New Game for (68K) Compact Macs

[BacioiuC]

Hi everyone,

This year I plan to release a couple of new games for 68K macs and I'm starting out with a First Person Dungeon Crawler for the the Mac Plus and newer compact macintoshes. The game has been in development for the past 4 months and I'm aiming for a possible release date in late summer. It's currently well into production with art already being commissioned.

It's a first person dungeon crawler with 1 bit graphics that aims to be playable (at a smaller resolution) on the Mac Plus with the target/required system for the best experience sitting at se/30 performance levels.

The plan is to release it as a shareware release on various bbs'es that are still online (captain's quarters, klud.ge, etc) as well as do a full physical release (Box + 800K Floppy Disk + Manual).

I've been on macrumors for a while now and I've never scrolled down enough to notice there was a Apple Collector's section. Now that I am aware this section exists I thought it might be a good idea to post and see how many people would be interested in trying it out when it's done, in order to decide if I should partner with a manufacturing company for the physical release OR if I can just handle it myself.

Here's a video showcasing one of the new first person attack animation:

There's a youtube playlist that I update from time to time with videos from various testing sessions on actual hardware (SE/30 and SE) if anyone wants to check out the evolution.

What do you guys think? Would you like a new game for your compact collection?

Cheers,
BacioiuC

 

[velocityg4]

Might be interesting to try on my IIvx.

I’d suggest making inquiries with a site like macintoshgarden. If they’re be amenable to allow sales or at least getting featured on the front page. Simply because a lot of classic Mac owners frequent the site.

 

[BacioiuC]

Simply because a lot of classic Mac owners frequent the site.

Ay ay, already have a dev thread on 68kmla and already archived some old 68K software I got to MacintoshGarden. Will upload the shareware there too when it's done

 

[Cameront9]

Got a link to the Dev thread? I'm definitely interested in this! If the price is right I'd love to have a new physical Mac game!

 

[BacioiuC]

Sure thing. Waiting for more art to arrive before I do another update on it though.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Would definitely pick up the boxed copy. If the shareware includes the standard-for-old-shareware printable order form you mail off with payment, I'd even do that!

 

[BacioiuC]

Update time:

First off, on the art side, my artist has completed the first batch of art and animations for the game. This includes:

First person

• Sword Slash animation
• Critical attack sword slash animation
• Casting Animation
• Dagger hit animation
• Enemy claw slash animation

Here's a preview of how they look like "on paper", in sequence:

Next up, I'm waiting for Lucky to wrap up a first person bow firing animation (both normal and critical attack) and wall textures + movement/transition animations to be played "full screen" during motion. When this is completed, we'll move onto doing character sprites for the player (race, class), enemies and world details (trees, chests, traps, puzzle elements, etc). Finally, the last step is the game's branding and intro section but that is a few months away from now.

On the code side, I've implemented the animation system in-game and tied it to the current weapon type the player is using (Sword, Daggers, Unarmed, Ranged or Magic) and I can switch between them at will. I've also stress tested the animation system on the SE/30 and it seems to run quite okay, with a little bit of flickering when more than 4 animations being blotted to the screen at the same time (you'll see in one of the videos bellow).

On the production side of the game It seems that the company I negotiated with for the physical production of the game has gone under sometimes in the past two weeks and closed up shop. Sadly, I need to find another source for the manufacturing and production of the game's box + manual + floppy.

The next step for development is to export all of the game's data to external csv files for content creation while only keeping the minimum elements needed for the game in the data fork. This includes using CSV files for creating the content, enemies and items which will allow for really fast debugging and content creation session. Image opening up enemies.csv in Excel 4 and typing in the name of an enemy, what images to use, what his stats are and on what dungeon level you can find it.

Here's a video from the latest build showcasing how the animations work and look like:

I've also uploaded a video with the game running on the se/30 showcasing the flickering issue with 4+ animations being overlaid (same animation was triggered 4 times at the same time).

TL;DR: Animation system is mostly done, most first person animations have been drawn and integrated and I'm moving onto content creation for the game. Manufacturing is still undecided.