Indie game Selaco pushes the original Doom's tech to a whole new level

[Daniel Sims]

Something to look forward to: Over the last few months, indie developer Altered Orbit Studios has been turning heads with Selaco. First-person shooters inspired by classics like Doom and Quake are relatively common these days, but what's impressive about Selaco is that it runs on technology based on the original Doom from 1993 and is doing completely new things with it.

TechSpot has run plenty of stories about people who got Doom to play on just about anything with a screen. Modders still make impressive custom levels with Doom's building blocks every year. Selaco looks like a significant new step forward, however.

Selaco runs on GZDoom—a version of Doom's graphics engine that people mostly use to run the old Doom games and custom Doom levels with modern functionality. However, Altered Orbit says it also takes inspiration from F.E.A.R., Monolith Productions' 2005 horror shooter. The Steam page boasts a story-driven campaign, action sequences inspired by classic-style first-person shooters, and "custom AI" that is more aware of the player.

"Together with professional artists who work in the industry, several having worked on successful throwback FPS games in the past, Selaco is a fully fleshed out world full of character, action, and mystery," the page reads.

The story takes place in the titular underground refuge, where humanity shelters on a post-apocalyptic Earth as a mysterious enemy force invades. The main character, Dawn, is a security agent fighting off the invasion while also investigating the truth behind Selaco's history.

The gameplay videos Altered Orbit has shared so far show off the low-polygon environments and 2D sprite-based characters one would associate with Doom, but the combat looks a bit more tactical. Doom is about strafing around demons and blasting them out in the open. Selaco seems to be based around flanking while taking cover, and the enemies are guys in military gear throwing grenades. The videos also show lengthy slower, atmospheric segments, all with plenty of voice acting. Altered Orbit says the game will have destructible environments based on voxels, along with full mod support.

The only release date the developer lists for Selaco is "August 25, 2255."

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https://www.techspot.com/news/91049-indie-game-selaco-pushes-original-doom-tech-whole.html

 

[Sausagemeat]

I absolutely love Prodeus on game pass and Ion Fury on Steam. Not entirely sure if they are the same as what’s mentioned here but they are like old school style shooters with sprites and chunky pixels and they really do bring back a lot of memories when I play them.

 

[DZillaXx]

Extremely impressive for it to be running on GZDoom.

Can really notice the FEAR inspired combat.

Really cool to see what a old graphic engine can do pushed with high quality assets and great art design.

 

[Inthenstus]

Honestly, this is pretty cool. I had FPS games, but this is neat. Getting a Halo vibe from it.

 

[RudyBob]

Yea Looks good. The Penetrator...great weapon name

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I absolutely love Prodeus on game pass and Ion Fury on Steam. Not entirely sure if they are the same as what’s mentioned here but they are like old school style shooters with sprites and chunky pixels and they really do bring back a lot of memories when I play them.

Prodeus is running on a modern engine with a classic style. Ion fury, OTOH, is made with the BUILD engine, the same one that powered duke nukem 3d. Selaco is closer to ion fury in that it's using GZdoom instead of a new engine.

Of course if this runs in GZdoom now I want to run it on ancient classic hardware that runs OG doom and see what happens.

 

[DZillaXx]

Prodeus is running on a modern engine with a classic style. Ion fury, OTOH, is made with the BUILD engine, the same one that powered duke nukem 3d. Selaco is closer to ion fury in that it's using GZdoom instead of a new engine.

Of course if this runs in GZdoom now I want to run it on ancient classic hardware that runs OG doom and see what happens.

GZDoom is more demanding than the original Doom engine. You pretty much need a Pentium 3 or better with GPU just to get good performance from the original Doom WADs.

I'd be impressed if Selaco even runs decently on a low clocked Pentium 4.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Best thing to come from the Doom universe so far imo is Brutal Doom.

 

[arrowflash]

GZDoom is more demanding than the original Doom engine. You pretty much need a Pentium 3 or better with GPU just to get good performance from the original Doom WADs.

I'd be impressed if Selaco even runs decently on a low clocked Pentium 4.

Current builds of GZDoom won't run decently on anything older than 10 year old hardware. An older GZDoom build from 10+ years ago might be playable on a Pentium 4 if you disable most enhancements and visual fx, but again such an older build definitely won't run Selaco because GZDoom keeps adding lots of features to the Doom engine over the years.

It's not the Doom engine anymore, it's the GZDoom engine.

The headline saying "F.E.A.R. as if it was made 10 years before F.E.A.R." is inaccurate, not even the beefiest hardware from 1995 would run this decently.

Of course if this runs in GZdoom now I want to run it on ancient classic hardware that runs OG doom and see what happens.

I don't think GZDoom + OG Doom will even boot in hardware from 1993 or 1995. Maybe a very old OpenGL1-based build from 15+ years ago, but even so I don't think it would run decently.

 

[Stingy McDuck]

These retro games made on classic engines (or source ports) look better than many retro games made on modern engines mimicking old graphics. Some people just use sprites more pixelated than those in Wolfenstein 3d, put an ugly deposterize shader and set the bloom to the max and call it "retro".

 

[DZillaXx]

Current builds of GZDoom won't run decently on anything older than 10 year old hardware. An older GZDoom build from 10+ years ago might be playable on a Pentium 4 if you disable most enhancements and visual fx, but again such an older build definitely won't run Selaco because GZDoom keeps adding lots of features to the Doom engine over the years.

It's not the Doom engine anymore, it's the GZDoom engine.

The headline saying "F.E.A.R. as if it was made 10 years before F.E.A.R." is inaccurate, not even the beefiest hardware from 1995 would run this decently.



I don't think GZDoom + OG Doom will even boot in hardware from 1993 or 1995. Maybe a very old OpenGL1-based build from 15+ years ago, but even so I don't think it would run decently.

You are correct. I haven't used GZDoom in about a decade, but I guess GPU requirements have gone up. Needing OpenGL 3.3 as a min requirement, which is about a decade old. DX9 can be used for software render, but most likely needs a pretty beefy CPU.

I guess the older version of GZDoom lives on as LZDoom and currently keeps being supported. That still most likely needs a P3 and an Entry Level OpenGL class graphics to even run. Not sure the support of win98, but I'd assume win2000 or xp would have no problem booting up the newest version of LZDoom.

I don't think this game will have an issue with any computer in the last decade, even with integrated graphics. Other than maybe Sandy Bridges IGPU.

These retro games made on classic engines (or source ports) look better than many retro games made on modern engines mimicking old graphics. Some people just use sprites more pixelated than those in Wolfenstein 3d, put an ugly deposterize shader and set the bloom to the max and call it "retro".

I agree, too many retro style games that have poor artwork and overly done blockyness to them. Most look like if someone wanted to push NES level of games to the max. I much prefer the look of what a AAA game with high end hardware may have looked like back in the day approach.

 

[Sausagemeat]

Prodeus is running on a modern engine with a classic style. Ion fury, OTOH, is made with the BUILD engine, the same one that powered duke nukem 3d. Selaco is closer to ion fury in that it's using GZdoom instead of a new engine.

Of course if this runs in GZdoom now I want to run it on ancient classic hardware that runs OG doom and see what happens.

That explains why Ion Fury only takes up 92.93mb on my SSD! So much fun for just a few megabytes. The texture for just one small decal on a gun in a modern game probably has a bigger file size than that entire game.

 

[Jack Deth]

F.E.A.R. was fantastic. Miss games like that.

 

[dualkelly]

Hell yeah! Take my money!

 

[Danny101]

I like. And I might could play it on my 2016 laptop.