The Fate of the Damned Awaits You

[patho]

@Daedalus

I just played through Episode 2: The Shadow Out of Time. [NBlood&Lightly Broiled]
It's impressive and I had a lot of fun playing it.

Some effects are outstanding and the level design is also very good.

E2M5 Undead On Arrival & E2M7 Welcome to the Machine are my favorite levels.
The scene in E2M5 with the light switch in the basement is so good.

The only criticism I have is that there isn't enough ammunition available in the first six levels. This led to difficulties in balancing at times.
Thank you very much for your work, I enjoyed it a lot.

[Daedalus]

Greetings.
I'm pleased you enjoyed my creation and your feedback is noted.
The remainder of the add-on will largely have slightly more generous layouts and offerings of ammunition, so I strongly suspect that the next instalments will be slightly more comfortable for you in that regard.
Thanks for the kind words. Farewell.

[Dead Reckoner]

Surprised by this bold new release and its very climactic ending. Surpasses the first RATM, with consistently good maps throughout, especially once Caleb reaches the city. My favorite was probably the hospital map, Dead on Arrival, with its nice mix of firefights and suspense.

The cultist corner camping being less severe than in the first episode was a welcome change, which, combined with more health and armor pickups, opened up more playstyles than just peekaboo shooting around corners. I didn't mind the ammo being scarcer and preferred it over the way most other mapsets, including vanilla Blood, drown the player with ammo. I thought it was balanced perfectly for a continual playthrough, although I haven't tried pitchfork starting all the maps individually yet.

One complaint is that many of the areas appeared too barren and colorless, especially compared to maps like Green Town, the star of the first episode.

Curious about the design choice of limiting Blood's enemy roster for both episodes, did anything in particular influence that?

One bug I encountered:

Spoiler!

After the first attempted battle against Technoborg and his last phase, he wouldn't sink down, forcing me to restart the map.

[Daedalus]

I have awaited you(r feedback)!

I was curious as to how you'd enjoy it, since I believe I recall that you didn't quite like more "modern" settings in Blood or something to that effect, but I'm pleased it sounds like you enjoyed yourself.

The colourless element was intentional, and I understand how that can grate the player a little at length. The beginning half of the episode in particular is incredibly grey and I used that to convey the sense of a 'bleak future'. In the latter half of the episode there is obviously a lot of metal, which also tends to constrain Blood's colour use quite a bit as we can see in Spare Parts. It's part of why I went out of my way to make things a little more colourful for Undead on Arrival and Rise and Shrine. Future instalments are not intended to be quite so grey, so that won't continue in future offerings as a general rule. If by 'barren' you mean short on detail, then that is guilty as charged and a result of me frequently running out of resources to have things match my vision. I will attempt to be wiser in that regard in the future.

I shall qualify my "more ammunition" claim above. In no way do I intend to provide the player with a surplus of ammunition if I can help it, since I believe that resource management is integral to Blood's gameplay experience and I enjoy the 'scavenging' aspect of finding what you can and working with it. I intend rather to reposition equipment slightly in such a way that the player doesn't feel starved (as is frequently the case in early FATE E2). This is a psychological tweak and shouldn't impact overall performance of the game. Things like starting with a sawed-off right in front of you, for example, are very frequent in retail and quite rare in my design. I plan to try model things more closely whereby the bare essentials are easy to obtain, but players need to explore thoroughly for any surplus or bonuses. I am very aware of what I regard as a total balance failure in nearly all user add-ons in this regard and outside of gimmick standalone maps do not intend to ever produce a situation where the player has so much ammunition they've no idea what to do with it, though this will generally always be the case later in episodes, which I view as acceptable as having plenty by that point is earned, assuming the player isn't attempting pitchfork starts.

The enemy roster being limited goes hand-in-hand with the player arsenal being limited. This is done primarily to serve the narrative structure and give a sense of progression. There were a tremendous amount of themes and story elements I attempted to convey in E2, and one of those things was that it's very "secular". I spiced things up in a few places, because Blood being fully sterile isn't that fun, but as a general rule E2 is quite literal and largely lacking in anything supernatural. Since pretty much all the unused monsters are somewhat supernatural in nature, it wasn't their time to appear yet.

I intend for E3 and E2 to be like night and day, whereby E3 will lean heavily into more surreal themes, which obviously poses it own risks, but will lift the lid on the possible inclusion of certain monsters and colour usage.

Spoiler!

Sorry to hear about the incident with the boss. God knows that thing is complicated beyond belief and some issues can certainly still be present. Let me know which port, if any, you were using and if you used save and loads states during the encounter for the time it broke? I certainly hope it didn't break on your first encounter, since that would otherwise ruin a special moment.

[Dead Reckoner]

Actually, I think modern settings can fit well in Blood. I may have said that they're often poorly executed, but that goes for other styles as well, including archaic dungeon/temple type maps, which are often bland too. Personally, I thought Death Wish had many good examples of atmospheric maps for both settings. Blood II, despite all its flaws, also nailed the modern urban decay look with its use of color and moody lighting.

Good to know that special care is being undertaken for balancing ammo. I prefer playing continually rather than pitchfork starting because it gives a sense of progression and adventure, and brings opportunities for rewards like the early tesla cannon in Fate E2's secret map (was quite hard to find those switches!). Understandable that resource accumulation is unavoidable for later maps in any episode, and that's a classic FPS flaw we'll have to live with.

Looking forward to replaying both this and Fate E1 soon, the updated version of which I haven't tried yet. Interesting narrative structure, and it makes sense, with this looking like a "light reboot" of sorts for Blood, with its own progression just like retail. The time travel is an interesting addition because Caleb's fight against Tchernobog transcending time is a possible interpretation of Blood's anachronisms, with every episode being a different period in no particular order.

Spoiler!

I played using Nblood when I encountered the bug, and I did happen to save/load several times mid-battle. The bug didn’t spoil my experience and it still ended up feeling like one of my most memorable Blood experiences. Not surprising that such ambitious constructs have a chance of blowing up in Build, both figuratively and literally.

[Daedalus]

Thank you for your thoughts and praise. Just touching on the last point briefly, I think that in general Blood is quite bad when it comes to retaining sequences in memory if the player saves and loads during events. I don't generally save and load overly frequently in my casual Blood play, but while I don't suspect things directly break as a result of loading, Blood's handling of timing is flimsy at best behind the scenes, and I suspect this is exacerbated by saving and loading the game during sequences. In the case you point out, there is absolutely a huge risk in the sequence failing if timing is not calculated at certain intervals. I straight up don't bother testing sequences with saving and loading involved because of how janky Blood can be. Do let me know if ever you take specific action without saving or loading and you're able to reproduce that behaviour and I'll look under the hood again, as terrifying as tinkering on such technicalities is.

E1 has had a few small tweaks - primarily regarding lighting and shading, but there is no need to play it again if you've played it particularly recently as it is quite similar still. It definitely shows its age, but then it's not every day that a mod gets added to sixteen years after the fact.