Vicarious on 15/3/2016 at 09:17

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[video=youtube;mqi6VJa92HI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqi6VJa92HI[/video]

(http://store.steampowered.com/app/321270) Steam page

Here's a little game I've been playing for some time. It's based on a (https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/s-u/unloved) DOOM2 mod under the same title. Thematically it's basically DOOM + Silent Hill though while the mod focused on a clear progression throughout the whole thing, the game is kind of like The Binding of Isaac with randomly generated levels and stuff. The game is still in early access so I'll talk a little bit about some stuff that is not clear for newcomers.

Here's the deal, you enter a 'dungeon' of your choice (three themes available so far: Apartments, Clinic and Basement released yesterday) comprised of four sections. You start in a 'green' elevator area and can immediately access 'grey' rooms. Somewhere there there is a Blood Crest (red key) that allows you to access 'red' areas. There you can find a blue key and in a blue area there is a yellow key. Yellow area is where you can find Blood Machines that you have to fill up and once you do that, you go back to the starting elevator, level done.

Your rewards are Trinket(s) (artifacts that give you bonuses) and Karma (money). During levels you can also pick up Photos (used for unlocking story bits) and Ink Bottles (that you can recycle for character color schemes and other stuff). Trinkets raise your character level and are upgradable with Karma and Fragments (that you get from breaking unwanted artifacts). As of right now there are three Ranks of Trinkets and each Rank has 5 levels that you can upgrade (except for new Rank 3 Trinkets that have 7 levels).

The gunplay is basically DOOM and it's surprisingly good for such a small game. It's a solid shooter. Monsters are pretty much DOOM monsters but that's ok considering the original mod was for DOOM2. You've got 8 baddies so far (some with two versions) and 3 weapons (four counting a machete). The biggest problem is the level design which is random. Unloved the mod had really stunning levels and a good progression. The game has none of that. Levels are kind of flat lacking in verticality.

One thing that is pretty confusing is the spawn system. The way it works is that everytime you interact with something (door, item) you raise a threat level. Once it reaches a certain threshold, it spawns random enemies in random spawn points. So the more items you pick up, the bigger the risk. The enemies are FINITE though it may feel like they spawn endlessly.

There's also seamless MP where you just set the number of players (1-4) at the start. Haven't really played that though.

I would recommend it if you're up for an oldschool slugfest with some depth. But make sure you really want it. UNLOVED is tough as nails, dark, hostile and oppressive so it's not for everyone. The game is still in early access but so far the dev is making content updates surprisingly frequently (the big one was released yesterday).

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_eQoARLQLs) (here's a high level run with the current version from someone from the forums if you want to see it in action)