Can a GZDoom-like engine be made for Build games?

[Teddipetzi]

One thing I really like about GZDoom is how it managed to blend the features of all Doom-engine games together in one complete package, where everything is available in all the supported games.

When looking at Build, the entire source port landscape looks totally fragmented, each game got its own port and all have different bugs and problems, basically the only one that seems to work right is EDuke32.

One of my dream projects would be to have a universal port for the most common games, but knowing little of the development work involved, my question to those who made it possible for Doom would be, is this even possible or are the games really that different?

[Rachael]

Anything is possible if you're willing to put the work into it.

But in the realm of what is asking only what is reasonable of developers who are doing this completely for free: No, it's not possible to merge Build and Doom engines together. It'd take way too much work and effort.

[leileilol]

No because for most of them, the only portion in common is the Build renderer. Build itself is not a game engine. Ken does provide sample game code with his Build demo, and all of the licensees diverge heavily from it (Blood being the most technically elaborate). It's not like it was from Doom licensing. It's like starting a game project with only the renderer's watcom obj files to work with and figure out (no source for the renderer given).

The only games that are "in common" with each other are Duke3D-based Redneck Rampage, NAM and WW2 GI.

[Graf Zahl]

No because for most of them, the only portion in common is the Build renderer. Build itself is not a game engine. Ken does provide sample game code with his Build demo, and all of the licensees diverge heavily from it (Blood being the most technically elaborate). It's not like it was from Doom licensing. It's like starting a game project with only the renderer's watcom obj files to work with and figure out (no source for the renderer given).

Indeed. Just comparing the duke3d and sw subdirectories in the EDuke32 project clearly shows that the code is totally different, there is no chance to ever get this together into one engine.

The only games that are "in common" with each other are Duke3D-based Redneck Rampage, NAM and WW2 GI.

Interestingly there is one port that combines Duke3D and Redneck Rampage (NRedneck), too bad that it is based on an EDuke32 version which has the mouse control thoroughly messed up and IMO is unusable for mouse play. I'd like to see this updated, but the changes to EDuke32 since this was last updated have been huge, and EDuke32 being hosted on SVN makes this a very unappealing project.

But yes, a common port for these games would be doable - including Shadow Warrior and Blood is unlikely, though.

[Teddipetzi]

Really?

That's a bit disappointing to hear, I was hoping there was at least a chance to do such a project...

[leileilol]

The way most of the Build games are, they might as well be completely different engines... heck, some don't even share the same sound system.

[Graf Zahl]

If you could call what they use "sound system"...
None of the ports I checked out had anything sophisticated to offer.

If it wasn't such a gargantuan amount of work to clean up the code and it wasn't such a moving target, taking EDuke32 and transforming it into something better structured, and then adding Redneck Rampage support from the NRampage port could be a fun project. But from a structural point of view this is worse than the ugliest Doom ports I know.

[Phredreeke]

While it's not as feature rich as other ports, for people who want one port for all Build games there's M210's BuildGDX it currently supports Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Redneck Rampage (and RR Rides Again), Witchaven and Tekwar, and the author plans to add more games such as Shadow Warrior and Powerslave.

[Graf Zahl]

Is there also a source release? I couldn't find anything on that linked page. I'm not too fond of binary-only projects for old games which have seen a source code release by the publisher.

[Nash]

Seems to be this one: https://gitlab.com/m210/BuildEngine

EDIT: Nah that's not it, looks useless

[Graf Zahl]

That doesn't look complete...

[Phredreeke]

That is just the parts common to all ports. Games have individual entries on the author's Gitlab page

https://gitlab.com/m210

[Nash]

I followed the link from a BloodGDX wiki page but upon closer inspection to that Gitlab repo, it seems that there's no game code in there. https://blood-wiki.org/index.php/BloodGDX

[Graf Zahl]

That is just the parts common to all ports. Games have individual entries on the author's Gitlab page

https://gitlab.com/m210

I noticed. So in the end this isn't really a 'common' port either, it's just all games lumped together into one binary...
... and the code itself looks like a straight port from C to Java, but structurally it's the same bad style inherited from the original games.

[Phredreeke]

Yeah, but it's the closest thing available to what OP asked for.

I don't think it's possible to merge any of the games not based on Duke3D into one port, you'd end up with something like BloodCM, which looks like the original but is really just an approximation.