Hi everyone,

No build to download yet, but I'd rather get feedback early than late, so here's the concept.

BELEK is a first-person shooter in Godot. The core loop is tactical and competitive, like Counter-Strike: round-based, precision aim, team play. Its setting is Rouen, the French city I call home, and the whole thing is wrapped in a self-aware, slightly trolling sense of humour without compromising the tryhard gameplay.

I'm a cybersecurity engineer, not a game dev, and AI is what makes this feasible for one person. It's wild what's possible now.

Questions for you:
- Does a real-city setting make an FPS more interesting to you?
- Irony in the presentation: charming or distracting in a competitive game?
- Anyone up for helping, or for playtesting later?

The game will be free initially and later sell for 5 to 9 euros.

I'm on LinkedIn as Metin SAYGIN, and my site is https://vernam.fr (my site)

Expect me back in this thread regularly to reply.

A real city can work well if it shows up in the maps themselves and not just the name. Players learn competitive maps by landmarks and callouts, so a spot people recognize as a real Rouen street or square gives them something to remember and talk about. The catch is that real streets aren't built for balanced sightlines, so I'd treat the city as inspiration and still lay out the lanes and chokepoints for gameplay first.

On the humor, I think it's charming as long as it stays in the presentation, like menus, voice lines, cosmetics and little map details. If a joke ever makes it harder to hear footsteps or spot an enemy, competitive players will turn on it fast. For playtesting, a small closed test with a handful of people who already play tactical shooters will probably tell you more than a big open one at this stage. Rouen is a fun pick too, it's not a city you see in games every day.

@Jeremy Thanks a lot for taking the time, this is exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for. The "lanes first, landmarks as callouts" point really lands: I was tempted to recreate streets 1:1, but you're right that the cathedral or the Gros-Horloge should serve as reference points that players shout over voice chat, not dictate the layout. Same with the humour: I'll keep it in menus, loading screens and kill messages, and leave footsteps and readability alone. A small closed playtest with tactical-shooter players is the next step, so I'll set that up before opening anything wider. For context, BELEK is a solo side project in Godot (I'm a cybersecurity engineer by day, using some AI to speed things up). It will start free, with a paid version later around 5–9 €. If you'd like to be in that first playtest, just say so here.

— Metin SAYGIN (LinkedIn)

@Jeremy Following your landmarks-as-callouts idea, I put a few screenshots and a trailer on belekstudio.com (my site). The maps are built around the Gros-Horloge, Saint-Maclou and the Pont-Neuf as reference points rather than exact copies. I'd be curious whether that comes across in the shots.