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[Alexander Bruce]

What is this?

This is a near final demo build of Hazard: The Journey Of Life. The only other things I was considering adding to it, if I get time, is reconfiguring the controls, though I really don't think I'll get time before I need to send the demo off.

Where can I get it?

http://demruth.com/Downloads/HazardDemoInstaller.exe

Any videos?

http://www.demruth.com/hazard.htm

Where are my pictures?




System Requirements

I'm not sure what the actual specs for my specific game are, but here is a page suggesting the UDK ones ones. Despite looking simple, there's a bunch of stuff that makes this game processor / rendering intensive.

Recommended System Requirements
    • 2.0+ GHz processor
    • 2 GBytes of System RAM
    • A graphics card with shader model 3.0 support.
    • UDK site suggests NVIDIA 8000 series or higher
    • 300 MB of Free Hard Drive Space

What the hell do you want out of me?

Mainly, I'm just looking for feedback to see that people were able to finish the demo entirely, as in, get through to the sell screens... you'll know when the demo is over... and what people thought. The response I've received from most has been positive, and I should have caught all of the major issues.

The only major thing that I know of is that the Riot Balls can slow down the framerate a bit. That will be fixed in the final release, and doesn't have an impact on completing the demo at all.

Thanks,
 - Alex

[Mike Lee]

Excellent Alex! The new puzzles are pretty fun and I can definitely tell the optimization and framerate improvements have been paid off as it runs pretty smoothly on my machine now (outside of a slight hitch with the riot balls still).

[Alexander Bruce]

Sweet. Well, last night whilst trying to sleep I came up with algorithms to rewrite everything that needs it, so I know how to remove 90% of the heavy computation that is left in the game. Won't make those changes into the demo, as they're with regards to later phases of the game, but the fix for the riot balls unfortunately goes along with some of those too.

[Cokho]

Recommended System Requirements
    • 2.4+ GHZ Dual Core Processor
    • 1 GBytes of System RAM
    • NVIDIA 7800GTX+ or ATI x1300+ Video Card
    • 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

 

[Alexander Bruce]

It's an Unreal Engine 3 game. It's made on the UDK (was a UT3 mod all of last year).

[leonsulivan]

Looks really nice from here.

I can't test it today cause i'm on Linux but i'll test it soon and i'll come back here to post someting more constructive .

[shrimp]

Whoah, awesome that you ported this to UDK. Looking forward to testing and posting something more constructive

[PlayMeTape]

I really enjoyed this. I'd work on getting out all of the UT3 elements (gun mesh, cross hair). Plus (and this is probably too hard to remove) it is kind of annoying getting stuck at all of the puzzles that require the gun before you've acquired it.

Graphically do you think you could work out some way of making all of the lines one pixel wide? Or is it too hard since it's all textures? I'd probably make them wider if that is the case since right now they look kind of weird a lot of the time.

I'm going to play some more since I really like it, I'll write if there's anything else.

[supershigi]

This looks pretty cool, I will download it and give it a shot... I hope it will run okay on my machine, my video card is in need of an upgrade

[Alexander Bruce]

Christoffer, I'm definitely removing all of the UT3 assets for the final release, but likely won't be getting rid of any more for the demo. The demo is required by Friday next week at the latest. I also can't remove all of the puzzles that require the gun before you've acquired it, as that's just part of the nature of this kind of game structure. You have to encounter dead ends somewhere. I've tried making a version in the past where you only encountered level 0 puzzles at level 0, and it absolutely sucked and completely broke the feeling of the openness of the game, and what the game was about. The gun puzzle sections make a whole lot more sense when you get the gun, go back to them and go "ohhh", yet go to other gun puzzles and go "hey wait what?".

I only really have 2 options as far as all of the edge detection goes (it's not textures, it's a post process using only ZDepth) right now. I either leave the lines as is, or I go to the next threshold level, which makes the lines too thick and makes the game feel wrong.

What I may do with the linework in the final release is put in another option on the wall so that you can choose how thick you want them, versus just making them thicker by default. This is, of course, unless I can get them the right thickness otherwise. It changes based on resolution though, which doesn't help things!

Thanks,
 - Alex

[Zaphos]

I played for a bit; didn't notice any bugs with the game proper, although it did crash on starting up the first time (assume that's something with unreal being shaky, since the game hadn't started at all yet) and there was slow down if I sat in the hallway with the little angry spheres and let them collide with me for a while.

I got to the part where I got the gun, and it says demo puzzle no return, then couldn't figure out the second door (with the glass between the 'door unlock beam' and the door), got annoyed and quit.

[Alexander Bruce]

Hm. That was quite a straightforward puzzle that you quit on. I'm surprised you got up to the gun if such a puzzle made you ragequit.

It's quite straightforward. Put a block in front of the beam, and the door can't shut.

[Sos]

Recommended System Requirements
    • 2.4+ GHZ Dual Core Processor
    • 1 GBytes of System RAM
    • NVIDIA 7800GTX+ or ATI x1300+ Video Card
    • 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

Comparing this with the screenshot suggests that you need to start optimising your games.

[Alexander Bruce]

Thanks for your feedback Sos. That was really helpful.

Zaphos deleted his post, so I'll quote it again, given it's right above what you just quoted of me:

I'm not sure what the actual specs for my specific game are, but here are the Unreal Tournament 3 ones. I'm not going to bother posting the minimum ones, because you definitely need more than that. Despite looking simple, there's a bunch of stuff that makes this game processor / rendering intensive.

[Sos]

Sorry for being sarcastic there Meant no offence.

But I still think, reqs are too high for this.

[droqen]

    • 8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space

Really? My whole UDK folder only takes up 1.34 GB (1,442,678,913 bytes) of space!
Anyway, so, aside from that, this game was totally awesome |:
Even though it's a game with puzzles, I refrain from calling it a "puzzle game".

It feels more like an incredibly satisfying exploration game with a bunch of really interesting puzzles.

[And normally I get stuck or frustrated by puzzle games -- not Hazard, though :D]

[leonsulivan]

Ouch, the game reqs are really too heavy for me.

I cannot even play with a decent FPS in 1024x768 ... It's strange because my computer is not so old, and I manage to play a game like Half Life 2 without any trouble.

Regardless this the game seems attractive, the graphics are really disturbing and it's a good point. I have some graphics glitch however, but it's not that problematic.

I like the idea of the main menu in the game.

[Alexander Bruce]

I just quoted the UT3 specs, so yeah looking at that hard drive space one, it is indeed a bit silly! Looking at my demo folder, the demo only requires 300mb lol... I was mainly looking for the other specs. It's been changed now

And Sos, I can't control the system requirements of the UDK! It's an Unreal Engine 3 game. I have, however, modified the specs to have proper UDK ones, not UT3 ones, but they're not exactly lower. That's just what the engine requires.

[Halcyon]

I quite enjoyed this although not really progressing too far yet. The graphics I liked and the music/sound also contributed to a great slightly eerie atmosphere, it was surreal in places and mysterious. It contributed to an awesome feeling of exploration.

The puzzles were at times a little difficult but not too frustrating for myself, although I was often stuck for awhile. I am looking forward to progressing further.. once I find out how to.

The game ran well on my computer, only slowing down in one place thus far; being the circle monster that turns into cubes.. er thingy.

Though it may not appeal as much to others, I must say that overall this game really appealed to me.

[Alexander Bruce]

Yeah. I'll see if I can fix that slowdown that everyone gets after I finish working on this trailer!

Will probably have to do another build anyway to fix a couple other bugs.