[Hendricks266]

Classic and Polymost are both supported, but Polymost will be the default since performance for Classic degrades rapidly at or above 1080p, and new players may not like Classic's perspective warping.

It should also work in Polymer if you drop in an eduke32.exe from synthesis, but it will not be present in the build we provide.

[Mr. Tibbs]

New screenshot (game's still on track for 2017):

[BoowHow]

Damn, that looks good.

[PsychoGoatee]

Lookin' damn good! Can't wait to play it.

[Hawke]

Everything is looking nice so far!

[Micky C]

STOP TORTURING ME

[Mark]

WOW. Look at all of the glitch free transparency. Can it really be Eduke32?

[Micky C]

Isn't transparency only an issue where models are involved? This game uses none.

[Ninjakitty]

Micky C, on 10 July 2017 - 03:48 PM, said:

Isn't transparency only an issue where models are involved? This game uses none.

No, I believe the glitch he is referring to is that sometimes if you have a bunch of semi-transparent sprites lined up and you're looking through them at a certain angle, they might will show up in the wrong order.

[KaijuTurtle]

Has anyone asked about the possibility of a physical release?





I would be very interested in a physical copy.

[Mr. Tibbs]

I made a thread about Ion Maiden on NeoGaf. If there's anything I got wrong or something I should add don't hesitate letting me know so I can update the OT.

[axl]

Looks great ! Can't wait to play it !

[Hendricks266]

Mr. Tibbs, on 10 July 2017 - 04:17 PM, said:

I made a thread about Ion Maiden on NeoGaf. If there's anything I got wrong or something I should add don't hesitate letting me know so I can update the OT.

This is a really wonderful summary. Allow me to split hairs for a second:

>Interceptor Entertainment, a studio which declared bankruptcy last year and has since rebranded themselves as Slipgate Studios
Much like the "Interceptor bought 3D Realms" misinformation which never seems to die, technically Slipgate is a new studio with many of the same team.

>The game’s developer, Voidpoint, is a completely independent venture. It began development in early 2015 as a stand-alone project and was quietly announced on a poster back in July 2015
This paragraph started about Voidpoint the studio and continued about Ion Maiden the game. IM started as nothing more than an extra for that Deluxe Edition (for which we were not going to be paid) and grew into a stand-alone product months later.

Voidpoint, LLC began as a joint venture between TerminX and myself in creating the Hail to the King Collection ports for iOS and Android. We took on Ion Maiden (working titles "The Washington Project" or "Project Washington", and later "The Washington Incident" [but not "Bombshell Codename: Washington Project" or "The Washington Experiment", which were invented by the author of those images]) and worked on the two projects in overlapping fashion until HTTKC was shelved.

>While the game itself is retro rather than an outright 1:1 reproduction of 90's techniques
The ambiguity of what "90's techniques" means, possibly by trying to avoid jargon, leads me to rapidly oscillate between considering this statement false and true. I know of no other game bringing truly retro gameplay with truly retro tech. We're still using the original engine and its ideas, though with 20 extra years of development--replacing code, but rarely throwing out ideas. We're still using some of the same data formats, though their structure, workflow and tools have changed with time. We are definitely turning the era's original aesthetic and creative techniques up to 11. Calling it "retro rather than 1:1" sounds like we're closer to cheap Wolf 3D clones using Unity on Steam Greenlight than Mega Man 9 and 10. Of course it's not 1:1, that would require buying 20-year old hardware, forgetting about 20 years of advancements in art, music, computer science, etc, and selling the game only on CD-ROM or five floppies, available only by mail order and playable on MS-DOS.

>avoiding the limitations imposed on Build engine in order to run better on lower spec systems (think Shovel Knight)
How can the Build Engine avoid limitations imposed on the Build Engine?
Similar to above, Shovel Knight is not a good analogy here. Only the music is what you would call "authentic" if you were that purist about calling it an NES game. It excels at evoking the era, but the limitations in hardware, software, talent, resources, and human knowledge at that time forced decisions that Shovel Knight steamrolls. I'm not criticizing, I'm pointing out that SK and IM need to be taxonomized differently.

>mod tracker music for about 20 years (the original Build engine has been modified to support this).
The Build Engine knows nothing about sound or music. We added support for MOD, XM, IT, and S3M (via libxmp-lite) to our (quite distant) fork of Jim Dosé's Apogee Sound System, used by Rise of the Triad, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood, the Redneck Rampage series, NAM, WWII GI, and Extreme Paintbrawl, alongside modern support for FLAC and Ogg Vorbis audio streams for sounds and music.

>The content will be more or less unique from the full version.
Much like the FEAR demo, the maps in the demo are redressed samples of portions of the registered version. "More or less unique" is a false promise that I do not believe Voidpoint is the originator of.

>The final game is likely to have the face in the HUD, but it'll be more like Doom.
I can confirm that the final game will have a face in the HUD, in much the same way as Doom.


You should also mention that Ion Maiden's publisher is 3D Realms.

[jet_nick]

Hendricks266, on 11 July 2017 - 12:30 AM, said:

This is a really wonderful summary. Allow me to split hairs for a second:

>Interceptor Entertainment, a studio which declared bankruptcy last year and has since rebranded themselves as Slipgate Studios
Much like the "Interceptor bought 3D Realms" misinformation which never seems to die, technically Slipgate is a new studio with many of the same team.

>The game’s developer, Voidpoint, is a completely independent venture. It began development in early 2015 as a stand-alone project and was quietly announced on a poster back in July 2015
This paragraph started about Voidpoint the studio and continued about Ion Maiden the game. IM started as nothing more than an extra for that Deluxe Edition (for which we were not going to be paid) and grew into a stand-alone product months later.

Voidpoint, LLC began as a joint venture between TerminX and myself in creating the Hail to the King Collection ports for iOS and Android. We took on Ion Maiden (working titles "The Washington Project" or "Project Washington", and later "The Washington Incident" [but not "Bombshell Codename: Washington Project" or "The Washington Experiment", which were invented by the author of those images]) and worked on the two projects in overlapping fashion until HTTKC was shelved.

>While the game itself is retro rather than an outright 1:1 reproduction of 90's techniques
The ambiguity of what "90's techniques" means, possibly by trying to avoid jargon, leads me to rapidly oscillate between considering this statement false and true. I know of no other game bringing truly retro gameplay with truly retro tech. We're still using the original engine and its ideas, though with 20 extra years of development--replacing code, but rarely throwing out ideas. We're still using some of the same data formats, though their structure, workflow and tools have changed with time. We are definitely turning the era's original aesthetic and creative techniques up to 11. Calling it "retro rather than 1:1" sounds like we're closer to cheap Wolf 3D clones using Unity on Steam Greenlight than Mega Man 9 and 10. Of course it's not 1:1, that would require buying 20-year old hardware, forgetting about 20 years of advancements in art, music, computer science, etc, and selling the game only on CD-ROM or five floppies, available only by mail order and playable on MS-DOS.

>avoiding the limitations imposed on Build engine in order to run better on lower spec systems (think Shovel Knight)
How can the Build Engine avoid limitations imposed on the Build Engine?
Similar to above, Shovel Knight is not a good analogy here. Only the music is what you would call "authentic" if you were that purist about calling it an NES game. It excels at evoking the era, but the limitations in hardware, software, talent, resources, and human knowledge at that time forced decisions that Shovel Knight steamrolls. I'm not criticizing, I'm pointing out that SK and IM need to be taxonomized differently.

>mod tracker music for about 20 years (the original Build engine has been modified to support this).
The Build Engine knows nothing about sound or music. We added support for MOD, XM, IT, and S3M (via libxmp-lite) to our (quite distant) fork of Jim Dosé's Apogee Sound System, used by Rise of the Triad, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood, the Redneck Rampage series, NAM, WWII GI, and Extreme Paintbrawl, alongside modern support for FLAC and Ogg Vorbis audio streams for sounds and music.

>The content will be more or less unique from the full version.
Much like the FEAR demo, the maps in the demo are redressed samples of portions of the registered version. "More or less unique" is a false promise that I do not believe Voidpoint is the originator of.

>The final game is likely to have the face in the HUD, but it'll be more like Doom.
I can confirm that the final game will have a face in the HUD, in much the same way as Doom.


You should also mention that Ion Maiden's publisher is 3D Realms.

is the main protagonist Bombshell "Shelly harison"??

[Hendricks266]

Yes, you play as Shelly.

[jet_nick]

Hendricks266, on 11 July 2017 - 01:38 AM, said:

Yes, you play as Shelly.

criptic

[Mr. Tibbs]

Hendricks266, on 11 July 2017 - 12:30 AM, said:

Snip

Thanks for the clarifications, Hendricks266. I'll give the OT a good edit in view of your comments.

[DavoX]

Thanks for sharing and the effort Mr. Tibbs

[NNC]

I have to cite one NeoGAF comment here:

Quote

Too bad they won't be able to afford a soundtrack by Iron Maiden.

Really, why not? To make the game more famous...

[DavoX]

I dont think it would really work, I mean music with lyrics? very distracting. Worked in a game like Carmageddon 2 but dunno about an FPS like Ion Maiden. Besides I have full confidence in the music our composer is doing for us

[CryptKiller]

Nancsi, on 11 July 2017 - 09:19 AM, said:

I have to cite one NeoGAF comment here:



Really, why not? To make the game more famous...

Ever heard of game titled Ed Hunter? No?

[NNC]

DavoX, on 11 July 2017 - 09:36 AM, said:

I dont think it would really work, I mean music with lyrics? very distracting. Worked in a game like Carmageddon 2 but dunno about an FPS like Ion Maiden. Besides I have full confidence in the music our composer is doing for us

Or just one piece of music created by Steve Harris directly for this game. Not necessarily a level music, just like something else, an easter egg that repeats later on again.

[TerminX]

If it makes you feel any better, all the wall clocks in the game read 23:58.

[Mark]

Yeah. The computer that controls the clocks at the complex was damaged.

[LkMax]

Hendricks266, on 08 July 2017 - 05:08 PM, said:

Classic and Polymost are both supported, but Polymost will be the default since performance for Classic degrades rapidly at or above 1080p, and new players may not like Classic's perspective warping.

Classic 800x600 or bust.

Micky C, on 10 July 2017 - 03:48 PM, said:

Isn't transparency only an issue where models are involved? This game uses none.

I had many usermaps with this glitch and no models were used (nor am I using the HRP). One that comes to mind is Adg01.

DavoX, on 11 July 2017 - 09:36 AM, said:

I dont think it would really work, I mean music with lyrics? very distracting. Worked in a game like Carmageddon 2 but dunno about an FPS like Ion Maiden. Besides I have full confidence in the music our composer is doing for us

Well, Nine Inch Nails did the soundtrack for Quake and it had no lyrics.

[Hendricks266]

LkMax, on 11 July 2017 - 12:30 PM, said:

Classic 800x600 or bust.

Supported.

[axl]

TerminX, on 11 July 2017 - 11:00 AM, said:

If it makes you feel any better, all the wall clocks in the game read 23:58.

Haha took a few moments before I got it. Great song

Anyway, any news on the length of the game? Similar to Duke / Blood / SW? Will it be divided in episodes? I'd love that !

[TerminX]

axl, on 11 July 2017 - 01:20 PM, said:

Haha took a few moments before I got it. Great song

Anyway, any news on the length of the game? Similar to Duke / Blood / SW? Will it be divided in episodes? I'd love that !

We're starting with one episode, and if people buy it we'll make more. The episode has 7 "levels" planned, but each one is split into several map files that you can traverse back and forth between, like Half-Life or Hexen. Speedrunners could probably get through it fairly quickly but if you wanted to see everything, it could take days.

[PsychoGoatee]

That sounds very very cool!

[LkMax]

Any idea on pricing yet?

Hendricks266, on 11 July 2017 - 12:34 PM, said:

Supported.

Ha, I was joking but since it's supported I might actually play on that If I feel nostalgic for my PSX days.