[Commercial GLOOME] Xenomia (Now with Single Player!)

[Captain Ventris]

As of today we are officially announcing Xenomia, a commercial multiplayer game based on a (more and more modified) GLOOME engine. Our website with plenty of info is here, and you can also catch us on Facebook and on Twitter @XenomiaGame.

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Xenomia is a Real-time Strategy game that puts YOU on the battlefield, gifting you with the ability to fling killer fighting mushrooms at your friends until your eyes bleed. Now you can finally slay the very avatar of that internet person who's been spamming abusive chats at you for the past twenty minutes!

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By the original developer of ZDoom Wars (me), in concert with my brother (Leonan) and my wife (Rosirine). Xenomia is the first game from Tiny Tuttle Studios and is scheduled for release sometime before Star Trek happens in real life.

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Features of the pre-alpha (linked on the site) include the majority of Tier 1 and 2 (out of a final 5) content for the first Faction. The pre-alpha launcher provides a global chat lobby through which you can set up games, and set your in-game name and team easily. Teams and colors are synonymous, so a team game is just setting multiple people to different colors (2 green vs 2 red or what not).

So to Xenomia.com, register an account, download the Pre-Alpha and check it out!

[JimpArgon]

So, this is a Zandronum mod? I don't mind, its juts not something I normally see on here. Also, it really reminds me (in looks) of Megaman 8-bit deathmatch.

I'm sure its nothing like it seeing that its a strategy game. I'll have to give this a shot later.

[Captain Ventris]

So, this is a Zandronum mod? I don't mind, its juts not something I normally see on here. Also, it really reminds me (in looks) of Megaman 8-bit deathmatch.

I'm sure its nothing like it seeing that its a strategy game. I'll have to give this a shot later.

As said in the title and in the site, it is a commercial game based on the GLOOME sourceport.

[Combinebobnt]

Nice zdoomwars update

[Redead-ITA]

im interest on what your gonna end up with keep working on it

[Arctangent]

Stuff from the Joy of Mapping Discord:

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Gutawer - Today at 4:10 PM
ha, cool
so somebody's finally doing something with GLOOME then heh
Redead-ITA - Today at 4:10 PM
im downloading that
CUZ I LOVE ZDOOM WARS
Gutawer - Today at 4:12 PM
the screenshots look pretty cool, but i hope this sort of stuff http://i.imgur.com/Arje69L.png http://i.imgur.com/5AtGae4.png gets figured out before a serious release
i know it's pre-alpha, so i can expect things like that to get fixed, though
ZZYZX - Today at 4:14 PM
Multiplayer game based on gloome?
Does it get zdooms P2P
Also the screenshots look cool
then you read commercial
and realize these screenshots are shit
Gutawer - Today at 4:15 PM
yeah, i would hope basic texture alignment stuff like that gets figured out before a final release
ZZYZX - Today at 4:15 PM
sprite games are pretty much dead as of now
like
even 2D games
make use of models
just 2D
vector stuff
Gutawer - Today at 4:16 PM
you cant really have a slope on a brick texture, thats not how it works
ZZYZX - Today at 4:16 PM
you can
but
you need an engine that supports darkening surface edges
like risen3d/jdoom
You will get somewhat cartoonish effect but okay for a game like this
Which is itself cartoonish
Well if they are using rewritten gloome engine there's a good chance they can write something like that
Gutawer - Today at 4:18 PM
darkening surface edges, that means the engine automatically adds a border to the slopes edge, right? or maybe im misunderstanding
ZZYZX - Today at 4:22 PM
yes @Gutawer
Gutawer - Today at 4:22 PM
ok, i can see how that would work then

Also, the ZDoom blood decals are reeeaaally conspicious ... especially since there's not supposed to be blood.

Hard to talk about anything else, given that I haven't actually been able to play yet and most of the units aren't even in yet, but capture points could use some indication of their capture area - it seems like it's rather arbitrary right now, due to to being unmarked.

Also, I get an BindToPort: EADDRINUSE fatal error when I try to host from the launcher. If you're expecting people to use this hack-job way of organizing and hosting games, then you're definitely going to need to make it as streamlined as possible and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work - there's no instructions in-launcher, from what I can see.

Speaking of the launcher, preferred team doesn't seem to save. Wouldn't be surprised if it's the same for the tag, either.

[Captain Ventris]

Yeaaaaah that silly decal thing has already been fixed since that shot. And yeah it's a pre-alpha tech demo so obviously it's woefully incomplete. End goal is a custom client/server architecture and numerous engine modifications will be coming. Yeah, capture point demarcation is a goal as well. And, ya know, elimination of all the Freedoom/default stuff. Preferred team functionality isn't present yet, it's sort of a dud setting, but Tag, etc. work fine.

Edit: Launcher update is inbound to fix that issue.

[Alekv]

Looks interesting =), but why GLOOME?
It has problems with the sound

[Leonan8995]

We're using GLOOME as a starting point, but we've forked the engine already. Improvements to things like netcode and audio will happen as we go. I'm Captain Ventris' brother, and a freelance software developer who will be making changes and (hopefully... maybe...) improvements to the engine!

[Arctangent]

Some other stuff:

Coding in proper 3D Hudmessages would be a really good idea, considering how janky the "USE" and such text looks with the current pure ACS method. Being able to hide them while looking at the automap would also look a lot better, too.

It feels reeeaaal awkward to be able to hit the ceiling just by casually jumping. Maybe raise it so that you can't do that unless you try something silly, like jumping on top of a very high flying unit?

Speaking of jumping, the lack of air control is also really awkward. It definitely feels like you should have some sort of control in mid-air, even if it isn't as fine as a platformer. Something close to Overwatch's would be really good, if you've ever played that.

The gate switches don't look like switches. Like, at all. The way they're laid out and made distinctive mitigates this, but I wouldn't blame anyone for not realizing what those were. Or that the gates were actually even gates, because they just sort of look like walls.

The capture progress bars could really use more frames. As they are, they go from "smoothly animated enough" when you first step into them to "am I even capturing this thing" for the second later until the first blip appears. This just looks janky, and it kind of hurts figuring out how much progress you've actually made in capturing a point.

You can jump off into the inescapable slime pit. Then you'll find invisible floor in some spot that keeps you from dying - or you can just hide under the bridge, which doesn't deal damage anyway. But you'll still have no way out. I'd honestly just replace the pit with cliffs or something, or at least add a proper fence too tall to jump over.

That same pit also has a darkened area under the bridge ... except the green-tinted walls don't darken, they're the same brightness as the rest of the green-tinted walls.

XENMAP02 has a similar problem with invisible walls blocking pits, though at least these work. I know you're not meant to fall into them, but really you want to avoid invisible walls unless there's a reason why it feels like they should be there ( i.e. there's a fence, tall enough or not, or it's the top of a cliff that looks like a proper wall anyway, etc. ). Although there's water pits you can fall into anyway, though I can chock those up to, well, the map being incomplete.

Both these maps call into question the consistency of the art style's resolution. Everything has this doubled or even quadrupled pixel look to it ... but there's pieces of the landscape that don't respect it at all, not just because of slopes but also just plain sector heights not lining up according to it. It might just be me, but this always bothers me when people go for low-resolution-that's-scaled-up aesthetics, and while I wouldn't mind some minor inconsistencies it seems pretty flagrant for the levels themselves to not even try to respect it.

[Captain Ventris]

We'll obviously get to the map inconsistencies, assuming Unjust deserts remains as a map throughout development. We just kinda needed a test map that could at least demonstrate the gameplay. Switch textures were not originally intended as such (they're just temporarily repurposed trim textures) and actual textures will be purpose made for that obviously. We're at a veeeeery early stage so we have a limited repertoire or resources as-is.

Real Hud Message support is a goal that we'll be working towards among numerous other engine additions, improvements, and fixes. Same for all the textual notifications for tiers and such.

Air control! Well that's an obvious quick thing to toss in!

As far as capture bars, we intend to port over the functionality from SBARINFO or raw code a method that allows a smooth drawing of a Sprite, so the end result will be a silky smooth loading bar effect.

[Captain Ventris]

Tiny Tuttle is proud to announce that starting this Sunday and repeating every following week (unless otherwise noted), we are holding weekly testing sessions from 4-8PM CST! At least one of the Devs will be on, so it'll be a great time to play, chat and give feedback.

Again that's this and all following Sunday's, from 4PM-8pm CST. Make sure you've registered your profile, and see you in game!

[Captain Ventris]

Huge thanks to everyone who came out to help test and play! Your input is invaluable and we're already working on addressing the issues presented and to keep making Xenomia the best game it can be.

We hope to see all of you and more next week! Please share your screenshots, share our social media pages, and spread the word!

We do and will always need the support of our players to continue making Xenomia a reality, and we can hardly wait to show you what we have planned for the future. We know you'll love it as much as we do.

[Captain Ventris]

Tiny Tuttle Studios is proud to announce that we are going to have a booth in the Electronic Gaming room at the San Japan convention in San Antonio, Texas! We'll be demoing Xenomia and getting out the Good Word (about the glory of the Agarchaean Oligarchy, of course). Expect plenty of live-tweeting and pictures!

If you're in San Antonio and will be attending San Japan, or know anyone who is, be sure to send 'em our way!

[Captain Ventris]

Pre-Alpha 3 is now out! Download it off the site.

The full, massive changelog can be found here!