Apocryph: an old-school shooter

OK old game.

Nice little FPS. There isn't much to it, you go through levels and kill stuff. The game has its flaws and feels (or actually, most likely is) unfinished, but i think the developer had their heart at the right place.

The levels look a bit convoluted in the Hexen tradition (that the game seems to be inspired from) but in fact they are kinda linear in that there aren't any alternative paths or stuff you can do in different order (ok, there are two cases where you have to activate two switches but that is all i noticed). Also there is only a single very obvious puzzle (you have to avoid some candles on a path). You do have to find switches and there are a bunch of secrets all over the place though all you get from the secrets is more ammo.

In a way it looks like a "what if Serious Sam tried to become Hexen". While the levels aren't as straightforward as in Serious Sam (or even Painkiller) and you have to backtrack in a few areas or find how to move forward (especially with the third level which is by far the biggest one and is made up as a hub), at its core is a series of arenas with enemies spawning in (though in some cases they are already prespawned - this is also used as an incentive for you to explore the levels) and all enemies have very SS-esque behavior in that they just move towards you (and you move backwards while shooting them). Some enemies have ranged attacks and a few can teleport (which is clearly telegraphed so it doesn't become annoying) but for the most part in each arena you'll see a dozen of enemies just running towards you with no concern for their safety or trying to flank you.

The weapons feel good for the most part and they all have some sort of fantasy design, even if most of them end up functioning as the classic FPS weapon archetypes (which is a good thing in my book). My favorite is one which (IIRC is some gloves) that allow you to punch from a distance. The melee weapons feel good too - one being your fists and the other being a sword that can freeze enemies which can break after a few additional hits. However with the game having dozens and dozens of enemies running up to you and most of them using melee attacks faster than you, you only get to use melee weapons against weaker and/or slower enemies.

There is also a "blood mode" which causes everything to slow down and during that mode all your attacks also fill your health - and melee weapons become easier to use. However since it is *attacks* instead of kills that fill your health, it is better to use faster weapon unless you want to preserve ammo. Blood mode is neat and you can activate it wherever you want as long as you have enough "blood" (or whatever that is). There are two bars that fill as you kill enemies, once the first bar is filled then the second bar starts to get filled too (you can also think of them as a single bar split in two parts). You can enable blood mode while you have enough blood in the second bar - the blood depletes while you have the mode enabled and you can deplete both bars. However you can only enable it if there is blood in the second bar, but you can disable it at any time.

Sadly it looks unfinished - every few levels there is some text with story bits (though the story doesn't matter much, at the end you just kill stuff) and after the last available level you get some text that seems to imply there will be more but there isn't a "continue" button. So i guess the dev planned more levels but never happened.

As i wrote above, the third level is by far the biggest one and feels a bit different than the others who are a bit more straightforward. I think if the game was designed with a few big levels like the third one and was a bit less linear (e.g. the third level is basically a hub and you can move between the hubs as you want however there isn't a reason to do that except perhaps for secrets - but the secrets aren't really that enticing) it'd be -and perhaps be received- much better (e.g., had to complete some objective in each hub at any order you wanted so you can progress and/or unlock some other hub or area in the level).

There are also some bugs. For example the action mapping screen is finicky and for some reason it seems the available resolutions are hardcoded with the maximum being 1080p. After each level you get a scoreboard like in classic FPS games counting the number of enemies, items secrets and the time you took to finish the level but it doesn't take into account enemy spawning or items the enemies drop so you often end up with more enemies/items than the level had, making it kinda pointless (since you don't know if you missed anything). The time is also buggy as it only counts time since the last level load, meaning that if you die and reload you'd get a smaller time than it actually took you to beat the level. The secrets are *probably* counted correctly though but i don't know for sure as i never managed to find all of them.

But all in all, it is a fun short game despite the flaws, though i wouldn't recommend it outside a sale as it may either not be to your taste or not keep you entertained long enough due to the small number of levels it has.

TLDR: Gameplay is fun, but the game is very short. Would recommend trying when on sale.

I beat the game in about 4 hours (normal difficulty, second option) and I can totally understand being disappointed if anyone paid full price for this, since the developer promised a game with 30 levels, and later a duration of around 10 hours. This is not the case, but I can't hate this game. I paid € 1,24 and honestly, I had a great time with the game.

I did encounter a few bugs. Sometimes when I launched the game, my mouse movement wouldn't work. The pixelated aesthetic option doesn't work for me and gives me a black screen. But otherwise, I didn't encounter any problems mid-gameplay. I do recommend lowering the music, since the default setting is way too loud. I also played on low settings (GTX 1650) for a smooth 60 fps experience, but I (have to) do that as well with most AAA games, so I don't mind.

The game itself is really fun despite the bugs mentioned. The weapons are all very different and fun to use. I dig the art style, atmosphere and enemy design. The shooting is also really satisfying, mainly because some demons explode into chunky pieces and might even continue to rush you while there skeleton is exposed. The levels are also pretty fun to explore, especially the indoor area's because they ooze atmosphere.

All in all a decent old-school shooter, where you run and gun without having to reload. I didn't mind the length as it didn't overstay it's welcome. These shooters are fun to me, but can get repetitive relatively quickly. Just get it on sale.

Apocryph is an exceedingly middling experience that cannot hold a candle to the luminaries it purports to respect. The weapon selection is adequate and the gore system gives their application a visceral edge, but the combat itself is tedious and the enemy aggregate is obscene. The philosophies of Serious Sam and Heretic/Hexen are clashing in the worst possible way. There is also severe problems with the visuals; depth of field has been implemented for some unholy reason and the colour saturation is sickening, I'm not sure if this was a deliberate effort or ineptitude.

Old-school shooters have set the bar but Apocryph is a limbo champion.

5/10

Apocryph

Hexen Meets newer Graphics and Effects, A true nod to classic FPS for sure with newer esthetic.

The sounds and music is decent though needs to be adjusted each level.

The enemies are well varied.. some enemies will run right up to you and not attack so some bugs to work out.

Worlds worst achievements for any games, die 10 times - achievement.. kill 1000 enemies when a full play through is maybe 500 lol.. cheat using a code and get achievement... die from clipping through the environment- achievement...

This game is not finished according to the community page and it shows, I picked it up for 1$ and for that price.. its not bad.

Great proof of concept that could have been amazing if the 30+ levels were actually done.. done right...only like 10 levels actually in the game.

Overall, pick it up really cheap and limit your expectations as this is a good time if your ok with no story, some bugs and poor ending.
6/10

Apocryph: a Yet Another Unfinished Abandoned Early Access Indie Trash Which Is Not Really Old-school

There is no auto-run option and it has the kinaesthetics of a console tractor. The jumping is rather weird — it sounds like the hero breaks both legs on landing, so you think that it’s something akin to the GTA 3, while actually it’s much more classic. Not on par with the rhythm jumping of the Quake, though. There is no map, but unlike the Quake the level design is not natural. There are even some invisible walls. It’s not an absolutely terrible trolling of the Shadow Warrior, but it’s still on a more simplistic side with samey looking corridors. The length of the levels is uneven. Some are short and couple just doesn’t know when it’s time to end. The worst part are giant switches with tiny hitboxes. Until you realize that fact you can wander around thinking that you’ve missed something. The levels are filled with random decorative trash, and that would be okay, but you are getting stuck on all of the geometry. There are a ton of grates and you can’t shoot through grates. Hey, Jake, what year is it?

For GUI The “game” offers you a choice between a dos era clutter and 2000s hard to read plain text. The classic one even has animated face, but it’s still underwhelming. You can’t even tell it’s animated until you intentionally start to look at it. Probably because the cycles are too short and it lacks idle movement. There is a short SFX laugh on weapon pick up, but character’s face is some edgy emo sad crab. On after-level screens we have some generic demon-knight in full helmet, so there is another pointless miss. There is a giant filling red bar on the left, and no it’s not for HP, HP is tiny hard to read number in squiggly dark red inscription on dark grey background. Also the “game” has dynamic OST, so it sounds terrible with stop/go generic metal. There is an option to turn this off, but it removes battle music altogether and leaves you with some sleep-inducing ambient.

Just as usual, it’s yet another cargo cult, but at least it’s not another rogue-lite and/or it doesn’t have intentionally outdated graphics with low-res brown textures or even 2D enemies. After you finish the last level, you are left with a “coming soon” message. Spoiler: it never comes. Well if you are not going to finish the game, you can at least cobble together a square box and put an oversized grunt with a ton of HP there, with a simple “congraturation” inscription in the end. Especially since that is exactly how id umbrella games are usually ending. While it won’t fix the actual content, it at least would make it a complete product, even if a small and shoddy one. The store page shows two more weapons, which aren’t even inside, and with two firing modes each that makes it four.

While it’s not any good and is obviously unfinished, this is the first of neo-retro wannabe millennial game, which is not openly lying about its gameplay type or slander the old games with sub-par ungraphics and contemporary gameplay elements, which goes against the core of classic experiences. It appeals to me that this thing is heavily inspired by the Heretic, instead of offering generic demons or cyber-MARINES. If it was at least finished, even if abruptly, it would be at least a kind of a game. But so far this is an insult.

Do you know this kind of old movie where they show a really bad CG animation and pretend to be a game? well thats Apocryph.

The Level design is beyond bad, "a child stick together random lego parts" kind of bad.
The AI is a whole new level of being dumb, image a projectile that aims for the player and follows him until hitting him or a neaby wall, thats what the AI does.
The Animations of the semi bad models look like you get attacked by static objects.
The soundtrack isn't bad but the developers where able to even mess up THIS, you get one short in loop playing soundtrack and everytime an bigger horde of "static objects" are hunting you the game plays an other short looped loud soundtrack.

The Developers selled the game as an modern "oldschool shooter" just like the classics but all the game does is embrassingly insulting them with their wanna be hardcore heavy metal stuff and gameplay.

Dogg approves.

This game has a lot of issues, but It is fun to play, has a good soundtrack, and in my opinion has generally good levels and interesting areas to explore. I thought it would be useful to briefly explain the current state of this game, as there seems to be very little information on it. I believe there were six levels, including one (level 3) that is more like the length of four levels. You actually go through several differently named places that end up looping back into one another before you get to "technically" move on the the next level. So really, this game is more like 10 levels long, though not officially. There are a few minibosses, and one real boss that is in a map at the end of the 3rd level. There are two text screens, one at the end of the 3rd level and one at the end of the last level (which is not a conclusion, making me assume there may be more in the future). Most levels are quite long, I believe having an average of somewhere around 200 enemies, so you will still get 5-6 hours of gameplay. Getting this 90% off, and enjoying it as much as I did, this seems like a good deal. It isn't the longest game, and it could certainly use a few more levels, but it isn't just a couple hours either. It would be nice to have an endless mode or deathmatch so you could continue playing the game once you finish imo.
Now some issues...
1. When you leave a hallway, go further into the map, and then are running low on ammo, you go back to previous parts of the map to grab some. However, this game for some reason makes your unclaimed ammo disappear after you have went out of the room that it spawns in. This is really irritating, as this game doesn't have the best pickup timing, often you will have full ammo when they try to give you more, then in a few rooms later you ammo will be almost completely drained, and you can't grab the ammo you had to skip previously.
2. Sometimes your health bar does not match your actual health (represented by a number).
3. Sometimes enemies start walking on air, though I actually didn't find the AI to be as bad as a lot of these other reviewers.
4. Sometimes rocket secondary fire goes through certain enemies.
5. My screen goes black when trying to switch to pixelated mode, so it is unable to be played, though it doesn't seem others had this problem (I tried it on two computers btw).
6. After you save your game your mouse cursor is visible and doesn't go away until you fire.
7. Enemies will run off of the map (or in the endless staircase, off the stairs and wayyy down to the bottom of the map) but DON'T die. When you save and reload, the will be back in their original position, so you can have them fall off the map, then forget about them, save you game where one of them was standing accidentally, and then have them spawn on top of you when you reload the game.
8. Sometimes when you save, then reload, you will see already defeated enemies standing around you, just to disappear after a second.
9. Every time you reload the game, you inventory will be switched back to the repelling thing instead of what you had selected.
10. I couldn't turn on autorun, which is not a bug but such an easy addition that would be so appreciated.
11. There is one part of the game, just before the final pit in level 3 by the drawbridge, that is very confusing. You have to flip two switches to lower the drawbridge, one on a short path to each side of it. The first one is very straightforward. The second... You have to climb up on this ledge, save, then spend five minutes missing the platform you have to jump to before finally getting to it and being able to pull the lever. The thing is, it just doesn't feel or look right. I spent forever trying to find missed enemies, something to raise a bridge to the platform. That's what it looks like should need to be done. I honestly thought my way i eventually resorted to of hopping ledge-to-ledge was just bypassing some glitch, and was shocked when it finally worked. I later looked up a youtube playthrough, and the guy said the same thing when he got to this point. It appears this is what you are supposed to do, but it just looks and feels so wrong it is hard to believe this is what the developer was intending. Just know when you reach this point, yes, you do have to ledge hop your way there, at least as far is I can find.
12. The Guardian Titan is a lame boss. I tend to find most bosses lame, but the guardian titan is just annoying. He is basically another giant bullet sponge that does extremely overpowered attacks. plus theres a never ending spawn of minor enemies to agitate you as you fight him. Its just boring running from little monsters whilst shooting the big one a million times.
Now I won't really focus on the good, as I think it is pretty obvious by just looking at the trailer, but some things done well are the music, the maps, textures (generally), the smaller, more-easy-to-familiarize-yourself-with inventory items, a couple interesting powerups you only get to see once, imo great weapons (rocket launcher is one of my favorites ever), very heretic -like gameplay, pretty cool story if the game ever gets finished, great atmosphere overall.
Obviously this game is by no means perfect, but I think its worth $7.99 or less if you see it for that, It was a good play despite its abundant bugs. 6.5/10

This game has catastrophic level design. It's like they randomly filled a grid paper. A bit like Wolf3D levels with higher poly assets if you will. Except Wolf3D levels were more fun and memorable. Apocryph does worse with recent tech. There are some stairs, and a few places where attempts where made, but seemingly the level author couldn't imagine anything but blocky corridors. Progression is about pressing switches, represented by chains dangling from wall mounted skulls, to remove some walls somewhere on the level. Or about enemies teleporting in when you enter rooms, with an exit grate opening only when all are dead. You can tell enemies got dead by the sudden stop in the metal soundtrack. If you hear the metal sountrack but see no enemies, save and reload, the missing ones will pop back in place. Levels don't look like anything, aren't memorable, don't even offer good gameplay well. It feels like there's one single stone texture used through the entire game. To be fair there's also a wooden one, a grid texutre that you can see but not fire through, stained glass to punch through, ugly lava, and some shiny metallic ice. Props are a couple stone statues, and some destructible wooden crates and barrels.

But seriously, even a free fan made random level generator like Oblige generates way more fun, interesting, pretty and enjoyable levels than any of Apocryph's.

Weapons are good and pleasant to use, especially the fifth, and enemies satisfyingly explode into meat chunk when killed. They are also very dumb, all they know to do is to run at you in straight line, and even then, not very well. You'll often see them getting blocked by any and every obstacle, with a buggy running against wall animation. Ranged enemies throw triple bouncing balls, slow seeking balls, create walls of fire, and others tricky to avoid projectiles. Melees enemies are dealt by backtracking, or circle strafing when there's too many, whilst firing. Until you figure out you can effortlessly jump over them. Even whole group of them. Most encounter have only one kind of enemies, so don't expect tricky strategy and prioritization. There can be monster infighting, though.

There's a weirdly very limited choice of screen resolution. For some reasons, any keybinds I set was discarded, until I started a new game. Oh, and G is unconditionally bound to grenade throw. I had set it to be use item, so for half the game every time I used an item it also threw a grenade. After a delay, because I suppose grenade throwing action being instantaneous wouldn't be cumbersome enough. And grenades are items like any other too, which makes it all the more confusing.

By the way, nothing is explained in this game. There's at least four health items that look nearly the same but gives different amount of health back. Many mushrooms, which gives a some hp and armor because why not. Some armor shard which look like tiny red orb, and some armor pieces which look like shields or weapons. The egg item gives back mana, the bottle items gives 25 and 100 hp. I am not sure about the sparkly thing item, seem to do stuff to enemies, probably harm. And grenade is the skull-scroll item. Since inventory is kept for the whole game, I used my health bottles only in the final boss battle. Which happens roughly mid-game. Yeah, the game is weird and broken like that.

When you kill enemies (or overkill? Not sure!) it fills a red meter. When the second section of the red meter starts getting filled, you can enable blood rage. It applies a red filter and slow motion. Killing enemies during blood rage increase your health and armor, and maybe even refill the red meter. It stops when you press the blood rage key again, or deplete both sections of the red meter. You should use that to turn "hard fights where you get hurt" into "easy fights where you get healed, even past 100%".

Most weapons have a secondary mode that is unlocked when you grab a second instance of that weapon.
- Weapon 1 is melee gauntlet. Unlimited ammo, no secondary.
- Weapon 2 is some staff throwing three magic blue balls with regular shots. Secondary requires charge up, and fire five balls, using more ammo. Use blue ammo.
- Weapon 3 is some gauntlet too, but this one shoot some sort of green laser, good for sniping. Secondary is some sort of flamethrower, except looks like green cloud of light. Use green ammo.
- Weapon 4 is dual swords, but actually acts like a rocket launcher. Secondary is some weird bouncing arrow. Use purple Ammo.
- Weapon 5 is yet another gauntlet, but this one shoots yellow lightning. Secondary cause lighting strike at target. Use green+purple ammo (depleting both at once).
- Weapon 6 is a sword that freeze enemies. So melee. But secondary fires a ranged vertical blue line. Use blue+purple ammo.
- Weapon 7 is a magic gatling. For some reason, I spawned with it at the start of level 6, and then lost it when ammo (I think blue+green) was depleted. Never found it again.
- Weapon 8 are time limited powerups of insanely powerful melee attack. The first one a scythe, the second clawed gauntlet, both fill your screen with fluorescent scratch marks when used.
There's also a foot kick, for when you neither want to use ammo nor switch weapon.


There are seven levels, and even less hours of gameplay:
- The Monastery:
You start in an outdoor yard which tricks you into thinking this game could have decent graphics.
It goes quickly downhill from there.
- Molten Cavern:
Molten because the floor is lava.
Cavern because the sky is a rock texture.
- The Crypt - The City Below - Endless Steps:
Here the dev had the idea to make a hub sort of levels, with sublevels interconnected by two ways portals. Don't worry, they quickly dropped the idea.
- Crypt is one corridor, with many recesses on each side.
- The City Below is the hub part, with a graveyard and a few buildings. And mostly fences to prevent it from being too free to roam.
- Endless steps is a stairwell, that while not truly endless, is so repetitive it does feel pretty close.
- The Pit:
An arena for the final boss level. This was formerly the end of the game.
- Firewitches Abode
Because it has some flaming skulls coming out of holes in a side room, I guess?
- Overgrown Halls:
Enjoy the room with a cauldron at the beginning, as everything else is utterly bland and forgettable.
- Frozen Courtyard:
Has the only use of the metallic ice texture.
- The Gauntlet:
At this point they just got fed up with making levels, so merely stuck three rooms in a rows, with one way walls to fall from inbetween.
And then a text screen that would better fit the intro of the game.

Both are bad, but Apocryph is the opposite of previously reviewed Inner Chains:
- Inner Chains has beautiful levels, but devoid of action.
- Apocryph is all about the fighting, but forgot to have proper levels.

I don't think the dev intended this to be a scam. I feel they just hadn't realized making a videogame is a complicated and time consuming task. And that level design is an art, that requires talent and experience.
I knew it was crap from the alpha/demo, but there was a -90% sale, bringing it down to 1,24€. I played it through, and can confirm you it's an unfinished, buggy, and overall rather bad game.
If you want "an old school shooter" from 2018, I'd advise you to get Amid Evil or Dusk instead. Or if you're not afraid to get real, search for WG Realms 2 : Siegebreaker.

Definitely captures an old school design taken to new heights with some fantastic heavy metal music and graphics. Plenty of interesting looking enemies with great atmosphere throughout the maps.

Unfortunately it all gets killed by the horrible lag which is so bad it effects game play in a very negative manner making what should be a addictive gaming experience into a frustrating slosh through mud where timing is totally off. Turning down the settings also did not help to improve performance.

This is on a i7 8700 with 16gb ram, Geforce RTX 2060 6gb vram at a resolution of 1920x1080.

Here is hoping the detrimental lag issue gets fixed in the future.

I honestly can not understand why people criticize the game so much. It is a solid old-school action with a distinctive gameplay core.
Pros:
- Mutilation and overall impact are truly satisfying, if you know what i mean;
- The unforgiving and punishing atmosphere of dark fantasy which is a nice touch;
- Hardcore and dynamic gameplay with a nice enemy and weapon roster;
- Enemies though dumb still require individual strategies and patterns to use;
- It is far cheaper than most of the better polished games of this genre.
Cons:
- Still some bugs and glitches here and there;
- Yes, enemies are dumb at times;
- Limited ammunition and resources;
- Still in development (at least it is not finished yet).
All in all, if you liked the trailer, I'd suggest You to buy this game on sale. I personally hope and belive that it will be finished some time.

Apocryph: An Old School Shooter - Compact Review

In-Depth Considerations

Conclusion

I really like the art style of this game, but in its current state, I can't recommend it. There are A LOT of bugs and there hasn't been an update in more than 6 months. The performance is bad. The translations are so terrible, they're funny.
But I'd love to see this further being worked on, because it is atmospheric and kinda cool.
It has a lot of potential, a nice idea and art style, but in its current state, it appears to be abandoned and is nothing to write home about.

Jumping and movement controls are finicky, there's not enough variety between weapons, enemy AI is simplistic even by old-school standards, and the game is too heavy for what it is. It's a great concept with some great atmosphere, but it's an Early Access game being sold as a full-release one.

I do not recommend this game in its current state, but that may change in the future.

I played the demo, then the full game for only 37 minutes, stopped during the third level.

The good:
• Weapons seem and feel fun. The energy "shotgun-crossbow" looks like the Heretic one and it's a nice first projectile weapon. Impacts have a good feedback.
• Enemies explode nicely.
• Music is good.
• Monster designs are O.K.
• Monsters fight themselves, as some old FPS did (Doom, Heretic…)
• The general feeling is very good, the game is fast and indeed reminds oldies like Heretic or Hexen (but not Strife, I don't know why they mentioned it as an inspiration).

The bad (take into account that I played only 2 levels and a bit of the 3rd):
• Bugs.
• Bad A.I.: enemies running too much straightforward the player instead of surrounding them, they are sometimes stuck in front of a wall or bars
• Some attacks feel useless
• Some sounds could be reworked as they feel too soft
• Bullet time feels sluggish and adds nothing to the gameplay
• Level design could be improved (but some level parts are good!) and more ambitious
• The running option isn't well integrated into the gameplay (I'll detail it after)
• The framerate sometimes stutters.
• The motion blur affects a lot the screen readability as it is too much present in a game that fast.

• I didn't finish the game and I don't know how long to beat it, but if you can easily finish it in less than two hours as I have seen on other reviews, 20$€ is too much.

The bugs I encountered during my 37 minutes:
• You can't rebind the throw grenade key (G). Annoying as I'm used to use RDFG to move my character.
• If you use the bullet time which adds a visual effect and you left the game, the effect is still present on screen when you start a new game. You have to enable and disable the bullet time to remove.
• Enemies stuck in walls
• No difficulty level is highlighted by default when you start a new game, but you can still click on "next", without knowing which difficulty mode will actually be used.
• After dying in the 3rd level, the "continue" button didn't work when clicking on it.

The gameplay itself is kinda good, some level parts and fights are exciting, the feeling is good too.
I think this is a very good core to make an excellent game, but it needs bug fixing, more levels, and overall improvements.

Though I don't know the game length as I didn't finish it, the developers openly said they were working on the 3rd level in December 2017 and hoped for 30 levels for the release.
They have released the game 4 months after, with officially 6 levels, but announced this number of levels after having released the game. They after added that we'll have a free update with more content in "several weeks".

In my opinion, the game was released when the work was still in progress. This is not a complete game and it should not have been sold in its state. I'll keep following the game development and see how it has improved in a few months.

Besides the number of levels and bug fixing, how to improve the game? Here are some quick suggestions:
• More exciting, surprising level design. More labyrinths, more secrets.
• Decrease the picked up items text size, because it's way too huge
• Remove the bullet time as it is ugly, sluggish and adds nothing to the gameplay.
• Remove the pixellated mode which is unplayable and adds nothing to the game
• Adds stuff to break! I only encountered breakable stained glass on the 3rd level. You can't break crates, pots and stuff like this. This is frustrating.
• Improve A.I.; Make the enemies surround the player.
• Running needs some adjustments. Let me take 2 examples to compare.
In old-school FPS, you usually had a key to toggle running.
In Doom, Heretic and so on, we were ALWAYS running. Walking was only useful to cross narrow edges or stuff like this. 99% of the time you didn't have to bother pressing a key to run or walk. You were just running all the time. The fast movement was well integrated into the gameplay.
In Borderlands, a modern FPS, you can't shoot when sprinting. So, you have to sprint when you actually need to. To run away, take cover or travel a long distance, but you couldn't properly run during a fight. You had to choose between shooting or running. And that was well integrated into the gameplay too.
What about Apocryph? You must press a key in order to run, but you can't toggle it. You can do the same actions when running or walking. Running doesn't prevent you from anything. Running in Apocryph is used the same way as old school FPS, but it's annoying to use it because you have to press the key all the time.
So, my suggestion is that devs should add a toggle run key, and maybe decrease a little bit the run speed if they think that it's too fast when used as a full-time movement speed.

Now a quick message for the devs: Thought I feel this is dishonest from you that you released the game in this state, I think the core gameplay is very good and it could really become an awesome old school shooter. You have good weapons, good feeling, and feedback, exploding monsters, good music, but the game feels not complete at all.
I wish you luck and hope hard work from you (I know money doesn't grow on trees, though) to make this game one of the best 2018 old-school FPS. Oh, and I enjoyed Apocryph gameplay more than Ion Maiden from 3DRealms (but the latter is still in early access).

Original review:

I've completed the demo and and now working my way through the retail game. Apocryph is very reminiscent of the '90s shooters and features monsters, secrets, lots of gore and some darn good fun! The gameplay is more similar to Hexen rather than something like Doom.

Review as of January 2020:

The game has been abandoned by the devs, so I can no longer recommend it. Only a handful of levels have been completed, compared to the 30 that were planned.

Still pleased the game supports Linux, but that's about it!

Apocryph may very well deserve positive reviews somewhere down the line, because there *is* a lot of promise here. But right here, right now? No way.

This is an Early Access game released as a full title, and I don't know how others could, in good faith, recommend a handful of rough-as-guts levels to others for $20 USD.

The core is a lot of fun, but that's all that is there at the moment - the essence of the experience. Everything else is just unfinished, and between the poor performance, technical issues (the game tops out at 1080p) lack of content and buggy AI, Apocryph doesn't earn a Mostly Positive at this point in time.

I find it really bizarre that the game was given a full release and not an Early Access one. I would have had *no problem* jumping into this as an Early Access title - I'd have know what I was getting into, and the lack of polish would have been given context.

But put this full release against legit Early Access titles like AMID EVIL, DUSK and Ion Maiden, and there is a vast difference in quality. This has as many issues as the Alpha Demo did, if not moreso. Level geometry doesn't align correctly. Enemy AI is non-existent, and rush at you with blinders on, if they don't get caught on the scenery before they reach you. The levels don't feel like real, tangible places. Games like DOOM, Heretic and Hexen all felt like games, sure, but their levels stuck in your brain - you remember them like they're real places. In Apocryph, after the first stage, every level that follows feels like rooms, platforms and random stuff just thrown together.

I really, sincerely hope that the devs pull this off, but I just can't get past how utterly strange it was to not mention the piece-meal approach to the release upfront. Whether Bigzur Games just honestly messed it up, or did it to dupe people into handing over $20 USD under false pretenses, it's still odd.

Apocryph is entertaining, but it's not finished, polished or worth the money right now. I'm not being nasty for nasty sake, I'm simply trying to balance out the blind praise being thrown at the game.

I want to see this game succeed, the passion the devs have for the genre is easy to see. I just don't think this release is being handled the right way at all. I'll change my review to a positive if Bigzur Games turns Apocryph around.

First off, this game does feel like the games they put in the description so atleast that's a positive (and probably the only one), now onto the negative.

When launched, we were promised we would have about 30 levels in total, there are only 3 levels total. When asked if there will actually be 30 levels, they ignore the answer. The AI in the game is so janky it's crazy, it's like they never even tested them or the levels themselves with the amount of bugs in the game. Half the time the AI just run up against the walls and if you move back far enough they'll stop chasing you and go the opposite direction. Going up some sets of stairs you have to jump to be able to proceed, your character acts as if he can't simply continue walking up them. The 3 levels that do come shipped, are also not completed. Whether it be an invisible wall that you can only see on one side and not the other, a couple of objects randomly floating in the air instead of being placed on the ground how they should be, and at times you cannot complete the 3rd level simply because when at a certain distance you can see a pathway, but when you get closer it dissapears, and you need to cross that to activate a switch, which unlocks a lever, which draws down a bridge and allows you to proceed. These levels were clearly not tested.

The game is being sold for $20. It is unfinished, feels unpolished, and about 2 hours of gameplay. Until the FULL GAME is actually released, and actually tested, my review stays.

About 30-40 FPS on low details and 720p? On Core i5-4210 (2.6 Ghz), 16 GB DDR3 and GeForce GTX 950M?! Seriously? On this config Doom (2016) get stable 55-60 FPS!

TL;DR: Short and pricey, slower phase old school shooter, optimisation can be poor, monsters derp bug moments, but most of all it's FUN!

So this was my 1000th game on steam, god help my wallet. I had very mixed feelings to throw 20€ at this, something kept bugging me so much about trailer and still i don't have a clue what it is. Maybe it's that it gives conception of more faster phase action, when to me it was more slower phase. Still I was hooked in and decided to buy this.

I played this on second hardest difficulty and after few minutes of "WHY, WHY WOULD YOU PUT SLOWER HITTING STRIKE TO MELEE WITH SAME DAMAGE AS TWO OTHER BUT FASTER STRIKERS!" I found first weapon, the shotgun. And that weapon was my main weapon trough the game. Only complaint I have is of the first 3 weapons (shotgun, slower machine gun and rocket launcher) is that they didnt have meat to them. When you fire them, it was just so "eh, that's all?" But after you get upgrade to them (shotgun and rocket launcher, I'm bad at finding secrets) they got meatier. Overall there are 9 weapons, but I only found 8 of them, and I think I missed few upgrades. And handful of items, but I only used health potions and grenades.

But oh boy was this FUN. So many different enemies and old school shooting in (mostly) cramped rooms. And it had the feeling of old school shooter. Level desing was entertaining and fun, little bit simplistic but fun. Didnt feel bored at all with the level themes. Though the last level was little bit too longish. The AI was little bit stupid with pathfinding, and those 4m jumps were something to see. I loved that old school thing with monster, where you could see enemies at neutral waiting position and sometimes you had to slap them to get them notice you.

I have GTX 1080TI and i7-8700k and my fps was solid 60+ in most areas. But in town level it went to 40 or below when there was higly amount of enemies and projectiles. I haven't heard if this is universal drop zone to all different pc compositions or not. But still little bit poor to high-end PC.

And now to the biggest issue I have with Apocryph. It's so freaking short! I think my real ingame time was around 80minutes, else was afking and trying to find a solution to now patched bug(thank you for your swiftness devs). That's why I didn't use most of those items in game. Because the game just ended. I went "Oh look, games first gigantic boss. I wonder what else there is"DUNDUNDUUU the game ended. What why what eh WAIT WHAT?! It left me so disappointed. In my mind I was at worst in midway of the game. But nope it was the end. The end credits teased with more content but at this moment it's just too short.

20€ and around 1,5h-3h game is definitely my biggest hitch in Apocryph. And probably others too. But still everything else was just so good! I would give neutral review if that would be possible, but I'll give this positive, because I had so much fun with this, even with the shortness.

70/100

I will be the first one to admit there is serious potential here; but held back by flaws that could easily be remedied. I'll get right on those:

1- The game starts in Russian without a language select screen. This is not only amateurish, but takes a long while of tinkering to get it to your preferred language.
2- There is no "crouch" in this game. If you use the button assigned to crouching, it sprints. It's confusing and amaturish to have a wrongly labeled command in the key binding menu.
3- The game doesn't accept your key bindings and graphic settings and reverts back to default once you start playing. You have to start playing and get back to the main menu to bind them again.
4- The mouse cursor shouldn't be visible in the game when you come back to gameplay from the menu.
5- You can't break any in game objects, which makes the gameworld feel detached.
6- There shouldn't be any stuttering in a unity engine game running on a geforce 980 ti and intel core i7 6700 k, 16 gig ram, samsung evo ssd rig.

The actual feel of the gameplay and the atmosphere is great. Please fix these asap. Don't waste the great potential here.