Разработчик: Gravity Games
Описание
Evil Has Awakened
It is the 24th century, and mankind has only recently begun expanding its reach to the star systems nearest our own Solar System.
A dark and terrible secret is buried within a misshapen moon nestled in the massive asteroid belt of the Epsilon Eridani system. Pythos colony was built there ostensibly to exploit the planetoid's mineral resources, but now they've disturbed a kind of evil that lurks beyond the fringes of our comprehension.
Through an ever-changing labyrinth, you will remold yourself into a cybernetic killing machine using the powerful technologies of a long-dead alien civilization. With these new-found weapons, you will pave a path of aberrant corpses toward the greatest threat to mankind ever encountered.
CTHON is an old school science-fiction first-person shooter, where you become a cybernetic weapon against the dark legions of a powerful evil entity - known only as Cthon - who lurks within the planetoid. It is a classic space horror game, inspired by the likes of Doom, System Shock, and Quake.
Features
- Fight - and die - through nine sprawling randomly generated levels. No two games are ever the same, and permanent death ensures unrelenting tension.
- Modify yourself with the cybernetic technologies of the ancients. A unique upgrade-powering system allows you to get down to the details of character building, and choose the stats you want, when you want, with millions of permutations. Mod types include defensive upgrades that can increase your physical strengths and offensive upgrades to maximize your firepower and grant new ways to exterminate your adversaries.
- Slay an extensive array of monstrous creatures, each with intriguing tactical strengths and weaknesses. Battle corrupted humanoids, alien abominations, and biomechanical constructs as you delve ever deeper.
- Use nano-tech currency to gain a strategic edge - access machines that can forge new items, replenish your resources, and expand your cybernetic framework.
- Secret areas abound in the labyrinth; scour the levels for them and reap the rewards - and dangers - they may hold.
- Choose one of three characters, each of them specialized toward different cybernetic builds.
- Multiple difficulty levels allow you to adjust the nightmare world to your tastes.
- A complex, haunting soundtrack complements the dark and oppressive atmosphere.
Поддерживаемые языки: english, french
Системные требования
Windows
- OS *: Windows XP / Vista / 7
- Processor: 2.5 GHz processor
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: 256 MB
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 500 MB available space
- OS *: Windows 7 / 10
- Processor: 2.7 GHz or faster processor
- Memory: 3 GB RAM
- Graphics: 1 GB
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 1 GB available space
Отзывы пользователей
A minimalist first-person adventure that can be completed in under an hour. Get in, get out. Kill anything not you and upgrade your kit along the way. Creates a sense of dread through ambient music and a short draw distance. The real selling point here is the impressive way your HUD and equipment change appearance based on upgrades; this ain't your father's Wolf-3D.
My only beef would be with the absolute obscurity of secret rooms; I dare you to find one. Also would have appreciated some achievements to extend the play-time.
Overall well worth the small price tag to support an obvious labor of love by a single developer. Just don't expect it to reinvent the wheel.
I think the most prominent thing about this game is it's art direction. The game features a wonderful soundtrack and has really great spritework and atmosphere. I think the games direction is really good and it works well within the confines of it's pseudo-3D nature. I think in terms of gameplay Cthon is set apart from other similar games because of it being a roguelike, and featuring class & customization elements. Personally, I think the roguelike aspect works well for Cthon and I think the procedural generation keeps things mostly interesting. That said, it can be pretty frustrating to die and loose all your progress and have to go through the mostly same-ish looking levels, though I know that is just part of this kind of game. The game also has some classes and most importantly a lot of different upgrades. The upgrades are great as you can find or buy them and they do a lot of different things, and even change the sprites of your weapons and their projectiles which I love. I think it is fun to play and sort of create a particular build each time. Another important thing to mention is that the game features no keys. Personally, I think this is a great compliment to the game, as it is less annoying and because even if you find the exit early in the game, its heavily incentivized to explore and often backtrack the entire map to find upgrades and items. It creates a lot of slow moments but if that kind of thing appeals to you, I think Cthon does a fantastic job with it. So I think overall I would definitely not recommend this game to everyone, but I think if you like the elements that go into Cthon, the game does a great job and is very enjoyable.
This is probably not a terrible game but I expected a true old school fps looking at the screenshots, tbf the description and the gameplay video tells you it's not. It's another of those annoying rogue likes with procedural generation of levels, which means the levels don't have any soul and just feel generic because that's literally what they are, and perma death. Of course the game lacks quicksaves. At least the game isn't unfair unlike most rogue likes, at least on the lowest of the three difficulties.
You don't actually collect any weapon, instead you choose a character before you start, and then get 3 weapons, depending on the character you pick, kinda boring tbh. At least the gunplay feels decent, but three weapons per character is really not a lot.
I should also mention that the controls suck really hard: There is no button for shooting, instead you shoot with a weapon with the same button which you use to equip that weapon. Like WTF. This is such bullsh*t. In good shooters (or rather it's simply the standard) you equip a weapon with the number buttons. You could also do that here but then you also shoot with the number buttons, or you put your weapons on your mouse buttons but that also feels weird.
So, yeah, overall not an enjoyable game for a (old school) shooter fan.
An absolute must play if you like boomershooters and or horror.
I will say that people complaining about being able to progress via pickups is sort of true, it also depends on which class you play and the playstyle you adopt. You can very easily mitigate spent resources if you're a careful player. The combat is barebones by the standards of 2023. However examining this game like it is a game from 2008 would be unfair because this game emulates things more like Wolfenstein and Pathways Into Darkness. Even vaguely reminiscent of System Shock so if those titles are resonating positive bells for you, you'd enjoy this game as well.
The music while very short and often looped (probably would help if I didn't full clear every floor) is quite good. The sound effects are about what you'd expect them to be. With most notably the doors in the third floor being one of the worst sounds I have ever heard in a game. Not because it's bad or there is some distortion with the audio. It just makes my skin crawl every time. I love it for that reason and I also hate for that reason. Good job on that design.
I will say more games need the "show your upgrades on your gun" feature. It is a direct reminder of progression in the game when the boomstick gets boom-ier and stick-ier.
The game is relatively short; where you can complete the game within 2 hours. I do not plan on playing the game again myself after my 4+ hours but I am sure I will come back to it in the future.
Too short and simple for its price, only viable build is marksman. Procedural generation of levels is not much for 3*3+1 levels. Yes, higher difficulties (I played on easy) make things harder, but I don't want to waste time. It's just up to items and not skill. If you want simple FPS, try wolfenstein or blake stone. This game has progression through inventory and limited slots for active items, but it's not much. Enemy variety is smaller than ye ole doom's. Got this with -90% discount.
All in all, nice first try at gamedev, but not much for this pricetag.
This is a pretty fun and atmospheric mix of Wolf3D / Blake Stone-style old-school FPS gameplay with the randomly generated rogue-like formula, in a dark sci-fi / Lovecraftian setting.
English and German below. (mild spoilers too)
ENG:
The negative reviews for CTHON often come from users who have played this game for less than an hour, sometimes only minutes. I understand that the graphics can be off-putting if you haven't experienced the early first-person shooters back in the day, or that the gameplay mechanics can seem a bit unbalanced at times. However, with over 20 hours of gameplay, I think I'm in a position to make the final judgment: This game is great.
Especially the aspect of procedurally generated maps makes CTHON a gem of high replayability and compensates for the short playtime of one to two hours. Nevertheless, the random levels always lead through a research station, then an alien temple and finally a gloomy underworld before we enter the hall of the final boss, Cthon. The presentation with its 90 degree angles and fixed ceiling height is reminiscent of the legendary Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. The accompanying, highly eerie soundtrack is fantastic, by the way.
While at the beginning only spiders, dull melee fighters and weak ranged enemies follow us through the corridors, soon giant snakes, hovering titans and floating steel beasts also bombard us with their multiple projectiles. To defeat them, we have the rifle, the grenade launcher and the rather redundant melee weapon at our disposal. Like the health kits, ammo supplies and grenades, the enemies are always randomly distributed.
The collectible objects also include the important and varied gadgets. These can be used to increase our weapon strength and fire rate, our ammunition and health capacity, or our running speed, for example. To be able to collect them, we need corresponding slots, and to put them into operation, corresponding energy cells, which must also be found. Alternatively, needed objects can be bought with collected nanites at vending machines, provided that they were randomly placed in the current level. In this way, our main character increasingly builds up individually.
The principle of chance often makes the game a matter of luck, but also provides its special thrill. Thus, it can happen that you find mainly useless gadgets, or laboriously have to search for health, ammunition, gadget slots and energy cells. The tension in this regard arises especially from the rogue-like gameplay without saving options, where death is permanent and results in a complete restart. CTHON is very atmospheric, but quite hard to beat even on medium difficulty. However, this always makes for a suspenseful challenge.
GER:
Die negativen Bewertungen für CTHON stammen häufig von Rezensenten, die dieses Game weniger als eine Stunde, zuweilen auch nur Minuten gezockt haben. Ich verstehe, dass die Grafik abschrecken kann, sofern man die ersten 3D-Egoshooter dereinst nicht erlebt hat, oder dass die Spielmechaniken etwas balancelos anmuten können. Mit über 20 Stunden Spielzeit jedoch glaube ich mich in der Position zu wissen, das abschließende Urteil zu fällen: Dieses Spiel ist großartig.
Insbesondere der Aspekt prozedural generierter Maps macht CTHON zu einer Perle hohen Wiederspielwerts und wiegt die kurze Spielzeit von ein bis zwei Stunden auf. Dennoch führen die Zufallslevel im ersten Drittel stets durch eine Forschungsstation, im zweiten durch einen außerirdischen Tempel, im dritten durch eine düstere Unterwelt, bevor wir die Halle des Endgegners betreten: Cthon. Die Präsentation mit seinen 90-Grad-Winkeln und seiner unveränderlichen Deckenhöhe erinnert an das legendäre Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. Die begleitende, höchst unheimliche Soundkulisse ist übrigens fantastisch.
Während uns zu Beginn nur Spinnen, dumpfe Nahkämpfer und schwache Fernwaffengegner durch die Korridore verfolgen, beschießen uns bald auch Riesenschlangen, fliegende Titanen und schwebende Stahlbestien mit ihren multiplen Projektilen. Um sie zu besiegen, steht uns das Gewehr, der Granatwerfer und die eher überflüssige Nahkampfwaffe zur Verfügung. Wie auch die Gesundheitskits, Munitionsvorräte und Granaten sind die Feinde stets zufällig verteilt.
Zu den einsammelbaren Objekten gehören überdies die wichtigen und vielfältigen Gadgets. Mit diesen lässt sich etwa unsere Waffenstärke und Feuerrate, unsere Munitions- und Gesundheitskapazität oder die Laufgeschwindigkeit erhöhen. Um sie einsammeln zu können, benötigen wir entsprechende Slots, und um sie in Betrieb zu nehmen, entsprechende Energiezellen, die ebenfalls gefunden werden müssen. Alternativ lassen sich benötigte Objekte mit gesammelten Naniten an Automaten kaufen, sofern diese zufällig im gegenwärtigen Level platziert worden sind. Dergestalt baut sich die Spielfigur nach und nach individuell auf.
Das Gebot des Zufalls macht das Spiel oft zu einer Glückssache, verleiht ihm jedoch auch seinen besonderen Thrill. So kann es passieren, dass man vornehmlich unnütze Gadgets findet oder mühselig auf der Suche nach Gesundheit, Munition, Gadget-Slots und Energiezellen ist. Die Spannung ergibt sich in dieser Hinsicht insbesondere aus dem rogue-like-Spielprinzip ohne Speichermöglichkeit, in dem der Tod permanent ist und in einem gänzlichen Neubeginn mündet. CTHON ist sehr atmosphärisch, jedoch schon auf mittlerer Schwierigkeit ziemlich schwer zu gewinnen. Dies sorgt aber stets für eine spannende Herausforderung.
Too dark and no gamma settings. Can't see anything so can't really play.
BUT
The atmosphere is dark and foreboding; the OST complements it will too. The art is gorgeous and the sprites are lovingly made. Despite the nice presentation though, if the game is so dark that I can't appreciate anything, it's rendered a bit moot.
Don't let yourself be fooled by the seemingly spartan design that evokes cheap Wolfenstein-knockoff sentiments... CTHON is a lot more than you'd expect, especially seeing the comparably low price point.
It's short, yes, but replayability is guaranteed with procedurally generated levels and an upgrade system that lets you customize your build. Upgrade and inventory management can be a bit on the frustrating side - you never have enough space or energy - but that feeds well into the horror aspect of the game. And my oh my, it's creepy. Not only does the overall design provide an increasingly uneasy feeling turning every corner, the sound design, especially the ambient sounds, is just amazing for a game of this caliber.
It's good, creepy fun for an hour or two, every once in a while, and well worth a fiver.
I know haven't played it that long yet, but here are some pros and cons I find about Cthon. Take this as first impressions.
Pros -
+ Slower pacing. Almost has a survival horror vibe to it
+ Map lay out feels good (sometimes I do get lost)
+ The limited amount of carrying space makes for some tough decisions early in your run
+ Using upgrades to make your weapons stronger feels so good
+ The audio of the game adds to the overall vibe very well
Cons -
- The slower pacing might not be for some
- The limited amount of space you have starting out might be a turn off
- Some deaths do feel cheap. Sometimes you just get overrun and it's GG.
- Doesn't seem to be a lot of gun variety
- Melee doesn't feel all that good
Overall, I have been enjoying my time with the game so far. Having a few different classes to tinker with, a couple difficulty modes to play around with, and a nice slow pace horror feel makes this game I was looking for right now. I don't think it is for everybody but I think the asking price ($5) is fair, especially on sale ($1).
Fun little retro FPS rougelike.
Gorgeous retro textures oozing with personality that feels like Lovecraft meets Alien. Lots of customization for different classes and playstyles. Not too ambitious. It knows it's a $5 game and gives you a good value for that investment.
I didn't get far in yet at the point of writing this, but for an FPS it doesn't exactly feel action packed.
However, the procedural generation keeps the runs fresh and the gun upgrade mechanic is interesting to tweak and try new things.
Not bad for a buck.
This is one of those indie games that feels like a small bites of delicious fudge with a great chewy center, it doesn't last long but it is well made with great sounds, atmosphere, and solid controls and mechanisms, but it doesn't last too long and I do have a few small complaints, such as the possibility of no secrets being generated in a level being too harsh, there should be at least ONE secret in a level in my view.
It is a solid purchase for the low price, and I do recommend you try this game out if you have some cash to spare, and some quiet hours to spend alone with no interruptions to just zone out and focus on this intense, creepy game.
To be honest I have no idea why people are complaining so much about the mechanics of the game. No you aren't suposed to pick up every upgrade, you basically make a build depending on the class you pick, these are BASIC RPG mechanics. Though the game is not perfect and it can get boring at times because of the slow movement speed but it is still fun.
Btw if you say that this is a Wolf 3D clone, you have not played the game, the only thing remotely similar are the 90º walls and that is not something exclusive of that game.
Cthon is a retro-inspired first person shooter with procedurally generated levels. Although procedural-generation is often inferior to hand-made levels, here it works in the game's favor due to the wolfenstein-like geometry. Further, due to the permadeath aspect of this game, having procedural generation really helps with the replayability. You have three weapons, which can be upgraded throughout the game (depending on which power ups that procedurally appear). There are also three player classes to choose from which focus on each of the weapons (rifle, melee, or missiles). Further, power ups appear for health, speed, ammo capacity, and armor. But where this game shines is in its atmosphere. The graphics are pixel-perfect and gritty. Also the music is hauntingly dark where some of the soundtrack was made by the artist Burning Mir. It really sets up the feeling of being trapped and alone on a rotting space colony with horrors hidden in the darkness. It's truly a unique experience. This game may not be for everyone, but it is what I play when I want to chill out.
Like many rogue-likes, Cthon gives the impression early on that it's all about skill with projectile based enemy attacks you can dodge, but in practice it's all about luck. Do you get the items you need when you need them.
The proceedually generated levels sound good on paper, but they all feel the same with different wallpaper. You start off underpowered with a slow moving character with weak, slow firing weapons, and while you will get noticibly more powerful, it's not enough to feel much more than functional.
The graphics are nice though, and it's cool how the guns change to reflect your upgrades.
CTHON is one of the new retro-stylized FPS games that currently ride the recent wave of popularity of 90's nostalgia. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad thing - but you need to know what you're getting yourself into. It was developed mostly by one person and it's far from being perfect. Its scope is pretty narrow and you won't probably get lots of hours of playtime from it. Having said all that, I will still recommend it, because despite its flaws, CTHON actually provides a memorable, neat little gaming experience.
The strong aspects of CTHON are its nice graphics (of course if you're into low-res retro pixel art) and really good atmosphere, reminding me of System Shock with some Lovecraftian overtones. Its slow pace, ominous music, dark and desolate sci-fi setting and considerable difficulty build up surprisingly good immersion and a fair amount of tension.
The game has some roguelite sensibilities. There's permadeath, levels and items are randomly generated, which adds some replayability, but also throws difficulty all over the place, as your survival is very dependent on found upgrades and resource management. A typical run takes about 1-2 hours. There are three classes, each focused on one of three weapons available in game, but as far as I'm concerned, focusing solely on melee or grenades is not really viable on harder difficulty. It surely would be nice if the game got some balance updates, but it's still possible to finish with a bit of dedication and luck.
Technically, the game is similar to Wolfenstein 3D, all levels are flat, enemies are sprites always facing the player and mouse Y axis is locked. The Gamemaker engine sometimes struggles to provide a stable framerate and you may encounter some bugs.
So, overall, there's surely much room for improvement, but still it's quite cheap and definitely worth to give it a chance.
A nice game that is well worth the 5 dollars. Reminscent of Hexen/Hertic/Doom, however this is a roguelike with an upgrade system based on RNG. What I mean by that is the pickups you find will alter the way you play and you won't always have the oppurtunity to take everything with you.
This was a hidden gem in my discovery queue and I am glad that I found it.
Surprisingly immersive, slower paced old-school first person shooter with "roguelite" elements. While CTHON has some balancing issues and technical limitations, it manages to emulate the strong atmosphere of more similarly flawed obscure Amiga FPS like 'Behind the Iron Gate' or 'Alien Breed 3D'. If you have more of a DOS gaming past, think of it like 'Corridor 7' with a hint of 'System Shock' (= a dramatic improvement).
All this is executed with a small scope and an HR Giger inspired minimalist approach that works in favor of the game's presentation. The developer was kind enough to include an automap, so even if the randomly generated maps look a bit repetitive at times, I had no problems navigating through the levels.
Beside that every weapon is mapped to mouse button, the controls are pretty straight forward and plays like a modern Wolfenstein 3D Port with a proper WASD + mouselook setup.
I'm a huge fan of the artwork here. I wanted to play this game as soon as I saw it, based almost entirely on that. I also like old shooters. I'm absolutely crazy about the aesthetic. Everything is rusty and gross and dark. Reminds me a lot of Quake one, and I hope we see more games that look like this.
Sound design is all around top notch.
I like the cybernetic upgrades and weapon mods mechanic a lot. They realy went into detail here, especially with the weapon mods. multiples of the same mod can be stacked. Every mod not only upgrades the performance, but also changes the appearance of the gun. I thinks it's super rad.
I can't get past the temple stage on medium dificulty. I don't mind it being hard, but I wish it wasn't as roguelike-ish. I don't play many roguelikes because it's nice to get to the end of a game sometimes. Dying in CTHON is like dying in an arcade game. You start all the way over. It's very hardcore.
But for real, if you have any interest in this game whatsoever, please buy it! it's totally worth the full price.
CTHON is a roguelike Wolfenstein 3D-esque FPS with excellent presentation, featuring a very creepy and ambient soundtrack and strong sprite work, and even some good writing: A rarity in the genre. It features an inventory-based progression system that allows you to increase things like health, weapon damage and movement speed via finding or purchasing upgrades. I am especially fond of how equipping some upgrades alters the appearance of your weapons and hud. The creator did alot with what I imagine to be limited resources. The atomsphere combined with your low starting health made the game feel genuinely tense- although maybe more then I'd like.
However, I can't say this game is finished, and I mean that in a nice way. As it stands the low price is very reasonable, but with some more work this could easily be a ten dollar game. Aside from a nasty crash that ended my couple of runs that was fixed right after I asked about it, I think some changes to the mechanics are in order. In particular, the highly restrictive nature of the progression system means you are limited not only by inventory space but by power consumption, ensuring you will not be able to pick up every upgrade you come across, and of the ones you do, you will not be able to use them all. Getting the most of your items necessitates finding secret areas, and despite a hint from the dev to check dead ends, I found only one secret out of seven. Some kind of visual tell, like the cracked walls in Ziggurat or the slight discolorations you would see in Doom would be nice. Overall, the inventory system makes the game feel harder then it actually should be- otherwise, the combat feels pretty good. I see the reasoning behind a three-weapon system with three corresponding classes, but given the sheer variety of weapons sprite-shooters typically had, some more guns might be in order.
CTHON is faithful to its roots and worth the five bucks if you like 90s FPSes and wish to invest in the future of a promising entry in the genre.
If you have 5 dollars to throw away then give it a shot. It looked promising but fell short of expectations. The overall feel and look of the game is fine, but the game design is a bit prohibitive to have too much fun.
The 'customization' is severely throttled by the fact that your entire progression is gated by pick-ups. If you find plenty of goodies and upgrades in a level, chances are you either won't be able to pick them up, from lack of storage space, or can't equip them, due to lack of power. The only way to upgrade your inventory space and Power Capacity (used for equipping boosts that do things like increase damage, ROF, max Health, etc) is to either find them sparsely scattered on the floor, or hoping that a vending machines spawns to buy them.
You can sell power ups for Nanites (cash), but this becomes a chore thanks to upgrades not being marked on the map and the inability to mark the map. Even so, muling items back to a vending machine to sell is a bore since you're often required to do this 1 piece at a time, which creates a slog that shouldn't otherwise be present in an old school shooter.
Killing enemies feels unrewarding, since they don't seem to drop ammo, health, or money, and you can't just run past many of them due to their speed. I know that games like Doom and Quake didn't have lootpinatas for enemies, but they sometimes drop supplies here and there...and besides, those games didn't have an upgrade system anyways.
YOu have 3, and only 3, weapons to look forwards to. The cannon, the launcher, and your blade. The cannon and launcher do the same amount of damage, I believe, though the grenade can splash. The melee weapon seems too dangerous to use as a lot of enemies can kill you rather quickly if you want to go toe to toe. The small selection of the weapons wouldn't be a problem, given that they are highly tweakable with various power-ups...but then, slotting power-ups are a pain in the ass, so the selection gets tired really quickly. Found a couple of damage upgrades, ROF, and spred for your cannon? Choose 1 and maybe you can salvage the rest. Maybe you can equip another one if you find a Power upgrade, chances are you wont.
The control scheme for weapons is highly suspect, with your left mouse assigned to your cannon and cannon only. Middle mouse selects your melee weapon, nad middle mouse fires. The same is true for the launcher, which is bound to right button. A simple binding to 1,2,3, would've sufficed and I'm not particularly found of the control scheme, here.
This game's design theory would work fantasically, in my opinion, if one of the following changes were made:
-Increase starting inventory size to maybe a full row? Or at least greater than 2
-Increase starting power to 3, this feels like it would be a nice happy point where you have some room to try things out wihout having to leave 4-6 upgrades lying around a stage that you have no idea when you might be able to use them.
OR
-Since it already has a rogue-lite/rpg feel, enemies rewarding something like XP would fit in fine. WIth levels up awarding a pick of a Power slot, Inventory Slot, or some sort of potluck pick like refilling HP/Ammo, or dropping a random upgrade. The player would only get to pick 1 from this short list per level up, and would provide another way of upgrading your character in conjunction with drops found around the game.
Maybe you'll fun with it, though, and for 5 bucks you won't be out that much. For now, though, I can't recommend giving it a spin until some changes are made.
Don't let the simplistic graphics fool you; this game delivers solid immersion and with it plunges you headfirst into a setting that's somewhere between Lovecraft and Geiger with a smattering echo of certain aspects of system shock. While some players won't like the lack of meta progression and rogue-esq mechanics, I found it added to the tension. The story was solid, though I wish there was more meat to it with logs or something like that rather than just the segment-end texts it provides you.
Seriously, pick it up. You'll probably like it.
Игры похожие на CTHON
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Gravity Games |
| Платформы | Windows |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 02.02.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 75% положительных (65) |