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PC Age of Darkness: Final Stand

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PC Age of Darkness: Final Stand

Unread postby Dead Man Talking » 23 Jul 2021 19:24

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https://www.ageofdarkness.com/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1426 ... nal_Stand/

PlaySide wrote:Age of Darkness: Final Stand is a dark fantasy survival RTS where you must illuminate, build and defend humanity’s last bastion against hordes of Nightmares. Set in the remnants of a kingdom consumed by a deadly fog, you decide. Will you hide in the light? Or take back your world.


If you've been hungering for a theyarebillionslike, you're in luck. Looks like an Australian studio has you covered. The game looks good, and its 70k unit target is impressive when compared to TAB's 10k I think it was, but apart from that I can't see much else that's new here, and no co-op or versus MP either. Meanwhile, Numantian has pretty much stated they are working on a sequel with exactly these features. They've been working on it for a while now too, so they might drop news any day now. So the future's bright for lovers of this subgenre.

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PlaySide wrote:FEATURES
  • 'SwarmTech' allowing for over 70,000 swarming AI units on screen at any time
  • Build defenses against thousands of enemies during Death Nights
  • Day & Night transitions, expand by day, hunt by night
  • Unique Heroes to level up and micro-manage to gain an edge against the dark
  • Living Death Fog system that grows and recoils from the light
  • Randomized Malices & Blessings to make every survival unique
  • Multi-faceted Skill Tree system to progress through for your Units
  • Wandering Elite Nightmares that may ambush your party and drop precious Dark Essence
  • Horror and Embolden based status effects which may curse or aid your troops
  • Special Nightmare units, Spitters, Crushers, and Wraiths that test your combat skills


Official Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QX8LoZ-iOo

TBA.
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Unread postby icycalm » 23 Jul 2021 22:08

The "unique heroes to level up and micro-manage" is new. "Expand by day, hunt by night" is also a nice upgrade to TAB's arbitrary countdowns for attacks. And of course the 70k figure is impressive. Art is nice but nowhere near as good as TAB's.

Overall a worthy effort to tide us over until TAB2.

You gotta laugh at this though: https://www.ageofdarkness.com/post/comingsoon

PlaySide wrote:With Age of Darkness: Final Stand we've been able to combine our passion for Action RPGs, Roguelikes, and RTS games into something wholly our own


"Wholly our own"

That's what programmers call blatant rip-offs.

Fucking faggots.

Not a single word about the game they ripped off.

At least everyone in their Steam forum is talking about TAB, so no one's fooled.
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Unread postby icycalm » 29 Jul 2021 05:30

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1426450/ ... 080539896/

PlaySide wrote:Multiplayer has been a topic of discussion amongst designers since this game entered development! If we find that there's a multiplayer experience worth making and it's in demand by our players, then it's something we'll look at bringing in sooner.

If we add multiplayer, we'll likely lean towards each player focusing on their own Keep, whilst finding interesting ways for players to interact with or against each other.


PlaySide wrote:It's coming out as Early Access title in Fall 2021.


Day 1.
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Unread postby icycalm » 02 Sep 2021 15:08

Fuck fuck fuck! Comes out on the 15th!

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/pressrel ... _Stand.php

OVERVIEW

Age of Darkness: Final Stand presents a modern, darker spin on the survival RTS genre that will challenge new players, and strategy experts alike. The initial story driven trailer is live giving players a sneak peek into the title and unique gameplay.

Strategic construction, careful resource management, and rapid recruitment are the keys to surviving unrelenting swarms of Nightmares. Robust defences to build, battle worn heroes to enlist, and the tug of war between light and dark all complemented with an original soundtrack by Path of Exile composer Kamil Orman-Janowski.

KEY FEATURES

Survive the Never Ending Evil

Age of Darkness: Final Stand will enter early access with an intense survival game mode that tests your resolve. By day, construct buildings, gather resources and recruit an army led by unique Heroes. Scout into the deadly fog of war and take the fight to the horrors within. By night, survive swarms of enemies numbering in the thousands. Made to be highly replayable, your army will fall, your settlements will crumble, but you will learn. Rise from the ashes again and again to push back the darkness of ‘The Veil’ and keep the light alive.

Fog of War: Evolved

Light up a rich, complex, procedurally generated map to claim territory back from ‘The Veil’. A dynamic living death fog that conceals enemies, drains life from your troops, and hinders exploration efforts. Holding the line against this terror is not for the faint of heart. Any units unfortunate enough to be too close to ‘The Veil’ become ‘horrified’, sending them into fits of fear and lowering their fighting effectiveness. Only light cures the darkness, so fight in the light or pay the price.

Death Nights

Brace yourself against huge tidal waves of Nightmares. Leveraging an internally developed technology called ‘SwarmTech’ Age of Darkness: Final Stand is able to render over 70,000 enemy units on the screen at one time. These enemy legions claw their way up through seething fissures in the earth to reinforce ‘The Veil’. When the Death Night begins, you’ll be weakened by a Malice - a random affliction capable of undermining the best laid plans. If you are fortunate enough to survive until dawn you will be rewarded with a choice of Blessings. Live or die, Death Nights will test your strategic skills to breaking point.

Heroes Vs Horrors

Lead the charge against the horrors of the night with powerful and unique Heroes. Using special abilities gained from levelling them up, these Heroes can be key to turning the tide of a desperate battle. But beware, the Nightmares have elite roaming champions of their own that drop precious resources when killed, posing an extreme and ever-present threat to your expansion. Are you the hunter, or the hunted?

An Army Needs Training

Train and configure your army via a multi-faceted Army Skill Tree system where you decide upon multiple routes of progression for Melee, Ranged, and Siege units. Grant your Archers invisibility to scout hard-to-reach places. Imbue your Sentinels with rage so they may restore their health with each blow and install speed boosters on your Ballista’s to hurry them to new defensive locations. Each session, the choice becomes yours, though be warned, the most powerful abilities may cost more than just your gold.

Customizable Challenges

Age of Darkness: Final Stand’s Early Access releases with 5 Difficulties to choose from, each with their own game settings and specific number of save game slots. In addition, several Hardships may be imposed on your Survival Mode. These Hardships are modifications that twist the game rules in challenging and deceptive ways. Can you survive without a Hero? What if the Death Fog appeared every single night? However, with higher difficulties and more Hardships come the rewards. As if you can survive, your final score will be all the greater.

Player Driven Early Access Updates

Early Access is only the beginning. PlaySide intends to support Age of Darkness: Final Stand with frequent updates driven by a strong roadmap and an even stronger sense of community feedback. We keenly understand the importance of constantly injecting new life into a survival game and we have lots more in store. Including new units, buildings, game mechanics, gameplay depth, and whole new game modes.


Gameplay Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0ccAIe3NJo

It looks pretty sick, and I don’t know how you’d see 70k units on a screen without 4K at the very least.

I won’t be playing because I haven’t played enough TAB so it’d be spoilery in a sense. It’d be like ruining the sequel. But we have a bunch of people who have clocked TAB, so I am hoping at least one of them will stream for us and provide impressions.

It comes out same day as Flynn and one day before Eastward. Crazy September.
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Unread postby Robomoo » 14 Sep 2021 21:07

This just got delayed to the 7th of October.

PlaySide partners with Team17 to publish Age of Darkness: Final Stand!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app ... 1058988840
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Unread postby icycalm » 22 Sep 2021 16:49

Developer Gameplay First Look and Q&A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mi02qiPHsw

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The devs play the game for an hour and a half. Looks pretty good.

I am not sure if they're playing co-op... I only skimmed the video.
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CULT LIVE: Age of Darkness: Final Stand

Unread postby Robomoo » 10 Oct 2021 21:04

Age of Darkness: Final Stand with Robomoo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeGPCtfaOEc

It's extremely similar to TAB, almost feels like a re-skin. The buildings are mostly 1:1 equivalents of buildings in TAB, and the resource system/economy is exactly the same, they don't even give things different names. The two starting units are an archer girl and a bulky looking soldier guy, who have some voice lines which are exact copies.

I think most of the new stuff is later in the game, so I'll post more impressions when I get further. I've only seen a couple of new things so far: the hero character that you start with, the fog effect during waves, and the lighting system which is a slight twist on TAB's electricity system. These are all cool but don't hugely affect how the game feels.

The one thing that's a real downgrade from TAB is that the zombies look kind of shit when they're grouped up since they stand in a perfectly uniform grid and are all identical. In TAB they manage to make the hordes look way more natural.

I'm pretty sure there's no campaign currently, just a single randomly-generated map.
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Unread postby icycalm » 23 Nov 2021 00:32

Quality of Life & Farm Visuals
https://steamcommunity.com/games/142645 ... 8543868344

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PlaySide wrote:To make everything seem just that little bit prettier, Food Gathering buildings will spawn crop fields surrounding the building showing that this is where your food grows. These changes should help you to see the status of food production at a glance.

As the Food Gathering buildings produce more food depending on the amount of tiles they are placed on, when you then build within the Food Gatherer’s radius, you will see your crops gradually wither and change colour. This will let you know that your Gatherers are not producing optimal food gain due to buildings within the food radius.

The crops themselves will appear visually different as well depending on the overall status of the Building Placement. Bountiful, Good, and Poor will all be represented differently. Using the Farm as an example, you should notice that the more food you are producing, the wheat crops surrounding the Farm will grow more plentiful and have a much brighter colour compared to a Farm that has a Poor food production.

These crops are purely visual and should have no impact on units and enemies wandering through them.


It's been getting pretty good reviews. People just want to see more stuff added, and the devs are slowly adding them. I might fire up the game for a round or two like Robo did, but I'll wait to properly play it a year down the line when it's ready. Until then, I hope to clock TAB properly. I've already played it quite a bit, but last time I played tons of stuff like e.g. the trains weren't in, and I want to also give the campaign a try.

Remember also that this game will eventually get co-op and maybe even versus. So it's really not a good idea to put a lot of time in it right now, unless you don't intend to play with anyone. And even then, you'll be missing out on a ton of other additions.
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Unread postby icycalm » 10 Dec 2021 21:30

Meet the Bursters
https://steamcommunity.com/games/142645 ... 1042985247

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Another monster gets added to the game. Basically need to wait one year minimum to play this at max potential. Up to two years possibly.
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Unread postby icycalm » 23 Feb 2022 19:44

https://steamcommunity.com/games/142645 ... 6416674211

PlaySide wrote:Age of Darkness: Final Stand - Content Update v0.5.0
A new Content Update is available now, bringing a new Player Unit, Building and Hardships to test your mettle against...

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Dear Protectors of the Light,

With a new Update, comes a new Player Unit. Introducing the Pikeman, a brand new Melee unit who can pierce up to THREE enemies in front of them. So it’s time to sharpen your weapons and wits and impale as many Nightmares as you can!

We know your Villagers have been under pressure to stockpile as much wood as they can with the limited resources available, to help them out we now have the Refined Lumber Yard. This new upgrade will provide you with extra Resources and an added Construction Speed Buff for surrounding buildings.

Naturally we had to add in something for those who want an extra challenge, included in this Update are TWO new Hardships! Time Waits for No One punishes the player by removing the ability to pause the game in any way and Mortal Coil causes you to suffer an immediate defeat if your Hero dies.

Change your tactics, increase your defenses and resources, but don’t get too overconfident and launch into battle unprepared, because it could lead to your impending doom.

As always please continue to report bugs to our Steam forums or in the bug reporting channel on our Discord, as we’re constantly monitoring those channels.

See the new trailer for the Pikeman unit here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvYyL71cIr4


The trailer makes the game look great.
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Re: PC Age of Darkness: Final Stand

Unread postby icycalm » 04 Apr 2023 15:14

Flames of Retribution: Before the Darkness Pt. 1
https://steamcommunity.com/games/142645 ... 3827595313

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First part of campaign dropping April 19. Seems like a good time to get into this, though I would give it a few days after launch for bug-fixing.

There's a trailer but I am not even going to bother linking it as it's mediocre CGI. Unfortunately, that means that the cutscenes won't be very enjoyable to watch. But maybe the rest of the campaign will be fun, who knows. It's worth a shot at any rate.

Note that they're planning some kind of multiplayer eventually, not sure if co-op or versus, so I wouldn't play beyond the campaign before that drops.
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Re: PC Age of Darkness: Final Stand

Unread postby icycalm » 25 Aug 2023 05:35

Age of Darkness: Final Stand – August Dev Diary
https://steamcommunity.com/games/142645 ... 8255533360

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Devs keep devving and formations coming soon. This will be a fun minigame to play when I take a break from real games at some point.
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