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Unfortunately, I got this error
Fatal : Not enough conventional memory!
Requirements : 598K of conventional memory required.
well into my second match. According to this, the emulated machine should have plenty of memory by default. Memory leak?
Fatal : Not enough conventional memory!
Requirements : 598K of conventional memory required.
well into my second match. According to this, the emulated machine should have plenty of memory by default. Memory leak?
Thanks for reporting this issue. I tried quite hard to find a DOSBox config that wouldn't exhibit any problems, seems it still isn't perfect. In real DOS the game would run perfectly for hours - I strongly suspect our possibly buggy Sound Blaster code to cause some issues with DOSBox - I will probably release a no-sound version to get rid of the problem for good.
The UI is disturbing. Of course I didn't read the manual, so I had to figure the thing out by trial-and-error. Even afterwards, it's not very intuitive. Just read this on the game's site:
Quote from: camoryo
Most of the critique received targeted the cryptic UI and hard-to-meet memory requirements.
I'm not surprised!Agreed, it's quite hardcore. Especially in some places, where no hints is given on the usable keys.
I have my doubts about the AI. So far, I've yet to see my enemies do anything but spam grenades, catching themselves and their comrades in blasts. It's pretty funny to watch. Anyway, it seems like multiplayer is the focus, so I'll have to give that a shot.
Indeed, the AI was mostly an afterthought, added to please the often vocal non-multiplayer audience. We had serious problems fitting any sensible AI due to memory constraints - the game operates only on the conventional memory, i.e. within 620KB, or so, bounds. Also, there's the fact that the AI cheats, exceedingly so on higher difficulty settings - it is basically given hints about the player's whereabouts at regular intervals.
The game is rich considering it was developed by high school students. Not to suggest it wasn't impressive in its day, but I feel we're much less likely to see high schoolers work on (let alone complete) a project of this scope today. Dilettantism, ignorance, and sloth are rife among today's young developers.
Thanks. I also wholeheartedly agree about the general state of young developers getting things done nowadays. Not to generalize too much, but you get the point.
A few questions:
How was the project conceived, and what's the story of its development?
Have you or your friend made any games since 1997?
How many copies did you sell?
How was the project conceived, and what's the story of its development?
Have you or your friend made any games since 1997?
How many copies did you sell?
The project was very well conceived in Finland, in our main area of distribution. It was presented in local magazines a couple of times, receiving good reviews.
The development started around '94 I guess. We started as a small demo/intro group, then got interested in game development.
Both being avid fans of Laser Squad and X-COM, we decided on trying to re-create a similar concept but with a strong multiplayer aspect. During that time, I was still strongly into Amiga scene and didn't own a PC, my friend had a 386SX, which then served as our main development platform for a long time.
We started out by experimenting with different things, like the graphics style of the game. A top-down view was tried first but then ditched as we didn't see it working very well graphics-wise.
Much time was spent on the first version, 1.0, of the game. Afterwards, the project was further developed and version 1.2 and 1.5 were released. At that time the game was still freeware, as we didn't see enough value in the early versions for them to be sold for money.
The version 2.0 went through major additions and changes, in order to provide a much more polished experience. Music and "proper" sound effects were added, most of the graphics were re-visited and documentation was added. We also saw that this version was something we could
actually sell as shareware.
An evaluation version of the PaybackTime 2 was released on multiple Finnish BBSs just before both of us were to join the semi-compulsory army training. The evaluation consisted of a limited set of maps, weapons and game-modes, but it was still a comprehensive glimpse into the game's offerings.
The actual distribution mechanism of the full game version was naive at best: we encouraged the buyer to pay the game's price on an account, provide us the receipt of payment by snail-mail and we'd then mail back to the buyer with the full version of the game on a floppy in a bubble envelope
.Funnily enough, we got one registration from Australia too - god knows how the evaluation of the game would have ended there...
The final version of the game was sold for 80 Finnish marks, a somewhat steep price at that time. We sold around 110 official copies.
