In Control

Countdown, 7 weeks remaining. Funny to see the productivity rises as soon as there are deadlines and to-do lists. Yep, if you want your team (and yourself) not to be sleeping at the job, keep making (sub)targets and easy-to-follow plannings. Or as they would say in Full Metal Jacket, keep throwing hand grenades at Beastman to keep him sharp.

That felt a bit unnatural to me at first, cause basically you're asking your helpers to work hard(er), without giving them a salary in return. But trust me, it's better to push a bit and keep everyone at work rather than kindly asking if one could do asset X somewhere within the next 50 months, if he likes. Don’t forget why an artist joined you in the first place: to create awesome stuff! The more clear the targets, the more being produced, the more enthusiast people are to add their fifty cents.

As for my own progress, I pimped the water with some fluid-dynamics and pretty realistic ripples caused by particles or stuff falling in the water. Improved the parallax effect a little bit for some stone floor, fixed some annoying bugs, and currently I'm breaking my neck (again) at particle-lighting. There are dozens of ways to render particles, but usually the combination of overdraw and complex particle shaders (lighting & shadowMaps) quickly halts your performance. And blending all those damn sprites into a realistic "cloud" is tricky. With simple additive blending, your fog quickly becomes a radiating Fukushima cloud. With classic transparency the quads start biting each other and fade-out the background unpredictably. One second it looks good, the other second it looks as if the air was filled with pregnant flying elephants.

Blurry particle mess. Trying to use lights and shadows on them.

We'll talk again when/if I get those particles working properly. Usually when there is a problem or a new technique that has to be done, I start browsing the internet (really?!). And more than once, I stumble on the feature-lists, brief implementation details, or jealous-making screenshots of other A+ engines. Cryengine, UDK, 4A, Unity3D, Ogre, and so on. I could be proud that my own home-made-hobby engine somewhat approaches the (commercial) big players when it comes to rendering quality. Not saying "Engine22" looks better, but for some free-time plumbing, it isn't that bad.

Yet at the same time, I sometimes wonder why the hell I'm even trying to make my own engine. What's the point? You're not going to win it from the others. Why not making Tower22 with the Cryengine? All those cool water, fog, particle, lighting and whatever LSD tripping effect you’ll need, is ready to kick ass there. And asides from graphics, it has physics, sound, AI scripting, pathfinding, GUI, multiplatform support, editors / tools, documentation, and so on.


Ok, my budget of 100 euro is probably not enough to buy a Cryengine license, but there are cheap or even free engines out there as well. The point is, as a development team, you can actually focus on the game itself instead of an engine + tools that have to be made before you can even start. "Make games, not engines" (Plato, 347-428 BC), that's what they told us. Now why oh why Lord, why do we torture ourselves trying to make something that is A: outdated as soon as you take a crap for 5 minutes, B: takes an awful lot of time, C: unlikely to beat other existing products? Seriously, it reduces the chance of your game ever seeing daylight, unless you have a big team of nutty professors.

Are we just stubborn, or too pride maybe? For me, picking another engine (and throwing overboard my own stuff) feels like surrendering. It's like getting credit for something you didn't do yourself. It's like those modern cars that can automatically park themselves. Any man would say "Auto-parking my ass, watch this honey!".... (bump).

At times like that, I have to remind myself why I'm doing it again. And honestly I can't give a perfect answer, other than I like to program my own engine! If we would switch to a ready-to-use EngineX tomorrow, there is not much left for me. Tweaking some shaders, write some A.I. scripts... yawn. I would become like the redundant manager at the office. Walking around a bit, asking stuff... "Everything ok here?", "Need some coffee maybe?". I can't help the artists much, other than giving directions and feedback. Neither can I compose sound, or make awesome concept-art. And then we have an engine. No idea what really happens under the hood... It just works.

Nah. That sucks. Now I remember why I'm programming again; the need to learn new techniques. Moreover, I want full-control. If something needs to be tweaked, every last bit should be familiar stuff. I rather program my own devices just to be sure it works (or doesn't work) as expected. And I hate flying cause I don't have any control over it. Hmmm... sounds like some sort of psychological issue...

The same scene without particles.

"Make games, not engines". But the same people also say that modern engines are way too much focused on graphical wow-stuff rather than solid gameplay. I disagree that graphics aren't important at all. How about immersion? If Tower22 had to be played on a Wii without shaders to create a scary dark atmosphere and good looking monsters, it will probably suck. Hey, you don't watch Low-Definition TV either, do you? Nevertheless, they have a point of course.

Each engine has a certain feel. No matter what level you play, or which modification you download, certain mechanics and atmospheric aspects keep the same. IdTech has a sci-fi touch, Cryengine excels outdoors, UDK games have a blueish look, and all three are mainly made for first person action shooters. This may work out for game A, but not that well for game B. Although Crysis looks better than its predecessor "Far Cry" in every possible way, I enjoyed the old game much more. Subtle differences in controls, other game-rules, other map-design, different A.I., different pace, different overall look.

When building a game on a certain platform, you automatically inherit some of its DNA. Both the good and the bad aspects. When using Cryengine for T22, the look might be more crisp & flashy instead of a blurry nightmare. And I'm not so sure if I can make one big roaming world instead of loading separated levels. And how about the A.I.? T22 Monsters are completely different than stealthy North Korean soldiers... And how flexible is the engine when it comes to playing weird horror tricks? Like Demo1 that replaced the first room with another room after the monster-chase.

In short, T22 is a complete different game than the action shooters that gave birth to most of the popular engines. But since you can't make a racegame on a soccergame-engine either, I doubt if there exists any engine that does exactly what I want for T22. See? Need to be in full control.

Improved water. The snow that drops on the water creates ripples. Bigger ripples will result in actual 3D waves. Yeah I know, I still have to post another article about water.

==============================================================================
So, making games or engines? That entirely depends on you. What is your ultimate target? Learning how to program a game, or (quickly) making the actual game? Are you willing to spend an awful lot of time in researching (new) graphical / A.I. / scripting / physical / whatsoever / techniques? How much time do you have anyway? In case you aim for a complex game, you can safely add at least 4 extra development years if you plan making your own engine. Or make it 8 years, in case you never did it before. Cause you'll be scrapping and redoing parts, if not the entire engine, several times. And last but not least, is there an existing engine that does the things you want?

Here, I made a little dr.Phill test for you.

1. Target?
----0 [a] Release a commercial game
----1 [b] Enjoy my (finished) game
----3 [c] Make a game & sharpen my skills
----5 [d] Learn how to make games
----6 [e] Make a (commercial) killer engine

2. Available time / release date?
----0 [a] 1..2 years
----1 [b] 2..4 years
----2 [c] 4..8 years
----3 [d] I can travel through time. It doesn't matter.

3. How much time can you spend on it each week?
----0 [a] Little. Other things to do
----1 [b] Not so much (5..10 hours)
----2 [c] Pretty much (10..20 hours)
----3 [d] Unlimited, I dream code.

4. Are you working alone, or together with artists that require tools?
----0 [a] Big team (10+)
----1 [c] A small team (<10)
----2 [b] Han Solo
----1 [d] Not relevant, no complex tools needed

5. How complex is your game?
----0 [a] Think in terms of Halflife4 & GTA7
----1 [b] Pretty complex
----2 [c] Pretty simple
----3 [d] Extremely simple. Atari stuff.

6. How important is the quality (graphics, physics, tools, and so on) for you(& team)?
----0 [a] Very, very. A+ quality only.
----1 [b] Pretty much, but I don't have to win
----2 [c] Make games, not graphics

7. Do you like building your own tools & editors
----0 [a] Boring
----1 [b] If I must...
----3 [c] Love it

8. Do you like reading technical papers?
----0 [a] My ass does
----1 [b] Not really, but if I must
----3 [c] Yummy

9. Do you have experience with coding engines?
----0 [a] Dieselengines? No.
----1 [b] A bit
----2 [c] No / a bit, but I'd like to learn
----3 [d] Sure.

10. Are there available (free or commercial) engines in the genre you're aiming for?
----0 [a] Yes, and I can get those
----1 [b] Yes, but I'm not sure if I want to pay for that
----3 [c] No / Yes but not in my budget

11. Where's your heart at?
----0 [a] The creative aspect (making game contents, maps)
----1 [b] Create / Tweaking the game (scripts, A.I., ...)
----3 [c] A mixture of both
----6 [d] The technical aspect (coding stuff)

Now sum the points (max = 35, my score was 22 btw). The outcome is based on absolutely nothing, but at least it got you thinking right?

0..12 points
You really don't have time for technical bullcrap. What you want is a game, not a technical course. Don't torture yourself too much with programming, cause it's likely bringing you nowhere. Don't forget to make fun in the first place. Grab the engine / platform that fits best, and realize your dreams.

13..18 points
The goal is to make a game, but you don't mind getting your hands dirty. Or maybe your type of game is pretty simple, so wrapping up your own code shouldn't be too much of a problem. Don't forget there are intermediates. XNA or Ogre for example will help you with the coding, but you are still in control.

19..26 points
Either you really like to learn how to make an engine, or the type of game you want to make simply forces you into making your own gearbox. An actual release of the game itself will be the cherry on the pie. Go out and play, but don't forget it's not a crime to ask for help or use some ready-to-use libraries.

27..35 points
Nerd ;) You don't give a shit about games really, you just want to do the stuff that the other big boys do, don't you? Whether you can realize a killer engine or not, go ahead and feed those brains.

Up yours

Tactical plans sir.

Another big name wiped off the Risk playboard. Saddam, Bin Laden, now Ghaddafi (or whatever his name is spelled). Who's next? Il Kim 3000? Obama? Don't know what to think of Ghaddafi's fall. I'm “glad” it got taped on film so we don't have to get in doubt with conspiracy theories again. Well, what say about it… He didn't give a fair trial for his opponents either, and dictators generally suck anyway. Then again, Libya was relative rich and developed compared to some other countries in the region. Iraq turned into a hell-pit when Saddam got chased into a hole, and I don't trust the extremists who are ready to jump into this Arabic Spring either. From a dictatorial system to a deep religious system... not my cup of tea.

I hope the youngsters who started these demonstrations can really create a better future without chaos, war, dictators or religious bearded dresses telling them how think, what to do, and what not to do. A tolerant place based on freedom, tolerance, and common sense. But the problem in these locations is that the word usually goes to the one with the biggest sable/AK-47, rather than a democratically chosen intellect with vision. Although… democracy has become a joke in the Western world as well. Can't remember anyone asking me about whether we should join the war in the mid-east, give more power to Brussels, how to deal with near-bankrupt countries in the EU zone, or if we should "free" Libya (for their own (oil) interests). A “No.” from the people still gets turned in a “no but, Yes - with some chocolate sauce”.


The big guys play their game anyway, no matter what we think of it. As long as we're happy with our house, car, widescreen TV and “What’s in Store!”- Bodytoaster Pro, they can keep milking tax and wipe their ass with it in any that pleases them. It's the 1% versus 99% story. A small elite of... fuckers, decides what happens in the world. Whether Ghadaffi should deliver oil, or sleep in a supermarket cooling cell. If banks should be saved whether they screw up or not. When & where to fight a cozy war to bring “Democracy”. Which other cool overpaid jobs they can get via the Old Boys network. And what we, -99%-, of tax-cows should know and do to keep their thirsty machine running. The Bible sin "Greed" is a nice summary of it all.

That's where the Occupy movement comes from I guess. Sounds I'm an anti-capitalist too. Well, not really. In my opinion, those who work hard should earn more than those who lay in their bench every day, bitching about everything. And a bigger salary should motivate people to use their talents instead of putting everyone behind the same factory conveyor belt. Listen up, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Instead of complaining or envying others, you'd better try to accomplish something yourself, and accept that there will always be people with more money, more women, more success, and more golden teeth whether they really deserve it or not. BUT, a system with a small superrich elite that does dark, unverifiable things stinks. But hey! What are you gonna do about it? Unless we really start rioting and build improvised tanks and Anti-Air pickup trucks, the elite probably doesn't care less about another demonstration. Hence, five days later the mess gets cleaned up by a couple of (hard working) garbage men, paid by our own tax of course. Face it, we know too little and have too much to lose to stand up against it. Bend over please.

I don’t see that happening at the Occupy demonstrations… By the way, those Libyans had some excessive welding classes last months!



Enough politics.
So how's the progress on that next little movie? ...Movie? For those who didn't know yet, we're trying to show a (tech)movie end this year. Or begin 2012 in case things get messed up, but the goal is to give you a Christmas present. Don't expect a "cinematic"-horror-gameplay movie though. It's merely a flythrough, showing some engine graphics stuff, and most of all, the audio, 3D and texture work that has been done by the T22 team.

No secret, the goal is to attract some more 3D/Texture/Concept art people with that demo. Cause we really need it! In the Blog statistics (love them), I saw one was Googling for "Tower 22 release date". I bet you can find a T22_Install.exe on some murky Torrent website within a few years, but we really still have to start on this game! That's right, other than the assets you've seen in this Blog, a half-working engine, and a story + ideas on paper, there is no game content yet! The reason is pretty simple. I want to start on the game when:

- The team is big, talented & motivated enough
- The engine works "good enough"
- Development tools are "good enough"
- All the design & plans have been clearly documented
* In the meanwhile, we build 1 or 2 more demo’s. At least one is planned for 2012

In other words, I don't want to build Tower22 on a fundament of shit. The good news; the engine + tools are going pretty well, the paperwork is scheduled, and the team is growing slow but steadily. Hopefully the Tech-Demo gives it another boost. Making a game isn't easy, so compare it with getting the Titanic into movement. But I have faith in it!

Do you know what's annoying? Rendering white paper without getting blinded by HDR bloom.

I didn't answer the question yet. How's the demo progress going? Well, a whole listing of objects(chairs, lamps, junk), textures and audio is still there. But each week I can check three to five assets, so I think the scene has enough material to look and sound properly within two months. No "borrowed" Halflife2 assets this time! As for the engine, there isn't that much noticeable improvement. The sound engine should hear the same with FMOD. The compressed DDS should look the same as the uncompressed TGA's did (I damn hope so!), and upgraded input modules aren’t going to produce anything visual either. There are some noticeable new effects though (asides from quite a lot bug-fixed and little improvements):

- GPU Particles (with lighting)
- Water
- Ice shaders
- Wall overlays (dirt, cracks, snow, frost)
- Anti-Aliasing
- And stuff I probably forgot

Currently I'm playing with realtime water-fluids to replace the stupid rolling ripple texture with something better looking (and for another water article :p). But I'm not so sure if it will make it before Christmas. We'll see. The biggest improvement should be the recording quality! I haven’t been looking for a better way yet, but let’s see if I can use an external device to record the movie so the CPU won’t be hogging and choking the sound.

The (sharp specular highlight) edges on this stinky chair and the drawers in the background are anti-aliased with FXAA. But I’m not 100% convinced. Either FXAA isn’t effective enough (and making it more powerful will blur the entire screen), or the shader has a little bug…

Compressor, Part 2/2

What the hell we're we doing again? Oh yes, texture compression. In short, the main advantages are less storage space, less (video)memory space, faster loading/streaming, and if you're a lucky guy, a (little) performance boost cause less bandwidth is required. Reason enough to implement compressed texture formats... but how?

When you target OpenGL, you can encode pixelData into the DXT1, DXT3 or DXT5 format. So first (1.) encode, then (2.) store it in a file (a DDS for example), (3.) load the file later on, and finally (4.) send the (compressed) pixelData to the videocard. Sounds pretty complicated, but we have some nifty tools.

==========================================================
1. The Creation
==========================================================
Load a (raw) image, such as a bitmap or TGA file. Then encode it to a DXT format (or BC in case you target DirectX applications). So... we have to dig in compression algorithms now, right? Of course not. Don't reinvent the wheel, be lazy, and make good use of existing tools.

You can download an existing convertor tool or try to find a plugin for your favourite painting program. There are plugs for Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Gimp, Paint.NET... These plugins typically convert a common image format to a DDS file. You can skip step 1 and 2 of this tutorial now, peace of cake. Have a good look though. Not all convertors have equal quality and export options.

When my mobile research-lab was crunching on DDS, I had an old version of Paint Shop Pro though. Just ordered a new version (PSP X4), but no cool plugins at that time. I tried some other exporters, but they usually gave wrong output. Inverted RGB channels, flipped images, Lena changing into a guy, et cetera. Some claimed ATI has a good quality exporter, so I tried this instead: ATI Compress


Too bad, this is not a ready-to-use convertor, not even a command-line tool(I hate those, too lazy to type). It's a DLL you can include in your own programmed tools. Normally I would pass, but with the lack of good exporting tools so far, I gave it a try. And I got to say, it wasn't that hard at all (getting into C++ again took me more time). The ATI library is pretty straight forward. It has a function to compress raw image data, and some basic utilities to read/write DDS files.

1.- Load input image (bitmap, buttmap, tga, png, ...)
2.- Generate Mip-Maps (if you like)
3.- Let the ATI Compress library generate compressed pixelData (for each MipMap level)
4.- Store it as a DDS file (or your own custom format)

Mip-Maps ?!
In case you never heard of them, Mip-Maps are smaller ("blurred") variants of your texture. Pretty simple, half the size until you reach a 1x1 resolution. So a 256x256 image gets a 128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1 variant. But... why would you do that? Well, when looking a textured surface from a distance, one screen-pixel may have to sample from multiple texture-pixels. This can result in pixelated/blocky results, especially for textures with a high-frequency details or pattern such as black-white tiles. When you have mip-maps, the renderer will (automatically) pick a smaller, more blurry, variant to suppress this annoying artifact. A little downside is that mip-maps require extra image space (though the smaller resolution variants really don't take that much).

Sorry if you died from an epileptic attack.

OpenGL / DirectX have functions that generate mip-maps automatically for you. However, generating them takes time! So each time you load a texture that uses mip-mapping, you're wasting even more time with generating them. That's why some image formats (such as DDS) supports the storage of pre-fabricated mip-maps. So instead of rebuilding them each time again, you store smaller variants of the texture ready-to-use in the image file. In other words, it makes the loading times faster.

==========================================================
2. DDS File-Loader
==========================================================
Once your file has been generated somehow, you got to load it again in your app. I chose to use DDS files. Pretty obvious, cause this format supports compressed pixelData, storing prefab mip-maps, and even cubeMaps or layered (3D/Array) textures if you like. On top, it’s a common standard in Gameland nowadays. Monkeys see, monkeys do.

Luckily the DDS format is fairly easy. Mainly cause it doesn’t store its pixels in a wacky way. The array of pixels is stored exactly as OpenGL or DirectX expects it. This makes DDS fast to read, as you don’t have to swap bits or do other tricks before you load it to the GPU. It’s 1 on 1. But wait… D-D-S… stands for “Direct-Draw-Surace”… Isn’t that DirectX slang?? So we can’t use DDS in OpenGL apps?!

It is a DirectX thing indeed, and yep, you need a header file to get things working. But don’t worry. It’s not that your OpenGL program changes into a malformed Siamese twin with DirectX. Download the DirectX SDK, or if you are a Delphi user, you can use this: Clootie DX Pascal headers
Then include “DirectDraw.h / pas” in your program. Done.

// Delphi code.
      function  TEX_LoadFile_DDS( filename : string ) : TTexData;
      var
            ddsd          :_DDSURFACEDESC2;
            fileCode      : array[0..3] of char;
            factor        : integer;
            bufferSize    : integer;
            readBufferSize: integer;
            pFile         : THandle;
            readBytes     : Longword;
      begin
            { Open file... Calling Powdered toast man }
            pFile := CreateFile(PChar(filename), GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, nil, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, 0);
            if (pFile = INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) then begin
                showMessage( 'DDS Load Error: Cannot open file ' + filename );
                Exit;
            end;

            { Verify if it is a true DDS file. Not made-in-China fake stuff }
            ReadFile( pFile, fileCode, 4, ReadBytes, nil);
            if (fileCode[0] + fileCode[1] + fileCode[2] <> 'DDS') then begin
                showMessage( 'DDS Load Error: file is not a valid DDS file.'#13+filename );
                CloseHandle(pFile);
                exit;
            end;

            { Read surface descriptor.
              A struct that tells what we can expect in this file. }
            ReadFile( pFile, ddsd, sizeof(ddsd), ReadBytes, nil );

            case ddsd.ddpfPixelFormat.dwFourCC of
                FOURCC_DXT1 : 
                      begin
                        // DXT1's compression ratio is 8:1
                        result.outputFormat := GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT1_EXT;
                        result.isCompressed := True;
                        factor := 2;
                      end;
                FOURCC_DXT3 : 
                      begin
                        // DXT3's compression ratio is 4:1
                        result.outputFormat := GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT3_EXT;
                        result.isCompressed := True;
                        factor := 4;
                      end;
                FOURCC_DXT5 : 
                      begin
                        // DXT5's compression ratio is 4:1
                        result.outputFormat := GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT5_EXT;
                        result.isCompressed := True;
                        factor := 4;
                      end;
                else begin
                      { Not compressed. Oh shit, didn't implement that! }
                      result.isCompressed := False;
                      showMessage( 'DDS Load Error: Uncompressed format not supported!'+#13 + filename );
                      CloseHandle(pFile);
                      exit;
                end;
            end; // case ddsd.ddpfPixelFormat.dwFourCC


            { How big will the buffer need to be to load all of the pixel data
               including mip-maps? }
            if( ddsd.dwLinearSize = 0 ) then
            begin
                showMessage( 'DDS Load Error: dwLinearSize is 0!'+#13 + filename );
                CloseHandle(pFile);
                exit;
            end;
            if( ddsd.dwMipMapCount > 1 ) then
                bufferSize := ddsd.dwLinearSize * factor else
                bufferSize := ddsd.dwLinearSize;

            { Allocate pixel buffer, then read the (compressed)
              PixelData (containing 1 or more MipMap levels) from the file }
            readBufferSize := bufferSize * sizeof(char);  // Calc buffer-size
            GetMem( result.pixels, readBufferSize );      // Allocate memory
            ReadFile( pFile, result.data^ , readBufferSize, ReadBytes, nil);
            CloseHandle(pFile); // Close file

            { More output info }
            result.width      := ddsd.dwWidth;
            result.height     := ddsd.dwHeight;
            result.numMipMaps := ddsd.dwMipMapCount;

            { Do we have a fourth Alpha channel doc? }
            if( ddsd.ddpfPixelFormat.dwFourCC = FOURCC_DXT1 ) then
                result.components := 3 else
                result.components := 4;
      end; // TEX_LoadFile_DDS

Just a shot. Playing around with ingame contrast here...

==========================================================
3. Pumping to the video-card
==========================================================
The final, and probably also most easiest step, is loading the (compressed) pixelData to the video-card. No worries, it’s pretty much the same as generating any other texture. Start with the daily stuff:

    glEnable( GL_TEXTURE_2D );
    glGenTextures( 1, @resultHandle );
    glBindTexture( GL_TEXTURE_2D, resultHandle);
    // Texture settings. Using mipmapping here...
    glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D,, GL_TEXTURE_MIN_FILTER, GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_LINEAR );
    glTexParameteri(GL_TEXTURE_2D,, GL_TEXTURE_MAG_FILTER, GL_LINEAR );
    glTexParameteri( GL_TEXTURE_2D,  );

Next we send the pixelData to the Twilight zone. One little thing to keep in mind is that we might have loaded multiple mipmaps, all in the same array of pixelData. So for each mipmap level, calculate the bytesize and offset in the array.

      if textureData.usingCompression then begin
          if textureData.outputFormat = GL_COMPRESSED_RGBA_S3TC_DXT1_EXT then
              nBlockSize := 8  else
              nBlockSize := 16;
          { Size of mipmap level 0 (original size) }
          nHeight     := textureData.height;
          nWidth      := textureData.width;
          nOffset     := 0;

          { Send the compressed mipmap(s) data to the texture }
          for i:=0 to data.numMipMaps-1 do begin
              if nWidth  = 0 then nWidth  := 1;
              if nHeight = 0 then nHeight := 1;

              nSize := ((nWidth+3) div 4) * ((nHeight+3)div 4) * nBlockSize;
              glCompressedTexImage2DARB( GL_TEXTURE_2D,
                                         i, //mipmap level
                                         data.outputformat, // DXT1,3,5
                                         nWidth,
                                         nHeight,
                                         0,
                                         nSize,
                                         pointer( integer(data.data) + nOffset)
                                        );
              nOffset := nOffset  + nSize;  // Offset in pixel buffer next time
              // Half the image size for the next mip-map level...
              nWidth  := (nWidth  div 2);
              nHeight := (nHeight div 2);
          end; // for i
      end else ...

Texture quality
Last, here's a little Kung-fu trick. Probably you noticed the "Texture Quality" setting in most games. Chose between "Godlike, medium or fucked-up". Obviously, computers with lower-end hardware and/or limited video-memory should pick a lower setting. And you want this option too, don't you? Pretty easy. Just skip the first mipmap level(s) in the loop. This way OpenGL will only deal with smaller textures, as the higher level(s) get disposed again. That's all you need to know for now, Daniel San.

Turbo marketing

No more calling home for Steve Jobs. I'm not really familiar with Apple products, but condolences to his beloved ones and many, many iFans. 56 is not an age to die, especially not if your head is still full of ideas and ambitions. Rest in peace Steve.



Pfew. The storm of emails and reactions is a bit over now. If you thought that demo movie was scary, I got my nerves in the throat as well last week! Having this unexpected, “massive” attention on the project is great free advertisement and can open doors, but is also scary at the same time. We hobby-developers, C++ and Turbo Pascal nerds may think T22 is sweet. But the common man who just wants to play a good game looks from a different perspective of course. It's either a cool product, or a piece of shit. If you buy a car, you don't care how much love was put into it, as long as it drives properly. In other words, T22 sort of got a little stress-test.

And... should I look for another hobby (such as whispering horses, playing flute, collecting Iranian stamps), or are we still standing? I suppose so :). Most of the reactions we're positive, a few hated it, and a couple found the second half of the demo movie an anti climax. Ugly HUD logo's, scripted shift!-run! (“QTE”) sequence, a goofy monster, and what in the devils name was that fat sprite doing at the end?

Taste differs of course. Especially when it comes to horror. I’m scared of clowns and porcelain puppets, others love them. Though some responders might have skipped the fact that this little demo-movie was done by a programmer without real art skills, in a 10% finished engine. Do you really want to know why the last part was scripted so much? Ok then... stair-climbing physics were still so bad that the player couldn't run up in a decent tempo. So I putted him on a rail, just like that goofy monster :D The available assets were very limited, which is why the weird robotic-hand comes from this test-model I made years ago in 5 minutes:

Third person?


Oh well, as long as the Angry Video Game Nerd doesn't say Tower22 is shitcrackers and he rather eats boiled apeballs, I guess we're ok. But sure, we still have a looong way to go. Rome wasn't made in one day either, especially not in the late night hours after a day of plumbing work! It's funny to see some think that we're actually almost done with a (sellable) Indie game. For example, I got mail from a website, asking if we could send a copy for review, as soon as the game is playable. I wish we can, but... do you have a minute?

As said before, we first need some more artists at least. The good news is that, just before T22 showed up on the internet, an extra person offered his help on the audio (when not busy with real work). Say hello to David Garcia Diaz(Espanol gringo):
http://davidgarciadiaz.com/



The whole thing got me a bit thinking about... the Power of Internet (oooh). The reason why I'm not shouting T22 of the roofs, is because I like to make sure I show something good. Friends and others sometimes ask me about showing it to publishers, sending it to website X, doing aggressive marketing, and so on. Ok, I’m not trying to beat CryEngine or UDK, but showing half baked garbage is like cutting yourself with a knife. Imagine Apple shows a cheap plastic, not-white-colored, monochrome, clunky prototype of the iPad6. Jobs would beat the hell out of the marketing team!

It definitely becomes clear that internet can be a jump platform that launches you sky-high. Think about young talented boys & girls that suddenly got famous via Youtube. Or the amount of clicks Half-life fan websites get every day. But the Internet can also be a deep pitfall. To show you, here some professor Dolittle statistics:

amount of views on this Blog on an average day: ~50
...(half from them are looking for an Albert Einstein picture, or stuff like Horseporn)
amount of views on the Blog on Friday 30 September: ~2.000
amount of Youtube views last 10 months, 1 week ago: ~2050
amount of Youtube views today: ~28.500

Enough ego tripping, but see what I mean? Because of some "advertisement", the numbers mega-quadripled. If, say 80%, of the viewers leave with a positive feeling about T22, we can be proud on ourselves. On the other hand, if 50% or more doesn't really like it or even hates it, you have a problem. Now Tower22 doesn't involve money, commercial stakes, and neither was it under development for many years already. But imagine your product, blood-sweat and tears, got burned because it leaked in an unfinished state, or just because the majority doesn't like it? I can imagine some developers must feel really, REALLY bad if their (life)work receives a lousy 5.0 on Gamespot, only 2 stars at IGN, or a Crocodile Dundee Turd award for the worst game of 2011.

The first blow is half the battle. Now we weren't prepared to fight actually, but all in all, we can breathe a sigh of relief. Reactions such as "Thanks, another set of underpants ruined", "Dont give up on this!", or people who like to buy this non-existing game are heartwarming. More than ever we have good reasons to keep developing. Cause there is a lot to improve! For one thing, it's time to have a website that explains things a bit better. Although it's really fun to see people speculating about the game;

- Demo1 was a programmer "art" movie with very limited assets
- I know, too much (motion) blur sucks
- Don't worry, I hate QTE too
- The game is far from finished. First trying to form a proper team
- The game is not in Russia. Sorry for the confusion. But yes, the setting is inspired on it.
- Yes, the game is all about the story, and I won't tell you. Hence, some of the team members don't even know the story! Top secret shit.
- The genre is a platform-survival-music game. Ok, survival horror then.
- It all takes place in a massive building. Though it’s not only dusty corridors and Soviet-IKEA apartments…
- No military, failed experiments or spooky hospitals in this game.
- Most the time, you won’t see monsters or other badguys. Slow suspence, getting winded up, claustrophobia and sound should do most of the terror.
- The player is not named Robert (unless we really can’t find a name. I didn’t name my own daughter yet either. Picking names is so damn difficult).
- Your character isn’t an action figure, yet he won’t be completely defenseless either
- A next (Tech) Demo is planned end this year
- Another movie that shows bits of the gameplay and boogiemen is planned for 2012
- A true release date indication? When it’s done!
- The game uses a homebrew engine programmed in classic Delphi7. It uses the libraries OpenGL 2x, Cg, FMOD, Python and Newton.

I like to finish this post with quotes that made me laugh, cry, vomit, or piss my pants. Next time we're back on Compression DDS files!

"This shit is trippy",
"Boner at 3:40"
"YOUR MOM is more scary than Tower22."
"He’s a plumber? Now it doesn’t suprise me that at the
.....destroyed apartment the only thing that didn’t collapse was the pipe.
>>"It’s all a cunning plan to increase his plumbing business by making you shit bricks."

"but the monster encounter and very last bit were more than a little ridiculous."
"I can't wait to shit my pants :)"
"You're in my world now? Batman...."
"I shitted my pants. Twice."
"What the FUCK did I just watch?!?
......And who's going to pay for my now-ruined chair?
"Note to self: chairs aren't good at holding huge amounts of shat bricks "
"If i was playing I would of dived the fuck out that window at the end, falling to your death is better than staying in that fucking haunted shit hole!"
"do you play as steve form minecraft? he looks very blocky"
>> "it's actually steve holt"

“fuck watching this again at 1am "just before bed"
“I have a fever, and the onlyprescription is more motion blur”

The plumber

Woke up, went to work, got myself some coffee, parked my ass on a chair, turned on the laptop, scratched my balls, checked the email... holy butcrack.

Wow. rockpapershotgun.com & IndieGames.com, a blog about, yep, Indy games, got notice of T22. Suddenly a lot more traffic on this crappy hole on the WWW, a dozen of Youtube abonnees + jokes, and some articles about T22 on these websites.

I'm shy by nature and hate to stand in the spotlights, but having this attention on your (life)work is great. Got to correct a few wrong assumptions though!

------------------------------------------------

...Skyscraper in the Soviet Union...

I mentioned the word "Soviet era style" several times. But... T22 is not really in the Soviet Union. The theme is certainly related, not only on the map design, but in the end the story has not much to do with Stalin & comrades.

...You play as Robert...

Thanks for the name suggestion! But honestly, Robert is a real-life person who is busy designing the player. The protagonist himself has no name yet! But I bet Robert is pleased!

...Then what the # is the game about?!...

Uh... It's hard to tell without spoiling things. The whole story and game is one big quest basically. All I can tell is that you are a caretaker doing jobs for the boss in a big (sort of Soviet style) skyscraper indeed.

And after a while, you do want your freedom (back). So the player, codename Robert, wants "to break free. God knows, God knows I want to break free." "I've Fallen in love"... wait, that's Queen. No love for Robert here!

And yep, the building is pretty much abondon. You'll try to puzzle/search your way out, which makes it a bit different than a zombie slasher or action game. But that doesn't mean you won't get your hands dirty eventually! Be prepared to be affraid, very affraid.


The demo movie is a bunch of scripted events btw. The game itself should give freedom. You decide where to go, when to go, and what to do if something happens. But hey, I wasn't that far programming ;)

...The sound hurts my ears / too much blur...

The sound, SSAO and motion blur are making havoc in this movie indeed. Partially because unfinished business, partially because of the cracky framerate. The movie was recorded on a somewhat older videocard (GeForce 8800) with FRAPS killing the CPU in the background. It made the sound go berserk, and the motion blur even nastier as the deltaTime between 2 frames was relative big.

...I'm a Plumber...

That would be pretty romantic right? Not sure if "a plumber by trademark" means I'm doing a proper job, or actually being a plumber? Too bad. The truth is, I can barely hold a baco. Never ever ask me to fix your toilet, unless you want a sinflood! In real life, I'm programming operating systems for pharmaceutical machines, warehouses, and my sweet 30 ton babies:
youtube1
youtube2

...Out soon...

Oh dear :) Don't want to spoil the party, but this game won't be out anywhere soon. Since we try to put the visual standard pretty high, and the T22 world is going to be kinda big, there is sh~tload of work to do. Programming the engine further, and having some maps, models, textures, sounds and animations would be nice too.

Do you remember the famous words "When it's done!". Well, that game is "done" all right. I'm going to say the same :) But seriously, the current target is forming a team, rather than creating the game right away. I can dream all I want, creating a "big" game with just a few hobbyists is not realistic.

So let's see if we can ensemble enough talented people to create a game in our spare time... Or at least make a good start, and then look further to get this baby on a more professional level. Doing this Blog and demo movies are part of the strategy; hopefully it attracts talented people!


That still sounds like a little boys dream, and... yes, maybe it is. So what? It doesn't mean it's impossible. The people we have here now are capable to create a game like this. The only problem is the lack of manpower so far. Let's show those bastards you don't need a 30-trillion budget to create a good game!

Ever thought about sending this pitch to a publisher?

Yes, but the project is still pretty premature. As said, a team too small for mass production, lot's to add to the engine (including fixing the motion blur! ). First things first, then we'll look further. At this point, I simply can't promise anything to an investor. Unless we work 400% on it maybe, but I don't think the other girls in this house would appreciate that :)

What to expect anywhere soon then?

* A second tech-Demo movie is targetted end this year. Not a "cinematic" horror movie like before, merely a showcase of the Radar Station map we use to test objects.
* A third horror-gameplay movie is targetted somewhere next year.
* A (simple) website end 2011 / begin 2012
* In the meanwhile, collecting more people. Currently we are looking for 3D environment mappers, environment concept-artists, possibly 1 more audio dude(tte), and a texture artist. In 2012 we'll be needing an animator as well.
* When the team is big enough and oiled, we'll start creating actual game content.

"Julio Iglesias is in charge of the concept art?.
You mean the singer?"

Yes.

What color of underpants do you wear?

Transparent-blue or with a panda print.

Halflife2 / Source MOD

No, it's not a Source MOD, neither using another engine such as UDK. it's all coded in-house. And Yes, quite some contents from the first demo movie are from HL2 indeed. Not that I wanted to, but how the hell is a plumber/programmer to create those textures and sounds then? Creating that monster (and animating it) required the maximum of my programmer-art skills. Got to start somewhere. Can't attract good people if I show stuff like this!

Excuses, got to play dirty sometimes. The next movie however will have our own textures and sounds though. In fact, pretty much most screenshots on the Blog from this year are using our own texture sets.

"This stupid video made me broke my Shift key"

Apologees, we'll send a new one.

...Amnesia / Penumbra...

T22 is quite often compared to Amnesia. And that's a good thing! They managed to put down a f#cking scary game with limited horsepower as well. Though it's not inspired on Amnesia. Never heard of the game until recently when one of the team members gave me a link. As a matter of fact, I don't know much horror games anyay. Only played a Doom3, a few Silent Hill's and Gamecube Resident Evils. And Amnesia made me poop my pants. Isn't that ironic?

The gamestyle is a bit similiar though. In Amnesia, instead of fighting, you run for a single enemy that wanders the area. A lot more terrifying if you ask me, although the ability to defend yourself once in a while would be nice...

... The fat lady at the end of that Demo movie, wtf?...

That was just a joke, putting that photo of my girlfriend there. No, Polish women aren't that fat :) Though this woman is as flat as a 2D sprite as well.

Thank you all for reading and your (positive) feedback. It makes it all worth! Back to work now!

Compressor, Part 1/2

In case you are a programmer or texture-artist, you probably have heard about DDS files or texture compression. But if you are like me, you may have skipped all those articles. Pfff, compression, who needs that? Bitmaps and TGA files work for me, Pixel-data is pixel-data right? Besides, I've been taught that compression makes the quality worse, and reduces the performance because in the end, your pixels still have to be decompressed to a raw format. So what's the point?

Well forgive my ignorance. Guess I'm still traumatized because 12 years ago, I couldn't figure out why my sprites had jaggy pink edges when using JPEG files. Oh yes, the compression did that. But although the quality / performance arguments are valid, texture compression actually gives some nice possibilities. In this post, I'll write about using DXT compressed textures in your OpenGL program, and the DDS file format that can store this format.


1. For beginners: (de)compression
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For starters, as the name sais, compression is a technique to store (large) buffers of data with some tricks to reduce the size. When it comes to images, we usually have a big array of bytes. In a classic RGB (24 bit) image, each pixel takes 3 bytes. 8 bit for red, 8 bit for green, 8 bit for blue. Some images also have an 8-bit alpha channel, which makes the total size of a pixel 32 bit. Calculating the total buffer size is easy:
.....width * height * pixelSize. 512 x 512 x RGBA8(32 bit) = 1 MB

Cool, but 1 megabyte for a pretty small texture is huge (1 floppydisk!). Older photo camera’s would have their SD cards full after just a few clicks. So, that's why JPEG is often used. JPEG uses Huffman encoding, which is based on the probability a certain piece of data (pixelcolor) occurs. If we only have 20 different colors in an image, we can index the pixelcolors with a 5-bit (=32 possibilities) code. Further compression can be done by giving frequent colors a short bitcode, while rare colors get a longer code. Well, for a way better description, check this.

Smart huh? However, compressing the image has three main disadvantages. First there is usually quality loss. You probably have seen blurry blocks in JPEG images, especially when the color contrast is low. To put it simple, most compressed images NEVER reach the quality of a raw format (such as BMP or uncompressed TGA / PNG). Then again, if the resolution is big enough, compression settings are ok, and/or the small details don't really matter anyway, the loss is acceptable.

Second problem is the decompression-time. It simply takes some more time to convert the cryptic pixelmess to a raw format. Your video-card needs to produce raw (RGB 8-bit) pixeldata first, before the monitor can show it. Compare it to translating a Chinese movie to English. First a translator has to write down the English subtitles or do voice acting before it can be shown on TV. This process takes some time.

A third little problem is the compression itself. Just like decoding, encoding takes some extra effort as well. Luckily computers are fast these days, so you won't really notice. However... it's not fast enough to do many textures on the fly while rendering a game. This is why it usually happens "offline":

1.- Create your image (photograph / paint / capture raw data)
2.- Compress it in whatever file format
3.- Load in your application
4.- Decompress it back to raw-data
5.- Use (render) it.

Usually some quality loss is acceptable.


2. Compression & realtime Graphics
------------------------------------------------------------------------
So far, the only main advantage of using compressed images, is the reduced space on disk. You can't just load a JPEG and send it to the video-card texture memory right away. Nope, first you'll have to decode the data, then send a raw buffer of colors to the video-mem. So in the end you are still using the same amount of memory, it took extra time to decode, AND you lost quality. In other words, screw JPEG or any other compressed image format for graphics.

But wait. Things have changed a bit. Video-card memory has grown a lot last 10 years. From 32 MB to a gig or more. Unfortunately, games grow even faster. We want ultra-high res textures, and LOT's of them. Using all those textures at the same time requires quite a lot memory space, and bandwidth. Bandwidth? Imagine 10.000 hungry fat guys. You need 100 mcDonalds trucks to transport hamburgers. If all those trucks need to travel through a tunnel at the same time you get traffic-jams. Wouldn't it be nice if a single truck can carry more hamburgers, ending up with less trucks?


So, the graphic masters came up with compression algorithms specially designed for video-cards. I'm a newbie here as well, so I can't tell you the fine details, but you may have heard about DXT1, DXT3, DXT5, S3TC, BC1..7. Each of them is a compression method. Picking one is a trade-of between quality and space, and it also depends on what kind of image you want to compress (a normalMap, a simple blurry texture, a grayscale image, transparency yes/no). The compression ratio can be up to 1:6, which means a 1MB texture becomes ~170 kb.

The way the pixels are trashed together, is compatible with OpenGL / DirectX. That means you don't have to decompress the pixeldata first, before sending it to the videocard. No, you can send the packed buffer right away. That means the video-memory will be spared as well. Decompression happens on the fly by the hardware. I'm not sure if there is no performance penalty at all, but it seems the hardware can read compressed data just as fast as raw data. In fact...
you can even boost the performance! Remember the mcDonalds trucks? Since you need to transport less data on the buses, there will be less bandwidth issues as well. Now you probably won't notice this is you were only using a few textures anyway, but complex scenery such as a FPS game can benefit... Up to 20% according to some!

So far only 10 different textures are used in this snapshot. Or well, actually 20 as most objects also use a second or third image (normal/emissive/specular/height Map). Most textures have a resolution of 512x512 or 1024x1024, RGBA. So in total, there would be around (1024*1024 * 4(rgba) * 20(textures) = 80 MB of texture data pumped around every cycle (mip-maps, shadowMaps and deferred buffers not included). With compression, we can reduce this to ~20 MB.

Another cool detail is the loading time. Since you don’t need to convert stuff, and your harddisk or Blu-ray has to read less bytes, streaming goes faster. Who doesn’t like fast loading times? Tower22 streams maps and textures in the background while playing, so faster streaming is certainly nice.

Advantages
+ Less space required on disk / CD-Rom / Floppy disk / Blu-ray / Tape
+ Smaller files are loaded / streamed faster as well
+ Pre-build mipMaps in DDS files make the loading even faster.
+ Less space required in the video memory
+ Less bandwidth required. *Could* be a performance win.
+ Less quality maybe... but you can use bigger resolutions as well!
Disadvantages
- Quality loss. In some cases, compression is not worth it.
- Extra offline steps for the artists to produce compressed (DDS) files.

About the quality loss, this depends a bit. Matt(MJP) gave me some tips:

* Chose the proper compression methods
......- DXT1: Lower quality, higher compression, 1-bit alpha only(on/off)
......- DXT3: Better quality RGB, 4-bits for the alpha. Suitable for transparent ...... textures like foliage or a metal fence/grate.
......- DXT5: Suitable for images with smooth alpha channels or for normalMaps. Compress R and G, reconstruct B in shader.

* Use the right compression tool (nVidia, ATI, Microsoft, ...). Some do a better job than others, so carefully pick your weapons.

* You could pick a bigger resolution to compensate the quality loss, and still use less space in the end in some cases.

* Keep the option to use uncompressed textures, in case the quality sucks too much hairy balls.

Okidoki, but how in the name of SaintCrap can we make use of it? Consider three steps:
1.- Create a file with compressed image data... DDS files!
2.- Load the file in your program
3.- Create a (OpenGL/DirectX) texture using the compressed data

Next time, I'll tell you how to create DDS files, how to load them, and how to create an OpenGL texture using an (DXT) compressed image. Now it's time for beer.

Play on Player

Yea, my foot has been “restored”! Gypsum is gone, and now I can walk again (as if raped by a bull). Drink your milk boys & girls!


Movie-knowledge-check. A muscular robot? --> Arnold Schwarzenegger. That dude doing kicks and splits with a French accent; Jean Claude van Damme. The black man with that magical voice; Morgan Freeman of course. The simple guy telling his whole life story on a bus-stop bench; Tom Hanks. The psychopath shouting that Johny is here, Jack Nicholson. The teasing woman spreading her legs, Sharon Stone. "Can you fly bobby?", Kurtwood Smit. Roundhouse 360 kick; Chuck Norris.The little fatman with the big ###, uh, Ron Jeremy.

Just a grasp in the Hollywood Lucky Dip. And by now, the game scene also has an impressive repertoire of virtual actors. The jumping guy that looks like the earlier mentioned Ron; Super Mario. The medieval sadomachosism man with a whip; Simon Belmont. The fast blue hedgehog thing; Sonic. Hatatjapoerasturvat-something; Ruy from Streetfighter. "Your face, your ass, what's the difference?", Duke Nukem. The first polygonal breasted adventurer; Lara Croft. The chain-smoking sneaky grandpa; Solid Snake. That asswhipe stealing the princess every time; Bowser. The fairy-dude with the green hat; Link. Female bounty hunter; Samus Aran. The ninja with the skeleton head... Skorpion wins. The clumsy wannabe pirate; Guybrush Threepwood.

Now that my foot is ok, I can finally sport again. So here's a dressroom bench. It has been a while since I did a 3D object myself!

Not all games have strong characters with a complete biography, but creating a bond between game and player usually starts with putting down a loveable or interesting protagonist. A character being worth to pick up the joypad/keyboard. Cause, who wants to play a game with a stupid character anyway? Action hero's usually require a good look, a set of biceps and a doses of one-liners to make friends with the player. More serious games pass decorate the protagonist with a mysterious background. Lost your family, grew up in an underground sewer, shit like that. Who are you? Play the game and find out.

Yet other games manage to create a character that everybody instantly loves, such as Sackboy from Little Big Planet. Did you ever hear Mario talking by the way? We don’t even know where he lives exactly. Yet Mario is the most famous game-sprite in history. Some characters have that love-factor, others don’t. Now how about Tower22? What’s our plan to grab the player and drag him into the screen?

Here you go, a sketch of the player by Robert. There is still some cloth shopping and cheese-grater work to do here and there, but we’re getting somewhere. Not that Tower22 has much to do with “Communism” or “Russia”, but we chose the Soviet theme as a design-code. Therefore the character needs a typical Eastern Europe / Russian look as well. I’m not a fashion queen, but after a couple of visits in Eastern Europe, I can tell a few details. First, most men have a normal posture. No body building bullshit (who can afford the sport school), and neither fat. Most people work too hard to become fat. Second, a lot of men have short dark or blonde hair, often flat on the head (because they wore a cap or didn’t have time to smear 10 kg gel in it). A little bit the “army” look. Having a “tough-guy” attitude seems to be popular here by the way; lot’s of youth are wearing army trousers, trying to look dangerous and stuff.

Now our guy isn’t a kid or football hooligan anymore, he looks a bit exhausted. Yes, although things are slowly getting better in these regions, people still have sort of an depressed look if you ask me. Maybe it’s Slavic DNA, but I guess being bored, or just tired from all that work is playing part here as well. Read the lips: “Life isn’t easy”. Men like our player don’t have time (and money) to trim theirselves a cool George Cloney beard, buy the latest fashion shoes, and enjoy life. Fuck that, he wakes up to work. Nothing more, nothing less. Now that’s the kind of look we from T22 Next Top Model are looking for.

Robert made a whole set of (3D) "sketches" to pick from. We chose this one, because it has the tired "fuck-off", yet friendly, look. Now Robert is busy making a real 3D version. That version will be slightly different, and with little details such as beard, elder-marks, maybe a little scar, oil smear, sweat... In the meanwhile I have to make a realistic skin shader one day.

Not 100% sure, but most probably, the game will be using the first-person camera perspective. In other words, who knows how the player really looks like. Ok, you will see him in mirrors or in a few cut-scenes maybe, but most of the time you can just as well imagine playing the game with Robocop or Whoopy Goldberg... wait the player has white male arms. Never mind, you get the point. You won't see the player that much, the looks alone is not enough to make you care about the player.

So there goes the "lovely" factor. We need something else to get a love-match. A vast amount of cut-scenes with Reservoir Dogs dialogs maybe? Meeeh... not that I don't like those movies, but our player isn't exactly a joking piece of thug. And even if he was, T22 is a horror game remember. The game is supposed to make you poop your pants, not to piss yourself because it was so hilarious. Many horror-game/movie protagonists are normal, frightened, very human boys and girls. Would Resident Evil 1 still be scary if you run/jetpack through the corridors with Duke kicking ass? No, we want a fragile, sensitive, weak girl/guy. Like the Silent Hill or (older) Resident Evil characters... Though Chris took a steroid cure as well, his arms were 6 times bigger in the last RE game. But hey, RE5 wasn't scary either.

Heather from Silent Hill3, and Chris Redfield (without motor-oil injections) in the GC Remake version. Now Chris looks as if he can defend himself, but the difficult camera positions, stiff controls and scarce ammo still made him vulnerable for a bunch of stupid zombies. And for good reason, otherwise the game wouldn't be scary.

Although anti-hero, it's easier to identify with such characters in horrific settings. The player does the same what you would do: miss your gunshot and run like a girl. Well, probably you would also lock yourself on the toilet, rather than exploring a haunted zombie infested mansion. At least that's what I would do :) Either way, both you and the player are in the same nasty situation, so that makes a bond. And in case of a first-person-view, it's even easier to imagine that your own person is the player. Hence, likely T22 will be using the "Link" method. The what method? Yep, "Link", from Zelda. Or whatever his name is, because the player can always enter his own short name at the start of the game. This character keeps his mouth shut, has little to no emotions, and even a custom name.

In other words, your fantasy has to "complete" the character. Like with books. Some writers describe more details than others, but in the end your fantasy has to picture how the characters and scenery looks like. That's also why book-based-movies can disappoint. Shit, my hero didn't had a beard and brown hair! And that girl was a hot blonde, not a small Viking! Well, some people like to use their fantasy, others prefer to get everything served in ready-to-swallow chunks. But since the horror-genre is for a more select group anyway, I trust on your fantasy.

I'm not sure yet whether the (nameless) T22 player should talk or not. For one thing, there's not much company in that damn building anyway. But if the Boss gives a phone call, it would be silly to reply with silence. Other than that, our man is about 33 years old, normal functioning, and prefer to work with his hands. He's not a genius, neither dumb. An average, working-class (Russian) Joe, or should I say Dimitri or Jaroslaw? You didn't really plan to work in Tower22, but your hands were needed to take care of the building...

More barrels. Sergi is busy doing all kinds of IKEA object(sets). Boxes, barrels, beds, lamps, and so on. We need stuff to decorate that empty building with, right?

So let’s see… We have a non-hero, possibly without a name, that doesn't talk (much)... A prototype, normal human being. The type of guy who drops himself in the sofa with his stinky socks and a beer after work. Good to identify yourself with, but isn't that a bit... 'bland"? How about the mysterious background?!

Well, it would be stupid to spoil everything right here - right now, but let me say the player does have sort of a background. No, your parents weren't murdered. No, you didn't got raised in a spooky orphanage. No, you don't have CIA/KGB chips in your head. No, you didn't do ninja school. No, you don't suffer hallucinations after a mortar hit in Vietnam. No, you are not looking for your family. And no, you can't shit lightning-bolts from your arse either. So what the hell IS he? Play the game and find out :p

Damn, still looking good!?

Wow! Doom is finally legalized in Germany! National Day! I guess most German gamers had their illegal copy on 5 floppy disks anyway, but those bans on violent games... sigh. You know what I think about games & violence:
Forbidding violent games?

But about Doom. If you tell the new generation of gamers about "id Software", then don't expect ringing alarm bells, twinkling enjoyed eyes, or hours of nostalgic talk. At its best, they might remember something about “Doom III”. In my opinion a very good game, but in the shadows(literally) of more innovative games of that time, such as Halflife2 and Farcry. Doom3 was well, 20 hours of shitting your pants & brainless shooting in darkness. Good enough for me, but not a shocking new formula.


New cars versus Grandpa’s unbreakable steam-tractor
Maybe they also noticed all the fuzz about that game "Duke Nukem Forever", which made the old boys nervous the last 15 years, but turned out to be a piece of . Conclusion of the new generation: we old bastards got stuck in history with Duke and Boom, or whatever that game was called. No doubt it was fun back then, but it’s time to move on. We old bastards on the other hand keep telling that games are shit these days. Like grandpa claiming his old steam-tractor is still superior to those modern machines equipped with electronics that nobody understands.

Nostalgia is a strong thing. Mark my words, you new generation wannabe-gamers (2000..anno now) will be complaining in 10 years as well. Telling everyone Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was way better than all those too-easy-4-hour-crap-virtual-3D-iMotion games we may meet in the future. As usual, everything was better in the good old days. Ask Alexander The Great, and he will confirm.

Nintendo & Wii tries to tickle the Nostalgia, using a different marketing strategy: Good old fun for the whole family (including labrador)... Too bad that they can't(don't want) get rid of their kiddy status. Asides from Nintendo's own series, most of the Wii games are weak excuses to wrap shitty stuff without immersion in a game-package, relying on the overrated Nunchuck. Simple, uncomplicated fun? Maybe, but not enough to hook this old gamer.

OT, Sergi made a sink... Don't know what to say more about sinks, but we need them.

Less serious, more fun
Now, who is right? Is nostalgia blinding us, or do we really have a point when complaining? All right, some nuance first. Doom was made in an era where good-looking quality games were scarce. Hence, it was one of the first "3D" games! Duke was the first game with boobs, humor and cities to explore instead of boring stone corridors. So titles like these would quickly rise above the average, had little to no competition, and got declared holy by the game-popes.

Yet, I dare to say games like Super Mario, Doom(1 / 2) or Duke Nukem still have a better thought-through design than many modern games. Whereas new games are taking themselves (too) serious with photo-realistic graphics and dramatic, cinematic gameplay, old games were more focusing on simple, yet challenging and very addictive mechanics. I finished "Double Dragon (SNES)" with my little brother about 5 million times, while I hardly finish new games these days anymore. At some point, I just lose interest. Even with quality titles such as GTA or Metal Gear Solid. Of course, that also has to do with my age, busy schedule, and being spoiled with too many good games last 18 years already. Chocolate cake doesn’t taste that special anymore after eating it six thousand times.

But when I'm in for a quick game, I usually start Doom or Red Alert, rather than newer titles. How come? Old rusty habits, or are these games really more fun? Both, I think. My major problems with nowadays games:

- It takes a while to get in the mood (complex story, slow build-up, learning all controls, ...). Not good if you don't have many hours of free time.
- But once used to it, these games are often (way) too easy.
- Not worth a second run. Once finished, they dissapear in the (virtual) cabinet.

Point 3 is typical for modern games. Their graphics, advanced scenery, teasers, and immersion usually keep you interested till the end. But the core-elements such as blasting foes or jumping platforms just isn't that much fun. Take GTA for example. Everyone loves the dialogs and exploring the city. But playing it all over again... Racing isn't that much of a challenge, neither are the simple shoot-outs where the computers does 95% of the aiming and cover for you. So what's left, are the dialogs and scenes you have already seen.

A game like Doom on the other hand brings you straight down to the action, 15 seconds after double-clicking \doom.exe. After 50 runs the AI and level-structure isn't really surprising either of course, but you can increase the difficulty to insane heights, and more important, firing the double barreled shotgun at an imp from nearby keeps satisfying, forever. These games are simple, yet brilliant and diverse at the same time.

A simple explanation for their good design might be the available time they got to tweak the levels and weapons. Now lot’s and lot’s of time is spend on making the maps and objects look good in the first place. High poly characters, huge libraries of textures, polishing the lighting, and so on. Making content for older games was simpler, so there was more time to test the maps. Where to put ammo, when to give a health bonus, where to place baddies. And if it sucked, maps or monsters were easy to scrap and replace.

More sinks! Btw, making this model + normalMap + specularMap takes more time than making a low-res sprite of a sink or toilet. Therefore it's harder to replace content, in case it doesn't really fit in the game.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Duke Legacy
I guess this is where it went wrong with the new Duke Nukem Forever… Too much struggle on making the content, too little testing, too much sweat/ego to scrap and redo things… As an old rusty gamer, I was a bit sad about the new Duke not being “Hail to the King baby”. DNF isn’t a bad game, and neither did I expect it to live up the hype. But it didn’t bring back old well-oiled shooter fun, and it certainly did not convince the new gamer generation. A mediocre product, nowhere near the old Duke achievement in 1996.

I already had sort of a bad feeling about it when seeing the few demo movies that were released throughout the years. Duke was struck by an identity crisis. Should he try to be an innovative, fresh game with modern elements such as sniping, driving vehicles and easy-gameplay (plenty of auto-saves, linear levels, lot's of hints, not too much enemies). Or should he stay with his core-business: shooting everything that moves & saving babes up tempo?

I wasn't there at the development, but it seems the creators got stuck somewhere between. Resulting in a game that is neither an oldskool-hardcore shooter, and neither a refreshing new game with superb graphics. It's frustrating difficult at some points, and too easy at the same time. It’s not long, nor short. It's a lot of firepower, but only carrying 2 guns and no mighty-boot at the same time. It's Duke humor but being-a-pussy-getting-killed-by-just-a-few-bullets at the same time. The enemies don't overwhelm you by intelligence, neither with big swarms as they did in the past. The pace was not slow & stealth, neither on steriods. The levels try to look good, but forgot the secrets, humor, freedom and fun that make you want to get the max out of them.

Vehicles or moving stuff doesn't surprise anyone anymore. But back then, this "metro" was a (also technological) highlight!

As said, it's not a bad game. But the new generation that compares it to Crysis or Deus-Ex will be disappointed by the many shortcomings; the game excels in nothing, and Duke’s silly poop-jokes won’t fix that either. Then, we older games get disappointed by the lack of challenge, not killing 100 pigs per minute, and boring level design. Yes, it surprised me that most of the scenes you have seen in 10-year old demo-movies, such as the casino, hoover dam, and cowboy stuff are still in the game. You can't tell me that it took fourteen years to finish those (few) levels... The problem was likely something else: it missed the simple yet addictive and aggressive gameplay that made the 1996 release so brilliant.

I think 3D Realms realized this very well in a pretty early stage. The fun isn't just there when firing a rocket at a bunch of aliens flying with a jetpack. But instead of having Duke-balls of steel and starting over from scratch, they grasped with the ideas & content they made so far, and tried to improve what they got. But probably this was a mission-impossible. Having spend so much blood, sweat and tears in their product, 3D Realms probably didn't want to scrap and disappoint their fans. But at the same time, they might have been too ashamed/unsure to release the game in its current shape. That's where 2K-Games interfered, by putting Gearbox on the Duke. Not to make it a better game, but just to make it sellable, finally. I understand their choice, yet it's a pity to witness the downfall of our old hero.

Roots, bloody roots
I’m just speculating of course, but it seems they took a few fundamental wrong decisions. Once they got behind schedule, being surpassed by better engines and other innovative games, they probably had to adjust their selling points as well. Making a copy of ’96 Duke 3D with improved graphics wouldn’t be enough. At least, not according to publishers that want to sell the game to a wide audience. Times of nonstop brainless shooting, 30 + 2 secret levels, and hard difficulty settings were over. Who to please? The old loyal fans, or the new generation of gamers? Probably they tried to please both, and that’s exactly what made the game fail I think.

In my humble opinion, Duke should have been more like its predecessor. That sounds lazy, but trying to be new and better is near to impossible these days, especially in the shooter genre. Duke wasn't going to steal the hearts of new gamers anyway, there are simply too much players out there now. (Virtual) heroes are just as easily forgotten as they rise these days. So why not going back to the roots, making a decent shooter game. Fast, aggressive humorous action, heavy weapons, whole armies of foes to shoot. A big bunch of fun-levels, not bound to realistic rules or a complex story. And a difficulty setting to separate the men from the boys.

For 2011 standards, that would actually make quite an original game. Hell, I dare to say it would even be fun with 2.5D (but High Quality) sprite graphics. Damn, that would look good. Or least original. Maybe the newer gamers wouldn't be interested... then again, Retro 2D Mario sells again, and I'm pretty sure there are plenty of old grumpy guys that haven't played a good old shooter since Halflife1, in their experience.

Little teaser for Demo2...

----------------------------------------------------------------
Ok professor, how about Tower22?
What design rules would Tower22 follow? Well, neither of them. Horror games are a complete different genre. The target is to give you just a single-ride, with complex & difficult gameplay. But a ride you will never forget because it was so goddamn strange/weird/unique/scary. Like Silent Hill or the older Resident Evil games did. However... I would love to make a 2.5D Duke Nukem, Command & Conquer, or beat 'm up like Double Dragon!

Talking about games, do you have a top10 (old or new, doesn't matter)? In random order:

0- Super Metroid (SNES)
1- Crusader: No Remorse (PC)
2- Doom2 (PC)
3- Halflife (PC)
4- Goldeneye (N64)
5- Zelda (SNES, N64, Majora's mask in particular)
6- Resident Evil Remake (GC)
7- C&C: Red Alert (PC)
8- GTA: San Andreas (PS2)
9- Red Dead Redemption (PS3, hey, that's a new game!)
10- Super Mario (Bros 3, World, 64... and I likes the Wii ones as well)

My top 10... counting from 0 ;)