Hired Guns: Your memories (plus some fun fan-created stuff!)

[Cherno]

Doopdeedoo...

I spent the last days doing some gonzo scripting in Unity3D to create something resembling Hired Guns. So far I managed to make the player be able to move forwards, backwards, turn left and right, and strafe left and right, and he gets blocked by walls. Believe it or not but this was a major undertaking because with tile-based movement you can't just rely on the physics engine to handle collision and stuff

Now I'm trying to figure out how to build an elevator, and the stairs are a problem as well... From what I remember, in the game characters actually stood in front of the stairs instead of on them, not sure how I'm gonna handle this to stay true to the game

Maybe if my current motivation doesn't leave me I'll have some screenshots to show or maybe even a browser game without much to do

Edit:

I managed to script an elevator that can run continuously or be triggered by a button. The stairs are still WIP

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by Cherno

From what I remember, in the game characters actually stood in front of the stairs instead of on them, not sure how I'm gonna handle this to stay true to the game

Not sure I quite understand what you mean
Could you please explain ?

[Cherno]

Yes, technically all game characters stand in the middle of a tile, but they are depicted as always standing near the edge facing you however you look at them, this way they will stand at the bottom of the stairs instead of being in the middle of the stairs, meaning they would be standing half-way up.

[Cherno]

Stairs are finished and I can even move up and down in all directions.

Next task is making the elevator carry the player with it

[Lord Aga]

Originally Posted by Cherno

Yes, technically all game characters stand in the middle of a tile, but they are depicted as always standing near the edge facing you however you look at them, this way they will stand at the bottom of the stairs instead of being in the middle of the stairs, meaning they would be standing half-way up.

Oh yes. That is probably why. It would be either squatting on the stairs or missing head & shoulders

[Cherno]

Some more coding done, I managed to get a first working proof-of-concept going, so to speak. Textures, skybox and everything are just placeholders of course, no sounds etc... It's enough to test stuff

What you can do:
Use the WASD keys to move around and turn, use Q and E to strafe.
Walk up the stairs and fall down
Ride the elevator up and down. The elevator, however, is not finished. You are only supposed to enter and exit it when it is not moving, if you step on it while it's moving you will not be on the right height. This will be fixed of course

Maybe I'll also add sound effects for walking and the elevator in the near future. One step at a time

Here's the link:

http://cherno.lima-city.de/hg1/hg1web.html

Edit: I would also like to note that the skybox is made from the actual HG sky, it doesn'T looks quite right at the edges but this of course also can be remedied if I put some work into it, it's not on my immediate to-do list though.

[Zetr0]

A most interesting thread indeed.

Hired Guns is perhaps my next favourite game to Captive!

So much so that I wrote a 3D OpenGL program of the first level as a run around - I believe I also used this small level run around as submission piece for Uni - If I am not mistaken i wrote several modes including a real-time-light sourced rendering routine.

It is entirely possible I still have the code somewhere.... not sure where though....

[Cherno]

If you want to learn Java or C# scripting feel free to drop me a line and help me with the project, maybe it'll lead somewhere

[Predseda]

Thats a nice demo Cherno! I like it.

[Cherno]

Cheers! Each day, a little bit more gets added, and it's a good felling to see things finally working after spending hours searching for a solution...

[Predseda]

I would swap controls Q<->A and E<->D

[Cherno]

User-definable controls are on my to-do list as well

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by Cherno

If you want to learn Java or C# scripting feel free to drop me a line and help me with the project, maybe it'll lead somewhere

My thanks, however I have an addiction to learn programming languages, the above I am already very familiar with.

Personally I prefer C++ with OpenGL - it seems very natural / rewarding =)


However to be fair it was a few years ago when I wrote a Java 3D engine (BST based) - I suspect that its gotten much better since then =)

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Personally I prefer C++ with OpenGL - it seems very natural / rewarding =)

You're old!

However to be fair it was a few years ago when I wrote a Java 3D engine (BST based) - I suspect that its gotten much better since then =)

Not really, its still the same. Nowadays you have LibGDX which is nice for multi-platform stuff that even bridges to Android and iOS.

The stuff that kills Java and saves C#: deployment. Java deployment sucks, .NET deployment is basically automatic.

[Cherno]

I got switches to work to activate and deactivate my elevators, pretty cool but it took my a long time. Now I'm animating the switch to that it turns red and is pushed into the wall when activated. Maybe I'll add some sound effects too. After that I will finish the elevators and add those tubes under them so players can't walk under them. And after that... doors

Amazing to find such a thread today.

Hired Guns is my all time favourite game for the Amiga. And that's a tough field.

Unity: good choice!

Here's how we used to play Hired Guns:
One day we typed in Christina Applegate and started gathering from around the different maps, then brought all the loot back to Artificial Island and set it up as a deathmatch arena.
We expanded the game area with psi-amp bridges, making long walkways over the water. We made a cage you could fall into from there, which was built with psi-amp walls and contained two things, a wall remover and a flamethrower.

In a pit under the water there was a psi-amp teleport. If you went there you could use it to get out. If someone went there before you, too bad.

We had a box of mines in one place, which of course no one could tell from the graphic if you had replaced with a brick or an armed mine.

Everyone started with a covert ops gun, a minigun, some health kits, and perhaps also a teleporter, not quite sure. Oh, and of course a grenade launcher, my favourite!

We would load up from disk, place our guys, save to RAM, and blow the hell out of each other, then load from RAM and repeat for whole afternoons and evenings.
We partitioned the monitor in right and left side using the cardboard off the back of a notepad, and sat two guys on either side.
Sometimes we muted the sound because otherwise it was way too easy to predict where people were from the timing of elevators and doors sliding.

Interesting tidbits:
When one players holds shift to access his inventory, the other keyboard player can't backpedal. This is cause for massive panic. :-)

There are a few places in the map that are reachable only by random teleport.

A grenade launched through the air cannot be fired through. You can therefore fire a grenade for cover and run behind it, providing you veer off before it hits anything (other grenades, characters, etc).

Bonden is the only character who can survive firing a grenade launcher point blank into someone else.

I played Bonden. Screw underwater breathing. ;-)
Man I miss that game.

[Cherno]

That's a cool story, it really was unique in it's ability to play deathmatch with up to four players. The idea of using items from other maps to modify the map is great, it's like the precursor to modding modern games
Thanks for sharing, now excuse me, I have to write some script for my door

[lilalurl]

You had some pretty clever ideas. I would never have thought of doing that to create some custom deathmatch arenas.

I have always loved the mine/brick/unidentifiable remains/whatever trick, but a bit difficult to do in standard maps. But it was probably really fun in a customized map.
Now that I think of it, a mine (3rd ed.?) that would morph in a useful box (food for instance) when activated would have been something really nice to have (as a difficult item to get or a starting item for some of those weaker characters).



Poor Cherno has gone crazy, writing a play for himself and his door

[Cherno]

:P

After what I thought would be a simple task I again spent half the day just writing a script for that damn door And it's still not finished, and the elevators still have no pillars under them... Oh well
At least now the stairs have a texture.

Here's a new version:
http://cherno.lima-city.de/hg1/hg1web.html

Controls:
WASD = Move
QE = Strafe
Space = Activate (Doors can also be opened by walking into them)

Bugs:
- due to gravity physics, the player character behaves funny when running off an edge and then quickly reversing
- door closes even if someone blocks it
- elevators have no pillars, meaning you can walk under them

[lilalurl]

Completely off-topic, but I have solved your issue I think