default header

Games

PC|MAC The Unliving

Moderator: JC Denton

PC|MAC The Unliving

Unread postby Dead Man Talking » 01 Dec 2019 20:23

Image

2D "rogue-lite" ARPG with fantastic pixel work that puts you in place of a necromancer that raises armies to clear areas. There seems to be quite some tactics/strategy involved as the more enemies you kill, the more undead you can raise. Must be tough to design balanced stages with such mechanics. No footage has been released yet beyond some gifs on Steam, but what's up there looks great. I'll be on the lookout for more info.

http://theunlivinggame.com/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/986040/The_Unliving/

RocketBrush Studio wrote:The realm of the living has been corrupted to its core and a storm is coming to change the world order. This storm is you, a mighty Necromancer, a sorcerer who denies death and leads the legions of the dead. Clerics and lords hope to hide behind high walls, but there’s no stronghold to cover them from your wrath. Smite hundreds of those standing in your way and turn them into your tools on a way to a greater purpose.

The Unliving is a dynamic roleplay rogue-lite action with strategic elements. Raise the undead, use numerous spells and explore a mystical world, created in authentic pixel-art style.

TURN ENEMIES INTO YOUR UNDEAD ARMY
Each fallen foe can be resurrected and added to your army to create unlimited legions of the dead. Turned creatures have their own abilities. For example, a raised priest who was able to bless others, will curse your enemies.

Image

CRUSH EVERYONE IN YOUR WAY
Only some of the living are helpless victims. The rest can retaliate against your forces. They hold the line, move in large groups and they have powerful abilities too. They will sell their lives dearly, so you’ll have to show all your undead lord’s talents to defeat them.

Image

CONQUER UNCHARTED LANDS
The world is generated randomly for each walkthrough and it is created rich with creatures, artifacts, secret rooms and deadly traps. Each part of the world is populated with unique indigenous inhabitants - in villages you can find feeble peasants to easily reinforce your army, in swamps you can lose another one of your lives to pincers of giant clanchers.

Image

UNRAVEL THE MYSTERIES OF NECROMANCY
Collect cryptic notes, force out of your enemies answers, study the writings on the ancient artifacts to gather the lost memories of the Necromancer piece by piece, reveal the true nature of his immortality, secrets of his phylactery companion and find out the grim truth about the supreme hierarchies of the Church.

Image

BATTLE THE EPIC BOSSES
Face the strongest creatures of this world, challenge yourself to show off your skills. Each boss has a unique combat style and abilities and you’ll have to think through your actions to defeat them.

Image

DIE AND RISE AGAIN
Ability to deny death itself is the greatest secret of the Necromancer. Another mortal strike is merely a setback for him. Take a lesson from your deaths and don’t let your enemies catch you the same way twice.

Image


Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

2020.
User avatar
Dead Man Talking
Insomnia Staff
 
Joined: 29 Jun 2019 17:41
Location: Berlin, Germany

Re: PC|MAC The Unliving

Unread postby icycalm » 25 Oct 2022 21:41

The Unliving Launches into Early Access on Oct 31st!
https://steamcommunity.com/games/986040 ... 3851121964

I was extremely looking forward to this and would have made a Most Wanted post about it and bought it day 1. Then I thought... let's take a look at the forum comments just in case. And I can't find a single positive comment. Keep in mind there's been a demo for ages, so people have played this.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/986040/d ... 5264800763

76561198044198715 wrote:Disappointing

You need to RMB every single time you want your minions to attack. They never auto-attack anything, even enemies that are hitting them in melee. And then you need to RMB on yourself after every engagement or else your minions just sit in the same spot. What a let-down.


GaZoZ wrote:yup incredibly tedious game and core gameplay flow. i was bored out of my mind after 2 long runs.


https://steamcommunity.com/app/986040/d ... 1015224560

GaZoZ wrote:What a waste of good artstyle and graphics on tedious/dull gameplay flow.

I was so bored after 2-3 runs its like playing a mobile game where you just endure more and more runs so you can upgrade stuff at the hold.

Feel of progression is as tedious as they can come no sensation of or satisfaction of finding loot or items/skills during gameplay runs because of mess of a UI the game has and how vague/obscure the lingo and item descriptions is when choosing them you feel like youre randomly choosing stuff and hope for the best but it doesnt alter the gameplay at all you just grind and grind and hope your units win the next wave of boring combat until a wolf comes and focuses on your necromancer and kills you rince and repeat same gameplay loop.

The game is also way too hard it feels like youre playing against a wall and just have to make enough of the thing that upgrades/unlocks stuff in the hold to progress like its made for people only interested in 100% item unlocks and achievements.

Huge huge disappointment.


It's frustrating because every aesthetic aspect is excellent, including the illustration work and the trailers. Check out the latest one:

Steam EA Date Reveal Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtE8QyGb11o

Image

Moreover this is an EA launch, and starting content is minimal apparently. They're launching the game even though all feedback in the forum is negative, so they'll get negative reviews of course. It sounds like they've given up, so we can't even hope that they'll work on the game and fix it. All their replies in the forum are "THANKS FOR THE FEEDBACK, WE'LL KEEP YOUR OPINION IN MIND". All robotic replies that suggest they don't plan to improve anything. Even their Community Rules in the forum are all negative, basically trying to shield themselves from criticism: https://steamcommunity.com/app/986040/d ... 2261869640

FrozenYogurt wrote:Community Rules

1. No personal attacks on developers or the game.
It's okay if you don't like our game - feel free to post reasoned feedback with arguments to support it. If you feel that our product does not correspond to your expectations - feel free to unwishlist and unsubscribe. What we won't tolerate is personal attacks on our team or our product. In other words, saying "the game is garbage" or "the devs won't achieve anything cause they are pathetic losers" will get you banned. The team is working hard and doing everything to provide a better product preceded by the demo so that you can try it first, Therefore, to our belief, we do not have to tolerate any personal attacks. Sounds fair?

2. No toxicity. No continuous toxic rants and comments on multiple threads
Again, it's okay to post a "different" opinion. What is not okay is to continuously post unsubstantiated and rude rants, or provocative comments on various threads with the purpose to harass the other community members, developers, or our publisher.

3. Developers do not owe you anything unless they take your money
Feeling disappointed that we don't release a cool game right away just because you want it – is okay. It's okay to write a long post about your disappointment and how you wanted to play it earlier. What is not okay is to push our backs against the wall. Game development does not always go the way we want - delays happen. We don't take your money selling pre-orders and then delay, do we?

4. Do not attack other developers or publishers
This community is not a platform to attack other developers or publishers. You have anything to tell them - go to their community and try to provide a reasonable opinion.

5. No politics, discrimination, or hate speeches towards anyone.


I'll still be keeping an eye on it because you never know, but I have to say I've rarely seen such overwhelmingly negative signs coming from a game that looks so good.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

Re: PC|MAC The Unliving

Unread postby icycalm » 07 Nov 2022 20:49

Image

Just came out and I bought it even though review rating instantly went to "Mixed", which for a new game basically means "Bad". My only hope is that, since some of the criticisms are about the high difficulty, maybe the negativity is just casuals whining. And anyway the game is under 20 bucks, and it deserves at least that much for the artwork.

I'll be streaming and reviewing it soon. Haven't done a normal game in a while, and it'll be a nice change of pace.


P.S. There are massive day 1 bugs, so maybe hold off on playing for a bit until they're fixed: https://steamcommunity.com/games/986040 ... 6230475694

  • The game becomes unresponsive when the left mouse button is pressed in loading screens on lower spec PC machines. A workaround for this at the moment is to avoid clicking during loading screens.
  • The Language select bar cannot be scrolled through. A workaround for this is to use the arrow keys instead.
  • Mapping option is displayed as a placeholder. The placeholder means to open the map.
  • An ability is clipping through the environment in Homespace. The team are working on this, and this will be removed in a future update.
  • The player is able to softlock the game by resurrecting the undead and interacting with an essence in quick succession. To avoid this, please don’t do these interactions too quickly.
  • The camera does not follow the player in one of the Citadel chunks. This will be updated soon.
  • Upgrades from the Ascension Throne are inaccessible to the player. This is soon to be updated, but you will be able to access basic upgrades.
  • There are missing chunks throughout the Citadel level - this will be updated soon.
  • The Commander unit is not visible when dead - however, the Commander can still be resurrected and works as normal, this is just a visual issue.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands

CULT LIVE: The Unliving

Unread postby icycalm » 04 Jan 2023 01:37

The Unliving with icycalm 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1qZt0XEew4

Image

Played 45 minutes of this—as much as I managed to on one life.

It has been getting mixed reviews on Steam, and my verdict so far is... mixed.

The game is very pretty, but not quite as stellar-pretty as I thought it would be from the videos. Seeing the game in action has downgraded my aesthetics rating from 5/5 to 4/5. It's still great, don't get me wrong, but there are some issues I will discuss at length in a review, if I end up writing one.

This is basically an RTT a la Commandos et al., but instead of a handful of characters you command an undead army you raise from your victims. I can't think of anything terribly similar to it. The army angle certainly sets it apart from similar games, and does make the genre feel fresh. The concept of the game is solid.

The controls for your mob are good, as far as I played. When you hold down right-mouse-button you move the mob, and when you don't you move your character. Very simple and effective. I do have my reservations about the various necromantic powers you can unleash. Not sure how easy it will be to activate them in the thick of battle while also controlling the mob effectively AND your character.

And this is what it boils down to in the end: Are the levels designed with enough intelligence to really challenge you to think hard to pass them, while the controls can hold up to being used under pressure? Moreover, are the levels interesting to explore and traverse all the way through the game?

From what little I saw of the game, I am doubtful the answers to the above questions are all yes. I suspect the level design will be samey, that the challenge won't be great, and that the controls will be at least mildly inadequate if/when the challenge ramps up.

That said, who knows, I only played the tutorial basically. Plus, they're still actively developing it, it's in EA after all, and they don't even have all the levels in yet. Plus, it certainly is one of the best-looking pixel-art games in recent years, almost at the level of the recent Songs of Conquest [ > ].

It's certainly at the very least 100x-1,000x more worthy of anyone's time than Vampire Survivors, which has sold a million times more copies to braindead subhumans with wretched taste.

I played at 1080p just to see how it looks without scanlines, and it looks pretty good. Not great, because it's certainly upscaled at that resolution, but just about acceptable. That said, when I play again, I'll play from the start at 4K with ReShade's crt-royale filter, and I expect it to look stunning that way.
User avatar
icycalm
Hyperborean
 
Joined: 28 Mar 2006 00:08
Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands


Return to Games