Project Osiris - Alien Breed 3D for GZDoom (1.0.3)

[Master O]

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/1 ... nt-2224593

[ArcturusDeluxe]

Yeah I had a slight panic attack upon seeing Icarus had reviewed it! It seems to be mostly positive though, so that's cool. Plus it got a Civvie cameo! I feel special! Even if it was because it had a sewer level. I'll take it!

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/1 ... nt-2224593

That's very kind of you to nominate it. Personally I don't think it's worth a Cacoward, since a lot of it isn't my own work, and it's probably fairer to award people who've made their mods from scratch. Plus some mappers have done incredible stuff with the engine, way beyond what I could do. I really do appreciate the vote of confidence though!

By the way, as per Icarus's review, I've added MR. BUBZ mode, coming next update! I sure am using my time on this earth wisely!
https://twitter.com/arcturusdeluxe/stat ... 6185296905

[Yeetee]

Is there meant to be music in 0.10, or has that not yet been implemented?

[ArcturusDeluxe]

Is there meant to be music in 0.10, or has that not yet been implemented?

Partially. By default at the moment the only in-game music is a track that plays during boss fights. The CD32 music is in there if you type "ab3d_music 1" in the console. The new full ambient soundtrack that I'm making for it will be in the next version, and so will the menu options. I wanted to make sure the music switching system works properly before making the option 'official'.

[JudgeGroovyman]

I love this. The maps are great (I especially like the courtyard) and even though I know you didn't originally design them you did a great job re-creating them into this ultra playable and fun package. Special props for the Amiga mouse cursor btw. Thats super classy.

[ArcturusDeluxe]

I love this. The maps are great (I especially like the courtyard) and even though I know you didn't originally design them you did a great job re-creating them into this ultra playable and fun package. Special props for the Amiga mouse cursor btw. Thats super classy.

Oh hello! Nice to see you in here, thanks for the props! The Courtyard was always my favourite level of this game since I was a kid. It took me a while to get far into that map back then because I was using a one-button joystick (for some reason the idea to use keyboard control instead never occured to me?) and it was running at single-digit FPS on my basic A1200, so I was dying a lot. But because the map teases later areas really well, letting you see them but leaving them tantalisingly out of reach, it made it that much more interesting. It was really cool when I finally got on that bridge you see on the way to the yellow key, for example. Probably seems quite basic now, and may be a silly thing to get excited about, but to me this felt like a tangible place that I was discovering and piecing together, it was awesome! So I have a lot of fondness for it.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Outstanding total conversion! It is so cool - and ironic - to be able to play a Doom killer on the very engine of the game it was intended to rival with.

A full-fledged Marathon Trilogy total conversion when?

[ArcturusDeluxe]

STATUS UPDATE

I think I said on here or on Twitter or somewhere that 1.0 should be done before the new year. So much for that. Thanks depression! Anyway, 1.0 is fairly close, though I don't want to put an exact date on it yet. It's pretty much a polishing update, with mostly UI and asset stuff, and only small gameplay changes.

Here are some things:

- Couldn't get the post preview to show the animated gifs, but trust me (or click them to confirm) that these two baddies now have the full 8 angles. I know the Matriarch (the red one) is slightly awkward with its forward/backwards frames, but the original sprites were a little incongruent with eachother, so I had to do my best to bridge the gaps in between. Looks fine in the game though.


- Some people had trouble with the designs of the small ammo boxes, saying they looked too alike. Now they have distinct colours that reflect their contents, and they have brightmaps so the colours stand out.


- The fullscreen HUD has been spruced up a little, the little ammo counter for all your weapons is now connected and it all looks a bit more cohesive. The classic Doom-style status bar is still an option too if you prefer that.


- New soundtrack of course. Here's a tiny snippet of one of the tracks.

The AB3D fans among you will recognise the pulsing bass line from TKG - yep it's based on that, but it's only for that one track. There are 10 new tracks, some of them are reused across two levels. The mood is generally dark electronica, quite slow and downtempo, sometimes to the point of being straight up ambient, but occassionally gets aggressive too. Some scripting has been added to the maps to fade/cut to silence or start music back up at appropriate times as well.

Stay tuned for more things!

Outstanding total conversion! It is so cool - and ironic - to be able to play a Doom killer on the very engine of the game it was intended to rival with.

A full-fledged Marathon Trilogy total conversion when?

Thanks! Not played much Marathon myself, so I'm not sure I'm your man for that one!

[Captain J]

- Couldn't get the post preview to show the animated gifs, but trust me (or click them to confirm) that these two baddies now have the full 8 angles. I know the Matriarch (the red one) is slightly awkward with its forward/backwards frames, but the original sprites were a little incongruent with eachother, so I had to do my best to bridge the gaps in between. Looks fine in the game though.

NOW that's what i'm talking about! I say the detail and the appearance is definitely like the original and i like them both. Very cool update in general!

And now i'm wondering, can we expect to see the new map pack? Like what if Alien Breed had some kind of expansion or community map pack?

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Thanks! Not played much Marathon myself, so I'm not sure I'm your man for that one!

I know, I was just highlighting the irony of porting a Doom killer to Doom; at this rate, it is only a matter of time before someone decides to redo the Marathon Trilogy too!

But to tell the truth, this total conversion does remind me of Marathon a lot, I am not really sure why. Maybe it is the level design, the dark environment or even some of the weapons?

Anyway, looking forward to 1.0!

And now i'm wondering, can we expect to see the new map pack? Like what if Alien Breed had some kind of expansion or community map pack?

Oh yes, please! A community map pack would be especially great, especially if it features better level design than the original game.

Either that or a side-mod that lets you play vanilla mapsets with Project Osiris' arsenal and bestiary!

[zxdunny]

At the risk of sounding like a moaner (again) the changes to the levels are what's stopping me playing the latest update, so a map pack of the original levels would be lovely.

[ArcturusDeluxe]

I know, I was just highlighting the irony of porting a Doom killer to Doom; at this rate, it is only a matter of time before someone decides to redo the Marathon Trilogy too!

But to tell the truth, this total conversion does remind me of Marathon a lot, I am not really sure why. Maybe it is the level design, the dark environment or even some of the weapons?

Anyway, looking forward to 1.0!

It's interesting that you call it a "Doom killer"? Do you just mean that was the intention or that it was actually better than Doom? If so I can't say I really agree with that myself. Though the engine was very clever considering the limitations and could do some things that Doom couldn't, and I do have a lot of nostalgic affection for AB3D, I gotta say I don't think it holds a candle to Doom in the end. Just my view of things though!

As far as the Marathon comparison goes, I can sort of see what you're saying. Especially since Osiris renders them at a resolution that you can compare them a bit more easily.
The simple lo-fi level designs and the slightly awkward hand-drawn sprites have a similar feel. (I don't even mean that negatively btw, it's charming!)

And now i'm wondering, can we expect to see the new map pack? Like what if Alien Breed had some kind of expansion or community map pack?

I've definitely thought of doing a map pack somewhere down the road, like a new 16 level set with more modern design. I'd want to get the demo maps out first though (will be working on those after 1.0) so that people have the extra enemy types and resources to work with. That said, I also want to work on some different projects at some point, so it might be some time before I get to making all-new maps. In the mean time people are always free to make mods and maps if they want to, I'd love to see that.

At the risk of sounding like a moaner (again) the changes to the levels are what's stopping me playing the latest update, so a map pack of the original levels would be lovely.

At this point, I plan to put out the 'clean' maps as a separate download, but they'd be intended more as a resource, than a proper way to play the game. Even these maps will be slightly different as I made some changes during the recreation process (cleaned up what seemed like line misplacements, fixed some texture bugs etc) and certain differences between the engines had to be worked around, such as the way certain lift platforms work.

The thing is, the goal of this project was always to make a modernised AB3D with (what I hope are) improvements to the maps and gameplay, and I never meant it to be an exact clone of the original. The mere fact it's in GZDoom makes it a fundamentally different game, with different physics and so on. For a long time I was a bit torn as to whether to add a 'classic' mode with the original maps and old gameplay style, but making and maintaining a whole seperate balance that's slightly closer to the original doesn't seem worth it to me. It would be two broadly similar versions of the same thing, neither of which are exactly true to the original game anyway.

You don't sound like a moaner or anything, don't worry about that. Could I ask what exactly puts you off though? Is it that it's further from the original game, or something specific about the changes I made? I'd be interested to hear the feedback.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Sorry. What I meant is that Alien Breed 3D was meant to be a "Doom killer", as it was one of the Amiga's attempts at offering an alternative to Doom. Of course, it ultimately failed, so it is both nice and ironic that the game would find a second life on the engine of the very game it was meant to rival.

[aconike]

This game is unreal and FAMOUS. The atmosphere, super gameplay and atmosphere + is made up of the best person on the PC scene! Thank you!

ps. Take a look at my last PM and write to me in the PM if you could adjust the levels for me according to the photos I sent.

Thank you

[Sgt. Pepperoni]

First off, I wanted to congratulate you for all your hard work ! I never had the chance playing the original back in the day, despite having an Amiga, but thanks to you I had the chance to, and it was a blast !

Have you figured how to implement the underwater effect you struggled to replicate, yet ? If not, have you considered using a rippling post-processing shader ? It might do the trick, I don't know much about GZDoom, but it might worth doing some digging.