[Phredreeke]

If you're gonna use the Polymost renderer then please also support replacement skyboxes I extracted the sky backdrops from the game and put them in this album if anyone wants to have a go at making some https://imgur.com/a/saOfP


I don't think I like this new gritty reboot of Pac-man...

[LAW]

This is a very cool topic.

Do you have any info on level editing possibilities in Powerslave EX?

What are these Saturn levels which are totally absent from PS1 version?

[MetHy]

LAW, on 11 March 2018 - 11:16 AM, said:

What are these Saturn levels which are totally absent from PS1 version?

I don't remember which levels, but 2 entire maps have the same name but are completely different. Then, you have about half of 2 other levels which are also different + tons of other changes in other maps.

Just play the Saturn version, it's great

[LAW]

MetHy, on 11 March 2018 - 11:36 AM, said:

I don't remember which levels, but 2 entire maps have the same name but are completely different. Then, you have about half of 2 other levels which are also different + tons of other changes in other maps.

Just play the Saturn version, it's great

If only I had Saturn. It was a great console. But having them all with these memcards, joypads and stuff is a big trouble. There is some life besides gaming after all ;-)

Thanks for the info.

[MetHy]

It works perfectly emulated using yabause 0.9.15. Trust me, I did a speedrun of the game on real hardware, so I'd have noticed if anything was wrong emulated. The only difference is that the background image during loading screens doesn't appear, big deal.
Probably works using other Saturn emus too.

[MetHy]

I'm trying the latest version of the Dehacker.
It's pretty good, running the game in higher resolution... even just running it in 800*600 makes a substantial difference.

However it feels like there is something wrong with the way strafing "always on" is handled. You see, Anubis warriors' fireballs are made so that they'll fire in the direction they think you're going if you're strafing; but when using the dehacker they just seem to fire in very random directions. I've seen several of them literaly turn around to fire 120° behind them when I'm right in front of them.

Edit : I've also noticed a visual glitch which seem to be based on distance and view angle: entire parts disappear? Never seen this before

[MetHy]

Another thing I noticed with the dehacker is that it seems that some sprites appear darker than they should; for instance compare the ammo belt in those 2 screenshots

[randir14]

Has anyone else had a problem with the mouse in Powerslave EX? When I try to look around the mouse only moves a few degrees in any direction and then defaults back to the center of the screen. So currently I'm being forced to play it with an Xbox controller (and yes I tried unplugging it, the mouse problem remained).

[fgsfds]

randir14, on 21 March 2018 - 09:34 PM, said:

Has anyone else had a problem with the mouse in Powerslave EX? When I try to look around the mouse only moves a few degrees in any direction and then defaults back to the center of the screen. So currently I'm being forced to play it with an Xbox controller (and yes I tried unplugging it, the mouse problem remained).

Same here. Seems like a Win10 Fall Update issue. I had it in a couple of other games. No idea how to fix that.

[SonicB00M]

https://www.trademar...e-87866944.html

Seems like something is happening

[MrFlibble]

Here's a little something I just noticed in relation to the Powerslave girls mentioned in another thread. There's a bunch of screenshots from Exhumed that were published on the cover CD of the Score magazine issue 29 (May 1996), with two showing a secret with two girls in the background:


At first I assumed that the scene was from somewhere later in the game (I hardly played past the fourth level), but upon closer inspection it seems to be the semi-secret area in MAP03, but it is actually quite different. In the final game, there are two dancers and two drummers, along with some powerups and a save scarab. Here's what the area looks like in the December 1996 demo (a close-up of the area behind the bars):


So the screenshots in Score are definitely from an earlier version. Perhaps the girls in question were changed due to some form censorship, as at least one of them (on the right) is definitely NSFW, and actually I'm not sure if these particular sprites are used anywhere in the game (but they still are present in the data files of at least some versions, including the August 1996 demo from the PC Gamer CD (demo details and dates can be checked here).

Here's the whole bunch of screenshots from the Score 29 CD in case you're able to spot more differences:
https://imgur.com/a/YqN7lqf

[Emmanuelexe]

Exhumed / Powerslave Fan Remix Album released! ^^
Last album I commissioned!
Playlist:
Track 11: https://youtu.be/GfE1DDsSzHk
Track 09: https://youtu.be/XGEaYKi_YK8
Track 04: https://youtu.be/ExF70pMLhqI
Track 01: https://youtu.be/2tAzquJENGA

Links for the mp3 in the description.
Video games remix powa! (y)
I asked for 4 remix, the other themes were too much "atmospheric" I think.
Track 11 is the final boss battle theme remixed, this one is epic

[MrFlibble]

MrFlibble, on 27 May 2018 - 10:12 AM, said:

At first I assumed that the scene was from somewhere later in the game (I hardly played past the fourth level), but upon closer inspection it seems to be the semi-secret area in MAP03, but it is actually quite different. In the final game, there are two dancers and two drummers, along with some powerups and a save scarab.

I just checked the PC Gamer demo and the secret area is the same as in the December 1996 one, even though LEV3.MAP is the only level file that is different from the December demo, as noted here (I guess they changed something else).

[Defrago]

TheDeadFish, on 04 March 2018 - 03:53 AM, said:

I am currently working on a windows port of exhumed

The game is already working and is playable
The sound and music are working
It now runs at 60fps using interpolation

Any progress by now? Would love to check it too

[Bruno Mattei]

I'm curious about this new port as well. Powerslave is easily the 4th best Build game.

[Phredreeke]

After hearing about a shotgun that was cut out of the final version of Powerslave, I decided to compare the art assets between the beta/first shareware version and the final version. While there was no shotgun I noticed quite a number of differences between the two, some subtle, others immediately noticable, and decided to compile a few animated comparisons between the two

https://imgur.com/a/KvndSX0

[Phredreeke]

Today I upscaled the graphics for the game's cutscenes (most which aren't actually used from what I can tell, or at least not the version of the game I have)

https://imgur.com/a/w7W9zCF

The second to last one (Jon holding the machete) looks a bit dodgy but otherwise I'm happy with these.

Here's a slide-over comparison for the helicopter frame.

https://imgsli.com/NzQ1MA

[Phredreeke]

I did a new attempt at Jon with Machete

[MrFlibble]

Looks like some sort of fan art gamers would sometimes draw back in the 90s

The jittery lines resulting from the original low resolution are pretty visible, especially on his left leg and on the pyramid behind.

Which model(s) was that?

[Phredreeke]

I don’t recall what the second was but the ones in the album used a Detoon Fatality interpolation. I gotta check the other when I get home

[Phredreeke]

First set: Dedither, Detoon-fatality interpolation, then downscaled and palettised.

Second pic: Desharpen, DeviantArt upscale, downscaled to half size, run through fatality-deblur and then palettised.

[MrFlibble]

I liked your idea with using the dedither model first and gave the machete image a shot too:

This is just using dedither and then Deviant Pixel HD on the result. Scaled back to 2x witth mtPaint's bicubic interpolation and converted to the original palette with Scattered (effect).

Also out of curiosity, I ran the original 8-bit image through the 2x Faithful model, and converted to the original palette without dithering:

The model makes images slightly darker but otherwise I think it's pretty interesting.

UPD: Hold on, it looks like DigiPaint produces a slightly better result esp. on his face:

This is also palettised with Scattered (effect) dithering

[Phredreeke]

Since we now have not one but two ports of Powerslave (DOS) have people's thoughts on the game changed? I feel it is much more playable now than it was in DosBox - even with the unofficial patch.

[Aristotle Gumball]

The level design is bordering on genius I think and traps are a big part of the overall gameplay, making up for the lack of enemy variety somewhat. Bosses are way too easy, though, and overall it's not a very hard game. Difficulty setting would be nice. TBH this was always my third favorite Build game after Blood and Duke 3D and I haven't changed my opinion. I also just really enjoy the Egyptian theme.

[Lunick]

The damage powerup absolutely murders bosses. I'd say the game only starts getting difficult when the wasps and the Kilmaatikan show up as they can quickly lower your health. The final level is a bit of a pain as well.

[axl]

Phredreeke, on 18 December 2019 - 07:00 AM, said:

Since we now have not one but two ports of Powerslave (DOS) have people's thoughts on the game changed?

I'm going to wait untill PCExhumed is a bit more refined to do a full playthrough (I experienced some crashes, no crosshair yet, ...). I never actually played it when I was a kid and under dosbox it was quite the mess. I do loved the console versions, but those are pratically different games (waiting for Nightdive studios to bring us the saturn version !)

Level design is really interesting. Maps are way larger than their console counterparts. On the other hand, I feel like the weapon roster was better on consoles (amun bombs >> grenades and the flamethrower is also far more useful. It's also a shame the Ring of Ra isn't to be found in the PC version).

Anyway, really looking forward to play the game and PCExhumed is looking VERY promising.

[Phredreeke]

Having finished map 7/Philae I gotta say that the game is a lot better than its reputation suggests. I'm still hoping for a way to play the Saturn version without resorting to emulation though.

Edit: Just one sprite I made as a one-off.

[Aristotle Gumball]

Phredreeke, on 22 December 2019 - 06:15 AM, said:

Having finished map 7/Philae I gotta say that the game is a lot better than its reputation suggests. I'm still hoping for a way to play the Saturn version without resorting to emulation though.

Same on the Saturn version. Is map 7 the one with the pirate ship? Because that's the first one that made me go "OK, this is actually pretty great". It just didn't do itself any favors with the shitty control scheme and lack of saving, but the latter actually never bothered me.

[Phredreeke]

Yeah. Do you have any screenshots of that on the Saturn?

 scr-map7-0004.png (171.77K)
Number of downloads: 21

[Aristotle Gumball]

Phredreeke, on 22 December 2019 - 09:11 AM, said:

Yeah. Do you have any screenshots of that on the Saturn?

scr-map7-0004.png

Saturn/PSX version is a totally different game if I understood the question right. All the maps are different, so no pirate ship (that I could find).