Sign in to follow this  
Korax

Devil Daggers - Cutting to the Quick

Recommended Posts

http://devildaggers.com/

 

This came out yesterday. It's an arena survival FPS with some hardcore early 3D graphical styling. And it's fucking HARD.

 

I'm at the point where I can regularly survive for about 60 seconds. My best is 93. Some things to keep in mind:

 

  • Hitting "R" instantly restarts, letting you hop right back in when you fuck up/die.
  • Turn up the volume! Sound is extremely useful for telling you where things are around you and what those things are.
  • Steve is a noob:

post-8476-0-44748500-1455947673_thumb.png

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The game is intense! Playing it I experience an inner tension similar to when I played Geometry Wars. My best so far is 61 seconds, and this was an amazing run.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Update:

post-8476-0-46774900-1455995281_thumb.png

 

I need to get better at managing the skull swarms. I tend to focus on everything else and then get overrun by them.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Something I've noticed is that after the first wave of skulls, the big floating mask things are strictly targets of opportunity since they don't spit out any more.

 

Also there's a shotgun blast if you double click. I've got a dumb gaming mouse with a button that does a single double click when you hit it and I've never had a use for it until now :D  

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Also there's a shotgun blast if you double click. I've got a dumb gaming mouse with a button that does a single double click when you hit it and I've never had a use for it until now :D

I thinks it's a shotgun blast when you just tap it, no need to double click. Sorry, your special button is still useless.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, it's click for shotgun blast, hold for constant stream. And even if they don't spit out skulls, it's probably better to kill those things, because they can still frag you if you run into them and they drop those upgrade gems when you take them out.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

God I love this game. The pacing is great, and the sound design is monstrous. It manages to hit that unmanageable intensity that Super Hexagon keeps up, but manages to pull it off using classic Quake shootin' and a grim Techno Hell aesthetic.

I have a real soft spot for games that push you so hard moment to moment. They enforce such ridiculous focus that I end up being forced into a mind state I don't really find anywhere else.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have a real soft spot for games that push you so hard moment to moment. They enforce such ridiculous focus that I end up being forced into a mind state I don't really find anywhere else.

I think that's what I meant with the Geometry Wars comparison - this hyper focused state of mind, this flow state that falls apart as soon as you get aware of it. Strange sensation, and Devil Daggers definitely makes this happen in my brain.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Giantbomb did a segment on this in UPF this week. It looks awesome. It's absolutely not my type of game, but it looks awesome.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This game is fantastic. I'm pulling in 60 seconds after some time with it and I'm wondering how the heck a friend of mine is pushing in 190 seconds. It must be all the Quake he plays.
Also it's really cool that you can just download and watch someone's run with that little eye button.
 
It's still useful to collect those crystals btw even if the masks don't spit out more skulls.

For a trippy bullet time.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

DraQu, one of the top players, just managed to beat 500 seconds:

 

 

It's still useful to collect those crystals btw even if the masks don't spit out more skulls.

For a trippy bullet time.

 

More than that, collecting the crystals powers up your attack by turning it into an even larger dagger hose. Get 10 to power up the first time, then something like 70 for it to become a screaming torrent of knives (at about 2:30 on that video above). After that there's some sort of homing shot you can do, but I'm not sure how that works.

 

It's also good to know that the crystals have some differing behavior depending on what you're doing. If you're shooting the normal stream, they drop and continue traveling with whatever momentum they have. If you stop shooting, they will magnetize towards you. Every time you fire the shotgun blast, they get knocked away from you. Like everything else in the game, they make some pretty identifiable sounds that can let you know when they're close or when you pick one up.

 

Oh, and those spider-skull things suck them up and turn them into more enemies, so kill those as quickly as possible.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm getting better at this, but my body is betraying me. I can regularly get to 100+ seconds, but as soon as I start reaching around 120, I get excited at how well I'm doing and suddenly juice up some adrenaline, making me all nervous and shaky, which inevitably ruins whatever groove I was in.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Every time someone on idle thumbs or giant bomb says devil daggers I hear Deviled Eggers.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Dag. I love that you can see any run on a leaderboard in game.

 

Cool!  That was one of my favorite things about Dustforce.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Oof. I just got this and am immediately disheartened. I have two issues that I've googled and tried to fix and now I turn to my favorite internet community?

 

1) my mouse cursor on the menu registers as being a couple inches below where I see it on the screen. Example is putting my cursor on "play" highlights "quit" and will exit if I click.

2) Once I'm playing a tiny movement of the mouse results in a large amount of erratic mouse movement, making it impossible to play.

 

I can live with the first, but the second makes it unplayable. Googling suggested turning off v sync, which I did in the control panel and had no effect. Anyone run into this?

 

EDIT: Okay, weird. I just played the game on my primary monitor (my TV) instead of my computer monitor (my "second screen" according to Win10) and that fixed the problem. But this is a M+KB game! This means it has to be a display issue right?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Do you have UI scaling turned on in Windows 10? Is the game displaying at the proper resolution for that screen? Either can cause really wierd UI offsets like you're talking about.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This game stresses me right the fuck out. I dig the aesthetic and the concept but god damn if it isn't stressful as hell. Any thoughts on how to overcome this?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's hard to give much advice on it when it's just a mindset thing. If you're pushing time just treat every run as mostly unimportant. It doesn't matter if you screw up and get overwhelmed. Later you might work out how to pull things back from the brink but for now it's not a thing to worry about. You can always just hit 'R' and restart for a clean run.

 

If you want more practical advice, stand some feet away from the towers, use the dagger stream when they're midrange/far and the shotgun when they're close.

Also towers in the early game tend to spawn opposite each other so always find the mid point and you shouldn't have too tough a time under 80 seconds.

There are other tricks like always finding moments to kill towers while clearing enemies and making sure to kill spider skulls reasonably soon.

 

You could try watching other people's runs too. They're still a bit stressful but I find them kinda cathartic.

 

I was testing my new mouse out with this game yesterday and I'd forgotten how much fun it was.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this