Last week I came across a great list of demo versions on Steam that are worth checking out, and almost at the same moment I downloaded several. One of them resonated with me so much that I simply had to share. The review may seem overly complimentary, but it is written absolutely sincerely: believe me, I would not waste valuable time writing about something that does not evoke strong emotions.
Trailer for trailer lovers
So, what does VOIN consist of??
— Souls mechanics: we die after several hits, we use evasion a lot, when we die we lose currency and unattached items that can be picked up at the place of death, free exploration of locations and stamina charges
— Pace and gameplay elements of meat shooters: evasion is carried out in jerks with short time dilation, first-person view, high speed of movement, replenishment of health by causing damage to opponents. And, of course, flying pieces of enemy flesh.
— Moving in the spirit of the Arkane games: after putting away the weapon, you can blink in any direction, it recharges quickly and allows you to hover in the air for a while. Feels exactly like “The Shift” from Dishonored.
All these elements are neatly connected and work together, no contradiction arises. And sometimes you want to exclaim, “Why didn’t anyone think of combining this before?”?»
For example, I don’t know a single person who likes fall damage and damn PITs in souls. In VOIN, falling from a great height is not only pleasant, but also useful: landing creates a thunderclap, causing damage to everyone around. Naturally, this is perfectly supported by the presence of verticality in locations: you can jump, climb, move everywhere. In this regard, the game is more like the creations of Arkane than Elden Ring, where movement is artificially limited and requires attention.
I would add more gifs, but even one tenor took 18 hours to check
The problem of transferring a combat system with evasions to a first-person perspective was solved in a very interesting way. There are obvious problems with this:
1. Rolling in first person will make the player feel nauseous.
2. Replacing rolls with dashes greatly increases the dynamics: after all, the dash animation will in any case happen faster than the roll animation in Souls. High dynamics increases the requirements for hitting windows and limits the ability to use objects and spells.
3. The first-person camera greatly narrows the view. The player does not see opponents from behind, has limited vision of opponents from the side and cannot always correctly read their actions. This means that he will either die unfairly, or the soulful fragility of the character will be lost.
4. Animations from the first person https://jetbingocasino.co.uk/login/ should also be different, spectacular circular strikes with a swing will look strange with a fixed camera, and with a non-fixed camera the player will start to feel sick.
It’s hard to believe that this is not the product of a huge studio, but the work of one person
This is what lies on the surface, there are even more pitfalls, but Sozidar gracefully gets out of the situation everywhere. Yes, due to jerks, the dynamics increase and begin to resemble the good old Painkiller with high-speed movement through levels due to jumping, but with successful dodging, time slows down for a short time, giving you the opportunity to assess the situation and think about the next step. And you won’t have to stop during the battle to drink estus – health is restored only when striking, that is, to survive you need to actively deal damage, running from opponents and waiting for the perfect moment will not work.
If in souls combat resembles a tense but leisurely dance, here it is more of a rhythmic, high-speed dance of death: with a large number of opponents, the loss of any opportunity, missing any blow can be fatal. Moreover, 3-4 hits are enough for death. This format gives a lot of fresh impressions of the process.
The lack of a wide view is solved by backlighting the edges of the screen. You may not even see the enemy, but the game will still give you a signal when you need to dodge. In theory, backlighting eliminates the need to memorize motion sets, and for this we [s]suffer[/s] playing soulslicks. In practice, you still need to learn movesets, it’s just that the focus is a little different. You most often fight a crowd of opponents at once, and the better you understand their patterns, the easier it is to catch the rhythm and not take damage. Local zombies love to attack simultaneously or one by one, but without interruption. The backlight helps you notice when it’s time to press a button, but it doesn’t cover the need to worry about positioning and looking for windows to attack. In addition, the number of jerks is limited, which forces you to continuously move sideways, use obstacles and other opponents as human shields.
And the coolest thing. The weapon has a movable hitbox. For those who don’t know, a hitbox is an area in the space around a weapon that determines whether you hit the enemy or not. If the weapon’s hitbox intersects with the enemy’s hitbox, then the attack is successful, otherwise it goes into milk.
So, having deprived you of the ability to perform tricks with somersaults, circular attacks and other tricky feints, the developer gives a more interesting option: while performing an attack, the hitbox will move in accordance with how the character moves. If you dash, the weapon’s hitbox will go across the entire dash line. If you rotate the camera 180 degrees to the left during a hit, the hitbox will describe an arc. It sounds inconvenient, but in fact it is a very *_physical_* process and therefore intuitive. Where you move is where you will strike – no complicated combinations or new control styles. Naturally, the hitbox is different for different weapons – this must be taken into account.
That same lightning sting
There’s more to the world of VOIN than just battles
And this is what the battle looks like in retro mode
And this base creates a self-sufficient system that you can play for 10 hours and have fun. In the demo, leveling is very limited, one location is available, the plot exists only in item descriptions, sometimes there is not enough music and sound design, there are bugs, but even so the game feels more thoughtful and polished than many paid projects from early access. You see why I was impressed?
And the game is also very beautiful both in terms of the design of locations/items/enemies, and in terms of graphics. I find it very hard to believe that one person did this. There is a retro mode with a reduced number of colors and pixelation, which looks stylish and immediately says “this is an indie with nostalgia for the games of the 2000s”. But without it, the game looks so good and expensive that there is no need for any nostalgia – before us is an independent work, screenshots from which can be used as wallpaper.
Nature of the main location
The same nature, but in retro mode
These bells are not just decoration, but a way to cleanse and pump up objects
And this is the gateway to our little cozy hub
And this is also part of the hub – some gigantism is inherent in the locations
The style, which also combines features of Dark Souls and DOOM, is partly to blame for this. From the first there are giant halls with bells, dark ice caves, half-abandoned castles and, of course, the armor style of the main character. From the second – horned and growling victims of the epidemic, suspiciously reminiscent of demons, pieces of demonic meat used to place souls, giant gates decorated as if they lead to hell, and some other weapons that evoke associations with the upcoming DOOM: Dark Ages. Surprisingly, these two styles fit together like siblings.
I don’t know what will happen next. This is still far from a finished product and it is quite possible to screw everything up. Maybe we’ve seen all the best, but the rest of the locations will be monotonous, new enemies will be reskins of existing ones, and the plot will be weak and will only be annoying. Maybe development will take years, during which Sozidar will become exhausted and burn out. But given the current level, it’s easy to believe that everything will be fine and we will get, if not a new word in the genre, then at least a very strong synthesis of best practices. Therefore, I recommend playing it and forming your own opinion. And to reassure the doubters, I asked the developer a couple of exciting questions. I post the answers here as they are:
The environment in the game are ready-made assets for UE or you even made the models yourself?
Environment and monster assets were purchased, but everything was heavily modified and simplified for the sake of overall style and optimization. from the original visual assets only the model of the main character and his animations.
How big are you planning the game in terms of the number of locations and bosses??
In Early Access there will be at least one new small location between the tutorial and the current large location, in which you can master the basic mechanics in a more compact and safe space. In addition to this, by early access I hope to have time to complete a second large location in the spirit of the current one, but visually different. To version 1.0 at least three more locations are planned with several large dungeons. Each location has its own final boss. I’d also like to add optional bosses, but we’ll see how I manage.
Will there be long-range weapons in the game and how varied will the gameplay be in terms of leveling up?? About the same thing, just with different nuances, or it will be possible to assemble fundamentally different builds?
The combat system will remain more focused on close combat, but in the future there will be weapon types and abilities for mid-range combat. For example, one of the planned weapon types is a bow sword, in which normal attacks (LMB) will work in close combat, and a runic strike (RMB) will fire an arrow at a medium distance.
In addition to the current leveling mechanics, I plan to make gaining levels more significant by adding a system similar to amulets from hollow knight. These are unique items that will be placed in the world manually and each of these items will have a unique ability. And the character level will affect the maximum number of such items that the character can equip/activate.
More mechanics are also planned for manipulating items of equipment. The next mechanic on the list is the ability to combine two items of the same type of maximum quality into one, resulting in an item with two unique effects. This will open up space for a huge number of possible combinations. Early tests of this mechanic are already very encouraging.
