Ziggurat - New Heretic game !

[Seven]

Dear all,

I was thinking that people who like Quake, might also enjoy games like Heretic/Hexen, so I would like to post this thread here.

There is a new game available called: Ziggurat
It is clearly influenced/inspired by Heretic, its cover reminds a lot of Heretic and even several in-game texts mention D�Sparil and his hordes/riders/minions.




The game itself is a mixture of these games:
- Heretic/Hexen
- Torchlight
- Painkiller

The weapons are really awesome. The minions are a mixture of well-known Heretic/Hexen minions and some new cool ones as well as some weird ones, like "carrots" (?!)
The graphic has a cartoonish touch, like Torchlight. I love the particles and cool effects of this game.
The ambience is fantasy with dungeon, medieval castle type maps and a really dynamic and living world (with water(-falls), flying leafs, smoke, fog, etc).
There are several trap types in maps as well (I love the lava traps). The maps themselves are randomly generated (which is good for replayability).
I cannot say much about the gameplay itself yet. It seems to be a bit like Painkiller with its monster hordes though, but I am not sure.

It also has some RPG influences: You gain experience by killing monsters and solving maps, which leads to level ups. You can then decide which way to develop by choosing skills.
Once you played through some areas, the game unlocks other player character/types (like Hexen).


So, all in all a really promising new game, in this boring world of always repeating modern first person shooters types. Finally a new fantasy-themed shooter which is surely worth a look !


Find more infos, screens, clips and a test about it here and here
All tests I have read so far are very positive….
The game itself is very cheap (only 11 $).



Here is a short gameplay clip:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-fHx6QEdUk]Ziggurat - Gameplay reveal - YouTube[/ame]


The below clip is a commented Early Access (beta !!) review (I highly recommend to watch the complete clip):
All intermissions and even the names/descriptions of the characters and monsters remind a lot of Heretic wordings. Its great
Keep in mind, this clip is an Early Access (beta !!) version , which has been updated 16 times in the meantime !! Including more weapons, more monster classes and bosses as well as a lot more maps/episodes…

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7bQc-Z0VZI]Ziggurat Early Access PC Game Review - YouTube[/ame]


Here are some screenshots showing some of the new weapons and maps:

[talisa]

looks cool, totally gonna have to buy this right away <3

always been a big fan of heretic&hexen games, its great to finally see a game like those being made

[ArrrCee]

Looks cool to me, I'll have to check it out!

[Mathuzzz]

Looks interesting! Have to try it out!

[talisa]

got it and been playing it quite a bit, a lot of fun so far!
like all the enemies and the weapons are great!

good to finally have a good fantasy fps again in the vein of heretic

fave weapons so far are the firestorm grenade (bombs away!) and the green staff which is also shown in the top pic seven posted, for obvious reasons (serpent staff!)

the bird enemies are fun, and the shrooms look fun.
chicken-soup with champignons... yum!

and the carrot-like mandragora enemies are just hilarious to see

its great that every time you start a game everything is random so the game feels different and new every time,
although obvious sometimes it means you can get really powerfull weapons and other times... not so much.

.

also.... fuck yeah, the iron lich from heretic!


well, almost at least! but he sure does remind a lot of the boss from heretic


.

there's also another (sorta but not really) familiar face from heretic:

totally looks like the disciple, my fave enemy from heretic! <3
the maiden's attacks are even similar-ish to the one from disciple in heretic


.


so far the only one sorta thing that could be changed is that there is no saving at all.
dying means its over and you gotta start again from zero.
after each dungeon you can optionally choose to save and go back to main menu,
but you can only load your saved game once and then itll be gone.

imo it would be nice if at least your save-game didnt disappear or you could continue from the highest dungeon you reached,
but cuz of the random nature of the game its not to big a deal really.

but still would be nice if you didnt lose everything and didnt have to start over from the beginnning every time you died.

[Seven]

Hello,

The game gets better and better everytime I play it.
I must say I really love it and enjoy it a lot !

The ability to develop your character is really great.
The fact that each and every floor is totally random each time you play it (incl. monsters, traps, weapons, etc) makes it a game with unlimited replayability. Even though the game might not be too long, that features makes it "extremely long"

Each floor always has a room whith cool traps, to bypass to get rewarded with a special ability or potions or something. It is always different and really gripping. You can leave this "test" out or try it (yeah you can die if you fail, hehe) and get rewarded.

I love the many different bosses in each level.

The enemies are simply cool and their drops are also random (but with regards to your actual weapons/abilites).

I am more than happy that I accidently stumbled over this gem of a game
It is a no brainer if you are a fan of fantasy themed games like Heretic/Hexen.

I hope many people will buy this game and support the small development team.


======================


@ talisa,

The topic about the savegame, been only available one time per floor, lead to big discussions in the steam forum. They devs want to keep it this way, as it is their vision of the game.

But I found a way to keep your savegames and made a small fix for it. So, if you want you can download and use it too.

Small part of the included readme:

This will give you the possibility to keep your savegames for the game Ziggurat.
It will no longer be deleted after using it.

So, you can restart your current floor unlimited times.

That might come in handy for poor skilled players like me...

Have fun with this wonderful game.
Seven


PS: The game�s "early access" period has ended and it will be fully released tomorrow

[talisa]

thanx seven, will check it out

and yes the randomness of the game is great.
makes for a new experience each time cuz every single play is different


had it a couple times though that i was just screwed cuz i for example only had an alchemy weapon
but only got drops for blue and green mana and thus couldnt use my orange mana-fueled weapon.

also a couple of times ended up with no mana and having to take on a boss with only wand cuz of not enough mana-drops, which basically just means you're dead.

but in general you do actually do get plenty of the mana you need, but sometimes you dont sadly cuz of the randomness.


but even though thats im really enjoying the game
great fun, unique playthrough each time, and over time you keep getting better weapons and perks
and you keep getting further and further into the dungeons

love the Skull of Xanatos spell, very reminiscent of the spell that the golems in heretic use <3
its awesome that the secondary fire-mode of it uses the model of arthur, the lich-boss

[gdiddy62]

This is a fantastic find Seven and so much fun to play. It reminds me of the first time I played Serious Sam and the first time I played Hexen.
Thanks for the ability to save games now!!!

[talisa]

ohmygah.... this game just got even cooler then it already was!

i just found out it actually has the real serpent-staff from hexen! *squeels*



^ me right now ^

[talisa]

... and just when i thought the game couldnt get any more awesome!

its corvus from heretic!

yeah i know they call him rigel, but thats totally corvus!

playing as him makes the game feel even more like heretic/hexen as he runs at the same high speed like in in those old games,
and when playing as rigel the serpent-staff is an absolute delight to use cuz staffs use less mana, his green mana-pool is bigger AND staffs fire faster!
and on top of that you always start with a staff when playing as rigel!

[ArrrCee]

With all the Hexen/Heretic similarities, I was wondering if anyone from the original development of those games at Raven is working at Milkstone Studios?

I tried finding info on the studio but it's pretty scarce, yet the team listed on the site would imply they're just fans of the series. I'll have to ask them on twitter.

[Adam]

Special promotion, 15% off on Steam till the 30th.

I am tempted to not feed the children for a day and buy it.

Or maybe I can do a Steam trade for my youngest?

The other parent might catch on tho'...

What to do. What. To. Do?

I'll dress up one of the cats.


Perfect.

[soy1bonus]

Hi, I'm one of the developers and reading that you're enjoying the game (and picking a lot of references ^_^) is really cool.

We're four guys that never worked at Raven (or any other game company) but we really like fast-paced shooters and we kind of missed more games in that style.

Ziggurat is our biggest game to date (we made a bunch of smaller ones before) and we hope it'll sell enough to keep adding content to it.

Thanks a lot for the praise! We'll keep working as hard as we can!

[Adam]

@soy1bonus

What interesting stories can you tell us about the development of Ziggurat?

[soy1bonus]

I'm not sure what you would find interesting

We spent about 10 months making the game, and we had a basic build (first dungeon set, some weapons and enemies and the basic handling) in about 5 months.

We wanted to make sure that the game felt right before starting to add a lot of content. It was really important for us to make the core of the game as good as we could, because it's a really simple game so it had to work just right.

After some tests, the controls and camera movement were finished and we spend another 5 months adding the rest of the content.

If you want to know something more specific, just ask and I'll try to answer as soon as possible