Shadow of the Beast Legacy semi-project

[Nekoniaow]

Originally Posted by darkfalzx

Oh - and here are the updated tileset and map:

Nice work.

Are these the original game tileset or is did you reconstruct it as such?
I'm asking because the amount of blank space in the tileset strucks me as enormous. If this is the original game's then that would explain the lack of variety of the "internal" levels of SOTB: with so much wasted space it looks like they could have increased variety by about 30 to 50% without much effort.

If that's just a functional re-creation for proper visibility then please ignore my remark.

[darkfalzx]

Thank you.
The tilesets are recreations, or rather re-shuffling of the originals. They are put this way to make them easier to work with.

[dex]

Excellent, excellent remake. Playable and amazingly faithful to the original, really like your take on the gameplay, the hints, the more forgiving collision detection - great! Well, actually (since I am an extreme purist) I'd still not play a remake but your's really made me think about playing it instead of the original. You know what? I'd actually do it if you would add one thing - try to "copy" the original scrolling text, font, colour, bad readability and so on (the one scrolling from right to left when you enter a new section, the one you changed to scroll upward and with a different font).

Strangely, this seems to be the only really "obvious" thing missing from an otherwise faithful yet fun remake!

[darkfalzx]

That horizontal scrolling is one of very few things I really disliked in the original game. It cheapened the experience for me, as such scrolls were more akin to pirate intros. As for the font - I just wanted to keep it uniform throughout all three games. I really hope this change doesn't prevent you from playing the remake. I feel like I hit the right balance of difficulty by taking out some of the more frustrating elements, like sadistic collision, ridgid jumping, sluggish turning and unfair camera, and compensating with more and faster enemies. In the end - how I know the difficulty is close to the original, is that without prior training I usually make it to about the same point in both - the original game and the remake.

A few elements are fixed BTW - most notably a horrible game-breaking bug that happens if you exit the castle after taking the pulse rifle.
I also added a new cutscene before the shmup section, new animations for crouch-turning, and turning in the shmup mode. Also most backgrounds have been vertically expanded.

[dex]

Oh right - all three games as one package, I remember. The universal font makes perfect sense then, nice It may look a bit better if smaller but the font itself is great, so if you're fine with it, that's fine of course! (what do you have against cracktro scrollers, come on, this must have been part of your SOTB experience at one point during the old days, too ) Looking forward to any new release

Btw. do you have a version of that Ultionus box for sale? The game is very nice (you rarely see that level of pixel art in a commercial release, a lot of devs opt for that simple 8 bit/16 bit mixed style which is currently flooding steam while yours is more 16 bit in a very good quality, like you'd only find on pixeljoint and the likes - aren't you a contributer there, anyway?). Now, were was I? Ah yes, the only thing I miss from Ultionus (and a LOT of games nowaddays) is a BOX and maybe a MANUAL (must be a strange concept to some people these days - and of course physical items and their distribution are far too expensive for indies). Well, if you kind of want to get this box "mass produced" without drowning in the cost, try this: https://www.theindiebox.com/ I'd buy one for sure and I certainly know some other people that would...

[dex]

Could the sound files with the synthesised ones for Beast 1 be re-uploaded at the zone? I was too late to grab them when they were on some months ago

[jimmy2x2x]

Bloody brilliant!

Excellent work, thanks

EDIT: works great on windows

Kubuntu 14.10 gives me this error (from shell, I cant run this from KDE for some reason)

./runner: error while loading shared libraries: libopenal.so.l: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64

Do I need another version of the library (32 bit) ??

Any help appreciated, Im just learning nix at the moment, might be something obvious

[dex]

I have tried my luck on yet another take on the original Beast and uploaded a quick demo to the Zone ("Shadow of the Beast (engine remake) Demo").

I've been using Game Maker Studio for some other games I am working on, so I thought I give it a shot as well. It is not a legacy/enhancement project like the remake from darkfalzx, however. I am trying to get the first Beast done at first and the ultimate goal would be to actually "combine" the overworlds of all three parts to maybe get one seamless game. Plus, I wouldn't need to bother anyone for specific features in SOTB remakes anymore I'd add in a lot of options and settings to customise the experience, still nothing really that "enhanced" as darfalzx approach Since yesterday I am working on the character movement and the scrolling. The parallax layers should look quite accurate and there are also some bouncing stones as enemies if you walk a bit to the right. The player is controlled via cursor keys and control for punch/kick. There are no filter effects, joypad controls or even pixel perfect scaling, it's just a demo.

@darkfalzx: are the sound files still to download from somewhere? There were in the Zone some time ago but aren't on anymore.

[darkfalzx]

Hey Dex - you can grab the full SFX library I'm using here.
Are you sure you want to put yourself through this, man? The game is a lot bigger than initially seems. The Parallax demo is the easiest thing to make, and that's why I never did it. The first thing I made in my SOTB1 is a fully working version of the tree maze, just to show myself how difficult it is to program the game. It was grueling.
Also - will you be running the game in the same 288x192 /288x184 window as the original, or will you bump that up to at least 320x240? If so, how will you deal with missing background areas? Screen size discrepancy that will result in difficulty drop?

As for the linux problem - I have very few suggestions. There is a thread in my Ultionus forum where some of the Linux issues do get resolved, but I can't be sure it's the same type of issue. Here is a forum link.

[dex]

Hey darkfalzx, you the man Ah well, you know, I feel that legacy Beast of yours is the one to go - it's the one I'd play after all [If you read my sig, I am that guy from that tiny old Beast page on the net and I'm still chasing dreams of getting the Beast into 3D (that was a foolish one, too) I wouldn't touch a remake of the game until yours ].

But to your question, yes, I intend to do so as long as I can find some fun in it - if you wonder why, I'll tell some other time, but don't laugh

As for the resolution, no I will go for an even smaller one (352x198 instead of 288x200 for the ingame screen, which would still be a true 16:9 pixel format and 2 pixels less in height than the Amiga original). I only want the screen to be a bit wider and I do not want to use any modified sprites or levels even if I won't make an "exact" copy of the game itself (currently I am ripping the maps from the original with Maptapper, yes even if you did so already, I found it not alright to just use stuff you made and not before trying my hand at it myself first, that's just how I am ). As I said, I believe yours is the remake to go, mine's just one I need to make for myself so I can stop pestering people over features I'd like to see Just think about my purist comment about the scrolling text screens (oh my, I hope my appreciation for the project was still reflected, like the excellent recreation of Beast III for example).

Anyway, if you like I can keep you informed about the progress, I don't know if I will publicly post and release this as you do (people wouldn't want a low res game, anyway, they'd probably just play the original ) Or I can just create a different thread and leave this one alone. When I have something completed and maybe added a feature or two I wanted in the game, maybe I'll make an update (if I didn't quite before as you are quite right about the amount of work, amazingly difficult -_-)

Oh one last thing, I am trying to rip the sprites from Beast 2 and 3 as well, but somehow I don't get far. How did you do it or have you been able to find them on the net somewhere? The enhanced sprites you made from the fence in the foreground in Beast 1 and the turn animation for the jetpack sequences are very nice by the way. Really impressive and definitely not something I'd be able to pull off for my version

[darkfalzx]

I absolutely understand the ridiculous love for the Beast (and other Psygnosis games) that makes you want to remake them, combine them, make them better while keeping them the same - pretty much what I did. If I could - I'd take it a step further, and add an ability to play all existing versions of the game - ST, SMS, Linx, ZX Spectrum and C64.
Your idea of combining all three games into one crossed my mind, but it seemed problematic, so I abandoned it. The more realizable idea was to make Beast 3 a free-roaming game like the first two, but it would require a hub world, and some of the levels will need to be reversed to fit together geometrically.

As for the 3D Beast - I have a very distinct artistic vision for it, but will probably never do it myself, as my 3D skills aren't up to par with my imagination.

And yes - I would absolutely love for you to keep me posted about the developments of your project.

As for sprite ripping for all the games - there are some SOTB3 tilesets and sprites found on this very board (the tilesets are raw - as in, completely unsorted, and the sprites are only of Arbraan himself, the forest goblins, and the grey beast from Woods of Zeekras), the rest of the graphics -those I ripped myself. SOTB2 and 3 maps are available on HOL, and I have some of the SOTB1 maps in this very thread. I can share the sprite assets with you, but I'm afraid they are mostly stored in a few very messy PSD files, as I was pretty much pasting them right in, without saving them separately.

[dex]

Sure, I would be very interested in the ripped sprites! No matter the format But only the ones I could rip myself, nothing you created or expanded on your own as this belongs to your own project and I don't want to interfere in any way Anyway, I doubt I am gonna finish this before you do, it will probably also interesting how your final version will look before I actually try to complete this. Judging by how well you implemented Beast I and III, this is going to be one epic remake I wouldn't want to miss

Originally Posted by darkfalzx

I absolutely understand the ridiculous love for the Beast (and other Psygnosis games) that makes you want to remake them, combine them, make them better while keeping them the same - pretty much what I did. If I could - I'd take it a step further, and add an ability to play all existing versions of the game - ST, SMS, Linx, ZX Spectrum and C64.
Your idea of combining all three games into one crossed my mind, but it seemed problematic, so I abandoned it. The more realizable idea was to make Beast 3 a free-roaming game like the first two, but it would require a hub world, and some of the levels will need to be reversed to fit together geometrically.

As for the 3D Beast - I have a very distinct artistic vision for it, but will probably never do it myself, as my 3D skills aren't up to par with my imagination.

And yes - I would absolutely love for you to keep me posted about the developments of your project.

As for sprite ripping for all the games - there are some SOTB3 tilesets and sprites found on this very board (the tilesets are raw - as in, completely unsorted, and the sprites are only of Arbraan himself, the forest goblins, and the grey beast from Woods of Zeekras), the rest of the graphics -those I ripped myself. SOTB2 and 3 maps are available on HOL, and I have some of the SOTB1 maps in this very thread. I can share the sprite assets with you, but I'm afraid they are mostly stored in a few very messy PSD files, as I was pretty much pasting them right in, without saving them separately.

Hi! How about "Beast 4" ? A few yeasr ago I finished my intro-like story of the four part. Check out [ Show youtube player ] If you would like make the game from this I have nothing against it! I would only sign "story by Vaan McLeod"

[Quazar]

Footage (Work In Progress) of the new 'Shadow of the Beast' for the Playstation 4 appeared a few days ago:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ream-come-true

[Pyromania]

@darkfalzx

Cool effort, I checked it out on Mac & PC. Question, why is it jaggie? Is there a way to anti alias or have scan lines so it's smooth.

I found the CRT & smoothing options, my bad

[dex]

Hey darkfalzx, you were right - or should I say, you were really really right? While I came as far as even including the Tree Home map and the castle from Beast 1 including a basic creature for testing, all of his moves and climbing as well as scrolling in Beast 1 and 2 style (that was even back in February when I had to stop because of work and other stuff) - I still didn't have the time to finish it, or come anywhere near as far as you already are. The amount of work you put into it is astounding, I wonder why you didn't continue (or didn't post anything more of it yet). It's probably out of the question that I will actually complete all 3 games so please post some update on your progress

Actually there would be no need for even another Beast "Remake" if you really include all 3. About the "whole seemless world" thing, it would be possible one way: play through the games straight from 1 to 3 (I would have started right after each ending sequence/credits). Moving back and forth between the games might even be pointless as it is fairly linear as it is (why should Aarbron return to the parts of Karamoon he already explored). Without a complete change of gameplay and content, your "trilogy" idea should be the best, keep going, you're extremely far

[Methanoid]

Originally Posted by darkfalzx

SOTB1 - 100% - the game is done, but still requires testing and tweaks. Might add extras to it at a later date.
SOTB 2 - 15% Can run around Karamoon. There are some generic enemies and some unfinished puzzle elements, but not much else.
SOTB 3 - 65% Level 1 and 2 are in, as well as the tilemap and parallax of Level 3.

Any progress on this last status update in October?

[Baboon]

Originally Posted by Methanoid

Any progress on this last status update in October?

Agreed!

I'm a bit late to the party and have only just discovered this! Love it! Really good work.

[Ikilledher]

Originally Posted by darkfalzx

It cheapened the experience for me, as such scrolls were more akin to pirate intros.

Interesting angle. :.-)

[Baboon]

Not related to shadow of the beast but I believe you are the developer for Mystik Belle?

Is that title.coming to android/ouya still as it looks amazing?

[ Show youtube player ]