Generic Egoboo revival thread

[penguinflyer5234]

2.6.8 would probably be better, since there are missing functions compared to 2.7.0.

Just drag all your favorite objects into the (created by you) globalobjects directory! (book.obj must be moved there or bad things happen)

[Agent of Dread]

Oh, so I have to find an installer for 2.6.8 too.

[penguinflyer5234]

I wasn't going to spend an hour waiting to upload the whole of 2.6.8

[Agent of Dread]

I'm sure I still have one on one of the computers at my house, anyway. I might look tomorrow.

[Shade]

Aye, that seems to work.
Now I just need to find the motivation to actually do things with it...

@AoD: Just download it from Sourceforge if you don't have it anymore.

[Agent of Dread]

Oh, I didn't know how to access that, thanks a lot.

In regards to a separate game, a random story idea ripe for developing popped into my head recently, if we need something like that.

[Cimeries]

How about remaking Egoboo under the source engine? It's open source, all aspects of development are well documented, has proper tools and youtube video tutorials are abundant, and it uses MDL format models, just like Egoboo.
It's pretty much the perfect candidate if you want to make Egoboo as it is now, but in a more modern engine. It has good built in physics, lighting and particles and all that fancy jazz.

I've been trying my hand at making a custom map for a source-based game (specifically, I'm trying to remake Doom's infamous E1M8 level for Eye:Divine Cybermancy, if that tells you anything). Progress is slow since I'm a busy, busy boy, but it's pretty intuitive and easy once you watch about an hour's worth of tutorials. Egoboo's maps are far more simplistic in geometry than the other games usually made in the engine - even if we decide to make the world more detailed mapping would still be faster than making it in Egomap.

Edit: This might be a good fit also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrlicht_Engine
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/archive ... /projects/

It's pretty basic but still looks to be a direct improvement over Egoboo, and it seems pretty flexible.



Anyhow, you can count on me to do at least some artwork and story too, if we actually get this thing going.

As for the separate game idea, I would actually love to develop a 2d platformer roguelike of some kind - I obviously can't do it myself since I don't know how to code and creating random dungeons in game making programs in an exercise in crappy, crappy futility. It's why I never did continue that roguelike thing I was working on in Construct a couple years ago.

[penguinflyer5234]

MDL != MD2. MDL has support for bones, while MD2 uses vertex animation.

If we used another engine, we'd have to port our MD2 code with it, since we have those lovely grip vertices and that lovely extra data stored in the frame name.

[Cimeries]

Oh wait, Egoboo uses MD2? I could have sworn it was MDL.

[penguinflyer5234]

MDL is a Source model (2004), MD2 is a Quake 2 model (1997)

[Cimeries]

Crazy insomnia idea #387:

EgobooRL!
Let's remake Egoboo as an actual, turn-based, roguelike with a tile interface. The stat system would be pretty much the same, we already have graphics for the tiles, I can easily create appropriate icons for players, items and creatures using the model viewer and some clever editing. We could even use the sound effects and the music.
Check out this game: http://youtu.be/BAr7Ay7aqr8
It's a roguelike based on Doom, implementing sounds and graphics from the actual game to make a simplistic but fun, and fast paced roguelike. And yes, it is turn based, even if sometimes the gameplay is so fast that you can't really tell.

The way I envision EgobooRL is that you pick a starter "module" for your new character, and you play though an exact replica of that class' starting module, down to every last detail including items, monsters and puzzles.
After you finish a starter module you are placed in the world map which contains the towns, the palaces, and catacombs, that are also exact replications of their Egoboo counterparts, and you are free to roam around and do pretty much all the things you can do in Egoboo, collecting sporks, leveling up, doing side quests like Grifiin Tower etc, unlocking new starter modules, riding mounts, having pets etc.
The equipment system will also be the same - you get a small number of inventory slots, you actually have to hold a spellbook to cast the spell within, and there are 4 armors per class.
Getting killed will dock you some exp and toss you back to the dungeon entrance, so it won't be a roguelike in the full sense.
And for replayability, we could implement a relatively simple, randomly generated, infinite dungeon somewhere on the worldmap.

[Agent of Dread]

We could potentially do something similar to the Touhou games (11 and 12 especially) where the story evolves quite differently depending on who you're playing as, to encourage multiple playthroughs so that the player could understand everything.

That does sound like a pretty cool idea, though.

[Shade]

Now that I've played around with it a bit, it suddenly struck me as an incredibly silly idea to go back to an earlier version for continued development of Egoboo - even though I disagree with a lot of the more recent additions, it just seems too disrespectful to simply discard more than a year's worth of work (especially since this also includes a ton of modules), and it'd probably be simpler to "fix" the most recent version than to build my way there on my own.
I may pick up the actual most recent version instead (2.9.0 RC1) and try to get it back on track again - considering that I can actually get it to run and may even be able to play it if I just remember to restart the game after setting the options to what I want them to be.
Just seems better to me than to suddenly run off and do my own thing, especially if, just in case, Zefz and/or birdsey suddenly show up again and want to continue their work.

If I end up not doing that either, I'll probably just give up and let it rest. All the talk about it being a much better idea to simply script a new game from scratch instead (which is a perfectly valid point) has discouraged me from using 2.6.8 as a base, as I don't feel like pointlessly wasting my time either - but I've always had a lot of trouble picking up completely new tools to work with, so I just can't see myself suddenly starting to work at a completely new game. I just don't have the skills. (Unless, as I said before, we join up and do it all together.)

[Shade]

Alright... I tried 2.9.0 RC1 again and got the controls to work. Either it was restarting the game that fixed the issue, or it was setting the controls of the other 3 player slots to unused controllers, but in any case...
I'm not sure how far I'll really go, but I want to ensure that the last release of Egoboo is at least enjoyably playable, stable like 2.6.8 was. For that, I need to know all issues and bugs the game currently has. Help would be appreciated.

Issues with 2.9.0 that I may be able to fix:

• I dunno what's causing it, but melee attacks basically never hit, at least not in front of the character. My best guess is that either the physics or the hitboxes are severely screwed up. If it's particle hitboxes, I may be able to fix it, but I don't want to fiddle around with them until I know that the problem is in fact the particles. If it's the physics, I'd need pf5234 to do some magic.
• Chests and tents don't drop anything. Maybe the scripts are screwed up. If it isn't the scripts, my next best guess would be that it's the new inventory system that messes up the drops. (Maybe the contents exceed the weight limit of the container and thus aren't actually added?)

Issues that I cannot fix on my own:

• The new inventory system is a massive pain in the behind. Not only is weight a completely unnecessary additional restriction (come on, we only have 6 slots to begin with - remove that limitation), not being able to switch out items mid-combat completely screws over the active and hectic playstyle the game used to encourage. Being able to equip bracelets and stuff without having to take them off everytime you cycle through your inventory ain't worth the trade-off. Please revert this back to how it was, or, if it's sufficiently simple, add it as an option to the Gameplay option menu.
• I can see the merit of an Exp bar, but to me it's just annoying. An option to turn it off would be nice.

If we get this going, I'll add a list of current issues to the first post in this thread and keep it updated for easy checking.

[Cimeries]

I haven't seen the new inventory system yet, but if it's what I think you are describing, then I think only things like bracelets and amulets should be equipped through a menu, while items, spells and weapons would be drawn from the inventory like before.

Maybe I should download 2.9.0 and give it a try, I don't think I ever did, actually.

What do you think about my rogue-like idea, though? Any merit to it?