Intergalactic Twin-Stick Shooter Last Encounter Aims Its Cross Hairs On Switch

It looks alright, colourful.

Greeeeaat.. another roguelike. I guess this is excusable for local co-op, but procedurally generated levels (which I'm assuming is what they mistakenly mean by roguelike) are killing proper designed single player experiences.

Looks frantic enough, will keep it on the radar.

...Geometry Wars Switch when?

Oh, another....yay

looks pretty good so far.

More twin-stick games, more power.

@onex people like rougelike games. sorry you don't. but they're not "killing proper designed single player experiences"... man, what an exaggeration.

Because there isn't enough Twin-stick shooters!

@MisterMan I'm pretty sure I stated I gave exception to certain circumstances, but okey dokey. And yes, procedurally generated levels are for certain types of games.
Keep in mind, "roguelike" is a common misnomer.

I would be all over these twin-stick roguelikes far more if I had more people to play with more often. Ah well...

@onex No, I very much doubt that. Yes, these techniques have been used more frequently, but there still plenty of properly designed, as you put it, single-player games out there. Procedural generation is a fav among many indie devs, which is understandable considering that it is far less time- and ressource-demanding than crafting everything by hand. Despite that, it's only really useful for a particular subset of games anyways.

If anything is hurting traditional single-player games, then it is the incessant need for monetization. That has lead to more and more games adopting a design that is malleable enough to incorporate e.g. lootboxes. More often that not, this at the very least means that there HAS TO be some kind of multiplayer or online-functionality, to motivate players to spend an extra buck.

Unfortunately, sometimes this even means, that multiplayer will be turned into a part of the maingame, instead of being a separate mode. This then not only eats up valuable ressources, but also directly impacts the core design of the game.

Point being, procedural generation, even as a cipher for roguelikes, is not really the key issue threatening properly designed single-player games these days - not in my view at least!

@Ralek85 Alright, so "killing" may have been a tad extreme. I just wish some devs would take their time crafting a more memorable experience is all.
Although, we can all agree micro-monetization is seriously hurting the industry from a quality standpoint.

@onex Esp. if it is attached to a $60 single-player game, featuring a $25 season-pass

I have to say though, some of my favorite games in the last couple of years were procedurally generated roguelikes. FTL, Ironcast, Darkest Dungeon and most of all Invisible Inc. certainly come to mind as games I spend an ungodly amount of time on, and games I really, really enjoyed playing.

Right now I'm playing Steamworld Digg 2, and I really enjoy it. I've read that it unlike Digg 1, I&F didn't employ any form of procedural generation with Digg 2. I don't if that is true, and how that will affect any kind of replayability here, but I can say, that I had a really good time with Digg 1 as well - despite being (apparently) in large part procedurally generated. I like Digg 2 more, sure, but that is at the very least equal parts due to the expanded mechanics of that game, as it is due to the more carefully crafted levels.

Still, like I said, Invisible Inc. is one of my favorite games in a long time. I don't think it would be WITHOUT any form of procedural generation, becase I wager that would mean that I could not have played it nearly as intensely as I did, because sooner or later, everything would have just repeated itself.

I'm not advocating that is right for nearly every game out there, but if it complements the design of your game, there is absolutey nothing wrong about it. There are great game out there, that completely rely on non-handcrafted levels, and quite a few of them are more than fine.

Obviously one could also point to the likes of Minecraft here, but personally, that was never my cup of tea, so it would phony to base my argument on that

I will add this though, I felt like that first-person-shooter level design, in many regards, went downhill the last 10 years or so. I think back to complex "levels" like Metroid or even Turok, and compare that to almost 100% completely linear experiences like Call Of Duty, and I feel like the issue we should be focused on (besides monetization and purely in terms of leveldesign) is undercomplexity.

I mean srsly, go back to one of these games today. The first time I booted up Turok in almost 20 years recently I was ... overwhelmed by how easily I got turned around and even how vertical the levels were (compared to most of CoD that is just happening in one plane basically).

I mean, I played Turok before as a kid, quite obsessively so, but somehow I really acclimated to shooters being just one corridor after another. I now that is not true for every single one out there, but still, I feel the overall trend, certainly with these more popular AAA shooters, clearly points towards this type of shooting gallery.

That is one of the expectations I have for Metroid btw. I want that game to bring back 90s/ early 2000s sensibilities when it comes to shooter, while marrying all of that with modern system. Maybe that could spike a true revival for games like Metroid, Turok, Hexen, System Shock and many others - after all, it's not like we have not seen other genres believed dead revitalized in recent years. Not that anyone would ever argue FPS games are dead, just that particular form of FPS games feels borderline dead today.

Just my 2 cents anyways ...

Sigh Yet another game I would have loved to play with my roommates in college. Now we all live far apart.

Whenever I see twin stick shooters I just have to mention Housemarque. They made the best of this genre (Super Stardust, Resogun, Dead Nation, Alienation and Nex Machina). It's just sad that they had given up because their recent games flopped on PS4. Why didn't they port those games to Switch? They can earn so much from the eshop like so many indie developers. There are more indie arcade gamers on Switch than PS4.

http://www.housemarque.com/arcade-is-dead/

local multi player? what about online multiplayer? what are we? back in the 90s?

Another rogue-game, Yaaaaaaaawwwwwwnnnn!!