Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Lesser known clone projects or isolated news items about rare or unusual clones.
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DSE
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Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by DSE »

I think you guys had better see this, its bloody amazing -

http://mattiasgustavsson.com/Blog/Entri ... legame.php
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Re: New DirectX9 DM clone - entombed

Post by Joramun »

:shock:
What Is Your Quest ?
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Jan
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Re: New DirectX9 DM clone - entombed

Post by Jan »

:shock:
Finally playing and immensely enjoying the awesome Thimbleweed Park-a-reno!
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Mattias Gustavsson
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Re: New DirectX9 DM clone - entombed

Post by Mattias Gustavsson »

DSE wrote:I think you guys had better see this, its bloody amazing -

http://mattiasgustavsson.com/Blog/Entri ... legame.php
(I hope you guys don't mind me jumping in like this - I found this site through my web stats, as I'd gotten a bunch of visitors from here).

Thanks for the kind words :D I'm glad you like it!

I just thought it'd be a good idea to point out something though: the game I've started fiddling a little with is just a 2D game (based on pre-renders) just like the original DM. You'll just be turning 90 degrees and walking a cell at a time. And the preview images are just mockups, so I'm not entirely sure I can get it looking like that for the full thing (but hoping to get close). There's a first walk-around demo here http://bit.ly/4nGYta (windows only). (also, I'm using a program called Poser for all the graphics, so it's just stock-models, I just put them together, apply some lighting and render them out...)

What DSE is doing is lots and lots more complex, as it is proper 3D, and it's looking great! :D I'm really looking forward to seeing how it develops, looks like it's off to a really good start.

Anyway, I'm happy to have found this forum, and will certainly be hanging out here a bit. I might post about my game too sometime, but I feel like DSE has got a good thing going here, and I don't want to steal his thunder (not that I think there's any risk of that - his stuff is in a different league) 8)
Last edited by Mattias Gustavsson on Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Gambit37
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Re: New DirectX9 DM clone - entombed

Post by Gambit37 »

:shock: Oh my goodness me. Can it be true? Now I *really* have to get a new PC: firstly for Entombed, and then for this new clone. Looks awesome!

@Mattias: I'll split this thread out to a new thread for your clone; that way we can discuss it without going off topic in DSE's Entombed thread?
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Mattias Gustavsson
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Re: New DirectX9 DM clone - entombed

Post by Mattias Gustavsson »

Cool, thanks! 8)
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Gambit37
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Gambit37 »

Forgot to say, welcome to the forum! Your initial screens and initial walkabout demo are looking very tasty. Lots of questions spring to mind, but I'll leave them for now as I have to do some other things. I hope you enjoy your stay here. :)
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Re: New DirectX9 DM clone - entombed

Post by Sophia »

Gambit37 wrote:Now I *really* have to get a new PC: firstly for Entombed, and then for this new clone. Looks awesome!
The graphics do indeed look very nice. :D

However, the computer doesn't care how nice the graphics are. To it, they're just pixel pushing, which is actually pretty simple, graphically. I'm assuming it's using 3d acceleration to display the 2d graphics, as is pretty much standard nowadays, and in that case, there actually aren't that many polygons being drawn and pretty much any computer that is tolerably useful nowadays would be able to play it fine. :)
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by linflas »

Image

*heart attack*
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by DSE »

Thanks for the reply to my post on devmaster. Your demo is really cool and I have to keep going back to those screen shots, they are absolutely mega. They are now my target render for my game (dont think I will get it as good but you have to aim high !!). My new rendering engine is coming together nicely and includes SSAO and so on so the new screenshots look really nice.

Can I ask where you get old your pots, pans, tables and so on ? Did you create them ?

Cheers
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Mattias Gustavsson
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Mattias Gustavsson »

Yes, Sophia is right, it's not going to be high requirements at all, it's just 2d. In fact, it doesn't even use hardware acceleration (as it's using the Pixie game engine). I'm doing most of the development on a 7 year old crappy laptop :shock:

@DSE: yeah, nothing wrong with aiming high :) And it can be great fun to work on advanced rendering and stuff (I did that for a good few years, like back when I worked on Crackdown for the Xbox360. But it's good to be able to work on the *game* bit as well, for variety, and not have to do *only* graphics programming :) )

As for the props in my scenes, well, I use Poser, a 3D package for people who can't model or texture things :P Basically, it comes with just a few models, and then you can buy extra models from different vendors, so all the models I use are bought - I just put them together, customize a few settings, add some lights and render them out. But yeah, having a bit of clutter in the dungeon sort of makes it feel a bit more alive... Most of the stuff in the screenshots comes from this package of models. Poser models are way too high poly to be used in realtime 3D though (and the license don't allow for it anyway).


I'm thinking of attempting to make this game quite flexible, and easy to mod - and maybe that'll mean that people might make their own levels and stuff for it, which would be quite cool :-) But I'll be releasing the source code too (I usually do for my games), for those who are into C++ and wants to have a poke around.
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Bit »

Mattias, just ask Sophia if that couldn't be done with DSB.
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by DSE »

Thanks for the reply, those models are cool :O)

Sorry if Im being thick here, do you class youself as a professional programmer or artist ? Crackdown was an awesome game, can I ask in what capacity you were involved (art or coding). Just interested thats all :O)
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Jan
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Jan »

Mattias, this is absolutely incredible! The graphics both in the demo and in the screenshots is just fantastic! This is exactly how I've always imagined a modern clone of DM! Please, do go on, in the same way as you did! :D

EDIT: And, yes, welcome to the forums! :)
Finally playing and immensely enjoying the awesome Thimbleweed Park-a-reno!
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Gambit37
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Gambit37 »

I agree with Jan -- this actually seems to be the first modern clone to capture the movement of DM correctly. 3D is great and all, but it almost offers TOO MUCH freedom and thus takes something away from the DM experience. You can't escape the fact that DM was partly defined by its movement constraints, so anything else sort of feels wrong.

@Mattias: Do you want any feedback on the demo yet? I'm sure you're aware of some of the issues, so I don't want to raise stuff if you don't want feedback at this stage.
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Mattias Gustavsson
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Mattias Gustavsson »

Thanks for all the praise :-)

I agree about the movement thing, for me personally I find the 90degree/whole cell movement of the original to be very appealing, it makes it easier to get a good sense of orientation, and less chance getting lost. Though free movement can be cool too, and it's great that some people are doing that - but I also feel that it gives you a different type of gaming experience. Anyway, I like working with some of the more oldskool techniques, with all 2D instead of realtime 3D... :-)
DSE wrote:Sorry if Im being thick here, do you class youself as a professional programmer or artist ? Crackdown was an awesome game, can I ask in what capacity you were involved (art or coding). Just interested thats all :O)
Oh, I was a programmer on crackdown (mostly on visual stuff, graphics programming (shaders and such) but also things like the camera and bits of the ai systems). I'm not a professional programmer anymore though (but I was for almost 10 years), but I'll soon be again (moving to England next week to start a new job :D)

I definitely don't consider myself an artist, so I'm very happy when people find something to like about the art in my games :D I've been dabbling with programs like Poser for quite some time, and I occasionally manage to wring things out of it which I'm quite proud of - but I'm not an artist really, just a programmer trying to raise the level of his "programmer art" :-)


I don't mind feeback at all, it's just great to hear what people think about it :-) And yeah, I do know of some issues, but it's no harm to have them repeated. It's just an early version anyway, so not that much there, but since it's out there it should stand to be discussed as it is now. Also, if anyone have suggestions, feel free to give them as well - I might choose not to act on some of them, but it still doesn't hurt to hear them :D
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Gambit37
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Gambit37 »

OK, cool. Well first things first -- the demo is great! I realise it's limited, but if gives a great sense of how the game will play and the graphics are very tasty indeed :-) I really love how you've got proper side views of itemssuch as tables, this makes a huge difference to believability (DM just shifted items off screen partially but they remained the same, so the perspective was always wrong.)

Now some thoughts:

1) You need to "flip" the floor horizontally on each step, and also have differently rendered images on the right wall vs. the left. This is what makes movement convincing in DM. Without it, it seems like the walls are sliding towards the player, rather than the player moving forward. DM also did this for walls viewed straight ahead, but you can might get away with not doing this in your game as the detail is so much higher.

2) I don't think the slight fading in and out of walls is working too well. I'd prefer this to be instant as it was in DM. It seems to make the player feel more like they are sliding around.

3) Lighting is interesting, but not realistic. I know you're pre-rendering, so this is a big issue: Are you having player controlled light sources (ie, torches, light spells, etc?) If so, then the pre-rendering might be an issue. For example, the table in the wooden room does strange things compared to the light source behind it.

OK, just a few initial thoughts. I'm looking forward to watching this develop.
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by DSE »

Thanks for that, wow you worked on a commercial game ! Thats so cool for someone like me who is really into everything 'games' ! Mattias, good luck with your new job :O)
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by beowuuf »

Only briefly looked at the two screen shots, see it better next week. Looks good though - welcome to the forums!
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Trantor »

Welcome to the forums indeed! Those screenshots look amazing! :D
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Sophia
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Sophia »

Gambit37 wrote:Lighting is interesting, but not realistic. I know you're pre-rendering, so this is a big issue: Are you having player controlled light sources (ie, torches, light spells, etc?) If so, then the pre-rendering might be an issue. For example, the table in the wooden room does strange things compared to the light source behind it.
This one is kind of worrying for "super-hi-res" dungeons in general. :? Lighting issues that would go completely unnoticed in the lower-res, lower-detail DM graphical style suddenly start to stand out, and create visual discord. Even in DM2, the pre-renderedness (pre-drawn?) nature of the lighting used creates some visual problems. It gets brighter as you walk up to a burning torch on the wall, which looks good. However, as you step away from it, the area with the burning torch fades to black, instead of having a "glow" around it (because the DM engine just can't display this)

These graphics, at least as used in the screenshots, look really good! I hope Mattias can fit them together so they look nice in-game all the time. :)
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Trego »

All be it a little late... Welcome, and the screen shots look great.
It's not a bug in the program, I've just gone and done something weird.
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Zyx »

Stunningly alive. Perfect style to tell a story. Inspiring.
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Bit
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by Bit »

He even loves Talisman and Gauntlet. Those swedes are amazing! 8)

Fine things on your website, respect! Glad you made it to here.

I think the demo perfectly proofs that with modern artwork even such tile-based games could be successful.
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Re: Dungeon Grind: New clone in progress

Post by bhagabhi »

That indeed looks just amazing!
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