Things aren’t looking good for me. I’m a few levels into Selaco, a new FPS out now on Steam, and I’m stuck behind a bar as a group of sci-fi soldiers unload their rifles and shotguns into my hiding spot. I’m also low on health. So yeah, a bad spot to be in. I take a deep breath and try something.

As smoothly as I can I slide out from behind the bar, toss an ice grenade toward the enemies, and then dash behind a wall. A moment later a boom happens and my foes are frozen. I spot a nearby propane tank, pick it up, and chuck it at them. A second later I shoot it and watch them blow up. On my screen, a notification lets me know I’ve killed enough of these bastards to unlock a new milestone and earned some new crafting materials to make my assault rifle even better. Sweet!

I then remember that the game I’m playing—that lets me do all this and more was built using a modified version of the ancient Doom engine and giggle. This kind of thing happens a lot in Selaco, a game that rarely feels like it’s built on old bones and dated tech, but instead feels like a polished and modern shooter with some slick retro visuals. What’s most surprising about Selaco isn’t that it’s developed in GZDoom, but that it might be one of the best shooters I’ve played in years.

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[–] Signtist@lemm.ee 103 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Makes sense. I've always been disappointed that instead of using better processing power to make bigger, more complex games, we used it to make the same games with more complex animations and details. I don't want a game that only differs from its predecessors through use of graphical upgrades like individual blades of grass swaying in the wind, or the character starting to sweat in relation to their exertion; I want games with PS1-PS2 graphics and animation quality, but with complex gameplay that the consoles of that era could only dream of being able to handle.

[–] Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 42 points 5 months ago (2 children)

There's something special about a game like red dead 2 or ghost of tsushima that makes you stop and just enjoy the scenery. Games with good graphics have their place, it's just that they need to also have all the other elements to be any good.

[–] IMALlama@lemmy.world 23 points 5 months ago

Red dead redemption 2 didn't stop at being pretty. If it did I don't think we would all talk about it so fondly. Totally agree that it's a great looking game though.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 5 months ago (2 children)

thing is, games aren't pretty because they model every cell in every lifeform and have 5 gigabyte textures for each individual leaf, they're pretty because they have good graphical design.

Just lighting alone is like 50% of making a scene look nice, you can literally just slap together a low-poly flat-colour scene in blender and set up nice lighting and people will call you talented.

A prime example of this is valheim: ps2-style models and textures and yet the lighting and general graphical design makes it look lovely and atmospheric, especially combined with the music.

[–] Archelon@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Hell, minecraft’s vanilla textures look downright gorgeous with lighting mods.

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[–] drislands@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago

Great point. I saw an interesting video recently that touched on this exact issue:

https://youtu.be/x4_8rIUh7E8?si=-E1VWA8bZ-eVibkL

As graphics increase in quality, the desire for developers to fill spaces with clutter grows -- which makes it harder to make meaningful levels with thoughtful design.

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[–] SkyNTP@lemmy.ml 96 points 5 months ago (8 children)

Triple AAA games are usually very polished. But polish doesn't make games fun. Polish is important with accessibility, and it's easy to see why accessibility is important for a big studio casting a wide net.

But fun? That comes from creativity and innovation. Big studios are averse to risk taking, and struggle to attract creative individuals, because the corporate culture seeks to stamp out individuality in the name of process and procedure.

So yeah, more evidence of this. My money is going to Indy devs who prioritize fun over polish. (But polish is good to have too).

[–] SmackemWittadic@lemmy.world 64 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Triple AAA

I absolutely love AAAAAAAAA games

[–] Zink@programming.dev 22 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Oh you mean the Serious Sam series? Tons of fun!

[–] neidu2@feddit.nl 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ah, the memories... 2001, lan party at a friends house just after we'd turned 18. Way too little sleep, and playing Serious Sam on coop. Good times.

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[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

Love me Serious Sam. Really wish Croteam wouldn't try to be a AAA studio. SS4 only real issue was it was an optimized mess. Great game mechanics, great levels, great music, great writing and VA work, but uglier and more stuttery then their previous games. They switched to using Unreal Engine for Talos 2, so I'm guessing they prioritized on just making the game rather then trying to make their own game engine, which had previously been a point of pride for them. Really looking for to their future games. Expecting a Talos 2 expansion before a new Sam game, but looking forward regardless.

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[–] Kowowow@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 months ago

Sounds like dankpods

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[–] Unforeseen@sh.itjust.works 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, exactly the same thing at play in the movie industry as well.

[–] aStonedSanta@lemm.ee 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Agreed. I think it’s why TV exploded so much and led to things like Netflix making 1 billion shows a year. Breaking Bad showed people you can get away with deep stories with engaging character development on the home screens imo. Or that’s when I saw the change or awakened to the tide.

Edit. I think we are also seeing it become exactly what it left the movie industry for though. Wonder what our next medium will be they exploit to death with mundane entertainment.

[–] ItalianSkeletonGaming@mastodon.social 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

@SkyNTP @IndustryStandard Indie games may be janky, but jank is experimentation, jank is risk, jank is beautiful

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[–] YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I believe both are pretty important, at least to me. I highly value accessibility as someone with various disabilities and particularities and limited concentration, a game that is accessible to me is easy to start playing and for any amount of time so I can stop and afk as needed. It also means difficulty and quality of life options and features so I can choose how I want to play and play efficiently at my own pace. However if the gameplay/fun factor isn't there I'm not going to enjoy it regardless. So both are very important in my experience.

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[–] MagnyusG@lemmy.world 27 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Doom wads and hacks in recent years have been doing some absolutely insane things, and it's only been getting better as more and more people are realising the things they can do with it. I'm not surprised in the slightest.

Total Chaos has got to be the most mind-blowing to me, it's a total conversion mod built of GZDoom. https://youtu.be/L7IITZDBvqE

[–] obsolete@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I can't believe I have never heard of Total Chaos. It looks awesome!

I wonder what other good other good GZDoom based games I am missing out on. :)

[–] MagnyusG@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Here's another one, Solace Dreams https://youtu.be/IcrYfmkPl-E also really impressive, though the game didn't seem all that balanced when this video was posted, not sure if it's been improved since or if the creators moved on to another project.

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[–] aStonedSanta@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

So excited to see how the genre grows. Expecting some really fucking cool rogue like(lites?) games from it.

[–] magic_lobster_party@kbin.run 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Started playing it and I’m liking it so far! The low health regen is very clever. Solves the problem in Half Life 1 where the player is always finishing encounters at 1 HP without the need for excessive health pickups. Now the player is guaranteed to have at least 35 HP.

The immersion is really great as well. Often I forget that all the enemies are just 2D sprites.

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[–] workerONE@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The Demo was great, Im going to play this today

[–] IMALlama@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Let us know what you think of it! It certainly looks like it could be entertaining.

[–] magic_lobster_party@kbin.run 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I’m not the same person, but I’ve played a few levels now. I think it’s really good, especially for being early access. Reminds me of original Half Life, so if you like that kind of game it’s a strong recommend!

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[–] BallShapedMan@lemmy.world 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Been on my wishlist since 2001! I can't wait to have time to play.

[–] Retrograde@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Whattt 2001??

[–] BallShapedMan@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Oops... 2021. Fail me!

[–] Retrograde@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The funny thing is that with these doom engine games it might as well be a project from 2001 :)

[–] BallShapedMan@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Good point! They could have even had a period accurate trailer, with that guy with the really deep voice like in movie trailers back then "A game, 20 years in the making..."

[–] Retrograde@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago (4 children)

(Online features require 56k modem)

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[–] dezmd@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Anybody that played the Aliens Total Conversion on the original Doom engine (best Aliens themed shooter oriented FPS) knows just how awesome things can turn out.

/yes I'm old

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Aliens_TC

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[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago (5 children)

If anyone wants a complete GZDoom game (or 2 or 3 depending on how your counting) right now to try, Hedon is really great. Also, made by a solo dev(music and VA work was outsourced), so absolute flex on AAA game companies.

[–] sag@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago

+1 for Hedon. It's pretty good.

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[–] Mako_Bunny@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 5 months ago

This game is great. Feels kinda like Half Life with the fast paced combat of Doom. The exploration is just as good as the gun play and some of the solutions to secrets feel so clever

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 10 points 5 months ago

FYI: Cross-platform cloud save sync is currently not working. Developers are working on a solution. Workaround is to enforce Proton.

[–] Tugboater203@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

I put it on my Syeam wishlist, until I can get some tasty wifi.

[–] GTG3000@programming.dev 5 points 5 months ago

I feel like it's a little disingenuous to call it "Doom Tech" when it's modern GZDoom with proper full 3D and shit.

But it is true that it's way more systemic than anything AAA in the genre.

[–] TaeKwonDoh@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

Sure it "looks old", but it's sooooo smooth. Kinda reminds me of the Quake remaster in this regard, and that one holds up pretty well in this day and age.

Steam Summer sale's lookin' pretty good this year on my end.

[–] aStonedSanta@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago

Watched a YouTube video on this last night. https://youtu.be/_rcuZvU-BiQ?si=3uYytK4vkOA-5yJx

Plan to buy it later. Lol

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