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lupinx-Kassman

Harmonious Release

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T.V. has completed his long-awaited personal project Harmony. What is it? For those out of the loop:

Harmony functions as a standalone game with the Zdoom engine, but can also be viewed as a TC.

More information on Harmony can be found here. A download to the game can be found here.

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I'm playing this with GZDoom with texture filtering off and the resolution set to 320x200

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Patrick said:

I'm playing this with GZDoom with texture filtering off and the resolution set to 320x200


Why would you want to play the game at such a low res?

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A game like this deserves to be played in the most classic way possible. I'd put it on a DOS machine if I could!

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Given one of the "selling points" is "high resolution sprites", I'm not sure I agree that this is meant to be played in Chocolate-like conditions...

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I don't really see an incompatibility between hi-res sprites and low screen resolution. When a sprite gets really close to you, you see large pixels. The difference here is that with higher resolution graphics those pixels won't look so big when the things get close. The sprites are still hi-res, regardless of screen resolution. Only high resolution stuff that's fit to the screen would be affected adversely, such as a hi-res status bar or intermission screen.

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You're talking to the guy who will never play any game on an emulator because it just ain't the same :P I really can't be helped, but it's been an absolute blast, high-res or not.

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Graf Zahl said:

You are all weird...

This game was not made for low res.

And Doom was not made for high res.

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This looks and plays great. As others have said, it feels like a lost 90's shooter, but this has much better design. :D

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Gez said:

Given one of the "selling points" is "high resolution sprites", I'm not sure I agree that this is meant to be played in Chocolate-like conditions...

Graf Zahl said:

Some people can't be helped... :D


Are you two the tweedle dee and Tweedle dum of this forum? You can't see one troll without the other.

Thanks to the new NVidia cards I can't play this at 320x200. And, Thanks to ZDoom taking out the pixel doubler, I can't play in a simulated mode either. ZDoom is now at a position to force its high-resness on me. Thanks a lot, guys.

Yes, this plays great, and I wish it were many more levels than this. I can only hope for an addon to it one day.

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Thanks to the new NVidia cards I can't play this at 320x200. And, Thanks to ZDoom taking out the pixel doubler, I can't play in a simulated mode either. ZDoom is now at a position to force its high-resness on me. Thanks a lot, guys.

September 4, 2008
- Added pixel doubling and quadrupling for fullscreen DirectDraw modes.
The command line options -2 and -4 can be used to force them.

Although I don't know for sure if they're still there, I'm fairly certain this was added after the regular doubling was taken out. I recall the changelog specifically mentioning nVidia cards.

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Another needless fight in what was supposed to be about a really nice project.

I could see some extra levels getting added on for this in the future; I just reached MAP05 and I'm having a ball with it.

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This game was not made for low res.

Doom was not made for high res.

When you really think about it, any game was made for any resolution that the person playing it desires. What is so hard for people to understand about this?

High resolution emulation is fine. GZDoom with high resolution settings is fine. 320x200 vanilla Doom is fine. Many of us have seen it all.

I personally want the graphics to be as clear as possible. I max Doom out to the highest resolution that my computer can handle in GZDoom. I set all my emulators to the highest possible graphics and sound settings. What difference should it make to anyone how anybody enjoys their games?

I find it absolutely awesome that so many years later, I can improve the quality of these oldschool games. That in itself shows the dedication that so many people have to Doom and other games, which is what keeps them alive. The Doom community and many others would most likely not be here to the extent that they would have been without these enhancements.

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Megalyth said:

When you really think about it, any game was made for any resolution that the person playing it desires. What is so hard for people to understand about this?


That's true to a point. Some game engines are incapable of rendering small screen resolutions, and some games just do it poorly (such as Bioshock, the text is barely legible at 640x480).

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This looks great. I love the sprites! The base models are a bit sloppy but in a personal way that really appeals to me. Downloading now.

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Megalyth said:
What is so hard for people to understand about this?

Exp(x)'s response looks like sheer irony. I mean, the "meant to be" card used by advanced port fans or devs? Heh.

The Doom community and many others would most likely not be here to the extent that they would have been without these enhancements.

Indeed, just like they wouldn't likely be here without the "retro" elements that we retain or sustain.

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Not that they wouldn't be here at all, just not to the same extent.

By the way, I wasn't bashing anyone in particular there. It's just that the whole purist mindset and the air of superiority that usually accompanies it strike a nerve with me. Especially when I'm drunk. :)

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Megalyth said:
It's just that the whole purist mindset and the air of superiority that usually accompanies it strike a nerve with me.

It's easy to see someone who prefers something different come out as arrogant, since they are liking something else, something we don't like that much. Their preference for it thus seems excessive. People who like newer or more advanced things, on the other hand, have the penchant to think they have an "objective reason" their stuff is superior and end up shocked when someone else doesn't agree the advancements they like are an improvement.

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Just finished. Fascinating stuff all the way through. The centaur level was a little bit ridiculous, but I admire the sheer audacity of including a level so brutally hard. Also: that is one sexy final boss.

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I really really loved this (although the centaurs pissed me off many times and the final boss was anticlimatic in comparison), there was one little thing that probably should have been fixed. If you change the screensize to max with the numbers hud, the icons are not scaled, so they overlap badly. (most ammo other than the grenade doesn't even show up and the armors typically obstruct your view a bit on the side there)

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myk said -
People who like newer or more advanced things, on the other hand, have the penchant to think they have an "objective reason" their stuff is superior...

Ah, but I never said that my preferences are superior, nor do I think that they are. In fact,

I said -
320x200 vanilla Doom is fine.

Let's say that, for whatever reason, the only option I had was to play Doom with no freelook, 320x200 resolution, etc. I would still be playing it, because it's an awesome game. Hell, I just played through Monuments of Mars again a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Rather than take the "you're doing it wrong" stance, I prefer the "whatever floats your boat" stance. It's when people say things like "You shouldn't play X in that manner" that I get irritated (which, I admit, shouldn't matter to me at all, but that's a different subject for a different time).

On topic, I started playing Harmony today, and it's a blast. Those bug-eyed things that make the pig noises freak me the hell out when they lunge.

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I like the effort made in this. Making clay models and then photographing them. Though I did find the coloration and animations sloppy. Still though props for the effort.

I can't say I liked the game play all that much though. It's OK. But grenades in ZDoom is still not a good idea. (Skulltag got better ones, but they are still not good IMO)
The rest of the game play was sort of a drag for me.

Also all the sounds from Freedoom made me feel like I was playing that more than anything.

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kristus said:

But grenades in ZDoom is still not a good idea. (Skulltag got better ones, but they are still not good IMO)


With Dehacked only it's hard to make it better. BTW, ZDoom includes Skulltag's grenade definition. It doesn't use anything Skulltag exclusive.

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I felt that the difficulty of using the thrown grenades was offset by their being about three times more powerful than the ones that fire from the launcher (strangely enough). My only issue with them was that every time I wanted to see if a wall was shootable I'd switch to weapon slot 1 and fire without thinking, and get torn apart by a point-blank grenade blast. As grenades go I've seen worse - I'm not too impressed by the ones in KDiZD.

Aside from the centaur level I thought the gameplay was fun and fair. The faster projectiles and deadlier hitscan enemies make Doom into a cover-based shooter instead of dodging-based, but there's room for both styles. There's some fun to be had in peering around corners and progressing carefully. Personally, I think the red melee enemies should have been much deadlier - I was always sloppy enough to let them leap on me yet was never damaged for it.

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