[Lunick]

Ion Maiden by Voidpoint, published by 3D Realms coming Q3 2018
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Spoiler

Original Post:

Spoiler

I saw this tweet before but I never actually second glanced it:
https://twitter.com/...217625313300480

[MetHy]

Quote

Bombshell Prequel using Build

I'm sorry, where's the info about that?

And if it's true, why do I have the feeling this will be like Dark Void Zero: the "oldschool style" prequel meant to promote the actual game ends up being the better game...

[Lunick]

MetHy, on 26 July 2015 - 05:23 AM, said:

I'm sorry, where's the info about that?

"Digital Retro FPS Prequel"

Let's be real here, yes it doesn't explicitly state it but do you think the job opening for a new 3D Realms Build game isn't this?

[MrFlibble]

Lunick, thanks for pointing this out!

Actually the idea of a "retro FPS prequel" is very good on many levels. I wonder if the date stamps on the game files will be edited to somewhere in 1996?

Also I hope they'll make a DOS executable that runs both on real 90s hardware and in DOSBox.

Haven't heard about Dark Void Zero though.

[MetHy]

Lunick, on 26 July 2015 - 05:26 AM, said:

"Digital Retro FPS Prequel"

Let's be real here, yes it doesn't explicitly state it but do you think the job opening for a new 3D Realms Build game isn't this?

Oh, I'm blind.

[Lunick]

MetHy, on 26 July 2015 - 05:47 AM, said:

Oh, I'm blind.

I missed it too don't worry, I would have posted the thread earlier if I had seen it

[DukeNukem64]

That actually sounds pretty cool.. So how many different releases and how long is the build game?

[MetHy]

MrFlibble, on 26 July 2015 - 05:39 AM, said:

Also I hope they'll make a DOS executable that runs both on real 90s hardware and in DOSBox.

Haven't heard about Dark Void Zero though.

And I hope it doesn't run in DOS and makes use of TROR.

Dark Void Zero was a prequel to Dark Void, an action platformer made in pseudo NES style. It's pretty cool, and I couldn't care less about Dark Void.
http://store.steampo....com/app/45730/

[HulkNukem]

I wonder how many members here actually joined the team to work on the build project?

[Mark]

Well I know for sure that between school and porn MickyC has no time to spare for the game.

[TerminX]

It doesn't run in DOS.

[MrFlibble]

MetHy, on 26 July 2015 - 08:04 AM, said:

And I hope it doesn't run in DOS and makes use of TROR.

I have very limited knowledge of the workings of eDuke32, but can't the advanced features such as TROR be theoretically back-ported into DOS?

TerminX, on 26 July 2015 - 10:18 AM, said:

It doesn't run in DOS.

Even without being this retro I'm pretty certain this is going to be an interesting project.

I did not understand from the advertisement if this will be an exclusive extra bundled with that gaming PC, or constitute part of the regular game offer? Maybe it will be a promotional freebie? Or at least there will be a shareware version?

[Hendricks266]

If someone wanted EDuke32 to run on DOS, they would need to get the entire project building under DJGPP, which would involve reintroducing all the hardware code which has long been ripped out.

[Balls of Steel Forever]

Will the prequel be PC only? (Given that Bombshell is Multi-Platform)

[Altered Reality]

MetHy, on 26 July 2015 - 08:04 AM, said:

And I hope it doesn't run in DOS and makes use of TROR.

If it's done in retro-style, it ought to run in DOS, and it ought to have the same limitations as the original Build games have, like the maximum possible amount of sectors, the maximum possible game area and no TROR. And if that clashes with the developers' plans for the game, they should use the real solutions that were available at the time: either work around the limitations, or change the plans for the game. Otherwise, it's just gonna be a silly thing made by hipsters for hipsters who despise the present because they worship a past that never was.

MetHy, on 26 July 2015 - 08:04 AM, said:

Dark Void Zero was a prequel to Dark Void, an action platformer made in pseudo NES style. It's pretty cool, and I couldn't care less about Dark Void.
http://store.steampo....com/app/45730/

Yeah, key word being PSEUDO. I'm all about historical accuracy, and creating an imaginary version of the past with the only goal of making the real past look better than it really was brings my piss to a boil. It's no different than what Stalin did when he modified historical photographs in order to make people remember past events differently than they happened.

Balls Of Steel Forever, on 26 July 2015 - 11:17 AM, said:

Will the prequel be PC only? (Given that Bombshell is Cross Platform)

Considering what TerminX wrote, I predict that one of the reasons for not making a DOS-based prequel is to port it to consoles. As opposed to porting DosBox to consoles and adding an additional, backdoor-preventing check to only make it able to run an executable with a specific CRC.

[Mark]

Would you at least be a little happy if they make it with an 8bit palette, software rendering but runs natively in Windows? ( like eduke32 )

[TerminX]

There's a big difference between retro and outright 1:1 reproduction of 90's techniques. This project is retro. I can't really say too much about it, but it does use a brand new 8-bit palette, which all assets will use. I'm really excited about it.

[oasiz]

This is awesome news, can't wait to crush this game with speed running it !



Sorry but I have to heavily disagree with making it for DOS
Making it for DOS would require you to deal with retarded limitations, making it sure that it runs on various hardware configurations that less than .1% of your average gamer owns.
After all this you'd still have to actually make it playable for the rest, safe to assume that dosbox would be used.
As you are already not running it "true to original", what's the point ?
With dosbox, you have an extra layer on top that requires a ton of extra performance, if lower FPS in something you really want to simulate then you should do it externally and not use 100% host CPU to accomplish that and get varying results per system.

For coding you'd deal with all sorts of performance limitations, memory segmentation, etc.. Why not possibly utilize +10yr worth of "under the hood" bug fixes that don't change the game play experience at all, aside from some very tiny tweaks that are really only d3d specific in eduke's case. Again, these can just be performance/showstopper fixes.

TROR? When other games used ROR already with a different implementation. I don't get this point.
You're really just artificially limiting yourself by forcing yourself to achieve the same result with worse tools.

I'd say that in this case the end result counts the most. Stuff like megaman 9/10 work brilliantly in my opinion, It's still very true to the originals while cutting restrictions just enough to give more artistic freedom. They clearly knew what they wanted to achieve.

And you refer to pseudo, sure.
Coding for a real platform can be a huge task, you need at least one~ year of coding experience on the platform alone to learn most of it's quirks. Systems are limited, early games on those tended to be simple just because they usually did what the hardware was designed for. NES PPU is very buggy and error prone to program for. With commodore systems you'd be swapping floppies or enjoying long load times, Not to mention that DOS had it's fair share of issues to account for. Replicating some these are features that might have been part of the overall experience but let's be honest, back then such sprite flicker/quirk/load time/etc.. would have been considered undesirable.

It's all about how much effort you want to put in to it to make it as true as possible, you don't have to do a 1:1 clone to get the essence of it right.

One of the very few "true" games I can think of is Fantasy Zone II remake for arcade, even that doubled RAM compared to the last revision of system 16, possibly to make it less painful to code for as well.

Again, sorry for the rant.

Looking really forward to more info on this!

[Mr. Tibbs]

Sounds like a really cool project. Any estimate for when we'll get some solid details?

Who cares if it's not a 100% faithful? Despite using more colors than any 8-bit platformer, Shovel Knight successfully evoked why people loved that era. More importantly, it was an awesome game.

[Hank]

Not sure what retro really means.
Some of the older games were very good games. And some of the older games really sucked.
I'll wait what will be published; just because one uses original (older) game principles and techno, does not guarantee a good game.

[DavoX]

Looking forward to this

[brullov]

DavoX, on 26 July 2015 - 02:15 PM, said:

Looking forward to this

Me too. I think that guys who are making this game are really cool.

[MusicallyInspired]

Sounds awesome and unique! I hope they'll have some sweet retro-influenced music as well.

[Radar]

This sounds awesome.

[Marphy Black]

But can we trust whoever these mystery retro developers may be? They could be any old yokels!

[MetHy]

Altered Reality, on 26 July 2015 - 11:20 AM, said:

Yeah, key word being PSEUDO. I'm all about historical accuracy, and creating an imaginary version of the past with the only goal of making the real past look better than it really was brings my piss to a boil. It's no different than what Stalin did when he modified historical photographs in order to make people remember past events differently than they happened.

It's not about "making the past look better than it was", it's about taking the best out of past and present in order to make a better game.

For instance we all know that DN3D was dubbed down in terms of detailing just before release in order to make it play better on lower specs systems.

We also all remember what it was to run a usermap with a lot of sprites seen at the same time or with a huge visibility. It ran terrible. And in my case, it ran terrible even if I ran the game in 320*200 with details set to low.

Another example could be mirrors and how laggy they'd make the game, or Shadow Warrior's RoR system, which as a result meant devs had to limit their use of it.

The original DN3D limited itself to making maps that were FAR from reaching the wall limit in order for them to play well on all systems.

The advantage of not worrying about DOS compatibility is you can do anything you want without having to worry about optimization or specs. This is a godsend for a PC dev.
Should they really limit the game by a HUGE margin only so that a couple of people may run it in fucking DOSbox (which in itself is ALSO making the past look better; because you run Blood in 800*600 lagless in Dosbox on your computer nowadays doesn't mean you could have done the same on your computer at the time...) and for the sake of "historical accuracy" ?

There is no historical accuracy worth caring about, because historically speaking, 3DR and Monolith could have done a LOT more with their ROR systems, they didn't because otherwise only a handful of people with high end computer (for the time) could have hoped to even launch the first map. But they could have. They didn't so more people could play their games.

I remember Wieder talking about 3DR experiencing with TROR over TROR over TROR, with Build, after the release of Atomic Edition. I remember Wieder saying something like "there was as much TROR as your computer could handle". You can't say this next game isn't accurate because it doesn't run in DOS specs from the early 90's. 3DR's next Build game wouldn't have, either. And this is the next 3DR Build game.

Let's also not forget that the minimum specs for Build games kept getting more demanding between 95 and 98, so where is the "historical" limit? Limiting yourself to Exhumed minimum specs wouldn't be accurate because those aren't the same as Shadow Warrior's. Limiting yourself to Shadow Warrior's minimum specs wouldn't be accurate either because 3DR's next Build game featuring "as much TROR as your computer could stomach", had it ever been made, would have required much higher specs, too. And this was past 97, it probably wouldn't even have had a DOS executable since everyone was onto windows95/98 at this point.


If done right this is the chance to remind everyone Build FPS are the best and to show what Build can truely stomach. Noone would want to sacrifice that for "historical accuracy" that doesn't even hold.
This is chance to have 3DR's next Build game, the one which, in my opinion, we should have had in the late 90's, the one they should have kept betting on instead of changing engine.

[Micky C]

I've never played Redneck Rampage, but there are some very nice textures and some nice architecture which makes for some great looking scenes. If something like that can be pulled off in Build (but with good gameplay), that'd be fantastic.

[MetHy]

Yeah, the Redneck Rampage series, have high-res textures and some really cool stuff.

Rides Again In Arkansas has tons of amazing stuff. Some highly detailed environment, some levels mix sector and sprite structures to give a true 3D feel, shading is a mix between Build's shading system and shading directly applied on textures, it has driveable vehicules, etc
Now, it has no TROR, but Xatrix sure knew how to make the best of the engine and find tricks to go past the limits of Build at the time.

Oh and Rides Again In Arkansas does have good gameplay. So do Route 66 imo, Sunstorm's did a good job at trying to hide the flaws of the original game. You should give them a try, some things may amaze you.

http://i101.photobuc...zpsx7xnjpax.png

http://i101.photobuc...zpsgkpgmeac.png

http://i101.photobuc...zpsuvzt6xvz.png

http://i101.photobuc...zpsxcxwhxet.png

http://i101.photobuc...zps7tkknkfb.png

Now, if this Bombshell does things like that, I can already hear some people claim it's not "accurate" with what Build was capable of at the time...

[DavoX]

Those redneck rampage screenshots look amazing! I've always loved it's style and the way they used the textures to achieve a feel in the map!

[Loke]

Redneck Rampage is a pretty underrated shooter imo. Absolutely gorgeous game for its time too. All those hi-res textures really made it stand out in terms of visuals compared to other Build games.