REKKR - V1.16

[Gez]

1 hour ago, Revae said:

Still have to figure out some stuff about it all regarding legalities of engine use. Afaik GZDoom is the go-to due to being fully GPL, but I don't know if it's the only one.

Every active source port not named ZDaemon is under the GPL, so you can use pretty much whichever engine you want. Indie games like @Alekv's Forestale or @Zan's Hedon use GZDoom because they needed all the extra modding features, but since you kept to vanilla features and limits you could as well use Chocolate Doom if you wanted.

 

It's up to you to decide which engine would fit best a commercial venture. If you do use GZDoom, then read this.

[SoDOOManiac]

2 hours ago, Revae said:

Still have to figure out some stuff about it all regarding legalities of engine use. Afaik GZDoom is the go-to due to being fully GPL, but I don't know if it's the only one. But I still want the iwad to still run vanilla if you feel like patching an old .exe - which I have seen people do.

 

I'd recommend Crispy Doom. It's not overloaded with features yet provides some optional modified physics, like walking over/under monsters and direct aiming up/down. The latter is useful for shooting non-hitscan weapons 'in advance' taking into account the enemy's movement, especially if the enemy is below or above the player.

[P41R47]

8 hours ago, Revae said:

Yah. The general plan is to perhaps sell REKKR + ep 4. Not going to charge a lot for it, since most of REKKR will still be free ofc. We'll see how that goes though. I've never sold a game, so it'll be interesting...

The plan is 3 1/2 new enemies (the 1/2 is more of an obstacle). 2 1/2 are already done-ish, and the third would be a boss. Looking into a new weapon (may or may not happen)... And then a new episode that replaces the bonus episode called "Sunken Land".

^ episode select graphic

^ some screenshots of areas in various levels of completedness

 

Still have to figure out some stuff about it all regarding legalities of engine use. Afaik GZDoom is the go-to due to being fully GPL, but I don't know if it's the only one. But I still want the iwad to still run vanilla if you feel like patching an old .exe - which I have seen people do.

Now thats what i call a developer!
Hope you can deliver this, Revae.
This looks pretty much the Doom engine game we needed back then.
As @Gez already said, i think that Chocolate Doom is the way to go. You can even talk with Fraggle, he surely would help you sort a proper stand alone Chocolate Rekker version for commercial use.
But i wonder if there is a way to get to work on the original v1.9 Doom engine. Sorta like the license thing Banjo Software tried back then. I know that Doom source code is now open source, but it would be nice to get a real ''Vanilla Rekker'' and not a UDoom pwad. Kinda like hardcode things. But well, i know nothing about coding so i just might be daydreaming.
 

Edited February 18, 2020 by P41R47

[Shadow Hog]

You can definitely patch the EXE to use the needed values to get the game working, as it's a vanilla DeHackEd file that makes everything work. I've done just this and run it both in DOSBox and a Pentium 133MHz, it worked on both. I'm not so certain about getting it to read the WAD as an IWAD - maybe you can edit the EXE's strings in DeHackEd to change "DOOM2.WAD" to "REKKR.WAD", but I expect that'd load it in the wrong mode (given you want the episode selection and such). If strings are allowed to be shorter, though (presumably /0-pad out whatever's unused), perhaps you could change "DOOM.WAD" to "RE.KKR" or something?

[P41R47]

40 minutes ago, Shadow Hog said:

You can definitely patch the EXE to use the needed values to get the game working, as it's a vanilla DeHackEd file that makes everything work. I've done just this and run it both in DOSBox and a Pentium 133MHz, it worked on both. I'm not so certain about getting it to read the WAD as an IWAD - maybe you can edit the EXE's strings in DeHackEd to change "DOOM2.WAD" to "REKKR.WAD", but I expect that'd load it in the wrong mode (given you want the episode selection and such). If strings are allowed to be shorter, though (presumably /0-pad out whatever's unused), perhaps you could change "DOOM.WAD" to "RE.KKR" or something?

yeah, i tried dehacked myself and found that too, but, maybe i'm wrong, but there are some things that can't be changed with dehacked, like cast roll monsters names, and obituaries, i think. And surely others i don't know about. I read that they are hardcoded in the .exe if i remember right the article i-don't-know-where-i-read-it (i think it was a freedoom git thread or something like that). But well, someone that ''knows'' the doom source code, i think, can find a way to changes this things.

[Gez]

The game's exe is not under a commercial-friendly license, and honestly I don't think a DOSBox distribution is the way to go.

 

I'd suggest to go at least with Crispy for the higher resolution, but personally I'd go with Eternity or GZDoom to have the ability to configure everything in the in-game menu instead of keeping the very outdated separate setup and game model.

[Shadow Hog]

I mean, for the mass market it's probably impractical; I'm just a weirdo who likes running old games on old computers (or even new games made for old computers, which this isn't, yet sort of is), and thus I was wondering how it could hypothetically work (ignoring that I've explicitly gotten it working already as a PWAD with a hacked EXE; the question posed was running it as an IWAD). Realistically Chocolate(-slash-variants, like Crispy) or PrBoom would be better choices for the masses.

[Revae]

I'll play around with the various ports. GZDoom has the advantage of brightmaps and decals, but iirc Eternity does too? Crispy is good for that mid 90s feel... We'll see.

Anyways. It's a bit off in the distance atm. Still a lot to do.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Revae : My phone hates my fingers.

[Graf Zahl]

When choosing a port to distribute a game to the common public it may really not be the best idea to use things like Chocolate Doom or Crispy. You absolutely have to consider the target audience then, which does not mainly consist of Doom geeks for which the design decisions of the 90's are important and relevant. When targeting a wider audience, things like user friendly setup, including in-engine configuration, widescreen support and true high resolution modes menus are important, so you should choose a port that supports all of these.

 

What engine you ultimately choose should depend on two factors:

 

1. How compatible to original Doom quirks do you want it to be (note that Eternity in its standard 'modern' configuration is just as different as ZDoom based ports, you have to find a way to make it start with the demo compatible code path if that is important for you.)

2. Do you want software or hardware rendering? While you can do brightmaps with a software renderer, this is something that must be in the design right from the start - if you want to add it after the fact GZDoom's brightmap feature is basically the only option, but that's hardware rendering only.

 

That basically leaves you with Eternity or GZDoom. While PrBoom may technically be ok, I wouldn't bet on an engine that's currently not being actively maintained - if some problem surfaces there, you're left alone.

 

[ketmar]

19 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

That basically leaves you with Eternity or GZDoom

'cmon! k8vavoom has in-engine setup, i fixed widescreen aspects recently, and k8vavoom is less demanding on GPU! ;-)

[ReaperAA]

I personally wouldn't recommend chocolate doom. While it is the most oldschool of all the ports, I think it might have the savegame buffer overflow issue on certain maps (unsure about this). Also 320x200 resolution and 35 fps cap looks really bad on modern LCDs. I recommend atleast Crispy Doom (if not Eternity or GZdoom).

 

Using each has some advantages and disadvantages:

 

For Crispy Doom:

+ It has demo support and the default gameplay/visual settings are authentic.

+ It has less menu clutter.

+ It has brightmaps support (I think)

- It doesn't have widescreen resolutions.

- No fancy visual options

- Key binding is not in the in-game menu (have to use external setup.exe)

 

For Eternity Engine:

+ It has demo support and can have authentic gameplay with right settings.

+ Widescreen resolutions.

- No fancy visual options

- Out of the box gameplay settings are not vanilla authentic.

- More menu clutter.

 

For GZdoom:

+ Has Software+hardware rendering and widescreen resolutions.

+ Has all the fancy visual options including support for brightmaps.

+ Best Mouse movement and Vsync feel.

- Non authentic gameplay (can be improved using "Doom(Strict)" compatibility)

- More menu clutter.

 

14 minutes ago, ketmar said:

k8vavoom is less demanding on GPU! ;-)

 

Depends. On my computer, K8vavoom offers lesser performance than GZdoom.

[ketmar]

1 minute ago, ReaperAA said:

Depends. On my computer, K8vavoom offers lesser performance than GZdoom.

i didn't said that k8vavoom is more performant that GZDoom, i said that it can work with OpenGL 2.1 (as opposed to GZDoom 3+). GZDoom is faster on modern GPUs, though.

[Graf Zahl]

24 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

For GZdoom:

- Non authentic gameplay (can be improved using "Doom(Strict)" compatibility)

- More menu clutter.

  

 

For a standalone project you can set most of the gameplay options via MAPINFO, but of course one should carefully consider what is acceptable to the average user outside the community. Most of these do not care about "authenticity", they want a game that feels right. For example, while infinitely tall actors may have significance for old school Doom players, it's a concept that will most certainly confuse any casual user and should be left off unless really needed.

 

As for the menu clutter, if you do a standalone release you can edit out a large part of the internal menus and provide something more streamlined by redirecting the option menu to a custom version with less content - of course you still should give the user the ability to set up the advanced stuff.

 

29 minutes ago, ketmar said:

didn't said that k8vavoom is more performant that GZDoom, i said that it can work with OpenGL 2.1 (as opposed to GZDoom 3+). GZDoom is faster on modern GPUs, though.

 

It may run on OpenGL 2.1, but so does LZDoom. Whether it runs *well*, is another question. I still remember the utterly dismal frame rates I saw when last testing it. On the GL 2.1 hardware that's still in use - i.e. integrated Intel chipsets from the early 2010's - running the game with a software renderer makes more sense, the pixel fill rate on these systems is so pathetic that it's more a graphics decelerator than accelerator.

[ketmar]

i was pretty sure that LZDoom was created exactly because modern GZDoom cannot run on anything less than OpenGL 3.3 with hw-accelerated rendering. sorry.

 

still, REKKR maps aren't that complex, so i think that such ancient hardware will do a decent job too. and i simply had to find something for k8vavoom to stand out. ;-)

[Graf Zahl]

If you run the game at 800x600 you may be able to get 60 fps. You may also be able to get 60 fps when running the software renderer at 1920x1080 on the same system. A lot here depends on the CPU.

 

But there's another factor to remember: For a commercial product you normally do not want to cover those last 5% of the market. While it may sound appealing at first glance, you have to consider customer support as well - and these low end users are bound to create a disproportionately large load of customer support requests, or refunds because the game doesn't work to their expectations and so on. Supporting these may ultimately eat all your revenue and by declaring the systems unsupported you can just shrug them off.

 

Seriously, if I were to release any kind of game using OpenGL, my minimum requirements would be OpenGL 4.0, or NVidia-based hardware with OpenGL 3.3, no matter what the software can really run on. AMD with GL 3.3 is too broken and anything lower is too slow, and both segments are bound to require more customer support.

 

 

[ketmar]

1 minute ago, Graf Zahl said:

For a commercial product you normally do not want to cover those last 5% of the market. While it may sound appealing at first glance, you have to consider customer support as well - and these low end users are bound to create a disproportionately large load of customer support requests, or refunds because the game doesn't work to their expectations and so on. Supporting these may ultimately eat all your revenue and by declaring the systems unsupported you can just shrug them off.

oh, yeah, that's a perfectly valid point. somehow customers with the worst hardware expect the game to work on their irons like they own the latest bleeding-edge thing. and they're really vocal about that. now you're prolly right: it is better to put somewhat higher minimal requirements, so if someone will run the game on the old hardware, they will be happy that it runs at all.

[Grizzly]

For a commercial release I'd definitely target GZDoom (Check out Hedon as well: It runs on a modified GZDoom build, with @Rachael being credited for those changes). As much as vanilla doom compatibility is cool, vast portions of your audience on Steam/Gog/Twitch.io will not have been born when Doom was released.

If you plan on releasing on steam, you can always worry about GZDoom first and then release a "Classic update" later that runs the iwad on Chocolate Doom. Steam allows for multiple library entries per game after all.

[Gez]

Technically, you could ship the game with several exes and a small launcher that gives the choice between "retro" and "modern" or however you want to call them.

[Revae]

7 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

 As for the menu clutter, if you do a standalone release you can edit out a large part of the internal menus and provide something more streamlined by redirecting the option menu to a custom version with less content

That's good to know. I was wondering that exact thing last night. I agree about altering the experience for modern audiences too. I would need jumping disabled entirely I think, pretty sure that would break maps And *maybe* freelook off by default, since it breaks some visuals, but I'd leave an option in there for that anyway. Infinitely tall monsters in particular would probably annoy people.

Launching with 2 separate exes sounds almost counterintuitive to streamlining the experience, but it could help people with older hardware.

A lot to consider for sure.

[NightFright]

If you want people to mod or even map for REKKR (I'd love to see that happen personally), GZDoom is definitely a good choice. As far as I am concerned, Choco/Crispy Doom with its external setup menu isn't user friendly enough. Some options I still need to edit manually in the cfg, and that's not ideal.

 

In the end it really depends on what you are aiming for. When in doubt, make a poll.

[Grizzly]

Incidentally, the excellent Vanilla Essence mod does allow you to emulate a vanilla doom feel within GZDoom with one press of the button. Make it feel like choco without actually being choco.

[P41R47]

5 hours ago, Revae said:

That's good to know. I was wondering that exact thing last night. I agree about altering the experience for modern audiences too. I would need jumping disabled entirely I think, pretty sure that would break maps And *maybe* freelook off by default, since it breaks some visuals, but I'd leave an option in there for that anyway. Infinitely tall monsters in particular would probably annoy people.

Launching with 2 separate exes sounds almost counterintuitive to streamlining the experience, but it could help people with older hardware.

A lot to consider for sure.

Yes, it seems like a customized GZDoom for Rekker, with all you need to make it interesting for new players but also being cool with your own vision, its the way to go.
As for the two .exes, maybe an advice in them, like ''low-res mode'' or ''author's vision mode'' for the old and freshly pixelated 320x200, and the other .exe with something like ''hi-res mode'' or ''21th mode'', or a little joke even like ''pixel mode'' for low res, and ''modern viking'' for hi-res.
Anyway, this surely will be fun!
Hope you can found what you need to make it real, pal!
;)

[SoDOOManiac]

On 2/18/2020 at 9:41 PM, NightFright said:

Some options I still need to edit manually in the cfg, and that's not ideal.

To some extent this is resolved in So Doom, the fork of Crispy Doom.

[MrFlibble]

Which content delivery platforms are you targeting BTW? Steam, GOG, itch.io?

[Revae]

5 hours ago, MrFlibble said:

Which content delivery platforms are you targeting BTW? Steam, GOG, itch.io?

I haven't even gotten that far. I'm focusing on content first, and when I get toward the end of that I'll start on the delivery side of things. Seems logical to put it out on as many places as possible, but I'm open to suggestions.

It'll be a little while anyway. Time is tight, but I'm plugging away.

[taufan99]

This article may be worth checking out, even if some of the information is obsolete by nowadays.

[TheNoob_Gamer]

31 minutes ago, InDOOMnesia said:

This article may be worth checking out, even if some of the information is obsolete by nowadays.

The writer should have also mentioned itch.io. Really underrated platform, and you can sell games on there without paying any fees. No revenue split unless you wanted to (Fees / revenue splits are optional, mainly to keep the site up and running)

[Captain Ventris]

Whatever ends up happening, I’d be jazzed to spend some Rekkr money.

[GarrettChan]

@RevaeSorry for this weird question. Is there a name list for the monsters? I'm going to do videos for the WAD, so I want to refer them more easily and precisely. Thanks.

[TheNoob_Gamer]

1 hour ago, GarrettChan said:

Is there a name list for the monsters?

Not that I know of (there's a monster list on the official site but no name, plus it's missing some), but here's a list extracted from the mod's Dehacked file. With images for reference.

 

•  

Spoiler

 

• Former Human - replaces Zombieman

 

• Jackalope -  replaces Shotgunner (these are completely harmless bunnies)

 

• Skeleturret - replaces Archvile

 

• Mean Imp - replaces Revenant/Imp

 

• Former Duke/King - replaces Mancubus/Chaingunner

 

• Husk/Mean Husk - replaces Pinky/Spectre (respectively)

 

• Sorrow - replaces Cacodemon

 

• TreeBeast - replaces Baron of Hell

 

• Skelly Belly - replaces Hell Knight

 

• Eyeball - replaces Lost Soul

 

• Mean Jackalope - replaces Arachnotron

 

• DeathRaven - replaces Spider Mastermind/Cyberdemon

 

• Former Human Grotesque - replaces SS Nazis

 

• SkeleSpid (???) - replaces Pain Elemental (probably)