Shadow Genesis

Hi all.

This topic is about a new mod that is being created by me and my brother, Mario Maniac. Yeah, he is still alive, in case you are in doubt.

First of all, I feel like I should say that this game, like its predecessors, is based in nazis and demons. I understand some of you may not like the idea, but we do. Also, by predecessors, I mean its prequels, all of them. This one is centered in the same story and it involves elements of previous gameses. 

If you ever played an addon made by us or heard someone criticizing our style, you probably know how things are going to be developed. We enjoy a challenge, and we also enjoy the fact that this won't be a game that you will be able to finish in a couple hours.

Anyway, we've been working on it for a long time now, although we didn't work that much due to other stuff and whatever. Sprites, sounds, coding and all that stuff, except for maps and music, are already done. Like I said before, there are many level specific codings that are obviously yet to be done.

We didn't decide yet how many levels the game will have yet. We are just going on with the story, until it is the right time to end. I also think it is worth mentioning the maps are all 128x128. We always thought it was bad to have so many small claustrophobic rooms, but that was the only way to make big nice levels.

Obviously, I'm not spoiling much yet, but I can guarantee the game has a bunch of never seen before features.

After that wall of text, here are a bunch of screens, to show something that has been made already. I'll post more screens from time to time in here.

Official Beta Screenshots (latest released version as of now):

Shadow Genesis Part 1 Beta Download: (The forum inserts this adfly thing on the link. I can't do anything about that, so don't complain.)
As bugs are found and fixed, I'll upload new patches here. You should download them as soon as possible. I'll also write what the bug is about.

Important things before you download this:

• You can press 'L' to see the ratios so far in the game.
  
• The game is incomplete. What you will download is a demo version, which corresponds to the first part of a two part game. This part contains 39 levels. Whenever the full version is released, you WILL lose your savegame.
  
• It's probably best not to play this on "I am Death Incarnate" unless you want some big suffering.
  
• WolferCooker succeeded in completing the game, but that doesn't mean there are no bugs. In fact, I can almost guarantee there are.
  
• If you get stuck somewhere and you feel like there is a bug that prevents you from completing it, it's better if you post it here so everyone can see it, and we can fix it if it's really a bug. If it's not a bug, I won't spoil anything and I won't give you the solution.
  
  
• There are no secret levels for now, although some "mechanisms" that would enable you to get to them are already in the game. That means there can be keys/switches/things that have no objective the way the game is now.
  
• Although this should be obvious, READ the ReadThis section.
  
• Achievements and mementos aren't in the game yet, even though the ReadThis describe them. Don't mind that, for now.
  
  

Full package (this has been updated and now links to the official beta version):
https://www.mediafire.com/file/nnzijaw3aaehu13/Shadow_Genesis_Pt._1_-_Official_Beta.rar/file


Patches (no need to download any of them anymore. All of the patches have been included in the official beta version. The list of patches has been kept here purely as a log).

:

Full Game (upcoming, not to be released anytime soon):

Small spoiler: Soul Orb Entrance





That's it for now. Cya.

Really like the look of the last screenshot. I can't wait to see how this turns out.

To the entire Wolf3d community, listen to the man (Mega Luigi). He is not kidding about this mod at all. I will honor his and Mario Maniac's wishes and WILL NOT spoil it. HOWEVER I will tell you a little sliver of MY INFLUENCE of the project.

I have been heavily involved in with this project since the very beginning which was back in January of 2010. We kept in constant contact with each other through email for the past 3 years (not so much this past year). They have taken some of my ideas into account which I believe will make this mod even better than they had originally intended it to (and believe me, they already intended to make this A TON better than all their earlier mods).

The knowledge I have about this mod is only basic so even I don't know the meat of it. I prefer it that way though because it makes me just as excited to play this as you guys are.

BE PATIENT and let Mario Maniac and Mega Luigi take their time with it. It will be worth the wait.

Looks nice!

It's gonna be a very good one, JDMG. I recommend you play their earlier mods from the beginning if you want to get a basic idea of their storyline before they finish. You'd also notice how they improved their mod making skills as you play through these 3 mods in order.

Storyline UNOFFICIALLY begins in the mod Operation Weltmeisterung (Mario Maniac's mod). It continues through Weltgericht and then The Lost Relic. It will be interesting to see how it continues with Shadow Genesis.

I've already played Weltgericht and The Lost Relic, and I've noticed some interesting differences...
But gonna give them another go following the order you stated - after all, I've played them in the wrong order and I can't get enough Wolfenstein in my life xD

Hi Clinton!

Chokster37 wrote:Was this named after Shadow (the hedgehog) from Sega Genesis?

That would be a funny twist, considering it was made by Mario and Luigi from Nintendo.

Nah, although it would be funny if it did. I also noticed you are 13 years old, just like me. That means we can be friends and eat a pizza or go to mcdonalds.

I appreciate the compliments, thanks.

Out of a few latin words I understand the meaning of, 'Genesis' means 'beginning'. So I would tend to believe this mod has to do with the start of a major uprising with the shadows (demons, demonic creatures).

Even if I'm right, it will be interesting to see HOW it's done.

I've posted some more screenies from the early levels. Although it may look like it is finished, none of the levels on those screens have the proper shadings yet (except for the blue one). The ones you see are actually just an accident and will not necessarily stay like that.

Also, the skull near the time count is a danger sign, which I won't explain exact how it works right now, and the blue room in level 2 is a secret area, meaning the rest of the level is not like that (or else it would be odd).

In time, more screens will show up, hopefully

I still notice you haven't changed the pistol sprites with what you always use (black gloves and green uniform). That's probably the last thing(s) you're gonna do.

Hi Julio!

Chokster37 wrote:

Mega Luigi wrote:I also noticed you are 13 years old, just like me. That means we can be friends and eat a pizza or go to mcdonalds.

Wow, my two favorite things in the world. It's a date :ha:Nice to see you post more often again Luigi.

I feel left out.  

@Wolfercooker: We actually made a list with lots of little adjusts that had to made, such as that sprites, the missing death sound of the regular SS, but I decided to fix all that before we end up forgetting something.

@Chokster37:  

@Wizzie:

Hmm... is this even a post? xD

JDMGD0, look at the spoiler on the very first post. Luigi added more pics.

It's been a while so I forgot.
Luigi I believe you read my review of The Lost Relic. I do appreciate a good challenge, the challenge from design standpoint is to make easy difficult easy and hard difficulty ***** hardcore.

I forgot to mention that I would add the screens to the spoiler, sorry about that.

Yeah, I've read your review, and I must say it was very helpful and incredibly detailed. Thanks for that. We decided to add some intelectual challenges on this one, besides the usual ones. Hopefully won't cause too much headaches

WolferCooker wrote:JDMGD0, look at the spoiler on the very first post. Luigi added more pics.

I wasn't talking about that. I've already seen the pics xD.

Just thought I'd throw in a small update to keep the thread alive since it's been a while.

Progress is slow as always but the project is still alive and kickin'. It can even do backflips if it wants to .

I just posted some new screenshots in the spoiler, as always.

By the way, I'm not sure if Wolfercooker's post appears in dark grey for the others, but I didn't mean to "thank you", I just wanted to see what happened when I pressed that button   

When I tried to remove my "thank you", I ended up clicking on the little "+" and seems like I've "liked" Wolfercooker's message. That's what I get for having no idea on how to use this forum's features 

You broke the forum!                  

lol Andy.

And holy shit Luigi those new screenies are impressive.

I see you didn't change the machine gun sprite(s) to the Mp40 sprite(s) you've always used. 

For some reason I love this color of the Wolf3d chaingun (the yellow flash I recreated)

I'm glad you liked the screenshots.

Yeah, it's nice, but I guess such details will probabily decided when the game is close to being finished  

How big is the file size now?

The vswap, which is the biggest one, is at 70MB.    I don't think it changed much recently. When it gets compressed, however, it has a size of 14MB or something like that, what is cool   

That is the main problem. The only other files that are considerably big are the .exe and vgagraph, but none of them is bigger than 1.5MB.

Okay that's good. I was starting to wonder how much bigger it had gotten because I have/had a bad feeling that this mod won't work on my computer and all of this would be for naught (for me that is) the day this is released.

I don't think I've EVER heard of a VSWAP in Wolf3d that was 70MB in size. Guns and Glory 0.5 for instance had a size of about 5MB, and it has over 2500 sprites in it.

Now, since your sprites are 128x128, I could see it being about twice that size if it has the same amount of sprites in it, but I mean, it must be chock full of sounds for it to be that size. I couldn't ever see a mod having enough sprites for it to be that size.

In any case, that's very impressive and kudos to you sir.

Not even the tip of the iceberg my friend. You'll be wetting yourself just as much as I will the first day we play it.

Eeep!

Like I said above to everyone, be patient. It will be well worth the wait.

4 years and counting since the beginning of its making.

Metalor wrote:I don't think I've EVER heard of a VSWAP in Wolf3d that was 70MB in size. Guns and Glory 0.5 for instance had a size of about 5MB, and it has over 2500 sprites in it.

Now, since your sprites are 128x128, I could see it being about twice that size if it has the same amount of sprites in it, but I mean, it must be chock full of sounds for it to be that size. I couldn't ever see a mod having enough sprites for it to be that size.

In any case, that's very impressive and kudos to you sir.

Well, actually the sounds are separated due to AlumiuN's advanced sound manager (wonderful), but, by using 128x128 sprites, you actually make it four times bigger.

We had a hard time finding all that stuff. I appreciate your compliments 

EDIT: By the way, It's a bit depressive to think that we are working for 4 years on this

Oh, yeah, doy! 128x128 is 4x the size of 64x64 (I keep thinking it's only twice the size for some reason).

4 years isn't depressing, it's a sign of commitment. I respect you sir!

Working on it on and off I imagine, as in not literally all day. Such a long period is normal for a really big mod.

It's all relative to how and what they (Luigi and Mario) want to put in their project.

Yeah, true, although I recognize I took some pretty long "vacations" in this meanwhile    

You need that. Imagine working on Wolf3d all day. Ugh, you would go mad!

What? For an entire day straight or all day every week? Cause I've done either, and I've had no problem with it myself (But then, I'm very good at focusing on the things I like to do, so I'm probably an exception).

I added some new screens.

OMFG!!! This is great!!

Nice textures!

Here are some more samples of our sluggish progress

A molotov cocktail weapon? 

And nice shot of the 8 sided Cacodemon. I know most of the enemies are 8 sided, but it's still good to actually see it.

Yeah, it's one of the new weapons.

You are also right about the cacodemon. Mostly of the enemies are now directional. It's good to lessen the all-boss feeling the other game had.

I would assume the only non-directional enemies in the game is one of the two Nazi Flamethrower troops, the dual machinegun wielding Nazi Sergeant, chaingun wielding 'bosses' (Super Soldier and UberMutants), and the actual bosses.

It is an quite accurate assumption

To be down to just 6 common enemies that are one directional like all bosses is one hell of an improvement for any mod.

Hi Mega Luigi! Cool mod as The Lost Relic. But don't released.

Thanks

Yeah, it has not been released yet. Progress is much slower than what I wanted, but there is not much I can do about it.

You're welcome! There should be a file to which files I have to change the code, you could use me.