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Game News Underworld Ascendant Alpha Released

Infinitron

I post news
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Tags: OtherSide Entertainment; Sam Luangkhot; Underworld Ascendant

The Underworld Ascendant backer alpha was originally supposed to come out during E3. While we did get to see the alpha build in action on Alienware's E3 stream, that release date turned out to be fabulously optimistic. It's finally out now though, after two weeks of much-needed additional polish. The build consists of two levels, the tutorial level we saw at PAX East earlier this year and the new open-ended cavern level from E3. OtherSide's release announcement has all the details. Here's an excerpt:

Welcome to the Underworld Ascendant Backer Alpha build!

We’re excited to share the build with you and get your thoughts, suggestions and feedback. There is still plenty of time to have an impact in a number of areas of the game, particularly around moment-to-moment game play, world interactions and system simulations. We will review all feedback that you share with us, whether via the survey (linked in game), bug reports or posts on these forums. Please make an effort to keep your feedback detailed and constructive as that will be much more useful and actionable for us.

Please keep in mind that this is an Alpha and the build is representative of an unfinished game. Is it unpolished, buggy, and you might encounter some instability (i.e., game crashes). That’s normal for a game like UA at this point. We’ve been spending a lot of time getting things into the game and now our focus is getting those things working well and working well together.

At OtherSide, we pride ourselves on the breadth of experience and talent at the studio. As a small team of 14, we are striving to deliver a quality game that fits our size and stature. As a result, this is not a AAA game in scope or scale. That said, our goal with UA is to push depth of gameplay variety and we hope it provides a unique array of playstyle options and deeper world interactions. We think you all are aware of that, but it seemed worth repeating.

For the last few months, we’ve been focusing on getting systems, abilities, items, etc in the game and now we’re focused on bug-fixing, tuning, polishing and getting all of the systems working well together. Please pardon our dust!

We are looking forward to your feedback. Keep in mind that it’s a lot easier for us to understand and parse well-thought out and articulated feedback. In particular, constructive criticism and respectful argumentation are greatly appreciated. All feedback will be read thoroughly.

Only EXPLORER backers and above ($50+) will have access to the Backer Alpha build.

To download, please redeem the Steam code provided on the Digital Downloads page on your BackerKit. Backers who had access to the Pre-Alpha Build will not need a new code as we will update the current app on Steam to the Backer Alpha Build.

Your feedback is critical to us at this stage, so once you have finished playing the Alpha, please fill out this survey.

This build includes:

PLUTO’S GATE – this is our post-intro “un-training level,” designed by Cabirus to ease your entrance to The Stygian Abyss. This is an updated and revised version of the area played at PAX East.

UPPER EREBUS – this is a level from later in the game with a variety of enemies and challenges. This is an updated version of the area that was playable at E3.
Ascendant has gotten more negative previews since E3, so hopefully the postponed alpha translates to a postponed final release date. The game is starting to look fun, but I still doubt three months are going to be enough to bring it to the finish line.
 

Invictus

Arcane
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Skimmed through most of the video, the dark setting looks good and hides most of the iffy textures and Warcraft ascetics so at least that looks okish
The neon light magics and later sections are not my style at all and definitely take away from the look of the game, why try to go realistic with the lighting to have that neon rave final section?
The gameplay looks... clunky nothing seems polished at all and seemed they had no combat encounters to speak of, would have liked to see if at least they had tweaked that but no such luck
Finally giving up the game looks decidely mediocre, lacking any sort of personality or character which is frankly astounding for a supposedly Underworld game, I mean how hard could it be to just put some classic monsters, some nice dungeon design, the classic rune magic from the games and voila
The thing that made the Underworld setting memorable was in part it’s straightforward approach to dungeons, fighting, questing and the Stygian Abyss was a memorable place with well designed levels and denizens not glowing eye skeletons, mushroom people and technorave magic
Oh well, didn’t expect much anyway... another lameass Kickstarter which disappoints
Bloodstained, System Shock 3 and Shenmue 3 to go...
 

MrBuzzKill

Arcane
Joined
Aug 31, 2013
Messages
654
Is anyone else butthurt that they're using ready-made assets to make "big" games like this? I mean, I'd rather they made their own unique tiles and other repeatables.
 

Nyast

Cipher
Joined
Jan 12, 2014
Messages
609
Is anyone else butthurt that they're using ready-made assets to make "big" games like this? I mean, I'd rather they made their own unique tiles and other repeatables.

What makes you think they used stock assets instead of custom ones ? Did they ever hint at doing this ?
 

Invictus

Arcane
The Real Fanboy
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Nov 3, 2013
Messages
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Divinity: Original Sin 2
Oh and that constant crackling of fire from torches is super annoying

Yea that sound drove me nuts and I was just skipping through the video quickly... I guess they are trying to create a sound cue that its a usable flame nearby but my god its so loud and annoying.
Plus fire doesn’t sound like that at all... you might get a crackle or a pop here but it is mostly a soft hissing sound like a whisper
 

Sonus

Educated
Joined
Feb 25, 2014
Messages
84
The torches are just a burning stick of wood? No chemical or greasy coating, treatment, or wrapping?
 

mindx2

Codex Roaming East Coast Reporter
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Perusing his PC Museum shelves.
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Well turns out I won't be trying this out after all as I can't rebind movement to my mouse. It's the only way I can play 1st-person style games.

Oh well, I'll just have a few months to wait for the final polished release...
:troll:
 
Joined
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So I'm uploading my video right now, and there's actually a lot of substance to this Alpha that I didn't immediately realize upon recording my first video. There's actually a few different 'missions' in Pluto's Gate (which I've only recorded the first, which took me probably 40 minutes or so). There seems to be way more after that (which I didn't know until I said farewell at the end of my video lol). I also checked out Upper Erebus (for like a second) before hitting the 'Go back to Malchor' or whatever it's called, button, and there's like an entire town that's built and fleshed out already but isn't optimized and still a bit buggy (in fact, they tell you not to go there, but the gate's still open lol). There's talking NPC's, trading, quest boards, etc. Even a glimpse at the V1 lizard man design from the poll on the UA forums. I'll go speedrun past the 1st mission and do a part 2/3/etc. of Pluto's Gate after I upload this video and other stuff. Then I'll do Upper Erebus. Until then, sorry for being late with this, been a little busy.
 
Joined
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Messages
1,350
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Finished up uploading/processing my video. Wasn't able to prop surf as well as I'd like to in the game, but I guess that's expected now.

 

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