Genre: Indie Team-based FPS
Publisher: Cryptic Sea
Developer: Cryptic Sea
Platform: PC/Mac/Linux
Players: Online Multiplayer
Classification: Unclassified
The Latin phrase Sub Rosa, meaning “under the rose” in English basically means anything secret or confidential, it is also the name of one of the best small indie games I’ve experienced. I found out about it through my good friend Brok Power who had previously shown me the original Ace of Spades.
Sub Rosa is a 3D FPS (First Person Shooter)
which brings so much more to the table than your average FPS that you may not
understand it all until you actually play it. Set in an
alternate laissez-faire 1980's city, you join one of three corporations with
one goal: making money. Gameplay involves tense deals, double crosses and car
chases between these
opposing teams or ‘companies’ named Goldmen Inc (Gold), Monsota (Blue) and OXS
International (Grey) situated in a very plain looking city at various levels of
sunset.
Sub Rosa Gameplay (version 0.7b)
Sub Rosa was
originally created by Cryptic Sea for the 7 Day FPS game jam, hence it’s simplistic
nature, like Ace of Spades the first primarily noticeable thing about Sub Rosa
that is the graphics are minimal at best, you’re in a city of tarmac roads and
3 dimensional block buildings with not much else other then parking garages and
grassy areas, if you can call the green parts grass that is, there aren’t even
any trees (as yet) and the characters and vehicles are all of a similar
minimalistic style, it’s often hard to distinguish what team you’re driving
past as only their ties are coloured which makes it hard to see from a
distance. Of course this is all expected in which the original version was made
in 7 days for a competition and I think they’ve done a pretty good job, after
all it’s still in beta. The plain black/white/grey menu screen fits perfectly
and I am impressed by the amount of options available, I found the game is not
able to be alt-tabbed but you can get around this by playing in windowed mode
which isn’t too bad, there are a few servers available but none in Australia
though the ping seems to be ok in most cases.
Once you
enter into a server or the very useful driving or shooting ranges you
immediately notice a few ways that Sub-rosa differs from your normal FPS, the
basic controls are mainly the same, WASD to move left mouse button to shoot, E
to enter vehicles, TAB to show the map etc, when you first move around you’ll
notice you character doesn’t quite stop as soon as you take your finger off the
move button they sort of slide to a stop, making general moving around and
especially getting into cars a bit awkward.
The game uses a one-hand one-object
way of handling items and uses the number keys as an ‘inventory’ rather than a
“click 1 for main weapon” click 4 for knife” etc style so for example if you
can only pick up an item or drive a car if you currently have nothing in your
hands (or hand) and you “store” an item by pressing the number keys which have
5 slots. This makes things kind of tricky when you’re starting out or trying to
do things quickly i.e. pick up suitcase, pick up disk, select suitcase, open
suitcase, insert disk, close
suitcase, put away suitcase , get gun out etc you can spend a lot of time remembering what to do (especially dropping items which uses
the tilde ~ key- very annoying
trying to explain to every new person how to do it) but I spose you do get used to it after a while.
Sub Rosa Gaming site which is a great source of information for the game.
A Three-way deal gone wrong at the highway near the park, you can actually see the bullets whizzing around. |
"What a mess" "You're tellin me" |
Sub Rosa Gaming site which is a great source of information for the game.
The buying screen which you can use at any time while in your own base, that's our vault I'm standing in front of by the way. |
"Ok drop the case, and I'm gonna check it too, so no funny business" |
3-Way Deal – This mode is almost always the
most tense, all 3 teams have disks and have a different colour disc as their
primary goal, the teams must communicate to organise a clean trade or double
cross.
Acquisition: In this mode all teams have to
acquire the floppy disks from enemy NPC characters driving limos around the
city. If you fail to do this the NPC’s drive out through the tunnels on the
edges of the map and the round finishes.
Race: As the name says this mode
involves a race around the city in a pre-determined track blocked off by
barriers with white banners as gates. This is one of the most interesting game
modes as it has a special rule that the first player who fires a gun they lose
$10,000, though once any player on any team has shot everyone is
free to shoot as they please.
All modes apart from race usually involve some kind of
communication with another team, you can do this by pressing the Y and U keys,
there is no global chat (though there is same-team chat). The city
environment consists of flat and angled roads, buildings and some grassy spots
with many key areas:
Acquisition mode can get pretty nasty |
Company Bases: Located on 3 corners of the map,
this is where you start in a round depending on which team you are on.
Buildings marked with letters: A, B, and C
are parking garages, with some being multi-level. D is a large open building,
often called the “factory” or “warehouse”. Brok likes to call it "where people go to die".
The Park: A patch of green near the middle
of the map. Very popular for 3-way
trades.
The Dead
End: Yep that’s
it, the only one on the map. A
favourite spot for gold-blue deals.
Civilian
cars be found on various carparks, in race mode barriers are set up to mark the
course, there is also some other grassy patches, pillars and gaps around the
city. You should be cautious if asked to perform a deal in the dead end or
building D as these are places with limited cover and prone to ambush.
I must admit
I’ve had a lot of fun in the game; it’s the unpredictability of it that
leads to many fun albeit incredibly tense encounters when one loose shot can
turn an already tense deal into a shootout where one team member grabs
the case and limps bleeding through a hail of bullets back to the
car before the driver screeches away and floors it back to base with another car in hot pursuit. My
friend Brok and I have had lots of fun playing it while voice chatting and it’s
makes it that much easier than trying to type everything, it’s amazing also the
amount of strategy involved as you try to co-operate with or outsmart the other
team. The only drawback I found is that if you’re playing over LAN you have to
be all on the same team otherwise you’re going to hear each other’s strategy.
The city map and memorandum (mission briefing) |
If you like Indie games or just FPS with a twist and are looking for something different, this is a good one. I leave you now with a video made by my friend Brok aka Mr. Pink
JD
We built this city....
Co-authoring and "Sub Rosa Radio" video by Brok Power
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