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Springy

Blasphemer discussion

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6 hours ago, SecularSteve said:

I think I'm more surprised that Blasphemer has no art yet. I mean, I'm probably looking in the wrong places, but I haven't come across so much as a sketch.

There have been various concept sketches, around the earlier pages in this thread (some may be only accessible via the Wayback Machine), mostly showing various monsters. But nothing that could be used as title screen art.

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@Catoptromancy, I did a small run of E1 maps with Heretic128 in DOSBox (using the engage code for level warp), and all seem to work fine except E1M2, which crashes with a Savgame buffer overrun error whenever I try to save the game. It is my understanding that E1M2 in the IWAD is the same or generally similar to E1M2 from Blasphemous Experiments? I checked that one too, and apart from being quite difficult, the levels also appear to be too large even for a limit-removing DOS binary, although I could save and load the game on E1M1 in Blasphemous Experiments.

 

Most E1 levels appear quite playable from wand start, which I had to do with level warp (I didn't bother using other cheats). Can someone tell which E1 levels were designed specifically for the project and which come from other sources?

 

Anyway, I also spotted a few texture misalignments, or are these unfilled gaps between textures?

a5KvAcI.png

QEolHnq.png

The above are in E1M2.

cwXuhEi.png

And this one is in E1M6 (IIRC).

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TFE explains the walls but I believe the one on the floor is caused by the shoddy implementation of floor scrolling that Heretic has (you can only expect floor scrollers to look right in a few situations).

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If floor scrollers are the problem in that screenshot, you can make the scrolling flat 64x128 and it should eliminate the tutti-frutti. (or 64x65 which is what Heretic does, but doubling it is kind of easier and more obvious that it has been edited to work with scrollers)

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Also, I sort of understand if E1M2 crashes, it's a very long, very very detailed map

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15 hours ago, AntonR said:

Also, I sort of understand if E1M2 crashes, it's a very long, very very detailed map

Yes, I looked up the Savegame buffer overrun message, it's because there are too many entities on the map. Also when you emerge from the catacombs into the open cemetery part, the frame rate drops notably in Heretic128.

 

Basically, I think that the majority of maps from Blasphemous Experiments are not suitable for the DOS version because they're too detailed. Yet I think it would be very nice to have a vanilla-compatible version (or at least limit-removing that can run in DOSBox without issues or lags) of at least E1 to make a viable DOS version of Blasphemer.

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I had the idea for a 'I Can't Believe It's Not Heretic' Challenge/Jam recently, 2 - 4K lines (like the base game) and the Things (or at least monsters/weapons) from a specific level, so
E1M1 would have exactly: 23 imps, 19 golems, 3 undead warriors, 1 crossbow, 1 gauntlets, and other than that you would be free to do whatever.

I don't know if people would be up for that, but if I ran that some of those maps could work for Blasphemer as well

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1 hour ago, AntonR said:

I had the idea for a 'I Can't Believe It's Not Heretic' Challenge/Jam recently, 2 - 4K lines (like the base game) and the Things (or at least monsters/weapons) from a specific level, so
E1M1 would have exactly: 23 imps, 19 golems, 3 undead warriors, 1 crossbow, 1 gauntlets, and other than that you would be free to do whatever.

If an episode is going to be crowdsourced, I think it would also be a good idea to arrange levels thematically. I feel that Blasphemer lends itself very well for visual storytelling through maps, and I had this rough idea of how the story could progress:

 

E1M1 starts with the protagonist arriving at a town that is overrun by unholy creatures. First attacked by harpies and then by ghouls, he fends them off with his magic staff and then finds his way into a building where the last survivor had barricaded themselves and fought off the invaders with the crossbow until being overrun. This is where you find the crossbow and some bolts.

 

The Blasphemer then traces the monsters to the town's cathedral where the first encounter with a vampire or two can take place. This could be an entire level of its own, E1M2. The Dragon's Claw can be hidden on the roof or in the vaults perhaps. There is an underground passage in the vaults under the cathedral that takes you to the catacombs, E1M3. Many ghouls and some vampires here. You reach what looks like an ancient pagan temple hewn in the rock, with the first encounter with Grells (I'm so far sticking to the vanilla shareware arsenal and bestiary). This, again, could be its own separate level, E1M4. A teleporter from the temple could temporarily lead to someplace else, like a different dimension where the monsters come from, decorated using let's say stuff from the lava caverns episode. But that's just an idea.

 

From the temple, you emerge into a cave and form there back to the surface. I'm not sure if the resources could support an outdoor level showing the Blasphemer travelling by road to a big walled city which is also overrun, E1M5. Reach the palace/castle -- would be nice to have the player entering via a drawbridge, if possible -- and fight more of the undead minions through the halls, courtyard, library and dungeons, if all can be packed into a single level, E1M6.

 

The secret exit could lead to, I don't know, some more pagan ruins, but this time in the open air? I mean the stuff like broken pillars, half-sunken stone foundations and remains of walls, and something more intact towards the centre of the map, with perhaps some underground areas. I think a few Lovecraftian vibes linked to the origin of the monsters would be quite fitting (I remember that in Rats in the Walls, there was this idea of taking a secret passage from a family mansion to some ruins of a pre-Christian cult or something).

 

Anyway, with the castle cleared, the Blasphemer finds clues to where to go next. Perhaps it can be hinted at that a wizard in the King's service was stupid or evil enough to play with the unholy energies and caused the invasion -- there can be a deserted wizard's tower/laboratory right in the castle level. Anyway, the path leads through a mountain river (E1M7) to a fortress at the top of a dormant volcano (E1M8) where the False Idols await.

 

This is all a very rough sketch of how the story could go, but I suppose some decent maps could be built around this. Alas, my lack of mapping skills prevent me from trying this out myself.

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I was looking for other open game projects that have art assets licensed under BSD-3-Clause, and came across a discussion at Open Game Art where a user mentioned that GPL and BSD-3-Clause are compatible licenses -- whereas from the previous discussions here I'd assumed that they are not. I followed the link to GNU.org to make sure this information is correct, and indeed it is (emphasis added):

Quote

Modified BSD license (#ModifiedBSD)

This is the original BSD license, modified by removal of the advertising clause. It is a lax, permissive non-copyleft free software license, compatible with the GNU GPL.

This license is sometimes referred to as the 3-clause BSD license.

The modified BSD license is not bad, as lax permissive licenses go, though the Apache 2.0 license is preferable. However, it is risky to recommend use of “the BSD license”, even for special cases such as small programs, because confusion could easily occur and lead to use of the flawed original BSD license.

Just to be sure, I checked the GNU.org definition of GPL-compatible license, in case it means something else than what I was thinking:

Quote

It means that the other license and the GNU GPL are compatible; you can combine code released under the other license with code released under the GNU GPL in one larger program.

All GNU GPL versions permit such combinations privately; they also permit distribution of such combinations provided the combination is released under the same GNU GPL version. The other license is compatible with the GPL if it permits this too.

GPLv3 is compatible with more licenses than GPLv2: it allows you to make combinations with code that has specific kinds of additional requirements that are not in GPLv3 itself.

I suppose this also means that art assets released under GPL can be combined in one project with art assets released under BSD-3-Clause.

 

Which brings me to the point:

On 7/26/2024 at 6:06 PM, Catoptromancy said:

Also from the contributing.md on the repo, gets to the details about license stuff:

...

* GPL material is NOT allowed.

This is also reiterated in the Contribution Guidelines section on the GitHub page.

 

But why, exactly, is GPL not allowed if the licenses are compatible?

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Posted (edited)
15 hours ago, MrFlibble said:

a user mentioned that GPL and BSD-3-Clause are compatible licenses -- whereas from the previous discussions here I'd assumed that they are not.

 

I feel the idea of two licenses being "compatible" is very unclear, it can be confusing what that even means. I mentioned about it before here.

IANAL, but the way I understand it, in the context of the GPL, "compatible" just means that you can use together code that's under that "compatible" license with code under the GPL for the same program. Because ordinarily, the GPL would forbid you from doing that. But it doesn't mean the whole thing can be redistributed as if it were BSD (or GPL).. so if any GPL content was included, the game would need to include a notice making clear what content is GPL and which one is BSD, because people using the content would still need to follow the license of each respective piece of work.

So far the project has been distributed entirely as BSD, instead of having to keep track of different licenses for different assets.

Edited by Ferk

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4 hours ago, Ferk said:

So far the project has been distributed entirely as BSD, instead of having to keep track of different licenses for different assets.

That is what I assumed, as well. This is probably the right approach if the project is intended to comprise entirely of original submissions.

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I resumed my search of Heretic PWADs the other day and found this topic:

I've tried the following vanilla/limit-removing compatible ones with Heretic128 and the latest Blasphemer IWAD in DOSBox: Unbeliever, Heretrix and HUMP Mini. I've not progressed far in any of the episodes, but they all seem to work fine with Heretic128 and appear quite friendly to new players, i. e. no huge crowds of monsters at the start and so on.

 

Notably, HUMP Mini is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License which says:

Quote

You are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format;
and remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even
commercially. If you do so, you must give appropriate credit, provide a link
to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any
reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you
or your use.

Actually, that sounds very similar to the BSD-3-Clause license.

 

Also of note is the title screen art for Unbeliever:

unbeliever.png.f1a41c291979179b4d48e4cbb64fda43.png

I think it would be pretty nice to have something of this kind as the title or intermission pic.

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It's all okay with me if you wanna use these, although @NeuralStunner helped out with these fonts a little (I believe mainly with the smallfont variant).

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2 hours ago, MrFlibble said:

what do you think?

I definitely support the inclusion of this font, but it's based on the freeware font Tie Wing. Not sure if Blasphemer may include it

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I have nothing to add other than the 0.7 update was awesome for all the monster updates. ewmmmwhaaaa!

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https://www.steamgriddb.com/game/5460280

 

I think you'll be happy to know the game finally has some assets and cover art provided over on SteamGridDB.

 

Courtesy of user PRAEst76:

 

0e25859269a4e8679004d105aa4f6c71.jpg

 

1f6274049d029f259373f82862870adf.png

 

c30423e205b1cd1f2f25b010c3f6656d.jpg

 

FYI, don't know if it's original content by the uploader, or a rip. All I know is it looks cool, and I need to spread the word.

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On 9/10/2024 at 7:20 PM, AntonR said:

It looks cool but I don't understand who that guy is supposed to be?

a blasphemist?

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On 9/3/2024 at 10:29 AM, GeorgePieVG said:

I definitely support the inclusion of this font, but it's based on the freeware font Tie Wing. Not sure if Blasphemer may include it

no, that font is definitely star wars 

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3 hours ago, AntonR said:

Is this mainline or a fork?

Still a fork. By the way, most of your sounds that weren't added before, including MUMDTH, made it into this release! I moved the old sounds to other slots, so now there are almost no dummy sounds left in Blasphemer.

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