Hmmm, obviously early days but its 2023, not 2005 :)
I mean, good job getting it on steam etc and the hoops you have jumped through and I'm sure the whole thing is a good learning process which can be worth it in order to progress onto other things....

But to be honest, I am thinking.

Thanks so much for the feedback.

Yeah, it was a great learning process. I actually built the game in Unreal Engine on top of the Lyra starter project created by Epic Games so I was able to create the whole thing in just 5 months working just a few hours per week on it.

I built the game because I loved the concept of Ultrono Arena being a super focused and distilled competitive multiplayer FPS but I wanted better net code, modeling, wall jumping, effects, maps, etc. But after making the game, I'm not 100% sure that it's going to be compelling enough to gain traction though.

Yeah I did notice the foundations of it.
I jumped in for a bit, didn't do any online stuff, or if I did no one joined, I just wanted to run around. Quite often these little projects go nowhere, but you gain a ton of knowledge from it which can help with the next creation.

If nothing else you could always do a video about it, how you got it online, (greenlight/steam) direct with steam etc, ironically that would probably do well and serve as good reference point or make a good addition to the CV.

I'm so glad you were able to jump into Ultimus and play it for a bit. FYI, you can go to Host Game, change to Offline mode, and then you can fight an AI bot I made for the game.

Yeah, I've made a ton of small projects that went nowhere so I totally know what you mean. One of those small projects actually led me to a job in the video game industry so they can pay off in unexpected ways.

Yeah, I would love to make a video about how I made the game. That would probably be very interesting to most people.

I just want to say thank you so much for your feedback and support. It means a lot to me to have even just one person talk to me about Ultimus. I haven't done any kind of promotion yet so you're the first person I've really talked to about the game.

You could make the lines red and port it to the Nintendo Virtual Boy! :]

Haha, so true :]

I ended up going with green lines to really sell the super-retro aspect of the game. The first video game ever called "Tennis for Two" had the green lines too.

I love how the video on Steam starts with a cursor focusing on the game window :`)
Black walls and floors and ceilings look like a lot of confusion.
You probably won't beat the king of dead games - Wickland, but who knows?

Thanks so much for your feedback.

Yeah, I plan to replace that video with a proper trailer when I release the game.

Yes, the black walls and floors seem like the could create confusion but I have not had any issues with them myself.

I just checked out Wickland and that game looked awesome. It's too bad it's dead but I think that's what happens to 99% of all multiplayer games. It's really hard to get a critical mass of players to make a multiplayer game take off. But Wickland had a bunch of other issues as well like the master server going down and no way to create a listen server. But you can tell they did their best.

hi im, gabe newell. just start with a small investment of $3.5m dollars and hire 40 people for 2 years.

Haha :]

My opinion based on the Steam screenshots and video is, the minimalistic vector graphics are cool, but to make orientation easier, could maybe use some more detail, like doorways, better visibility of teleports, some assets here and there.
Some weapon pickups are maybe a little tiny, could be bigger

Thank you very much for your feedback.

I am working on a new level and will apply your feedback to it.

someone should make a strange combination between QC (minus heroes) and Dark and Darker for the lulz

QC extractor shooter for the lulz
not because I think about the success of this idea but because I think that it is quite a good invention, finding a way to reward and link your games in a more interactive and participating way rather than just having stats shown to you after you end the match while you scratch your balls actually doing nothing

some rules
-have game inventory something else not the monetization menu/inv bs where you gather your items and weapons
-first play you spawn with one weak weapon
-if you die 3 times you lose your inventory and go back to base or main menu
-make a 10x bigger map equaling most renowned QC maps put together
-have some exit points so you enter the arena you make 2 or 3 kills pick up their items and leave



Try some crazy $hit of amalgamation of other games and see what you got, just emulating other games won't go anywhere.
I think that almost anything different would work, with the most important condition been BALANCE.

I think I would be able to give a very good incentive and have stupid crazy ideas supported with good balance and general gaming ideas about something like this but for me the problem is that I don't want to spend much time with coding although I know how to write a program.

I have been thinking for some time about how a new quake DM would look if more realistic elements would be implemented adding both more complexity and also to make it easily accessible (the sin of most dm games, they usually lack one of the two).



Putting these ideas aside, which could as well be rubbish

you would need to chose either a very flexible engine, or write your own. Choosing the most popular engines would usually get you into big problems over the span of the development because their limitations.
Ie UE5 although powerful have many problems at the moment bc it has not been refined and thje hardware is still not powerful enough

You know what I would also base my game on?
-extremely strong computer opponents (the AI), eventually try neuronal AI someone tested this 15 years ago already with good results as a University project and make destructible environments -imagine a pro-tourney4 match where at the end all doors are messed up bc too many rocket hits

Wow, I love all of your ideas and I totally agree with you. A video game has to be unique/compelling in order to capture any kind of interest. No one wants to play the same old game they always have.

I was thinking about adding an innovative game mode to Ultimus. I will try to integrate your ideas. Thank you so much :]

"Ie UE5 although powerful have many problems at the moment bc it has not been refined and thje hardware is still not powerful enough"

One of the problems has to be GPU vendors are still shitting out 8GB of vram cards and epic are rightfully getting frustrated at the lack of progress. They are taking the piss, case in point 4060. It must be a nightmare developing an engine that is supposed to scale as widely as it does.

I bought a 1070 at the start of 2017 for QC and that has 8GB, its now the end of 2023 and loads of people are still running 8GB cards.

I only recently upgraded to a lightly used 3060ti (8GB) as I wanted something relative to the average PC user as I am doing some dev stuff , but if everyone upgraded to something like a 6700xt (12gb) things would be better.

CPU's are a better state thanks to stuff like the 5600x pulling everyone trousers up.

You are 100% spot on sir. I had to downgrade to a 1080 GTX recently and I constantly run into video memory overages when using dynamic global illumination (i.e. Lumen) and other new graphics tech in the engine.

But yeah, just like you, I need the 1080 GTX for testing and optimization purposes. It actually helped me solve a major graphical performance issue in Ultimus.

In Ultimus you play as a beta tester for a 80's based virtual reality game where your body and mind is connected to a grotesque flesh looking machine which register every single calculation and movement, from mind to body, when you kill somebody in this game and injection of dopamine is release directly like a drug by this machine, the company that made and test Ultimus search for beta-testers every single day and may be a fast buck for the unlucky unemployed ones, the main issue is, when you die in this game, you die in real life too.

Oh heck yeah, that is awesome haha :] I will use that as the story when I add one, thank you sir.

Spoilers:

Visuals are really extreme and unpleasant to be immersed in. You really should have taken some other approach to convey the retro aesthetic..

Btw we already have quake on an oscilloscope
https://youtu.be/aMli33ornEU?si=UppX13BjzO4yoYUy

I think the most important aspect are fun levels, visuals can be very minimalistic just not that extreme where you start to feel nauseous

Yeah, I totally hear you. When I first added the current visuals I felt unsure about them for the reasons you mentioned. But I thought "Hey, let's take a risk and see what happens" because the visuals served their purpose so well from a development standpoint.

Thanks for the video of Quake on an oscilloscope, that is so cool.

Yeah, I totally agree that the levels are the key to the fun.

Campgrounds when?

Not sure but possibly soonish. I have to look into what Campgrounds is. I imagine it's a game mode.

Ohh, they gonna' nail yo' ass for that.
Don't worry bitches, Jam Jam got something for ya'll. Real soon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulrgbvu8saM

OOF! ;-)

dude, that quake oscilloscope movie on yt is not 4k
wtf?

Haha :]

So, I launched Ultimus on Steam about a week ago. In the first week, over 4,000 people have played the game with over 30 reviews. There are anywhere from 5 to 10 players playing concurrently.

Here's our current plan:

1. Fix crashes on startup and during gameplay.
2. Add more levels/maps.
3. Add more weapons and pickups.
4. Add more game modes.

All extra content will be added as paid DLC so we can try to make some money and support our development efforts.

I'm really surprised how successful the game already is. I guess a lot of people were kind of waiting for a new competitive action FPS. Ultimus delivered :]

It might just be the wonders of the Steam platform.

maps are still untextured like in the movie?
and does it have PvE?

Yeah, Steam + FPS + Multiplayer + Free-to-Play = Traffic/Players = Sales

I'm working on a new map right now. I'm going to add more detail to that map via the static mesh (e.g. pipes, ducts, indentations, etc.). The maps will remain untextured though.

I will probably add PvE via a game mode. Will maybe release that as a paid DLC in the future. Maybe do something like Vampire Survivors + Ultimus :]

Another idea I have -might upset some Westerners though -to make a Delta Force/BF or Ground Branch attempt but with the campaign the player being the "evil taliban" or the "evil Russian" versus the "forces of good" cough cough.

Probably some Easterners would jump on the game like there is no tomorrow -although dont know how much will piracy affect the sells.

Some interesting new updates regarding Ultimus.

The first and most interesting one is I've decided to launch all new content for free until the game gains traction. Once there are more people playing the game, I will release a DLC to make money.

I also just launched our first new map called Ixel. The map is symmetrical, open, and has tons of platforming. So, it's very different from the original level launched with the game called Karga.

Other than that, we fixed some crashes, removed crouch, and added the body + weapon back into first person mode.

Next up, I'm going to create a new "experience" or map + game mode + weapons. So that'll be interesting :]

New level seems much better. Would still work on the aesthetics more though before anything else, nothing wrong with the tron/matrix thing you got going on in a world of bloat (oh the irony), but I'm sure a much more advanced and elegant solution could be found that would transform it.

This is the PR stage of your game, so IMO you should be getting that right from the start as I think most people would find it easier to imagine and get behind.

Game has a weird FPS cap not playable for me.