[Hendricks266]

evil_presley, on 29 December 2019 - 04:15 AM, said:

as i click Start, this is what i get:

https://imgur.com/cQ6p4IY

any ideas?

It looks like something is wrong with your game data. Note that PCExhumed does not support the beta version of the game that is commonly listed as the full version on pirate sites.

[evil_presley]

Hendricks266, on 30 December 2019 - 11:02 AM, said:

It looks like something is wrong with your game data. Note that PCExhumed does not support the beta version of the game that is commonly listed as the full version on pirate sites.

you mean my booty is scrap? aaaarrrrr!! anyways, 24 yo betas still in the circulation is kinda amusing. thanks for the heads up.

[Micky C]

Where does one get a full copy of Exhumed these days?

[evil_presley]

Micky C, on 30 December 2019 - 09:19 PM, said:

Where does one get a full copy of Exhumed these days?

google Exhumed (Powerslave) [ENG] 1996 :: RuTracker.org

[beer]

@sirlemonhead

The "source code" link on the official page links to NBlood's repo insted of PCExhumed http://pcex.retrohost.net/

Also, please consider adding a license to your source code on gitlab

[Hendricks266]

beer, on 04 January 2020 - 01:15 PM, said:

The "source code" link on the official page links to NBlood's repo insted of PCExhumed http://pcex.retrohost.net/

NBlood, PCExhumed, and Rednukem live together in the NBlood repository now. This is stated at the top of the README.md as well as the old repository's readme.

beer, on 04 January 2020 - 01:15 PM, said:

Also, please consider adding a license to your source code on gitlab

The source code headers indicate GPLv2. gpl-2.0.txt could still be added to source/exhumed/ though.

[beer]

Hendricks266, on 04 January 2020 - 01:25 PM, said:

NBlood, PCExhumed, and Rednukem live together in the NBlood repository now. This is stated at the top of the README.md as well as the old repository's readme.


The source code headers indicate GPLv2. gpl-2.0.txt could still be added to source/exhumed/ though.

Gotcha, thanks. Missed all of that somehow

[sirlemonhead]

Thanks, I've added gpl-2.0.txt now

[MrFlibble]

Oh, I also noticed that the animations like pickups (mana orb, keys etc.) and the health/mana meter on the HUD play much faster compared to the DOS original.

[sirlemonhead]

MrFlibble, on 08 January 2020 - 02:59 AM, said:

Oh, I also noticed that the animations like pickups (mana orb, keys etc.) and the health/mana meter on the HUD play much faster compared to the DOS original.

Thanks - the HUD icons should be fixed in the next autobuild release

The items in the level - is it just the keys and mana orbs? those are tied into the same system that handles most other animations so it'd be odd if those are just wrong. I can look into it further though if you think they're definitely wrong.

[icecoldduke]

I’ll have to check this out, great work! I’ve heard of this game off and on, but I’ll definitely take look with your port over the weekend.

[MrFlibble]

Powerslave is not to be missed, it's a classic 90s 2.5D FPS, and one of the better ones in the "Doom clone" family.

[Tekedon]

It's not a bad game. But I don't think it has the personality the three big ones have. (duke3d, blood, shadow warrior)

[MrFlibble]

Tekedon, on 07 March 2020 - 11:41 AM, said:

It's not a bad game. But I don't think it has the personality the three big ones have. (duke3d, blood, shadow warrior)

It doesn't, but it does have an atmosphere of its own, closer to that of Doom (on my first acquaintance with Powerslave I actually thought it was much darker than Doom). I'd say that going into Powerslave with expectations based on Duke3D or SW is not advised. It's a bit from an earlier "era" (with the FPS genre developing very quickly back then), but a very good example of that era.

[Player Lin]

Exhumed/Powerslave was on Sega Saturn game at first, then port to PC via Build engine, so it was originally just nothing like other big 3 Build engine games, have its own things. Also between Saturn version and PC Build version, have a lot of difference, engine, level design/layout and even the plot. And I guess the Build version may lose something that make the game looks special than other games, unlike Saturn version(Playstation version based on Saturn version).

[Phredreeke]

AFAIK it was meant to be a Build engine game from the start. The Saturn version came about due to the developers realising it wasn't feasible to port Build to the system.

[MrFlibble]

Player Lin, on 11 March 2020 - 04:11 AM, said:

Exhumed/Powerslave was on Sega Saturn game at first, then port to PC via Build engine

Even if the Saturn or PlayStation versions came out before the PC version (which I don't remember if they actually did), the latter was in development since 1994, if the first promo screenshots in the Mystic Towers slideshow are of any indication.

The History of Lobotomy Software video suggests that Lobotomy was originally contracted by Apogee to develop a PC game on the Build engine, to be published by 3D Realms (as Ruins: Return of the Gods), but in the late 1995 they broke up, and publishing rights went to Playmates Interactive, who apparently also commissioned the console versions.

[MetHy]

Yes, everything points out that the game was developped for PC first, and when they had to find a new publisher, the deal meant porting it to consoles as well.
Consoles of the time weren't meant for CPU heavy "2.5D" engines, but had dedicated 3D hardware which most PCs of the time were not equipped with (iirc one of the devs interview mentions this clearly), which one way or another lead to the games being completely different, but it looks like the PC version was at least 90% done when they started the Saturn version.

All of this also explains why the PC version was a little "outdated" when it came out, my guess is that when they broke up with 3D Realms they also lost any means to update the Build engine side of things.

[Fox]

The engine is owned by Silverman, and on theory they were already paying him royalties, and could have asked for an update on the engine.

However, updating the engine would mean more delays. Besides Silverman made it more painful to update the engine (GEORGE.TXT).

Using an older version was probably a good decision.

[MetHy]

Didn't Silverman work for 3D Realms at the time? Even if he technically could have provided an update to the engine, I suppose it may have seemed like an odd move to keep working with a company 3D Realms broke up with while also working for 3D Realms at the same time.

This is all just wild guesses though, I really don't know, there could have been a variety of reasons. Lobotomy not being willing to put any more time in an almost finished PC version when everyone is busy working on the Saturn version could also simply be it.

[Fox]

I don't think it's odd at all. He had a contract with both.

[Phredreeke]

MetHy, on 13 March 2020 - 05:06 AM, said:

Lobotomy not being willing to put any more time in an almost finished PC version when everyone is busy working on the Saturn version could also simply be it.

I'd say they made the right call, while the Saturn market was smaller there was little competition (Alien Trilogy is the only FPS I can think of that was on the system at the time) unlike PC where there was plenty.

[oasiz]

Considering that they still got a late v6 engine as an update, I think this might be partially true. My theory is that they had issues engine-side and newer versions has bunch of fixes in the pipeline (i.e. MP code and such) and they simply did an upgrade very late and didn't get to even discover things like slopes proper.

Based on tech used, the feature set is identical to what capstone had to work with, making it around may/95 (early v6 or v5). Considering the age, I think the game was done as v5 and sat on the backburner for a long time until it was quickly upgraded for release.
3DR had a tendency to hide features, possibly so that PS wouldn't compete with their stuff that was about to come out.

[Malgon]

I recently had a chance to try this out and play through the entire game for the first time and I have to say I was really impressed with how it ran and how super-easy it was to set up. While it would be nice to have a controls menu (even though the default keys are actually what I use), and the ability to save anywhere (not a huge issue), I understand that this was just the way it was in the original game (although if the strafing was fixed, then who knows!). Anyway, thanks to all involved for the really great work in allowing another old game to be played on modern systems.

[Lobo4]

Hello,

I discovered Exhumed in its DOS/Windows98 version and I still enjoy playing it under Dosbox but now directly via this PCExhumed port.

The level design of Exhumed are well studied/worked as many of the games of this time, the ancient egyptian theme is really sumptuous, the music and melodies of Exhumed are very nice to hear, again the orientalist themes very inspired.

The marketing is not focused on the main character like Duke Nukem, however the game makes the player have a good time with a well-dosed difficulty and weapons of circumstance when needed, so the player is not discouraged in his journey.

I heard about another port on PSVita, vitaExhumed v.1.0 and I wonder if an Xbox 360 version could be easily compiled and adjusted with the gamepad..

I also spent some time on this version of PCExhumed, I've encountered a lot of bugs after the version 20200520-11420, which I find unusual.

[oasiz]

Lobo4, on 01 June 2020 - 03:50 AM, said:

I also spent some time on this version of PCExhumed, I've encountered a lot of bugs after the version 20200520-11420, which I find unusual.

Anything specific?
Compiler chain was updated around this time with a lot of code changes too.

[Lobo4]

oasiz, on 02 June 2020 - 01:29 AM, said:

Anything specific?
Compiler chain was updated around this time with a lot of code changes too.

I sent an MP to sirlemonhead a few days ago, but maybe he hasn't read it yet, anyway,

I'm here to report :

Actually I'm testing the big one level (with the countdown...), The latest playable version of this map is : pcexhumed_win64_20200520-11420

Since all the other versions after this one there is a crash : suddenly the game exits alone to the windows desktop -no errors messages- moreover the exe no longer visible in the task manager : This happens after the columns have been lowered onto the lava (at the beginning of the level), (including pcexhumed_win64_20200601-11629) the problem does not occur with the debug versions (pcexhumed_win64_debug_20200529-11619 / pcexhumed_win64_debug_20200601-11629).

Since version pcexhumed_win64_20200528-11615 the introductory video does not appear any more -all versions- functional again pcexhumed_win64_20200601-11629

Another problem that happens, just before the big one level there is (in the history of the game there is a message on the Lobotomy computer "incoming message...") just after should appear the map of the route of the crossed levels out it's a black screen however after a few seconds the level appears well.

I tested on 3 graphic cards (Radeon HD 7400 series, Intel HD 3000 & 2500) with the latest drivers & Windows7 x64 (with latest esu) the equipment is starting to date, but things should work fine.

[Mark]

I'm late to the party but I installed and ran the game. 3 issues I see.

First and most important, I transfered my settings.cfg file from another project. All my key settings work except for using mouse button 2 for "move forward".

Next, every time I want to run a new game I have to give it a name before it will run. Is that intentional?

Next, when I press the key to bring up the console the game crashes back to desktop.

I'm using the latest revision and Win7 64bit.

[oasiz]

Yeah, I think the 64bit release is completely broken. GCC was updated to 10.1 but all MSYS2 builds seem to be broken as well.

[Lobo4]

Do we know what's different about the debug versions ?