Death Scourges

The game currently feels like a very early alpha build or proof of concept but the dev has stated that no more major work will be done on the game. Also AI generated voice actors that rip off the combine :(

Oof this game is a weird one, I really wish I could leave a neutral rating. It took me a little over 2 hours to beat it, and I do have some thoughts, some good some bad. The good is that the atmosphere, sound design and setting are pretty good, its basically what RE Operation Racoon City should have done, the sounds from the guns is good, the models are nice and the feeling of playing with a squad is quite good, as each member has their own look and feel, plus unique weapons. The bad is that the game is basically a tech demo, the story is very bland and although there is lore spread-out throughout the game, its not really interesting or deep. The gameplay feels very weird as the FPS fluctuated greatly, I have a 4090 and 9800X3D and still when a wave of enemies came at me, I was in 50fps territory at 4k. The lack of a map also makes the game hard to navigate without having to backtrack towards the signs that are directional, combine that with the class Unity assets from other zombie games, and its not got lots going for it that make it a memorable experience. I will cut the dev some slack on the fact that its a solo project, and from that I can forgive things like all the squad members having the same voicelines, and enemy pathing AI wasn't great, but I do think that the outlook for the game is quite good given the roadmap from the dev, but time will tell. The game also crashed on me twice during my playthrough, once when loading a save, the other when transferring between levels. There was also no real usage for like half of the inventory items that dropped in the game, not sure if this is due to my save but even when following the crafting recipes, I could not use most of the items that were dropped. Its also worth noting that I didnt pay full price for this game, I got it as a key from a 3rd party site as I dont think its worth $15, around 10 i would say give it a shot, as it stands its a one shot proof of concept. Final rating from me is a 6/10, I do recommend it but take it with a grain of salt. The core premise is cool, I like supporting indie devs, especially solo ones, but the gameplay is jank, fps is poor and details are missing that make this game really quite fun, I hope the dev takes the feedback onboard, and once more content comes I will be sure to give the game another spin.

Полное говно. Боец спецназа не способен контролировать отдачу пп, носить с собой больше трёх патронов и давать подчинённым команды сложнее чем "стойте тут/следуйте за мной". Лутаешь кучу бесполезного говна(в целых 9 ячеек инвентаря), у которого нет применения

This is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with cool voice acting. We got ♥♥♥♥♥♥ AI team that gets stuck on every other tree, building or car. teleporting AND lagging behind don't ask me how that works. Gun that feel like they have no impact and not enough content to be even 10 dollars

Overall, I think this is a very interesting project with a lot of potential. You can really see the effort and care put into it, and that’s exactly why I’d like to share some feedback that could help improve the experience even further. For context, I completed the game on normal difficulty and it can be finished in around 2 hours. Reloading triggers an automatic zoom. It might be nice to have an option to disable this, as it can feel a bit intrusive during combat. Melee combat feels somewhat limited: the range is short and the character moves quite slowly, which makes it less appealing to use compared to other options. The shotgun has a very slow reload. Since it’s designed for close-range combat, it might be worth balancing this so it feels more rewarding to use. Pistols currently don’t feel very useful compared to other weapons. Ammo consumption is quite high. Even though enemies frequently drop ammo, it’s easy to run out in the middle of a fight, which can be a bit frustrating. On normal (and likely easy) difficulty, enemies feel quite tanky. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but combined with limited ammo and slow reloads, it can make the gunplay feel a bit too punishing. Actions like kicking or tactical sprinting with a knife consume stamina very quickly, which limits their usefulness. The flashlight drains very fast. Especially when playing solo, this often leaves you in the dark, relying heavily on the drone. There’s a lack of feedback when hitting zombies. It would be great to have clearer animations, sounds, or reactions to confirm damage or create more opportunities to stagger them. Possible bug: throwing a grenade near loot crates seems to destroy their contents when the crate breaks. The save system is a bit unclear. There doesn’t seem to be an option to overwrite an existing save, only to load or delete. A dedicated dodge button could greatly improve gameplay, especially in solo mode where slow reloads leave you more exposed. Zombies are very quiet until they are right next to you. Adding clearer audio cues or signals would help a lot with anticipating threats, especially when playing without teammates or with music turned off. Overall, I believe that with some adjustments in these areas, the experience could improve significantly, because the core of the game is already very promising. Keep up the great work!

I've been playing a lot of SurrounDead and recently gotten into the whole SCP Foundation, so when this demo popped up a few weeks ago I was pretty excited. Demo was buggy as hell but fun. This game has most of it ironed out but I would say it's rather short. I've completed it already on a first playthrough. There is stuff to encourage multiple playthroughs and from what I understand from a recent news update that more stuff is going to be added. Because it's fun and scratched my itch I'm giving it a thumbs up. But I will detail some bad points which might have you waiting for a bit first. - Squad based action and simple controls are good, but almost seem pointless about 2 seconds into any contact, since the enemies get amongst you quickly and then it's crossfire hell. Also, since it's either "go and wait/guard there" or "follow me" there's not a lot of point ordering the former. Several times I'd make a run for it thinking the lads were right behind me and then I found myself dogpiled by 3 or 4 enemies. - There's some really bad camera angles so once the firefight becomes a melee you can't see anything (this could do with some angle adjustment settings, maybe even a first person option like SurroundDead does) - Inventory is a pain in the arse because you can't pick up something unless there's a space. Sounds reasonable until you want to pick up ammo and you can't because you have 1 round left taking up the space rather than filling that stack and leaving the remainder behind (I'd be happy even if it topped off the inventory stack and lost the rest). Having to open up the inventory and temporarily drop something by dragging it to the corner of the screen just so the stack can fill and then pick up the dropped item again (especially during the last bit) started to wind me up. - Controls can sometimes feel sluggish. It's responsive but things like starting to move and then sprinting feels like it's taking its time to do it. I suspect this might be a design choice though because this was one of a few little things where I thought "cool design/idea, but it's not what I'm used to gaming" (unless it's Scum but that's a whole different thing) - The HUD for your lads and everything is huge. This coupled with the over the shoulder zoom (and auto-zoom when reloading, I suspect again is another design choice where I thought "Nice/pain in the arse though") means a lot of the time I had no idea what was going on around me coupled with the rest of the points above. A HUD size slider would be nice (the HUD toggle didn't work at all for me) - The voices of you and the lads is very atmospheric, I liked them a lot... but if I was doing something like fighting off another load of husks I felt like it wasn't clear enough to hear properly, so it felt like I was missing some of the plot (the effect for them is great, I really like how it makes you and the lads feel like you're dodgy Umbrella Corp "troubleshooters" or SCP MTF and probably mildly anomalous themselves. It just needs tweaking somehow or maybe just making consistently louder than the non team member voice lines) - The game doesn't pause when you're reading notes and background lore. With how the ambushes were pretty regular and some places they were was just a corridor so tactical placement was limited I felt I had to either rush speed reading it and only taking in a few key words or skipping them entirely. I know it's realistic for the world to keep going but I actually wanted to find out more about the lore of the game! Maybe if that's a design choice then an option that it adds an entry into an "evidence pouch" so it can either be read when there's been time to get into a good position or even read from a main menu section. - [SORTED*] A few times I wandered around aimlessly because I didn't know where to go and I missed something about what the next step was (either the voiceline or notereading at speed issue). If not having a map and having to work things out under stress is a design choice then just a little reminder somewhere to refer to of the next step would have saved me about 30 minutes on the second level. [* The next objective is at the top right of the screen when looking at your inventory. I just didn't notice on my first playthrough] Ok, so that's a lot of bad points but I still marked it as a positive. Why? Well apart from where I wrote good things to balance the bad under each point I'll tell you why I think this is great; + This OOOOzes SCP Foundation adjacent depth and lore. Either it could fit into the SCP lore as a multiverse offshoot (there was one entity in containment whose silhouette in the dark looked quite familiar and I'm glad I couldn't see their face, wink wink ;) ). This feels like a labour of love and the fact one person did this over 4 years (I think I read somewhere) Makes we want more! + I can't remember the name of the old Resident Evil game where you had a squad of creepy but cool Umbrella Corp troubleshooter operatives and had to clear up the mess of Raccoon City (I feel like it's really obvious like "Resident Evil: Racoon City" or such)... Well this game takes the cool bits and does it better. The Scourges have just enough personality in the voices and differences in their kit without seeming like a designer somewhere had to fulfil a bunch of tickboxes like "female BDSM gimp nun" and "hulking brute with an LMG" etc. The kit looks like it's standard issue for their unit but each customised their loadout for their role. I do really want to know what the spinny thing on your guy's arm is though! + The individual enemies and the way they attack and evolve is a design chef's kiss! Conceptually it hit the sweet spot between zombies that sometimes get back up again and necromorphs from Dead Space. Once I noticed a few things it had me watching the corpses for a few seconds waiting for something to happen again every. single. time! + The atmosphere effects... chef's kiss again! The lower levels had my nose itching from imagining the spores floating about! The choice of low poly engine but cranking up the effects was a wise choice. Honestly, I'm hoping this turns into a bit of an episodic game now the main bit is done. I want more lore, I want to possibly be dropped off at a remote arctic site, one under the sea, possibly even into an alien landscape of reality bending terror! The fact the dev has said more is coming in an update soon has me crossing my fingers tightly! Tl; dr.... This is a flawed but beautiful diamond of the rarest colour. It just needs a few tweaks because (apart from a few bugs) I can see and feel clearly what the vision was, and rather than just another slop game that's full of awkward stuff I can see that most (if not all) were design choices different from the norm but had reason behind it. If the negatives get addressed above (possibly with my suggestions for solutions) then this is going to be a breath of fresh air, much like what SurrounDead has done for the zombie survival/Escape From Tarkov types of games. I'm going to see if there's a Discord server somewhere this dev runs. I want to find out the second any news happens. <3

Honestly pretty good for a solo dev, though combat can seem slightly unfinished on the edges it's still a pretty good game, lacks a bit of replayability but again overall pretty good in my books