27 September 2021, 03:48 | #1 |
Music lord
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Liverpool, UK
Age: 50
Posts: 630
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Hired Guns Map Viewer now available
I have finished my Hired Guns Map Viewer. It lets you fly or walk around any of the maps from the game and a few other test levels that were in the CD32 archive. It's very cool to have open while you're playing the game. It runs in your desktop web browser.
I've put much more time into it than I expected. Have a look. Have a play. Press the [?] button and read a little Psygnosis story. I hope you find it interesting or useful. https://playcanv.as/b/HiocbhA0/ Last edited by FromWithin; 27 September 2021 at 16:48. |
27 September 2021, 05:56 | #2 |
Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Dortmund, Germany
Posts: 1,055
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This is a great asset, very helpful! I read the little Psygnosis story and it's always cool to hear from people who worked on the game in one way or another. It's a bit of a shame that you didn't recognize your own levels but I bet it was still a nice experience remembering the time so long ago.
I am particularly interested in your successful efforts to decode the map structure. I might have use of your knowledge in the near future! Maybe you find the time to document it in detail? My attempts to gain an understanding of the map data were limited to cursory reading of the editor source code files but there was little I could take away from. I started a whole series of remake attempts (that never got very far for various reasons) over the years: [ Show youtube player ] Hired Guns: Your memories (plus some fun fan-created stuff!) Now that the source code has been released and with more programming skills under my belt, I am keen to finally make a HG remaster happen. |
27 September 2021, 12:39 | #3 |
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Join Date: Jul 2020
Location: UK
Posts: 76
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Wow, this is fantastic! Reminds me of that similar site someone made for the Wipeout game maps.
The cut Tree World map (3 player level 4) is really fun to look at through this, shows you how clever the layout was. |
27 September 2021, 15:40 | #4 | |
Music lord
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Liverpool, UK
Age: 50
Posts: 630
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Quote:
I just used that and followed a hex dump of one of the map files to see how the structures matched what was in the binary. Looks like you got pretty far to me. |
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27 September 2021, 16:27 | #5 |
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Dortmund, Germany
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Looks like I got quite a bit of learning ahead of me I never used a hex editor or did reverse-engineering like this.
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27 September 2021, 17:42 | #6 |
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Location: UK
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As for the map credits, there is the attached file in the development documents that lists who did all the campaign levels (apparently mostly Scott Johnston).
The game itself also lists the following for the Short action levels: ANIMAL ENCLOSURE - D. Hally REACTOR - M. Good PENITENTIARY - I. Dunlop STAYING ALIVE - M. Good GARDEN OF JARRYS - G. Anderson LEMMING WARS - THE FIRST CHAPTER - G. Anderson POWER GENERATOR - M. Good THE ASYLUM - G. Anderson BIG CHEESE - G. Anderson ESCAPE TO DEATH - M. Good BAT MOBILE - S. Johnston TREE WORLD - I. Dunlop BUCKMINSTER PARK CARBON DATING AGENCY - G. Anderson LEISURE CENTRE - S. Hammond SKELETAL HALL - D. Hally URBAN DEVELOPMENT CENTRE - S. Hammond GRAVEYARD SHOPPING MALL - M. Good LEMMING WARS - CHAPTER TWO - G. Anderson So it doesn't look like anything is credited to you, unfortunately @FromWithin. There are a few that the author is not known, like the training and demo levels, and the mysterious "travellers rest" level (map22). Also if you didn't already know, there are five more levels for the game in the directory HGCD32/ScottMaps.lha in the development files, all created by Martin Good. |
27 September 2021, 18:02 | #7 | |
Music lord
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Liverpool, UK
Age: 50
Posts: 630
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Quote:
I might as well add them in then. Last edited by FromWithin; 27 September 2021 at 18:14. |
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28 September 2021, 10:09 | #8 |
cheeky scoundrel
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Spijkenisse/Netherlands
Age: 43
Posts: 6,978
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That's quite impressive. I'd never heard of Playcanvas, quite cool that they also host your stuff.
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28 September 2021, 15:20 | #9 | |
Music lord
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Liverpool, UK
Age: 50
Posts: 630
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Quote:
With a free account, they host it but the project must remain public so that anyone can see the source and assets. It's quite a good system. The entity/component system is very similar to Unity except that everything is Javascript. |
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28 September 2021, 15:53 | #10 |
cheeky scoundrel
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Spijkenisse/Netherlands
Age: 43
Posts: 6,978
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By the looks of it Typescript is supported... that would make the experience a little less aggravating.
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29 September 2021, 20:02 | #11 |
Music lord
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Liverpool, UK
Age: 50
Posts: 630
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I think it's very interesting that without the viewer, you would never have any idea that a level looked like this:
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30 September 2021, 13:09 | #12 |
Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2020
Location: UK
Posts: 76
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Yeah, there's a meta gag there the vast majority of players would never have got - the level's called "Buckminster park carbon dating agency" and you can see from the viewer it's actually a big "Bucky ball". It's pretty much impossible to see this in-game.
It's kind of a shame to see the level of detail and thought put into a lot of levels in that 99% of players will have never seen the actual layout! There's a lot of effort put into making maps into distinctive or realistic places with the tools that were available, but because you can't look up/down and the limited draw distance, few would have noticed it. The second campaign map (cave system) is also really nicely naturalistic in how it flows. Kind of proto Minecraft. |
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