Developer: Duckosaurus Games
Publisher: Duckosaurus Games
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Dino-Ducks Mayhem – Preview
According to modern science, dinosaurs never fully went extinct: birds are dinosaurs. This would make the term “Dino-Ducks” a bit of a pleonasm, but that’s not stopping Belgian indie developer team Duckosaurus Games from naming their very own IP just that. They have just launched their second entry in the budding Dino-Ducks franchise, Dino-Ducks Mayhem, in Early Access. We’ll admit that the Dino-Ducks series wasn’t fully on our radar up until Mayhem’s launch, but we were instantly enamored by its cutesy art style. Can the rest of the game live up to that?
Where the first Dino-Ducks game, Dino-Ducks Dash, was a simple endless runner, Dino-Ducks Mayhem is a lot more ambitious. Mayhem is a roguelike twin-stick shooter that, like many other games, draws heavy inspiration from Vampire Survivors. Players take on the role of one of the titular Dino-Ducks, which are… ducks dressed up in costumes. The title Dino-Ducks is a bit of a misnomer, because the two available ducks in the Early Access build are a single Dino duck and a Builder duck. The silhouettes for future ducks don’t seem all that dino-like to us, but Dino-Ducks alliterates nicely and sounds better than, say, Village People Ducks. Accompanying your chosen duck is a pair of AI-controlled, adorable companion ducklings whose job it is to help you fend off swarms of enemy hordes.
Runs follow the all too familiar survivors formula, where you attempt to survive for 20 minutes as waves upon waves of enemies descend upon you. You explore the map, attacking enemies and grinding to level up in the process. Every once in a while, something spawns on the map, like a healing fountain or a traveling truck that sells you new weapons. Upon leveling up, the game lets you choose one of three randomized power-ups of varying tiers and rarities. You can also gather shards to use at the in-game forge. It’s all straightforward and familiar stuff for anyone who has ever played Vampire Survivors or one of its countless clones.
That’s not to say that Dino-Ducks copies the formula to a tee. The game puts a lot more emphasis on twin-stick mechanics, requiring you to actually aim rather than relying on auto attacks that cover 360 degrees around you. The ducks themselves are fragile too, especially early on. We found that playing as Builder Duck in particular was tricky, as his basic attacks are entirely melee-focused. In other Survivors-likes, strategic avoidance is often the key to success, but Mayhem instead expects you to go in guns blazing. Eventually, you’ll improve your arsenal, but when even basic abilities like dashing or rolling require you to obtain them randomly from level-ups, then it stands to reason that Duckosaurus needs to take a look at both pacing and balancing in future updates. Of course, the Early Access phase is all about gathering feedback, so we expect the team to make changes based on player experiences.
Another expected source of potential friction is technical performance. Unfortunately, we have to say that there is also room for improvement here. The game is very prone to stuttering, random freezing, and even split-second jumps where your duck is suddenly elsewhere on the map before returning to where it was. The game’s UI feels unfinished: attempting to navigate menus with a controller is frustratingly unoptimized, but playing the game with a mouse and WASD-keyboard setup isn’t ideal either. The middle ground is currently to play with a controller, but switch to a mouse whenever you need to navigate the game’s UI.
As it stands, content in Mayhem is very limited. There is only a single ice-themed map to play on, and as we mentioned, two playable ducks, each with their own attack style. There is also a free demo available, though we’re not sure how much content is included there compared to the paid Early Access build. We’re assuming that the gap between the free demo and the Early Access version will become bigger over the coming months, but we can’t imagine there being significantly less content in the demo at the moment. That makes it hard to justify the €14.88 price tag at the time of writing, especially compared to the €2.99 RRP for Dino-Ducks Dash. Granted, the scale and scope of Mayhem is a lot grander, but for the time being, Dash will probably give you longer Dino-Duck enjoyment overall.
Fortunately, we do have an idea of what the future holds for Mayhem, and some of the issues we mentioned are set to be directly addressed. Full auto-aim functionality is promised to be coming in a future update, and this should bring the game more in line with other Survivors-likes. New maps and more ducks, presumably each with a different weapon loadout and playstyle, should make Mayhem feel more fleshed out. We’re also going to go out on a limb here and assume that the stuttering and a revised UI are also on Duckosaurus Games’ to-do list. Finally, the addition of a story would then tie everything together nicely.
Conclusion
It’s too early to commit to Dino-Ducks Mayhem. The current build of the game is severely lacking in content, especially for its price point. Additionally, right now Mayhem simply doesn’t have anything to offer that isn’t done better elsewhere. The game’s only redeeming feature lies in its frankly adorable visuals. While the graphics have definitely earned our sympathy, this simply isn’t enough of a foundation to build your game on. We do see potential here, though, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for what the future brings to the game.
No Comments