Chaos Guns : Prototype Backbone demo released!

[amiman99]

Originally Posted by DamienD

The first gun is to the right of where you start; walk over to some rocks and you'll see a "twinkle". Press <space> i.e. the interact key and you go through a trapdoor so to speak

Thanks, I'll look for it next time I play.

One thing I want to recommend to creators of this game is to map the "Space Bar" button to a second button or do auto actions. Pressing the "Space Bar" is awkward when you play at a distance from the Amiga.
I had the same issue when I created my "Marco" game, it did not "feel" right to do that, so I implemented auto action to make the game flow better.

Other then that, the game flows nice.
Good job, very professional.

[hipoonios]

Wow, this is one of the most good looking and impressive Backbone games I've seen. Looking forward for the full version. I would be more than happy to have the full version in Backbone. But of course a coded version would be better.

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by amiman99

One thing I want to recommend to creators of this game is to map the "Space Bar" button to a second button or do auto actions. Pressing the "Space Bar" is awkward when you play at a distance from the Amiga.
I had the same issue when I created my "Marco" game, it did not "feel" right to do that, so I implemented auto action to make the game flow better.

Thanx! I have this in mind. This Backbone demo already supports different control configurations including cd-32 joypad with "fire" mapped to red and "interaction" to blue (Genesis/Mega drive controller might also do just fine).
If you have a 2 button joystick you can use this setup as well, to play without the need for keyboard!

Regarding controls in general, the issue has been in dispute since the very beginning.
In our old Amiga demo we had a rather complex system that allowed you to do several funcions (fire, swap weapons, reload, access inventory, pick up items and interact), all using a single fire button. But this was far too unintuitve and hard to tap into for most players plus it forced you to stay immobile while you fired your weapon.

We decided to abandon the system for a more orthogonal approach but this makes the use of 2 buttons inevitable. Still, we'll try to make this highly customisable or -at least- give the player enough options for different setups as I did with this demo.

[mailman]

Originally Posted by Tsak

I totally get what you're saying. I even agree to some extend.
Still, I think I went into great lengths explaining the reasons behind this release and the similarities and differences between this demo and the ASM one.
From our stand point, making this was not a waste of time, since I had this on-going long before we found the coder. And of course the creation of this prototype proved to be a great helping hand, providing the outlines of the design. So, the two won't be irrelevant, the ASM demo will simply be an upgrade (albeit a huge one) compared to what you see with this prototype.

In the end, what matters is the final impression. Given the Backbone limitations and taken "as is", if your evaluation on our work on this prototype leaves you with a positive impression I can't see why you'd lose interest.

Really, have you tried the demo yet?
Alternatively you can simply wait for the real deal (as mentioned already).

Yes, I have tried the demo and as hipoonios said I agree that this is one of the best Backbone productions I have seen so far. Frankly speaking I have never said the demo is bad. I just shared the opinion, that this is quite strange to show the demo of a game that probably does not have much in common with what was before and probably will not have anything in common with what you plan in the future.

However, in my opinion, if I had to evaluate this demo without having any knowledge about "Chaos Guns", then I would call it a promising "Alien Breed Tower Assualt"-like game. Basically a remake of it. Maybe you should try thinking about it as some sort of a side-project. It looks good, it plays nice, so there is only one thing missing - release date.

But we all know the story and this demo has almost next to nothing that connects it with previous "Chaos Guns". I am sorry for being too harsh and I am sorry that I am sharing my critical point of view but I thought of "Chaos Guns" as some sort of a mix of "Alien Breed", "Hired Guns" and "The Chaos Engine" with possibility to play up to 4 players in cooperation mode or against each other. No matter how complexed controls were (and you agreed they were too complexed and it is good that you think about re-inventing them), Backbone demo does not bear any resemblence to the previous concept.

But enough said. It is your project and I guess you know what you are doing. You have a potential for creating interesting games without rubbish audio-visuals - even in Backbone. Thumb up from me for that and I am looking forward to the information about progress of your work.

[Tsak]

@Mailman: Don't worry about it
Honest opinions are always welcome! I did not interpert your response as being critical (in a negative way at least). Much of what you say above is true. The old Chaos Guns project is changed in many, many ways (prefferably the multiplayer part). Of course, most of those changes (f.e. the shift to single player) was already a reality by the time we got to the final old demo release, but I won't argue further. This project (after 2 and a half years in the making) is indeed a whole new concept, despite the similarities.

Having said that, what's coming next, will follow those same steps and concept (so, believe me, this won't be irrelevant)!

[DamienD]

I've very much enjoying it; about to have a quick bash to see if I can get out of the "shooting gallery"

[though not sure how as I pressed all switches / killed all monsters and then what?]

[Tsak]

Shooting gallery is a loop. But you can play it through as much as you like and commit your score here (so you can place yourself on top of the high score table)!

[DamienD]

Ok; got that it's a loop by going back to the teleporter near the guns but how do I get out to continue the game

[Tsak]

That's the end of it actually. You'll have to wait until next demo for more action.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Tsak

That's the end of it actually. You'll have to wait until next demo for more action.

Oh I see; just finished playing again couldn't work it out

I had fun; good stuff indeed and look forward to the complete game

[s2325]

[ Show youtube player ]

[Lemming880]

Great looking game. It proves that with the right graphics it's possible to camouflage a backbone game. Good luck with the final version.

[flype]

Hi Tsak,

Congrats for this update, looks great.

Previous release was RTG compatible and this was great feature.
I use it on Vampire and is fun to play.

But this release seems to not have RTG (CGX/P96) support, is it right ?
or do i miss something in configuration somewhere ?

[Tsak]

@s2325: thanks for the video!

Originally Posted by flype

Previous release was RTG compatible and this was great feature.
I use it on Vampire and is fun to play.

But this release seems to not have RTG (CGX/P96) support, is it right ?
or do i miss something in configuration somewhere ?

Old demo huh? Don't know about rtg compatibility specifically but I know that the final version (v1.2) did include resolutions up to 1280x1024. This option added nothing to the gfx (which were still 320x256 based) but was necessary to play fullscreen in MorphOS systems (and yes, the same executable worked both on 68k and MorphOS btw). So, if you use 68k amigas you don't gain anything from those resolutions.

Nevertheless, our old demo and Vampire is a very interesting combo!
Basically it's performance on high end 68k amigas (even with uae) was bad, so I would love to see how it performs with the Vampire instead

Regarding RTG support in this release: Backbone supports only OCS (not even AGA) so, this prototype could not include such an option.

Regarding RTG support in general: We could do that with our new demo, but it would make sense only if we had plans to create an RTG specific version (containing more colors or higher resolutions). Perhaps we do that later on (or a Vampire version). It's an option still to be evaluated though.

[s2325]

Video was uploaded by Per-Ola Eriksson

[flype]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Old demo huh? Don't know about rtg compatibility specifically but I know that the final version (v1.2) did include resolutions up to 1280x1024. This option added nothing to the gfx (which were still 320x256 based) but was necessary to play fullscreen in MorphOS systems (and yes, the same executable worked both on 68k and MorphOS btw). So, if you use 68k amigas you don't gain anything from those resolutions.

Nevertheless, our old demo and Vampire is a very interesting combo!
Basically it's performance on high end 68k amigas (even with uae) was bad, so I would love to see how it performs with the Vampire instead

Regarding RTG support in this release: Backbone supports only OCS (not even AGA) so, this prototype could not include such an option.

Regarding RTG support in general: We could do that with our new demo, but it would make sense only if we had plans to create an RTG specific version (containing more colors or higher resolutions). Perhaps we do that later on (or a Vampire version). It's an option still to be evaluated though.

Looking closer at the new graphics, they are much better than those of the ChaosGuns 1.2 demo. Great work here.

I can make you a video to show how the 1.2 demo performed on the Vampire so that you can have an idea... The game opened a settings window at start that allowed the user to select the Audio device (audio.device or AHI) and the Game screenmode (ASL Screenmode requester). This was great, not only for MorphOS (as mentionned) but also for AmigaOS 3.x + Vampire board or any other Amiga Classic + RTG gfx board.

In my humble opinion, you could make a RTG mode without enhancing graphics as a start (even if RTG allows much better graphics).

[Tsak]

@flype

>I can make you a video to show how the 1.2 demo performed on the Vampire so that you can have an idea...

Yeah, thanks! Why not

[DamienD]

Hello there Tsak,

I know you're currently busy with other projects... but do you still have plans to continue with this?

Really enjoyed the last demo you put out and hanging for further action

[Tsak]

Thanks for bringing this up Damien! Was about to address this sooner or later.
Development on Chaos Guns is on-going but actual progress is extremely slow currently and it's completely out of my hands to speed up the process unfortunately.

I've personally invested a huge amount of time in this project and I'm not willing to just give up on it (yet)! So I plan to continue supporting Chaos Guns. But since I cannot do much for the time being, my complete focus is definitely with AlarCity right now.

Generally speaking, what will happen in the next few months regarding AlarCity and whether this will be a success or not, might also affect Chaos Guns' future development (hopefully in a positive way). It's worth mentioning that the two teams are currently in contact (Chaos Guns has a different coder and more people involved, while I'm doing Alarcity with Earok as some of you may already know). Anyway, more announcements regarding this matter in a future update

[Gzegzolka]

Good to hear that You are still working on that game, it was looking like it have some potential and all those development changes were right.