Is it possible to remake Tek War in Doom?

[Sonikkumania]

I'm fascinated about this game, William Shatner's Tek War for DOS by Capstone.

 

Even though the game belongs to the harsh end of Build games I still find it atmospheric Scifi FPS. Theoretically it should be possible to be remade in GZDoom format, right?

 

Practical difficulties would be trying to export the videos (whatever format they are) and other game files. I don't own the game so I haven't tried to view anything yet myself. I don't even know the basic Build editors lol.

 

I'm not trying to start a project or anything, I just want to know more regarding this subject. If also anyone happens to have any behind the scenes footage and other production data, feel free to post, thanks.

[RastaManGames]

At least, there is sprites of some enemies that can be found in WildWeasel's "Terrorists!" mod.
And I am sure that there must be a textures on the Realm667's website.

Look at "ZBlood". That project evolved well. Sad that there is no "ZDuke" as well (even maps is gonna be dope).

[Sonikkumania]

12 minutes ago, RastaManGames said:

At least, there is sprites of some enemies that can be found in WildWeasel's "Terrorists!" mod.
And I am sure that there must be a textures on the Realm667's website.

Look at "ZBlood". That project evolved well. Sad that there is no "ZDuke" as well (even maps is gonna be dope).

I found the textures there, on a .pk7 format. TBH TekWar's texture are kind hideous, or then they just haven't been used properly, lol.

I wonder if you can actually build a working subway as is present in TekWar hub area? I doubt it though.

Or is there a way to script actors to change behaviour when you draw in your weapon? I don't know much about custom parameters.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

TekWar is one of the absolute worst Build games, and a bad game overall. You aren't missing out on much, and I wouldn't get your hopes up. Theoretically, anything could be "remade" in GzDoom, regardless of accuracy. Even the video files in TekWar could be used (disregarding legality). I'm no mapper/modder, but I know there is at least a way to present a series of individual images as a "slideshow" to recreate a cutscene, even though that inevitably leads to a bloated file size. I wouldn't doubt it if there are better solutions these days. I believe at one point that GzDoom had some ability to play certain video files, which ones I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that feature was cut out long ago since it was rarely used.

[Sonikkumania]

1 minute ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

TekWar is one of the absolute worst Build games, and a bad game overall. You aren't missing out on much, and I wouldn't get your hopes up. Theoretically, anything could be "remade" in GzDoom, regardless of accuracy. Even the video files in TekWar could be used (disregarding legality). I'm no mapper/modder, but I know there is at least a way to present a series of individual images as a "slideshow" to recreate a cutscene, even though that inevitably leads to a bloated file size. I wouldn't doubt it if there are better solutions these days. I believe at one point that GzDoom had some ability to play certain video files, which ones I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that feature was cut out long ago since it was rarely used.

From playthrough footage avaiable in Youtube I can see it's pretty bad; shitty audio design, ugly weapon sprites, misaligned and ugly textures and without a doubt lousy gameplay altogether. I haven't been able to try the game myself yet so that's all I know.

 

But the idea of having an open world Strife like game where you have to assasinate targets is an idea that has potential in my books, and got me curious to see if it could be done. It's obvious that theoratically yes, practice is another story. Myself I'm just trying to learn basics of ZScripting, lol.

 

Regarding the copyrights, since both Capstone and IntraCorp are now defunct, how goes the legal use of said video files?

[Stupid Bunny]

I mean there is always a part of me that's fascinated by the idea of taking a game like TekWar, and reimagining it so that it isn't completely incompetent, realizing whatever within the original idea was cool, kind of like the fanedits of David Lynch's Dune or the Star Wars prequels or The Hobbit or something.  Although doing that with TekWar would probably entail reimagining almost everything from the bottom up.

 

Except the videos of Shatner scolding you, those are perfect

Edited September 17, 2022 by Stupid Bunny

[Sonikkumania]

4 minutes ago, Stupid Bunny said:

I mean there is always a part of me that's fascinated by the idea of taking a game like TekWar, and reimagining it so that it isn't completely incompetent, realizing whatever within the original idea was cool, kind of like the fanedits of David Lynch's Dune or the Star Wars prequels or The Hobbit or something.  Although doing that with TekWar would probably entail reimagining almost everything from the bottom up.

 

Except the videos of Shatner scolding you, those are perfect

Glad to see I'm not alone in this. The whole game also feels like a weird mystery since there isn't many details about it and I've read William Shatner doesn't want to discuss it.

[heliumlamb]

i can't really provide much insight into capstone's william shatner's tekwar that doesn't need to be said, other than the game itself is an absolute mess. my times trying to play it in buildgdx have both ended in both confusion and awe.

i think it's safe to assume that tekwar's "pre-production" phase was a single board meeting with a conference call, which the only human present at the meeting who worked on the game was the texture artist. the committee members probably kept interrupting the conference call every time someone spoke with "we can get william shatner on the line if we need to? what about that, do we need to get william shatner on the line? just to be sure. he's just a phone call away." as the texture artist just kept scrawling "william shatner, technology, war" onto paper manically, with "i could sure use some tek after this" off in the margins.


!!!! (photosensitvity warning!) !!!

it's not tekwar, but it's definitely capstone. i'm always thinking about what could have been.... this and the corridor 7 alpha are the closest insight we will ever get to capstone, the pinnacle of entertainment software's development process.

from what i've played, it seems like the folks back at capstone (the pinnacle of entertainment software) had fun making the games that they did. despite their frequent perceived incompetence in the released product, i'm still having fun with all of them in 2022.


retooling tekwar's assets and ideas into zdoom seems feasible, and would probably end up a much more functionally sound experience.

[Billa]

Please don't

[Sonikkumania]

7 minutes ago, Billa said:

Please don't

*laughs maniacly*

[Dweller Dark]

The real answer is to make a spiritual successor to TekWar, but replace Shatner with Gianni. 

[Miodefalio]

Please DO!

[DannyMan]

You better not do those Capstone jumpscares.

[Sonikkumania]

2 minutes ago, DannyMan said:

You better not do those Capstone jumpscares.

I like the sound effects on those though.

[Misty]

Of course it's possible these days, but as people pointed out it's not really worthy time and energy to recreate worst best build engine game. Oh, this reminds me that Hellforge server did speedmaps with Tekwar textures, I don't remember if they are in idgames tho. 

[Herr Dethnout]

Short answer: Yes.

 

Long answer: Yes but why somebody gonna waste their time making a GZDoom versión of TekWar? lol

[Sonikkumania]

1 minute ago, Herr Dethnout said:

Long answer: Yes but why somebody gonna waste their time making a GZDoom versión of TekWar? lol

I dunno, why people remake FEARS for Amiga CD32 for ZDoom or NES Action 52 in the first place? :P

[LustrousGerm]

I think the Hexen format might be suitable for that. That along with Dehacked or .BEX can pretty much simulate TekWar without it's drawbacks.

Edited September 17, 2022 by LustrousGerm

[Sonikkumania]

5 minutes ago, LustrousGerm said:

I think the Hexen format might be suitable for that. That along with Dehacked or .BEX can pretty much simulate TekWar without it's drawbacks.

What about UDMF? Doesn't it feature elements from all major Doom engine games and beyond?

[LustrousGerm]

Just now, Sonikkumania said:

What about UDMF? Doesn't it feature elements from all major Doom engine games and beyond?

I guess UDMF is closer to BUILD in function, and supports fancier scripting. You're right on this one too.

[Sonikkumania]

Just now, LustrousGerm said:

I guess UDMF is closer to BUILD in function, and supports fancier scripting. You're right on this one too.

Tbh I just found out about UDMF just recently, lol. I've had DB2 to this day until I installed UltimateDB.

[Sonikkumania]

4 hours ago, heliumlamb said:

from what i've played, it seems like the folks back at capstone (the pinnacle of entertainment software) had fun making the games that they did.

Yeah. To me it looks like they tried hard to make it big like Id, Apogee and Epic but just didn't have what it takes to succeed. Tek War might have been their closest at making an impact, but it ended up being just an obscure forgotten DOS game.

[LustrousGerm]

"Tbh I just found out about UDMF just recently, lol. I've had DB2 to this day until I installed UltimateDB.'

 

In relation to this post

Yeah, it's kind of an advanced format for mapping. it truns Doom into  a quake-like experience, with more modern code added in.

Edited September 17, 2022 by LustrousGerm

[Sonikkumania]

3 minutes ago, LustrousGerm said:

"Tbh I just found out about UDMF just recently, lol. I've had DB2 to this day until I installed UltimateDB.'

 

In relation to this post

Yeah, it's kind of an advanced format for mapping. it truns Doom into  a quake-like experience, with more modern code added in.

Just the ability to align flats was enough to make me gaze in shock, lol. I moved into it because DB2 is, frankly said, outdated.

[ZethXM]

It would be really funny to see Shatner blow a gasket for no reason over GZDoom TekWar, so I approve

[LadyMistDragon]

Like Operation: Body Count? you could....

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I think it would be better to take the overall theme of TekWar and make a wad inspired by it. There is good potential there. The Terrywad era is gone, sacrificed to usher in the Shatwad.

[DeathWolf1982]

4 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I think it would be better to take the overall theme of TekWar and make a wad inspired by it. There is good potential there. The Terrywad era is gone, sacrificed to usher in the Shatwad.

True, the Terry wad era sucked!

Edited September 18, 2022 by DeathWolf1982

[ＤΞＬＴΛ]

In the distance... You can hear something... Somebody is screaming in absolute terror...

 

 

 

His name... Is civvie.

Edited September 18, 2022 by DELTA256

[Murdoch]

On 9/18/2022 at 10:05 PM, DELTA256 said:

In the distance... You can hear something... Somebody is screaming in absolute terror...

 

His name... Is civvie.

 

Yeah shit like this probably keeps that poor bastard awake at night. Even though he does not browse Doomworld, somehow, some way, he will know...

 

But yes, GZDoom + UDMF would likely cover it. But I concur with the people asking "why would you?" Some corpses are better left buried.

 

On 9/18/2022 at 1:22 AM, RastaManGames said:

Sad that there is no "ZDuke" as well (even maps is gonna be dope).

 

ZBlood made sense, as there was at the time no really viable source port options for Blood. But Duke's had solid source ports for years, and a still active modding community. So what would a "ZDuke" possibly gain anybody?

Edited September 19, 2022 by Murdoch