coders wanted for shenandoah

[starlord]

The thing is I don't have XP (still running on win98), but great work anyway.

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Why do you think XP is required? DirectX 9.0c still supports Windows 98. Try this one, it's the full and most recent package:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

//edit:
Okay, it doesn't list Windows 98, but the page before does. Too bad I don't have Windows 98 running anywhere to test it...

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

I've also set up a dev diary, which will be updated every day:

http://www.retro-net.de/shen_devlog.txt

Still need some feedback regarding the tech demo I've uploaded yesterday. Especially if it runs on Vista (it should if DirectX is up-to-date).

[starlord]

Do you have an idea on the needed config to make the bugger work?

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Which bugger do you mean? The tech demo or DirectX?

New work-in-progress shot:

[starlord]

I mean the game itself when completed.

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Hard to say, I need to start a broad beta test before I can estimate the system requirements. Apart from DirectX 9.0c, it most likely won't need anything decent. 800 Mhz, any AGP card and 128 RAM should be sufficient.

//edit:
After making some tests with the frame limiter turned off, I would say it will even run at full speed on every PC starting with 400 MHz.

[killergorilla]

Nice work WindowsKiller, you're making leaps and bounds mate.

[starlord]

Quite curious, considering the fact that it's amiga counterpart was supposed to run on, say, a 35mgz amiga 500...
Darkbasic is the culprit, I suppose.

Windows, I forgot about this, but on the amiga dream 1 screenshot. I saw really nice landscapes (rocky with the blue domes everywhere: see upwards in the forum to get to the screenshot). Will it be possible later to have partially destructible lanscapes: destroying the blue domes, the missiles silos?
And to remember adding the smallest enemies in the game: those sort of human bipeds on the ground you see in the screenshot, next to the big tank.

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Originally Posted by starlord

Darkbasic is the culprit, I suppose.

Nope, it isn't. DarkBasic Pro compiles to machine code (don't be confused by "Basic", DarkBasic has not that much to do with BASIC, it's not even syntax compatible). The "culprit" as you call it is that we are no longer in DOS age. We have a resource-hogging multitasking OS running, and PCs still can't handle sprites and horizontal scrolling as good as the Amiga could with its custom chips, unless you use 3D hardware acceleration. (Noticed that the PC preview doesn't have the parallax scrolling starfield? Guess why! )

Originally Posted by starlord

Windows, I forgot about this, but on the amiga dream 1 screenshot. I saw really nice landscapes (rocky with the blue domes everywhere: see upwards in the forum to get to the screenshot). Will it be possible later to have partially destructible lanscapes: destroying the blue domes, the missiles silos?

If that was planned for the original game then I'll add it. But I'm not planning to add new features that the original game wasn't meant to have. Maybe later for a "deluxe" version or something.

Originally Posted by starlord

And to remember adding the smallest enemies in the game: those sort of human bipeds on the ground you see in the screenshot, next to the big tank.

To be honest, I can't recognize much in that stamp-sized screenshot...

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

@olandrobo:

Do you still remember all the names that were given to the enemies and player ships? I'm currently setting up all the constants used by the sprites for level one and I want to use the same names as in the original game, but it's a bit hard to find out which name belongs to which sprite.

The following ones are most important right now:



The source code defines these constants for the enemies:
(already removed the obvious ones)

BID_FYRLJUS
BID_EGGFIGHTER
BID_BULL
BID_TENT
BID_TENTFIRE
BID_CROWN
BID_HAT
BID_DRONE
BID_SOND
BID_MOTHER
BID_CHILD
BID_MINISOL
BID_ENKELSOL
BID_DUBBELSOL
BID_SUNSPOTA
BID_SUNSPOTB
BID_MINAS
BID_PLATE
BID_PROBE
BID_BUNPIECEA
BID_BUNPIECEB
BID_BUNPIECEC
BID_BUNGUN
BID_SEMLA
BID_SHARK
BID_PEAK
BID_GELLYFISH
BID_RUBIN1
BID_RUBIN2
BID_RUBIN3
BID_RUBIN4
BID_RUBIN5
BID_RUBIN6
BID_RUBIN7
BID_RUBIN8
BID_RUBIN9
BID_RUBINSTOR1
BID_RUBINSTOR2
BID_STONES
BID_JUICER
BID_SENTINEL

And these for the player ships:

BID_BIGBEAR
BID_MOONQUAKER
BID_SWAN
BID_GOLDIELOCKS
BID_CHALLENGER
BID_BEETLE
BID_POINTER

What I was able to figure out is that the upper left enemy is most likely the "BULL" and the huge player ship (upper right) the "BIGBEAR". The third enemy on the left might be drone or probe, I guess. No idea about any of the others...

[DamienD]

The second one down on the left hand side is probably BID_CROWN

The fourth one down on the left hand side maybe BID_GELLYFISH as it looks like a squid or something but of course this is only a guess...

No idea about the others though

[olandrobo]

So you're redoing the entire first level from scratch?


BigBear is the large player ship.
Moonquaker is the middle white player ship.
I think that challenger is the bottom most player ship.

"Bull" is most likely the top left enemy then comes "Crown" and "Egghead"
The fourth is "Peak".
The bottom left I think is juicer, not sure.

The "Rubin" ones are the crystals seen in the demo.
The "Bunpieces" are parts of the first major enemy that devides the first level in two.

"Dubbelsol" and "Sunspot" are parts of the big suns.

"Minas" is the background rock city with a glassbulb.

"Mother" is the grey large ship that releases small ufo like ships in the demo.

"Sond" is the small mine that has a vertical red beam across the hight of the screen.

"Gellyfish" is the one that looks like one.

"Shark" is the grey ship at the beginning of the second half of the demo that realeses large bombs that explodes.

"Hat" I think is the ones that comes from the bottom up and firing in a circle in the demo.

"Probe" I think was the brown ones that comes just before the end boss of the first half.

"Semla" is the ones that the first big boss releases.

"Sentinel" is the second boss that never engages at the end of the demo.

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Thanks, most of it makes sense somehow. "Minas", however, must be something else. The backgrounds are defined in a different section and I think the rock city with the glassbulb is either BINOCITY or MIMIA (so close to "Minas" that you probably confused them).

What enemy could BID_FYRLJUS be? Seems like FYRLJUS is a swedish word, no idea what it means, though.

So you're redoing the entire first level from scratch?

Yes, it's easier that way!

[olandrobo]

"Fyrljus" is a failry small lighthouse background object that never was used for the first level.

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Never used because of no time, or was it just rejected because it didn't look good? If the graphics were done for it, I may implement it.

Hope you find some time to upload more graphics soon, as I can't do much more work without having all the enemy graphics and especially explosions. No hurry, though.

[olandrobo]

Good of you to point that out. I meant to do it this weekend but it didn't happen. You need foremost the level one gfx right?

The Light house I'm not sure why it was never used actually. It might have been where you were supposed to store your advancement in the game and that that functionality never got finished or simply that it looked out of place.

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Originally Posted by olandrobo

You need foremost the level one gfx right?

Yep, and the explosion animations.

By the way, was the game also supposed to have an intro? One of the tunes you uploaded sounds like as if it was meant for some kind of introduction sequence.

[olandrobo]

Yep there was meant to be an introsequence but that was never even begun on, so that wont happen now.

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Who knows, maybe we have some pixel artists here who are willing to create the graphics for an intro.

[olandrobo]

Interesting suggestion but that doesn't feel so good to be honest. I'd rather have no intro. It will be very difficult to remain the style that we set.
(The intro sequence was meant to be in 3d.)
What can be done is to write the story down next to the Shenandoah spacecraft.

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Originally Posted by olandrobo

What can be done is to write the story down next to the Shenandoah spacecraft.

I think I've got a nice idea to do the "intro" then. Would work only, however, if the background story consists of more than just a handful of sentences.

[starlord]

Great Idea: a scrolling text next to the player's rotating space craft would be excellent taste. This would be great!

Olandrobo: could you tell be if that blue domed city (is it the "minas" thing?) along with all the small man like figures and the tank (in the small screenshot)appears in the first level?

Do you have the gfx for this man like figure? Is it supposed to be an enemy?
Also, did you plan partially destroyable environments? the screen shot shows a big broken dome near the city.

Do you also have

[starlord]

Whoops, sorry for the last sentence. Computer bug...

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

@starlord:

The screenshot from Amiga Dream no.1 doesn't show the first level (or the level was heavily reworked afterwards), that should answer most of your questions.

[olandrobo]

The story is a bit more than a few sentences...

The screenshot you're refering to is from the second level. When the player has just reached the surface of the planet in question. And yes we planned for destructable backgrounds like the domes. They aren't the Minas object though.
The small yellow men that seam to appeal especially to you Starlord a great deal, are enemies. We have those men animated somewhere in our gfx archive.

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Time for a new screenshot:



This one shows an actual part of level one, which (the level) is about 25% complete now. The explosion you see in the screenshot isn't final (badly ripped from the PC preview) and the small "lavaspit" sprite isn't filtered yet, but apart from that, this is how it will look.

[olandrobo]

I see a red comet... ?
Otherwise looking real good.
The space dust should however not be white, some mid grey blue would be better.

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

I see a red comet... ?

Hehe, yes. It was just hit by a bullet when I made the screenshots. Unlike the Amiga preview, I made enemies flash red instead of white when hit.

The space dust should however not be white, some mid grey blue would be better.

I think it is like that in the Amiga preview as well. Changing it to mid grey/blue is no problem, but the layers are moving quite fast, so darker pixels would be much harder to notice at all.

[olandrobo]

The Backstory:

During the interstellar wars a band of mercenaries acted more like pirates and looters than actual soldiers, towards the end when chaos spread. The leader of this group was the former and well know Captain Nestor.
Without a doubt the biggest prize of their campaigns was the Shenandoah. A device designed to terraform barren planets and making them habitable. With this device and the rest of their treasure Nestor and his men have started to build their own army which now poses a great threat to the confederate nations.
The latest in armoury and advanced hardware has been assembled for your mission to infiltrate Nestors reigns and to locate and return the Shenandoah.
State of the art technology and your superior skill as an acclaimed combat pilot are what will determine the outcome of this conflict.

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

The Backstory:

Great, thanks. Reminds me of the Genesis device in the Star Trek movies.

[olandrobo]

I know. Haven't seen it though, I'm not really fond of Star Trek...

[starlord]

WOW!!!

Great stuff!!

Especially as far as shooters go: We are quite far to the "kill all the aliens and go home" plot. It's nice to see a bit of depth.

I can also add that the game end through the boost gate in order to get to the shenandoah is a stroke of genius.

Olandrobo: who is this person's head on the screenshot? On the game tool bar in the centre?

[olandrobo]

Thanks!

We had in mind to have the mission control appearing every now and then to warn about certain enemies and situations ahead, but we abandonded that idea due to performance and never made the samples for it.

[starlord]

How many levels did you have in mind to create for shenandoah exactly?

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Originally Posted by olandrobo

We had in mind to have the mission control appearing every now and then to warn about certain enemies and situations ahead, but we abandonded that idea due to performance and never made the samples for it.

That's funny, because I had the idea to let some female computer voice saying things like "Warning, mine field ahead". I thought that would fit very nicely into the game.

[olandrobo]

Five or six levels. Depends on how you count also. We see the demo as one level in two parts.
We then have the planet rocky surface level.
Followed by the Forest level.
And then the Cave level.
Which leads to the Center core level.
The last one is the Deep space high speed level. (With the boost gates.)

The rocky surface was meant to lead down to the caves but I think it has to be reorganized a bit for it to make sence.

[starlord]

About the voice: I vote to let it in the game!

Shenandoah, once finished, will be a killer!

[olandrobo]

More assets uploaded to the zone!
Check "shen_base_and_lvl1_gfx.zip"

Go Wild!

[pcGTW_Webmaster]

Great! Let's see how much work I can get done this weekend.

Just a few questions that came to my mind while taking a first look at the graphics:

scorepanel.tif:
In the example, you labeled the number on the right as showing the cash. But shouldn't that be showing the points for player 2?

space.tif:
This one uses a completely different color scheme than the level 1 background of the PC and Amiga preview. Is that a newer version? That's just out of curiosity, I can't use it anyway, as it does not tile correctly.

level1/backdrop.tif:
What's the use of that one?

level1/WRECKS.tif:
These are cool, but how was it intended to implement them?