Onslaught Dev Diary Part 1 : The Initial Idea

Onslaught was originially conceived NOT as as a video game but an idea to give video game companies. Me and My Close High School Friend Hitman213 thought up the idea. We conceived it much like it is today, a badass metal themed FPS where you play as Bastard and fight the insane cult he nicknamed, the Cult of the Serpent Church. Ideas for it happened right away. Back in 1995 he drew our character, who looked a lot different from the sketch you can see below

Bastard was designed to be a cyborg anti-hero mercenary who liked metal. music. That last part, him liking metal music was my idea, so was the fact he was a cyborg, and hitman213 made him an antihero. Soon afterward enemies were sketched too and weapons were thought of. Hitman213 thought of 2 the day we sketched things out initially, a spiked yoyo (which never made it into the final game - due to lack of sprites on the realm667 beastiary (a place to download free to use weapons for zdoom) for it), a flamethrower and a machinegun. The last 2 out of 3 made it in. Soon he thought up a cattle prod idea (which sadly didn't make it either), but many of his ideas did make it, like the dual rocket launcher backpack, gasoline can, skewer (although it's a lot different) are all there. Enemy ideas were mostly mine. I thought of 90% of the ideas for enemies in the game, minus the cult soldier and one mutant that can take the form of any other mutant (the chimera). Enemies included cult soldiers, cult bikers (which were cut - no sprites again), cult shotgunners (which were eventually merged with the cult soldiers), and several mutants, including vampyre mutants (flying winged demon like things), lardasses (fat mutants), muscleheads (ripoffs of the hulk), monstrosities (huge 100 foot mutant bosses), fear elementals (horrible mutants that scare the player), and more. Our idea was FILLED to the brink with controversy and hideous gory deaths. Most of this as hitman213's idea. Since then it has been toned down a bit. The character used to be a total asshole, but now he's just gritty and says funny shit while blowing up enemies right and left. Since the initial idea, things have been added:

A) Horror Elements B) Horde Combat C) Realism and cyborg powers

A) Horror Elements Some horror elements were added into the game including scary mutants, demons, the main villian being the devil's son, and worse. Many of these ideas still are there, and the game has a cool horror vibe to it even today, but it could have been WAY scarier back in the day, and later on fights with horrible demons happened and you had to use magical weapons to beat them, these were cut due to time constraints.

B) Horde Combat Horde Combat was Added in Later, to emphasize my love for Serious Sam and Slaughterfest Wads for Doom 2 like Hell Revealed and Alien Vendetta. Enemy counts spiked from 50 to 500 per level at times. It used to be a lot slower paced, but the enemy counts made it really fast paceed in the final version. Fighting HUGE HORDES of enemies was common, especially in the third and final chapter.

C) Realism and cyborg powers

Realistic gameplay was always something Onslaught was supposed to have. In the original design document you had 6 health bars for different body parents, like your head, your chest, your legss, etc and different things would happen if one of them got too damaged. That was replaced with a normal health system later on but realistic enemy damage is still there even today, especially on higher skills. Cyborg Powers were added in as a way to counteract this, and they became vital for survival. The forcefield became especially heavily used in my 2 playthroughs of the game and on my third one it's still recommended to use it before fighting enemies. These cyborg powers made the game beatable, but without them you would suffer. Many enemies and guns were changed from their original concept to something different due to exact replicas NOT being found on the beastiary. The Napalm Cannon was originally a flame grenade launcher, but the final one made it a flame shotgun. The skewer was originally designed to be an impalement weapon that coud gib enemies easily, and was changed to be a dart gun due to lack of that original idea being on the beastiary. A Couple of enemies were changed significantly as well. The lardass was originally designed as a fat mutated cop with dual grenade launchers. He was changed to be a fat mutant later on with two heads. His attacks were completely different, and this changed things a lot. Many Cut Ideas exist for onslaught, such as a crazy bitch slap you could perform on enemies, and lacky to do that too, a driving sequence in new york city where you drive over cars in a monster truck, a place in the same city where bastard drives by yankee stadium and says "Yankees Suck" in a really loud voice, and more. Many vehicles existed in the initial idea as well, such as cars, a hoverboard, flying cars, jetpacks, a mack truck, etc were all planned but cut due to the fact that zdoom cannot do vehicles. Overall I am Happy for Onslaught finally being released, the levels are mostly good, the enemies, although a pain in the ass to fight, are fun, and the guns are phenominal in the final game. I suggest people download the game to see for themselves!