2010-05-12, 11:52 PM
The big win for Som is the really enormous amount of quality assets you get for free. Assuming you won't be attempting to copy all the stuff over from Som you will have to either find an alternative treasure trove or make everything from scratch. The way Som is at the moment it's hard to recommend doing something that isn't either in the legacy of KF or for the love of Som. I know a bit about indie teams making games with CrystalSpace, Torque, Irrlecht, the list goes on and on. It doesn't usually work out and the offerings are even more forgettable than the indie stuff that makes it onto the likes of Xbox Live Arcade. It's very easy to get lost in the possibilities and none of these engines were really designed with any forethought so they're all really a mess which can be frustrating.
I discovered Raystorm HD last night. That is probably the coolest/best use of current generation gaming yet. There is something beautiful about Playstation era games before the possibilities were endless but not too stifling. Game makers have still not come to terms I think with how to effectively deploy modern technology in terms of a good game that is not all over the map. I guess the argument is people haven't figured out the basics so to me Som is at least as interesting as anything out there. Of course if it doesn't do what you need you're out of luck for the time being anyway.
When you have your demo ready if you add the movies you'd like for it to play instead I can make them play with your game/demo. If someone doesn't prepare a setup for me I got nothing to work with.
Som has a bright future for DIY games I think, as long as authors understand they're not trying to compete with the mentality of commercial games and just want to make a fun/clever game which can probably look as good as a PS2 gen game running thru the original Som runtime exe.
There are some very real probably insurmountable limitations but unless you know Som very well you probably don't know what these actually are.
I don't think the inside of Som is really based on the workflow of the map editor. Therefore it's probably possible to build a completely different kind of map editor from scratch. Personally I like the 2D map approach so imagine a map editor with at the minimum multiple layers to each map.
Also bear in mind ST was a pretty sophisticated game... I played it recently, and actually it's map transitions work like Som's more or less. So that might have been the inspiration for the black fade in / fade out teleport setup versus just being lazy and only implementing KF1's warp setup. Still once a remake is in the can KF2 style seamless transitions can be setup also.
I have a complete grasp of the MDL files which is the single biggest hurdle to a remake (I tend to work backward from the toughest obstacle) ...once there is a basic x2mdl setup ready I'm planning to build a PSOne disc ripper and rip everything out of ST so it can be added to Som's already extensive catalogue. Som's goodies are good enough for any project I'd like to do but hopefully some new stuff will encourage some new games.
We could also do the same for the KF games. Personally I'd like to see games done with different graphical styles. And even a very abstract style which if we had models for could be the basis for a faerie map style extension.
I discovered Raystorm HD last night. That is probably the coolest/best use of current generation gaming yet. There is something beautiful about Playstation era games before the possibilities were endless but not too stifling. Game makers have still not come to terms I think with how to effectively deploy modern technology in terms of a good game that is not all over the map. I guess the argument is people haven't figured out the basics so to me Som is at least as interesting as anything out there. Of course if it doesn't do what you need you're out of luck for the time being anyway.
When you have your demo ready if you add the movies you'd like for it to play instead I can make them play with your game/demo. If someone doesn't prepare a setup for me I got nothing to work with.
Som has a bright future for DIY games I think, as long as authors understand they're not trying to compete with the mentality of commercial games and just want to make a fun/clever game which can probably look as good as a PS2 gen game running thru the original Som runtime exe.
There are some very real probably insurmountable limitations but unless you know Som very well you probably don't know what these actually are.
I don't think the inside of Som is really based on the workflow of the map editor. Therefore it's probably possible to build a completely different kind of map editor from scratch. Personally I like the 2D map approach so imagine a map editor with at the minimum multiple layers to each map.
Also bear in mind ST was a pretty sophisticated game... I played it recently, and actually it's map transitions work like Som's more or less. So that might have been the inspiration for the black fade in / fade out teleport setup versus just being lazy and only implementing KF1's warp setup. Still once a remake is in the can KF2 style seamless transitions can be setup also.
I have a complete grasp of the MDL files which is the single biggest hurdle to a remake (I tend to work backward from the toughest obstacle) ...once there is a basic x2mdl setup ready I'm planning to build a PSOne disc ripper and rip everything out of ST so it can be added to Som's already extensive catalogue. Som's goodies are good enough for any project I'd like to do but hopefully some new stuff will encourage some new games.
We could also do the same for the KF games. Personally I'd like to see games done with different graphical styles. And even a very abstract style which if we had models for could be the basis for a faerie map style extension.