CyberShade - Another Video

[General Rainbow Bacon]

I tried what you said Jimi, but it didn't work. Changing the wad type myself in a text editor just fucked it up and now it doesn't work at all. It did say PWAD though at the beginning. You may want to check how you made the file and fix that or nobody will be able to make maps.

[scifista42]

General Rainbow Bacon said:

Changing the wad type myself in a text editor just fucked it up and now it doesn't work at all.

Since wad files contain binary data as opposed to text, you should have used a hex editor, not a text editor. Text editors don't guarantee that non-printable characters will be saved the same way as they were loaded. Hex editors do.

[TwinBeast]

Allright, I've fixed the bugs mentioned + some others. Changed the program prefix to Melange. Removed most of the other game project stuffs from the source code, probably better to get those from the Chocolate-Doom source code packages.

Autorun is now in the game options menu. Using it flips the speed key behaviour. Added some monster teleports into that trouble area at Level 03. They get out of the closets pretty quick now. Merged the lowering blocks at the start of Level 02 to decrease simultaneous sounds making it very loud. Sound POPping should be gone now.

And it was also DB2 & GZDB changing the IWAD to PWAD on save, just why? DB1 doesn't do it... uh-huh. Now it should be IWAD.


== Download: CyberShade - 20151214 ==


Saves from the previous version do not work in this one. Demos appear to be compatible (though most likely desync at the end of Level 03).

[VGA]

Just tried this, this is fucking RAD! Now I see why you don't want long animations in the weapons, it's very arcadey.

Very cool, have you considered merging your work with Crispy Doom? Fabian has kept his changes lean over Choco Doom. Sometimes I can't see shit, I idcleved to another map, got a new weapon and fired it 6-7 times until I noticed that it threw grenades :-D

Then an official community mapset effort can be started and you can submit it to Greenlight! (Right?)

EDIT: Oh that warp/forcefield effect is fucking awesome!

[Gez]

I've looked at the config files, so I can answer a question.

// where can I set the translations?
//translation = "doom0"; } // can't use these
//translation = "doom1"; } // my palette doesn't match
//translation = "doom2"; } // the doom palette

Instead of using a preset, you can use the normal syntax: translation = "range_start:range_end=range_start:range_end"
For example:

translation = "112:127=96:111";

A range can be made of a single pixel:

translation = "112=96";

SLADE also supports translations made with several ranges:

translation = "32:63=0:31", "80:95=64:79", "128:143=144:159", "192=1", "193:223=1:31"

[Linguica]

OK, I 100/100/100'd the first level, and here's my immediate reactions:

* I don't understand if there is meant to be a "point" to retaining the low-resolution chunkiness of Chocolate Doom. If the idea is that anything further than 10 meters or so away is difficult to make out, then I guess it's successful in that regard.

* Adding onto this, if you want to have a pixelated analog retro aesthetic, my immediate thought was that it would help to port the codebase to the SDL2 branch of Chocolate Doom, and using Reshade or a similar thing to add some pixel shader effects to the screen, which I think would help make it look more lively.

* I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I mean, running around and shooting things, and some light platforming, obviously. But I kept getting "objective complete" messages and I had no idea what they meant, or what I was doing to complete them, or if there was an objectives list. I assume this is something that will be expanded upon in later builds.

* The sound design could use some work.

* Mouselook but no crosshair?

That said, it seems like a pretty competent and well-made indie game, especially for an early alpha/beta version. It's not something I see myself playing much because I'm not really a fan of arcadey FPS action, but I will watch its progress with interest.

[Tango]

been looking forward to this :) this is awesome! an increase in resolution, along with the ability to make the mouse even more sensitive, would be great though, for sure.

[Noiser]

In this case, I think that the low-res adds a lot to the atmosphere.

[TwinBeast]

VGA: Yea, I'll increase the resolution. I might borrow some little bits of code from Crispy Doom (or some other engine) if I can't figure out something on my own. But probably better to keep it as it's own engine fork. I might do something that would conflict with Crispy, or have already done something.

Gez: Thanks, I'll be sure to do that for the configs. Hey, can the configs be loaded somewhere outside the Slade.pk3? That pk3 gets updated when the program gets updated, so all the custom configs would be gone from it?

Linguica: The idea is to mimic some old VGA mode, though 16 color mode would usually be 640x400 or 640x480 resolution. Don't know about that SDL2 branch.

The objectives stuff is still kind of early. The only indication to their existence is the messages and automap, and the intermission counter. There should be some list of them too, but needs to be kind of vague so it can work with any level. It could say something like: "Destroy 10 Electronic Sheep at Area 51". The area number would probably be the sector tag. Maybe the number would be displayed somewhere in the automap too.

Of course player can ignore the objectives stuff and just destroy everything.

I'll add the crosshair with increased resolution. In lowres it's more things to hide what's in front of player, at least if the crosshair is more than a dot.

As for (some) sounds, I tried what happens if I make them directly with 11KHz 8bit format. Maybe not the best idea. Usually I edit with 44KHz 16bit and then copy/convert to something else if necessary. Anyway, I'll improve them later.

Tango: I'll see what I can do to increase the precision with the ingame sliders, or just replace them with numbers.

Noiser: Well, by the looks of it, the resolution is becoming 640x400.

[Gez]

Jimi said:

Gez: Thanks, I'll be sure to do that for the configs. Hey, can the configs be loaded somewhere outside the Slade.pk3? That pk3 gets updated when the program gets updated, so all the custom configs would be gone from it?

Yes, you can copy the resources in a user folder. On Windows systems it'll be in %APPDATA%\SLADE3\, you can put the "games" folder directly there IIRC. (Also true for the "ports" folder, but you don't have one in your config.)

It's also possible to have the config in a SLADECFG lump directly in cshade.wad. That way it'll be read automatically when opening it. It's a feature more useful for partial conversions, like Valiant (which has one), though, because it loads it in addition to whatever configuration is selected by the user.

Finally, I can add the config to SLADE 3 itself. ;)

[Noiser]

Jimi said:

Noiser: Well, by the looks of it, the resolution is becoming 640x400.

If you can keep it optional like in Crispy Doom, I would be grateful.

When I see a object far away and I can't recognize fairly well (without getting closer), I find it terrifying. For a dark\quake-ish project like yours, I think it's fitting. Had a similar experience some time ago, with a short game called The Night That Speaks.

[jute]

I'm interested in trying this but for whatever reason, neither the setup nor the game .exe will run - I click the icons and the processes display in the task manager, but nothing else happens. I've tried both the 12-12 and the 12-14 versions with the same results. I've never encountered this before. I have no problem running Chocolate Doom (or any other exe, for that matter).

[TwinBeast]

jute: No idea what could be causing that... No error messages? What operating system you have?


Well, I tried how it looks with 640x400. Player can see much further. Changes in pixel colors when moving around is smoother as the pixels are smaller, which feels nicer for the eyes. Player's weapon is scaled 2x to be same size as before, but now it looks kind of lowres compared to everything else.

Have not tried scaling the HUD or menu yet. Though I could just prescale them if necessary. The little ammo displays could have some more accuracy and the owned weapons could maybe fit little weapon icons. There's more room for messages too. Doom already had code for displaying multiple messages, but it wasn't really used. Doesn't seem like it's fully functional. The messages are displayed kind of weird.

With the 640x400, some fullscreen resolutions may possibly leave pretty big black borders and the windowed modes may display black borders too as they are no longer multiples of the base resolution.

Would be much simpler to keep it at the original resolution...

The level has turrets.

[Tango]

that resolution already looks a lot better to me, personally :p

[molten_]

this is so cool

[VGA]

Fighting those little enemies reminds me of Hard Reset, heh.

About the liquids, you should take a look at how Doom Retro does them.

[TwinBeast]

Decided to put the 640x400 stuff away for a while, not something I want to tweak further now. Kept a crosshair. I guess it helps with the aiming.

I've done a Survival mode now. It is played in the deathmatch levels. Enemies spawn continuously with increasing rate and chance for special options. Eventually they'll destroy player. Level ends. Time and fraglimits can be used for ending the level too.

The Survival mode could have a Lives system that allow player to respawn/continue the level. Gain extra lives with every N amount of score, collect 100 of some bonus items and maybe have some dedicated extra life item that takes long time to respawn.

The score could be tweaked a bit. It has room for too big numbers.. and so far my max score hasn't even been over 500 000. No highscore lists yet. Not even sure if I'll do them. I'd want every level and skill setting to have own list, but that's just too much lists.

The time display can display up to 99:59. If the timelimit is used, then the timer displays a countdown instead.

[TwinBeast]

Testing the Survival stuff some more. I added the life system and some collectable items. Shrinked the score display. I played over 100 minutes, then they finally got me. Still didn't get the score over 6 digits.

Every 101 of the credit items gives 1 extra life. Every 5000 points gives one extra life. And one item gives an extra life. Got max 36 lives. Somewhere around 50-70 min point it felt like a stalemate.. gaining as many lives as lost. Finally over 100 minutes, every part of the level was quite filled, and could just get to one weapon, fire a few shots and die.

This was in the Commando (medium) skill level. First death at 40 minutes. With the Master (nightmare) skill level I was able to survive 11 minutes. 5 without the life system, if lucky. Maybe some tweaks on the timing/spawn intervals.

I also notice that there are lots of enemies spawned as Cowards, though I set the coward chance quite low. They become sort of like some campers or area guards. Pretty dangerous.



Maybe I don't do the life system to the Survival mode. Better that it ends when players dies once. The life item will be just a MegaSphere item. Don't know what to do for the credit items. Maybe have some machines (simple line specials) that player can use to buy some health, armor or ammo.

[VGA]

Yeah maybe you can have ammo resupply and health recovery zones, so the player just stands on them without having to use anything. And he spends credits as he is standing there.

You can implement this as sector effects.

[jute]

jute said:

I'm interested in trying this but for whatever reason, neither the setup nor the game .exe will run - I click the icons and the processes display in the task manager, but nothing else happens. I've tried both the 12-12 and the 12-14 versions with the same results. I've never encountered this before. I have no problem running Chocolate Doom (or any other exe, for that matter).

FWIW I figured this out (for some reason my antivirus was blocking the exe) and had a really good time playing Cybershade. It feels very gloomy (a good thing) despite the speed and bright colors.

[VGA]

Any news?

[TheBipolarDude]

I also want to know how this project is going on. It makes me sad not hearing any news about it

[schmerr]

Don't tell me this project is dead D:

[Gothic]

Wait until OP post news about the project. Don't bump if there are no updates.

[TwinBeast]

It's not dead.. Here's a new video.

Showing some new features: colored lighting, 3 part sector lights, fake specular shine, vertical fades on walls, animated liquids, detail textures, light coronas and additive sprites.

Sound fx disabled, thinking I'll redo them (for next release?), instead I played some music with my keyboard.

[VGA]

Even at 720p it's hard to see what's going on. But I remember liking the game, so I am keeping an eye out!

[Combinebobnt]

hey i know this is probably supposed to be some chocolate doom engine thing, but if you made a separate version of this for zandronum with all the stuff remade in decorate I would totally play it along with others. might even spit out dm maps then if they are easy to detail with the textures. unfortunately that is the only way I see this getting more than 0 players in multiplayer

dang I wish this were for zdoom...

[Voros]

Wow. So basically, you are modifying your own fork of Chocolate Doom and creating a game for it? Wow. Most people would pretty much just use a fork of a ZDoom/3DGE/some other source port with advanced features, and yet you chose Chocolate Doom. It's looking amazing anyway.

I can't believe I didn't know about this. Can't wait for the final release.

[fraggle]

Looks nice.

Linguica said:

* Adding onto this, if you want to have a pixelated analog retro aesthetic, my immediate thought was that it would help to port the codebase to the SDL2 branch of Chocolate Doom

I concur.

[A.K.]

Looks great!

How did you integrate custom attack patterns for the monsters on Chocolate Doom?
Did you have to edit the source code related to Chocolate Doom to change the monsters/weapons behavior?