It Came from the Desert, my fav' 'computer game' of all time

[DisasterIncarna]

Originally Posted by gimbal

I was kind of dumbstruck by all the Unreal Engine 5 videos though, especially those where hobbyists recreate reallife locations in it.

I don't find it fun anymore, it's become too realistic. I need my games to look like games.

and not be loaded with spyware masquerading as anticheat.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by gimbal

I was kind of dumbstruck by all the Unreal Engine 5 videos though, especially those where hobbyists recreate reallife locations in it.

I don't find it fun anymore, it's become too realistic. I need my games to look like games.

Did you see the It Came from the Desert update WIP videos from a few years ago, they were looking sweet and then zip/nada/nothing.

The Unreal Engine is just a tool, how abstract/real you make your game world is up to the creator's imagination. I too have no interest in hyper realistic stuff as such but mountains are mountains whichever rocky planet you view them on so for me it's a good tool to do my own Rescue on Fractalus inspired game, Quite a resource hungry utility though so we will have to wait until an AMD APU upgrade worth buying hits the shops (the one that matches the fluke/hack of the PS5 AMD APU graphics core that enables real-time ray-tracing to be done vs some $2000 PC graphics cards I have no interest in paying for).

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

Did you see the It Came from the Desert update WIP videos from a few years ago, they were looking sweet and then zip/nada/nothing.

Usually, most of these "unreal engine remakes" you see making headlines online are nothing more than a cheap and easy way to get some notoriety online, in the hopes of enriching your resume - you get a beloved property, make a few videos out of it to show how awesome how of a one-man-team videogame programmer you are, get some free coverage online from gaming websites and subsequently land a job at a big software house.

That's what happens for the majority of them. Can't say if that was the case for the ICFTD remake project as well, but it was put "on hold" after the author got at job at EA.

Too bad, it had even caught David Riordan's attention.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by jbenam

Usually, most of these "unreal engine remakes" you see making headlines online are nothing more than a cheap and easy way to get some notoriety online, in the hopes of enriching your resume - you get a beloved property, make a few videos out of it to show how awesome how of a one-man-team videogame programmer you are, get some free coverage online from gaming websites and subsequently land a job at a big software house.

You say that as if it is something bad, but it is in fact something great. But there are also numerous that show the actual development process and not just the end result, and it almost looks like an untrained person like me could do it too. My main breaking point at this point would be patience.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Wings (the diary part of the game makes it - sets the scene brilliantly - plus the music)

Rocket Ranger one of my faves - again the B movie setting - awesome

ICFTD - always struggled as a kid - memory maybe playing tricks with me, do you have to be in certain places at a certain time? Hate that in games (Cruise for a Corpse I am sure bing one)

But atmosphere, introduction, music - awesome

Only game I never really liked from Cinemaware was Lords of the Rising Sun

The remake of Wings from a few years ago was ok. They were planning others but dont think Rocket Ranger got Kickstarter backing

Wasn't there a film released recently called It Came from the Desert which obviously pays homage to the game - full movie here - tacky!

[ Show youtube player ]

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by gimbal

You say that as if it is something bad, but it is in fact something great.

It's a pretty bad thing in my book to get everyone's hopes up when you already know that this won't get any further than a tech demo or a few videos. Instead they keep repeating "remake X will be completed, no worries!" even if it's a blatant lie just to keep getting coverage until they get hired.

Were they forward in what these tech demos' real purpose is, then I would see nothing bad in it

Again, this is no way an attack directed to they guy who was working on the ICFTD remake. It's just a general pattern I keep seeing in these kind of projects.

[ImmortalA1000]

The ICftD remake was a full project, one man project but still working through various parts of it methodically over time. There were various different elements covered in demo videos uploaded and a dev blog diary type page (now set to private).

If people make rubbish with Unreal Engine/Unity you can't blame the tool lol 95% of stuff on Amiga isn't worthy of Jay or Dave's memory technically speaking but that doesn't make the OCS chipset rubbish.....you have to seek out the 5% or make it yourself just like the good old days....just in a different way with much less coding and no CPU OP codes in your mind's eye

[Flimbo]

This thread has provoked a great conversation. I have to say I never really felt fulfiled by the early 3d games, they were ugly as hell. Recently I have really started to crave playing older games and it's not just nostalgia. You see it with the popularity of certain indie games. I played Zork (first big text adventure game) last year and I was blown away by the experience.

Regards the hd remakes etc - many of the completed ones are hitty missy. In most instances the original plays better.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Fiery Phoenix

Wings (the diary part of the game makes it - sets the scene brilliantly - plus the music)

Rocket Ranger one of my faves - again the B movie setting - awesome

ICFTD - always struggled as a kid - memory maybe playing tricks with me, do you have to be in certain places at a certain time? Hate that in games (Cruise for a Corpse I am sure bing one)

But atmosphere, introduction, music - awesome

Only game I never really liked from Cinemaware was Lords of the Rising Sun

The remake of Wings from a few years ago was ok. They were planning others but dont think Rocket Ranger got Kickstarter backing

Wasn't there a film released recently called It Came from the Desert which obviously pays homage to the game - full movie here - tacky!

[ Show youtube player ]

We just have different tastes lol, the diary on Wings is not really a game and I never got on with Lords of the Rising Sun. I did own Wings so that isn't lack of nostalgia for LotRS vs ICftD. ICftD is indeed one of those games that will take you forever to work out, a lot longer than how to master the 3 mini games you play in Wings. Whether you get bored sooner or later is personal for each of us I guess. I find taking off difficulty for long journeys/setting Lunariam payload on Rocket Ranger absolutely destroys my enthusiasm for Rocket Ranger which is a great game apart from that. I left all that joystick waggling palaver behind with my C64 lol.

This was my experience of playing ICftD for the second time this year after a 3 decade absence from my life. I am just messing about having fun in this video BTW not trying to complete it. I will do the same with Wings another time, need to get my crack disks working so I can save my progress, the originals disks are set to read only forever looking at ebay prices!

[ Show youtube player ]

I did mention about that movie but I will let others make their own mind up. Personally I didn't like it because it is instantly "fast forward 60 years later,....." to modern times. The 60s feel of the game is what I wanted to see but obviously faking 6 decades earlier costs a lot of money in film making. With the right budget it would be awesome to see a proper movie of some of these Cinemaware games. Would be a lot less crap than big budget Mortal Kombat film I tried to watch yesterday lol

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Flimbo

Regards the hd remakes etc - many of the completed ones are hitty missy. In most instances the original plays better.

Thanks to the 'HD' remakes on Steam I felt the need to check out the Amiga originals again and yes, they just play better. I never really got the appeal of making pixel games less pixel-ish. Either re-do the graphics entirely or just leave them like they were.

I really enjoyed the Cinemaware games (except for Rocket Ranger...), but I never got very far in them. Wings was the most fun as it just felt really immersive.

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

The ICftD remake was a full project, one man project but still working through various parts of it methodically over time. There were various different elements covered in demo videos uploaded and a dev blog diary type page (now set to private).

Yep, I was following that project closely.

I'm referring to the dozens of "<Insert PS1/N64 Title> Remake in UE4!" videos you can find online.

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

If people make rubbish with Unreal Engine/Unity you can't blame the tool lol 95% of stuff on Amiga isn't worthy of Jay or Dave's memory technically speaking but that doesn't make the OCS chipset rubbish.....you have to seek out the 5% or make it yourself just like the good old days....just in a different way with much less coding and no CPU OP codes in your mind's eye

Never said anything bad against Unreal Engine, it's an amazing tool

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Flimbo

This thread has provoked a great conversation. I have to say I never really felt fulfiled by the early 3d games, they were ugly as hell.

Exactly, don't know what all the fuss was with '3D gaming' in the ST/PC/DOS years. 3D games looked like crap before 3DO/Saturn/PS1 anyway so who cares.

The first 3D PC game I thought looked better than 2.5D arcade based sprite scaling stuff like Super Monaco GP arcade was F1GP2 by Geoff Crammond IMO. Didn't really care much for stuff like flat polygons going 8 fps on ST/Amiga at all.

[wanderer]

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

on a rando thought, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4288674/ never seen it, probably shit? cant believe that got made into a film of all things given the inspiration for this in the first place is b-movies like "Them!".

It is fun, and actually a sequel to the Cinemaware game. There are a couple of nice homages to the Amiga classic.