I still think VR could be the savior of arcades. If I lived in a large enough town and had money to invest that would be an arcade I would try to open. It seems like to great of an idea.

Get Sword of Sodan vibes from this.

Oof... this art

Damn it. Both of my in-reserve bug quotes have been quoted.

This game reminds me of Mercenary Kings. That's not good.

This would be much more tolerable if you could zoom out... why are we so damn close... you cant even see the entire boss on the screen.

Sort of interested in this. Loved Odin Sphere - though the multiple character story arcs extended the game way past it's welcome imo.

Anyone know how long this game might be?

Having the camera zoomed in so far that you can't even see the entire attack of bosses is not a good thing. Everytime that guy jumps, they just have to guess where he will land, because there's no indication where he will land. Same problem with the firey spread shot.

Another dealbreaker is having the enemies on a different plane at certain times. one moment, your character model and the enemy model can collide into eachother without taking damage, but when you swing your sword ,the enemy is suddenly on the same plane. That stuff never looked good to me. Either have it like Shadow Complex, where you can be clear about enemies being in the background or on the foreground, or just have everything play on the same plane.

oOoOooh this is the game Jason was talking about in UPF and said it had a monster huntery gameplay loop, isn't it? I just caught the end of the sentence when he said it and my ears perked up but not enough apparently to go back and listen again. I really like components of what I'm seeing here, but... others have already mentioned it kinda doesn't seem done. The weird variable name in the scrolling text on the left look like placeholders, the balance seems wonked if you're having to just dash past one monster and then obliterating the next, and the people following you seem like a half-finished afterthought. On the other hand that artstyle speaks to me for sure. Scored missions that reward you based on how well you do is my Megaman Zero jam, but having to play the same mission multiple times instead of just getting the reward seems like nobody bothered to playtest.

Also, poison status effect with no consumable healing items? That's some Too Human shit

Why is the camera like 2 feet from the character at all times?

Well, that thing is named a Deep One so that's Lovecraft opposed to bugs. Wonder how much of that is in there.

WHY WON'T THEY DO ANYTHING!?

Maybe there is some sort of unadvertised cooperative play? The extra soldiers could be real people and at that point would go into battle with you but as cpu bots they don't participate?

Or maybe it was to give the feel of rolling with a squad? Then maybe the enemy is a larger swarm and the other soldiers are all around you fighting other bugs?

Or maybe I'm trying to justify a bad design idea and/or an unfinished mechanic.

Jason @10:05 - "Vengeful Expanding Sac? What does that do?"

oh... i can venture a few guesses, lol.

"It looks good"? "I like how it looks"? What?

@inquisitorhayt: How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?

Thanks so much for playing this Jason! I wouldn't have known about it otherwise.

It's like darkest dungeon, except the other 3 guys are smart enough to run away.

This seems half done...

Just another person chiming in, totally turned off by the design aesthetic. What's the deal with their scale? It seems less super deformed and more people suffering Dwarfism. And the look like every other other terrible 2D game on a mobile devices. Oh dear.

The art is creeping me out. It vaguely reminds of the most horrifying "children's" show of all time, Angela Anaconda.

Came to the comments expecting to find an explanation about the other party members that Jason had just missed but apparently not? What a bizarre thing to include.

@sammo21 said:

A bandersnatch is a Lewis Carroll thing, so I think they're just using random literary creature names.

Hmmm, I'm actually more interested in this after watching the Quick Look. The thing is, though, I have a lot of patience with most games in general. Despite some obvious flaws, I'll most likely pick this up at some point.

@somethingclever: I thought it may be for the different load-outs. Like you would would assign a load-out to each character then hotswitch in a mission. But it could also just be remnants of a rushed-out unfinished game.

I want to like this game. After just 5 minutes, the combat looks fairly simple but still fun. I'm liking the art style and just overall graphical presentation too. The sound effects are also to my liking. But why does the camera have to be pulled in so damn close? It's so awkward and seems like it was done just to obscure things off screen until you get right on top of them. It should be pulled back twice as far, at least.

I didn't really like what I saw here. In my opinion the combat looks repetitive , the character models are oddly proportioned, the camera is too close, the upgrade system doesn't seem streamlined, and why do you have a team with you that doesn't do anything?