The Doom engine’s flexibility is famous at this level, with supply ports like GZDoom facilitating formidable FPS campaigns like Selaco (opens in new tab) or The Golden Souls (opens in new tab). Solo developer Sanditio Bayu is throwing his hat within the ring with a brand new whole conversion of Doom, Mala Petaka (opens in new tab), first noticed by Alpha Beta Gamer (opens in new tab).
I used to be instantly gained over by Mala Petaka’s visible model—it virtually jogs my memory of Futurama with its proper colours and foolish, one-eyed aliens. The demo options three completely different ranges, every visually distinct from each other. My favourite is the primary, a satellite tv for pc base with a incredible deep area skybox and a few stunning visible results, like a room close to the tip that is simply suspended within the void like one thing out of 2001: A House Odyssey.
The music right here is high notch as effectively, with developer Bayu shouting out “Indonesian Chiptunes veterans” like Remedmatika, Shakaboyd, and Son of a Bit. I nonetheless do not know a lot about Indonesia’s chiptune scene, however the tracks are completely killer, actually upbeat and cheerful in a basic Sega sort of vein, they usually pair effectively with Mala Petaka’s visuals.
Mala Petaka additionally distinguishes itself with its portals, which render their vacation spot in actual time like those from, effectively, Portal. I audibly hooted the primary time I noticed one, moved to its facet, and realized there was nothing behind it—it is an especially cool rendering and design gimmick to see in motion.
For probably the most half, these are simply used to transition between completely different parts of every stage, however there’s one boss struggle the place the 4 partitions of the world are every a portal, they usually join to one another, creating this infinite fractal area to do battle with the tough twin boss. As soon as the dangerous man goes down, the portals shut down, revealing how small the room really was. I would like to see Mala Petaka lean into this characteristic even additional within the full sport, in the identical method They Got here From Dimension X (opens in new tab) is enjoying round with gravity.
Mala Petaka’s visible and stage design is on level, however its enemies might positively use some tweaking forward of its full launch. Commonplace foes match on to basic Doom archetypes, however they drop like flies and I did not really feel significantly challenged by them on regular issue. The singular boss-tier enemy then again, who will get repeated just a few instances within the demo, is an absolute bullet sponge and I discovered myself getting annoyed in these encounters.
Mala Petaka’s at present in improvement with no set launch date, however you may wishlist it on Steam (opens in new tab) and take a look at its free demo, which took me about an hour to finish.
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