A long-standing bug which had me stumped for a bit has been solved. This was an issue with the view vector and how I was calculating it. It affected both aim and movement (though the movement was insignificant to notice). That really gave me a nice sense of accomplishment. I also made the changes to the weapon skins and I really like how the game feels visually in that regard.
Two of the levels, IMO, are pretty great in their look, though the layouts are incomplete. The third, Saucer, is kind of an eye-cancer mess. A lot has to do, as I previously mentioned, with creating a ton of assets from scratch all at once. Some things kinda got re-used, some techniques got overused, and some of it was just not really seeing the forest for the trees. I spent a few days looking at some other games, and some older ones, as well as some really great texture sets, like PhillipK’s stuff. Now I 100% am not going to go the route of using a canned texture set for Saucer. Look, we already have Alien Arena and Xonotic, and quite a few other FPS games using PhillipK’s textures, and to me we have enough similarity going on there.
However, looking at some of the nicer texture sets really illustrate some of what I’m doing wrong in Saucer. I have way too much color. Much of the level has this peeling, scratched paint look. Its overdone. There’s simply too much of it, and I need to fix that up. I’ve spent a good deal of my free time taking a look at the existing Saucermen screenshots of that level, and I see where I need to revamp a number of spots/items and do it in a way that makes the level not seem so repetitive visually as well.
Some areas just needed to have the colors moved around a bit. For example, this hallway that has too much red, and needed some variation:
It’s definitely improved from what it was originally, but a year of not looking at it, I see it’s just bland, and too red.Same hallway, with all of the new color/gfx changes. Feels a bit more varied, and less red.
This level has proven to be difficult to make attractive to me, but I do think it’s heading in the right direction. There’s probably room for some details to eliminate the repetition. Some trash, equipment, etc.
The robot room got some needed updates too. That one really bugged me, and I was able to improve it significantly.
Before…And after…Another after view.
The floor is a huge improvement, the other changes are far more subtle. I worked on changing on other areas of the level as well, and I’m definitely feeling better about things overall.
Good example of how the updated weapon palette and level textures feel now.
I’ll need to review my past blog posts to see what my plans “were”, regarding the overall scope of the game. My current thinking is that I’ll create six maps. Perhaps three, or four even, will be remakes of Alien Arena maps. I know I’ve mentioned Violator as one, and I’ve been thinking lately about Invasion as another. In the case of Invasion, I believe I have all of the assets I need to pull that off. This iteration would be a far more intricate design that would allow for a bit more vertical game play, using many of the buildings and structures of Ground Zero. Violator would require importing a number of existing Alien Arena assets to complete, and probably use some of Saucer’s as well. As for the final map, I’ve had some various thoughts. Perhaps Babel. That could be a map that really shines using this engine.
I have recently polished up, added a few minor things to the game play, and should be able to wrap most of that up and get back to the maps and rendering features.
Been a very long time since I’ve updated – and it has been quite some time since I’ve worked on this project. I’ve been itching to get back into it though, and it’s really interesting to me that when you take some time to reflect on the visuals, you tend to come up with some new ideas. One thing that had really been bothering me was the weapon colors. They were just a bit too saturated and bright. While great for visibility, the game was getting a little too vibrant in areas I now feel it should not be.
I tried some little color corrections, and I think I’m a bit happier with the look now.
Disruptor getting a much more muted look.Blaster also more muted.
The grenade launcher I felt was pretty spot on, and matches the orange bits from the other two weapons nicely, so I left that one alone. All of the other powerups, alien armor, etc, I felt were in good shape. I applied this in a couple screenshots to see how I would like it.
Wow, this is much, much better!I’m liking this a lot better than the over saturated blue version.Most definitely the weapon now contrasts with the more vibrant suit of the alien.
Even when I applied this to a screenshot from DM-Saucer, I could see how it improved the look. Very subtle, but it somehow just brings it to life by getting rid of the eye-cancer of the overly blue weapon.
It’s subtle for sure, but it makes something that was annoying more attractive, at least to my eyes.
With all of this being said, I’m sure anyone who has been following this game is probably wondering, well, where does it stand? The bottom line is that the game is still very raw. It is however, completely playable, both offline and online – though the latter is not currently set up with a master server to do that. At some point I will set up a master and get the online part, back online. There are a few minor bugs to iron out, and a few more features to address with the core of the game and renderer before I jump back into the online side of things. As I recall (and seriously, it’s been so long I have to look at my notes to remember) the VR side is fully functional but needs some things to be made more intuitive. Ditto for the map editor. The three levels are playable but clearly unfinished and unoptimized. I think Saucer needs some changes to the palette and art style, it’s a little too repetitive, and the technique I used for wear and damage is overdone. I do like the layout though, it’s definitely a nice representation and update to the original design and concept of that level. I think it suffers from the fact that I was making a ton of assets all at once for it, and instead of taking my time I was burning through getting something done. I may spend my next development phase on simply making some alterations to that artwork. Regardless, I feel like looking at the game, thinking of ideas, it’s like hanging out with an old friend.
I spent some time visiting some of the other free AFPS games that I used to frequent. Sadly, there isn’t much going on any longer. Most of the developers have long since moved on and stopped working on those games or posting. I wonder how they all are in life. Hopefully well. I really get a nostalgic feeling when looking at those sites and the media. Man, that was a different life, and a lifetime ago. I’m sure many have thought the same about me, and Alien Arena. Amazingly to me, the Alien Arena community is still around and somewhat active. I don’t know how they will receive the successor. It is different for sure in how it feels. In fact when I go back to playing Alien Arena, I feel very disjointed, as I am used to how Saucermen feels.
Feels good to be back and thinking about this neglected game though, that is for sure!
Much of the Summer has been spent racing RC’s, fishing, boating, you know, doing things outdoors instead of sitting indoors behind a computer screen (which is what I do all day at work). Of course being Summer in the Appalachians, there’s always gonna be a bad stretch of weather, and with that I got the itch to work on Saucermen some, and tie up a few loose ends that I’d started earlier and wanted to finish up.
Items!
Working items.
The items are now in the game, and all over the maps. Bots go after them, though there’s some more work to do there to make them more intelligent.
Well, I had some armor, and it saved me here!
I also got colored lighting finished! Not terribly hard, but something that I had been putting off and needed to finish. I’ll be going back into Saucer and doing some things there. I think I need a bit more work on the fade off, but that’ll be done in the shader. For now I have just uniformly applied the color without consideration of distance from the light, but I’ll fix that shortly.
It was great jumping back into the code and game. This thing is really smooth and fun to play, and super immersive with the VR. As the weather cools and I won’t be as involved with racing, I’ll certainly spend more time on this project. The major plus with this new project is that it’s so simplified and organized that I had no issues getting my feet wet.
It’s summertime here in the mountains of Western Maryland, well almost, technically summer doesn’t start for another week or so. True to this region’s reputation, after a pretty long, harsh winter, a ridiculously cold spring, now it’s suddenly hot, humid, and oh-by-the-way full of the sounds of the 17 year cicadas that have inundated much of the region. Man those things are annoying! And clumsy. And stupid. Since fishing is now ruined thanks to them, I got some time to spend on Saucermen.
First up, I fixed the issue with the VR crashing. It was due to a dead battery in one of the controllers. Simple fix to make sure that doesn’t crash the application any longer. Did some more play testing, and I just have to re-iterate how fun this game is in VR mode – and that despite it’s relatively fast movement and pace, does not cause any nausea. This I find interesting given the Frenzy actually gives me some after a few rounds.
So largely, I have been focusing now on the core game play, getting items like health, armor and ammo functioning. I am keeping this simple – all items use a similar hi-tech looking shell with a different center section that indicates what it is. I will continue this focus until I feel that the base game play both offline and on are working and fully playable. After that I will move on to some on-the-go renderer items. What I mean by this, is that I will be creating some new things in the maps, and will write the code as I need to complete.
Looks early in dev, but some very cool ideas going on here, this is what I am talking about when I speak of innovation of the genre. VR is where it’s going to go, and this really looks like some fun, judging by the reactions I am not alone in thinking that. I’ve probably pontificated on the state and fate of the genre too many times to count, but I do think that innovation and embracing new technology is the only way to re-invigorate it. Re-making Quake III and UT with a new skin isn’t going to cut it. Those days are over.
Alien Arena seems to have just about completely died out as of late. I applaud those like Jar’El and Blindman and some others that have tried to keep a community going on Discord(though I am absolutely not a fan of the politics that seemed to have permeated it, which have alienated some). The bottom line is that keeping Alien Arena alive and vibrant is much harder work than anyone could have ever imagined or would be willing to do. There are fits and spurts of such work, and minor increases of activity, but those have gotten spaced further apart, as have the matches, tournaments, and regulars that join matches. The game had a very long run, nearly 20 years, some of those years it had popularity that many of today’s aFPS games would die for. The nostalgia I have for this game is very deep, but yeah, it’s time to move on, and I hope when Saucermen is in a fully playable state (which will be soon), the community that’s left will at least give it a try. I think they’ll be rather surprised at how much better it feels and plays than AA does.
Keeping it simple…
The reality is that I don’t have nearly the time to spend making games that I once had. I’m involved in a number of other projects/hobbies, so in order to make Saucermen as polished and cohesive as possible, simplicity is somewhat of a necessity. However, I also believe that simplicity is what will be a large part of the game’s appeal. Without getting too redundant, I’m sure I’ve stated this many times, the trend of the aFPS game over the years has been to keep adding things and making more features, and the game play more complex, more tweakable. I won’t be doing that with Saucermen. There are three weapons, and only one firing mode (at the moment) for each. There are only 3 ammo types, and 1 health, 1 armor. There will be a couple of as of yet undetermined powerup types. That’s it folks, seriously. The only other nuance will be the character abilities/features. I firmly believe that keeping things simple will make this game far more enjoyable for a larger swath of players. Players will spend more time fragging and racking up achievements than worrying about learning complex item/armor/ammo and movements.
I also intend to create only 8-10 stock maps. A big feature of this game is the in-game editor and the Steam Workshop. This is a huge departure from Alien Arena, and while that community had for many years an extremely active mapping community, this will take things to a new level of ease of creation and publishing. I will make a number of video tutorials and demonstrate just how easy it is. Speaking of videos…it’s about time to get a short game play video out there to start getting some interest generated. Thus far I’ve been developing this in the back shadows, and not talked about it other than this blog. It’s definitely getting closer to where I can show it off.
Map ideas…
So far I have 3 maps that have been started, with work to do on each. Here are those, and some other ideas.
Ground Zero – This map is the burned out rubble of a city block in the desert. It’s super detailed with a lot of structure that provides cover and some fun jumping and flying off of things. Due to the smooth physics, even the super cluttered areas are fairly easy to fly right over if you do it right. This level is probably around 80% completed, aside from item placements, etc.
Temple Of Blood – Set in a mountainous, semi-forested and rugged area, it’s essentially two sets of ruins situated on a sloping hillside. There is definitely a “King Of The Hill” feel to it. It makes great use of the lighting and shadowing, especially with the trees. It’s a very rich, eerie, and immersive atmosphere. My plan is to eventually modify the ground to have a flowing river and a bridge. I’d say this level is maybe 50% done, if not less.
The Saucer – This is a remake of the very first map for Alien Arena, one that was remade several times in the past. The layout is not overly complex, but it’s circular and a lot of fun. I may revisit some of the palette on this one, and I do plan on adding a second “Giant Robot” room that is adjacent to the current one, as well as another loop out of the back of that room that connects somewhere else. I’d put this level at 80% done.
The Violator – I have only begun creating/importing the assets from the Alien Arena version of the map, so not much done on this one as of yet. I will stay relatively true to the current layout of that map, but I’m going to change the palette up, and probably find some assets for the central room that fit with a more complex visual style. I will keep the atmosphere dark and mysterious, and make use of colored lighting.
Wastelands – I think a remake of that Alien Arena map would be a wonderful idea. It’s got an awesome layout, it just suffered from the problems Alien Arena had with it’s terrain and physics. In Saucermen it would be smooth, and really cool looking. I will probably compress it’s overall size and scale somewhat though.
Oasis – A map with sandy terrain, palm trees, perhaps a swamp or water hole with flowing rivers coming out of it. Maybe add some old wooden structures, some shipwrecks, etc. I probably already have enough assets from Frenzy to get that done.
Red Light – Burned out rubble, but with some still functioning seedy looking areas with signs and lights. Great opportunity to use colored lighting and keep it dark and creepy, perhaps situated in a dark sky. Maybe have this as a secret hub for the Enforcer-C rebellion.
The Swamp – Dark, foggy, lots of water areas that you can run/swim in, some old creepy buildings and bridges, etc. Maybe a strange alien outpost structure as well. Will definitely require some good water effects(some of which are already built-in from Frenzy).
Well it’s Spring/Summer and my time behind computers takes a drastic hit, so there hasn’t been much to write about this past month or so. The game is now at a point where I need to focus on getting the game play/rules more in place with regards to ammo, powerups, etc. It’s basically a functioning proof of concept at the moment. There are some bugs to work out, my pal Jim (who’s great at finding stuff I overlook) has found a few, and I know of some others on the VR side. I tracked down some of it, as did Jim, so at some point on a rainy weekend, I’ll be able to sit down and spend some time addressing these.
I did spend some time looking at the VR issue (crashing despite no code changes). It has something to do with the controllers, and might have exposed some other issues. I was able to bypass the controller code and have it work using the keyboard/mouse in VR, so this one is a little strange. Could be driver changes, as my Oculus has forced me to update a few times. Have to do some more testing/debugging, but I’m sure it’s quite fixable. I did spend a little time playing the game in VR, and it’s just such an immersive, rewarding way to play an aFPS game, I really hope that this game can tap into that aspect. Sure there have been some ports, and some other games, but as far as I know, this is the first aFPS game that is specifically built for VR.
I also will spend some time focusing on the 3 existing maps and updating/adding things to them.
Dating myself with that movie reference, but I was at a loss for a title of this entry. I have finished up the weaponry in Saucermen – the as of now planned three weapons. Each is a different type – a moving projectile, a physics projectile, and a hitscan. The one type that is notably missing is a rapid fire weapon. At this time I don’t have plans for one. I have reasons – mostly based on game play and how it would work with what I am expecting to be a crowd that is either using VR, or just new to arena shooters in general. Time may change this decision, but for now the weapons are finished, functional, and will get tweaked as I get the game closer to something that is testable by a small group.
The last weapon I’ve added is the disruptor, a single shot hitscan weapon that deals out a lot of damage. I will begin tweaking once I get everything else about it (such as rendering the beam it shoots) finished. For now it’s working, and a ton of fun. Here is a pic of it in game before I updated the skin a bit after being unhappy with the rear portion of the weapon.
This enforcer is about to find out just how nasty a disruptor shot to the face is.
The disruptor is styled similarly to the blaster and grenade launcher, with a bright, distinctive paint that is chipped and worn. In Saucermen I am placing a premium on visibility, so you can see from this shot it’s easy to tell what weapon your opponent is wielding. Each of these weapons will get some cool animated shaders once I’ve added that capability to the engine. Usefulness is also something that I am really looking to achieve with each weapon, so that while balanced, there is a reason to want to switch to another weapon, and not just have a “favorite” that you’re used to. Weapon balance has often been both the thing that fans clamor for, but in a sense it’s been a bit of a downfall of the genre. There should be a reason to go after ammo for a specific weapon, and not this equity among them. With that in mind, ammo placement is nearly a science – correction – scratch “nearly”, it IS a science.
Now that all of the weapons are finished, here’s the rundown:
Photon Blaster
The photon blaster.
This weapon fires a single photon ball that explodes on impact. It has a small amount of splash damage, and the projectile travels roughly the same speed as your typical rocket launcher in Quake based games. It is great for mid range, and close fighting, as it’s splash damage does not injure the player firing it. It will(eventually) be useful for trick jumping.
Grenade Launcher
The grenade launcher.
Packing a major wallop, but lacking range, this one is good for close shots that are direct hits, or for just throwing down into a crowd. It’s lack of range will discourage rampant spamming, and keep it more of a close-up tool.
Disruptor
The disruptor.
The big kahuna. Massive damage, but you gotta be accurate. Refiring rate is likely going to be slower, we’ll see. Similar to a railgun in Quake, it really is just impossible to not have this type of weapon in an arena shooter.
Now it’s time to start getting on the items, ammo system, and the armor. This is gonna be some fun stuff!
At the stage now of “I made too much stuff, it’s using up way too much memory, and it’s time to get a little dynamic”. I new that was coming fast, especially while making the newest level “Ground Zero”. I simply got sick of waiting for the game to load up all of the meshes instead of what it just needed…so…it was time to start doing some flushing and re-loading. It took a bit of time, and tracking down some weird things with the IQM models, but it’s working. It’s also now only flushing anything if the map changes, and instead resetting various data that needs resetting in those cases. While tracking all of that down, a couple of other intertwined bugs were solved, at least in some fashion. The one that is still bizarre is the case of the ragdolls. Everything is fine when they are deleted “naturally” during the game, as they time out, but if there are some active ones and it runs through the list and clears them when switching maps – boom – crash. It’s odd, given it uses the identical methods. Has to be some kind of weird timing issue with Bullet. This really only happened when manually switching a map in the midst of a game, when it sits in it’s 10 second intermission between maps, and everything clears out during that time, it’s fine. So, in my “infinite” wisdom, haha, ok, let’s be honest – sometimes you just gotta go the “hack” route, I have the game go into an intermission when switching the maps manually. Sometimes it’s the simplest answers.
This all lead to the multiplayer side of things, and special care had to be taken there, not to mention the map editing aspect. Largely this is all completed now, with a little more brute force testing to confirm it is 100% stable. So far, so good! I am really excited to start testing and developing the more complicated aspects of online multiplayer. I love the base framework that’s in place, and this will be something that will be a lot more easy to deal with than ancient Quake based engines.
I’m also still working on content, and will soon have some updates there. Meanwhile, a bit of minor work continues on Ground Zero, so here is a screenshot(though this one doesn’t show anything new, just thought it was a cool shot!).
Jump, you bastard, jump!
I will add a few things more to GZ this week, some car and flying saucer wreckage, a few more detail meshes here and there. It won’t be long before these maps are populated with items like ammo, heath, and armor.
Sometimes I really long for the classic arena shooter days. Not necessarily the peak of Q3 and UT, but more the years in the mid 2000’s when the open sourced shooters arrived. It’s a little known factoid that Alien Arena was the first of the Quake based aFPS games to arrive. It was overshadowed by another, rival title – Nexuiz. Much of this had to do with the fully open source nature of the project, as well as it using the most advanced Quake based engine of the time, Darkplaces. With Forest “Lordhavoc” Hale involved, people paid attention. While Alien Arena’s parent game, CodeRED had received pretty significant attention, including being featured in various gaming magazine print, Alien Arena flew under the radar initially. When Nexuiz was released, it was instantly popular, with over 100 concurrent players much of the time, despite it being fairly buggy, and really poor performing. I still recall downloading the first release, finding it unplayable, and being upset that it was receiving so much attention, and being billed as the “first”. I probably let that affect my perspective for years to come.
Nexuiz(the original), featuring some pretty unique art in it’s early years.
Looking back, Nexuiz was actually a really darn good game – once they got the performance issues sorted, which they did. I remember playing those early releases, loving the level designs, and truly falling in love with the soundtrack. To this day I have that soundtrack on my computers to listen to while I work once in a while. While there was indeed some artistic inconsistency, and some of it(the weapons in particular) were downright ugly, it had some really great artistic aspects as well. The Aneurysm map, always stood out to to me(and it was a great layout). I loved Basement, Slime Factory, and some of the other early maps. It’s heavy use of EvilLair’s textures didn’t hurt either, and many of the characters were well done, and just cool. It didn’t have much of a unified theme, but it was a lot like UT in that regard.
Nexuiz, at it’s peak, around 2009. Beautiful.
By 2005, many other titles have arrived, Warsow, Open Arena, Sauerbraten, and Tremulous. The field was crowded, but all of these games had followings, including Alien Arena. Nexuiz, with the force of LordHavoc driving engine development began to move forward at a rapid pace. With the advent of GLSL, it really came to life, and it led the pack in graphical rendering beauty with it’s real time shadows, per-pixel lighting and other effects. It was also quite popular, and fairly universally praised, especially among the Linux crowd and media, such as Phoronix. While a part of me was always feeling Alien Arena didn’t get it’s due recognition(or whenever it did, it received equal backlash), the other part really admired Nexuiz. I often found myself playing it, usually just as a break from working on Alien Arena, and really enjoying the experience. It drove me to improve the CRX engine that powered my own game. By 2008, I was slowly starting to catch up…but it was a lot of trial and error. My early attempts at per-pixel lighting (using fixed functions) were truly wrong and awful.
Early attempts using fixed functions, and poor light data were simply awful.
By late 2008, and early 2009 though, I started learning GLSL, via the famous Orange Book, and finally, at last, had a breakthrough. In all of my game designing life, that was one of my all-time favorite moments (ragdoll physics working was the other).
The very first screenshot of Alien Arena with working GLSL (on the alien only).
I was so happy with this, and it opened up a wave of design. Pretty soon I had everything in the game using it.
All surfaces using per pixel lighting.
More GLSL came, such as Parallax mapping, shadowmapping, various lighting effects. Eventually the entire game was using it to render. During this time came the switch to the IQM model format that LordHavoc and Lee Salzman developed with input from myself and others in the Quake community.
The improvements using the IQM format were wonderful. Parallax mapping on the floor texture gives it the illusion of depth.
To this day I use IQM, as do many others, and am forever grateful for the work that went into developing it. It’s amazing to me the progress that took place in those days. At long last, our CRX engine had mostly caught up to Darkplaces, and then surged ahead with new tech such as ragdoll physics, and various shadowing/lighting changes.
Back to Nexuiz though. That game was evolving, getting new, usually better weapon models, some player models dropped or replaced, and maps constantly added/rebuilt, and some removed(much to my chagrin). The game play, much like the other open source games of the time also evolved, for the better. It was a glorious time for sure. I would either build copies from the Git repo, or anxiously await a new release, always eager to see the updates and changes. I felt though towards the latter part of the decade, that the game had lost a little of it’s charm for me. It was certainly a better game, but I missed those early maps, and the overall mood. In those days, the open sourced shooters were at their peak of popularity. However, things would soon change, and the Golden Era would begin a very rapid decline.
First, and probably foremost, Quake Live, a free, browser run version of Quake III was announced and then a beta that was free to play released, instantly siphoning hundreds of players from the open sourced alternatives. While this didn’t last long before QL began charging a subscription, the damage had been done. It also didn’t help that many of the news sources that would provide a huge boost to open source projects releases were either dying off, or losing popularity due to a glut in gaming news outlets, and a shifting dynamic. By the 2010’s, things were turning downward, though the games carried on with their diminishing fanbases.
It was March 2010 when an announcement was made that a commercial version of Nexuiz using the Crytek 3 engine and development spearheaded by none other than LordHavoc himself working for a small company called Illfonic would shatter it’s community, and bring a very abrupt end to the classic version of Nexuiz. This was indeed a dark day…
The community was enraged, heartbroken, but very quickly regrouped and formulated plans to keep the classic version alive. Oddly, I believe they were given permission to keep the Nexuiz name(as “Nexuiz Classic”), but chose to give the game a rebirth with a new name and new content. Their log was that of a phoenix. Very fitting. Other forks came about as well, but the main project was now known as Xonotic. I really don’t know the meaning or origin of the name, but I was honestly not a fan. The game however was really re-inventing itself, with new weapon and player models, new maps. These were mostly better on a technical level – though the player models I am not fond of at all, especially the skins, but the game truly had lost it’s charm for me. Pity. The commercial Nexuiz came out, and was predictably hated by fans of the original, but I thought it was certainly a beautiful looking game, though the engine was beseiged with glitches and artifacts, and poor performance. Nexuiz died a very quick, painful death unfortunately.
Beautiful, perhaps strange, commercial Nexuiz was doomed from the start.
Xonotic carried on, despite having little to no player base. It’s development seemed to catch a spark when a very talented modeler, Morphed began making weapon models. He stayed on long enough to produce new ones for most, but it’s a shame he didn’t create new player models, as those are the biggest drawback, at least visually. The maps were varied in terms of visual appeal, but most were good playing affairs.
Demo of some of the new weapons in Xonotic created by Morphed. Also shown, the “tron” styled skins of the player models.
I still follow Xonotic development, and play new releases. It’s still a good game, though I still have a much greater fondness for those early Nexuiz releases. Maybe it was the era, and the nostalgic factors. Maybe it was the maps, the atmosphere…aww heck…who am I kidding? It was the sound track! Hey Xonotic devs, bring back that eerie soundtrack, ditch those “tron” skins, and get Morphed to finish his weapon models.
I hope you’ve enjoyed a trip down memory lane, and that the current state of arena shooters isn’t too depressing. I believe there are brighter days ahead, these games have managed to mostly carry on in some fashion, with a few exceptions such as Warsow and Tremulous. Others have had a rebirth, and of course Quake still carries on in the form of Quake Champions – maybe one day they’ll actually finish it.
Sometimes you just have to take a break and talk about the BS in the world. I’m a huge fan of BS. Really, I mean it. Oh, sorry, I’m not talking about what you think I’m talking about…I’m talking Black Sabbath!
I’m a huge fan of Black Sabbath, I would claim the biggest (well many would make that claim!). My wife and I debate what the greatest band of all time is(for her, it’s Pink Floyd), and while a part of me sees her side of it, for me, forever and always, it’s Ozzy, Tony, Geezer, and Bill. I really don’t consider the non-Ozzy incarnations the same band, though I will say that the Dio led version is an incredibly good band, and side 1 of Heaven and Hell is about as near perfect as it gets. I was reading some rankings this weekend of Black Sabbath albums and came off a little disappointed. Even the Kerrang rankings seemed written by someone who barely knew their music. It seems every ranking has Paranoid as the top album…that’s just so easy. And while it’s one of those rare “perfect albums”, without a weak song on it (in fact, all are classics), I’ve always had a different perspective on things. I’m also very, very torn on what I consider the best album. Let’s get started!
9. Never Say Die (1978)
Let’s get the obvious out of the way. NSD is easily the worst Ozzy-era BS album, and the band will tell you so. It’s got a terrible sound, not a great song on it, and some pretty awful ones by their standards. Some people love this album, and I cannot fathom it. This album actually makes me sad listening to it, because of how poor it is.
8. Technical Ecstasy (1976)
This album is actually vastly underrated, and gets a bad rap. They took some chances on this one, and it’s got some truly great moments mixed with some average. It does have “Rock and Roll Doctor” though. That song is brutally horrible, and brings the album down as a whole. This is offset by the brilliant Dirty Women.
7. 13 (2013)
Considering their ages, especially in regards to Ozzy’s vocals, this has to be one of the most pleasant surprises – this is a very good album overall, with awesome production. There’s a few clunkers to be sure, and Ozzy’s vocal abilities are in clear decline, but there’s some pretty great moments too. Age Of Reason is a great BS song period, for any era. This one really hits the mark, but the lack of Bill Ward is a black mark, and I think that this would have been better with him.
6. Master Of Reality (1971)
For the most part my list sticks close to others I’ve seen, but those first 3 are easy ones to rank. Now it gets harder, these are the albums that are universally accepted as brilliant, when the band was at their absolute peak of their powers. MOR is possibly the heaviest sounding BS album, and it was when they discovered downtuning. In a way this album is a lot like Paranoid Part II in the song structures, themes, and lyricism. It’s raw, brutal, and in your face. Into The Void and Children of the Grave are two of the best Sabbath songs ever. Overall it’s a little less perfect than Paranoid was though.
5. Black Sabbath (1970)
The debut almost always gets ranked in the top 2 in these lists, but I just can’t go that high with it. While it’s a seriously awesome album, and has some great songs like The Wizard, NIB, and the title track, it’s a little uneven at times. Still, one could argue this to be higher, but it’s clear to me that these were kids just finding their groove. Also Ozzy had a serious head cold during the recording, creating his strange vocal sound.
4. Paranoid (1970)
Yup, you read that right. I rank Paranoid at #4. Nobody does that, right? I mean after, as I mentioned, it’s one of those rare “perfect albums” with iconic classics at every track number. It’s got a brilliant sound, that’s never really been duplicated. It also contains what many, myself included, may consider the single greatest Sabbath song, War Pigs. So why isn’t this at #1? I have my reasons, two to be precise. One, the lyrics are not at the poetic level they would achieve later on. Two, the music is, for brilliance and simplicity, simple in texture. These guys wrote some amazing songs, with amazing changes and composition, but they got better. Trust me.
3. Volume IV (1972)
Hence begins what I, and many consider to be the golden era of Sabbath’s creativity. A three album run where they grew, explored new musical horizons, wrote some of the heaviest, and some of the most beautiful songs in their catalog. It also was fueled by a ton of drugs and drink. Volume IV begins this run, with an epic track Wheels Of Confusion. A lumbering sludge that midway through transitions into powerful, flowing brilliance, and finishes with epic melodic progressions(The Straightener outro). Tomorrows Dream, Supernaut, Snowblind, Under The Sun, are epic and heavy tracks mixed with eclectic moments. There’s a few weak tracks(Cornucopia – which Ward hated, FX), but overall this is a masterpiece of an album. The lyrics are poetic throughout, a huge leap from MOR and Paranoid.
2. Sabotage (1975)
My dilemma. I sometimes think that this is the greatest Sabbath album. In some ways it truly is. I submit to you, Hole in the Sky, Megalomania, Thrill Of it All, and Symptom Of the Universe as exhibit A. Just brilliant songs, with so much depth, more poetic and deep lyrics – all amazing considering the conditions they were forced to record in (legal ones, that is). Ozzy had some great vocal performances (really, Megalomania could be his greatest career achievement in that sense). The music was complex but flowed in a way that gives you goosebumps. The opening solo to Thrill Of It All, transitioning into the lurching first half, only to transition into the triumphant second half of the song, it’s unreal. The end of Symptom, wow, just amazing transition, and great singing by Ozzy. Compared to his earlier works, Ozzy’s voice flows around the riffs in ways they didn’t in earlier albums.
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973)
Sabbath at their very peak. While it’s true they had a hard time getting going for this one songwriting wise, once Tony Iommi cranked out the title track, it was game on. This is another album that doesn’t have a weak moment, like Paranoid. Everything is near perfection here, and the sounds and layers are tremendous. SBS laid on the synthesizer heavier than ever, and the depth and production of this album stands alone. Some considered it a little “weird”, expecting maybe more of the raw power of the title track (which is arguably the heaviest Sabbath song of all), but this is what makes it great. It’s always hard for me to choose between this and Sabotage. In some ways Sabotage takes what was done here a step further, but there’s always one moment that simply does it for me – and that is the final track Spiral Architect – possibly the most beautiful, and triumphant sounding masterpiece that the band ever created. Don’t believe me? Read the lyrics. Just wow.
Thanks for reading, haha. I’ll write something about Saucermen next weekend for sure, there’s some good progress going on with that.
Alien Arena has a long history of so-called “urban decay”, post-apocalyptic style maps. While this wasn’t the prevailing theme(maybe it should have been), they found their way into the game in increasing numbers of the years. Map such as DM4, Invasion, Annihilation, Extermination, and Impact became staples of the game, and maybe some of the very best layouts. Each one of these became more intricate than the next, larger, more detailed, and more fun. At the end of this post I will reveal my latest map in this theme, that will be built for Saucermen. First, a trip down memory lane…
DM4(2003)
Downtown 2003.
In the very first release of Alien Arena (CodeRED: Alien Arena, 2003), this map was at least visually, the “star”, and inspired the very first community built maps (built by the legendary Japanese player, Whitelipper). It really wasn’t up to the standards of games of that era(none of my maps really were in those days), but it had photo textures, and a simple, flat, city block layout that serious aFPS players loathed, but casual players loved. It lasted a couple of releases before my mapping skills improved enough that it was deemed expendable. However, at least a dozen or more similar maps were created by fans of the game using these textures and layout style, with many of them improving the vertical aspects of the game play.
Invasion(2008)
A return to roots.
Quite a long time went by without another urban decal style map, as the game had really moved in the Q3, then UT2k4 style both visually and otherwise. Invasion came about during a time of major engine changes, that saw per pixel lighting, soft shadows, and a host of other GLSL implementations. The map was somewhat intended as a demo for some of the new effects, especially with vegetation, so the layout was fairly simple, with two tiers connected by a rocky hill, and littered with debris. Despite it’s simplicity, it became arguably Alien Arena’s most popular map for many years to come, and like DM4, it inspired countless fan maps.
Annihilation(2010)
Mass destruction.
Annihilation was a map inspired by a UT3 map, of which name I cannot recall. This used the same texture set as Invasion, but took a major leap in terms of the “destroyed” look of the level, and more importantly the layout was far more vertical and intricate. This level would receive updates over the years, replacing brushes with terrain, as well as various details added, and altered, though it remained mostly the same in terms of appearance and layout. I will fondly remember this map forever as the test bed for ragdoll physics, spending many nights racking my brain along with Lee Salzman as we negotiated some uncharted ODE territories with BSP and IQM formats.
Impact(2011)
Impact, showing shadowmapping from vegetation in 2011.
At this point in Alien Arena’s development, I was pushing harder than ever in terms of realism, and the post apocalyptic imagery. The theme was now becoming more prevalent throughout the game, which coincided with the “Tactical” mode being added. Impact was directly inspired by the original DM4, as a couple of city blocks in scope, but with many of the more vertical elements of newer designs, as well as the destruction level. This, like others before it, quickly became among the most popular Alien Arena maps in the game’s history. During the creation of the Tactical mode the decision was made to merge Impact with Annihilation, creating one of the largest of all Alien Arena maps. Both maps received massive updates in terms of texture, details, and lighting, creating a much more modern appearance as the CRX engine was now allowing more possibilities.
Extermination(2012)
Extermination, the final frontier.
My all-time favorite map design for Alien Arena was the final interior urban decay map I created for it. This map was gory, decayed, and creepy, with a complex layout that had the best gameplay of any of that style map. It was medium sized, a bit larger than the predecessors(other than the combined Impact-Annihilation map). There were elements of verticality throughout, circular design, and sneak paths. Extermination eventually got a CTF version as well, courtesy of the CTF map master, Rigel. This map received some refreshes once terrain tech was added to the engine, but largely remained intact.
Wasteland(2017)
The Wasteland, massive and uncompromising.
The most visual stunning and hi-tech Alien Arena map was the first map using our new terrain technology that Max Eliaser developed in 2014. This map spent some years in development, and officially was completed in 2017 for the first Steam release of the game. Unlike other Alien Arena maps to that point, it used the terrain is it’s main structure, with everything else added in afterwards. It slowly evolved from an open canyon with a few remote structures to one with a section of city within it, and wild post apocalyptic imagery, reminiscent of Rage, a game that I had been playing at that time when the map was first conceived. It’s massive size and multiple tiers of height gave it some really cool game play elements. Sadly problems with the engine’s physics have hurt the popularity of the map in the game, and the other two terrain based maps as well.
Ground Zero(2021 – Saucermen)
The bleak wasteland of Ground Zero.
Ground Zero represents somewhat of an amalgam of Wasteland, DM4, and Impact, with elements of each featuring prominently. Now unfettered by the limitations of CRX’s bsp tech, I was able to pretty much just make whatever I wanted. Like Wasteland, it’s situated in a dry, arid setting, though with some foliage mixed with grass and cacti to create spectacular lighting and shadowing effects, much as I did with Temple Of Blood. Using far more detailed models GZ has a vastly more modern look, and while it doesn’t feature the canyon style of Wasteland, it delivers the verticality of Annihilation and Extermination with various rubble and structures connecting the buildings together.
The perpetrator of the destruction.
As this map started coming together, my excitement amped up – this was really starting to look like the game I had envisioned, with rich, realistic, and terrifying elements that draw you in, especially in VR.
Looks like a scene from Full Metal Jacket.
The atmosphere really took off once I added the sky(it’s the same sky from Wasteland in Alien Arena) and tweaked the fog levels to match.
Up on a broken building.
The layout is fairly simple – it’s a decimated area of a few city blocks, with a broken highway, demolished buildings, and piles of rubble everywhere. It’s overgrown, windy, and surreal.
Lost Highway.
Spawn points are at various elevations in the level, and there are ways to get to those elevations as well. It should be interesting to see the type of fighting that takes place given the amount of cover, and hiding places.
A good place to take cover, behind a pile of rubble.
To some this probably has the look of CS or some other military shooter, but make no mistake, this is an arena – it’s small, confined, and fast. While this level is far from done, and I haven’t even begun to optimize it yet, I had no issues with framerates, it held steady at 60 with no drops of any kind. I will update some more with some more complete shots soon, and I will also announce the launching of the website in the coming days. I now have three of the map types I have planned, and will move on to the fourth (which is a snow map, with accumulating snow effects). I also will start working on the third weapon, as well as the ammo, health, and armor powerups. It’s still incredibly early in development, but it feels like a lot of things are coming together and a lot of hurdles being crossed off the list.
So far I’ve managed to keep my promise to myself to keep this blog updated weekly on the progress of this game. While I don’t have a bunch of followers or anything like that, and the truth is I want to keep this game somewhat under wraps for now, this is a way that I keep myself interested and motivated. At the end of this post, I will update on the status of Alien Arena.
First though…
Hey, what the heck is that net symbol for??
Indeed, you are seeing a network connectivity interruption symbol. This is because I decided to shift gears and work on the multiplayer side of things this weekend! I had been putting it off because quite frankly, it scared me, just a little. Luckily the foundation I laid out for this was largely intact from Frenzy, and the concept was sound. The main issues dealt with how weapons are used, animation, and such, but it’s mostly very similar. After a few hours of adjustments, I was able to set up and join a server and iron things out. I discovered a few things that will need addressing, but for the most part it’s fully functioning, and works quite well when I host on a server that actually has the horsepower to run Bullet Physics at 60 fps. It was good that my VM actually did not have said horsepower, as that exposed a few things that I had to work on with physics and animation. Now my only thing to tackle will be settling on a reasonable server frame rate. So far though, I really am digging how it works, and the way this game is designed, it’s just as smooth playing online as off, something that Quake-based games struggle with, including Alien Arena. Of note is the locked in 60 fps (well, 58 and it oscillates a bit between 62 and 58 on the output). Very soon I’ll be updating the default fps to 120, and allowing for variable framerates. Not sure if I’ll fully uncap it, as that generally invites physics weirdness, but it will compensate everything for when it drops at least.
I also spent a bit of time finishing up the ragdoll/gib system. This is just really cool! Depending on damage, legs and arms, and even the entire body will disintegrate into a shower of gibs, or a few with a partial ragdoll. This was done in games for many years, but we never did that in Alien Arena. This really makes the fragging experience so much richer, IMO. I also worked on physics and ragdoll management, solved quite a few bugs along the way. I also made the decision that I will in fact update Frenzy to address these, and some other bugs that I’ve fixed, rather than trying to port Frenzy to this version of the engine. Frenzy is pretty solid, though somewhat inefficient. There are three or four things I want to update/fix there, and will one of these days. Overall though, this new version of the engine is really starting to streamline well. Long, long way to go, but I’m happy with the progress.
Partial ragdolls and gibs.Just laying on a wall…
Given the number of renderer changes and additions, as well as re-organization, the last big hurdle that laid before me was VR. Now I didn’t mess around much with any of that, but I really was worried some of the post processing effect changes would muck things up. It didn’t. Everything actually worked very well. I did have a few little things to tweak and fix, but for the most part it’s all working good, and what an amazing experience to play a game like this with VR goggles! Surprisingly motion sickness was not an issue, and the ability to turn your head independent of the mouse, or I should say in addition to, is really a nice perk of using VR. The whole thing was just too cool…
I still have a lot to do with getting more things dynamically loaded, especially with maps, and still some bugs to iron out throughout, but this game is really starting to get some functionality that only a few months ago seemed so far off and daunting.
On 2/14(Valentines day), Alien Arena was officially made Free To Play on Steam. This was something that had been contemplated for the last year, but we really wanted to take some time before committing to that. We had clung to keeping it a (very) low cost game to help provide prize money for tournaments, but sales had dwindled to nothing, and player counts continued to shrink as well. The bottom line is that in the Arena FPS genre, if you aren’t F2P, you’re dead in the water. I don’t have a ton of hope that the game will revitalize, and there are no plans to update it. All focus is on Saucermen, with a little going to Frenzy at some point(which also will be F2P at some point once I’ve started back on that). There may very well be a time where I make some skin packs or other things for Alien Arena, but that’s pretty far down the list, and road. There is however probably a (very) good chance of seeing some alternate, retro Alien Arena items available for purchase in Saucermen, such as weapon view models, or some skins that use the Alien Arena style.
Confessions of a serial game designer