Trivia / DUSK

• Creator's Oddball: An example where the Creator is actually primarily known for their Oddball. Despite having a notable presence in the "Retro Boomer Shooter" community, most of David Szymanski's other games have actually been Environmental Narrative Games (namely The Moon Sliver and Iron Lung). Despite this, he's mostly known for putting out this game, one of the more well known and highly praised Retraux First-Person Shooter games.
• Dueling Works: With fellow Retraux shooter WRATH: Aeon of Ruin, although the latter has yet to leave early access.
• Line to God: The creators of the game frequent the Steam forums, and often answer questions.
• Promoted Fan Boy: When the game was still being developed, a fan named Jacob McManamy posted a two-page fan comic on his Twitter account. It obviously impressed Dusk developers, since McManamy then created the official tie-in comic book included in the Intruder Edition of the game sold on Steam.
• Referenced by...: The Cult's symbol appears in the sewers during Chapter II of FAITH: The Unholy Trinity. For Chapter III during the path towards the Golden Ending, John can stumble upon a cabin which has a letter written by Gary addressed to none other than Jakob talking about his operation involving his cult and Jakob sending a "pet" over to Gary, there's even a picture showing the two together. If that wasn't enough leaving the cabin has John attacked by a pixelated version of "The Horror" enemy.
• Schedule Slip: The full game was supposed to come out around Halloween or Christmas of 2017, but following the positive response of Episode 1, New Blood started putting a lot more work into Episode 2 to make sure it held up to the same quality as the first episode. Continuously running into this trope was why the title was put into Early Access; Valve questioned the "SOON™" after they failed to hit another deadline, so they simply told them to put it into Early Access instead.
  • A similar situation arose with the DUSK HD DLC that was set to be released alongside the game's SDK and Steam Workshop update. Originally featuring just updated models for enemies and weapons, the scope of the pack blew up when New Blood was approached by a community member who was inspired by the initial teaser and wanted to remake everything. The devs were impressed enough with the person's initial work that they agreed to pay him to finish the project even though it would push the release back.
• Similarly Named Works: Close enough, it's two letters away from DUSK-12.
• Throw It In!: As revealed in a speedrun during Summer Games Done Quick 2020, there was consideration to fix the seams in the level geometry, before they decided to leave it in to let speedrunners "break the hell out of the game" (though Szymanski does admit that they probably should have fixed the underside of the cliff in E2M9: The Dig).
• What Could Have Been:
  • An enemy that could resurrect other enemies (ala Archvile) was considered but was scrapped.
  • A BFG-like weapon was cut during development.
  • The Boneball originally shot out flaming soldier heads (similar to the Pain Elementals from Doom) called Poltergeists, which would charge at the player, and explode.
  • A weapon similar to the Plasma Gun from Doom originally called a Totem and later the Dark Claw, was ultimately cut. DUSK HD would later see a version of the Claw added back into the game as part of the update, now called the "Claw of the Flesh".
  • The Super Shotgun and Shotgun was originally one weapon, similar to Chasm: The Rift's Shotgun. Later versions had the super shotgun, but a pump-action shotgun instead of the lever-action shotguns.
  • Originally the Guardian was supposed to have a smaller more common variant in Episode 3, similar to the Cowgirls, however was cut.
  • A enemy called the "Meat Lass" was cut, its function is unknown, most likely being a standard melee enemy similar to the current Priestess.
  • There was consideration to set the game in Ukraine, much like the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games, which influenced the level design, before David Szymanski decided to use influence from Pennsylvania, where he lives, due to noticing that the areas that would make good levels.
• Word of God: Dave Oshry, in a thread asking questions about the story, answered them:
  • The Dusk Dude lived in Dusk with his wife and child, who were later murdered by the town's cult while he was away. The Dusk Dude returned to get revenge on the cult.
  • The military knew about the supernatural happenings for some time and tried to take precautionary measures, but failed to stop the cult.
  • The Infernal Machine's purpose is to create a portal, and requires massive amounts of human sacrifices.
• Write What You Know: The level designs of Episode 1 were partly inspired by rural Pennsylvania where Dave Szymanski grew up.

---