Jehar
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Registered: 09-2006
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Semi-kinda announcement: AGOKS
AGOKS
First-person Shooters are Death Metal Again
Awesome Game o'Killin **** (AGOKS) is the working title for an in-development first-person shooter. It blends the best parts of old-school shooters such as Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, and Quake, and emphasizes fun, interactivity, speed over more recent FPS fixtures such as excessive story, linearity and cutscenes (Half-Life's dialogue sequences count as cutscenes).
Oh, and there might even be a puzzle or two.
AGOKS is here to save the genre of first person shooters from the pop-rock of companies like Valve Software, Raven Software, Crytek and all the others who compromise gameplay for enough content to produce a sale.
We feel that FPS's in general have lost their balls. Blood is being taken out, games are getting slower, and the general populace is becoming more interested in tv-friendly pro gaming than balls-to-the-wall brutality. We are here to bring something primal back to the genre. Something dark, unadultered, and most of all - more fun than a quad-damage shotgun.
Setting
The setting is driven by the imagination of the developers and to be furthered by the community after release. Giant gorges, ancient castles, victorian homes, rotting tenements, creeping pools of water and everything in between. If it can permeate the vile, if its sediment reeks of imminent death, it is part of the setting. Abstract settings are welded together in a mish-mash of heady violence. However, don't be suprised if, among the chaos, patterns and meaning start to emerge. Ask questions about the setting. Or forget the rest and keep gunning. It's up to you.
Team
scar3crow -- Leader, designer
Sajt -- Unicorn trainer
Lardarse -- Coder and "office monkey"
Discoloda -- Coder
Jehar -- Designer, Mapper
Features
-Gameplay first, not story. AGOKS harks back to the days of classic first-person shooters when game levels were game levels.
--Story takes a backseat to thrilling gameplay. Often in modern (bad) games, heavy amounts of story are used to cover up lackluster and unimaginative gameplay.
--There are no cutscenes (Half-Life's dialogue sequences count as cutscenes in our books). You never have to stand around and wait for NPCs to finish talking about something you don't care about. (Note, there may be some out-of-body experiences such as spontaneous clairvoyance for the sake of creepiness, but this is different).
--The levels are not straight linear routes. They have multiple paths and often loop in on themselves, much as in Quake. There are no artificial invisible walls. Speedrunning and inventiveness is encouraged. Scripted sequences exist, but are usually fairly standalone, meaning you can visit them whenever you want.
--If you die, you don't have to re-load, go to a checkpoint, or even go to a "spirit realm" a la Prey. Instead, you start the level afresh from another end of the map... you never have to go over the same ground twice. Be warned, however, death isn't just a slap on the wrists...
-Ambience and immersion. A large focus is on atmosphere in the levels, whether they are mundane and earthly or abstract and hellish.
--Levels are consistently detailed, and populated with extra objects, critters and sounds to complete the environment.
--There is no music per se: instead, there is plenty of background aural activity, all of which is sourced from spatial world objects or points.
--Corpses do not fizz out or fade away, and neither do gibs or large blood splats and scorch marks.
--Environmental interactivity. Like the Build engine games, there is more to do than shoot monsters.
Many objects as well as some pieces of weakened level geometry are destructible.
Everything that should work does. You can turn on faucets, flush toilets, turn on lights, etc.
-Cruel brutality. Violence is a common and controversial element in games, but most games cartoonify the act of killing. We don't. You're going to have to have a reason to kill if you want to kill in AGOKS. It's not going to be nice.
On a side note, there will be a brutality slider in the game options menu, so those with weaker stomachs can still enjoy what the game has to offer.
-Enhanced cooperative play. Some games support coop but do so poorly. Not only does AGOKS support coop, but it has been given special attention, much like other games with excellent coop such as Diablo2.
Some monsters only appear in coop mode.
Monster population and difficulty scales to match player counts, so with eight players you'll still be kept busy.
--Extra passages in levels open up only in coop mode.
-Intense multiplayer. Every map has support for deathmatch as well as potentially other modes such as Capture the Flag and Sacrifice of Vengeance, as well as having maps made especially for those modes.
The feedback for each match should be intense, and the player should feel the heat of battle as well as the suspense.
The time there is between encounters should be a shining moment of the levels ambiance and natural terror.
-Special Engine Features
--TimeScript - Map features, elements, monsters, and events are now all tied to the system clock. Beyond day and night cycles, this means that the map will be totally unique, every time it is replayed. Furthermore, game secrets can be tied to certain dates, so keep your eyes open.
Game Engine
The engine will most likely be Hamster, if for some reason this does not pan out then depending on its stage of development DarkWar[1] may be used, or maybe even DarkPlaces[2].
Where to get it
See Subversion.
See Also
Development Schedule
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