Shadow Genesis

First topic message reminder :

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.

looks really cool

stathmk wrote:

Mega Luigi wrote:...
I still think it's worth it though, since it allows us to achieve some much more interesting and complex designs such as this:

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!  I like the way that the multiple stories tall walls remind me of Doom, Doom 2, and Rise of The Triad!  I thought that you'd like to know that yesterday that I got an email that the Rise of The Triad remaster with extra levels and features is now for sale!: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1421490/Rise_of_the_Triad_Ludicrous_Edition/

Glad you like it! I did mention that in another post, but it also brings a lot of imaginative challenges considering our editors are not made to work with something like that  . And nice, always fun to see the old stuff coming back to life!

So here comes a small update showing a feature we added to make things easier for the players. 

In the screenshot below, you can see a candle, which is an item you can pick up. When you have candles, you will see them displayed on the right side of the screen, similar to other things like gunpowder or holy crosses.



So, with that, you will be able to place candles where you want:


Here's one example of a candle placed by the player:



The main idea here is for you to be able to fill in the blanks where we felt too lazy to decorate the levels. So you can use those candles to make everything look nicer!

Just kidding...

The real intent here is to give a tool for players to mark places of interest in more complex maps, most likely the ones towards the darker, later levels. You will also be able to choose different colors so that you can decide to mark different things with different colors. For example, you could mark a path that you didn't explore yet with one color, a secret that you want to go back to with another, etc. 

It shouldn't be any surprise how much we enjoy big complex levels at this point. However, that does not mean we want you to be wandering forever because you're lost, as no one really likes that. So, with these candles, it might be a bit easier to find your way.

Excellent idea. It's not fun running back and forth and in circles looking for a particular pathway you wanted to get around.

That's the biggest reason it took me 2-3 weeks to beat the beta version the first time.

interesting way to display the items

Alright I won't lie, I forgot this last month. We had nothing by then, nothing would have changed.
But still not much to say. Wrote a bunch of dialogues, corrected some minor bugs regarding teleporter and shader changes, made a bunch of sprites and the only major thing was a bug where sometimes a random object would just become directional and start using the following 7 sprites for it. If I'm not mistaken that wasn't happening with the beta, but if it was, it's now fixed.
Luigi had some progress with his level, he is doing something rather big and decided to not spoil it. But it progressed, nonetheless.
So yeah, that's it for now.

Here's something to show we are still alive! Naturally, holidays slowed us even more than the usual. But like always, the journey must move forward.


So, about this first screenshot, it's something somewhat experimental. There won't be major changes in the game mechanics throughout most of the game, except for occasional specific moments. A lot of the features we currently have came from crazy ideas that ended up being cool and viable. I'm not too sure about this one on a major scale, but it's pretty cool regardless.





That's all folks.

I'd like to play it when it's done.

You're the only person that's posted on wolf3d.darkbb.com this month so I'll tell you first. For no apparent reason to me, "File Not Downloaded. Potential Security Risk." appears whenever I try to download a .rar or .zip from https://wolf3d.darkbb.com. I noticed this an hour ago. I noticed this on my Windows 10 desktop and Windows 11 laptop. I don't know if you'd personally want to join https://dhw.wolfenstein3d.com/ or someplace else just to post your file. To go around this glitch, please link to a web page of your own where you post a download link there of the .rar or .zip. Hopefully that works?? This is embarrassing.

stathmk wrote:Try this link:
http://www.wolfensteingoodies.com/wolfenstein3dmodsatoz/list-s/ShadowGenesisPt1-OfficialBeta.rar

For anybody reading this thread, would you please do something for me? Click on this link and see if you get an error. If it downloads without an error, then please tell me which browser you're using, and whether you're using Windows 10, Windows 11, or Macintosh. There must be a glitch when I click on a .rar or .zip link on wolf3d.darkb.com. My Windows 10 computer wouldn't let me download from Firefox without an error unless I copy the URL. Google Chrome says it's downloading, but only would download the first file that I clicked on today.

stathmk wrote:I'd like to play it when it's done.

You're the only person that's posted on wolf3d.darkbb.com this month so I'll tell you first. For no apparent reason to me, "File Not Downloaded. Potential Security Risk." appears whenever I try to download a .rar or .zip from https://wolf3d.darkbb.com. I noticed this an hour ago. I noticed this on my Windows 10 desktop and Windows 11 laptop. I don't know if you'd personally want to join https://dhw.wolfenstein3d.com/ or someplace else just to post your file. To go around this glitch, please link to a web page of your own where you post a download link there of the .rar or .zip. Hopefully that works?? This is embarrassing.

Hmm, here the mediafire link seems to be fine, but in all honesty, I don't think there is any testing value to this beta at this point. A lot has been changed since then and bugs found there might not have any impact in our current game. Therefore we are not extremely worried about the link itself. This thread is what we have been using to document what we do, so we will probably keep using it for as long as we can. 

stathmk wrote:

stathmk wrote:Try this link:
http://www.wolfensteingoodies.com/wolfenstein3dmodsatoz/list-s/ShadowGenesisPt1-OfficialBeta.rar

For anybody reading this thread, would you please do something for me? Click on this link and see if you get an error. If it downloads without an error, then please tell me which browser you're using, and whether you're using Windows 10, Windows 11, or Macintosh. There must be a glitch when I click on a .rar or .zip link on wolf3d.darkb.com. My Windows 10 computer wouldn't let me download from Firefox without an error unless I copy the URL. Google Chrome says it's downloading, but only would download the first file that I clicked on today.

This link didn't do anything for me, not even start the download or complain about security risks.

Heelu, everypeople. Gonna post my progress report before I forget it again. It's easier to show like this so you understand(?) how much work it was.



-Mostly coding. Minor map changes.
-Changes include 5 new enemies added, of which 3 are semi-bosses of the same level;
-Acid type damage added and all enemies are already tweaked to accept it;
  Acid type is mostly for the enemies' own use, at least right now, we don't have any acid based weapons.
-Slightly tweaked a bit the routines of allies attacking, they were killing each other and could kill us too;
-Wrote a few minutes of dialogues as usual;
-Separated enemies by species, so they won't harm each other when the doom-like feature is being used;
-Each enemy now records total dealt damage by the player. 
 This will be used to determine the amount of points the player will receive, meaning enemies being killed by allies, explosive barrels or killing each other won't grant you points anymore. 
 This was made because of the point system restoring your health, so you have to earn it.
-We started changing some things regarding difficulties, such as the number of raid spawned enemies, for example. 
  We will reduce the taken damage ratio even further for the difficulties later, to the point Death Incarnate won't likely won't deal much more damage than Don't Hurt Me is dealing now.
-Syringe will be upgraded. By using syringes on enemies, there will be a chance you'll get an even better syringe from them. It's a way to compensate you for using such a terrible last resort weapon.
 Details are yet to be done.
-Luigius is handling the new loot system, which won't be random anymore. And their chances will also be affected by the difficulty.
-Understand that some of the new sprites were made by renders from 3D tools, which also forced me to animate them prior to the sprite making and that takes time.

That's it for now. I've been working on the last two levels for 3 years, but they are gigantic.
We keep going

Also, the game is officially 90% finished, in terms of level amount.
We can still finish it before Game of Thrones.

Mario Maniac wrote:Heelu, everypeople. Gonna post my progress report before I forget it again. It's easier to show like this so you understand(?) how much work it was.



-Mostly coding. Minor map changes.
-Changes include 5 new enemies added, of which 3 are semi-bosses of the same level;
-Acid type damage added and all enemies are already tweaked to accept it;
  Acid type is mostly for the enemies' own use, at least right now, we don't have any acid based weapons.
-Slightly tweaked a bit the routines of allies attacking, they were killing each other and could kill us too;
-Wrote a few minutes of dialogues as usual;
-Separated enemies by species, so they won't harm each other when the doom-like feature is being used;
-Each enemy now records total dealt damage by the player. 
 This will be used to determine the amount of points the player will receive, meaning enemies being killed by allies, explosive barrels or killing each other won't grant you points anymore. 
 This was made because of the point system restoring your health, so you have to earn it.
-We started changing some things regarding difficulties, such as the number of raid spawned enemies, for example. 
  We will reduce the taken damage ratio even further for the difficulties later, to the point Death Incarnate won't likely won't deal much more damage than Don't Hurt Me is dealing now.
-Syringe will be upgraded. By using syringes on enemies, there will be a chance you'll get an even better syringe from them. It's a way to compensate you for using such a terrible last resort weapon.
 Details are yet to be done.
-Luigius is handling the new loot system, which won't be random anymore. And their chances will also be affected by the difficulty.
-Understand that some of the new sprites were made by renders from 3D tools, which also forced me to animate them prior to the sprite making and that takes time.

That's it for now. I've been working on the last two levels for 3 years, but they are gigantic.
We keep going

That is stellar!  That is stellar!  That is stellar!  What nation did you grow up in?  I'm in America and we say awesome instead of stellar.  I believe I've heard that English speakers in possibly Australia, South Korea, and Japan say stellar because awesome sounds too much like awful.

I took a half-year of C++ in high school and a half-year in college.  I don't know how to help you with it appropriately because it has a high learning curve.  I made a C++ perpetual calendar for the years 1900-1999.

I am so gonna play this rocking game when it's finished!  Game on!

Mario Maniac wrote:Also, the game is officially 90% finished, in terms of level amount.
We can still finish it before Game of Thrones.

I laughed when I saw that nunchuck frog.  I'm still on a trivia team called Nunchuck Spiders, which is a randomly generated name.  In the original 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, one of the 4 turtles is talking to a redneck or a derelict who's a little out there.  The redneck or derelict said to him, "Wow, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Frogs.  I'm your biggest fan."  I laughed at that.

Game of Thrones!?  Comedian Wayne Brady is on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"  The host suggested that they do a crossover between 2 genres.  Then Wayne Brady did the Elmo voice while saying, "Elmo killed off your entire family on Game of Thrones."  It's such a funny show!

Mario and Luigi my old friends. I don't know how you pulled it off but you guys are going to surpass the amount time it took for Duke Nukem Forever to be made and released. I know you two have put a lot of love into making Shadow Genesis compared to 4 different gamng companies making DNF.

But hell I believe even the beta version of Shadow Genesis is better than DNF. 

I don't expect you to reach testing status for another couple years, but I'd like to test it out just like i did with the beta version unless life in my future drastically changes.

And now for a useless post to make my # of posts to hit 1200

stathmk wrote:I laughed when I saw that nunchuck frog.  I'm still on a trivia team called Nunchuck Spiders, which is a randomly generated name.  In the original 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, one of the 4 turtles is talking to a redneck or a derelict who's a little out there.  The redneck or derelict said to him, "Wow, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Frogs.  I'm your biggest fan."  I laughed at that.

Game of Thrones!?  Comedian Wayne Brady is on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"  The host suggested that they do a crossover between 2 genres.  Then Wayne Brady did the Elmo voice while saying, "Elmo killed off your entire family on Game of Thrones."  It's such a funny show!

It's actually a sword

That is stellar!  That is stellar!  That is stellar!  What nation did you grow up in?  I'm in America and we say awesome instead of stellar.  I believe I've heard that English speakers in possibly Australia, South Korea, and Japan say stellar because awesome sounds too much like awful.

I took a half-year of C++ in high school and a half-year in college.  I don't know how to help you with it appropriately because it has a high learning curve.  I made a C++ perpetual calendar for the years 1900-1999.

I am so gonna play this rocking game when it's finished!  Game on!

We're from Brazil, and stellar is not a very used word around here, indeed.
Haha, you wouldn't want to mess with this code. We he had to add act3 and play2 and 3 because they original files exceeded what Dev can handle. We regret nothing.
But appreciate your interest 

WolferCooker wrote:Mario and Luigi my old friends. I don't know how you pulled it off but you guys are going to surpass the amount time it took for Duke Nukem Forever to be made and released. I know you two have put a lot of love into making Shadow Genesis compared to 4 different gamng companies making DNF.

But hell I believe even the beta version of Shadow Genesis is better than DNF. 

I don't expect you to reach testing status for another couple years, but I'd like to test it out just like i did with the beta version unless life in my future drastically changes.

Thanks dude, that means a lot    Yeah, we made a mistake of making way too many castle levels... we regret it. We just did because SOD must have 18... we could have made 10 and would have been good enough.

You can test it if you want, yea, no problem. But like I mentioned once, the levels have a lot of gaps between them. Once we finish the levels, we can even release a second beta still without the secret ones (90% completed means without those included). While you and whoever else tests it, we gonna finish those. Of course that means you'll have to play everything again later but there's not much we can do about that  
We also still have to revisit some earlier levels and add the "Wolf Door" brick suggested years ago. That can be done in a day, fortunately.
If I counted correctly, there are still 7 levels left. After that, me and Luigi will play everything from the beginning (for the very first time ), fix all the issues we find and release the beta.

WolferCooker wrote:And now for a useless post to make my # of posts to hit 1200

That's ok, I got this one of those days lol

Alrighty then. I'll be keeping an eye over here a little more closely for updates as the year goes on.

This is interesting, I didn't know there was another heavily modified SDL mod in the works (for quite a while I see).

One thing I'm impressed by, is the sprites rendering behind walls, and the transparent tops of the bush walls. I haven't quite figured out how to do that myself. I assume that it's just rewriting the renderer completely at this point. I'm curious to know what you did to achieve that.

insurrectionman wrote:This is interesting, I didn't know there was another heavily modified SDL mod in the works (for quite a while I see).

One thing I'm impressed by, is the sprites rendering behind walls, and the transparent tops of the bush walls. I haven't quite figured out how to do that myself. I assume that it's just rewriting the renderer completely at this point. I'm curious to know what you did to achieve that.

Well, to be honest, completely reimplementing the renderer would have been a great idea. Most of these things came up as somewhat experimental things for certain points of certain levels, and later on ended up being something we would use throughout most of the game, which means they were mostly implemented by incrementing/editing the existing renderer. Unfortunately for my sanity, the task of ensuring all of those things coexist in harmony is a tremendous pain, and I have lost count of how many times I had to fix specific things that were not working as intended. 

So yeah, it probably would have been better to rework it from scratch, since it was obviously not implemented with these features in mind. But well, drawing sprites behind walls is not that complicated. Basically, just overriding the checks to see if there is any well obstructing the sprites and having certain sprites having a flag for that, as you don't want all of the sprites to be drawn all the time. Then, for the walls, that is basically a combination of the sprites, as I mentioned, plus having the parallax sky or whatever kind of sky you're using being draw a bit past the wall height line. 

Things get even worse with the different wall heights and ceiling heights, plus sprites on higher floors as well. For that we have a rudimentary z buffer kind of thing, which is by far not the most optimized thing, but it seems to do the job well enough for our purposes.

I would a 100% suggest re-implementing the renderer though, if you ever attempt any of those. It's probably not worth all the pain