Game News Underworld Ascendant Prototype Gameplay Footage at PC Gamer and Polygon

[Thonius]

Sometimes its better to say sooon TM, or just lie like "our servers went kaput", then show something like that. All those crippled animations will harm the game.

 

[Excidium II]

That Shadowbeast looks like something from the boxart of a 90's GPU box.

 

[taxalot]

That was AI ?
How is that impressive at all ? How is it something they are bragging about ? The thing just gets aggro-ed on the player and follows him really slowly down a hallway. It's hardly groundbreaking.

 

[Gord]

A lot of the typical edgy codex comments in this thread...

Not showing anything -> "I'm really concerned by the lack of anything to show. That doesn't bode well"
Them showing some early prototype to give a general "look and feel" -> "That doesn't look good, I'm really concerned now."

This place some days...

 

[Excidium II]

A lot of the typical edgy codex comments in this thread...

Not showing anything -> "I'm really concerned by the lack of anything to show. That doesn't bode well"
Them showing some early prototype to give a general "look and feel" -> "That doesn't look good, I'm really concerned now."

This place some days...

Maybe they should show something good. Maybe they should have kept people updated on what they are actually sitting down and putting work on instead of just posting random brainstorm sessions.

 

[Infinitron]

Whatever, at the end of the month we'll be able to see for ourselves. Well, those of us who pledged $300+ dollars, everybody else just gets to watch their Twitch streams.

 

[Jaesun]

With the budget they got, I think what they showed so far is fine.

 

[Excidium II]

With the budget they got, I think what they showed so far is fine.

What their budget have to do with anything? They could have put same amount of hours to have a demo that looks more like an UW game being played. Anyway, that infinitron post clarifies that this demo is not meant for UW fans but for the polygon crowd so it's explained.

 

[m_s0]

If they intended to show emergent gameplay doing a short video of a single run through a seemingly very on-rails piece of a level was not the way to do that. Even if those aren't scripts it still looks like that way.

Plus, quite a good chunk of what little gameplay there is in that demo is pretty much implied ('that swinging thing totally hit the monster, honest!'). Mostly walking and voiceover trying to mask there's not much there to present yet. Understandable at this point in development since it's actually pretty early to be demoing what might be an ambitious design.

So far I can't see anything to get excited for. They should've waited a bit longer before showing the game. Then again, they're probably pressed for more funding (explains the stress on the visuals).

 

[Infinitron]

More dev comments: https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=876.msg14955#msg14955

Hey All

Like Jeff said, Thank you. Without you guys and gals this would not be possible.

VO- this is really just for the video to help 'tell' the story. Now Lydia who is our protagonist in this story may show up in the game as an NPC somewhere.

This demo was really about locking down our look and feel. I agree that the shader on the beast still needs some work to match up with the world. Animation is not near final.

I'm quite pleased on the general look of the environment we have here- color, hue, saturation. Painterly but not in the cartoony way. This is something we will continue and refine.

But hey..for 3 months work...I think it looks pretty damn good.

We learned a ton- limitations of engine, and features that we can exploit- we have barely broken the surface with the lighting system for example, and really getting a grasp on what is going to be 'hard' and what won't be too difficult. AI, systems, player movement all are places we still need to do a bunch of work.

It is a bit linear...which felt weird to build since that is about as opposite to our mantra as possible. We promise the next one will show more actual what you can do gameplay in it.

As for invisible walls--gods no. I hate that.

Yes in the final game you can free roam...if you fall in the lava or a bottomless pit...tough luck.

As for looking like Bioshock--sure this demo has some of that DNA feel. But that is not what we are building ultimately. We decided when we built this demo it was about our look, as much as the kickstarter was about gameplay. It was the biggest pole we needed to sort out internally, and well, now we have--at least we have a direction to continue with.

 

[xxxCatholicKillahxxx]

Molten stone and a monster following the player remind me of Arx Fatalis. Shame that is probably where the similarities end and it will be UU2 meets action rpg #574.

Also:

Is she thinking out loud or talking to herself? Must have spent a lot of time underground already if it is the latter. Or maybe she is a few moomins short in the valley.

What is up with the obsession of a light source when it is not even that dark. It is not like one needs a HM-slave with Flash in an area with lighting shown in the video.

 

[Excidium II]

What is up with the obsession of a light source when it is not even that dark. It is not like one needs a HM-slave with Flash in an area with lighting shown in the video.

It's because of the monster, light hurts it.

 

[Lucky]

The alternative to the video we got is no footage at all. The type of good-looking video that is shown by publishers way ahead of launch is basically a separate project from the main game and doesn't reflect on the state of the current product - more of a short-film than actual gameplay. That's part of where those huge marketing budgets go to. Big publishers might be able to afford that to satisfy fans, but Ascendant doesn't have the money to justify such an investment. I'd have been more suspicious if they did suddenly produce a gorgeous demo.

 

[Excidium II]

The alternative to the video we got is no footage at all.

What a load of crockshit.

I'd have been more suspicious if they did suddenly produce a gorgeous demo.

Yeah I'd also be wary if a kickstarter showed something that actually does justice to the game it's based on.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=876.msg14960#msg14960

Funny little story about emergent behavior.

We actually had to modify his AI to shoot the demo so that he only wanted to snuff the player's torch once.

Otherwise, whenever Joe tried to pick up and light a torch, he'd jump him in short order and put it out again. Made it a bit difficult to showcase everything we wanted to in the time allotted

 

[Aenra]

i see Excidium hasn't lost his touch on the sarcasm one liners at all ^^
sorry, i meant Excidium II. Totally different person.

 

[Lucky]

What a load of crockshit.


Yeah I'd also be wary if a kickstarter showed something that actually does justice to the game it's based on.

It is if you care about good footage. Games that do show that are either at a way more advanced stage or are faking it, and faking it is a waste of money. This being a kickstarter also doesn't mean that development somehow goes faster, so they'd either have to specially design that video or show less polished material. The latter is what we got, which is better than nothing.

 

[Excidium II]

It is if you care about good footage. Games that do show that are either at a way more advanced stage or are faking it, and faking it is a waste of money. This being a kickstarter also doesn't mean that development somehow goes faster, so they'd either have to specially design that video or show less polished material. The latter is what we got, which is better than nothing.

They went and made it anyway. But their choice of scenario was poor for an UW game. You understand that?

 

[Lucky]

They went and made it anyway. But their choice of scenario was poor for an UW game. You understand that?

No disagreement there. I'd have strongly cautioned against doing it, or at least requested that the voice-work either be swapped or accompanied with their descriptions of the mechanics and area design. Their big failing is consistently that they give all these nice details when prompted, but neglect to mention them otherwise. Which is a problem, since there actually is such a thing as bad press when it comes to games, with work-in-progress material being a big one, but just mentioning those details would show that they are working towards something.

I'm guessing that there's some sort of pressure that they're under to show what they have. Either from fans to show progress, or by them wanting to drum up press for a new kickstarter. Selling themselves clearly isn't what they're good at, though, which is probably why they earned way less with their kickstarter then they should have.

 

[Gord]

I think that to show typical UW gameplay, they'd need to show more than a 5 minute sequence.
I hope to see something like that at some point in the not-too-distant future.
Obviously the short prototype slice however is about showing how one possible interaction with the player's surroundings might look like and what we might expect roughly in terms of visual style.
Yes, that's very incomplete, but at that point in development I don't think we can expect much more.

And to be clear, I do fully take into account that they might fail with their endeavor.
This Kickstarter is definitely the most risky one I've backed so far.

But the amount of negativity from some people is, while expected, somewhat unjustified at this point.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Gameplay looks horrible, derivative, and completely "un-rpg" like. I hope this is a really really abstract representation of what they are aiming for.

 

[Metro]

As much as Infi wants to hype/sell this game it looked like one of those mockups of a game you saw in the early 90's when a television show or movie wanted to portray a video game.

 

[Infinitron]

As much as Infi wants to hype/sell this game it looked like one of those mockups of a game you saw in the early 90's when a television show or movie wanted to portray a video game.

That's appropriate because this is also a mockup of a game.

 

[Metro]

That's appropriate because this is also a mockery of a game.

 

[ROARRR]

1. A.I. is able to react to any fire element or light,maybe both. From this follows that any light/fire object/spell can be used to threaten the monster (stopp, harm, make it visible and even kill it)
2. A.I. is able to follow you
3. A.I. is able to react to closed/locked doors (slams it open)
4. A.I. is able to understand when Light/fire environment hurts it while walking, so it will choose a different way (or does it take damage over time? Maybe it just slows it down).
5. A.I. is able to attack you
6. A.I. does not understand traps

->Death animation sucks