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Yup, that's because the face is inspired by Quake indeed ;) Music is one of the biggest priorities I have at the moment. But the engine lacks music support unfortunately (for the Amiga version, the ST one already has music). Hopefully this will be also added at some point eventually. Hey, thanks a lot! :D Paula (Amiga's music chip) is capable of much, much more though, so I would prefer if the OST for the game stays away from chiptunes or even sounding too much like standard, old-school pc midi music. In fact I have already started working on some tracks. You can check from the video below the style I'm currently experimenting with. This is a mockup intro for old Dread, the track included is a real Amiga mod I made and chances are I'll use this for Grind's intro. This track is still draft and will be polished and expanded further but you can already hear the sound quality, instruments and composition I'm going for with it. Other than that I'm on the lookout in regards to music for the Mega Drive (I don't really have any experience working with it) but I'd probably like to wait until the Amiga OST is first prepared so the two stay relevant. Unless I get some very high quality proposal I like in the mean time ;)

News time! The brand new Chaingun design is now also added :) Missile launcher is coming next! ;)

Well, it should. People have already managed to run on it older Dread maps.

Or Darkmere ;) The reference to Blood was more in regards to level design (and tone). Less incoherent mazes and more like actual lived-in locations, loads of decals usage, visual storytelling etc. As for the tone and besides visuals, the whole atmosphere will come a lot to life once music is also added and the sfx engine is augmented to also spit out enemy non-combat sounds and growls and environmental/ambient sounds.

Hey guys, after a long time here are some fresh news! The (now named) 'Grind' project is going strong and has finally reached its visual goals departing from the old FreeDoom looks! Set now in a dark and foreboding Steampunk/Lovecraftian world and with high quality pixel art and design (textures, objects, weapon sprites, HUD, protagonist etc.)! Besides visuals there has also been a shift in regards to level design with the game taking a turn towards Build-engine classics like Blood! Here's some video footage from the latest build: Still a long way to go. Many features are still missing (like in-game music) and there's even more polishing planned (enemies, sfx, adding secondary weapon attacks etc). Enjoy! ;) -Support Grind on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Grind_Amiga -Visit Grind's Pixelglass page: https://pixelglass.org/#grind -Join Grind's Discord server: https://discord.gg/QXGQbkRCxN

I don't know specifics on how the tech works exactly unfortunately (remember I'm just the artist), I have a general understanding but for more in-depth stuff only KK can answer.

That might be because Dread is also polygon based. We expect at some point to be able to do stuf that would be impossible with id Tech 1. F.e. slopes are doable. It should but there are no steps taken to test and troubleshoot this yet.

None possibly, I'd like to experiment with this enemy and try something different. We're thinking of having him throwing fireballs while keeping his distance but turn to fast chase and melee if hit once. So something between the Imp and Pinky perhaps? We might be able to double down this way with his roles, make him useful both in open spaces/combined with other enemies or close quarters. Or have him switching roles via actions depending on how you need him to behave. All in theory of course as we have to test first.

Yup, it's a Shambler inspired creature. The upper body design is from a drawing I found from Lovecraft's online bestiary (rather than Quake). But yeah, they do look quite similar. They will definitely play differently though ;) No, we've got special linedef actions for doors. The engine used to be restricted to 64 wide ones but now we can slide any width. Yes, Dread is a BSP engine ;) Around 10-14 fps on average. But feels a lot smoother as your weapons swing and move at 50 fps. On unexpanded a1200 you get a signifficant boost and then the game caps at max (30fps) with an a1200+fast ram. Overal and from what I've seen and played, Dread feels quite a bit more fluid than SNES Doom currently on a500.

Current state of Dread visuals: Hey guys, small update on the project, a lot has been added and planned lately, namely KK has embarked on a big RAM optimisation trip (already saved a ton of extra space, which means more room for bigger maps, content and variation for minimum configurations) and I've been making a lot of new stuff, like brand new decor objects, textures and enemies. Here's a selection of screenshots from a new map I've made to test some of the above :

Thanks! :)

Yeah, from what I've seen the logic pixel they use is 1x2 in this case, but seems they also split it in half and have the 2 parts colorised at will. Which if used for dithering results in this characteristic vertical banding.

Let me offer some more insight (at least on how Dread works). The game operates under a 2x2 logic pixel resolution. However we can have each logic pixel split in half vertically and assign any color from our palette to each part (left or right). This appplies to the whole 3D in-game display, from flat surfaces to textured ones, to enemies e.t.c. KK used this method early on to achieve some sort of dithering. Since the assets used originally were from the Free-Doom project, he had to downgrade them to 16 colors. So he used the second half pixel in an effort to make up for the color loss. And this is why the game early looked the way it did with loads of vertical banding. After we joined forces, I noticed that since we have independant color control over each half pixel, we can actually display texture information instead of dither, thus pushing the resolution into 2x1 territory. Later we also found that if we horizontally pre-shift each texture by half pixel we can signifficantly improve scaling as well. Remember that the game even with the doubling trick, still operates under 2x2, so all scale operations happen at that size. Preshifting the textures allowed us to come even closer to real 2x1 display (this whole deal is explained brilliantly at episode 8 btw). But this comes at a cost: once you come too close to a texture, it's stucture starts to break up and banding appears. So this is a compromise between having superior scaling from mid distance and afar vs banding up close. Good news is that we can further improve this later by implementing mipmapping, especially with objects or textures you tend to come close enough (f.e. doors or switches). Since this comes with Ram cost, it's to be evaluated further. PS : Btw, small suggestion to thread starter, since the first post gets updated, it would be nice to include some newer pics and images (or vids) so the newer looks and content are better represented for new-comers ;)

We definitely plan to see if a Mega Drive port is possible. Looks like it, but there are plenty stuff to overcome first (ram management being on of them f.e.). Thanks :) Well, honestly I doubt the free-doom project will find any of these useful as there are only frontal frames and their native resolution is lower than normal doom sprites. Having said that, we'd thankfully donate any sources we've got that are direct free-doom reworks (the gun sprites been one set of such assets f.e.) but other new or original stuff we might end up reusing them for the final game eventually.

He, he, I figued that might be the case but since I'm new here I opted to go the safe route :) You know, that's actually a really good point! I'll pass this to KK. Usually in other Amiga game projects we use compiled builds and test them on UAE. This way you can also benchmark the game under various setups (cycle exact a500, a1200, expanded machines e.t.c.). But I have to admit that UAE isn't the most accessible thing in the world (f.e. it comes without the much needed kickstart/OS ROMS). And you also need some Amiga know-how to operate it. In that sense it might be a good idea to have something that lets you test right away. Currently the custom 'tool' we use does have 3d display of the level (as it renders on an Amiga), though you can only roam the level and nothing more.