Incline Daedalus No Escape - Top down Arena Shooter inspired by Q3A, UT and Alien Breed

[Astral Rag]

I just discovered this new top-down arena shooter, I'm downloading it now and will post some impressions later.

Ever wanted to play Unreal tournament or Quake 3 Arena from a top down 2D perspective ? Maybe not, but now that you think about it, I'm sure you realize how amazing this would be ! Daedalus - No Escape brings you exactly that, the same feel and control as in an arena FPS but from top down, in a dark sci-fi mood inspired by Alien Breed.

In control of a space marine, walk the arena and defeat your opponents using powerful weapons. No feelings, no mercy, only your gun does the talking.


Features:

single player, multi player
game modes: highscore, deathmatch, last man standing, team deathmatch, capture the flag
different control schemes: FPS-like, fixed camera
9 cool weapons
lots of maps
map editor
original soundtrack
windows, linux and mac support

http://store.steampowered.com/app/315830

Back in time, when I was younger, I was a big fan of the Alien Breed games I used to play on Amiga. For sure the best one was Alien Breed Tower Assault. Then a few years later came Quake 3 Arena on PC. This was the first FPS game I played in LAN with an arena mode.

From there I always told myself that it would be really cool to have a mix of these two games: a multiplayer arena shooter with 2d top down graphics ... but I never saw it coming so I decided to give a try at making it myself.
That's how Daedalus was born. I developed (and am still developing ...) this game as a hobby for the last 2 years. I did all the code, graphics and music from the couch in my living room :D I hope you will enjoy it!

http://www.daedalus-thegame.com/about.php

demo: http://daedalus-thegame.com/download.php

 

[Astral Rag]

 

[Johannes]

Looks cool, hope it's gon' be GUD

 

[Astral Rag]

copy/paste of the review I left in Gabe's store

Pros:

Daedalus - No Escape is a top-down skill-based arena shooter. It's fast, brutal, very satisfying and addicting. If you played and enjoyed Quake, Unreal Tournament and to a lesser extent games like Alien Breed, Expendable, Take no Prisoners, MageSlayer, Loaded, Cyberdogs etc. you will feel right at home.


The game supports dedicated servers, listen servers and LAN.

Controls are excellent, movement is fast and precise, strafe-jumping is possible.

Visuals are nice, they're very sharp and clean, I like the abundant use of colored lights, the soft shadows and the TrueSight-esque fog of war (think NOX, Teleglitch).

Sound effects are good and the soundtrack is fantastic. There are two in-game announcers.

Most of the game's weapons are projectile based, all of the weapon are a joy to use, there is also a Gauntlet melee attack.

Gibbing and Quad Damage I mean Power Boost are present. Some parts of the terrain are explosive. There is splash damage but you can't aim rockets at the floor.

There are 4 multiplayer game modes: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Last Man Standing, these modes can all be played with bots, there is also a score attack single player mode called Highscore.

Bots are challenging even on the normal difficulty setting.

There are a lot of official arenas and the game comes with an easy to use editor, there are already some nice custom maps, these can be downloaded from within the game, there is no Steam Workshop support ATM.


Cons:

Not a lot of players online (yet?).

There are a lot of maps but all of them seem to be of the "Base" and "Spaceship" variety. More environments would be great.

More player characters would be welcome.

Mutators would be very cool. Daedalus needs an Instagib mode.


TLDR: If you like Quake and UT you will certainly like Daedalus, the game need more active online players but playing with bots is possible and very enjoyable. Hosting servers is a breeze.


PS you can find a playable demo on the game's official website, I have no idea why it's not available on Steam:
http://daedalus-thegame.com/download.php

/

edit: Patch 1.0.7 introduces Instagib mode to the game and the developer is working on new characters and more importantly he is also creating new textures for more varied environments.

Demo is also going to appear on Steam any day now.

 

[SuicideBunny]

that... makes me wish somebody made a proper alien breed remake with its engine.....

 

[Grimwulf]

Ever wanted to play Unreal tournament or Quake 3 Arena from a top down 2D perspective ? Maybe not, but now that you think about it, I'm sure you realize how amazing this would be !

That is probably the worst advertising I ever seen. But it's kinda funny tho.

So, how is it different from Crimsonland and other top-down shooters?

 

[Astral Rag]

Grimwulf, they're not really comparable.

Playing Daedalus really does feel like playing a top-down Quake 3 Arena: you have to learn the layout of the maps, you have to learn how and when to use each of the 9 weapons. You and your opponents all spawn as equals (100 health, machine gun+ gauntlet), bots are "smart", there are no waves of cannon fodder enemies like in Crimsonland and Nation Red. There are also no unlocks, no RPG mechanics, just pure skill-based FPS top-down shooter arena fun... or endless rage and frustration for those who are only used to playing modern popamoles.

 

[Grimwulf]

Grimwulf, they're not really comparable.

Playing Daedalus really does feel like playing a top-down Quake 3 Arena: you have to learn the layout of the maps, you have to learn how and when to use each of the 9 weapons. You and your opponents all spawn as equals (100 health, machine gun+ gauntlet), bots are "smart", there are no waves of cannon fodder enemies like in Crimsonland and Nation Red. There are also no unlocks, no RPG mechanics, just pure skill-based FPS top-down shooter arena fun... or endless rage and frustration for those who are only used to playing modern popamoles.

So you have to GIT GUD in order to play it? Ok. Might as well try it out. Tomorrow, when I'll hopefully be sober.

Those bots better be as good as you say!

 

[Astral Rag]

Game just received a nice update:

instagib modifier in singleplayer and multi: option available in all the game modes that allows to kill in one shot using a modified railgun ( more powerful and with a faster firerate )
dark arena modifier in singleplayer and multi: option available in all the game modes to turn off the lights in the maps ... allows crazy fights in the dark!

separated player speed and bot speed options in skirmish
fixes classic control mode aiming issue when crosshair close to the player
loading indicator at startup

 

[Astral Rag]

Demo is now available on Steam.

 

[skacky]

Looks fun. Gonna try the demo this evening.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Good stuff, remember to use Classic camera or enjoy nausea. Some mobility improvement would be great (like jetpacks from Soldat). Lack of jumping/dodging may be annoying when you still have old habits.

 

[Astral Rag]

I use the FPS camera, it works great for me (haven't tried the Classic camera yet). It's possible to jump left and right, you can also jump forward but it doesn't really serve a purpose in this game.

Daedalus was perfectly playable on release (game was never in Early Access) but the developer listens to the community and keeps improving the game which is always nice to see.

I also had some fun with the level editor, so far I've uploaded two maps: The Doomed Hangar (inspired by Doom's Hangar) and Metal Space Arena (inspired by Q3A's Arena Gate).

 

[Astral Rag]

Another good update

I just published version 1.0.9, which is a small update featuring:

3 new player skins created by Tatermand who nicely proposed to help me with the graphics of the game
the possibility to choose the skin + color in the options -> player
some minor bug fixes in the editor


I hope you'll like the new skins As always don't hesitate to post on the forum if you have any issue!


http://steamcommunity.com/games/315830/announcements/detail/234515383931679923

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

After playing a couple of hours I can say that it's a great top down shooter. In small and bigger dosages it's a perfect "warm up" game for another titles or if you don't have time to play PoE for the 7th time.

Machine gun feels like straight from Q3, it isn't powerful but for starters it's ok. Especially when you know where is the timed damage upgrade you can earn some easy frags. The shotgun is excellent for close encounters, I usually mix it with the melee attacks (rmb default) for earning the killings. The most adrenaline inducing is rocket launcher, especially when there are other human players. Strafing and trying to hit the other guy never gets old. And the railgun, when you hit the enemy and he splatters all over than you now you have a good game.

The maps could have a more variety in themes, but they are ok from the gameplay perspective. There isn't much space where you can camp and you always have to be careful when you move further on. The game has a fog of war thing where you can see what's up and below you, but you don't see the enemies. What can help you, is flashlights that they use (and ofc you too), plus sound. Which is incredibly good and helpful. For such a small project made entirely by one guy it's impressive. Graphics and light effects are also done with an attention to detail.

It's a good "what if" title, where FPS is turned into top down shooter. The only thing that's really sad is a small number of players. The author should try to boost it with some discounts and other options. Right now I'm usually playing only with Astral.


TL,DR