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Blood is an old game by Monolith Productions that is... really great. (I don't have other appropriate words here.)
ZBlood is, basically, a Blood remake on (G)ZDoom engine.
ZBlood+ is an unofficial fork of ZBlood. It has been holding "In Development" status for a bit really too much more time than it should have. It's high time at least something was shown to all interested parties (if any exist). And now, ZBlood+ finally has something to show.
So, in ZBlood+ you're again playing as Caleb, kicking heads and empty buckets, boasting great firepower and firing the robed madmen from life (if they ever had any). The unsatisfactory "story" of ZBlood is still there unchanged, because writing stories is not my cup of tea, but having at least this story is better than just "hit the switch to end the level".
If you haven't played ZBlood, or just Blood, you can still enjoy it if you're interested in: infiltrating sinister cults, ludicrous gibs, red rains, horror movies, playing zombie head soccer, Doom not looking like Doom, more or less scary more or less atmosphere, and at the same time great fun blasting things.
Demo Version contains first nine levels of ZBlood, modified so that they run better with truer balance of ZBlood+. They're also a little bit changed here and there. I tested balance by playing it on the highest difficulty, and, trust me, it's possible. And really challenging.
Advanced Engine Needed: although it is totally compatible with ZDoom, it is recommended to play it with GZDoom. (It may even be too dark if you don't, as some maps rely on placed lights.)
Absolutely obviously, you'll need the latest SVN version of either one.
Download link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14235769/zb43demo.zip
Three files in it must all be loaded together. I don't think that order matters, but just in case, I use "stuffs, textic, levede" order.
Spoiler: Features
For Blood purists
Armor type system a la Blood
Setting people on fire a la Blood
Most health/damage stats were meticulously hand-measured (yes, that's an oxymoron) in Blood
Crouching cultists! A la Blood!
Walking routines reworked: most things that walk now walk seamlessly and turn with wonderful grace Like they did in Blood, of course
Et cetera a la Blood, et cetera et cetera a la Blood a la Blood
For progressive fans
New concept of Secret Weapons: consider yourself lucky if find any of them!
More damage types---with respective armors!
Custom monsters that mostly fit where they're encountered! (minus leftover ones, that will be deleted from the final version)
Increase your maximum ammo capacity with these ammo belts (yes, they're rare, too)!
A little more eye-candy.
For modders who are dying without Blood source code like I am
ZBlood+ was originally developed from ZBlood with extensibility in mind. I can't really promise that everything is damn easy to change, add and remove, but I've certainly tried my best at making the mod less insanely tangled in its inner organization. And I'll certainly support anyone willing to learn how to mod it. And maybe even a tutorial or two. Just listen, a tutorial to modding a mod on a port emulating another game! We, certainly, must go deeper.
Some features were designed as heavily generalized specifically for showing the modding potential of ZB+. These include:
Armor types
Throwable weapons
Spoiler: To be or not to be (expected from the upcoming full version)
To be expected:
All ZBlood levels
Obviously, of course, it is sort of priority. Finish polishing this damn thing. It should have happened a long, long ago. Unluckily, I had zero mapping skills at the time I began it, and by 'zero' I mean the one which is −273.15° on the Celsius scale.
More custom stuff (for progressive players)
You'll encounter more spiders, phantasms, cultists, zombies than there were back in the 1997. But there's never enough!
Tested multiplayer (for Blood purists)
Yes. I had never ever run ZDoom in multiplayer. The same goes for Blood. So, obviously, I wasn't able to test this thing. For multiplayer, all bets are off. It might magically work as is; but from my experience with it I can tell that it will need a separate debugging spree. And I can't really do anything about it on Cajun bot party.
But from what I've heard, it is a part of ZBlood that should not be ignored. Many people (weasel words FTW) play ZBlood because this is the best they can get as Blood-like multiplayer.
Maybe a custom level from me personally. No guarantee, though.
And maybe even a player class or two. You know, just to beat Blood 2. And time travel. Who doesn't like time travel? And full *.flac ambient soundtrack. And anime girls. And 3d-rips. And merchandising. And lolcats.
Not really to be expected, unless somebody wants to contribute it solely:
Blood palette
I've had enough with it not having too much. I don't see any difference in-game. I don't consider it important to any extent. If somebody does---I'll look into implementing his ready solution.
Spoiler: Screenshots
(^^^ note the few pixels high orange bar that tells you how long you will burn)
(I am aiming at one of the more secret places in demo.)
note: holy hell, it was September 2010!.. another reason to bring it out now, without delaying what's already overdelayed over overdelays.
There Will Be ZBlood
ZBlood is a mod evolved from Blood TC, which was started in 2006. It is, obviously, a recreation of the old game Blood.
ZBlood+ is a fork of the original ZBlood project started because of the inactivity of the original project. The project's goal is to continue where the original left off, by adding better graphics, lighting effects, more levels, better monster code, and other overall changes to make it a more Bloody experience.
"History. How I became involved"
I was playing ZB 4.1 when it stroke me with both its incompleteness and potential. It had so many tiny (and not too tiny, too) flaws that could be removed with so little effort that I just opened my trusty SLumpEd and began fixing everything in my way After a week or so, I decided to release my patch to ZBlood v4.1. Occasionally it wasn't considered a necrobump since this topic was already necrobumped a few days ago, and people around showed some interest. This was what gave me more will to continue improving it. Soon enough I got ZB v4.2 (unreleased beta) and "ported" my improvements to it. That was called ZBlood v4.2+, because it was something more than ZB4.2, but less than release.
And it's been under construction ever since. Apparently it got stripped of version number, although it is kept in mind that ZBlood+ is in fact ZBlood v4.3 or something like that.
Note: tesla FX
Note: models from Transfusion
Few notes:
ZB+ is GZDoom-oriented, ZDoom-compatible.
ZB+ is centered on restoring original Blood behaviour.
I am in need of assistance with ZBlood+. The main thing in question is mapping, although there are tons of other tweaks to be done until the new version can be (more or less) officially released. Other things that I can't do single-handedly are resource management (by this I mean looking into resources of Blood to find what is not used in ZB+ yet, and giving me a note), playtesting (and finding bugs!), and general discussion.
Well, this looks pretty cool! When it comes to mapping, I don't have time (school, and I already have another project in the works). I would if I did have time for it though. Just out of curiosity, do you plan on keeping the original zblood maps, or are you looking for people to make much more accurate conversions of the original blood maps to replace the god-awful original maps? For the time that they were made they weren't bad, but nowadays with zdoom as it is, they are very bad. Since zdoom now supports 3d floors, some of the sections with 3d floors could be done now. (stacked sectors wouldn't be good enough)
I was working on a mod ages back that had a few Blood weapons recreated as accurately as I could. I even took screenshots of the weapons in action to get the offsets correct and played the game a lot to get the timings down as close as possible. I might be willing to help with this if it's needed, but I can't make any promises. In any case, I will post the old mod if you'd like code for the weapons I had. :)
Edit: Here you go! The weapons I recreated included the pitchfork, flare gun (and dual), and the Tesla gun. Note that I edited the graphics to have Lo Wang's bracers because I was going for a post apocalyptic look. These can easily be replaced by the original sprites or edits thereof. I was looking out for accuracy as much as possible, so the projectiles are pretty accurate, as is the weapon behavior.
Lucario, you are more than welcome See you on β-board! Snarboo, I will surely have a look. The Tesla Cannon which is in ZB+ needs so much improvement that it could be as well redone from scratch; and I will look into others too. Sodahollic, this is one tough question There are maps in ZB (before +) that are actually more detailed and interesting than original (for example, b1e3m2:The Siege). So these ZB ones will be kept if possible, maybe restricted to a separate episode. But accurate recreation of B1 ones (and/or adapting ZB ones to B1) is prevailing.
Lucario, frankly speaking, there is almost nothing to moderate yet. However, your ripping skills will be appreciated; see my reply on β-board Wildweasel, Caligari 87 and Apothem,
Everybody is still welcome to assist!
Caligari 87, well, ok =( Snarboo, I've looked into your wad. The Tesla Cannon in particular is what I will be glad to implement. Especially Alt-Fire (because the one that's in ZB+ right now sucks hard).
Like they did in Blood, of course
