Acronia ⭐ Pre-Release Demo v0.6
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- Опубліковано 5 сер 2023
- Acronia is a 2D platform game for MS-DOS, in development by Hadrosaurus Software since July 2019. It is inspired by classic games such as Contra, Duke Nukem and Bio Menace. In this game you play as a group of employees of the security company Acronia. However, Acronia is conducting secret genetic experiments on humans for a weapons research and development program that went wrong. Now you have to escape from this mess.
In this video you can see a playable demo version, available for Windows, macOS and Linux on:
hadrosoft.itch.io/acronia - Ігри
While I would have liked to see 16-bit compatibility for 286 systems, i think this is a great modern homebrew for DOS gaming. It isn't easy to code DOS games from scratch, and I think the team has done very well here. It appears to be exactly what they were striving for, an homage to 2d shareware platformers of the 90s. I hope the team is motivated to finish the full game and release it.
Never heard of this game, seems like really cool platformer
All I gotta say is gay goat 🐐
Damn, I thought this was an old game and a coincidence until I read the description. Hopefully it hasn't had a full dose of woke poison.
@@DrMxyThe game is being developed by transgender people. Don't know how that affects your "woke" meter, but that's how it is.
Yikes
@@DrMxyall the characters have pride flags, it's another woke mess trying to use 90s nostalgia to get you to eat their propaganda
I understand the development history behind Doom has been picked apart savagely over several decades. Everyone knows the ins and outs of the game so much that a subculture of genre critics formed that decried the advancement of hard realism in military-themed shooting games since Doom's release. But this? This is a blatant rip-off. I mean it. The "Kills/Items/Secrets" rating, the Time, even the Score (Score was left out of the final version of Doom), all of it reeks of "Been There, Done That". Weapons, the nuts and bolts of the trite story of "Big Corporation Fucks Up Everyone Evacuate and Survive Like in that Movie by James Cameron Starring Ridley Scott", and even the explosion graphics are eerily similar. Text prompts are almost verbatim. Doom's literal DNA has been spliced into this thing in such a way that it feels like nostalgia-baiting and even corporate marketing on a ruthless scale. "Spiritual Demake" this is not. So, that doesn't bode well, particularly with the pride flag. Promoting that is as simple as making a homebrew Doom mod--at least that way, no money is exchanged. Nobody wants to pay for propaganda because propaganda pretty much pays for itself. Yet, this is a game that has taken four years to make, which I imagine will cost money to recoup costs.
From the looks of things, it seems to capture 2D DOS to some level, but I have seen 2D DOS. Many such games are brutal and unforgiving, but this one just seems slow despite SCREEN-TEARING as players move through the environment. Paired with the stereotypical lack of a compelling house style that omits the very urge of not including every peripheral detail on character sprites, you have a house style that wants to be like western cartoon animation on a relatively realistic mold like He-Man or GI Joe, but is stranded in a game world that is more Mega Man than Mega Man X--if that makes sense. The basic idea of a ragtag team of security specialists trapped in their own building has lots of potential, but it'll get bogged down by the extra baggage of learning how to draw sprites digitally before learning how to draw on paper, grid optional. Going full digital was not an option until just before the proliferation of digitization, and the first thing they used for getting the proportions right was Claymation--that includes Doom's development.
As an aside (or as an effective example of "too many design tools, too few design sensibilities"), while it is fun to see numbers drift upward, it's the same complaint I have with conventional modern action RPGs where you see every damage number of every last hit like in Symphony of the Night--it clutters the screen and takes you out of the experience. It wasn't pervasive in that game, certainly not in Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger or even Star Ocean: The Second Story, because the combat design had hardware-respecting restraint. These days, the gigabytes we have in reserve have spoiled developers rotten. Besides, it's only for keeping score in this instance. Last I checked, any score notice that rises upwards counts as sprites, and (at least on NES hardware) too many Sprites in one row causes flickering; it's hardware-intensive without needing to be there. Without an extra life/save-game system that banks on meritorious performance, score itself is useless. All indications of it getting adjusted (at least in the environment) should be nixed. Ideally, you should see the score between stages ala NES Contra so it's not a distraction from intense action. Of course, if there is a manual or brief instructions listed in the title screen menu, the bestiary and item descriptions should disclose the points upon procurement. Another option: a toggle, just like messages in Doom; this one is least intrusive for the developer as it requires no extra tutorial system.
Also, depending on what constitutes scoring, the score might end up static--like, a literal amount you cannot exceed per stage. If there were points based on tricks or by clearing with a prominent weapon accuracy rating, that might give players an incentive to try cute tricks. Speaking of athletic tricks, the hop-and-bop loses me. You're meant to leap and grab floors like in Prince of Persia, but with animation just beneath Flintstones: Surprise at Dinosaur Peak but also beneath Billy Bob from Action 52. Now, if there was hide-in-shadows cover mechanics ala Blackthorne, I could accept this. However, if the enemies wander aimlessly like in a standard platform game instead of something deliberate, like standing at attention and awaiting for a player to reach the enemy's elevation, then game designers can just place sniper creatures who strike just as you hoist yourself up. And I imagine the developer will do that to evoke "Nintendo Hard" (despite this being a DOS game, which had other conceits about difficulty). Unless that kaleidoscope of multi-ethnic personalities operate like Mario and his friends, where each one is good, bad, or fair at different actions or with special twists, then I don't see the allure of what might amount to very linear stages (courtesy of drilling players through keyholes).
You know what would fly with a game like this? Make it like Lost Vikings. Come on. You have an Aryan Linux Distro Nerd, a Spicy Latino Hulk, a Sassy Swahili with a Shotgun, a Bearded NRA Patriarch, and a Classical Ginger. Pit a set number of characters in a rat's maze where each character's chief strength and glaring weakness play roles in determining your strategy. Everyone must survive the level. To make it easy, have players do it over again until they get it right, or have a smaller setting where deaths are possible and multiple endings result depending on who escapes the facility. Mind you, there have been games like Clive Barker's Jericho that tried this and failed because everyone was given automatic weapons so nobody mechanically stood out. If you want to promote diversity and inclusion, then you have to pull in a bunch of handcrafted individual characters and represent how they roll through the game itself. That's my advice: whenever you want to go full pride flag on us, my advice is #1: Lost Vikings, #2: Lost Vikings, #3: Lost Fucking Vikings. You want to preach togetherness by making everyone into Doom Guy? No, do it Lost Vikings style. I can't stress it enough. They'd take all my Bathory CD's away, "VIKINGS VIKINGS VIKINGS!"
LGTB flag? No thank you