[Quake][WIP] Blaze

[jim]

Thought it's time to make a thread for this here. I was thinking I'll post the more finished stuff, plans and thoughts in this thread.. and the more wip stuff in the "What are you working on?" thread.

//== Description
is a first person shooter action game using the . There may also be an extra model pack for some Doom engine(s) later. It is heavily inspired of Abuse, Doom and Quake series. The game environments will be sci-fi tech bases, alien hives, hell, etc. Earlier it was going to include some more fantasy elements, but that seems to have dropped away. The story is less important than gameplay, and for a long while it's been just this:"Lots of evil monsters attack. Only one person can fight back."

My plan/hopes are that I would be able to sell this game when it's done. It would have a free demo/shareware version too, which should still have quite a lot stuff like Doom, Quake, etc sharewares. This makes it a bit difficult to know what stuff to put in some alpha type demos (whatever I put in them, should remain in the shareware?).

//== Story
Earth is destroyed/ruined in a nuclear war. People have moved to Mars. There's some research going on in the Mars colony about making Earth habitable again, clean the environment and decrease mutations. Of course there's some people who have a different agenda on what to do with the research. Or maybe someone just screwed up real bad... Whatever it was, some sort of aggressive mutagen was introduced to the general population, and people started changing into dangerous mutants.

Anyway, one day, the day when the shit went real bad, there was this janitor cleaning up some armory in the Mars colony, when suddenly the guards became mad and tried to kill him. The janitor got lucky and defeated the guards. He started hearing lots of screams and gunfire outside the armory, so he thought he needs some more protection. The janitor donned the prototype armor suit and grabbed a plasma power sword. Stuff exploded and he had to get out before being able to pick up more weapons.

Now it's up to this one janitor, who somehow is immune to the mutagen, to clean up the mess before it destroys the whole Mars colony. (and then the game begins...)

//== Media/Links
waffles, waffles, waffles, waffles
jam, jam, jam
marmelade and fate




- a news post with descriptions of the weapons

[goldenboy]

Hey I haven't seen this post so far.

This is really cool stuff you're doing Jim. Keep up the good work!

[jim]

Thanks

Here comes some new stuff...

Treasures.. collect them for credits to buy stuff from automated shops. The shops could have different inventories, and some stuff could be only bought, and some only found.



And a monster! It's a small flying monster that tries to poke you full of holes, or spit acid from distance. May be generated by some larger monster.

[Seven]

Hello jim,

Your new monster looks creepy. I especially like its mouth.
I can imagine how it can spit green acid at you
As many others I am a big fan of your texture art. I know that you once explained your workflow,
but for me it has still some kind of magic in it... really great work.

One important thing I would like to speak about is your "Weapons Demonstration Video" (in your 1st post).
It shows the issue of the trails which looks really out of place when strafing. Somebody mentioned it already.
I also see this in other mods, as the missile is spawned on a "earlier" position of the player when strafing.

Interesting thing though is, that Darkplaces has 2 cvars to compensate it (for the lightning gun):
- waist-level-lightning: It always binds the lighnting to the weapon/player
- smooth-sweep-lightning: It smoothes the 0.1 second gap of lightning (so it doesnt flicker)

Something like this could also "maybe" help the trail issue, but it is an engine related fix.
I do not know if you also edit the engine itself for your game...

I face the same issue with my muzzle flashes in a mod. It is not related to the v_weapon.
It is a simple particle which is spawned when the gun is fired, so it suffers the same issue.
Wondering if there is a way to improve it.
I see that Nexuiz handles it via engine as well (or via csqc at least). And has therefore less issues.

Just wanted to speak about this topic a little and see what yours/others experience/opinions are.
Anyway, keep up your good work !

[ceriux]

i believe he plans to replace the particles with sprites or models maybe they'll look better then. but i'm sure some csqc wouldnt be a bad idea.

[Spiney]

Very cool!
The map reminds me a bit of the first world of MDK.
http://youtu.be/VUvvSRG5rAA?t=1m

[jim]

Yes, that's the plan for projectiles. Don't want them to be just particle trails.

Muzzle flashes I thought to make with models. They will be part of the weapon models, displayed with changing the weapon entity's skin.. or just another attachment entity on the player or weapon.

And here's another monster that was inspired of a gingerbreadman, but then I thought to make it a woman... Monster boobs are ok, right? I thought I'd cover them up with something, but I was getting tired and forgot. She's also a big monster. In melee she could give you the elbow or a kiss. Ranged attacks I haven't decided yet. One thought is that she could spit out small insects that home into her enemies and explode. I thought this kind of thing could be an attack for another creature that lays eggs on some corpses. After a while, the corpse is consumed and multiple small insects fly out... She wouldn't need the corpses, and maybe she does something else for the dead, like revive them.

[frag.machine]

@jim: she's ugly - in a very nice way. Make her behave in a more feral way, like the Q2 mutant, when walking, running or standing. I like the idea of laying eggs on corpses and spawning little critters to pester the player. For a ranged attack maybe you could try something similar to the bees the Xen invaders in Half Life used, but fired from her mouth. Also, you can experiment make her consume corpses / smaller enemies to restore heath and you got a cool miniboss. And since she looks reptilian / amphibian, her skin could change to a orange or red tone when an enemy is found... Sorry, looks like I am trying to insert my ideas on your project.

[jim]

Heh Maybe a cross between the mutant and the bitch. There will be some another monster that's more like the mutant/fiend/alien, or maybe two with different sizes. Some monsters may have some couple different colors, but I was thinking the color indicate their attack type, like Sub-Zero and Scorpion, etc. Maybe some will have some parts that change color depending on what they're doing.

Yea, and here's some bug the she-monster could spit out. Maybe the texture could use some tweaking to better match the colors on the she-monster? The green parts in the back will probably glow.



Should do some player/human size monsters next...

[leileilol]

I don't mind your giger-ish, though the hosting policies might (especially since you're hosting that image from moddb which are very anti-nudity).


JUST FYI

[ceriux]

jim! these models looks awesome! i REALLY like your she monster!

[jim]

I've thought that if someone complains about it, I'll change it, or censor the image for a bit. Wouldn't do any censoring for videos, could just put some warning into the video description. But so far people seem to have liked it.

Anyway, it's another monster. This one's some Mutant Trooper. It could appear in a few different colors, each with a different ranged attack, some of the same as player's weapons. It could also have 2 spikes, or 2 guns, or the weapons mirrored.



Looks like this time I managed to hide the seams better. 928 tris. 256x128 texture.

[ceriux]

you design some really interesting stuff!

[Spirit]

I doubt anyone outside the USA would have a problem with nipples.

Awesome models, I am really looking forward to this game.

[jim]

Here's some Alien type character ingame:



It's pretty much the same as the Ants/Aliens in Abuse, including the color coding for different weapons. It has a 16 color 256x128 texture. Maybe it could have had some more colors in the main area, and less in the "skul gun". 614 tris. Not yet animated, but will probably be the first enemy to be animated. I'll probably tweak the polycounts on the earlier monsters to be somewhere around this level.

The aliens could also emerge from some cocoons. No idea if/how they could walk on ceilings or walls.