amiga-gloom/theone.bak

Hi guys!

Here are the questions from The One magazine...

Just add your bits where-ever, and re-save the whole thing as 'theone'.

They want to fill up 4 pages, so try to waffle on as much as possible!

They also want any extra artwork we've got, so if you can send up something/
anything, please do.

Can you try to get this done within a day or two? It's going in the next issue,
so they want it back as soon as possible.

We've just got 'Dark Forces' for the PC, and it's pretty disappointing, almost
a direct copy of Doom, but you can also look up and down a (little) bit. The
mazes are big and confusing, with lots of dead ends, and very little reward
for getting to switches. I'd rather play Gloom!

Gloom is going well (although I've been slacking off a bit). Should have the
gothic section done by Monday, so I'll send you a new one then.

See ya,

  Mark

;----------------------------------------------------------------------------;

From theone@cix.compulink.co.ukThu Mar 16 09:54:23 1995
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 95 15:01 GMT
From: Andy Nuttall <theone@cix.compulink.co.uk>
To: acid@iconz.co.nz
Subject: Quezzies

Hi Mark,

1: Gloom. That sounds a bit like Doom, doesn't it?

The name sort of started out as a joke, just something to call
the project while we were working on it. By the time we had to settle on
a 'real' name, we threw around some pretty weird ones (Gorefest '95,
Bloodbath etc.) but wound up sticking with Gloom, probably because we were
all used to it.

2: Is it meant to be as close a version as possible?

When we started on the game, there were already quite a few demos
around by people trying to 'do Doom'. The trouble was, none of them seemed
to involve shooting anything which, when it comes down to it, is why people
play Doom (it is a game, remember folks!). So we decided to do a version
which placed the emphasis on the actual game, not the scenery. In fact, the
monster drawing code was the first bit done...if that'd proved too slow, we
probably would have abandoned the whole thing.

So, I guess Gloom's trying to be a close version in that it involves wiping
out shit-loads of monsters, but not in terms of walking around complex scenery.

We've also tried to give it a whole different look from Doom. Kurt and Hans
have consciously tried to avoid the Doom look which all the clones
seem intent on capturing. Also, the game is divided up into distinct graphic
styles, so instead of the 'mix-and-match' approach to graphics you see in doom
clones (and even Doom itself), the graphics in Gloom actually go through
abrupt changes, which alters the mood of the game entirely.

3: Have you seen any other Doom 'clones' on the Amiga?

Heaps of them! But only one, called 'Fears' I think, where you can
actually shoot things. It's weird, like Amiga programmers think Doom is all
about walking around buildings, twiddling your thumbs, going 'ahhh, that's a
nice wall'.

4: How long have you been working on it?

I'd been playing around with the game engine for a couple of months
before coming up with the one used now. Since then, it's been about 3 months
of solid work, and I guess there's another month or so to go.

5: When you started Gloom, did you have any idea how it would turn out?

No way! From the beginning we wanted it to be an action game, but there was
always this nagging thought that it'd end up a shoot-one-monster-at-a-time kind
of thing. But I rememeber sitting down with Kurt one day, when everything was
more or less up and running and sticking 20 odd monsters in a room...WOW!
You'd walk in there, start firing, and the next thing you knew there were arms
and legs and torsos and intestines and stuff flying EVERYWHERE!
So, the end result has pretty much exceeded my expectations. And it's got
nice walls.

6: Talk about some of the problems you came across when writing it.

Well, the texture mapping was a bit of a headache. I tried 3 completely
different approaches before coming up with the one used now. The technique
we use is actually pretty slow for drawing an 'empty' scene, but it allows you
to draw lots of monsters with very little slowdown.

The depth sorting stuff also proved challenging(!). This involves deciding
which walls are in front and which are behind, which sounds pretty simple
(well it did to me), but is actually a major bastard.

Finally, there were problems with mathematical accuracy. Like, you'd try to
draw a wall with straight horizontal lines on it, stick it in the game, and
the lines would come out all zig-zaggy. I cleaned this up to a large extent,
but it's still noticable in some places. That blows me away about Doom...the
whole thing is done so bloody cleanly. There's no pixels out of place or
anything!

7: The demo we have is quite big. How big will the final game be?

I'm not sure. I'm knocking out mazes at the rate of about 2 a day right now,
so it depends on when I get bored and the mazes start looking the same. That's
probably a good time to stop. But the way things are going at the moment, I'd
say there should be about 20+ mazes in there.

8: Talking speed for a while: does the frame rate increase depending on what processor you have?
   How about screen size/resolution

Gloom is done in the infamous 'copper chunky' mode, and offers 2 resolutions -
2 X 2 and 3 X 3. 2 X 2 mode allows for a window as tall as the screen, but only
about half the width. 3 X 3 mode lets you have a full screen display.

I've heard a lot of debate about doing stuff this way, but for me the decision
came down to how to do it as fast as possible on a standard A1200. A lot of it
comes down to personal taste...what I consider to be too slow, someone else
might think is just fine. Still, you have to go with your instincts...

A faster processor definitely makes the game smoother, but doesn't offer
any different display modes.

9: The two-player mode is a good innovation - but will there be a null modem
   link-up too? That really works with Doom.

I'm not sure...

10: If the main code is assembler, is Blitz used at all?

The map editor and heaps of little utility programs were done in Blitz, but
there's no actual Blitz code in the game.

11: The other people in Black Magic - have they done anything before? 

Kurt, Hans, Kev and I first met while working on a game in Australia. The
whole episode was a bit of a drama...we'd gone over to work for this rich guy
who wanted to get into the games publishing biz, but things turned pretty ugly
at the end. We actually finished the game, but nothing ever came of it...

Kurt and Hans have also contributed graphics to some of Acid software's stuff -
Guardian and SkidMarks 2, but apart from the OZ one, this has been their first
complete game.

Kev did the music and graphics on a game called 'Lunar-C' which was on the
CD32 version of Overkill...but that was before we met him.

12: Do you anticipate any trouble from id Software?

id software? Shouldn't that be ego software? Nahhh...I'm sure they're too
busy on the 3DOSXstationTigercatreality conversion to be reading THE ONE.

13: Er, and the final question is: do you have anything more to say?

Oh yeah, and if you have any screen shots, or some demos of other levels/enemies/characters
   that we could use as decorations would be cool too.