Every run feels like a puzzle that I grow closer to understanding each time. As I played more and more, I grew accustomed to the exact conditions and exact timing of moves that I needed to pull off before the next sequence began. It might be hard to believe at first, but there’s a consistent order to the waves of enemies that appear. Unlike other twitchy, reflex-based games from recent memory, this one doesn’t spawn your opponents randomly. The relentless thrill of blasting baddies and the smooth transition between the game over screen and a fresh start (tapping R instantly resets it at any time) make it easy to get sucked in, losing entire hours to the black hole of “ just one more try.” The Devil Is in the DetailsĪs simple as Devil Daggers’ run-and-gun routine may seem, there’s enough technical detail to make exploring and exploiting its various systems one chaotic hell of a good time. With the amount of intensity packed into a single second of gameplay, even a one-minute run can feel like an eternity. Hordes of floating skulls and disembodied demon heads spew out of tentacled behemoths, mindlessly giving chase while increasingly grotesque beasts spawn from all sides until the mobs become too overwhelming to fend off any longer. Trying, failing, and trying again is a particularly brutal process in that abyss, where there’s always some new monstrosity threatening to cut your latest attempt short. It’s just you, the daggers that inexplicably fire from your outstretched fingers, and an endless legion of hellspawn battling it out in a dark arena for as long as your skill can carry you, which probably won’t be that long. There are no stats to increase and no levels to beat, either. There are no weapons to pick up, no armor, and besides collectible crystals that power up your dagger shots in tiers, there are no items whatsoever.
But it’s also exhilarating, a frantic high-score chaser that buries hours of rewarding playtime deep within its punishing core for only the most determined players to claw out.ĭevil Daggers grounds itself in the look and feel of old-school PC shooters of the ‘90s like DOOM and Quake, then strips the experience down into its purest elements and drops you in without explanation. It’s demanding and frightening – an intensely difficult first-person arena shooter set in some forgotten circle of hell, where survival happens only a handful of seconds at a time and death is constantly looming over your shoulder. Article taken from Daggers is a nightmare that I keep coming back to. You can buy Devil Daggers from Steam and GOG. To make the gameplay seriously smooth it also supports "hundreds of flocking enemies that all avoid each other" along with a "3d particle physics system with procedural decal effects". Devil Daggers has a custom built engine with hand crafted art and sound from Sorath "using 1990s software-style rendering with unfiltered textures and polygon jitter". Advanced movement techniques allow for speed boosts and double jumps.Īdditionally, it's not using an off-the-shelf game engine.Fluid movement allows for circle strafing, bunny hopping and dagger jumps.Survive long enough to earn powerful magical homing daggers.Versatile magic daggers, can be used as a shot attack or rapid fire.Learn from the world's best or watch friends with the leaderboard replay system.Harvest demonic crystals to increase the power of your magic daggers.Want to learn a bit more about Devil Daggers? Here's a readout of the features: Close your curtains, put on some headphones and turn the volume up and you will have a good time.
Once you start getting into the swing of it blasting away demons, it gives your heart and your hand a serious workout too. The atmosphere is ridiculous in it too, it genuinely gives me a bit of a fright every time. YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view.