Current Version: 0.9
Early version of a campaign i created to trial out the current capabilities of FX script and custom asset integration. Your only objective here is to descend, below forgotten kingdoms, beyond points of no return. Has multiple paths and endings dependent on player choices.
Author's Notes
- This campaign is build ontop of a custom creature balance
- Some buff spells charge higher than usual, but so does the duration
- If you feel stuck, try actually reading the objective and information given
- For those who are really stuck on a puzzle map, there is a short walkthrough somewhere among the files
- A small chance persists to get softlocked when imps drop key items at the worst possible places, best to use them directly
- Players who are not proficient in the game's mechanics should settle with the lowest difficulty mode.
Art: cultists and dk2 models by ErminioLucente, extended assets and creature spells by Shinthoras0815, additional traps and minions by ben_lp, more level decoration by dragoonlich
This campaign starts with a bang, the first level has gorgeous visuals and a great idea behind it. The enemy Horny was so OP I couldn't make progress as he was back to full health after each assault, so I tried to raid his hatchery instead. I finally managed to kill it thanks to witches but boy was that a long struggle.
Second level makes you feel like you're playing roaming heroes for the first part. After that, it's kind of tough to push against the relentless enemy waves but doable. Invading the last fort was hard, I had to use possession to clear the area before going in.
Third level was the best so far, with insane use of keeperfx mechanics such as the patrolling hellhounds and the final part was awesome. Invading the last enemy fortress and what follows was a great experience, even though I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do for the last part.
Fourth level was...extremely frustrating. Fighting hordes of weak creatures that slaughter your imps all over the map and flee against your own creatures wasn't a fun experience. I tried and pushed as hard as I could to clear the lairs, but some parts still spawned parties since there were no lair to capture. Gold starvation eventually made me try to cheese the enemy Keeper but between that and the relentless insect invasions, I gave up before finishing him off.
I cheated to see the next level and barely started it (lots of traps!), but I'm not sure this campaign is for me in the end. All the creatures are also very fragile save for a few exception, which is not unlike the Necromancer campaign that uses the cultist faction too. On top of that, everything is bloody expensive and workshop economy is not something you want to do considering how slow it is.
I don't want to end on a negative note. This campaign is obviously extremely well designed and you can see how much heart has been put into it. Just looking at the minimaps show how well everything has been designed, and each map is so different from the rest. The altars mechanics force you to be on the move and not stay behind your walls, which I like even if I'm a turtly player. You have valid reasons to go on the offensive.
It's just not for players like me, so I won't rate it. People who like agressive, APM heavy playstyles will love this for sure. I'll try the other maps some day and will edit this comment should the need arise.
The perceived difficulty in map 4 is mostly caused by mechanical obscurity, after obtaining an overview on faction specific skills it becomes objectively easier than RotL or twinkeeper. Could be useful setting difficulty to low since it makes maps less stressful.
I'll try and do that for a second run. I was playing on "normal". I couldn't finish the last map of twinkeeper either back then, and RotL I had to stop at the insect map (again :O) so I'm a filthy casual. However I don't think it was caused by mechanical obscurity, it's just that there are enemies everywhere all the time and imps being imps, they get slaughtered. Also they flee your stronger minions which is frustrating.
That being said, the campaign is probably one of the most well designed here and me being bad doesn't lower its value in any way shape or form. I did find some typos though (thread instead of threat)!
I think this campaign is an absolute masterpiece! Hats off to the creator. Must have been alot of work. I really enjoyed playing it.
Sadly i couldn't implement everything i wanted to because fx is still limiting, maybe i will be able to do that with lua when it is finished in 2037
Updated to match function changes of 4277 alpha, older alphas no longer fully functional. Works now without partitioned download, thx yani!
Hmm. Crash on launch of 2nd map. Patch 1 2 0 4223 aplha :(
Fixed in alpha 4232, thank you for the report.
Sorry, will hopefully have this fixed soon. It is a problem with the game and you could go back to 4218 for now to play it (or wait for an alpha that fixes it).
Yes, it started in version 4218. But I can't take a single unit in my hand. Is this how it should be, or is it a bug? 4232 I do not put, because in keeperfx.exe both "virustotal" and Windows protection show the presence of a Trojan.
I don't know why some virusscanners have started reporting a virus in KeeperFX, but they are mistaken. We are virus free. On virustotal I scanned 4232 and it did show a few virusscanners reporting it as a problematic file, but the large majority still knows it to be ok.
Thank you for the answer.
Update 16/11: fixed creature spells that recently broke due to property changes in the latest alpha
Update 11/11: changes to balance, fixed some issues
Had some really mixed opinions about this campaign. The custom slabs were beautiful, especially on the first level, and it was exciting seeing the new ideas implemented, but I just found it ended up not being very fun at all.
First map was really impressive and thematic, loved it. What a genius idea recreating the intro video of the game! However, I found it really hard to claim the keeper's portal due to a combination of new creatures joining and tunnellers being tunnellers.
The second map - interesting but the wizard was so slow that the first part was a bit painful - could be worth making his faster. I also destroyed one of the custom traps in possession and it crashed the game. I played again (had to restart from the beginning because of a save bug, not your fault), frameskipped a lot, had to abuse guard posts because I couldn't really fight hordes that big (and some custom creature spells like the icicle one seem REALLY strong). So didn't really know what I needed to do there, i can't train fast enough to fend the waves off properly, so I don't know if i'm supposed to just push forward, might have missed a text string somewhere.
Third map felt like a painful chore too - lots of gold I can dig out but no need to, creatures train and research glacially slow (which you implied was your intention but it didn't do anything other than make me want to frameskip even harder, especially when there was nothing else to do than train up to kill the enemies and move forward, with an army that doesn't replenish and enemies with new moves and traps that do way way way more damage than the usual. I would have enjoyed the twist that I changed colour/got possessed if it didn't make me die inside because the level kept going.
Some really mixed feelings here - some of the levels look gorgeous visually, but I just had absolutely no fun playing them. I really hope there's something that can be done to make the maps more enjoyable because it's clear you've spent so much time making them and crafting this narrative and world.
Different players have different tastes, if you prefer short maps this might not be your kind of campaign. But i will futher update the balance to flatten most difficulty spikes, the higher difficulty modes are quite unforgiving by design.
I've been playing on medium difficulty so far. I can be slightly impatient with some maps but QOL improvements are always appreciated! Thanks for updating, I might give it another go soon and see 😊
Hey dude, thanks for making this. Had a blast playing through it and can feel the effort you put in to making this. Keep up the great work!
Good to hear that the rather archetypal second half of the campaign turned out manageable, thougt it might be too hard. If you have found any technical bugs or gameplay anomalies i would be happy to solve them.
I’m finding majority of the cultist creatures appear as hellhound sprites. The witch doesn’t, all the rest do. I had to download them individually and unzip them into the config to get them to work
Don't know why, maybe you ran out of sprite slots due to other custom stuff stored in fxdata? Could also just be a bad install, wonder if anyone else has the same problem.
Maybe, but once I unzipped them individually into the config folder, they all started working. Although the new move icons aren't working.
It is impressive what has become of an almost 30-year-old game, especially if you compare what is possible now to the time when campaigns like Assmist Isle or Ancient Keeper were introduced. Gone are the days when difficult maps were basically all about fending off hordes of level 10 creatures. Instead, nowadays, there are many more puzzle-like elements that give DK a completely new feeling.
When I started Abyss Guardians, I was thinking, "Wow! What's going on here?!" And before I started to comprehend what was actually required, I had already successfully completed the very first level. Ok, good! Let's continue with the next level then. I enjoyed the very interesting plot and concept that Abyss Guardians had to offer. Especially the first part of the campaign was something I had never really seen before, despite having actively played quite a bit of DK over the last few years.
Sadly, my initial excitement didn't last too long. I'd say after the little "plot twist" that was introduced after the first few maps, the feeling of confusion was predominant throughout the rest of the maps (I decided to try the hardest difficulty but never really noticed a big difference between the other difficulty levels). I constantly asked myself if I had done something wrong: for example, in the level with the volcano, I was constantly invaded by the insects despite having removed all the nests (as suggested by the map). In the map that followed, I was constantly discovered by the enemy without having gotten a single clue of what I had done wrong. Despite that, I felt that both maps were basically about the same thing: fending off waves of enemies. This element was carried over to the map after that as well. I struggled with the overall slow pacing that made each map more or less a drag to me.
It saddens me to say that Abyss Guardians hasn't grown on me at all. I liked the story behind it. I loved the ingenuity and freshness of the gameplay, but I disliked the implementation of it. I tried those maps again and again over the past few days, but eventually, I just had to quit the campaign (and I was so looking forward to seeing the end of the story - such a shame).
I am sorry - I am not a fan, but I appreciate the amount of work and dedication that was put into it.
Levels being confusing is kinda intentional, the 2 around midgame have some puzzle mechanics. That is why a short guide was included in the text folder that explains a bit what is going on. Also if you choose hardest difficulty it really starts to take off from map 4 upwards, playing for the first time on hardest is not the best idea i guess. And sure, some levels aren't fully polished yet as this is only the first version so far.
Update 04/11: cleaned some creature spells and objects, packed 2 more tilesets
Great map design 👍