Retrovirus is a new descent inspired 6-axis shooter game that has just appeared on the radar by Cadenza Interactive, the company that made the game Sol Survivor.

http://cadenzainteractive.com/games/retrovirus/
http://www.facebook.com/RetrovirusGame

My name is Erik and I'm the primary production artist and art director on the project. This morning I woke up and did an search for communities seeking a revisit to this genre of gaming. What I found here was very encouraging. There is a serious desire for a revival for this type of game. The purpose of this post is to honestly reach those who had a passion for Descent style games and to seek support in it's development. I'm eager to hear your feedback :) Over the next couple weeks/months we will be starting to release a number of up to date screenshots, blogs and development videos about Retrovirus.

Looks exciting! I think the concept looks to be well suited to the 6DoF style. I can only speak for myself, but I will surely be following the project. It would be fantastic to see it released on Gog as well!

I'm very interested!! I think right now the two biggest Descent communities are dxx-rebirth.com/frm and descentbb.com just fyi! :)

Looks sweet! About time there was a modern take on Descent. Do you folks happen to have a release date in mind? :)

We are gearing up for a KickStarter which might extend the project for 6inths roughly... We are shooting for a late summer or fall release. Thanks for the questions, I'm open to any others you guys might have :)

I did a quick scan (so to speak) of your blog updates, and look forward to more info / videos on how the weapons and scanning work, and how they work together. That sounds neat.

On level design, are the environments loaded as seperate "levels", and/or are they more interconnected into one big world? Are there large open spaces or lots of corridors? Are there "exterior" areas as such? So the setting is supposed to be a virtual software environment that is being explored, rather than a physical hardware one?

On the controls, I suppose they are pretty much similar to Descent, with "sliding" aka strafing and banking and so forth? Are there physics? Do objects have momentum?

I just hope the story has some depth to match the theme. The teaser video had a bit of Wall-E vibe to it, with the unsuspecting AI going about its business. :)

A couple of suggestions:

1. Make sure that ALL controls are EASILY configurable. Alot of modern games have the bad tendency of removing the ability to configure controls, but a 6dof game very much needs configurable controls. Also allow for keyboard only, keyboard+mouse, joystick only, joystick+keyboard, dual joystick, or joystick+mouse. (Or any other combination I didn't cover ;) because I guarantee you that anyone coming from Descent will want their time-tested control config in Retrovirus.

2. You're obviously already doing this, but continue to get input from the Descent community! Almost every single person who currently plays Descent would LOVE to play a modern game with of the same general style...but only if it's as well done as Descent was. Get on forums and ask around...what kind of things do people like about Descent, and what kind of things did they wish were different?

3. There are several games out there that are semi-6dof but not all of the control axis were as powerful. I'd definitely suggest making every axis have the same amount of "oomph" (including reverse and roll, etc). (Or at least as close as makes sense for good control of the ship)


I have one question as well...in Descent the buzzword for flight is "tri-chord". It means sliding up, sliding sideways, and going forward (and possibly turning) all at the same time. In Descent doing this allows the ship to move faster, and gives the perfecter of the skill a definite advantage in dog-fights. How will tri-chording be handled in Retrovirus? Will it make the ship move faster or not?


Just my 2 cents :)

Ok, I saw the video, got very interested!

One thing from the video: please don't make the level too chunky. By that I mean too many protrusions and obstacles that block the motion of the craft. Descent 1 and 2 had very "smooth" connected cubes for levels, so the levels' feature sizes were quite uniformly big, and about a bit larger than the craft's size. The result is that motions were always very smooth and fast, as you rarely got stopped by the environment. Quake 3 was also excellent in keeping motion fluid, same as D1 & 2.

The other benefit of a smoother level is that, its easier for humans to analyze the whole space into mentally manageable pieces. If your feature size is too small, then it will draw the player's attention away from higher level functions such as cover finding and planning for routes. Basically if a player spends too much time to make sense of the space, he spends not enough time on the game mechanics.

(I am also a developer on Retrovirus)

Joyful movement is absolutely key to the experience. Instead of the classic tri-chording, we did something a little bit different. You have a 'slide' control that gives you additional speed in the direction you were last moving in. If you hold down forward, it acts like a 'boost' or a 'sprint'. But, when you get good at it, you can whip around corners or slide past doorways. I think this gives the player a very similar feel to tri-chording in Descent, but even more natural.

The entire single player campaign is playable straight through, although there are loading breaks between levels. The story is broken into chapters that correspond to different environments. It's like Half-Life. There are 'exterior' areas in the FileSystem city. However the movement and combat mechanics are the most fun at mid to close-range, so we tend to focus on corridors and inside combat. Correct, the AntiVirus program finds himself instantiated on the Desktop and he must fight down into the corrupted software to clean the system. You will explore the series of tubes in the WebBrowser and you might even find some dump trucks in the ControlPanel. Yes, Yes, and Yes! Your software does not have much gravity though, so things tend to bounce around. To keep things from getting too busy, we added in some damping so objects will quickly come to rest.

You are absolutely right - getting caught on the environment is a total nuisance and is in contention with fluid movement that makes the game feel really good. We are definitely very aware of level design on the movement and we work to make the game feel smooth. We also did something very subtle that at first may sound a little disconcerting, but let me assure you that in practice it does not get in your way and makes the game feel very fluid. As you move close to a surface, the game gives you a little nudge to prevent you from colliding into objects. If you are trying to go around a pillar and normally you would catch on the edge, this feature will allow you to slide right by very naturally.

I only care about one thing. Modding/Mapping.

Will you be cool and provide these tools, or are you a selfish corporation who would rather keep the tools to yourselves and force DLC stuff onto us for more $

No offense.

Hi, I just saw your video and I didn't like it. See, I'm not that good at FPS as other people, but I can play them. However, what really irritates me are alle the lighting effects, particles and the camera distortions. It's really hard for me to see what's going on and that's one of those things that annoy me about modern games, the graphics are "too good". I like how Descent is very clean, I can see what's on the screen at any time. This sort of thing can rrally make or break a game for me, but that's just my opinion.

The other thing is the story: don't overdo it! It's allright to give reason for what's happening and even have cutscenes. I don't hate all kinds of storytelling. I just hate it when the developer shoves some awful melodrama down my throat. Put the story in the manual, make cutscenes skippable (all of them, from the start) and once I'm given the controls don't take them away from me until I finish the level. Not even for a tutorial (which must be optional), nor for some briefing. Put the mission objectives on the HUD or at least play the briefing without locking my controls and let me skip it. I want to play the game, not be played by the game.

That's my two cents, not very insightful, but those two can ruin any game for me at least.

Hey all. I'm Cydereal, a game designer with Cadenza.

I wanted to just come respond to some of the feedback here, as I have on other Descent communities!

Deqer: Modding tools are going to be released with the game if we can fund Kickstarter, and maybe a month or two afterwards if Kickstarter fails. We do a lot of videos on our tools (own3d.tv/cadenzainteractive) and how we use them already, so check that out and see if they're something you might enjoy working with.

HiPhish: I can see how comparing Descent's visual style to ours would leave you feeling like ours was busier. Our tools will let players go for the most accurate Descent mod they want. You can use simpler, lower res textures and change the movement properties and so on to get the game where you want it.

As far as story, we'll have an objectives list on screen and everything else can just be ignored. We're working on voice acting, and it looks like it will work for us, so when we have something we deem "unskippable," you can fly past the node that gives the audio, ignore the node itself, and just listen to the audio while you get on with business. I'm totally aware of TL;DR as a problem in games!

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As you saw, we are doing a Kickstarter! We're keen on communities like these for support, as you guys represent our most hardcore possible fans. We're going to be releasing the game in DRM-free ways, and even if you buy it on Steam, the game can be run from the folder without Steam open. (That doesn't preclude GOG sales, we just haven't started that process yet!)

Check out our Kickstarter here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cadenzainteractive/retrovirus/dashboard

There, fixed your link. :)