Project Osiris - Alien Breed 3D for GZDoom (0.9 BETA)

[ArcturusDeluxe]

CURRENT UPDATE: 0.9 (9th March 2020) - see near bottom of post for changelog

Project Osiris is a remake/slight reimagining of the Amiga FPS game Alien Breed 3D, using the GZDoom engine.

Alien Breed 3D was a valiant attempt at basically creating Doom but for the Amiga, a machine that really wasn't suited for such tasks. The pixels were huge and the viewport was tiny, but it was a technically impressive 3D shooter considering the limitations. It even had some features over Doom - the water effects were amazing and it supported 3D floors and even texture mapped models. It was my first real experience of a texture mapped first person world so it was somewhat of a revelation to me. It may not be anywhere near as tightly designed as Doom (honestly some of maps are pretty bad), but I have a lot of nostalgia for it, and it has a place in my heart.

So, I decided my first major Doom engine project would be to recreate it and also, ideally, iron out some of the issues of the original. Having seen a few other attempts at remaking this game not reach fruition, I thought I'd step up to the plate and have a go at it myself!

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Features

* All 16 maps from the original game converted and adapted. The maps have generally been given additional monsters, tweaked item placement and even some extra shortcuts and surprises, but they are also still close the originals, for better or worse in some cases.

* New textures and visual effects have been added. Dynamic lighting is used on many objects and some areas of the maps now have coloured lighting where appropriate. Additional textures have been added to denote teleporters, and doors that require switches to open (very handy on MAP11!)

* New HUD, designed not to take up most of the screen this time! It now fits into a familiar Doom status bar format, or a fullscreen HUD if you prefer maximum viewage potential.

* All 5 weapons from the original game, including new redrawn graphics and visual effects - also an additional one that didn't make it into the original game, the knife, for when you're out of ammo or you just feel like getting stabby. You can also switch back to the old weapon graphics if you're a fan of the hugest pixels!

* Body Armor and map terminal powerups have been added. Body armor absorbs damage like normal (at a rate of 40%, in-between the Doom blue and green armours.) The map terminals reveal the full automap when activated.

* All the original aliens are present and are angrier than ever. Many of them now have diagonal angle views (the original game only had side, front and back,) some now have death animations where they didn't before, and some have been completely overhauled graphically. The two boss enemies are also back, now with new mechanics! Look out for those in MAP08 and MAP16.

* A few music tracks made by me, remixed from music originally made for the game but was missing in some versions. Also lots of additional sound effects added, some of which I'm actually legally allowed to use!

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Screenshots

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Shots from the original game have been inset for comparison - yes that was the real resolution of the game, in fact at a 1:1 scale the shots were too small to see properly.

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Q/A

Do I need a Doom 2 WAD to run this game?
Nope! Just run gzdoom.exe in the zip or just run the IPK3 like you would an IWAD.

Is this a 1:1 remake of the original AB3D?
No, lots of things are different either on purpose to hopefully improve the experience for a modern audience, or due to limitations of the engine or my coding ability.

Why is there a copy of GZDoom in the download?
I expect people from the Amiga community who aren't necessarily into the Doom modding scene might be playing it, and I wanted to make things easier on them. Please note the included release is for Windows 64-bit. If you're running GZDoom already, feel free to just move the ipk3 into your usual place. Be sure to run it as an IWAD, it's its own game! Look at the included PLEASE READ THIS for recommended settings (basically turn on dynamic lights and shadowmaps, and use Doom sector lighting)

Why is it called Project Osiris?
Can't remember if it's made clear in the game, but the planet you're on is Osiris III and the base is called Osiris Base. It's in the original manual. There's also a reference to "Project Osiris" as some sort of experimental research with aliens going on in the base.

Why is the shotgun both pump action and double barreled?
The original was like that. I dunno. It's a future space shotgun?

Is it finished?
All the content from the original game is in there, and it is all completable. This is currently a beta version though and I'm looking for feedback on how it plays and such, particularly difficulty balance. There are currently no difficulty levels implemented - as the original didn't have any either. This is something I'd like to add, but I need to get 'normal' difficulty to be right first. I'm not that good at shooters myself so these things are hard to judge. Other than that, I do have plans for other future things! I'll keep you all posted!

Something is wrong and/or broken and this game is bad and you should feel bad
Like I said this is my first Doom engine project and the first time I've released a big project to the world in general. I really don't know what I'm doing so bear with me if you're having problems!

Thanks to Rayman the Hedgehog (he's on these forums somewhere) for helping me out with the map conversion process and offering some coding/design input. There are further credits given inside the .ipk3 and/or during the end credits roll of the game.

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Changelog

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0.9

(Changes by Ozymandias81)

- Added black/white brightmaps for sprites and textures
- Added yellow eyes to GreenAlien to make it stand out better in the dark
- Added Off variant of AB3DTechLamp
- Converted all flac/wav sounds into ogg format
- Externalized all pickup messages and obituaries inside Language lump
- Nested all brightmaps using Materials folder (not compatible with Zandronum)
- Reworked the whole pk3 structure using folders without any WAD like dummy lumps
- Unified all Language lumps into one

(Changes by ArcturusDeluxe)

- Edited texture AFLAT9 to be less 'liney'
- Added some coloured versions of AFLAT6
- Added a non-lit variation of AFLAT3
- Added new ceiling geometry to some areas where AFLAT3 is used, redesigned them to use the non-lit version and added discrete ceiling lights, so it doesn't look misaligned
- Made some non-brightmapped versions of textures and swapped them out in certain places
- Changed MAP02 grenade launcher area to have more room, also the grenade shaft becomes a staircase after pressing the switches so you can return to earlier areas
- Made MAP08 secret to lower green key pillar more obvious
- Added a bit of extra ammo to MAP10, MAP14 and MAP15
- Made some changes to texture choices and alignments to various maps
- Tweaked some of Ozy's brightmaps and added some for the Tree spawns and explosive barrels.
- Tech lamps are now shootable and will lose their dynamic light if destroyed.
- Added new higher-res explosion sprites
- Converted all DECORATE actors to ZScript
- Increased the movement speed of Half-Worms
- Increased speed and attack rate of the doggos
- Increased the fire rate and projectile speed of Plasma Gun
- Increased spawning speed of the tentacle thingies
- Decreased radius for plasma projectiles
- Decreased trooper pain chance
- Changed grenade launcher trajectory to fire further/higher but bounce less
- Added option to disable weapon sway (turning it right down the normal way in
GZDoom seems to be bugged? So added this instead!)
- Added option to disable weapon flashes (for both you and the enemy)
- Added option to select original Rocket Launcher sprite
- Edited message for Automap terminal
- Changed 'Mouse2 to continue' message to appear instantly
- Disabled auto-aim in the config of GZDoom build

0.8.2

- Fixed MAP06 not working if you have story texts turned off
- Added a reminder of what the use key is at the first door of MAP01
- Bound Use to E as well as mouse2 in the included GZDoom build

0.8.1

- Fixed lifts with 'repeatable action' left untagged in MAP10 and MAP12
- Made the big door to the blue key less obscure in MAP10, it's now lit up with lamps
- Replaced a door texture with grey locked version in MAP11
- Increased the default brightness in the included GZDoom build
- Fixed some typos in the intro texts (not my fault, they were there in the original!)
- Removed game_support.pk3 and added sounds from it into pk3
- Added 'paused' graphic for when player presses pause

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Download
Project Osiris v0.9 BETA

[Enjay]

Seems very nice so far. I've only played the first two maps but it's been fun.

BTW, if your game is meant to be entirely stand alone you can delete the game_support.pk3 file from your distribution. That will prevent the exe detecting GOG and Steam installs of Doom (etc) and opening the IWAD selection dialogue.

[Artman2004]

Doors don't work. Fix please.

[Artman2004]

Update: Doors work, I'm just a complete dumb-ass

[Cherno]

Very nice, I was waiting for a complete Alien Breed 3D TC for years, as all other attempts have been abandoned over time. I expect you to open a thread over at the English Amiga Board as well

Why is the shotgun both pump action and double barreled?
The original was like that. I dunno. It's a future space shotgun?

A weapon like this was called a "Moe Szyslak Special" on tvtropes.org. Quake II has a similar shotgun. Rule of cool, eh?

[SallazarSpellcaster]

Very nice, I was waiting for a complete Alien Breed 3D TC for years, as all other attempts have been abandoned over time. I expect you to open a thread over at the English Amiga Board as well

Why is the shotgun both pump action and double barreled?
The original was like that. I dunno. It's a future space shotgun?

A weapon like this was called a "Moe Szyslak Special" on tvtropes.org. Quake II has a similar shotgun. Rule of cool, eh?

There's a real shotgun called the DP-12 - an actual double-barrel, pump action shotgun produced by Standard Manufacturing; it's fed through the back, holding 2 shells in its chamber, with another 7 and 7 in reserve for each barrel, letting it hold a max total of 16 shells. It looks nearly identical in shape to the Quake II shotgun, the only difference is that it only fires one barrel at a time, instead of both, before cycling - it does load the two barrels at the same time, however. It could, in theory, be modified to fire both barrels at once -though that would dislocate a normal person's shoulder.-

[3336655445]

the new cool TC?

[Ozymandias81]

Damn someone resurrected this finally, awesome ArcturusDeluxe ! After the little Gloom TC this is abfantastic news, hope something for similar for Breathless will happen one day, so we will get all 3 best Amiga fps exported to GZDoom. Nowadays in a modern Amiga X5000 with gpu you can even play Quake 3 or RTCW, and on pc you can install AmiKit 8 and with proper configured plugins even run mentioned FPS from there, but this is different since it feels like a remastered HD port and that's cool. Can't wait to play it when I have time, commenting here to pin the thread and not forget it

[Barry Burton]

Thank you so much for making this. I ended up playing until 4 am this morning! My girlfriend wasn't impressed but I was.

I've only played up to level 8 but everything seems great so far. The sprite work is really well done. I feel the game could benefit from some brightmaps for, say, the monitor screens etc. Though that's obviously something that could come down the line.

Here's hoping we see some custom maps made for this. That'd be super cool. Perhaps a community project later on?

Anyway, from a former Miggy stalwart, thanks again for making an old man feel young again.

[ArcturusDeluxe]

Thanks guys, I just updated it with a few fixes to potentially game-breaking bugs with lifts, as well as removing the game_support.pk3 as Enjay said (thanks for the heads up!). Also, most crucially of all, fixed some minor typos in some of the intro story texts. It's like a whole new game! (not really)

[Cherno]

I think this is pretty much a perfect TC so far, which keeps the look and feel of the original game intact, while adjusting and improving where it makes sense. You should certainly be proud of your work!
My thoughts in detail:

• The lighting of the maps is excellent and you did a great job replicating the smooth transitions between light and shadow.
• Speaking of which, When playing the original game I seem to remember, due to the pixelated nature, that in faraway dark areas, you could always see some pixels of the enemies moving in the dark distance. I think that for this reason, this TC would benefit from brightmaps tremendously, as has been suggested above. Eyes for the beholder and dogs, and so on. Also, the computer screens would also look nice with brightmaps, and even better, some simple animation.
• The difficulty felt right; enemies hit hard and can overwhelm you if you are not careful. Medkits are in the right places and not overly abundant, as it should be. This is a very old-school type of game where you really need make sure that you don't waste any healing items and remember where you left some in case you need to go back when low on health.
• I think I only found armor several levels in; might be an idea to include it in earlier levels.
• Ammo felt about right as well. I always had either shells or cells when the shotgun or plasma gun ran out.
• The shotgun sprite felt weakest to me, if any gun could use improvement, I think it's this one. Maybe add some more sheen to it? The standard rifle looks great, especially since you kept that white muzzleflash. It tends to stunlock the alien soldiers, though. Maybe decrease their painchance?
• The grenades are exremely bouncy and they are not fired very far, this felt very annoying to me. I wished they would have a tiny bit more range and would bounce less.
• The dogs seemed to be more dangerous in the original game; here, they are more of a nuisance since I think they are slightly slower, and attack less often.
• The snails are very slow, this is probably true to the original game, but it makes them less of a threat.
• In level 8, I liked that you barred the way to the upper platform; it makes the fight against the walker far more suspenseful.
• I found the brown water in the sewer level (2?) less appealing than the blue water that is used throughout the game; It does fit a sewer, though. The blueish tint when underwater could be more pronounced.
• The default interact key could be bound to "E" as well as Mouse2.

Overall, again, a great accomplishment which brings everything to the table, even details like the level start text.

I just played this up to level 10, and I seem to be stuck. I collected the red and yellow keys, opened the red door and now I've got nowhere else to go. The green and blue keys are nowhere to be found. The snail monster behind the red door dropped nothing.

[ArcturusDeluxe]

Thanks for all the feedback Cherno! I'll definitely take it all on board.

I just played this up to level 10, and I seem to be stuck. I collected the red and yellow keys, opened the red door and now I've got nowhere else to go. The green and blue keys are nowhere to be found. The snail monster behind the red door dropped nothing.

There's a quite big but very dimly lit door in the dark computer area before where you collect the yellow key in the big room with the elevator and the flamethrower. I've highlighted it with lamps in the latest patch I put out today, as someone else got stuck in the same place. Sorry about that!

[Cherno]

You could post on DoomWorld as well, this deserves more exposition

[Dude27th]

OH MY GOD! I'll give it a chance as soon as I can
It looks cool from the screenshots already ^^

UPDATE:
At the moment some proportions look off , but it may be for the aspect ratio.
The new weapon sprites looks like they lack detail as well considering that they have a higher resolution now (Looking at the shotgun principally) ...
Regardless looks cool still !

[Cherno]

The corpses of flying monsters (Beholders) tend to fall down onto still-living monsters, I have looked at their code but they do the same stuff that Cacos do in their death state, so I'M not sure what could be the cause.