Hands of Necromancy 2 is released! Dark Fantasy FPS gzdoom

[emmanuelexe]

https://af.gog.com/en/game/hands_of_necromancy_ii?as=1649904300

Hello, sorry im new here but i noticed some people seemed to like the first game of Hands of Necromancy, im the lead producer.
Not sure if you are interested by the 2nd game but i wanted to share it there (if its allowed, if not delete it, sorry!)

The maps of the game:

(the music is not from the game)

Its in some other shops of the net like GOG.

The 2nd game has more stuff than before, destructibles and burnables elements, different kinds of traps, a new class to play, she has her own weapons and transformations, similar to the first but she is still a bit different in a way you have to play her, more items,
QOL stuff (optionnal hp bars), improved necromancy system (the monsters teleport to your location if you go too far, no more friendlyfire and you can go through them, not blocked) and some other cool things!

About the mapping system, due to the complaints about the hub and puzzles of the first game, the mapping is like doom/heretic and no more puzzle, a lot of people were lost in the maps, we may have went too hard with it but the transformations are
still necessary to go in some passages and to fight the monsters.

We had a good reception for the musics, if you want, there is a physical version for it (pre-order):
https://darkwoods.eu/webstore/en/asciimov-hands-of-necromancy-ii-oversized-digifile-cd

 

[ghardy]

This looks very nice! I'll be sure to check it out.

 

[Fargus]

I have the first game on steam. Need to finish that first.

 

[udm]

That was fast! I thought the first game only came out recently.

 

[Yeoman]

Although the sequel moved away from the hub-based design of the original, does its individual levels still have something on the same level as The Earthen Depths from the first game? That is, a monstrously huge and sprawling level with a lot of verticality and unlockable shortcuts that loop back to previous areas of the level? IMO you should commission an entire game's worth of levels from the designer of that level.

 

[Fatberg Slim]

I finished this and enjoyed it more than the first one. The levels are generally shorter than the first one but have more varied themes, which reduced a lot of the burnout that I experienced towards the end of HON1. I spent around 11 hours on this playthrough.

I played as the new character and tested the old character for a couple of levels to see if anything changed (it hasn't). The abilities are very similar across the two, with some tweaks - in general, I'd say the new character's weapons are slower but hit harder and have a bit more of a necromancer feel to them (e.g. you get a lifesteal ability from the start of the game). The creatures may be a bit weaker but were more fun IMO - the satisfying "Arooo!" noise the werewolf makes when going berserk never got old

For me these games would benefit from some kind of character progression to help keep the gameplay fresh in the 2nd half after you have all of your weapons and forms. Even something simple like not starting with any secondary abilities and letting the player choose one after completing every level or two could help keep things fresh.

 

[emmanuelexe]

Although the sequel moved away from the hub-based design of the original, does its individual levels still have something on the same level as The Earthen Depths from the first game? That is, a monstrously huge and sprawling level with a lot of verticality and unlockable shortcuts that loop back to previous areas of the level? IMO you should commission an entire game's worth of levels from the designer of that level.

We have a group of mappers who joined us for Hands of Necromancy 2 and they got some cacowards/runner up cacowards for DOOM and Heretic! They are really high skilled. In the video with the screenshots, you can see it or with some videos on the net, a lot of maps are really with a complex geometry and level design.

We were thinking about a character progression with competence tree but it was a bit complicate for us to implement it but we have enough stuff to attack the enemies like more items who help. Maybe some people will mod the game with some new stuff in the future.