eL_PuSHeR wrote:

I wonder what niche are the developers aiming at...

The only way they could be more obvious is if they asked you to call them and say "aardwolf". 😁

This smells Apogee from miles away. Fantastic look!

It smells like Duke Nukem engine 😁

Also, I was kind of amused that the article writer made it a point to educate his readers that "EGA" means "640x350", which clearly isn't the case here, or even with "those" (Apogee) games...
Not that these details are worth nitpicking over, but you just gotta love web journalists who so obviously do their fact-checking on wikipedia. ;)

One thing I do have to say though, for a game resembling the old DOS 16-colour EGA style Apogee had going, it's kinda ugly. Many of the different elements in the gameplay seem to only have three colours each, not counting black. It's almost as though they're going for a sort of hybrid of CGA and EGA graphics...

*shrugs* Still, as I've said many times before, it's not the graphics that matter, it's the gameplay! ;)

Gemini000 wrote:

One thing I do have to say though, for a game resembling the old DOS 16-colour EGA style Apogee had going, it's kinda ugly.

I thought the exact same as soon as i saw the screenshots. The pallete ain't pretty.

Agreed. It looks like more CGA than EGA.

Gemini000 wrote:

One thing I do have to say though, for a game resembling the old DOS 16-colour EGA style Apogee had going, it's kinda ugly. Many of the different elements in the gameplay seem to only have three colours each, not counting black. It's almost as though they're going for a sort of hybrid of CGA and EGA graphics...

I think they did that on purpose. CGA colours are not enough, EGA is already too much 😀

I admit that the visuals don't look even remotely close to the fantastic EGA graphics in Apogee titles, but then again, I fancy the developers aimed for a more retro feel. In fact, who can blame them to use unconventional colour schemes only because they were technically not possible back in the day (assuming everyone doing EGA graphics would exploit the 16-colour palette to the max).

Anyway, I think the graphics shown on the screenshots are fine.

MrFlibble wrote:

In fact, who can blame them to use unconventional colour schemes only because they were technically not possible back in the day (assuming everyone doing EGA graphics would exploit the 16-colour palette to the max).

Not sure what exactly you're trying to say here, but there's never been a technical reason *not* to use the full 16 colors in any EGA mode... the only cases I can think of would be Silpheed/Thexder (which used fewer colors to mimic the original look of the Japanese NEC versions they were ported from), and a few other games that saved disk space by just using the 4-color CGA data and messing with the palette (Romero's Pyramids of Egypt, etc.)

Yeah I phrased that awkwardy, but I meant that in the times before VGA, EGA was clearly superior to CGA and I fancy anyone who made games back then would use all the 16 colours to create nice graphics (as in Apogee or Epic games from that time). However, if these guys want to limit themselves to only six or eight or ten colours they have their right to, even though one can hardly imagine a 90s game developer who would willingly restrict themselves to six or ten colours out of 16 if EGA was available. Thenceforth the artistic choice of modern developers to use more colours than CGA but less than EGA is not consistent with historical reality, but it's their choice nonetheless.

I would be much interested if any games from the EGA era exist where not all colours are used though.

Not really a fan of the "Duke Nukum Too" aspect...

Looks like Duke Nukem 1 played on an EGA monitor with a dodgy cable...

It's on Steam.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/267360/

Action platformer. Not my style of game. On the other hand the price is quite reasonable.

Still a dollar more than the game they're ripping...

I'd buy it if it ripped off of Abuse rather than Duke and kept the same "fake" EGA. (Because I like mouse aiming side scrollers)

I wasn't going to pick the game up myself, but then a particular lazy game reviewer got it for me. :B

After only half an hour I'm already halfway through the game with 100% completion on every level so far. For what it is there's not really anything terribly wrong with the game, but the graphics are definitely not any better in action than from still screens: The environments are very sparse and the graphics are kinda depressing from the overuse of grey, magenta and green.

I do have some design gripes with it though, which don't REALLY affect the gameplay all too much, but would've made the game more presentable: There's no high-score tables, with the game simply tracking the highest score for each episode, you get a time bonus at the end of each level but there's no in-game timer to let you know how you're doing, so it detracts from the desire to race for better times, and you can't choose which weapon you're using, presumably to keep people from stockpiling the more powerful guns for boss encounters, with the most powerful weapon you have at any time being the one you're forced to use. Again, these don't really affect the gameplay, but could've been handled better.

I guess for a $4 game it does what it set out to do: Provide people with a new gameplay experience reminiscent of the original PC platformers from the days of DOS. It's not a bad game and it plays fine, it''s just lacking in both the visual and audio departments, even by EGA and PC Speaker standards.

Gemini000 wrote:

It's not a bad game and it plays fine, it''s just lacking in both the visual and audio departments, even by EGA and PC Speaker standards.

What is your impression, is this minimalism a deliberate choice by the developers, or an unintentional design flaw?

DracoNihil wrote:

(Because I like mouse aiming side scrollers)

Then you'll probably like Eat This (in case you're unfamiliar with that game that is).

MrFlibble wrote:

Gemini000 wrote:

It's not a bad game and it plays fine, it''s just lacking in both the visual and audio departments, even by EGA and PC Speaker standards.

What is your impression, is this minimalism a deliberate choice by the developers, or an unintentional design flaw?

Both. They clearly set out to design a game that felt like the EGA graphics from early platformers like Duke Nukem, however there's a serious lack of colour and background details. If only one or two levels were like this that would be fine, but EVERY level is like this. There's also no attempt to do any sort of dithering anywhere, meaning all colours are solid. This isn't bad but it detracts from the nostalgia factor since many EGA games did have a little bit of dithering going on in some things.

Don't get me wrong though, I enjoy minimalist visuals and audio when they're done right, but in order to pull of the minimalistic approach there needs to be a large variety in the things you see and hear, you just don't see and hear them all at the same time. However, the variety of things in MURI is worse than in the original Duke Nukem, opting mostly for palette swaps for different enemy types and only a tiny handful of different kinds of scoring items.