Cruelty Squad

[Love Thug's Hate]

Just watched Civvie11's video. This is definitely a much better next stop for boomer shooters than Ultrakill.

Would be pretty cool if Cruelty Squad implemented more schizophrenic gun mechanics, similar to the ones that are seen in ultrakill. Like shooting the coin or kicking a railgun bolt so it ricochets directly into your enemies, or punching a fucking grenade so it deals more damage. Don't get me wrong, i like the variety of CS but it kinda feels like some guns are copy=pastes with different models and sounds.

One thing i love about this game is that it is fully breakable. There are no faggoty invisible walls in chapters like Pharmakokinetiks or Androgen Assault, allowing you to go out of bounds using grappendix and kill all targets of the level with an overpowered advanced combat rifle that rapes everyone to death with gamma rays that go through walls. Hell, i would say that it even rewards you for such behaviour since in the end of the each level you're given a rank directly correlated with time you've spent on it. Cruelty Squad knows that it just becomes too easy at some point, that's why Punishment and Chaos modes exist, think of Hotline Miami 2's hardmode but harder.
It's funny, once you get the hang of it, once you get good upgrades and decent weapons, you turn from a writhing worm that shits his pants every time he sees an eye in the corner of his screen, into an actual lord of the game that can finish a level by not even walking five meters from spawn point, not killing anyone aside from his main target.

Tip for newbs: Always kick corpses and grab all of their organs. Don't buy any upgrades, most of the ones that are affordable early-game are absolutely useless (except maybe for life sensors). Buy GamesGames stocks, literally spend all of your money on it. After the Mall level, they will rise. And they will rise infinitely, tanking after the apartment chapter. Also buy AugBrains, they have incredibly predictable pattern that doesn't change: go down for a long time, go up for a long time. Just buy the dip.

 

[Counterfeit Obol]

There are no faggoty invisible walls in chapters like Pharmakokinetiks or Androgen Assault.

There are instakill zones in the final level, forcing you to take the intended paths, but you can even break those with the right implants.

Don't buy any upgrades, most of the ones that are affordable early-game are absolutely useless (except maybe for life sensors).

The helmet's a godsend in the earlygame because it has a chance of negating damage, even fall damage thanks to spaghetti code. That said, it only protects you up to a certain value and it has a chance to break every time it triggers. Camo fatigues are also a good early choice because they delay enemies' reaction time, giving you more time to find cover.

The really useless upgrades are the armors, because damage mitigation flat out does not work (conversely this means all the speed-boosting upgrades have no downsides). All they do is saddle you with their speed debuffs. The grenades are a close second, as the HE grenade's blast radius is too small, the flechette grenade does not puncture armor despite using tungsten flechettes, and the KO grenade is straight up useless are you're not penalized for civilian casualties. The grenades can be used to break down certain doors however, and the KO grenades have their niche against a certain target.

 

[Love Thug's Hate]

the KO grenades have their niche against a certain target.

Playing this level without Grappendix would be a pain in the ass though.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Tip for newbs: Always kick corpses and grab all of their organs. Don't buy any upgrades, most of the ones that are affordable early-game are absolutely useless (except maybe for life sensors). Buy GamesGames stocks, literally spend all of your money on it. After the Mall level, they will rise. And they will rise infinitely, tanking after the apartment chapter. Also buy AugBrains, they have incredibly predictable pattern that doesn't change: go down for a long time, go up for a long time. Just buy the dip.

The most annoying thing about it is that sunken cost fallacy will prevent you from just restarting the game and using it and instead you will grind fish

 

[TVStactic]

I haven't read the thread but I just want to say this was probably the best game of 2021.

It's seven pages you lazy kiwi.

There are instakill zones in the final level, forcing you to take the intended paths, but you can even break those with the right implants.

really useless upgrades are the armors, because damage mitigation flat out does not work (conversely this means all the speed-boosting upgrades have no downsides). All they do is saddle you with their speed debuffs. The grenades are a close second.

The spikes are meant to be a challenge for a shorter path including the night using transactional rifle.

Armor debuffs actually work by increasing damage taken, get speed upgrade 5 and literally trip from a 5 damage fall, enjoy death, armors themselves aren't good, only the unlockable ones and the fall negating one if you want to have a run with jump boosters, size changer also increases the damage you take greatly.

The most annoying thing about it is that sunken cost fallacy will prevent you from just restarting the game and using it and instead you will grind fish

Money fish on casino sells enough until you get the prize fish.

 

[Counterfeit Obol]

The spikes are meant to be a challenge for a shorter path including the night using transactional rifle.

I'm not talking about the spikes. Much of the final level is open space where you could just fly to the objective, especially with the Abominator, but the dev put instakill zones in those spaces to railroad you onto the paths he wanted, including the spikes.

Since you mentioned the Cortical Scaledown however, that's one of the ways to bypass the killzones. Usually the damage is enough to kill you dead, but the Cortical Scaledown ensures the countdown triggers no matter how much damage you take. Pick the max speed upgrade and the biojets, and you can just fly straight to the goal.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

This is a weird thing.

In the apartment level, there's a creepy dude that speaks incel gibberish. He has a woman locked in his apartment. Is there a way to talk to this woman civilian in any way?

She always screams when I get there, whether it is from the gunshots outside or from the door breaking. I tried breaking my way in with stealth weapons, but the cops in the hallways are hard to deal with. Anyway, I noticed that if you throw a sleep grenade next to her, she will sleep and wake up pacified/interrogable.

But there's a cage that I can't get past. There's probably just the generic NPC lines, but I'm really curious if there's a way to talk to her.

 

[doodoocaca]

I feel like Cruelty Squad was a preparation for the rest of this decade.

 

[anliteralidiot]

Anyone else have the suburb level music stuck in their head? It's a chill theme, and pretty catchy.

 

[doodoocaca]

Anyone else have the suburb level music stuck in their head? It's a chill theme, and pretty catchy.

True ending music when in dark places.

For some reason Divinity Of The Office, specifically this bit 78s in comes to mind when I think of how things used to be and how much better they should be than this shit show we're in.

To think a game that's almost entirely from spite meant to punish the player is so cathartic.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The whole game is a shitpost but I find it to be more thought provoking and memorable than Disco Elysium (that in the end of the day was just cynical towards everything) which is 5 times longer and contains 1000x times the text

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

This was an excellent game and an experience.

 

[BanquetMegaBowl]

Anyone else have the suburb level music stuck in their head? It's a chill theme, and pretty catchy.

Office theme for me

 

[Jaimas]

I'm partial to Depression Nap myself.

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

Mostly the mall. Because I had to play that level a lot.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

I like how the game takes itself super serious at first (realistic locations, realistic physics) and then it just devolves into a shitshow where you can just walk the edge of the world and exploit mechanics.

 

[broilerrx]

Tip for newbs: Always kick corpses and grab all of their organs. Don't buy any upgrades, most of the ones that are affordable early-game are absolutely useless (except maybe for life sensors). Buy GamesGames stocks, literally spend all of your money on it. After the Mall level, they will rise. And they will rise infinitely, tanking after the apartment chapter. Also buy AugBrains, they have incredibly predictable pattern that doesn't change: go down for a long time, go up for a long time. Just buy the dip.

I've recently learned that just buying the Civilian fish will pump your money way faster. You don't need to catch them to buy them, they only cost 2 dollars and change a pop, so you can buy a shitload of them early. After Mall Madness, they too will get jacked up to the moon. By this point, especially if you've been good with money, you should have thousands of Civilians. I've had over 24000 before they jacked up in value on my current save, and just watch your net worth skyrocket by thousands per tick. Either leave the game running, go fishing in another level, or replay levels before touching Apartment Atrocity, and you should find yourself with millions. If you sell some off to get Eyes of Corporate Insight, the tick rate will be even more absurd, and will quickly make up the chunk you sold to get them.

One solid early game money farm leading up to this is to do Sin Space Engineering on Punishment, use the scoped rifle and the ricochet mod. From the pier, you can fire on the window, and at the right spot, ricochet the bullets to the target, and quickly get out of there, in under 10 seconds if you've got a good shot, even. It takes some practice to get the feel for it, but for 6000 a run, and for how quick they are, you can make use that to buy more Civilians before Mall Madness, and really rake in the dough before Apartment Atrocity.

Edit: And unlike GamesGames, which will crash and bottom out after Apartment Atrocity, Civilians, at least in my experience/previous run, stay pretty steady at where they ended up before AA is complete. So you could have way more than enough to set yourself up for the Transactional Rifle.

 

[Counterfeit Obol]

Anyone else have the suburb level music stuck in their head? It's a chill theme, and pretty catchy.

Idiot Party's theme really stuck with me. The discordant tones mixed with the piano really set the tone of crashing a secret society gathering.

Fun fact; play Sin Space Engineering and sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" when the bells start playing. You're welcome.
Also, drip;

Mostly the mall. Because I had to play that level a lot.

A couple of Youtube comments in this Mall Madness reupload point out that the periodic, low rumbling in the background sounds like the footfalls of the Necromechs, and the clickling later on might have been a nailgun Kallo sampled. A fitting choice given the Cancer Mall is in perpetual development in the lore.

Edit: And unlike GamesGames, which will crash and bottom out after Apartment Atrocity, Civilians, at least in my experience/previous run, stay pretty steady at where they ended up before AA is complete. So you could have way more than enough to set yourself up for the Transactional Rifle.

From what I remember, all the fish more or less remain in their Mall Madness-boosted prices even after Apartment Atrocity. In theory, you could get more money by trying to fish again the old-fashioned way.

 

[ANF]

I actually unironically dig Toxic Crisis. I'd imagine it could have some mainstream appeal with a different soundfont.

 

[Love Thug's Hate]

Rent Due is my favorite. Brutal as fuck. Always turn it on whenever the action is kicking in (Goes well with pretty much any game from warthunder and Paradox strategies to MOBAshit and first person shooters like BF1) Would love to find more songs like this. Also divinity of the office.
I always listened to music from the first level (Pharmacreep) when I was working at a dogshit office job.
OST for a casino level got quite annoying and was stuck in my head for quite a while after i attempted to get Fortune on first playthrough and Zippy on a second one for shits n giggles.
Meatoids is really comfy in a slightly melancholic way. Different track without the moans from the level it's from.
Chunkopops helps my autism, makes me think of minecraft redstone contraptions.
True ending OST is absolutely fitting to the game's ending and it's implications, "The point becomes infinitely dense, the universe condenses into a unicellular being. It screams sin. It craves happiness. It's done with this world. It tries to commit suicide but fails. Sad pathetic mess. You feel pity and disgust but in a way only a being of pure grace can. In your violent mercy you terminate the worldlife." , so it's pretty fucking cool.

I'll never understand anyone who unironically likes toxic crisis though. It's literally just Indian national anthem, can't see why anyone would find it pleasant.