Jupiter Hell Kickstarter (AKA "DoomRL 2")

This is only tangentially Doom-related, but DoomRL is the game that showed me roguelikes could be addictive and accessible instead of obscure, idiosyncratic grind-fests. So, I figure I might as well give the spiritual sequel a holler. Besides, Jupiter Hell is, for all intents and purposes, Doom. They haven't tried very hard to hide their influences. The Kickstarter is a few days old and it's doing pretty well, assuming they didn't just convince all their friends and family to buy into the higher reward tiers. Wrack 2 didn't pan out but I'm giving the dice another roll.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2020043306/jupiter-hell-a-modern-turn-based-sci-fi-roguelike

This looks awesome.

• moonbases - check
  
• demons and former humans - check
  
• metal soundtrack - check
  
• chainsaws, chainguns and other weapons obviously needed in space - check
  
• best armors show aaaabs - check
  

I guess we indeed didn't hide our influences :P.

On a more serious note - I'm the author of DoomRL and this sequel, Jupiter Hell. I'm really happy someone posted this here. DoomRL, Roguelike and Doom are the three communities who's opinions we value the most. So if you have any questions, suggestions or comments, do not hesitate to post!

And if you do like it, please help us spread the word! This is a totally community project - no publishers, no distributors, no marketing agencies - we can only count on your goodwill and your help!

yours truly,
Kornel

well, thanks for stopping by kernel, I'v a few questions.

• how are the sound effects for the guns?
  
• will the death and movment animations change?
  
• will there be gibbing?
  
• how deep are the game mechanics? Can you go into detail about them?
  

Also the member whom helped show me this first is a fan, but he's a banned right now from here, if you wish to contact him you can reach him on the forums he's currently residing on. here is the thread of Dark nation talking about it. http://doomer.boards.net/thread/133/jupiter-creators-doom-roguelike

MrGlide said:

• how are the sound effects for the guns?
  

We're going for heavy and deep sounds with a big amount of "oomph". We already spent maybe 3 hours on the shotgun sound, and we're still not satisfied. The soundscape is very important.

MrGlide said:

• will the death and movment animations change?
  

Yes and no. The sad fact that there's a procedural animation system underneath that doesn't show it's true potential in the video. Death animations suck mainly because our ragdolls are still broken, and we had no time to prep them better than to set "this might work" values. As for the movement, we still will polish it up, but it will always look unnatural, because it's being blended in realtime based on the speed of the players keypresses. This looks way more impressive when plaing that what we can show on a video.

MrGlide said:

• will there be gibbing?
  

Mandatory. Current plan is to substitute the model for a "body parts" model, add in fluid blood and forces and let physics do its thing.

MrGlide said:

• how deep are the game mechanics? Can you go into detail about them?
  

Deeper than in DoomRL, still more streamlined than most roguelikes. Compared to DoomRL more usable inventory, for hacking, bypassing stuff, etc. If you'd ask for specific mechanics it'd be easier to answer.

Does this mean DoomRL will be open sourced, like DiabloRL was when DoomRL came out?

will there be a system like the modpacks from DoomRL in Jupiter Hell? that's one of the things about the game i enjoyed the most out of.

I cannot answer the question about DoomRL going open source... yet :)

Viscra Maelstrom said:

will there be a system like the modpacks from DoomRL in Jupiter Hell? that's one of the things about the game i enjoyed the most out of.

Pretty much so, both for weapons, armors and battle suits. The system should be much more consistent, and make a bit more sense than the DoomRL version.

Will there be hidden weapons and armors?

Can I get an achievement for beating the entire game with a chainsaw and sawed-off?

Will it have a similarly ridiculous method of obtaining the "true" ending?

By default, if something was present in DoomRL it will also be present in Jupiter Hell, so I guess the answer to all those questions is "yes" :)

While I'm not exactly into Rogue-likes. I told my friend who is and he donated. Other than that the game does look good. The only thing that's glaring in my mind is the grid based prefabricated rooms.

geo said:

While I'm not exactly into Rogue-likes. I told my friend who is and he donated. Other than that the game does look good. The only thing that's glaring in my mind is the grid based prefabricated rooms.

The gameplay will be tile-based so I guess it's unavoidable that the visuals will be too. It's easier to forgive repetitive grids in an ASCII roguelike, though - with more detailed props it'll be more obvious when you're seeing the same ones over and over. With enough development time you could get clever. Throw in lots of decorative height changes, alternate decor schemes, and maybe different ways of bounding playable areas to create unique atmospheres. Rooms could be outlined by deep chasms, windows to vacuum, industrial magma, etc.

geo said:

While I'm not exactly into Rogue-likes. I told my friend who is and he donated. Other than that the game does look good. The only thing that's glaring in my mind is the grid based prefabricated rooms.

First of all a big thanks for spreading the word :)

The rooms are not prefabricated, any grid map of walls/floors can render, just one of the generation algorithms uses premade wall/floor 8x8 (?) squares. We will break the grid visually more and more to give it a natural look, but the grid itself is what makes the game work as a turn-based game.

BTW, the square grid-set came from the idea that a spacebase would be assembled from prepared "modules". But now that you mention it, it really cheapens what we try and can show :/

For anyone interested, here's a writeup on the particular technique used on the games site : https://jupiterhell.com/news/10

Creaphis said:

The gameplay will be tile-based so I guess it's unavoidable that the visuals will be too. It's easier to forgive repetitive grids in an ASCII roguelike, though - with more detailed props it'll be more obvious when you're seeing the same ones over and over. With enough development time you could get clever. Throw in lots of decorative height changes, alternate decor schemes, and maybe different ways of bounding playable areas to create unique atmospheres. Rooms could be outlined by deep chasms, windows to vacuum, industrial magma, etc.

I meant the rooms themselves seem to be made of a 10 x 10 grid (12 if you count the doorways which I probably should). So even if there is a T junction it still fits the 10 x 10 its just rotated 90 degrees. Chances are humans would make their space bases in the same way rather than having odd shaped rooms.

A different route to go would be 20 x 20 grid rooms where you could allow for more custom or strangely sized rooms inside. You can have a 90% chance that the 20 x 20 contains 4 rooms of 10 x 10. I keep saying 10 x 10 forgetting the doorway tiles :-) Just throwing ideas out, but you know what you're doing. This is just my own form of audience participation. Keeping the thread bumped :-)

I'm happy for you that your Kickstarter looks to be a success already. From what I've seen its either a success in the first 3 days or its not and since you've got almost half the funding already its easy to speculate :-)

Yeah, it does add a lot to a roguelike's atmosphere when room shapes are more organic and variable. The best dungeon generation I've seen is in Brogue, which might be worth drawing inspiration from if Jupiter Hell is going to feature any cave/hell areas. DoomRL's procedurally generated levels are pretty clunky and rectangular but the game is fun enough that I was always willing to forgive it.

Creaphis said:

Yeah, it does add a lot to a roguelike's atmosphere when room shapes are more organic and variable. The best dungeon generation I've seen is in Brogue, which might be worth drawing inspiration from if Jupiter Hell is going to feature any cave/hell areas. DoomRL's procedurally generated levels are pretty clunky and rectangular but the game is fun enough that I was always willing to forgive it.

Jupiter Hell's tiles take a larger part of the screen than DoomRL's or any ASCII roguelikes, so natural formations are a bit more tricky. We will have a "caves" tileset though that will take advantage of such algorithms.

As for non-organic generators I might try to implement a different algorithm this week on stream.

Another good sign is I see people on Twitter (actual humans I know) talking about the new game with excitement.

For anyone that still doesn't see the turn-based part, I recently did a tech overview for a friend while streaming development. It mostly talks about the technical aspects of the engine, but much longer gameplay shots are visible, and you can hear the keys being pressed :P
https://www.twitch.tv/epyoncf/v/102610218
(yes, it's extremely dark, we need more lights in the levels, and twitch encoding doesn't help)

Well, interesting development here, ZeniMax have just issued a cease and desist on DoomRL. Doesn't affect Jupiter Hell, but it sucks for a free, fan-made game that's been around 14 years :(

In less depressing news, there has been a meaty Kickstarter update on gameplay and design and a video message from the game's voice actor (aka BroShep from Mass Effect).

DarrenGrey said:

Well, interesting development here, ZeniMax have just issued a cease and desist on DoomRL. Doesn't affect Jupiter Hell, but it sucks for a free, fan-made game that's been around 14 years :(

Sigh. If fan sites are allowed to be a thing, why can't you have free "fan games?"

Creaphis said:

Sigh. If fan sites are allowed to be a thing,

They're only allowed to be a thing because Zenimax hasn't started slinging C&Ds for them.

It's a pretty bloody broad demand from them. According to the wording any use of their brand name "to attract internet users to your website" is deemed unacceptable. That means any fan site too, surely? Not that they'd be dumb enough to try that (hopefully).

Probably a dumb question on my part but what does this C&D on DoomRL mean for sites like Doomworld and the forums for various ports like (G)ZDoom, Zandronum, ZDaemon, Eternity, and so on?

I'd totally throw some money at Jupiter Hell if I could though. :( Hope the project gets off the ground in some form.

DarrenGrey said:

It's a pretty bloody broad demand from them. According to the wording any use of their brand name "to attract internet users to your website" is deemed unacceptable. That means any fan site too, surely? Not that they'd be dumb enough to try that (hopefully).

Well you are using their name to attract people. I'm surprised Steam games that use the term "inspired by game X" haven't been nabbed. "NotGTAV" for literally using GTA V gameplay in its promotional material.

Linguica said:

They're only allowed to be a thing because Zenimax hasn't started slinging C&Ds for them.

I'll see you on the other side

kmxexii said:

I'll see you on the other side

Suicide pact?