CARNAL
CARNAL is a fast and challenging old-school shooter taking loving inspiration from the 90’s greats made on the Quake and Build Engine.
Enter a strange world filled with mysteries, conspiracies, and paranormal activity.
Mixing classic FPS action with an unsettling horror atmosphere, every episode and unique level will keep you on the edge.
As a chad member of the Realm Defense Force, take on the terror organization known as the Sons of Anak, who have opened portals to the “other side” throughout the city of Seed Valley. Once there they plan to extract Dark Matter in order to build weapons of mass destruction.
Destroy their soldiers and operations, as well as any “other” hostile entities that plan on stopping you.
Be warned: the world looks a lot different on the “other side”, and it also probably smells bad.
FEATURES:
- 3 Episodes with 17 total missions
- Diverse human and monster enemies that will murder you
- Various guns that are harmful to your health
- Keycards, swimming, secrets, and pick-ups
- Several unique boss enemies to ruin your pace
- Unique retro art style
- An archaic Extra Lives system that keeps you going
- Two difficulty modes for those who like to measure things
- Terrible/offensive humor and game design
- An atmosphere and feel unearthed from 1996
Game Discussion
Steam User 16
Very bad FPS in style of 90s boom shooters. Plenty of levels and some variety makes the gameplay somewhat bearable. Not very exciting but it makes up with it's humorous approach. Hard to recommend but there you go, I've seen worse.
Steam User 6
Very enjoyable boomer shooter in the veins of Quake and Serious Sam with fantastic synth music and varied enemy design, which makes it even more impressive it's that it was made by a solo dev.
Things i really enjoyed were the music: very well made and fitting for the game's atmosphere, game's overall look and vibe, has that feel of Blood classic humor and enemies. Both of these two give the game a "handmade" feel that i find really charming.
Things i wish were worked on more were the level design, i wasn't really fond of the big maps with several set pieces but i think i know why the dev did it this way which leads to the second thing i thought was half baked, enemy AI: the enemies feel to OP because of the way their aiming AI works, you literally have to keep strafing in circles to avoid being shot and keep at least 5 meters away from most NPCs so more closed, corridor maps wouldn't have worked with it.
Overall pretty good game for about 2$, give it a try if you wanna see another take on the boomer shooter genre!
Steam User 3
Short, fun, easy max, basic shooter. It's cheap and worth every penny.
Steam User 2
For a retro style boomer shooter that costs 1 US Dollar, it's good for the price. It's functional. The level designs are passable, The guns are standard but most of them are useful in some form. The enemies range from OK to kinda funny (The T-Rex with mounted rockets felt like a nod to Turok). The music is ok. Sound design is... ok.
This game doesn't do anything special and is easily forgettable, but for a dollar can you expect much? It doesn't really do anything bad, but it doesn't do anything to set itself apart from other retro style shooters. Just very average. If this were 5 bucks this'd be a harder sell, but again the fact that it's a buck? It's not so bad at all. A good time waster.
Addendum: forewarning this game has some really cringeworthy jokes in its environment, and that's saying a lot considering I enjoy Postal 2.
Steam User 1
Not a bad retro shooter. The enemies all have projectiles while you have hitscan, and gunplay ends up feeling like Quake 2. There's a nice variety in enemy types and the weapons get the job done. I always like seeing cityscapes and suburbs rendered in videogames.
Now, some downsides.
The levels are big, empty arenas with a lot of time spent just walking around the level looking for a key or another portal. Besides some novel setpieces, the levels are fairly linear with little in the way of a dynamic or interesting layout. The whole game is incredibly dark and drab, which makes some firefights difficult.
The humor may have been striving for edgy satire but ended up reeking of Qanon more than anything.
But it's 99 cents. A lot of effort went into Carnal and it has enough charm to last a few hours.
Steam User 1
Solid boomer shooter. Gameplaywise this leans more towards doom (collect 3 keycards), looks like quake and has solid beats as soundtrack. Some levels are easier some require more searching, its a good mix.
had a blast
Steam User 1
This is a soft recommendation. While I overall enjoyed it comes with enough caveats that I could see why someone wouldn't. The main issue being readability; most of the enemies blend in with the background until either you get close enough to them or they start attacking.
The map design feels a lot like higher quality mods I have played for other games; interesting layouts and fun combat arenas, but with little sign-posting on where to go. The bosses have little to no feedback when damaging them. The gun-feel is fine, not great, not bad, just fine. As is the movement.
But with the price being so cheep and the game being fairly short I think you should just give the game a try.