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Descent 3 Source Code

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Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#221
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a weird effect where sometimes one game in a genre will become so iconic that nobody wants to try and make another one, possibly out of fear of seeming like they're ripping it off? It happened to Descent, and I feel like it happened to e.g. Myst as well - everyone was expecting the huge success of Myst to launch a whole genre, and then it just... didn't.

Myst may not have launched a genre, but it did establish its own kind of game style. 3D world. Adventure game mechanics, with problems and puzzles - but where progress opens up more puzzles, and where instead of developing the character skills, you develop the story. Slow paced. There have been plenty of games to tap into that style, but not enough or frequently enough to warrant calling them part of a genre. Black D…

> 3D world. Adventure game mechanics, with problems and puzzles - but where progress opens up more puzzles, and where instead of developing the character skills, you develop the story. Slow paced.

7th guest came out first. Too dark, while also being too campy to have the widespread lasting appeal of Myst, so no surprise why outside a niche one is mostly forgotten and the other always comes up even if only to hate for some. But they were basically the same game.

I don’t even know if 7th guest was first of its kind, probably not, but it sold bucket loads, partly because it was a pack in game for MPC kits and PCs in the early 90s.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#223

I'm working on making an open source version of Yoot Tower (aka Sim Tower, The Tower II) that runs in the browser! https://github.com/YootTowerManagement/YootTower What led to this being possible: There was recently a discussion about elevators on Hacker News, and somebody mentioned SimTower and asked about the algorithms it used, so I gave Yoot a call to ask him, and he mentioned he wanted to open source it. I enthu…

> Anybody want to help, or know somebody who does, please? ;)

SimTower and Yoot Tower are some of my favorite games. Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I'd be interested in working on fixing up the C backend and doing a new interface (probably either in Qt or SDL+Dear ImGui). I tried doing an Emscripten version of one of my other projects (https://github.com/ndiddy99/openmadoola) but found that it required restructuring the code to work with the "browser calls your loop" paradigm, and after I did that there was significantly worse input lag than running natively, which made the game less fun to play. I ended up scrapping the whole thing.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#225
post #211
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would still like Git to have some kind of memory of a file being edited in some kind of branch. It would make it easier to communicate work done on the same file because you can discover what is being done to it.

I'm surely missing your point here, but isn't that exactly what git does? `git log ` gives you the entire history of commits that touches that particular file. edit: i suppose you mean the ability to keep track of what is being done in other unmerged branches perhaps?

In this vein, it'd be cool if the git log for each file were prepended to the top of a file in an editor.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#226
This game certainly brings back memories.

I think I prefer the more “internal” style levels from Descent 1 and 2 over the more open levels found in Descent 3.

To that end, I sense a huge opportunity. We could potentially port the D1 and D2 maps to run in Descent 3, as well as utilizing the newer graphics APIs the game supported. Could be a great opportunity for an all-in-one style remaster.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often think about what you could learn from trying to run games back in the old days. It was a huge motivation to fix some problem to get a game running. Optimizing the memory in ms-dos because the game needed more etc. Most often getting a game was a journey on its own. Today kids just have 1 gazillion games on their phone. There is no more connection to the system beneath. No work or effort needed. Just download…

Today's kids also play Roblox, Garry's Mod, Minecraft and Fortnite, all of which allow them to create their own games and tools and write code alongside it, like Verse for Fortnite [0], LUA for Roblox [1], IDK what language it is but there's something for Minecraft bedrock edition [2] and of course the old Java edition, and also LUA for gmod. This is how thousands, if not millions of people will have their first fora…

This is a good point. If I would have grown up today I would possibly have done other things that aligned with the same kind of interests, and perhaps even have gotten further. Kids these days can, and do, build actual robots and UAVs with onboard processors with more FLOPS than you could even dream of back in the old 75MHz pentium days.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#229

I loved loved loved this game. Never understood why this concept didn’t become a whole genre. No actual up, 360 degree freedom, enemies that were smart and could snipe you. Wasted many hours back then and very eager to try this out.

Not that you asked, but there's exactly one (popular) game that utilizes the same control scheme in modern times, Outer Wilds. Although it's not a shooter, it's quite a nice adventure game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/753640/Outer_Wilds/ There is, however, an outright continuation of the subgenre, in Overload. https://store.steampowered.com/app/448850/Overload/

Can't believe Sublevel Zero Redux isn't on your list!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/327880/Sublevel_Zero_Redu...

This game is such an underappreciated hidden gem.

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