The False Spear SDL

First topic message reminder :

Hello everyone, WLHack here... It has been a really long time since I last posted here.
Anyway, let's get straight to the business.

After years of idling, I have started to work on Wolf3D mods on again and my goal
is to finally release ToS. But before that I will remake False Spear in SDL...

Here is what I have planned to do:

- Add new levels and fix the old ones:
Let's face it... The last levels of TFS were extremely bad (especially the final boss) so
I am going to alter the existing levels a bit.

- Add more walls, doors and items:
The problem with the DOS version was memory limitations. Because of that, there were not much
variation between scenery (I bet you can count all different wall types, excluding the wall decoration,
without even using all of your fingers). Also doors only had three different textures (compare to the ToS SDL-demo).

- Add some more guards (and maybe minibosses):
Nice little thing that gives the game more atmosphere...

- Replace the projectile shooting mutants with regular ones:
The rocket mutants didn't work that well, because most of the time they killed themselves due the splash damage.
So I decided that I am going with mutants more similar to the original ones (behavioral changes though)...

- Update the graphics:
TFS was a mess of "realistic" graphics and cartoony ones, so I have decided to update them a bit (and
recycle ToS ones). Also I will be using ToS-palette as I think it has the perfect colors for this mod.

- Explore the themes more:
Okay. We had the mines, dungeons, abandoned research facility etc... But due the 21 level limit each
different theme only had about 1-3 levels. This time I am going to add more than 21 levels and maybe add alternative routes.
In case of alternative routes I will remove total-playtime from the end of the game.

- Change the music to midi and replace the original Wolf3D sounds...

And much more...

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Download:
The False Spear SDL
Map-patch

Ok, checked the new other weapons.

1. "Chaingun-replacer" looks perfect, didn't test it on enemies though, but it is what it is - powerful, wasteful and innacurate. Animated quite well.

2. Flamegun - projectiles fly too far too fast. Flamegun in it's realistic concept is basically a close-range weapon, making it fire fast and faraway takes from weapon spots of other weapons and make it "bullet-simular". I'd make it ranged and more slow on projectile animation. Fire doesn't animate that fast and doesn't fly that fast, it floats in the air. That would balance it quite well as projectile parallel of a shotgun. Also will make it more tactic to make traps and block passages.
There is a way to make it more realistic and more balanced to other weapons by special qualities of a flamegun - but I can't reveal concepts used in our in-work mod. Sorry.

3. RPG - seems ok, though
I'd make it slower to shoot, fast shooting disrespects it as a powerful weapon, makes it to feel lighter and smaller - and not that heavy thing you carry on your shoulder. Also RPG is a slow weapon to react ("time to shoot" or even aiming), and you don't seem to take that into it's feel as coded in the mod.
There are ways to do so, and we use some of those ideas in our in-work mod.

4. Remark to both RPG and Flamegun - as projectile weapons. Projectile seems to fire from the center, and the weapons are very low on the screen, so you don't feel those projectiles came from those actual weapons, but directly from your eyes. This disconnects the player from the shooting experience, it's like someone else is shooting from behind him.
There are many ways you can try to deal with this...making weapons higher or projectile lower on the screen, making intermidiate weapon animation of those projectiles coming from the weapon (before projectile appears) to connect weapon animations to the projectile....such stuff.

doomjedi wrote:Ok, checked the new other weapons.

Thanks for your remark... I will work on them.

Okay... I figured the reason for the barrel bug, it was the splash damage all along.
When I removed the barrel explosion or changed the splash damage-routine to ignore
barrels when shot with a rocket launcher, the bug just disappeared.

This however doesn't explain why no problem when shooting the barrel from distance.

Barrel bug is now fixed... I simplified the projectile-functions and that did the work.

I still need to sort out screensize problem, but as a quick fix - I have restricted the screensize to 640x480 (res) and 1280x720 (resf).
The actual bug is caused by the modern statusbar I just need to adjust few things and it should be okay as well.

Well, I can't even begin to tell you how much fun I'm having playing this. I really feel like I'm back in 2003 trying mods for the first time after being used to regular Wolf for a number of years. You've really captured an atmosphere of your own; I've only seen such previously in AReyeP/MCS mods, Team Raycast mods and Wolf Skevos-Jones mods. There's something great going on here... And I just reached the "Dungeons" level. Looking forward to more of this... Re-started today after a couple of days, and it's just been... Fantastic. I really love this game, and the only bug I've experienced so far is the game just closing down after pressing F9, but that was only once and I quicksave/load like a maniac. So that's acceptable.

Thomas wrote:Well, I can't even begin to tell you how much fun I'm having playing this. I really feel like I'm back in 2003 trying mods for the first time after being used to regular Wolf for a number of years. You've really captured an atmosphere of your own; I've only seen such previously in AReyeP/MCS mods, Team Raycast mods and Wolf Skevos-Jones mods. There's something great going on here... And I just reached the "Dungeons" level. Looking forward to more of this... Re-started today after a couple of days, and it's just been... Fantastic. I really love this game, and the only bug I've experienced so far is the game just closing down after pressing F9, but that was only once and I quicksave/load like a maniac. So that's acceptable.

Thanks... Hopefully you like the rest of the game as well.

You betcha! I'm really hooked on this. Will play more as soon as I can...

Level - (it seems the third level) Checkpoint Alpha.. 
Guard, in the room opposite the toilet, - does not react to player..
Guard do not see not hear not shoot ..

P.S. By the way .. WLHack сould you specify a list of all levels ..

Akuul wrote:
Level - (it seems the third level) Checkpoint Alpha.. 
Guard, in the room opposite the toilet, - does not react to player..
Guard do not see not hear not shoot ..

All the frozen guards should be fixed now and the fix will be in the next patch.
Here is the list of the levels (red = boss, blue = secret) with the entrances
to the secret levels:

Level list:

WLHack - Thank you for the clarification and thanks for the list of the levels.. 

Oh, I've experienced unresponsive guards numerous times in all levels I've played. Sorry I didn't report that. It was not that many, and it didn't ruin the gameplay. Of course, it's nice knifing them and then picking up their ammo! I had 100+ machine gun shells before I reached level 3... But this was mainly because I used the knife mostly in level 1 - which is a kick-ass outdoor level, by the way.

Yes, it happens...just wait for next release, lots of things are better there - trust me.

I don't know. I can live with it. I'd hate to play all the way through this game again, not meaning that in a harmful way, it's just, I love this game but I never play any game 2 times - so shortly after I finished it the first time, you know what I mean? But sure. There's always room for improvement. And I love the sky-view ceiling! It's so spacy and futuristic, yet it fits in perfectly with the whole castle environment. Weird.

Annoying bug: If you carry any gun when you pick up the knife fury, it locks itself so you can't switch to the knife or any other weapon than the one you carry when you pick up the artifact. That, and there's a bug on the Upper Prison level, next to one of the prison in a grey brick environment with munitions and health, there's a barrel you have to shoot to pick up a diamond, and the pushwall behind the wall only moves 2 squares - my guess is that there's a guard running around back there. It's crucial to always have readily accessible guards DEAF when they're behind pushwalls. Unless there's a chance for you to nail 'em another place, e.g. behind columns or a vantage point or whatever.

Okay... Here it is: The False Spear 2.0, SDL
I have also included the source code and ChaosEdit definitions in the 7z-file. Also there wolf4sdl_flash.exe in the game folder to demonstrates the_fish's advanced shading (wolf4sdl.exe runs the normal game).

Special thanks to DoomJedi for his assistance.

How does this work with previously savegam files?

Thomas wrote:How does this work with previously savegam files?

Unfortunately they won't work.

Yeah... Well... Then I'll just play on without the new EXE. So far so good... Just approached the... The laboratory entrance level. Excellent design.

Another bug I've taken advantage of: The shotgun... Each shot I shoot, the ammo amount goes one up rather than down. So I've got 710 shells and 75 in the re-load... lol... Only used this weapon for the mutants. Love your lab levels, man. I think these rival those WSJ made for his mods.

I need help regarding The False Spear Chaosedit files. Where do you properly put them and get them to show up on Chaosedit? I already had the palette done, but the map symbols I'm having trouble with.

WolferCooker wrote:I need help regarding The False Spear Chaosedit files. Where do you properly put them and get them to show up on Chaosedit? I already had the palette done, but the map symbols I'm having trouble with.

Well, you just need to copy the content of the mapping definitions-folder to the root of your ChaosEdit-folder...
Just place the content of the mapobjects-folder to your ChaosEdits mapobject-folder and remember to replace the mapdefinitions.txt with the one included in the 7z.file...

Yeah, so I'm playing this new improved v2.0, reach level 2 and apparently, a full 100 is impossible (unless you know the map from overview or intuition) - there's a wood panel you need to push in order to achieve a visible full heal. Of course that's what I do first. When I reach the elevator getting 100 % - 85 % - 96 % I scorch the map of any secret door, and I find it. Thing is, the wood panel you've pressed in to get the full heal (which by the way moves an unnecessary 3 squares) blocks this. So what do I do now? Start over for the 5th, 6th time?! Either way, this needs to be corrected.

Of course, if there's some weird switch or whatever planted someplace, disregard this.

Thomas wrote:Yeah, so I'm playing this new improved v2.0, reach level 2 and apparently, a full 100 is impossible (unless you know the map from overview or intuition) - there's a wood panel you need to push in order to achieve a visible full heal. Of course that's what I do first. When I reach the elevator getting 100 % - 85 % - 96 % I scorch the map of any secret door, and I find it. Thing is, the wood panel you've pressed in to get the full heal (which by the way moves an unnecessary 3 squares) blocks this. So what do I do now? Start over for the 5th, 6th time?! Either way, this needs to be corrected.

Of course, if there's some weird switch or whatever planted someplace, disregard this.

'

Um... That level has not changed at all from the original TFS and it is possible to get 100% (just tested it myself)... Though you are right that there is trick to it. This image might help you:

Spoiler:

As you can see, you need to push another pushwall first or otherwise the treasure is blocked.

It's not possible to start over now that I've killed everybody. Oh well... Long as I know whatever it is hiding behind the wall then that's fine. On to level 3...

What are you talking about Thomas? I still got all 100% ratios on Level 2.

WLHack wrote:Well, you just need to copy the content of the mapping definitions-folder to the root of your ChaosEdit-folder...

Just place the content of the mapobjects-folder to your ChaosEdits mapobject-folder and remember to replace the mapdefinitions.txt with the one included in the 7z.file...

I did all that, but TFS is still not included in the mapsymbol list when you customize Chaosedit

I'm not saying 100 % ratio is impossible when you start level 2, but if you don't know the pushwall trickery, then it sort of is.

WolferCooker wrote:What are you talking about Thomas? I still got all 100% ratios on Level 2.

WLHack wrote:Well, you just need to copy the content of the mapping definitions-folder to the root of your ChaosEdit-folder...

Just place the content of the mapobjects-folder to your ChaosEdits mapobject-folder and remember to replace the mapdefinitions.txt with the one included in the 7z.file...

I did all that, but TFS is still not included in the mapsymbol list when you customize Chaosedit

Okay, that is strange... Well, here is a ChaosEdit that already has the palette/mapsymbols configured. Whenever you load TFS-files though, you have to select TFS from the customization-tab.

Thomas wrote:I'm not saying 100 % ratio is impossible when you start level 2, but if you don't know the pushwall trickery, then it sort of is.

Well, that is the only level where that sort of thing happens and if I recall right, in original Wolfenstein there were few secrets like that too.

Here is a map-patch that switches the locations of the diamond and the save-game in the level 2 so that you can get perfect 100% without needing to know the pushwall trick. NOTE: Your earlier save-files will work with this patch.

That's cool, I started over and have (thus far) reached 3 x 100 % on all levels, I just finished off "Office Wing". Really bugs me you can't get outside to collect all the clips... lol... Dark Corridors is an ace level. This is the 2nd or 3rd time I play this game... Never happened before! I don't know what it is. I just cannot tire of this mod. I'd never make one like this myself, but I'd gladly play it till kingdom come...

BUG BUT NOT REALLY BUG 'CAUSE I'VE SEEN IT IN TONS OF MODS: If you quick-save in level X and take the elevator to level Y, then reload, the fog/shading/whatever of level Y gets "stuck" into level X. You follow me? It's quite common. And I don't think it happens when you load your game after shutting down the game.

Thomas wrote:BUG BUT NOT REALLY BUG 'CAUSE I'VE SEEN IT IN TONS OF MODS: If you quick-save in level X and take the elevator to level Y, then reload, the fog/shading/whatever of level Y gets "stuck" into level X. You follow me? It's quite common. And I don't think it happens when you load your game after shutting down the game.

Yeah I see what you mean. The fog/shading retains itself from the later level if you quick-load the previous level.  I don't know if that can be fixed though.

WolferCooker wrote:

Thomas wrote:BUG BUT NOT REALLY BUG 'CAUSE I'VE SEEN IT IN TONS OF MODS: If you quick-save in level X and take the elevator to level Y, then reload, the fog/shading/whatever of level Y gets "stuck" into level X. You follow me? It's quite common. And I don't think it happens when you load your game after shutting down the game.

Yeah I see what you mean. The fog/shading retains itself from the later level if you quick-load the previous level.  I don't know if that can be fixed though.

Well, I see what I can do and post a tutorial if I find a good solution.

Deaf guards bug was not fixed.

Also when I shoot at exploding oil drums, they don't explode, they just move until they reach another wall or static object - and THEN you can shoot 'em till they explode. Also, the mutants, though they're giving me diabetes, don't "respawn" quite so good. But it's way more stable than the first time around and I'm enjoying playing this and have not experienced any shutdowns yet.

DoomJedi wrote:Deaf guards bug was not fixed.

That is really strange as after clearing the code for deaf guards, I did not see them anymore... Must test.

Thomas wrote:Also when I shoot at exploding oil drums, they don't explode, they just move until they reach another wall or static object - and THEN you can shoot 'em till they explode. Also, the mutants, though they're giving me diabetes, don't "respawn" quite so good. But it's way more stable than the first time around and I'm enjoying playing this and have not experienced any shutdowns yet.

That is a behavior that shouldn't happen, also I didn't adjust the mutant respawning so there shouldn't be any difference... Anyway I am looking into it.

Hopefully this patch will do the trick:
- Decreased the barrel health and movement also added check to barrel-move to kill barrel if no health.
- Simplified the CheckSight and SightPlayer-function...

I made some quick runs and I did not see deaf guards anymore. If you do encounter them, please post the level (and place if possible) so I can test more.

EDIT: Your saves should still work.

This patch still needs to be posted to the Dome. I created a separate thread for that though (ATAW3D needs a patch posted as well).

It would be good is someone could verify bug-freeness too.   I'm busy with other stuff ATM.

Hi, it's deffinitely great mode and I'm having great time playing it. But here's my first "bug" - it's not possible to get 100% in level 16. One door is blocked with small healthpack so you can't open it and access it

Kumano wrote:Hi, it's deffinitely great mode and I'm having great time playing it. But here's my first "bug" - it's not possible to get 100% in level 16. One door is blocked with small healthpack so you can't open it and access it

Thanks for the report... I will check this one.

Tested the level... It is possible to get perfect run in this level (at least in v2.0+)...
Also small notice: if you find bugs that are clearly caused by programming, you can still report them (and I encourage you to do so) - but I will fix them in ToS.

Interesting - I have the right version (The False Spear 2.0, SDL), and this happens: 

And I have one more question - is it on purpose, that the water wells are infinite source of health?

Anyway, the game was funny and I enjoyed it, great work. The final boss was very tough to beat, which is kinda required  I'm looking forward to ToS!

Kumano wrote:
Interesting - I have the right version (The False Spear 2.0, SDL), and this happens:

Okay, after searching for a while, I found the place in the picture... It is still possible to get perfect run in that level as there is nothing but ammo in that room.

Kumano wrote:And I have one more question - is it on purpose, that the water wells are infinite source of health?

Yep, its on purpose but then again there is not many water wells...

Kumano wrote:
Anyway, the game was funny and I enjoyed it, great work. The final boss was very tough to beat, which is kinda required  I'm looking forward to ToS!

Thanks.

Either I really suck at this mod, or this is on the harder side of wolf3d mods, but so far up to level 5, and enjoying it. That scoped rifle really is a beauty to use!

This is a very hard mod endeed.

doomjedi wrote:This is a very hard mod endeed.

Especially the last boss... If you do not keep your distance you are dead before you manage to shoot even one shot.

Has anyone besides me encountered this? When I was using the scoped rifle on level 5, I switched out of zoomed mode and encountered this. So I couldn't play with an entire weapon being unusable, so I quit and started the game again. Only to find on both of my saves(one a little ways in, and one from the start of the level) I get this weird look when I use the rifle, and zoom out. Also of note during one of the times this happened, I waited for guards to come through the door, which they did after a couple of minutes only to have a really strange sound instead of the normal door opening sound.

Spoiler:

lilmanjs wrote:Has anyone besides me encountered this? When I was using the scoped rifle on level 5, I switched out of zoomed mode and encountered this. So I couldn't play with an entire weapon being unusable, so I quit and started the game again. Only to find on both of my saves(one a little ways in, and one from the start of the level) I get this weird look when I use the rifle, and zoom out. Also of note during one of the times this happened, I waited for guards to come through the door, which they did after a couple of minutes only to have a really strange sound instead of the normal door opening sound.

That sounds like a quite disturbing bug... I need to check that out so I can fix it in ToS.

One last False Spear related thing... Now when I finally got the advanced shading to work, I will be updating the False Spear source with working version, and I might make updated patch for the game that uses this feature to make things more interesting...

WLHack wrote:One last False Spear related thing... Now when I finally got the advanced shading to work, I will be updating the False Spear source with working version, and I might make updated patch for the game that uses this feature to make things more interesting...

That sounds really nice. I'd love to see that in action. Any progress on the bug I found? I haven't quit playing the game because of the bug(I know how to fix it while playing, but can result in a few deaths), though I'm seeing this is going to be a very hard work to beat this.