DUSK

Among the many "boomer shooter" clone games, this one stands out. If there was ever a game within the genre to look at, it's this one

Introduction
DUSK is an indie boomer shooter, made by David Szymanski, and I just want to say, I am GOBSMACKED at how good this game really is, especially given that majority of the development was a one man job.
Positives
The story - You play as a treasure hunter, a person who learns about a sealed off town in Pennsylvania that is rumored to have hidden riches. He gets captured by the inhabitants and has to fight his way out, learning about what happened to the town and destroying the evil that's beneath it. Suffice to say, it was cool to see all kinds of demons and creatures, each being an "experiment" or "ritual" of sort. There's a guy that talks in your head throughout the entire journey, taunting, spiting and putting you to the absolute test and there's a good amount of things you can learn just from the places you go to
LEVEL DESIGN IS PEAK! I can't stress how good this is (at least for me personally) to be able to play a boomer shooter and not be stuck for at least 10 minutes. May just be a skill issue on my end, but shooters with backtracking and needing to remember things can be annoying, especially if or when the levels look the same or are hard to navigate, and I had little to no issues finding my way through each level of the game, even finding secret paths along the way! It's clean, easy to navigate and every level feels different, even if there are ones that connect to one another in terms of looks, such as the facilities. David doesn't hesitate to change it up too, like having a level that lets you flip the entire world in order to get across or spawning in a massive tornado in order to get into a tomb. Easily the best thing DUSK does
I really love the whole "Lovecraftian" gothic-ish sort of theme DUSK goes for here. It's different, unique and unlike any other boomer shooter I've played before, especially when we're talking horror (the only other I've played being DOOM 3, but that's debatable). It can be downright scary at times, especially with the way these things communicate to you
Pixelated graphics help to make DUSK feel like an old-school shooter from the 90's, which was clearly the intent. All kinds of references and inspirations, like Half-Life, DOOM, Heretic and Hexen to name a few. My favourite inspiration here would have to be the "Time Stim" or slow time power-up you can pick up. Straight from SUPERHOT in the way that time comes to a pause when you stop moving and resumes when you keep moving. Always nice to have modern game inspirations in something like this
Gameplay? Also peak. You start with these cool looking sickles before obtaining all of the weapons overtime. Guns feel crisp and strong, hit registration and feedback is solid and as far as I know, there's no sort of bloom, so just point and click! Great weapon variety, resources don't feel too scarce and each weapon has its own uses, so you most definitely won't just be using the one weapon the entire way through. Dual-wielding? No problem. Rocket launcher? This game's got it.
Enemy variety is THERE! So many different enemies, so much... time? Yeah, this game has heaps of foes to fight, from chainsaw dudes to military soldiers, scarecrows, cultists, flying things that look like D20 dice and many more. It's excellent, and I never found myself getting bored at all
SECRETS! I love these games for their secrets, and even though I'm not really good at finding them, it always felt rewarding and satisfying whenever I found one! I just got done replaying it for the second time and I managed to find a secret level I didn't find the first time in the first episode. I believe there's a secret level in every episode too. Most of the time it's just items, but sometimes you can find weapons that you normally don't get till later on, giving you an advantage. That alone should give you the reason to find these puppies
Boss battles are great, have good mechanics that encourage the player to lock in and dodge what they can and I didn't have any issues fighting any of them
Difficulties are well balanced - I played on the game's third difficulty and it felt just right, with good balance and no BS deaths, all of my deaths accumulating to how I played, not the game
Spinning your guns! If you press the reload button, you'll spin your weapon, which is great for style points and just spamming it whenever you're moving about the levels
Endless and Multiplayer modes - I can't speak for the multiplayer, but for endless, the mode is great and does exactly what you want it to do - spawn in one of 3 areas, start with just a pistol and survive for as long as you can, racking up a score and killing many demons. Great additions to the game and also includes difficulty settings for those who want to test their skills
Steam Workshop is a huge plus, adding replayability and giving you more ways to play DUSK. Some guy managed to make the entire first DOOM mission (the OG) into DUSK and it played so good!
The episodic approach is EXACTLY what I'd expect from this sort of game. Every episode puts you in a different part of the town and you hard reset your inventory whenever you enter a new one, as all things should be
Soundtrack is... well, it's freaking awesome. No words, just incredible stuff that really reminded me of modern DOOM
Negatives
There isn't really a lot I have to say in terms of real negatives, instead I have a few nitpicks:
At some points in the game, the game has you implement a code sequence to open doors, which involves pressing two correct buttons in order to open it. It seems kind of silly to have it in a game like this, even though it's always used before or after a fight. I'm surprised that it stayed all this time after the release, but it's not too big of an issue if you play long enough to where the combinations become child's play, but to me, it's "why does this even exist?"
Bosses being "easy" to kill. I say it this way because I would always save my riveter/rocket launcher for bosses, never using it on anything else unless I needed to use it. Now I should note that I probably made it easier for a fight or two since I found it way before you're supposed to, but I still think I shouldn't be able to kill a boss with the 25 rocket capacity you can get. Again, this is a nitpick, and the end of the day, I consider it to be a strategy more than anything else
Conclusion
Despite the nitpicks I have, I really don't have anything bad to say about DUSK. It's a incredible boomer shooter, with a Lovecraftian theme, excellent use of horror and some of the best gameplay and level design in this genre, ESPECIALLY considering that this is an indie game. The length of the game is solid too, it took me 5-6 hours for my first playthrough and I didn't suffer any performance issues. David Szymanski, thank you for creating this masterpiece. I highly advise all shooter fans to buy this game and play it. You'll thank me later.

What a superbly designed boomer shooter. Ticks all the boxes..
+ level design
+ gunplay
+ art direction
+ replayability
+ atmosphere
+ enemies
+ audio
+ retro
- none

This game very good. It has many nooks and crannies. Ideal for any ratfolk or other such scuttlers

It's one of the games that massively contributed to the revival of "Boomer Shooters". Yes, its good.

Very fun game with very random humor in an otherwise serious game. They only say the word "Dusk" once though so 4/10

I loved the game, ♥♥♥♥♥ great sound track, action pack cult, Im burning to buy what they have next for Dusk