[Avenger]

Jimmy, on 23 April 2021 - 07:50 PM, said:

If there was an update someone would have posted don't you think?

Clearly not or I wouldn't be asking.

[Phredreeke]

Since this thread is already being bumped, I'll take the opportunity to ask a question. Has existing but unused shadow warrior assets been considered for use in Deadly Kiss? What comes to mind is Lee's unused tracks for the game as well as the graphics found in various prototypes

 tile4950.png (3.48K)
Number of downloads: 31
(for example, this is from the April 97 proto)

[Jimmy]

Avenger, on 25 April 2021 - 04:04 PM, said:

Clearly not or I wouldn't be asking.

Please don't breed.

[jkas789]

Phredreeke, on 25 April 2021 - 04:16 PM, said:

Since this thread is already being bumped, I'll take the opportunity to ask a question. Has existing but unused shadow warrior assets been considered for use in Deadly Kiss? What comes to mind is Lee's unused tracks for the game as well as the graphics found in various prototypes

tile4950.png
(for example, this is from the April 97 proto)

It would be nice to see some of the unused assets used in DK. Given that afaik (from what I remember) the expansion is 90% complete, it would be interesting if the people involved can add their own flair and creativity into it to fill in the gaps.

[Avenger]

Jimmy, on 25 April 2021 - 09:22 PM, said:

Please don't breed.

My bad.

I forgot that the world revolves around you and that everyone should walk on glass when posting, taking every possible discretion not to potentially trigger your poor sensitive soul.

[Jimmy]

Nice projection, mate.

[Avenger]

Jimmy, on 26 April 2021 - 04:09 PM, said:

Nice projection, mate.

Reality sucks, don't it?

For future reference:

Post douche bag comment, receive one in return "mate"...

[Lunick]

NightFright, on 25 April 2021 - 03:48 AM, said:

I know it's going to be glorious once it comes out, that's all I need. That and still being able to play it before I kick the bucket.

Please temper your expectations for Deadly Kiss just a little bit, from what there currently is it is on the same level as Wanton Destruction or Twin Dragon but I hope the team can polish up what is there and make it better than those two expansions.

jkas789, on 26 April 2021 - 07:21 AM, said:

Given that afaik (from what I remember) the expansion is 90% complete, it would be interesting if the people involved can add their own flair and creativity into it to fill in the gaps.

90% complete would be extremely generous and not really true at all. If you took away everything and just had the maps you could maybe argue for 90% but the maps still need another pass through and some are not even finished. The Art and Sound were not ready in the slightest either.

Jimmy, on 26 April 2021 - 04:09 PM, said:

Nice projection, mate.

Avenger, on 26 April 2021 - 04:11 PM, said:

Reality sucks, don't it?For future reference:Post douche bag comment, receive one in return "mate"...

Can you two take this somewhere else?

[Jimmy]

Avenger, on 26 April 2021 - 04:11 PM, said:

Reality sucks, don't it?

For future reference:

Post douche bag comment, receive one in return "mate"...

Sure, noob.

Lunick, on 26 April 2021 - 04:35 PM, said:

Please temper your expectations for Deadly Kiss just a little bit, from what there currently is it is on the same level as Wanton Destruction or Twin Dragon but I hope the team can polish up what is there and make it better than those two expansions.

It's definitely the weakest of the expansions as it currently stands. But is a much better work than Nuclear Winter.

Lunick, on 26 April 2021 - 04:35 PM, said:

90% complete would be extremely generous and not really true at all. If you took away everything and just had the maps you could maybe argue for 90% but the maps still need another pass through and some are not even finished. The Art and Sound were not ready in the slightest either.

Pretty much nothing had been worked on by SillySoft except the maps really.

Lunick, on 26 April 2021 - 04:35 PM, said:

Can you two take this somewhere else?

Isn't that the Duke4 gestapo's job?

[Avenger]

Jimmy, on 26 April 2021 - 05:28 PM, said:

Sure, noob.

You still whining?

[NightFright]

Regarding expectations: If it's DukeDC-ish in the end, it should be enough. I haven't played any of the SW addons since many years, so I don't remember any more how good they actually were.

[jkas789]

Lunick, on 26 April 2021 - 04:35 PM, said:

Please temper your expectations for Deadly Kiss just a little bit, from what there currently is it is on the same level as Wanton Destruction or Twin Dragon but I hope the team can polish up what is there and make it better than those two expansions.

90% complete would be extremely generous and not really true at all. If you took away everything and just had the maps you could maybe argue for 90% but the maps still need another pass through and some are not even finished. The Art and Sound were not ready in the slightest either.

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Pretty much nothing had been worked on by SillySoft except the maps really.

Damn. Well, I have faith in the team. I'm just happy that Shadow Warrior is having more content. Specially because nu Shadow Warrior has greatly disappointed me.

[SillySoft]

Hi I'm Joe Wilcox, and I was the part owner of Simply Silly Software. I have to admit, this was quite a fun read. But I wanted to clarify a few things. No, we didn't hide or mislead WizardWorks on anything. DK was cancelled at some point before it was due. Keep in mind most of the add-ons like this were very short duration and very light on money. DK might have been something like 3 months for $15K or 6 months for $30K. The actual terms are long in the past and out of my memory. When it was cancelled, we zipped up the WIP and sent it to the publisher (standard procedure in a work-for-hire). What I recovered was a CD labeled "old projects" that happened to have some of the DK stuff on it. We were tiny, it's not like we had P4 setup and tracking everything. So those maps are probably as close to what was "final" as possible. I don't really remember where in the development the project was. For example, I have a vague memory of either hiring a college student / actor to do the voice or having discussions about it. I know we had lines scripted but I honestly don't remember if they were ever recorded. This was a long time ago. And remember, this was 2 college kids in a bedroom with a couple of contractors. As for why it was shelved, the reason we were told was the sales # for Shadow Warrior were too soft.

I don't think Crista did either of the enemy sprites. I think Andre did both of you them. But don't hold me too that.

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Were those two 3dr screenshots staged

I'm sure they were.

Quote

I did enjoy NW myself I guess as one of few people, but some of the levels were quite unfinished/bland

What people do not understand about Nuclear Winter, is it was originally a 2 or 3 level Christmas mod a couple of us were doing in our spare time that suddenly got picked with a very short runway. I have a thing for Christmas projects, H2H Xmas Doom, NW, Capture the Tree. And to all the haters, it sold well so I was happy :) And SantaMatch was a hoot .. .oh my face!!!

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SillySoft did have low standards.

Correction, we had normal standards, but really tiny budgets.

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This leaves the question of what happened with DK. All the data that has been recovered so far is from late '97 iirc. As aforementioned it wasn't ready for Christmas

I don't believe it was ever intended for Christmas.

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This thing is borderline incoherent

Bah everyone's a critic. FWIW: MonkeyShines is an inside joke between myself and Andre and DK was never suppose to follow the SW story line. It's ShadowWarrior: Extended Universe! Totally non-cannon. But man I forgot about D-Cup.. god we could never do this today!

Quote

Why did they choose to make the main character female in DK? While it's interesting, I guess I'm not seeing the big picture of the original idea.

I'm pretty sure because the concept of an anti-"Lo Wang" called "No Wang" was kind of funny to us. And we were watching a lot of anime so we loved strong female characters with guns.

Quote

My general point was, in my opinion, paying for a ADR session to rerecord all of Lo Wangs audio with a female actress, was not worth the cost back then

You don't understand how these things got made. The ADR session would have been a college friend from the theater department, in a loft being recorded with a $20 mic and mixer. The total cost of dubbing all of the lines for No Wang wouldn't have been much.

Quote

Definitely free. My understanding is that Joe Wilcox wouldn't allow it to be sold, anyway.

Yes, but only because it not being free means I'd have to deal with legal contracts, getting permission from others, etc.

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if Joe Wilcox will find some original contracts that he signed with WizardWorks or smtn? Did he find it? What if he didn't find it?

I did not. But I'm pretty certain it had the standard WW 10 year clause where rights revert at the 10y mark. So release away. Besides, noone left at WizardWorks to sue!

Quote

he tells me that No Wang name was "insult" to Lo Wang.

No, "No Wang" is meant to be a homage to "Lo Wang" and keep the joke alive.

Anyway good luck to the project, I hope it's finished.

[NightFright]

Hmmm... did they ever find out why Shadow Warrior sold below expectations? Maybe Quake became too dominant at that time or what? It's a pity that this last addon remained unfinished because of that.

[Avenger]

NightFright, on 27 May 2021 - 01:45 AM, said:

Hmmm... did they ever find out why Shadow Warrior sold below expectations? Maybe Quake became too dominant at that time or what? It's a pity that this last addon remained unfinished because of that.

A lot games or addons that utilized previous gen engine tech during he late 90's suffered from poor sales. As you mentioned games like Quake that were true full 3D were released and not just on PC either.

[Dzierzan]

At that time, better graphics meant apparently a better game which wasn't really true. Luckly, this mindset has changed and nowadays games with all types of graphics are accepted.

[SillySoft]

NightFright, on 27 May 2021 - 01:45 AM, said:

Hmmm... did they ever find out why Shadow Warrior sold below expectations? Maybe Quake became too dominant at that time or what? It's a pity that this last addon remained unfinished because of that.

Nope. I personally, really enjoyed SW. But it did hit as the world was moving towards true 3D. There was also a glut of FPS games right then, SW, Blood, RR all were 97 so it might have just been market saturation. A little tid-bit, we were at one point in negotiations to do a Redneck Rampage add-on (it involved biker zombies and a demon king) but the contract from Interplay was insane, like 60 pages insane. So we balked.

[Phredreeke]

Interesting, would it involve the same crew as deadly kiss?

[Hawke]

Thanks for stopping by. That was an interesting read, with nothing left of the original SillySoft website it's been a challenge finding much of anything about DK, aside from the story it's always just a couple of footnotes here and there at best.

SillySoft, on 27 May 2021 - 05:14 AM, said:

we were at one point in negotiations to do a Redneck Rampage add-on (it involved biker zombies and a demon king) but the contract from Interplay was insane, like 60 pages insane.

It's a shame that didn't happen, not the biggest fan of RR but it sounds like it would've fit in well.

[Phredreeke]

I probably already said it elsewhere in the thread, but I'm curious to see Crista's contribution to the addon given she made one of my favourite SW maps (Fishing Village)

[Marphy Black]

SillySoft, on 26 May 2021 - 07:42 PM, said:

Hi I'm Joe Wilcox, and I was the part owner of Simply Silly Software.

This might be my only opportunity to ask this, and I shan't pass it up:

Hello, Joe! Perchance, do you have any recollection of the axe-and-shield guy that was digitized as an enemy replacement in Heretic for SillySoft's H!Zone episodes?

https://i.imgur.com/Xe8OKhy.png

I ask because there is one specific frame from one specific angle that has ignited a long lasting mystery. When this knight guy attacks, if you look at him from behind during his second attack frame, this enigmatic symbol appears on his cape:

https://i.imgur.com/SUuuEqZ.png

It never appears in any other frame or any other angle, and I can't think of anyone better whom to inquire as to its purpose. Is there some meaning behind this cryptic sigil, or will it by a mystery that haunts us to our graves? 🤔

[SillySoft]

It will haunt you til your grave... :)

Fun Fact: That is actually my wife (was my girl-friend at the time) dressed in a Halloween costume.

[dwtietz]

Hmmm... I'm just gonna take a wild guess here, and I'm quite certain that I'll be wrong, but I'm going to guess anyway.

1) Was your girlfriend at the time
2) Is your wife today
3) The symbol appears to be a diamond and is being worn by your girlfriend

Could it be that this tile was created at a time that you were proposing (or thinking about proposing) marriage?

[Player Lin]

SillySoft, on 26 May 2021 - 07:42 PM, said:

No, "No Wang" is meant to be a homage to "Lo Wang" and keep the joke alive.

Good to know it actually just homage and keep joke alive.
(So I guess it just no actually meaning for her name and maybe other character names...)

Not expect the dev came here and reply/answer some questions/pointed out things, Thank you. :)

[jkas789]

This is so freaking wholesome!

Thank for coming here Joe!

[NightFright]

I love these small insider stories about stuff that (unfortunately) didn't get as much attention as it probably should have.

I released a bugfixed version of H!Zone based on an initial "remaster" by AstroCreep over at the ZDoom forums (https://forum.zdoom....hp?f=42&t=56672), btw. Would be great to know a bit more about its creation process.

[SillySoft]

Quote

Hmmm... I'm just gonna take a wild guess here, and I'm quite certain that I'll be wrong, but I'm going to guess anyway.

I'll fess up but only because the truth is more mysterious! 100% truth here: I have absolutely no memory of that symbol being added at all. Seeing that image didn't flash anything, didn't bring up anything. In fact I was like huh.. wonder how that got there.

Quote

Would be great to know a bit more about its creation process.

I took a lot of crap for D!Zone and H!Zone but here is the truth. They came out in a time where like 20 cities had broadband so grabbing maps from the internet was tough for most people. For D!Zone2 I actually paid an ISP to give me direct access to their T1 line to download the maps. And believe it or not, they were a ton of work to put together. Each map had to be reviewed to make sure it didn't include copyright and / or trademarked art (95% of the rejections) and that the associated readme.txt gave permission to include it. While I'm sure one or two go through that broke that rule (I mostly automated it in the end), I only agreed to do it if WizardWorks agreed to let me enforce that rule.

H!Zone was I think the first of WizardWork's add-ons like this to include custom content. By then broadband had a wider base so they needed to up the game to keep sales up (those CDs.. sold REALLY WELL). WizardWorks asked if we could add a new monster and create maps. It was an extremely difficult run to get it all finished in the time allotted (I think it was 2 months). That's when Andre joined SimplySilly. I needed to have an artist on board. Even then we crunched for like 2 months straight 15x7. Another fun fact, the snowy rock texture used in H!Zone was used in XmasDoom, H2H Xmas Doom (I had a hand in both of them too) and DN:NW. reuse, reuse, reuse. Another fun fact, we were living in this hole in Tempe AZ and right across the street was a Denny's. Man nothing hits the spot quicker than a grand slam after crunching for 15 hours at 5 or 6am (we were night owls).

[Ninety-Six]

SillySoft, on 28 May 2021 - 08:00 PM, said:

I took a lot of crap for D!Zone and H!Zone but here is the truth.

I think the greatest sin committed was prompting id to make the Master Levels. I'd take NW over some of those levels any day (different game but still).

On that note, I'm curious about something. What's the story behind Duke!Zone II's original levels? Did WW ask for those the same way they asked for the H!Zone originals? And what happened near the end? The levels seemed to have cohesive themes through the first episode and parts of the second episode, before becoming very strange for the other parts of E2 and all of E3. I just played them again very recently and it just made those parts stand out more. It just kinda said to me that it didn't quite turn out the way it was supposed to.

[Lunick]

Would definitely love to know the authors behind Duke!Zone2's levels if that's possible

[NightFright]

Interesting to learn about how those shovelware CDs came to be. Back in the days, people seemed to crave for more levels, quality was apparently secondary. That being considered, I wonder why they didn't go through with selling the SW addons. But well, there were often thousands of levels on these compilation CDs while professional addons rarely had more than a dozen (or even less).