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[Melly]

Ah, awesome, no shaders. (can't run them)

Will I need Quake 3 to run it?

[JP]

Will I need Quake 3 to run it?

Nope.  Totally standalone.  Free as in speech.  Maybe an FAQ is in order.

[Xion]

mmm, looks delicious. When it got to the teleport part I was totally like, "woah, huh? woah."

[dcalogue]

looking really good, can't wait to try it 

[agj]

Very acrobatic! Interesting indeed, though I think I'll be way over my head, since I don't play first person games.

[Synnah]

This is really impressive! It seems like you've got the mechanics down, so it'll be interesting to see what you can do with the level design.

[JP]

Okay kids, have a look at this first semi-public playable build.  There's a readme in the zip with some details.

Not sure what sort of feedback I'm after here, other than stuff like:
* does anything make any sense at all?  even a little?
* the default level is a first take on a "race" game mode map, how tough did you find it to get to the lone platform on the far side of the area with the little pedestal?
* do you like eggs?  cause i love 'em.
* plenty of known bugs, but let me know if you find anything especially interesting and/or irritating.
* this build supports multiplayer as well, so definitely let me know if you go through the trouble to try it out with a friend!
* do you totally hate it?  i can take it, i'm a big boy.

Disclaimers:
* pre-alpha level of stability and feature-completeness.
* game mode rules aren't actually in yet, so you can't "win" anything.
* visuals are temp, they'll be replaced with something prettier and more stylish in another month or two.
* sound is non-existant.  "s_volume 0" at the console will mute everything.

As you can tell by the raft of hand-wringing disclaimery goodness, this is a very rough build but I figure I've been teasing and talking about it long enough, I should give you something and shut up for a while.  Thanks in advance for taking a look!  HUUUGS.


screenshot: from the playtest with bezz.  i was messing with the server gameplay tuning cvars, and we created a wall of puls rockets.  kinda makes me want to create a "slow zone" gameplay object so you can do this sort of thing intentionally.

[Melly]

Just played around with it by myself and I really like it so far. The game did tend to lock up for a few seconds every once in a while. Might have something to do with sound.

I didn't find it very tough to get to the specified platform, what with all the 'pulling' blocks and the mobility that I had. I assume there's no normal jump? I kinda like that, puts full focus on the weapons. I do hope that in the finished build the weapons aren't able to damage the player that uses them, because that would hinder my desire to just bounce around the place with the red missile. Which you also might want to speed up slightly, though I'm not sure. Just feels like it would be pretty hard to hit anything moving with it. Same for the green grenade, maybe.

I'll be eager to hear more updates. I wonder if the Quake 3 engine fully supports the graphical style you're aiming for.

You got anything in mind for music? I'm reminded that the people Cactus tends to work with with music would probably do a very good job with this style of game.

[JP]

Thanks very much for checking it out, and for the useful feedback.

I do hope that in the finished build the weapons aren't able to damage the player that uses them

Your own attacks will definitely not damage you, ever.  The whole point is to encourage crazy non-realistic movement.

Just played around with it by myself and I really like it so far. The game did tend to lock up for a few seconds every once in a while. Might have something to do with sound.

I'll look into that.  I haven't changed any sound code, so it may be an issue with openAL or SDL or something else ioquake3 does.  What OS are you running?

Which you also might want to speed up slightly, though I'm not sure. Just feels like it would be pretty hard to hit anything moving with it. Same for the green grenade, maybe.

Agreed.  The run map is one of the first maps with wide open spaces, and the amount of speed you can accrue really makes the projectiles seem slow.  I've made all this stuff easy to tune, so it will improve.

I wonder if the Quake 3 engine fully supports the graphical style you're aiming for.

I'm optimistic... it's the big thing I'll be delving into soon.  Per-pixel lighting is about the only big thing the engine categorically can't do.

You got anything in mind for music? I'm reminded that the people Cactus tends to work with with music would probably do a very good job with this style of game.

It'll probably be a few artists contributing, with a different track to fit each level's mood. I've already had someone cool offer to do some material.

General direction-wise I've always heard stuff like Aphex, Autechre, Squarepusher et al in my head when I imagine the finished game.

Thanks again for checking out the build!

[Melly]

My system is a Pentium2.4Ghz with 512MB RAM, GeForce4 MX 4000 video card, Running on Windows XP Professional SP3.

[William Broom]

I played it, very enjoyable even in its test-ish state. I couldn't really work out how the BOM attack worked. The others worked really well though. I don't know how useful SPHEER will be, either for attacking or for mobility, but it was still cool to bounce around the open spaces.
I couldn't work out how to load other maps than the default one. Specifically, I couldn't get it to bring up a list of available maps like it said in the readme. I tried typing 'map' and then pressing TAB but this only showed me different map-related commands, not different maps.

[Melly]

I get the feeling he only let us play this one map.

[JP]

I couldn't work out how to load other maps than the default one. Specifically, I couldn't get it to bring up a list of available maps like it said in the readme. I tried typing 'map' and then pressing TAB but this only showed me different map-related commands, not different maps.

Oh, I just figured out what the problem was... you have to type map then SPACE, and it will suggest all the available maps.  Otherwise it just thinks you want a command that begins with map* autocompleted.  Nuancey.  Updated the readme for a future build.

[William Broom]

Well, I played the other maps. commons I thought was a bit weak, too small for any high-flying action, but I don't know how it will fare when you're actually... competing with someone rather than just messing around. run1 is still the most enjoyable, I think, followed closely by sf. I think high skyboxes and wide open areas play to the strengths of the control system.
And it is, really enjoyable despite the lack of objectives. Is there damage in this build? Can I try out a deathmatch scenario if I find someone else to play with? If so, how many players? How long before we can see this at TIGs Game Night?

One more minor point. The BOM weapon kicks you back a fair way when you fire it, but only when you're on the ground. Dunno if it's intentional but I thought I'd point it out. It was great fun to spam BOMs all over sf and watch them tumble down the sloping streets or explode in the sky like fireworks.

Using the TRASE to teleport toward BOMs (I love the names of the weapons btw, can you tell?) is a good idea but it's kind of abrupt and disorienting. Maybe you could make it actually pull you toward the BOMs like it pulls you toward the pull blocks, only much faster?

[george]

Just played this for about a half hour, fun just to move around and play with the effects. I like the sf map. Can't wait to see what happens with a few players in the same map. If I knew how to host a server I would be there.

Is there anything I can do to remap some of the controls to make this work better with my laptop? The middle mouse button I have doesn't do it for me, and I couldn't figure out if the controls remap from the game menu has any effect.

[JP]

This is awesome feedback.  Thanks so much.

Well, I played the other maps. commons I thought was a bit weak, too small for any high-flying action, but I don't know how it will fare when you're actually... competing with someone rather than just messing around. run1 is still the most enjoyable, I think, followed closely by sf. I think high skyboxes and wide open areas play to the strengths of the control system.

All the maps are pretty weak at this point, honestly.  Later releases will have a lot more maps of higher quality; it's kind of the thing I've been spending the least time on thus far because it's what I'm most confident I can do well when it's time to focus on it.

And it is, really enjoyable despite the lack of objectives. Is there damage in this build? Can I try out a deathmatch scenario if I find someone else to play with? If so, how many players?

It's playable in multi (I tested it with 3 people), although I disabled the HUD score display for some reason.

How long before we can see this at TIGs Game Night?

That will probably be once I have the game modes working, so you can race each other and actually compete for time, and duel each other in duel arenas.

One more minor point. The BOM weapon kicks you back a fair way when you fire it, but only when you're on the ground.

Using the TRASE to teleport toward BOMs (I love the names of the weapons btw, can you tell?) is a good idea but it's kind of abrupt and disorienting. Maybe you could make it actually pull you toward the BOMs like it pulls you toward the pull blocks, only much faster?

BOM push only working on ground is intentional, but it needs better feedback.

I just discovered a bug in the bom warp client code that is making a fairly crucial effect not work.  When you do a bom warp, the view interpolates (over about 15-30 frames) from the position you warped from to your new current location.  It gives you a pretty clear idea of the translation you've just enacted.  But this got busted somehow, so the view more or less pops... exactly what that effect was intended to avoid.  It'll be fixed soon.

[JP]

Is there anything I can do to remap some of the controls to make this work better with my laptop? The middle mouse button I have doesn't do it for me, and I couldn't figure out if the controls remap from the game menu has any effect.

I don't have the attack types bind-able through the normal game options menu yet, so you'll have to use the console - press tilde (~) to bring that up.  The bind command's syntax is:

bind <key> command

The commands for the puls, bom, trase and spheer attacks are, respectively, "+button7", "+button8", "+button9" and "+button10".  So if you want to rebind the bom attack to, say, the shift key, try this:

\bind SHIFT "+button8"

Man, those instructions sound painful.  I'll definitely make it bindable through the menu at some point.

[george]

That kicks ass actually. Man the BOM is cool. 

[Melly]

Been playing some more with the other maps. Moar fedbakz!

The 'locking-up' problems I'm having isn't related to sound. It happens constantly on intervals. Everything freezes for around 2 seconds.

While the game looks very interesting already, it can get really hard to notice the geometry on certain angles, like soaring through the cityscape-like level without being able to tell where are the roofs because everything looks like a single light-grey texture plastered on screen. You should look into that as you work the aesthetics.

I feel it might be impossible to use the BOM attack effectively the way it is now. It's slow and takes a long time to detonate. Added with the knockback I wonder if I'd ever be able to hit anyone with it or use it for vaulting myself.

The SPHEER attack should probably be made bouncier. It's a bit easy right now to lose momentum if you use it and move by yourself as well. Notably, If I use it and move by myself, it seems to lose all momentum when I land.

Other than that, it looks and plays very sweet already. Have you considered getting the hardcore FPS crowd to try it in the future?

EDIT: I just read that you can use the SPHEER to detonate projectiles. I didn't try this with the BOM yet. I'll let you know what I think.

EDIT DEUX: Well, there's certainly some interesting things you can do with the SPHEER + BOM combo, though I needed to use a PULS to make any of it work and it felt a bit hard to control the effects.

[William Broom]

I get the feeling that if you do this right, there could be tons of emergent gameplay possibilities lurking just beneath the surface. I have no idea what they are yet, but that's why they're emergent.