Very Obviously Inspired By Akalabeth!
Whilst perusing Twitter a couple of days ago, I noticed that a fellow by the name of Sheldon Ketterer had tweeted a link to this image:
[singlepic id=2383 w=500 h=500 float=center]
Come at me, adventurer!
About the image, Mr. Ketterer had this to say:
here’s a shot of a game I’m working on, hearkens back to Akalabeth and Dungeons of Daggorath
At present, that’s all there is to tell about it. I’ll be adding a project entry for it soon, once he tells me the working title of the thing. The Akalabeth inspiration is plain to see, and I’ll keep in periodic touch with Mr. Ketterer about the progress of his work.
Fucking sweet. It appears to be about six levels deep, not counting the back wall but counting the lateral foreground passage. Maybe it reads eight levels deep? “facing” means orientation or angle, and “CD” could be the name of the nearby entity?
I’d like to know how these dungeons are rendered. I know the data files are tile-based, but 2D blocks of pre-rendered or hand drawn 3D graphics M&M-style would be awesome. I have good tile data with needed variations, but don’t know how they did the “3D” graphics from a game like Ultima V.
It would be awesome to route existing data files and game mechanics to an alternate rendering engine, which would show a simplified, first-person perspective but otherwise run the game as usual. This game looks like it does that.
He’s on Twitter. You’re on Twitter. Hit him up and ask!
I think I’ll do that. I’m still a bit hesitant to use Twitter for two-way communication, as on the surface at least it looks like a massive cluster fuck. Maybe it’s easier or more logical than it appears just reading a feed of tweets, I don’t know.
Two-way chats on Twitter actually work rather well. And Mr. Ketterer seems quite open to saying “hi” back.
It’s either done by hand or using wireframe rendering via OpenGL for example.
I’d vote for wireframe rendering just because it’s the easiest way to do it.
Jc
Interesting. I was thinking of the old school hand drawn method, wondering about the perspective and how pre-drawn tiles fit into it. I think I need to do some experiments with OpenGL to see what the possibilities are. The After Burner thing still haunts me. I have to see what it would look like in an Ultima-style dungeon.
Hey, so I made that thing, and thought I would answer the few questions that were here. Maybe some other stuff too.
The game is more along the gameplay lines of Dungeons of Daggorath or Dungeon Master, with real-time gameplay, although solo like the former (but with no terrible typed commands). The game is made using Game Maker, which might make some of the technicals a bit less impressive. But it’s rendered using a Mode 7-esque engine by TheSnidr, meaning it’s “3d”, and the graphics are all 3d lines or whatever. Depending on your computer this can make it okay or fairly slow, but I think it looks pretty good. The visuals are the inspired by Akalabeth, along with a few gameplay elements. Given that’s it’s real-time, the ‘CD’ is your move cooldown.
The game is going to be highly customizable, it already comes with an enemy editor and the level editor is next on the list to be made.
My little blurb for this game is: “While this game retains the art style of games such as Akalabeth and Dungeons of Daggorath, there will be some (significant) surprises along the way, reflecting a unique retrospective look on these kinds of games, especially a re-evaluation of their narrative presentation and the whole ‘Lord British’ dungeon master ethos. Kept will be the quirky game rules. This game takes place in real time (with ‘move cooldowns’ and so on, they aren’t significant when you’re just moving around). It will have some cool stuff from roguelikes like ‘wands of do shit’ and artifacts. Some of them might even completely change the core gameplay… ok enough spoilers.”
So basically what I’m going for is a nice little project with old-school game design but with a few strange surprises along the way to keep it interesting. I already implemented a ‘wand of create plane’ which you can use your imagination as towards what that does. Otherwise, yeah, I’m just having a lot of fun working on this project. I’m a pro pixel artist (sometimes, depending on availability), so it’s just fun to have a project to work on that doesn’t have any real high standards for art or whatever.
Also I’ve been playing a load of Dark Souls recently, so I might be taking a few elements from that game too.
Sheldon Ketterer
Oh and here are a couple more screens:
http://i.imgur.com/YLIRJ.png
http://i.imgur.com/mVxho.png
If you ever need a website to host the finished project at, I’ve got a standing offer in place that would net you a free sub-domain here.
Just FYI.
Love the second pic, as it shows off the fact that it really is 3D.
I’m fascinated with the idea of combining the best of older games with the best of newer games, so I really like the direction the project is taking. It’s sorta like the old question, “What if I could play the same game at higher resolution with a higher frame rate?” ZDoom is a good example.
The move cooldown sounds interesting, like maybe a compromise between its realtime nature and turn-based combat? Could be a way to ensure particular actions don’t exceed a certain frame rate (the dagger of 10,000 FPS due to macros).
This is the engine/IDE being used: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Maker
Pretty cool that it will support HTML5, as that means it will run games on Linux. 🙂