Why has Blake Stone not been rebooted?

Because it's bad game.

On 10/11/2020 at 9:10 PM, xvertigox said:

 

I'd be all for a BS TC but yeah, no rotations which make it very difficult. I think at this point the move would be to keep it close to the original (i.e no non-orthogonal walls, maybe no height variation or at least keep it minimal) and make it an expansion of sorts. Could definitely do some texture and prop sprite work though. I'd definitely be down for this as I too have had the same thought/fantasy.

 

I don't know, even though I like the creativity that can come out of limitations, there's some stuff that you just can't do. I would want to capture some of the claustrophobic bunker atmosphere, but have the ability to contrast that with other stuff like open outdoor settings, deep mining shafts, etc.

3 hours ago, magicsofa said:

I don't know, even though I like the creativity that can come out of limitations, there's some stuff that you just can't do. I would want to capture some of the claustrophobic bunker atmosphere, but have the ability to contrast that with other stuff like open outdoor settings, deep mining shafts, etc.

I agree fully, I've had the same thought. I think it'd be cool to aim for vanilla and have parts be very Blake Stone-y and then add unexpected (in relation to BS) features like outdoor areas, use of height variation etc. Keeping it vanilla would be important (and doable) IMO.

Vanilla what? Recreating Blake in vanilla doom would be a real pain. If you mean "vanilla Blake Stone" then I'd say go for it - the TC Demo already has that down pretty much. I just can't see myself being satisfied with that. Making vanilla maps with an actual Wolf3d editor would be fun but I'm not gonna use Doom Builder to draw orthogonal walls.

Vanilla Doom. If out of the box you're breaking the game wide open in terms of level design then you'd need sprite rotations. Non-orthogonal walls could work if they're not used in conjunction with a lot of height variation and extensive detailing. How would you reconcile the lack of rotational sprites with the more advanced level architecture? Someone could create rotational sprites but that's obviously a lot of work but fully opens up the possibilities. I don't see so having so many new sprites as a realistic goal.

Are there sprite sheets for the Blake Stone enemies somewhere actually? How many enemies did the game have?

@Spooner5020 I saw it was released around the same time Doom was. It didn't get the hype like Doom did.

That would be killer to see a Blake Stone fan mod to be released for Doom.

I was planning on making a Doom mod of Blake Stone after completing Jazz Jackrabbit Doom but I believe there is someone here in the DOOM community is working on one.

So I changed my plans and started working on a Corridor 7 Doom mod instead.

Let's see what happens for a Blake Stone TC in the future. I'll be waiting. 😁

11 hours ago, elend said:

Are there sprite sheets for the Blake Stone enemies somewhere actually? How many enemies did the game have?

Yep, I think this is all of them. You could validate that it contains all the enemies by checking the wiki but at a glance they all look to be there.

Nice, that is actually not... that much. Thankfully, the sprites are also way "simpler" in their looks than the actual Doom Sprites. *bookmarks page, takes notes, sighs*

EDIT: Wait, that's a lot. *sighs even harder*

EDIT2: Oh look at that, Pyrus Goldfinger already has rotations.

10 minutes ago, elend said:

Nice, that is actually not... that much. Thankfully, the sprites are also way "simpler" in their looks than the actual Doom Sprites. *bookmarks page, takes notes, sighs*

 

EDIT: Wait, that's a lot. *sighs even harder*

EDIT2: Oh look at that, Pyrus Goldfinger already has rotations.

Humans have rotations but the much more complex aliens don't :( Are you thinking about making some at some point?

19 hours ago, xvertigox said:

How would you reconcile the lack of rotational sprites with the more advanced level architecture? Someone could create rotational sprites but that's obviously a lot of work but fully opens up the possibilities. I don't see so having so many new sprites as a realistic goal.

It's work but certainly possible... At least the base is already there. If you want to make levels that resemble the originals, go for it. I'm just saying I would rather just play in the original engine or the BStone port, if all I'm playing is an expansion. If I'm playing in GZdoom however, which is what the TC demo uses, then I want the rest of GZdoom's features. I'm all for vanilla mods but I'd rather jump off from the work AFA did instead of bashing my head against the dehacked wall

Yeah, fair point. I prefer vanilla over GZD but yeah, it'd be reinventing the wheel but in a much, much more difficult way. Finding the palette could be hard too but Slade might have it as a preset. I guess the only technical requirements at this point would be @AFADoomer's permission to use the TC as a base and, possibly, have sprite rotations for the aliens.

xvertigox: Well, of course I would love to try it. But since it's quite some work and might take a while, well... I still have a ton of other stuff to do so I probably won't get to this in the near future...

Found some textures here, at least. https://www.textures-resource.com/pc_computer/blakestonealiensofgold/ (Not sure if they are made by AFA). Seeing that the wall textures are 64 x 64, I would like to re-create / upres them, if I'd go for a imaginary Blake Stone follow-up in the Doom engine.

@elend The art resources are definitely the major hurdle in making a BS 'sequel' in Doom. Texture edits wouldn't be too hard (though I wouldn't know how to upscale them to higher res effectively, would have to look into it) and neither would props but yeah, the monsters are a big, big undertaking. It might be a case of needing to settle with stock (+edits) and lack of rotation.

I do play blake stone and it did see a rather bad gzdoom tc

shadow warrior has seen a few gzdoom tcs, one of them is even half decent

I don't know about a reboot persay, but someone making a sequel to it would be cool.

The game came out just a little over a week before Doom released, so it had pretty much no chance to congeal in people's minds before Doom would completely take them over. If this game had come out just a little bit after Wolf3D, it would've been much more fondly remembered because frankly it's a much better game.

3 hours ago, xvertigox said:

 

Humans have rotations but the much more complex aliens don't :( Are you thinking about making some at some point?

Which I guess would make sense, since some of the guards and "informants" (I always thought they were just scientists) are hostile, some are not. And they can patrol, like in Wolfenstein, so you'd have to make fully rotational sprites. The aliens were always hostile, thus they could get away with them just always facing you and becoming alert.

I guess that'd be another hurdle; has 'patrol' behavior ever been implemented in Doom? I don't recall seeing it, but I'm not sure if it is something that was implemented in GZDoom or Zandronum at some point. But yeah, that's quite a few sprites to add rotations too. You wouldn't have to do the death animations obviously, but that's still quite a bit of work for something that would, judging by quite a few reactions even in this thread, just end up as a curiosity.

I mean, unless it turns out really really good. You'd have to add some more weapons as well I would think, the arsenal was fine at the time, coming off of Wolf, but it's still a little limited. Still better than Wolf's though, different weapons actually had different uses and functions. 

15 minutes ago, Jello said:

I guess that'd be another hurdle; has 'patrol' behavior ever been implemented in Doom

Yes, I think ZDoom had patrols pretty early on actually. The one issue I found is that they can still see you coming from behind if they have "heard" you, like normal ambush monsters. I did figure out a workaround, which involved using decorate to define a new monster with A_LookEx(), allowing to define a field of view and finite hearing distance.

@Jello Good point, the aliens are static/don't patrol. I'm sure patrolling has been implemented in (G)ZDoom. I think rotational sprites are too aspirational and not realistic. Adding new weapons wouldn't be overly difficult given the low resolution of existing ones. Could slightly more experimental weapons too like a lightning gun/laser beam weapon. An inventory system could also be worthwhile too?

Overall, I think the new resources needed would be:

• Texture edits
• New props/prop edits
• New weapons/weapon edits

You could possibly add enemy edits as well through recolors. Those requirements are quite manageable IMO. These are just the technical requirements and a lot of thought would need to be put in to the premise, scope and formatting as well (How many maps? Who maps, is it closed or open? etc)

@xvertigox and @magicsofa - Sorry, I didn't see your message and don't visit here that often.  You're welcome to use my old Blake Stone TC as a base.  Fair warning, it contains a significant amount of outdated code - there are far better ways of doing things in modern GZDoom...  But I think most everything that was completed still works.

7 hours ago, xvertigox said:

@Jello Good point, the aliens are static/don't patrol. I'm sure patrolling has been implemented in (G)ZDoom. I think rotational sprites are too aspirational and not realistic. Adding new weapons wouldn't be overly difficult given the low resolution of existing ones. Could slightly more experimental weapons too like a lightning gun/laser beam weapon. An inventory system could also be worthwhile too?

Overall, I think the new resources needed would be:

• Texture edits
• New props/prop edits
• New weapons/weapon edits

You could possibly add enemy edits as well through recolors. Those requirements are quite manageable IMO. These are just the technical requirements and a lot of thought would need to be put in to the premise, scope and formatting as well (How many maps? Who maps, is it closed or open? etc)

 

Yeah, I mean it could technically work, even without adding new sprites to the existing enemies. But it would be a tremendous labor, and would it be worth it? It would more just end up being a project of love. I enjoyed the game when I was a kid, but I loved all the games I got my hands on as a kid, no matter how crappy they were.

But technologically it was dead on arrival. It was more advanced than Wolfenstein sure, but seven days later iD came out with the Doom shareware. Reminds me of SiN and Half-Life releasing within 10 days of each other. And obviously Half-Life was the better game, but SiN wasn't terrible. It just came out at the wrong time.

Making a Blake Stone TC is a noble venture; but it seems like a shit-ton of work that really won't be appreciated. Because the original game wasn't really appreciated. I remember it because I played it, but it was basically just a bunch of mazes like Wolfenstein, with more bells and whistles. 

And if they tried to re-boot it, people would just say "Blake who?". Unless they did something really amazing with it. Just top of the line graphics, a sexy secret agent fighting space aliens with a bunch of James Bond drizzled on top, poured millions of dollars into the game and the marketing, and just completely distanced themselves from the original game. But at that point, just make a new franchise.

I really don't see any future for the franchise, and nor should there be. They were decent games that added things to the Wolf engine, and I liked them when I was 9 years old. There was nothing substantial there to add on to. With Wolfenstein you have the Nazi's, and the Occult, you can go anywhere with that. With Doom, you have demons, and Hell, you can do anything you want. With Blake Stone, you have Goldfire and aliens. Once Goldfire is dead, that's pretty much all there is.

I've put way too much thought into this.

11 hours ago, AFADoomer said:

@xvertigox and @magicsofa - Sorry, I didn't see your message and don't visit here that often.  You're welcome to use my old Blake Stone TC as a base.  Fair warning, it contains a significant amount of outdated code - there are far better ways of doing things in modern GZDoom...  But I think most everything that was completed still works.

Sweet, thanks for dropping in! I had previously considered sending you a message on ZDoom forums but never got around to it :)