Para Bellum - The Unknown Soldiers
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
Now with multiplayer!
Spring 1945. War is soon coming to an end, but before that, a lot of people have to die. You're one of them. Just a soldier thrown in to the meat grinder. And then another. There's no purpose, there's no goal. It's up to you to determine your story. Are you just trying to survive? Are you a fanatical war hero? Not that it matters in the end, as truly you're just meat in the grinder. This is how you died.
Controls:
WASD - Move
Mouse - Aim
Mouse 1 - Shoot
Mouse 2 - Zoom
C - Crouch
Z - Prone
R - Reload
F - Flare
K - Suicide
T - Chat
V - Voice chat (Experimental)
About the game:
I started this game as an attempt to make a statement about war and especially the brutality and unfairness of the Eastern Front of World War 2. There's no inherent goal in the game. It's a simulated combat sandbox in which you're thrown in to come up with your own goals and stories. After what I personally consider a quite successful launch, I decided to add online multiplayer to the game. More about that further below. I might continue developing the game further if I feel like it, fixing bugs and optimizing, I even have ideas for some future features, but we'll see.
About the multiplayer:
As I'm working on the game on my own on my free time with no financial backing, I can't give any guarantees, that the multiplayer services will be able to handle all active players at all times. I'll try to adjust accordingly, but there's currently only so much I can do. Just be advised, that in case the servers are full, you can still enjoy the offline mode!
Multiplayer is hosted on Photon Cloud, currently there's no way to host a private game. You can change your in game nickname from the options menu.
When starting the game, you have three options, offline mode, random game, and game by name. Offline mode works just as before. You can play in your own isolated instance, without needing to worry about connection, or other players. Random game mode looks for any available online games in your region, and joins a random one. If no game is found, a new game is created. Game by name mode is the one for playing with friends. It requires your input to the Room Name input field. The game then tries to join a game by this given name. If no game with this room name is found, a new game with this name is created.
Keep in mind, that you might not be able to play with friends in different regions, because of connectivity issues.
The game tries to spawn players in the same game to the same team, and as close to each other as possible. However if you get lost from your friends, you can launch a flare by pressing the 'F' key by default. This should help your friends to locate you.
If the master client (the player who started hosting the game) disconnects, the game instance probably crashes or at least wont work properly. A restart is recommended at that point.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Para Bellum - Frontlines Gameplay RevealNov 29, 2022
- Laukaus Games and Para Bellum on TikTok!Oct 12, 2021
- Para Bellum - Hold the Line coming soon to Steam!Sep 29, 2021
- First Public Playtest for Para Bellum - Hold the Line! Enter for a chance to win...Sep 03, 2021
- New entry in the Para Bellum series announced! Para Bellum - Hold the Line!Jul 30, 2021
- My new game - Museum of Recovery just launched!Jul 14, 2021
- 5000+ downloads!Jun 11, 2021
- Para Bellum - The Unknown Soldiers has surpassed 3000 downloads!Dec 16, 2020
Comments
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why is everyone hating its not a bad game
YOUR GAME IS TRASH YOU UGLY FACE IT DIDNOT HAVE ANY SERVERS
OR PLAYER TOOK TO LONG TO LOAD LAST THING YOUR GAME IS LAGGY
thats ur computer being trash
Please, remove the bombs is very boring, it takes all the strategy out of the game
nice game.
but recommend you to try Brass Brigade here on itch)) you will like it)
i don't know why but for me the mac build extracts as a folder
download an app called "The Unarchiver" and open the downloaded file with it
note: the file goes into trash when downloade
I know my way around managing compressed files on most computers just fine, mac included. The real issue though is due to it (The Unarchiver) extracting the game as a folder and not a ".app" file, easily achieved by adding the missing ".app" part at the end of the folder's name. Your note was amusing to me.
Easy Red 2 > this
I don't really care for comparisons, but Easy Red 2 looks like a nice game.
i feel like the game is running on 15fps. other then that the game looks fun
That would be very much dependent on your system. It does not run very well on older or slower pc's since there's so many units of individual AI moving around. I can run it easily over 60fps and I don't have anything spectacular running under my hood.
hi, big thx for the game. greetings from rosti 🙏😘
Thank you, Rosti! :)
Hi I would love to say that this game that you have created is just amazing and a piece of art but i am having trouble with online gameplay. I have tried playing this game online and it says connecting to master server for about 4 hours and then I can't close the application. I have to shutdown and restart my computer to reopen Para Bellum. Is there a way i can fix this or does does the online stuff incomplete or just not work. Other than playing online i'd like mention again that the effort you have put into this game is incredible and it it very realistic. :) hope you can help me.
Hey there! Thank you very much for your kind words, it truly means a lot to me :) I will take a look myself, what's going on with the online service of this game, but I can't make any promises on it just yet.
Edit: I checked for myself and I was able to connect and create online games as expected. I also checked the online analytics for the past 24 hours and saw that there were a number of players online. My only idea currently is that you might have tried playing at a time when there's more players trying to connect than what the game's online services can support. I'm running the game on top of free server so it cannot support a lot of concurrent players unfortunately. Apart from that, I'm afraid I'm unable to help you much more :(
ok thanks i actually think i should reinstall this game that normally fixes problems like this i'll do that and say if it works.
what is minimum system requirements for this game?
I unfortunately can't say for sure, since I don't have an access to a wide range of hardware to test. However, the game is free to download and play so you can test it for yourself and if you want to help me out, you can tell me the results and what hardware you were running it :)
well i have a Hp stream laptop 11 with intel celeron prosessor and 1.68 gb of available ram and most good games cant run
i tried playing it last night and i got a steady 2fps so i would recommend to play it on a systen that is good
i tried it on the Dell Optiplex 3020 with i3 processor and 4 GB of RAM and it ran well
Huh, well that's a shame :/ Thanks for trying and letting me know!
How do i play this on ma
There is a client downloadable for Mac. Unzip the .zip file somewhere on your computer and run the app. You might have to give your Mac computer permission to run applications from unknown sources/developers.
linux version pls i want to play with a friend
Its a great game! It should have 1 Million + downloads!
I'm glad to hear you like it! Thanks for your kind comment!
hiii are you still updating this game??
I mean are you still gonna update it???
it looks promising sooo I am gonna download it.... i really hope that you at least reply so i know that this game is still gonna get better...
I really like the idea of the multiplayer and the WWII concept that is why im gonna try it with my girlfriend...
sooo yeahh I'm gonna tryy it....
Hi there!
I haven't been working on this game for a long while as I consider it's done. It has everything I planned to include to convey the themes and the message I wanted to put through with this game. Of course there's always room for more improvement or more features, but that being said, for me this game is ready and I'm not planning to continue its development. Never say never though ;)
I was working on another game that would follow loosely the same themes and formula. A sequel in the same IP so to speak. However work and other real life related things have kept me so busy that I unfortunately haven't been able to continue development on my own game projects for a long while.
The "Para Bellum" IP - if it can be called that, is something I hold near and dear to my heart and I definitely want to keep developing more entries to this series and I have a bunch of ideas what to do with this IP when I have more time and energy to develop my own stuff again.
I hope you and your girfriend have a good time playing my game! Thanks for contacting!
we really enjoyed the game!!! but it doesn't really have any content (i know it's designed that way)
these are my recommendation at least for your next project....
1. the ability to sprint
2. the ability to distinguish your enemy and your allies
3. the screen shaking to much when a bomb explode
4. ability to choose different guns
5. More Optimization... i have a medium end pc but sometimes it lags i hope there would be an option to change graphics inside the game
and lastly like I said it is fine if you don't update this game anymore it's fun so me and my girlfriend are gonna play your other games because it is sooooo good so keep it up!!!
I'm looking forward to seeing more games from you!!
Thanks for your feedback, awesome to hear that you enjoyed! That's what keeps me on developing games, hearing from people like you that my effort has brought joy for someone. You'll be glad to hear that I have already taken pretty much all of the point you raised into action with my next game :) You can actually turn down the screen shake amount in the settings already. I think the amount of shake is also dependent on the game performance so it might be too much on some systems and better on others.
You just made my day with your encouraging comment! :)
check out his new game para bellum:hold the line, looks very promising.
You can add weapons or maps , events ....etc
Hi, there!
How do I install this game on a MacBook Pro running Big Sur? Xcode wasn’t able to open the project ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Thank you for your help.
Make sure you download the correct executable. The one for MacOS. Other than that, I'm afraid I'm unable to help, as I don't have a Mac computer myself. Hopefully you get it solved!
I am using Mac on Big Sur and it worked first time
so if you cant open it using admin pass and such do this. Download the game. go to the .app file of the game. right click and view its properties. you should see a folder called content. copy that folder. after that create a folder called anything you want but with the .app extension ex. Game.app. go to the properties of that application you made and paste the contents folder in there. Run the app and enjoy.
Can I play multiplayer with my friends
is it compatible with a 32bit OS
I haven't tried as my system is 64-bit. I don't see any reason why it wouldn't though. Feel free to give it a try and report the results here :) Are you on MacOS or Windows?
windows
It's not working on my 32bit OS it needs a 64bit one
pls make a 32bit version too
Well that's a real shame. I will look into it when I have the time, but can't promise a deadline on that. Thanks for the heads up!
Hey @TECH-IV! I just released the 32bit version as you requested :) Please give it a try and let me know how it works!
oh really!!? thank you.
I'll give it a try right now!
the game is good overall but there are somethings I would like to suggest-
1) there is no option to jump
2) there is no option to see the controls
3) I would like an option to sprint
4) The screen shake during blasts is too much(it should be a little less)
and that's it...and yeah I would like you to try this game- https://steelraven7.itch.io/ravenfield
you will get a lot of ideas from it
thank you
Thanks for your feedback! Some of your suggestions I've already implemented for my next game and I might eventually update said features to this game as well. You can change your controls in the start up window before launching the game and tone the amount of screen shake up or down in the options menu you can open from the main menu!
btw TECH_IV just in case you didn't know ravenfield is on steam and is much more advanced than the itch.io version due to the fact that the itch.io version is a much older version that will not receive any updates, here is the current game:https://store.steampowered.com/app/636480/Ravenfield/
have a nice day!
How do i open the game cuz when i zip it it just the folder
Extract the folder somewhere and launch the executable inside the folder. Which platform are you on? Windows or MacOS?
Is it just mulitplayer or is there single player mode
Both multi- and singleplayer are supported!
When is the best time to play the multiplayer gamemode?
Any time you can get a friend to play with you :)
I unfortunately can't play this game on a MacBook pro it's so laggy
): but the game is very cool
Sorry to hear that, though I'm not that suprised, given how much there's going on in the game at any given time. It's simulating dozens of individual soldiers seeing, moving, thinking, aiming, shooting and all that simultaneously, and given that I've worked on this alone on my free time, I haven't been able to do all the possible optimizations or test on a varied range of different computers. Thank you for your feedback, I'll try to do better with my future games so that I can cater for broader audience :)
Im sorry, but I cant pay for the game. I feel bad not being able to, but when I can I will.
Don't even worry about it! It's something I've done for fun and practice, so all paying is purely optional :) I appreciate your comment and the time you've taken to enjoy the game very much!
Also what are the system requirments for this game, it runs very badly on my laptop, which is very bad
I haven't been able to test on lower end machines, so I haven't been able to determine the system requirements. It is quite resource intense game given that it's running so many individual AI controlled units at the same time. I'm sorry to hear that the performance hasn't been acceptable for you :(
I usally asume games will run badly, and its not your fault, its my bad pc
To be fair, I had to make some tradeoffs for the performance for the sake of getting the game out and released. In the perfect world, if I had time to optimize, I'm sure it could support wider range of devices. I'll try to pay more attention to that in my future projects, but as long it is just me working on these games on my free time, there's only so much I can do.
Could be your pc too, very hard to say.
another idea for either this game or your new one.How about like a graphics setting where the lower you set it then there will be a reduced number of flowers and grass and such in order to let the game run better.
it seems like you have fixed the game freezing when you press enter which is great and as a fan of world war 2 i just wanna say that this game is fantastic and really represents the tug of war and the futility of it.The one thing i would like however is an ability to toggle aim and i know you are probably a busy man it is just that most laptops cannot right-click and left click at the same time but this is not essential.I was also wondering if there would be any possible way to implement ground vehicles into the game i mean it wouldn't have to be tanks or anything just maybe like a kubelwagon with an mg42 on the back for the germans or something so that regular firearms would be able to deal with something like this however this would be hard to code and you might have to make some custom models.Anyway this is getting long so i will stop now.
Big thanks for your valuable feedback! I'm not currently actively developing this game further, however I'm considering making a small update with various fixes I've run into while working on improving the codebase for use in a future project. Your suggestion for the toggle aim would fit in there perfectly! I'll definitely consider it. I've been trying to add vehicles as well, but in the current situation I wouldn't expect it to happen. However, I'm working on new game, which is yet unannounced, which will definitely feature ground vehicles!
Check out my devlog to stay tuned! Thanks again your great ideas!
okay well thanks anyway I hope that you consider giving this game a bit more love as it really has potential also i am really looking forward to this new game of yours
The game is getting better and better. Nice work.
Thank you! Also thanks for sharing the video!
Wow... looks like the game it's getting better. Can you add this to the game(if you want to), so i walk down a hill and then i saw a running animation to my character. So... can you add a sprint/run to the game? I know how but i don't know how to explain {:(.
I think I know what you mean. I've been planning to add something similar to a game that I'm working on currently, which happens to use a lot of code from this project's code base. In that case, it shouldn't be a big deal to implement it to here as well :) I might look into it in the future. Thanks for the suggestion!
Nice! The spawn are now better. Are you working on the camera? Sounds like the camera is the hardest... Keep the spirit on!
Am i sound like your dad or teacher?
Not looking at the camera currently. I've been exhausted with work, real life, other hobbies and other projects since the previous updates, so I'm not planning currently on making major changes to the game. I might take another pass at it if I feel like updating the game in the future though. The way I implemented the camera shake works as intended on my machine. It's supposed to be quite heavy. However since hearing about it from a few players, I'm starting to think there might be some differences how it works on different computers or something, so it might be worth looking into. Maybe adding an option slider for it or something like that. We'll see if I actually get around to do it.
Thank you for your feedback anyway! It's always valuable for me :)
Edit: Scratch all that. I decided to make another update with the slider option for camera shake amount implemented! Once more, thank you for your feedback!
Edit 2: Update out now :)
ok this game is perfect in basicly every way but its really annoying when im in a game press "Enter" to respawn and it just freezes. i know this game is really new but i just wanted to point that out
Thanks for your comment! Really means a lot :) yeah, I am aware if the bug you mentioned, but it's really hard to reproduce, thus I haven't been able to fix it :/
Edit: Scratch that, I found an issue which I was able to fix. I'm working on an update as we speak :)
This game is amazing but i just encounter 2 glitch.
Glitch 1: i don't know if this sound like a glitch. The camera always move when shooting or near a explosion, so it's kinda suck while trying to aim.
Glitch 2:sometime when i press enter i won't spawn.
Thank you for your comment! It means a lot to me :)
Edit: As a matter of fact, I found a fix for the latter issue, I'm working on an update asap!
Nice!
This game is so awesome, and gave me a lot of inspiration for my game. Some things you can maybe add in: health bar.
a glitch: sometimes after you die and you press Enter you won't spawn .
Thank you so much for your feedback! It really means a lot to me :) I'm so inspired to hear that my game has inspired you to create something of your own, I'm excited to see what comes out of it :)
Thanks for the suggestions :) There is supposed to be a red tint on your screen when you take certain amount of damage to notify you of your low health, however it doesn't seem to work right... Same goes with the respawn bug. I'm aware of it, but have been unable to fix it unfortunately.
Edit: Came up with a fix for the issue! Thanks for pointing it out :) Update should be up soon, stay tuned!
Nice, keep it up with the game bro!
i have a super laggy laptop will this still work?
Only way to find out is to download and try! It's free so there's nothing to lose anyway. Be advised tho, it is quite resource heavy as it is simulating quite a few AI units in a large open terrain simultaneously
Awesome, reminds me of Operation Flashpoint. The thing i dont like is when bombs fall, all the camera shaking is making aiming impossible. I wouldn't mind if there is one bomb now and them, but with constant bombing is really annoying.
Thanks for your feedback! I really appreciate it as OFP and Arma series are some of my all time favourite games! I don't disagree with your criticism about the screen shake,I made it a bit over the top and sometimes it becomes a bit too much. I'll keep that in mind if I decide to update the game in future :)
Nice! OFP (or Arma Cold War Assault now) is one of my favourite games of all time, but i can hardly find people willing to play it. Oh, the hours I spent making missions and just jumping off of helicopters, haah.
I see you are promoting your game, I have a question for you, did you develope an air strike yourself or bought a script?
Did it myself!
how much time did you spend creating this game and where did you get these character models and weapons? https://store.steampowered.com/app/734580/BattleRush/
I've worked in the project in my free time for a couple of months - give or take. I got the weapon and character model assets from this Unity Asset Store package: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/toon-soldiers-ww2-edition-56...
The same package is in use in other games as well from what I've seen in YouTube. Search for Brass Brigade if you're interested.
Edit: I'm in no affiliation with Brass Brigade. I just felt it's worth mentioning
OK, thanks for answer)
My pleasure! Let me know if there's anything else I can help you with! Your game looks incredible by the way! I haven't heard of it before, but I might just give it a try some time :)
Now the Battle Rush project has stopped its activity and I and the team are trying to restore it in a new game, if you want, you can try, we can help
I'll be looking forward to your next release with great interest!
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lol