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[RELEASE, Update] CrackDown  "Second level's up"

User is offline   CruX 

#1

Okay guys, I figured it was best to release this early than work on it another week and risk making a bunch of changes that would put it on indefinite hiatus, so here it is...

Posted Image

This is a two-level mini-TC that I've been working with off and on for a couple of months. All of the weapons and items are replaced, there's new enemies, and a new arsenal to blow them away with. This mod isn't standalone, so you're going to need an official copy of DN3D. Just unpack the zip to a clean install (the ExtClut file should be in the main folder with the executables, etc.). Hopefully this isn't a no-no, but I included the synthesis of eDuke that the mod was developed with to save some time and confusion, so unpack that as well, then just run the CrackDown.bat and you're good to go. The mod can be played in software or 32 bit. If you don't do it by default, I recommend going into the render settings and turning vsync on. It'll make the weapon animations much smoother.

The premise is pretty simple. A city's been over-run with terrorists, they've taken a foreign dignitary hostage, and it's your job to go in and save him. There's some small amount of interactivity with the dignitary and your squad captain, but by the end of the day you're just running around an urban map blowing away pixelated guys. No meaning, no moral, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The level's adjusted for all four difficulty settings. If you want a challenge, try it on the third or fourth. Once the dignitary's been recovered, head back to the squad captain, he'll open a door in the drop ship, and you'll complete the level. In the second level, you're working a mundane security job for a government construction project when the suits take a violent bid at payback.

Credits, thankyou's and all that other good stuff can be found in the readme, but for some instantaneous gratification, I'd like to thank Terminix, Plagman and Helixhorned (as well as any other contributors) for this amazing port. I'd also like to thank CraigFatman for ExtClut, which this mod makes significant use of, and MarlboroMike2100 for the enemy sprites.

Here's a few more screens...

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EDIT: Barring anymore bugs from this mod that would need fixing, it looks like it's time for the last upload. This update adds another level, "Brother Bleed Brother", re-enables automatic weaponswitching, and fixes a glitch that was making the plasma cannon's charging sound stick when it wasn't supposed to. The glitches with dialog loops should be completely gone now. Per James' suggestion, standing still and crouching when you have either the uzi or assault rifle armed will result in slightly improved aim, and enemies will enter a pain state just a tad more often.

Attached File(s)



This post has been edited by EmericaSkater: 02 October 2011 - 05:31 AM

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User is online   zykov eddy 

#2

Wow, that was fast :(
Downloading.

I guess this TC is inspirated by Zdoom wads?

This post has been edited by zykov eddy: 26 September 2011 - 08:53 AM

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User is offline   Loke 

#3

That was a lot of fun. Took me roughly 23 minutes to finish though most of that time was spent running back and forth because I wasn't sure where to go. Played through it using 32-bit though I couldn't really play with v-sync on since it made the mouse unnecessarily sluggish making it hard to aim properly.

I noticed that the HUD and weapon sprites weren't properly aligned when playing in a widescreen resolution - the screens below illustrate what it looks like when I play it in my native resolution.

Posted Image Posted Image
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User is online   Mblackwell 

  • Evil Overlord

#4

Unfortunately I can't play this mod natively in Linux as it seems you neglected case sensitivity. I'll try it with Wine but I'm not too excited. Not to sound like a dick, just a general statement that people should pay attention to that stuff so it works out of the box on multiple platforms.

Edit: Seems a bug in Wine prevents EDuke32 from being playable with it. Seems like an input bug. Oh well.

Edit2: Started hacking some stuff and got it running basically. Noticed a bug right out of the gate: The captain's ifhitspace code needs an ifpdistl condition otherwise it will run every time ifp pfacing is true even if you're nowhere near him.

Edit3: The verdict? It could use a bit more polish (balance tweaking, etc) but it's a pretty good effort. The biggest issue is the scale seems a bit too cramped. There's some really nice set pieces though like the apartment.
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User is offline   TerminX 

  • el fundador

  #5

View PostLoke, on 26 September 2011 - 09:23 AM, said:

That was a lot of fun. Took me roughly 23 minutes to finish though most of that time was spent running back and forth because I wasn't sure where to go. Played through it using 32-bit though I couldn't really play with v-sync on since it made the mouse unnecessarily sluggish making it hard to aim properly.

I noticed that the HUD and weapon sprites weren't properly aligned when playing in a widescreen resolution - the screens below illustrate what it looks like when I play it in my native resolution.

Posted Image Posted Image

Yes, it's important to set the proper additional bits on stuff to control widescreen alignment.
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User is offline   CruX 

#6

View PostLoke, on 26 September 2011 - 09:23 AM, said:

I noticed that the HUD and weapon sprites weren't properly aligned when playing in a widescreen resolution - the screens below illustrate what it looks like when I play it in my native resolution.


Hmmm. I really never gave it much thought since I just stick with 1024x768. Not an excuse obviously, I should've considered this. I'm attaching some new con files to replace the CDGAME and WEAPON con files though unfortunately for the time being all it's going to fix is the hud and the weapons, the dialog screens will still be weird looking in any other resolution, and I had to get rid of the scope on the rifle entirely, since there's no orientation I can set on it to make sure it jives with different resolutions. I'll look into it a bit more tomorrow. I guess if you don't grab the cons attached in this post, make sure to have the resolution set 1024x768. Sorry guys. I feel like a total dunce now.

View PostMblackwell, on 26 September 2011 - 09:24 AM, said:

Edit2: Started hacking some stuff and got it running basically. Noticed a bug right out of the gate: The captain's ifhitspace code needs an ifpdistl condition otherwise it will run every time ifp pfacing is true even if you're nowhere near him.

Unless I messed something up in the syntax, he's got one...
action CAPTAINSTANDS 0 1 5 1 6
state captaincode
ifaction CAPTAINSTANDS {
ifpdistl 1500 { 
*rest of the code

Also, I really know nothing about Linux, and I'm not even sure what you're referring to by case sensitivity. I'm glad you were motivated to fix it on your own accord, and I'm sorry that my lack of forethought turned you off of this, but if you shed some light on what I screwed up, I'll do what I can to fix it.

EDIT: No need for these .cons now.

This post has been edited by EmericaSkater: 27 September 2011 - 10:21 AM

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User is offline   Helixhorned 

  • EDuke32 Developer

#7

Just finished it in about 15 minutes demo-time -- probably a lot more really, I died ridiculously many times. The gameplay is pretty tactical for a "brainless" shooter mod (on the 3rd difficulty level), you have to seek cover a lot and quickly emerge from it to give off a couple of shots; it feels a lot like the enemies are about as strong as the player character. I didn't find the two "sci-fi" weapons very useful -- the screen on the laser rifle is nice, but has no real use in firefights. Overall, it was pretty enjoyable due to the unusual (for Duke3D) gameplay.

@Mblackwell: all you need is a case-insensitive file system. Here's a suggestion to get things to work under Linux.
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User is offline   CruX 

#8

View PostHelixhorned, on 26 September 2011 - 10:15 AM, said:

Just finished it in about 15 minutes demo-time -- probably a lot more really, I died ridiculously many times. The gameplay is pretty tactical for a "brainless" shooter mod (on the 3rd difficulty level), you have to seek cover a lot and quickly emerge from it to give off a couple of shots; it feels a lot like the enemies are about as strong as the player character. I didn't find the two "sci-fi" weapons very useful -- the screen on the laser rifle is nice, but has no real use in firefights. Overall, it was pretty enjoyable due to the unusual (for Duke3D) gameplay.


Eh, some of the enemies are coded to be "stayput" in the sense of standing still and firing at you, not moving from the spot till you get too close. I guess that adds some tactical flare to it, but the AI routine still winds up being simple and (sic) kind of predictable. I am glad you enjoyed it though, despite its (now obvious) many, many glaring faults.
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#9

This is good. Some good mapping, nice music. I liked the weapons and the enemies. I would love to see more maps.
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User is offline   Helixhorned 

  • EDuke32 Developer

#10

I meant "strong" in the physical sense btw, not the mental one. But still, compared to Duke3D's enemies that move and fire rather sluggishly, those thugs are pretty aggressive.
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User is offline   Mikko 

  • Honored Donor

#11

Pretty good, some annoyances but mostly fun. Took me 11 minutes.
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User is online   Mblackwell 

  • Evil Overlord

#12

View PostHelixhorned, on 26 September 2011 - 10:15 AM, said:

@Mblackwell: all you need is a case-insensitive file system.


But I really don't care to have my filesystem be case insensitive (or play around with mounts). I already wrote a script that converted all of the sound filenames to lowercase (which is how they were being referenced even though they were all uppercase), etc etc.
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User is offline   Helixhorned 

  • EDuke32 Developer

#13

Sure, it would certainly be ideal to run EDuke32 mods without modification from Linux et al. I just usually find my hack quicker, because in a more complex mod, directories might not be matched either.
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User is online   Mblackwell 

  • Evil Overlord

#14

View PostEmericaSkater, on 26 September 2011 - 10:14 AM, said:

Hmmm. I really never gave it much thought since I just stick with 1024x768. Not an excuse obviously, I should've considered this. I'm attaching some new con files to replace the CDGAME and WEAPON con files though unfortunately for the time being all it's going to fix is the hud and the weapons, the dialog screens will still be weird looking in any other resolution, and I had to get rid of the scope on the rifle entirely, since there's no orientation I can set on it to make sure it jives with different resolutions. I'll look into it a bit more tomorrow. I guess if you don't grab the cons attached in this post, make sure to have the resolution set 1024x768. Sorry guys. I feel like a total dunce now.


Unless I messed something up in the syntax, he's got one...
action CAPTAINSTANDS 0 1 5 1 6
state captaincode
ifaction CAPTAINSTANDS {
ifpdistl 1500 { 
*rest of the code

Also, I really know nothing about Linux, and I'm not even sure what you're referring to by case sensitivity. I'm glad you were motivated to fix it on your own accord, and I'm sorry that my lack of forethought turned you off of this, but if you shed some light on what I screwed up, I'll do what I can to fix it.


No, you want this (starting ln 9993):
ifhitspace 

ifcount 15 { ifvare DIALOG_CAPTAIN 11 break else

ifp pfacing {

ifvare TALK 0 { 


to be this:
ifhitspace 

ifcount 15 { ifvare DIALOG_CAPTAIN 11 break else

ifp pfacing ifpdistl 1500 {

ifvare TALK 0 { 


The code you posted gets the relative angle, but the code right below it will run anyway even ifpdist > 1500 causing movement to be locked and a dialog to show. And you will be forever stuck in the dialog until you reload.
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User is online   Jblade 

#15

Just played it, didn't take me too long to blast through the level. Really good stuff! It might be out of your scope but if I were you I'd mess around with Duke's palette and think about not using any of the default Duke textures, since those are the only things that really tie it down into being a Duke mod (That's if you plan on carrying on with it) The weapons were meaty and a good deal of fun - I'd recommend buffing up the laser rifle a bit however since I felt it was a bit too slow/weak considering the enemies you were fighting. The creepy messages were cool but would of been better if you'd made a graffiti-style font for them or something like that :(
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User is offline   The Commander 

  • I used to be a Brown Fuzzy Fruit, but I've changed bro...

#16

View PostEmericaSkater, on 26 September 2011 - 10:14 AM, said:

Also, I really know nothing about Linux, and I'm not even sure what you're referring to by case sensitivity. I'm glad you were motivated to fix it on your own accord, and I'm sorry that my lack of forethought turned you off of this, but if you shed some light on what I screwed up, I'll do what I can to fix it.

http://wiki.eduke32....latform_Modding
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User is offline   Jimmy 

  • Let's go Brandon!

#17

Just finished playing it. Pretty cool experience, those enemies kicked my ass though. (I suck at FPS.) I hope to see more from ya in the future.
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User is offline   CruX 

#18

First and foremost, if you're reading this, you might want to check the first post. Changes were made. Significant changes.

View PostMblackwell, on 26 September 2011 - 09:24 AM, said:

The verdict? It could use a bit more polish (balance tweaking, etc) but it's a pretty good effort. The biggest issue is the scale seems a bit too cramped. There's some really nice set pieces though like the apartment.


Yeah, scale is something I keep a close eye on because I hate over-sized levels, but sometimes I go a bit overboard with it. Typically cramped areas aren't that bad, but I can definitely see how it would have dragged on the gameplay, especially in some areas like the bank, where you were fighting a lot of enemies, and had almost no wiggleroom at all.

View PostJames, on 26 September 2011 - 12:50 PM, said:

Just played it, didn't take me too long to blast through the level. Really good stuff! It might be out of your scope but if I were you I'd mess around with Duke's palette and think about not using any of the default Duke textures, since those are the only things that really tie it down into being a Duke mod (That's if you plan on carrying on with it) The weapons were meaty and a good deal of fun - I'd recommend buffing up the laser rifle a bit however since I felt it was a bit too slow/weak considering the enemies you were fighting. The creepy messages were cool but would of been better if you'd made a graffiti-style font for them or something like that :(


I kind of shy away from standalone mods. From what I gleen, it isn't just about not using DN3D's stock textures (which makes me uncomfortable on its own), but it's also wiping most of the information in the con files, not using any of the sounds, actors, etc. The idea is appealing, but intimidating at the same time. Also, I know exactly what you're talking about with the messages. I knew they didn't look right from the get-go, but a convincing alphabetical set of graffiti letters is tough to come by. If you know of any off-hand, let me know and I'll see about putting it in the Cyprus map when I'm ready to update this mod with the next map.

View PostCaptain Awesome, on 26 September 2011 - 01:40 PM, said:

Just finished playing it. Pretty cool experience, those enemies kicked my ass though. (I suck at FPS.) I hope to see more from ya in the future.


No shame in that. Seems like they kicked everyone's ass, including mine.

View PostMikko_Sandt, on 26 September 2011 - 10:34 AM, said:

Pretty good, some annoyances but mostly fun. Took me 11 minutes.


Thanks! If you plan on reviewing the mod (and don't get me wrong, that doesn't imply that I expect you to, or anything), you might want to wait till the next level's uploaded.

View Postzykov eddy, on 26 September 2011 - 08:38 AM, said:

I guess this TC is inspirated by Zdoom wads?


It'd seem that way because so many resources were pulled from them, but no, I wouldn't really say there was any inspiration.
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User is offline   blizzart 

#19

Congrats! It was really fun to play. Really good mapping and good coding. The enemies looked a little bit out of place with their very cartoonish look.

But I couldnĀ“t find the weapon Loke posted in his first screen.

View PostLoke, on 26 September 2011 - 09:23 AM, said:


Posted Image


Although I typed DNSTUFF.
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#20

Very nice mod to play, i've get stuck in the bank, with no plasma ammo , d'oh ^^. Also killed many times by armoured soldiers.

@blizzart: that weapon is behind the reception of the hotel, under the pc. It's a laser rifle.
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User is offline   Mikko 

  • Honored Donor

#21

View PostEmericaSkater, on 27 September 2011 - 10:20 AM, said:

Thanks! If you plan on reviewing the mod (and don't get me wrong, that doesn't imply that I expect you to, or anything), you might want to wait till the next level's uploaded.


Sorry, but I got it done before I read your reply :( But I'll update if you update.
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User is offline   Fox 

  • Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!

#22

In the first screenshot, that looks like the shitty 8-bit muzzle flash I created for an early run test for Duke 64 mod. I would never actually left that garbage in a mod. =/

This post has been edited by Fox: 29 September 2011 - 04:28 PM

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User is offline   CruX 

#23

Same drill as last time, check the OP. Changes, and whatnot.

View Postblizzart, on 27 September 2011 - 01:01 PM, said:

Congrats! It was really fun to play. Really good mapping and good coding. The enemies looked a little bit out of place with their very cartoonish look.
But I couldnĀ“t find the weapon Loke posted in his first screen.
Although I typed DNSTUFF.


That was the old version of the laser rifle. I had to get rid of it because it wouldn't work with wide screen resolutions. Believe me, you're not missing much, its screen was nifty, but it wasn't useful for much of anything. Also, the enemies are a bit cartoonish, yeah, but they have kind of an appeal of their own, and the guy that sprited them is super-cool, so I decided they'd be best for a mod of this scale.

View PostRichardStorm, on 29 September 2011 - 01:14 PM, said:

Very nice mod to play, i've get stuck in the bank, with no plasma ammo , d'oh ^^. Also killed many times by armoured soldiers.


The captain warned you :( I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it though.

View PostFox, on 29 September 2011 - 04:28 PM, said:

In the first screenshot, that looks like the shitty 8-bit muzzle flash I created for an early run test for Duke 64 mod. I would never actually left that garbage in a mod. =/


Indeed it is. The quality looked professional to me, so I had assumed you grabbed it from one of DN64's data files or something. Now that I know better, you're credited in the ReadMe. Honestly, though, it blows my mind that you think it sucks so much. I was looking for a new muzzle flash for that shotgun while I was doing the art edits for this mod, and the second I saw that muzzleflash, I really didn't want to use anything else. Whoever said "One man's trash is another man's treasure" wasn't bullshitting.
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User is offline   Helixhorned 

  • EDuke32 Developer

#24

Bug report: in the second level, when you attempt to "read" the viewscreen a second time, the text will stick and you won't be able to do control the player.
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User is offline   CruX 

#25

That's peculiar. I just scrolled through it multiple times and can't reproduce it. Does the text and the interface stick, or is your character just stuck?
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User is offline   Helixhorned 

  • EDuke32 Developer

#26

Both. Also, it appears to only happen when playing from the start and not from a saved game. Maybe it has something to do with the initial briefing...
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User is offline   Loke 

#27

The whole text interface gets stuck as well as the player character, though you can still Esc and navigate the menu. I didn't get stuck at the viewscreen the first time but I did when I went back to see if it happened on my end as well. Seems very random though as it occurred more often when I tried running backwards while mashing the use-key. Going out of range from the viewscreen perhaps?

Anyway, very good map. A nice change of setting from the previous urban map. Didn't notice any bugs or flaws with the map though it definitely feels more harder, however I like that. :(

EDIT: I loaded a previous save when I got stuck at the viewscreen.

This post has been edited by Loke: 30 September 2011 - 10:17 AM

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User is offline   CruX 

#28

View PostLoke, on 30 September 2011 - 10:15 AM, said:

Seems very random though as it occurred more often when I tried running backwards while mashing the use-key.


Sounds like it's failing a distance check. Hmm..
EDIT: Looking back through the code, I'm pretty sure that's what's going on. If you're moving when you hit space on the terminal/NPC you might wind up sliding away from away from it before your movement locks out, at which point you'll be stuck in the dialog loop, since both engaging the terminal and scrolling through the dialog pages require distance checks. I just wrote some code up that seems to fix it, but I 'll probably have to wait till tonight to look more into it. If the terminal's doing this, then the NPC's in Cyprus are too, and the reason this is just now becoming apparent is because the NPC's had wider distance checks than the terminal (I forget why I did this...).

This post has been edited by EmericaSkater: 30 September 2011 - 10:37 AM

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User is online   Jblade 

#29

Just played the second level - nice work on the improved laser gun. I think this mod would definitly benefit from the ability to lean, and improved accuracy for crouching and standing. Since enemies shoot real fast and can't be stunned by being shot it would make more sense to add a few more tactical elements. If you were aiming for more old-school gameplay than enemy pain states definitly need to be added. I'd also tone down the rolling when strafing since whilst cool it made me feel like I was on roller-skates than anything else :(

still great work in all - it's a cool mod, I think it might need one or two things to spice it up a bit but it's good stuff as it is now.
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User is offline   Jimmy 

  • Let's go Brandon!

#30

I also noticed you could talk to the commander guy at the beginning through the locked safe to the right of the shotgun on the first level.
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