[Reaper_Man]

From the developers of Grins of Divinity, Zombie Crisis, Decay, Duke Nukem Forever (2013), Kick Ass Duke, The Christmas Project (2003), Borg Nukem, Project Blue Skies, Aliens vs. Duke, Top Shooter, CandyMania (2017), Silverballz . . .



The most anticipated Total Conversion of 2005 is finally being released. Project: A.W.O.L. is a standalone Total Conversion for Duke Nukem 3D utilizing EDuke32 Technology. Project: A.W.O.L. features groundbreaking new AI and pathfinding techniques to create the most dynamic experience possible! Sneak or fight your way through multiple levels using military authentic weapons and equipment as you and your squad seek out the truth behind the disappearance of your commanding officer. After being abandoned and incomplete for over 15 years, until being revived in 2020 in collaboration with E1M1 Magazine.

Infiltrate and use stealth takedowns, or go in guns blazing... You decide how to overcome each challenge!
Advanced enemy AI can hear and see you coming... Unless you don't want them to. Utilize stealth tactics to take out enemies quietly and preserve your resources. Or kick in the front door and take full advantage of the arsenal of authentic military weapons. Each encounter can turn out differently if the wrong bad guy survives - prioritizing targets running for an alarm or alerting other guards is vital to mission success.

Tactical squad command in the BUILD Engine
The enemies are smart, but your AI Squad is smarter. Take command of a team of advanced AI who can flank enemy positions, provide covering fire for you and the team, and take advantage of defensive positions or mounted machine guns. Designed to be an extension of your own playstyle, the AI will adapt to your decisions and tactics, and follow your commands. Your team also has unique abilities - Nielsen, the radio op who can call in drone strikes. Reyes, the heavy gunner armed with an M249 and a bad attitude. And Ty, the team's Medic who will keep you and the rest of the squad in the fight.

Coming April 2005 2021

Follow us on Twitter: @shotsparkstudio

Join our Discord for more: https://discord.gg/7NuYFbvfAB





More screenshots here!

Spoiler

[CruX]

I'm excited and instantly in love with this for both nostalgia and non-nostalgia reasons, but I'll be honest; that first pass touch up of the marine looks the best

[Danukem]

Reaper_Man, on 18 January 2021 - 03:01 PM, said:

Coming April 2005 2021[/size]

This looks and sounds awesome.

We at Alien Armageddon have been planning since last year to have a big April 19th release to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the release of the full version of Duke 3D. I hope we can have at least some date separation between our project release dates, even if it's only one week apart.

[Reaper_Man]

CruX, on 18 January 2021 - 03:12 PM, said:

I'm excited and instantly in love with this for both nostalgia and non-nostalgia reasons, but I'll be honest; that first pass touch up of the marine looks the best

We appreciate the feedback! We're putting a lot of work into the improved artwork and the sprites here are still very much a work in progress. We are targeting roughly the Ion Fury sprite sizes for the additional detail (such as the repainted heads) while maintaining the classic sprite art aesthetic.

Danukem, on 18 January 2021 - 05:06 PM, said:

This looks and sounds awesome.We at Alien Armageddon have been planning since last year to have a big April 19th release to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the release of the full version of Duke 3D. I hope we can have at least some date separation between our project release dates, even if it's only one week apart.

Thank you for the praise! That shouldn't be a problem, we're targeting April for similar reasons, but we're aiming for early April.

[pavigna]

Hell Yeah! this is a great project, and i enjoy being a part of it!

[necroslut]

Wow, I remember looking forward a lot to this one back in the day. Nice to see it being brought back.

[ck3D]

Excited for this!

[jimbob]

oh wow, i remember this from way back

[Micky C]

Yikes, this was from before I even joined the community

So, Project Blue Skies has been released, judging from its mention here?

[Mark]

not yet

[Mark]

Off topic but:
But I was chatting with Mblackwell yesterday about it. I might set aside my side projects and get back to PBS. Maybe find a new team member to help too. Depends on what we decide after another long look at where it stands.

[William Gee]

Looks really nice!

[Reaper_Man]

We really appreciate the kind words from everyone!

We've released the first devlog going into some of the gameplay features that make Project: A.W.O.L. so special. Today we're talking about the advanced AI and pathfinding that will make the enemy and friendly AI something never before seen!

[jkas789]

Very cool stuff! Wish all of you guys the best of luck in the development of this.

[ck3D]

Hey, I've been having a hard time getting a reply to my PM's regarding this project (I know that's partly on me not using Discord). I was just wondering about the current status? As I'm still sitting on my partially completed map waiting for news to organize myself (right now mapping time is difficult to find for me but finishing that one shouldn't take unreasonably long to prioritize for a bit), and players could probably appreciate some too since I've overheard about a possible delay (?). And it's really not a bad thread to bump!

[Hudson]

ck3D, on 18 March 2021 - 03:35 PM, said:

Hey, I've been having a hard time getting a reply to my PM's regarding this project (I know that's partly on me not using Discord). I was just wondering about the current status? As I'm still sitting on my partially completed map waiting for news to organize myself (right now mapping time is difficult to find for me but finishing that one shouldn't take unreasonably long to prioritize for a bit), and players could probably appreciate some too since I've overheard about a possible delay (?). And it's really not a bad thread to bump!

I'll be sending you a PM here shortly!!

[Reaper_Man]

A.W.O.L. is now available to wishlist on Steam! Check us out!

https://store.steamp...p/1740150/AWOL/

[Graphics]

This game looks like it's going to be a lot of fun online. I'm looking forward to playing it on Steam.

[jimbob]

looks awesome, cant wait too play it, noticed a bug on the door at around 2:00 into the trailer, one door goes into the wrong direction

[edit] added it to my wishlist

[Seb Luca]

Breathtaking ! Well done, the result is awesome

[Reaper_Man]

We're polishing various visual effects, to make everything look and feel more complete. The core gameplay loop is done, the maps are more or less done, and now we want everything to look as nice as the game plays. Here's a few excerpts and updates, but the best place to stay updated on the project is still our Twitter @shotsparkstudio

We uploaded an extended combat sequence featuring the AI Squad which you should definitely check out. Duke4 doesn't have Twitter embeds, so here's a terrible quality gif that you should click it to see the full thing on Twitter!



The gore/gib system has been finished. We went with something a little more gruesome than the gib shower you've all seen a million times. Here's a few screenshots, but it looks much better in video: https://twitter.com/...284848577982482




I don't like showing off too much of our boss fight since a lot of the fun is figuring out how to deal with them, but the progress on it is really cool. If I didn't have godmode on here I'd be getting wrecked, fighting a helicopter out in the open is not advised! Click the terrible gif for a much better gif.



Speaking of flying enemies, we finished up the last new enemy, a drone quadcopter. Alone they aren't very threatening, a but a drone swarm can quickly overwhelm you! Click the bad gif for a good gif - this time with sound!

[Reaper_Man]

We posted up another extended gameplay clip on Twitter, check it out:



I feel like every week of development, we take what we already have and refine things further. The enemy and friendly AI is at the forefront of AWOL's gameplay, and making sure they are interesting and engaging has been our #1 priority. When we started the revival, I had written AI behavior and pathfinding code sort of blind, building it to a hypothetical "best case scenario" as none of our actual game maps existed at that point. As the project went along and maps were built, these things were updated and modified to perform best in real-world situations. After months of adding on features and solving corner-case problems, a lot of the AI code became a mess.

I just finished an overhaul of some deep code related to the AI, specifically to their pathfinding, having learned the lessons over the past several months of development, and we are really happy with how the AI behaves. It's hard to really capture in video, but because the AI knows how to navigate the entire world (thanks to the A* pathfinding at the core), you can get into situations where AIs will make intentional, tactical decisions, like trying to flank your position.

[Mark]

I had my position flanked back in my college days. Haven't done it since then.

[MrFlibble]

Reaper_Man, on 02 October 2021 - 03:56 PM, said:

We posted up another extended gameplay clip on Twitter, check it out:

Oh yeah, take me back to the nineties baby

[Reaper_Man]

We've been doing a lot of work, I'm not sure what to show off just yet, but our maps and game systems are virtually complete. We're working on game and story art currently, and adding in character and enemy sounds/voices, but AWOL is far closer to finished than it ever has been before!

I just finished adding our destructible surface system. You might be thinking "who cares, BUILD already has destroyable surfaces", but look closer. This system uses the surface's total area to determine how much damage it can absorb before switching to its "damaged" state A large wall may take extensive hits before it shows signs of damage, but smaller ones will break more quickly. It wasn't shown off here, but damage states can have multiple stages as well, so some walls may show greater deterioration as they're shot full of holes.

Full video on Twitter (click the gif!)

[Danukem]

That's pretty neat, but the hud animations are the real star of that video.

[Reaper_Man]

We finally have all of the art to implement this, here's a sample of several damageable tiles. There's something like 150 tiles in the entire game that have damage states, we added them to the most-used tiles in all of the maps so you should see these in action often while playing. This material zoo doesn't really show off the "wall health based on wall size" feature, but it's still in place.



Also I realize I didn't show in this video, but this also applies to ceilings and floors

We're rounding third and just finishing up various VFX to add polish and make everything really look and feel great, for example dust and debris particles when a wall "breaks". We have that in place now but with terrible looking temporary sprites, so I disabled it for this to better show off the tile progression.

[VGames]

Very cool stuff.

[Reaper_Man]

A few short gameplay GIFs from the level set in a drug lord's villa compound.

[Radar]

Looks like it's shaping up to be an excellent mod.