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Post by hugheth on Apr 10, 2011 4:41:37 GMT -8
I'm sure someone was going to say it sooner or later. I've been playing Gruntz since I was 7, and my childhood dream was to make a sequel.
Now I'm doing Computer Science at university and I'm seriously considering making a sequel as part of my learning experience.
We all know that community games have a bad track record of getting completed, but if the expectations weren't raised too high and community help I think a semi-playable game could be pulled off.
What the game would be Increased complexity of puzzles and more weight on micro "strategy" from more traditional real time strategy games.
3D. I know some people are opposed to 3D Gruntz remake, but this would make the most useful experience and also point the game in a new direction. Nothing can replace Gruntz and I don't think anytone should try - this would definitely be a different experience.
Open source, written in Java using Java Monkey Engine 3
Free, although maybe a charge for map-pack if the game gets that far
What it wouldn't be
Gruntz - 1999 Comparable to Gruntz - 1999 Better than Gruntz - 1999
Particularly large or polished, unless many community talents help out with the development
What it needs right now
If people are interested with helping development then please get in touch. Ideas for new things and levels are great, but not of utmost importance.
People who are happy to make or find free, one off contributions to the project. Gruntz 3D modelz, texturez, soundz and effectz.
People who are interested in continuing contribution would also be great - programming and project management. Chances are I'll have a few friends from uni to help me out here too.
If there are enough people interested, I'll set up a site for development and ideas. Get Grunting!
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Post by hugheth on Apr 10, 2011 4:46:15 GMT -8
On that note if anyone has any suggestions as to getting hold of the original 3D meshes from the movies and images from Gruntz it would be much appreciated!
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GooRoo
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Post by GooRoo on Apr 10, 2011 7:05:09 GMT -8
On that note if anyone has any suggestions as to getting hold of the original 3D meshes from the movies and images from Gruntz it would be much appreciated! Well, my opinion is that the Gruntz moviez are 2D, not 3D. The only apparent 3D is in the movement related to the treez and such, as one plane sliding over another, not full 3D. So I can't see that as being very helpful in a true 3D effort. The Grunt.REZ file has been fully extracted, and we have all of the imagez available, and I have had the two moviez as separate filez for over seven yearz. I do not have the capability of extracting single framez, though, so someone else would have to do that operation ... I cannot afford the software to do it.
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Post by hugheth on Apr 10, 2011 7:13:25 GMT -8
No 2D wouldn't really do. When I mean 3D I also mean all the world preloader images and your signature images - the gruntz do seem like they've been rendered with a 3D engine. If not it wouldn't take long to make new models I have already made some simple ones but I'm not that good at it!
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Zu
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Post by Zu on Apr 10, 2011 9:42:14 GMT -8
Well, I guess that the only possible source of original 3D models (I wonder how they were making them back then?) are game's developers, and even if you can contact them (not very much possible), there's 99% probability that they either lost them, or don't want/are unable to share them. There is one developer who visits this forum from time to time, but as far as I know, all questions regarding sharing original Gruntz sources were left unanswered. So I guess that we need to find someone to make new meshes.
Unless there is someone capable of taking a gun, entering the headquarters of Monolith and presenting a great inclination to talk with company's boss...
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Post by hugheth on Apr 10, 2011 10:15:15 GMT -8
That's what I was wondering PLAN! Well I've got a slightly spasticed-up model I did I can use for now
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Post by kijanek6 on Apr 11, 2011 12:51:42 GMT -8
It may sound offensive, but... Now I'm doing Computer Science at university and I'm seriously considering making a sequel as part of my learning experience. We all know that community games have a bad track record of getting completed, but if the expectations weren't raised too high and community help I think a semi-playable game could be pulled off. Do you know how complex is project like that? Did you finish any games? Did you finish any game in 3D (arcanoid, snake, tetris, pacman etc. don't count)? Why most of community games aren't completed? Because of unexperienced developers. "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread". You say that "if the expectations weren't raised too high" and in the same post you say "Increased complexity of puzzles" and you also add 3D. I'm almost sure, that even if you'd start this project, you will abandon it in few months, because of many problems. For example: "I have too much work/studying", "it's boring", "I don't know how to do <something>", "no one pays me for that", and so on. If you want to get some experience - make small, little, fast playable games (even with assets from other games and unoriginal idea). It's better to have 10 small done projects than 1 big abandoned at 20% done. Of course, I may be wrong you may be an experienced programmer who knows what is all about. However, I'd suggest you making Gruntz 1:1 identical remake. And provide ability to write new logics in Lua, make new tilesets. There are many possibilities.
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BattlezM
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Post by BattlezM on Apr 11, 2011 14:22:11 GMT -8
I have some ambition to try working on a sequel to Gruntz as well. But I'm planning on finishing up college first and stabilize after that. Perhapz I can contribute something here and there for this project as I do have some experience in Java, but time is iffy. I also prefer to keep Gruntz on a 2D plane, as it just makes more sense of a top down boundz/puzzle game. And even after that I probably won't announce my work until I make a significant amount of progress or figure out the ground plan.
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Post by hugheth on Apr 12, 2011 2:20:53 GMT -8
Yes my thoughts are not to brag about it because I've seen countless projects like that fail and just cause dissappointment, the only reason I'm mentioning it at all is if other people had the skills to help out.
I think Gruntz as it is does make a good top down game, but I don't think a 3D version should try and better the current gameplay, rather have new mechanics that benefit from the 3D perspective, for example the concept of Gruntz walking on top of things such as bricks.
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Post by hugheth on Apr 12, 2011 2:33:41 GMT -8
In reply to kijanek6, yes I would consider myself experienced in 3D and an experienced programmer, but I fully agree with and understand everything you're saying - yes I do have a lot of work studying and yes I could be spending my time working on paid projects.
However, I disagree with the phrase "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread". Spending time plunging into material that you don't know what you're doing can be incredibly rewarding and you can learn much more than sticking with stuff you're familiar with. I agree that small games have much more reward than larger, unfinished ones, but on a project like Gruntz, making a terrain editor for example could be useful for hundreds of different game ideas, and even a simple pocket gruntz 3D game with just arrowz and pyramidz would still be an achievement.
My reservations in this area is the time needed to make 3D models, if the project didn't make any headway. However this can be solved by using quick simplistic models for now.
Making a 1:1 remake is also a good idea, one that I hadn't considered before extracting the original animations from the .rez file. If many people would prefer this then I could always transfer the 3D-ness to another project and try doing this..
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Post by kijanek6 on Apr 12, 2011 10:25:56 GMT -8
However, I disagree with the phrase "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread". Spending time plunging into material that you don't know what you're doing can be incredibly rewarding and you can learn much more than sticking with stuff you're familiar with. I agree that small games have much more reward than larger, unfinished ones, but on a project like Gruntz, making a terrain editor for example could be useful for hundreds of different game ideas, and even a simple pocket gruntz 3D game with just arrowz and pyramidz would still be an achievement. Yes, but take in account situation like that: - you write for example terrain system with editor and everything, in meanwhile you learn something new about code design or new programming paradigm - you are writing characters (e.g. gruntz) manager, and you want to do it in that style you have just learned - when you are in about half way to complete new functionality, you concluse that terrain system is outdated and won't be working satisfactorily with your brand-new character system (or you need new feature which you didn't expect before that it will be critical for project) So, what now? If you're very eager to continue your project, you have to refactorize your older code. But what if terrain manager is depending on other parts, which you have to refactorize too, and so on, and so on. Or you may just notice that your older code is shitty and scenario repeats. And all that I'm saying I'm relying on my own experiences (and I have now nearly four years of work record in IT). I am not discouraging you, I just want to know that you know what are you planning (as I felt that you are not very experienced when you told that you're at university). Anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you, and I'd be happy to commit to project if I could in any way.
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Post by hugheth on Apr 13, 2011 2:43:22 GMT -8
Again, I do understand what you're saying, and although I have a concrete idea of the terrain handling, the more I think about it, the harder I think it would be to generate nearly enough models to make the game interesting without dedicated modellers.
On the plus side, an open source, moddable 2D clone would be much easier to make, not only because the interactions are already concreted, but also we got all the models we need! And BattlezM and others, you may be more interested in helping out/using a 2D clone
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Post by kijanek6 on Apr 13, 2011 3:53:32 GMT -8
Not only models (to be precise - sprites). Sounds, GUI parts, animations, everything. I can then provide you with dynamic link libraries to read and write .REZ, .PID, .ANI and .WWD. And, you can have a great editor with support for new features. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OIx045xNgE
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Post by hugheth on Apr 13, 2011 7:36:46 GMT -8
Those could be kinda useful! I'm currently using the Slick2D Java engine to make it, which is great and really simple to use, but it does mean re-calculating all the spatial and temporal offsets of the frames by eye.. The Slick2D engine also comes with TileD www.mapeditor.org/ which is nice because it allows variable sized objects - this would be kewl for instance having pyramid triggerz that stretch over a number of pyramids could make the map look much cleaner. Do you think the dlls would be easily accessible in Java? My only concern would be if they don't work cross platform and that's really the only reason I'm using Java anyway! As for the map editor, it looks very good! Though again, I'd really like to move away from WWDs if possible to something more flexible/moddable/modern - the .tmx file format with TileD is great because it allows objects to have dynamic properties so we could R.I.P rects and points etc.
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Post by kijanek6 on Apr 13, 2011 8:08:27 GMT -8
Do you think that I prepared every frame for my editor? Never! There are over 11k images in Claw (many, many more if I count also Gruntz and Get Medieval which are supported too). WAP32 uses very simple trick for objects (and every graphic), so there's no need for hand-made calculations. My editor loads everything straight from .REZ file without any nasty hacks. Java is generally a bad choice in my opinion. Because of virtual machine it's slow, and language format is terrible (I'm very conservative in this aspect ). If you use good back-end, you can do multiplatform application in any language which has compilator for desired platform (both native and managed, but for native you need to make separate build for each platform). I don't know much about Java for PC (I'm writing in this shameful language for mobile platforms ), but dynamic libraries are available in almost every language. Core of my libraries is written in pure C and interface is made in C++ (just to objectify), so it's portable to every platform that supports standard C/C++ libraries - practically every. You can always introduce new map format with backward compatibility, or just expand WWD that it will be still backward compatible. My editor is not only bound to WWD, I'm thinking about .xml export.
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Post by hugheth on Apr 13, 2011 8:34:57 GMT -8
Personally I think Java is the best option to use at the mo because it's got lots of simple lwjgl support and it's also very extensible. Plus Java has all the garbage collection and clear syntax that C++ lacks (and I don't know much C++). Plus I've already got my maps loading and gruntz standing around so it would be a waste of a couple days work I'll start a project page when I've got something worth showing - maybe then you could point me in the right direction with this .ANI business? Out of interest what language is your editor coded in? XML export would be very kewl, (though JSON is better!) and I'd be more than interested in using your editor in that case, with optional old WWD import. Another advantage of the current TileD system I'm using is that you can use multiple tilesets - would this be possible in your editor?
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Post by kijanek6 on Apr 14, 2011 2:20:40 GMT -8
I don't like Java because of that garbage collection and very strange approach to OOP. For me - language has to give control on everything. I need to have control over what, when and how much is created or deleted. However, it's your project - you're the one who decide.
Basically .ANI keeps information about frame ID's and their duration. I don't know the full format because I don't have any converter to .ANI, and I can only work on original files (in opposition to pids, wwds, and rezs). Frames on screen are always centered (object Location parameters points at center of image, no matter what frame is that). PIDs sometimes contain offset values in their headers.
My editor is coded partially in C (map processing, loading resources) and C++ (gui, interface, rendering). I can add almost any feature you want, multiple tilesets support is also available (however in distant future, as I have now a lot of features and fixes not ready).
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Post by Perfect Grunt on Apr 14, 2011 3:24:47 GMT -8
I would prefer a clone. Not with Java, with C++, and no DirectX of course. The goal of the clone I have in my mind is to be platform-independent and to have a better multiplayer-concept than slow old DirectPlay. It should be planned wisely, so that "improvements" can be made later.
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Post by hugheth on Apr 14, 2011 10:49:15 GMT -8
Hmm well it looks like these ANIs aren't going to be much use :/ I stared at them in a hex editor in a while and they've got a nice discernable pattern, so it might take some time - but it's probably better than going through the frames manually...
Any ideas where the Gruntz' voices are lying around?
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Post by hugheth on Apr 14, 2011 11:55:17 GMT -8
Also, if anyone has any requests on any particular implementation of the engine do say now. Definitely going to be a form of clone, in Java (sorry PerfectGrunt), though anyone is more than welcome to port to C++ if that's easier than writing your own from scratch. Someone mentioned Lua and I'm looking into doing that. I'm also building with an idea of allowing AI scripting to become a feature - from walking along arrowz right to going through timed pyramidz etc.
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