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CrowMum

1
Posts
A member registered Mar 16, 2020

Recent community posts

This game has potential but it's wasted on being a plain ripoff of No Players Online. The map's style has potential, and the dev can clearly actually make something good, but the actual content of this game ends up being a ripoff rather than inspired.
I'll say what's good first :

The models and things? If the creator of this game made them, good job. Even if they didn't, they used them well to design an interesting looking map. It's not mindblowing but it's good, it's passable.
The shadowy monster that appears is quite good actually. They did get the idea of a shadowy monster from NPO, but NPO didn't invent the idea of a shadow monster, so that's passable. It's design isn't that bad at all, i'd say it's pretty scary and sort of ambiguous.
The sound design isn't bad at all. That weird giggling that the baby statue makes unnerves me, the weird deep moans around the place are unsettling as hell. Good job on that!

Now, the things I don't think are good :

This claims to be "inspired" but it feels like an event-for-event ripoff of NPO, with a few MINOR twists. You play capture the flag in an empty server, grab a flag, capture it, someone joins the game (that someone being a spooky shadowy monster with glowing white facial features), except in this game more than one person joins the game. Then as you continue you can actually shoot at the monsters to make them dissapear, which is something I can quickly say I sort of like, adding more of the FPS factor into the game than NPO did, but still, feels like a copycat scenario. Then someone else joins and has some exposition (except in this game its a little less on-the-nose about it), tells you that you shouldnt be able to play the game. There's even bits where you can shoot a jukebox, similar to that of the phonograph in NPO.

Another thing that annoys me greatly, and this isn't just for this game, but the horror community in general: Art theft.
Many of the images used were stolen artworks from Trevor Henderson, who puts time and effort into creating his art that get's used in shitty clickbait thumbnails and "spooky images put to unfitting music" compilations without a LICK of credit given to him. This game does the same, having images of his art flash on the screen (with no relation to the game's story at all, mind you), as well as other images from other artists, etc.
I am aware you removed this, which does make me happy. That's Garry's Mod horror map levels of bad. It's not even remotely scary at all, so good on you for removing it and accepting that criticism, but in general, I am tired of Trevor's art being nabbed everywhere all over youtube, and this isn't an exception. I hope you've learned from that.

While NPO is by no means a perfect game, this game tries hard to replicate it's feeling and atmosphere but ends up simply feeling like a ripoff. It's got potential to be something of it's own, but it's so mindbogglingly similar it actually dissappoints me. I want to see more of what YOU can do, not more of No Players Online. Inspiration is not a crime, inspiration is not a bad thing, but having the exact same plot progression and events with the most minor details changed isn't being inspired, it's copying.

I think you're a good game dev. I want to see you make something better than this though. No Players Online shouldn't spawn a genre of games that revolve around the exact same concept, or else it'll end up being over-saturated. I can't give the world's greatest advice, I am no game developer myself just yet, but from an audience perspective, and the audience is the most important, this isn't good.