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Perff
Administrator
Posts: 1665 |
Releasing MOOD level designer
Hi there C64 people.
You might have heard of MOOD - a DOOM (or actually Wolfenstein) clone for the C64 first released as a game preview in 1996, and followed by more previews in the following 10 years, but it never became a real game.
The reason for this is mostly lack of time and motivation to sit down and spend the time needed to design the gfx, level design and all needed to wrap around the gameplay itself.
About 5 years ago we took another shot at this, but again nothing really happened.
But at that point we got all the stuff together, and remade the level design converter, so it would be easier to use, and also more accessible (web based).
For no particular reason, I recently got back into the idea of doing something about it, and have now decided to release this level design converter to the public!
This means that anyone out there on the net, can now make their own MOOD-level including gfx, definition of guns/monsters/objects and of cause the level design itself.
Why?
Well, I think it's sad that MOOD never became more than it did. I think there is a lot of potential to this that was never shown.
But first of all this is done just for fun. Anyone can now draw their own levels, put it through the converter and run the executable and play! :) That all there is to it.
We would however be very happy to hear from people who think they have made something really cool, and based on that perhaps even FINALLY make a complete game!?
Short about the converter.
The designing of a MOOD level is done through two bitmap images, and a single text-file. The reason for this is historical and goes way back to 1996 to the Amiga days, and just haven't changed.
The level converter takes these files, and return a binary prg file you can run. That's it.
You can find the level converter here: http://mood.perff.dk - There is also a "How to use", and an example to get you started.
I will of cause try to answer any questions you might have, and update the "How to use" if it turns out to be insufficient.
Well. Not much more to say than happy designing. :) |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11108 |
That you have time for THIS made me cringe. Seriously. |
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Perff
Administrator
Posts: 1665 |
Well. If you read the text you will see that I actually don't!
So I would like for everyone else to have a shot at this.
So what I took 'the time' to do now was to dig up what was already made 5 years ago, and put it online for the world. |
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1055 |
Very neat! It's interesting how writing the game engine is in some regards the easy part, the hard part is providing the tooling and content required to make the game playable and enjoyable. |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5017 |
checked the 2006 version, my 2 cents:
- update bug (I know memory, but still very ugly)
- turning is too slow
- textures should be much more lores, because of heavy aliasing |
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cadaver
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1153 |
I can certainly relate, making the engine is always the fun part.
Maybe you will consider open sourcing the whole thing if this doesn't take off and you decide to abandon it for good?
(not that I'd expect anyone to really finish it either based on a source code dump, but may still be nice as learning material) |
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1055 |
I dunno, I really enjoy making the support tools as well... |
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bugjam
Registered: Apr 2003
Posts: 2476 |
This is great news about the editor! I really hope to see a full game one day. I remember many years back, I was in contact with Perff about the topic, and as the editor was complicated and running on Amiga, I even considered making a trip to Denmark to give it a go. :-) |
