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Patrol1985

"Wrack" officially released

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I watched this review where he mentions DLC:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=BQAXMEvFuDg

I have a question, did you create the engine from scratch? Why didn't you fork gzdoom, or some other port, so you have all the engine,tools, multiplayer etc ready? Couldn't you achieve your vision that way?

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Without even going into the license issues of this particular codebase; forking a Doom engine means adopting the Doom game logic at the core. There's enough bugs and limitations that it's not a good idea for a new game. For example, monster AI is tied to monster animation. Monster animation is done through frames, making them inherently incompatible with skeletal animations.

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@VGA: Yeah, but that video is going based off of some pretty outdated information as well. I set the record straight in the comments, and I believe he added an annotation about it. Also, the quicksave behavior he spends some time talking about is also only present on higher difficulty levels with the ability for the traditional method of quicksaving to be enabled through mods on all difficulty levels.

C30N9: I'm not saying no new episodes, but if we do end up doing them, it won't be a DLC thing. I just want to be very clear and not mislead people into thinking they're paying $15 for Wrack with the promise of two additional episodes. If we do end up doing them though, I think we'll be able to deliver them in a way that pleases everyone. ... well, you can't ever please everyone, but almost everyone! :P

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Gez said:

Without even going into the license issues of this particular codebase; forking a Doom engine means adopting the Doom game logic at the core. There's enough bugs and limitations that it's not a good idea for a new game. For example, monster AI is tied to monster animation. Monster animation is done through frames, making them inherently incompatible with skeletal animations.

Then that whole system should be replaced according to the needs of the new game. That's why you're forking gzdoom and not modding for it in our imagined case.

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Woah, this game looks awesome! It's like what Doom 3 should have been! The developers clearly understand all the things that make classic doom great and built upon them. Catering the game to the modding community has definitely gotten me interested in it. I'm not sure why making games modifiable (or at least custom level design) isn't an industry standard.

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VGA said:

Then that whole system should be replaced according to the needs of the new game. That's why you're forking gzdoom and not modding for it in our imagined case.

Okay. So GZDoom fork, gutted of its original game logic. Then you get into another problem: the renderer is tied to game logic. More precisely, it's tied to the map structure; it relies on having sectors, subsectors, floors/ceilings rendered one way, walls rendered another way. The nature of the map geometry prevents from using efficiently the recommended best practices of OpenGL rendering (you're basically stuck with immediate mode). Also it doesn't support everything you'd want it to handle for a modern game. Like depth sorting on models, directional lights and shadows, skeletal animation, ragdolls... So then what? The whole system should be replaced according to the needs of the new game, right?

Okay, one GZDoom fork, gutted of game logic and renderer. It's not too bad, though. You still have the input handler, the texture manager, the sound renderer... Wait, the sound renderer is also tied to game data logic, so scratch that. Also the texture manager is for a bunch of small textures because it's how the Doom data are presented, but current best practices is to have as much as possible everything on a single texture atlas to reduce the number of texture changes in rendering.

Well okay, you have one GZDoom fork, gutted of everything except input handling and archive reading. At this point, you realize that it's simpler to write everything from scratch.

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Gez said:

Okay. So GZDoom fork, gutted of its original game logic. Then you get into another problem: the renderer is tied to game logic. More precisely, it's tied to the map structure; it relies on having sectors, subsectors, floors/ceilings rendered one way, walls rendered another way. The nature of the map geometry prevents from using efficiently the recommended best practices of OpenGL rendering (you're basically stuck with immediate mode). Also it doesn't support everything you'd want it to handle for a modern game. Like depth sorting on models, directional lights and shadows, skeletal animation, ragdolls... So then what? The whole system should be replaced according to the needs of the new game, right?

Okay, one GZDoom fork, gutted of game logic and renderer. It's not too bad, though. You still have the input handler, the texture manager, the sound renderer... Wait, the sound renderer is also tied to game data logic, so scratch that. Also the texture manager is for a bunch of small textures because it's how the Doom data are presented, but current best practices is to have as much as possible everything on a single texture atlas to reduce the number of texture changes in rendering.

Well okay, you have one GZDoom fork, gutted of everything except input handling and archive reading. At this point, you realize that it's simpler to write everything from scratch.


Could have used Unity. Everybody uses Unity. There's no need to make an engine from scratch nowadays.

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Just checked out the latest version on Steam and while the game looks a lot more polished since last. But after finishing the first map there are a few things that stuck out to me.

1. The cutscene art looks woefully unfinished. Some of the slides don't even have color.

2. After finishing the boss and Exo makes his appearance, he doesn't emit any sounds at all. Like from that glider he's using, which just makes it seem kinda unfinished there as well.

Still though. congratulations on getting it done. Hope it works out for you and you can continue work.

EDIT: Also it crashed when I tried to tab back into it after tabbing out.

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doomgargoyle said:

Could have used Unity. Everybody uses Unity. There's no need to make an engine from scratch nowadays.

Please stop.

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Carnevil,

Can I buy the game and play it without Steam? My home PC is not connected to the internet. I am basically excluded from all new games because of this, cause it seems everyone is expecting me to be online...

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Yes, either today or tomorrow I'll have the non-Steam versions updated. There's a patch going out today and once that's all ready I'll get the various builds going.

@kristus: #1 is addressed in the patch, and #2 will likely be addressed soon as well. And thanks! :)

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Carnevil said:

Yes, either today or tomorrow I'll have the non-Steam versions updated. There's a patch going out today and once that's all ready I'll get the various builds going.

Are you going to get on GOG?

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Carnevil said:

Yes, either today or tomorrow I'll have the non-Steam versions updated. There's a patch going out today and once that's all ready I'll get the various builds going.

Is there going to be an option for "Extremely Minimum Effects" (no giblets, no particles, no dynamic lights) in the upcoming patches? (please)

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Steam doesn't actually require you to be online while playing anymore. You can even tell it to start in offline mode without having a connection at the time these days.
But you can also get it on Desura (and Gamersgate I think).

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scifista42 said:

Is there going to be an option for "Extremely Minimum Effects" (no giblets, no particles, no dynamic lights) in the upcoming patches? (please)

Somebody's actually made a mod for this. Works well from what I hear.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=289283035

@Gez: Nope.

Anyway, just put out an update. Think things are in pretty good shape now. I'll get this build up on the other outlets soon - maybe tomorrow.

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Congrats Carnbarn! To a lot of us, you're kind of living the dream, getting paid to do something you love. Maybe it doesn't pay every bill, but it's gotta feel good to have organized something this complex and finished something that you feel proud to have your name attached to.

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@TheCupboard: Thanks! :) I'm definitely working super hard to make sure that I can continue doing something I love. But hey, it was in the top 50s of bestselling games on Steam at one point, so it's at least paying some bills! :P Not bad considering it's a new IP and doesn't have millions of marketing dollars behind it and wasn't heavily discounted.

@doomgargoyle: Yes, working on getting this new build up to those distributors. Waiting for approval in both places.

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Jaxxoon R said:

It's too bad I can't run level 2, even at the minimum settings.

scifista42 said:

All effects on minimum, screen resolution on minimum, Wrack lags on the first map and the lagging becomes really unbearable (sometimes <1 FPS) on the second one. :( Maybe completely disabling particles and the "point lights" could help, but it seems it cannot be done.


Guys, could you post your systems' specifications? Wrack seems pretty accessible from the system requirements point of view, but I'd like some opinions from people who have actually tried it. Is it really that demanding?

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Patrol1985 said:

Guys, could you post your systems' specifications? Wrack seems pretty accessible from the system requirements point of view, but I'd like some opinions from people who have actually tried it. Is it really that demanding?

Well, I have almost 5 years old laptop: Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit, Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU, T6600, 2.20 GHz, 4 GB RAM.

Carnevil said:

Somebody's actually made a mod for this. Works well from what I hear.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=289283035

Thanks for linking the mod, I'll try it.

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I showed it to a few Steam friends. 2 of them said what I said. Arcade shooter? So its on rails right? It doesn't look like its on rails.

I asked that a year or so ago, but Carn's reasoning was arcade = score based.

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I asked that a year or so ago, but Carn's reasoning was arcade = score based.

Score-based, leaderboards, chains, combos, flashy and colorful, action-based, bosses, etc.

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kristus said:

Steam doesn't actually require you to be online while playing anymore. You can even tell it to start in offline mode without having a connection at the time these days.
But you can also get it on Desura (and Gamersgate I think).


Once a month it has to validate your games, regardless of offline mode.

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Carnevil said:

Yes, either today or tomorrow I'll have the non-Steam versions updated. There's a patch going out today and once that's all ready I'll get the various builds going.

Nice! Ok, please assume I'm a dummy (couldn't be true :), and please tell me how to get my money to you, so I can get your game to me, without that nasty Steam stuff, in a PM if you wish. I'm anxious to check it out. Thanks.

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kristus said:

Why would "arcade" imply it would be on rails?


Because back in the day arcade games were more or less on-rails, especially ones like Time Crisis.

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Time Crisis and Virtua Cop was hardly staples of the Arcade lable as a whole, so I really can't see why anyone would deduce from that thin connection that somehow Wrack would be a on Rails shooter.

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kristus said:

Why would "arcade" imply it would be on rails?


Arcade shooters traditionally have guns and they're on rails. Maybe its a US arcade thing. We never had movement controls. Rambo and Heavy Fire: Afghanistan also include themselves as arcade shooters.

Time Crisis and Virtua cop were arcade shooting staples along with Terminator 2.

Again, maybe its a USA arcade thing.

Googling arcade shooter, looks like SHMUPS, bullet hells, run and guns are considered arcade shooters. My bad. Looks like I'm wrong.

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"shooter" is a very broad term to be used, because a shooter game can be a FPS, a TPS, a railshooter, or a SHMUP. "arcade shooters" are generally things like SHMUPS though, i think.

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