Rise of the Iron Knights [Game Maker Wolf3D Clone]

It's been two years since I released Castle Totenschloss, and here's the sequel that I came up with:

Screenshots:

It has similar gameplay to its predecessor, but has some new features. Nevertheless, get ready to mash some mutants and machines!

Get it here: http://gamejolt.com/games/shooter/rise-of-the-iron-knights/42882/

Have a merry Christmas and happy Hearth's Warming to the bronies out there! /) 

Couple pointers... when you load your own saved 'mid-level game' the walls are pretty much semi-invisible and the music remains the main menu's music.

Game also crashes at random times.

A nice improvement over Totenschloss overall, but these bugs gotta get fixed.

Re-released the post-Christmas 'update' on Gamejolt so far.

I fixed the mid-level saving so that the level's BGM can play again and the walls no longer become transparent. IDK bout the random crashes, either it's the computer or the game overloaded on something, but I'll find out more when I can.

Minor note though, loading the mid-level save the first things first will play the main menu theme. To replay the level's theme press F8 to turn off the main theme and press F8 again to play the new theme. When you re-load the mid-level save again, the level's theme will play (the game doesn't really save its music first thing in the morning due to it being made with Game Maker).

BTW what level are you on so far?

I'm in the "Storerooms" level, just after the 2nd boss, but seeing as you updated it. I'll start over again.

Wow, that was quite far...was it as hard as Totenschloss, or harder or easier?

still challenging (not used to your engine and controls still), but a little easier. Partial health regeneration does come in handy unlike Totenschloss where you go through health like candy at times.

I definitely prefer it this way with the improvements you made.

The partial health regeneration was inspired by Wolfenstein: The New Order. On easy, you can ignore the pickups but on higher difficulties, you'll have to collect them to max out your health.

At some point I'm thinking of remaking my previous games and incorporating this mechanic with lots of other features.

After further investigation, I've pinpointed on 3 cases on what causes the crashes. 


- This one seems to be the most common cause. Apparently it doesn't like a bunch of dropped items very close to each other. In rooms where you kill a good amount of soldiers, if they are bunched up together and you get their weapons/heath in one quick sweep, that's where the game crashes. You could avoid this crash if you CAREFULLY pick up the bunched up items though it's no guarantee. The more soldiers in a room, the greater the chance for that crash to occur. 


- Sometimes facing/killing a bunch of soldiers in one room. Frame rate also goes down (fighting about 5+ soldiers at the same time)

- Opening a few doors in a very short time span. This one is seldom, but it's also random. 


Based on these observations, it seems you might have a problem with the game's memory as it can't handle as much multitasking as Totenschloss did. Either that or they're just plain bugs.

Thanks for the investigation. The game may be demanding itself, but I think it's also a compatability issue.

I changed PCs while making ROTIK; apparently Windows 8 can't handle GM games as well as Windows 7 (the old computer had 7 and could run Totenschloss without much crashing). GM8.0's internal sound engine might be the culprit, in a later update I'll have to get it fixed.

In the meantime, make mid-level saves often just in case.

Megajim79 wrote:I changed PCs while making ROTIK; apparently Windows 8 can't handle GM games as well as Windows 7 (the old computer had 7 and could run Totenschloss without much crashing). GM8.0's internal sound engine might be the culprit, in a later update I'll have to get it fixed.

In the meantime, make mid-level saves often just in case.

I run it in compatibility mode. Also, I do make mid-level saves often.

EDIT: I found another possible culprit behind the crashes; The background music. So far, it doesn't crash at all if the background music is off.

Hmmm...that might confirm the sound engine's accountability to these crashes. The next major update will deal with this; expect a possible re-release in early 2015.

Why to do it on Game Maker and not on SDL?

This crash occurs at random even with the background music off. Simply let a boss/machine with chainguns shoot you.

Even with all that, I still say the background music has a big part in most of the crashes.

EDIT: I can't seem to get past the Uber Zombie level. I killed the Uber Zombie, but he didn't drop the yellow key. Maybe there's another Uber Zombie in the level I don't know about?

Also, if you do let the game sit idle whether you pause it or not, it will crash after a few minutes. I tried to record a piece of music and it kept crashing. Is it too much for me to ask you if I can have the game music files?

WolferCooker wrote:EDIT: I can't seem to get past the Uber Zombie level. I killed the Uber Zombie, but he didn't drop the yellow key. Maybe there's another Uber Zombie in the level I don't know about?

Terribly sorry about that. Re-uploaded the game so that the Uber Zombie now drops the golden key in level 12.

This crash occurs at random even with the background music off. Simply let a boss/machine with chainguns shoot you.

Yeah, that glitch where the chaingun sound goes looping after the game locks up is annoying. Sometimes the enemy's alert sound loops after the game locks up.

Is it too much for me to ask you if I can have the game music files?

Attached is a small zip file containing the midis.

I think it really is the sound that causes most of these crashes. I've seen Youtube videos of people trying to play Game Maker games, and the games also crash unexpectedly (look up PewdiePie's video of Miami Traffic 3). 
The original Game Maker was at its prime in the Windows Vista/7 era; Yoyogames stopped supporting it in favor of Studio (which I would have to remake my games almost completely for the sake of compatability) when 8 showed up, but dayum.

Why to do it on Game Maker and not on SDL?

I'm more familiar with Game Maker than SDL. Although I do consider remaking my games for SDL (or ECWolf), given a tiny experience at Doom modding.

Okay cool thank you very much Megajim. Will proceed to look for any more bugs.

EDIT: Can't get past Dr. Brustschneider level. Same problem as before with the Ubermutants not dropping keys.

While you're at it, check the remaining boss levels to make sure the last "boss" enemies drop keys since this seems to be a trend in the later boss levels.

Thanks, Cooker. I fixed up the bosses with dropping keys on the later levels and released the new version on GameJolt. BTW can you load your old saves with the new edition of the game or do you have to start from square 1?

Old saves can be loaded. In my case I had to start the Brustschneider level again.

Phew. At least you don't have to replay the whole game.

Currently on the Rise of The Machines level (after the Blood and Iron level (Blut und Eisen)). I can definitely see these later levels being very tough to beat under harder difficulties. It was already tough for me to get acclimated to the enemy machines.

I LOVE the heat seeking rocket launcher. Operates almost like the Nikita Missile launcher in the Metal Gear Solid series. The Plasma Rifle looks good too.

Only things I notice wrong besides that major bug with the crashes is that killing the scientists and mutants do not count towards your score. Fix these things up and it'll be good to go. 

On a personal note: Can I ask for those ROTT rocket launcher sprites and plasma cannon/rifle sprites? I haven't seen any in a Wolf3d mod (Except the ROTT weapon that is used as the Blitzgewehr in numerous mods)

Nice to see you're nearing the end of the game. The scoring's fixed: every killed now drops a much larger score (just like Wolf3D).

The homing missile launcher is more or less a gimmick weapon: sometimes it'll fly around, other times it'll just fly straight, and if you're unlucky, it'll fly back into you (won't hit you but if it explodes, you'll take a lot of splash damage). Use the bazooka just to be on the safe side.

One warning though: the pulse rifle can crash the game if you fire it on full-auto for too long. I don't think the game can support all those polygons and sprites drawn for the projectiles.

The Blake Stone sprites used for the energy weapons were probably used in Goldfire 2010 (I just recolored them) and I think the ROTT launchers' sprites weren't used before (aside from the Blitzgewehr). Attached is a sprite of the four weapons (the other four were presumably ripped from Final Fight).

Attached is a set of handy sprites for modding if you want it.

HA! The homing missiles do come back to me, but they never exploded... yet. They just turn around looking for another target close by.

Thanks for the sprites. I'll see if these can be put to good use. What I'm missing now are those pickup sprites.

VERY CLOSE to beating the last level. Problem is the laser weapons and the regular rocket launcher are useless while in cover in and around open doors. The Chaingun and the Guided missiles are very useful, however using a rocket launcher with bunched up boss enemies causes the game to crash.

It's also VERY HARD to flush out enemies one by one and it's worse when there are 8 boss enemies in a corridor (s) bunched up against one another.

What saved my bacon is the health regeneration. There are not enough extra lives if you wanna play it in harder modes.

I'd seriously consider changing up the last map and MAYBE add a couple more different bullet type weapons (like the rifle and STG44 in Totenschloss) because if you want to take out robots in cover, bullet type weapons are your best shot because projectile weapons (even the plasma rifle) are practically useless in cover and you'd burn out any extra lives faster just by using the chaingun.

I'd also increase the max ammo counts with the rocket launcher(s) and laser weapons some (to possibly 15 and 150 respectively) so you don't have to pick up as much ammo.

It's a good mod for a homage to WSJ (just like Totenschloss), but I will hold off on playing this until the crash bugs are fixed and at the very least change up the last level.

Re-released the game again and removed many bosses from the final level. Now there should be more than enough ammo and 1-ups to defeat all the bosses, but I managed to beat it on the highest difficulty (a bit of cheating, repeated saving and dying involved).

Apparently I didn't learn my lesson with Totenschloss (putting a gajillion soldiers into one room), so I ended up taking it up to 11 by putting in all those bosses. If I remember correctly, the final level in WSJ's 'Eisenritter' had a lot of bosses, which I took inspiration to make this level. Nevertheless, wouldn't want you to ragequit like with Totenschloss, would we?

The next Anvilstein fangame will probably have a much sparser enemy count and more spacious levels to fight in. One of my first ideas for new features was to include some sort of stealth mechanic, maybe make the knife more useful and add a suppressed gun. The rifles will probably return from Totenschloss. If you have any other features to recommend, I'm all ears.

Given the game's extreme proneness to crashing, I just looked up the Game Maker forums and found that Windows 8 doesn't run GM8 games well unlike Windows 7 due to the incompatibility of the former's DirectSound with GM8's internal audio engine (not just my game, tons of others as well). The two ways I can circumvent this is to either try an external audio .dll and keep the GM8 format (more feasible) or port the entire game to GM: Studio (which involves rewriting a lot of code and converting files) with its W8-compatible internal audio engine. Which really sucks since I could enjoy running GM games on Windows 7 without worrying much about crashes (and Microsoft is unlikely to update W8's DirectSound, and Yoyogames gave up GM8 for Studio).  In short, it's gonna be a bit of a development hell from a technical perspective. 

The most far-fetched idea would be to port everything I've made to SDL, ECWolf or not. That will need to be done entirely from scratch.