Supplice - Episode 3 is out now on Steam!

1 hour ago, Master O said:

 

I only ask because many recently made retro-styled FPS-es have made it to GOG as well, like Ion Fury, Amid Evil, Wrath: Aeon of Ruin, Prodeus, etc...

Also worth mentioning Ultrakill, Dusk, soon also Quake Enhanced! 

@DuckReconMajor I probably spent more than 10 mins on that trigger hunt, yet it was hidden so close. Maybe some subtle hint would be a nice addition to guide the player to it.

1 hour ago, DuckReconMajor said:

Played the first level and loved it. Only thing that i saw was the thing @sluggard pointed out. I got lucky and saw it right away but wondered how long i'd be stuck if i hadn't

Thanks DuckReconMajor!  Yea that area has been mentioned a few times already by other players.  I actually made it worse in an update right before the demo was released (I had to update the area because it was too cramped for some of the new monsters).  The switch texture doesn't pop out enough, and you have to go around the pillar to see it.  In the previous version, the texture stood out more I think.  Anyways, I'm going to address it, either by making it stand out more, or [more likely] I'll move the switch so that it's seen as soon as you enter that area.

1 hour ago, Biodegradable said:

My only real complaint is the enemy colour palette tends to make them blend into the background of the map's colours, which makes them a little hard to make out at times. Otherwise, this is looking so damn good and I look forward to the full release. Congratulations to Mechadon and the rest of the Supplice team. I wish this game all the success in the world.

Thank you for trying out the demo!  So the monster sprites are currently just renders.  Cage is going to be painting over them at some point in the future, so that should alleviate the visibility problems some people are having.  I think he's also going to experiment with a subtle outline glow using brigtmaps.

3 hours ago, DSC said:

I see it will have the Scythe 2 and Eviternity structure... Will it feature the two secret maps midway too?

Currently the plan is to have at least 1 secret map per episode (6 episodes planned for the main game).  We might push it to 2 secret maps, but that depends on how quickly we can crank them out.

Did anyone else find the Tandems (the two-headed dudes) to be incredibly annoying ? At first glance they just appear to be reskinned chaingunners, but they can tank a surprising ammount of damage, cannot be easily stunlocked due to their low pain chance, and worst of all, they keep firing EVEN AFTER you leave their line of sight!

I have wishlisted this game and I hope the final release turns out to be at least as good as the demo!

On 10/2/2021 at 12:30 PM, D.Vile said:

Did anyone else find the Tandems (the two-headed dudes) to be incredibly annoying ? At first glance they just appear to be reskinned chaingunners, but they can tank a surprising ammount of damage, cannot be easily stunlocked due to their low pain chance, and worst of all, they keep firing EVEN AFTER you leave their line of sight!

Yea we're well aware of how powerful the Tandem is.  It's been one of the more difficult enemies to balance.  Initially he was a pushover because we wanted him to be more tanky with a slow spin-up attack.  You could quickly knock him out before he even posed a threat.  So we sped up his attack acceleration considerably and made him extra aggressive when coming out of cover.  We ended up making changes to him a day before the demo released, but we didn't push them because we ran out of time.

At the moment we've cut his HP and reduced his reaction time for re-attack when you go out of sight.  I think his spin up acceleration has been nerfed a bit as well.  He's still going to be a really deadly enemy to deal with though.

Aggressive enemies are a very refreshing addition that makes the gameplay more exciting in my opinion. I remember Sandy Petersen mentioned in his video about Quake 1 history that he would have made Pinkie Demons more vicious. The monsters we know from Doom are all fine but sometimes I miss the thrill of something more fearsome like that fast enemy or the chaingunner in Supplice.

20 minutes ago, game said:

I remember Sandy Petersen mentioned in his video about Quake 1 history that he would have made Pinkie Demons more vicious. The monsters we know from Doom are all fine but sometimes I miss the thrill of something more fearsome like that fast enemy

I believe that enemy is called the Sevore. And coincidentally, I was thinking the same thing! :P

For any and all who are interested, I have submitted Supplice to have a speedrun leaderboard, which was just accepted.

Feel free to send me your runs for approval! https://www.speedrun.com/supplice

Here is my own run of Outpost Romeda, done in under 3 minutes:

You know, it is really cool that this is happening. A while back, I was lamenting the fact that Id Software does not seem interested in commissioning new IWADs like a Doom III or a full-blown Doom 64 sequel, so I guess that in a sense, Supplice is the next best thing!

After playing the two demo levels, here's my feedback:

Pro:
+ Great level design with complex architecture that takes you 30+ mins to complete a map

+ Gunplay feels right

+ Item/enemy placement fair and balanced

+ Automap is important and highly usable

+ Secrets!

+ Excellent soundtrack that supports the futuristic atmosphere

+ Also works in GZDoom without Steam (just needs the ipk3 file)

Cons:

- Levels sometimes maze-ish, lacking orientation in some spots (not always 100% clear what a switch does)
- Char movement feels a bit sluggish

- Terminal messages hardly legible, look garbled (bug or intended?) *

- Enemies could be more visible against the (colorful) environment (could also be because of the lighting mode I used, i.e. Software)

In general, it's a very good demo which gives a lot of insights regarding the general character of the game and makes me confident and excited about the final release.

* Sorted out, it's due to a current glitch with latest GZDoom 4.7.0.

16 minutes ago, NightFright said:

Levels sometimes maze-ish, lacking orientation in some spots (not always 100% clear what a switch does)

I miss some explorational puzzles on 'modern' retro shooters, so that's a positive for me :-)

This game looks fantastic btw, I will definitely try the demo pretty soon.

5 hours ago, NightFright said:

- Terminal messages hardly legible, look garbled (bug or intended?)

GZDoom 4.7.0 breaks the terminals. Some kind of display issue, it also breaks similar features (displays, PDAs etc.) in some Doom mods. It's fixed in the developer build, or you can use for 4.6.1 (Which is the base version of the provided Supplice binary)

Ah, a pity. Good to know it's already taken care of. Reading those screens wasn't really necessary to enjoy the maps, anyway.

For what it's worth:

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/supplice

I played and beat both the demo maps. I think I did them both on Hard difficulty (although I'm not sure about the first one.) I spent some time exploring and collected all kills, items, and secrets on both maps.

On my first run of the first map, the Tandems really stood out as abnormally difficult. I felt it was the amount of damage they did which was slightly excessive. I had to repeatedly run back and scarf down Trauma Kits left behind several times specifically because of the damage Tandems did. They forced me into taking cover, and I'm not sure that's the intended playstyle, given the rest of the game. I eventually switched into a strategy of alt-firing the Rotary Shotgun if I was close enough, or hiding and plinking away if out of range for that (or using the Cyclomortar). After I got used to the meta, I didn't have as much trouble with them, but whenever they

appeared they were priority targets to take down as fast as possible.

I actually made it very near to the end before I died (and realized that I had completely forgotten to save), and that death was me being dumb and blowing myself up with the Cyclomortar.

I was very surprised at how fast and aggressive the enemies were. The leaping Suvores, the flying, fast-retargeting Hive Mouths, and even the Imp replacement (Braineater?) with its dash all kept me on my toes very well.

I LOVE the deployable autoturret minigun. It's inspired. It's absolutely great to drop it for 150 bullets, then collect whatever is left after it finishes mowing everything down.

Most secrets were pretty reasonable to find. I actually missed some easy ones. I didn't feel the need to resort to "wall humping" to find secrets, which is good.

One quibble is that there are a LOT of enemies for such a limited arsenal the levels provide. I'll be shooting the same guns thousands of times. The second level doesn't even have more than a few tanks of fuel for the secret Cyclomortar, which discourages its use.

Another quibble is that it's actually confusing trying to navigate at times, and the levels are connected together so tightly that the automap doesn't help as much.

I made a mod for the Supplice (Only works there mind you)

replaces the assault rifle and the shotgun to be a little bit exagerated!

suppliceshellposting.zip

Some thing to note, Seeing i don't understand Zscript's Huds yet, there is no indicator for the secondary ammo sadly, which the weapon in pic related is shown for.

On 10/2/2021 at 11:25 AM, Mechadon said:

Currently the plan is to have at least 1 secret map per episode (6 episodes planned for the main game).  We might push it to 2 secret maps, but that depends on how quickly we can crank them out.

 

Will the secret levels be homages to other FPS-es?

I actually hope they won't be. We've had our fair share of Doom/Quake E1M1 remakes. This title can stand firmly on its own feet and the less it's referring to other games, the better it'd be. No objections to certain nods like a Dopefish appearance somewhere or similar stuff, but there's no need to see any familiar architecture. A commercial product should avoid that, anyway.

Sorry if anyone said this already, but I found a bug with the minigun. If placed in a door and the door closes, the turret will disappear, at least in the one instance, it did for me.

Oh hey, I remember seeing this mod promised years and years ago and I thought it died like so many other ambitious mod projects. I am glad to see I was wrong. Can a commercial game qualify for a Mordeth Award? 😜

I played both levels of the demo yesterday and did an encore playthrough of the first level this evening. Great stuff! In terms of tightness of gameplay I think it's considerably superior to the other two major retro-engine boomer shooters Wrath and Ion Fury, with a really satisfying rhythm and flow to the combat and enemies that both pose a significant threat and also have clearly legible patterns that make it feel like my fault when I get hit (though I think the long spin-down and large health pool of the Tandems make them a bit of a time-waster). I like how mobile they are, and how they pressured me in groups while being individually quick to kill in a way that blended aspects of the Quake and Doom bestiaries in a very seamless way. The Sevore is my favorite of the enemies, a really nice and intimidating take on Quake's Fiend. The music, with its melodic and eclectic style (saxophones, yes!) was an absolutely delightful change from the one-dimensional "me angry" harsh noise and industrial metal that every other retro shooter seems to have these days (yeah Andrew Hulshult is a good musician, but I'm kind of sick of him or someone who wants to sound like him appearing in every single game). The game also gets my respect for picking a base resolution and color palette and sticking to it, especially since the palette looks really vibrant and attractive.

That said there are a few demerits:

* No traditional status bar. None of the big boomer shooters has an oldschool full-width status bar with rich texture work and it just breaks my heart.

* If "Outpost Romeda" is truly going to be the first level, and the terminal messages seem to indicate it is, it is way too big and complex for the role, and the opening stages of the map are quite nasty going in without any prior exprience. Maybe the terminal messages are just placeholders and it's really going to be like the third or fourth level? It would certainly be more comfortable in such a slot, after a player of the final game would have had time to find their feet.

* The floor blood is clearly meant to be a decal and only a decal, and looks really terrible in the software renderer. Considering how much work went into the palette, I think there should be an option for floor blood that fits the software renderer or else an option to turn it off.

* With the size and ambition of these maps, the standard Doom intermission screen feels a bit anticlimactic. Something like Square's with a panoramic view of the map would be a nicer reward.

* Some of the textures have the Doom heritage a bit too close to the surface. I'm thinking especially of some silver textures in "Terminal Meltdown" that look like they were traced from the TEKGREN series.

* The Monger and Mangler are very difficult to tell apart, especially at a distance.

Those nitpicks aside, I am extremely impressed with the demo and I'll definitely be getting the full game when it comes out. Bravo for a fantastic release! I am intrigued by the mention of a "special arranged" version of the soundtrack. Are esselfortium's arrangements the versions shipped in the demo? Will that mean there will be an optional midi soundtrack to feed into my Sound Canvas?

7 hours ago, Woolie Wool said:

I am intrigued by the mention of a "special arranged" version of the soundtrack. Are esselfortium's arrangements the versions shipped in the demo? Will that mean there will be an optional midi soundtrack to feed into my Sound Canvas?

That's correct :) The versions you heard in the demo are my arrangements, but in the final release we plan to have a switch for the MIDI versions so you can get those if you prefer.

Quote

The music, with its melodic and eclectic style (saxophones, yes!) was an absolutely delightful change from the one-dimensional "me angry" harsh noise and industrial metal that every other retro shooter seems to have these days

Glad you're liking the soundtrack! We really wanted to do something different from the standard approach here and give Supplice's music a unique feel that could be recognizable as Supplice's own sound.

Quote

If "Outpost Romeda" is truly going to be the first level, and the terminal messages seem to indicate it is, it is way too big and complex for the role, and the opening stages of the map are quite nasty going in without any prior exprience.

It's not planned to be the first level of the game.

I played through the first level of the demo, and it was pretty fun. I think most of my issues were covered by other people, but here it goes anyway:

• Enemies are *really* hard to see. Apart from the colors blending into the background, they also seemed to be barely lit in a lot of places. I know this got pointed out a lot already, but it was easily my biggest complaint with the demo.
• While the blue key was very obvious, with both the green and orange key I didn't even realize I'd picked them up at all until I was looking where to go next and noticed them on my HUD. This is probably because I wasn't accustomed to the pickup icons yet and just mistook them for ammo or something, but they may also not have been placed prominently enough as key items.
• The Tandems seem interesting as a chaingunner variant you can't just juke by seeking cover for 0.1 seconds, but when you're not in immediate danger, it's pretty annoying having to sit behind a wall for several seconds until they calm down so you can clean up and move on.

On the second level, this guy somehow got himself stuck up here and couldn't get out:

And when I tried to line myself up for a screenshot, I fell into this little corner and couldn't get out:

By the way, is it normal that the gamma correction can't be changed in the menu? I'm using the executable that came with the Steam demo.

Holy shit, there was a lot of backtracking in the first map, got lost a couple of times. Good gunplay, though. I like the information screens :D

On 10/1/2021 at 10:54 PM, Mechadon said:

Thanks for the kind words as always guys!  If you have any feedback or find any bugs, please be sure to let us know :)

This particular demo is Steam-only.  I'm not sure what the future will hold as far as GoG is concerned, but its not outside the realm of possibility.

At the very least, the full Supplice game will hopefully show up on GOG as well.

Outstanding! Will set up a countdown in my reminder tool for this very occasion.

Do you guys already have an idea regarding pricing?

7 hours ago, Cage said:

Hey everyone, we got a date!

 

 

We're proud to announce that Supplice will be coming out in Early Access on March 30th, 2023!

 

We're aiming towards releasing a third of the game - two episodes with distinct themes and different challenges! Each episode has at least one complex level (similar to what you've seen in the demo) so the initial release is going to be a decent chunk of the game. :)

 

Can you please release the demo on GOG as well?  You will not lack willing participants there.

This was one of the earliest WIPs I was hyped for when learning of Doomworld for the first time. Congrats on finally landing!