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Descent 3 Source Code

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Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#241

My wife and I met on a Descent forum, our 3 sons are named for Descent friends (KoolBear, Jediluke, and Mark392), and we've attended weddings (and sadly one funeral, RIP JinX) for Descent friends. Even though I considered D3 the weakest of the Descent games, this news makes me happy. Thank you, Kevin!

Im loving the idea that one of your kids is literally named "koolbear"

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#242
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mouse for Descent? We used to play with both hands on the keyboard- look, slide, and spin on the number pad, move, fire, etc. on the far left side. We're we alone?

That’s the way I started but eventually used two FlightSticks. Banking movement with one hand (forward, backward, sideways), rotating around two axis with the other (barrel roll, pitch), and the thumb sticks I used for up/down and left/right. Although I might misremember some details. There was a time when I really wanted to add a pair of pedals, too. Ah, to have that much time to spare again.

Yeah flightstick was the way to play Descent, I used a Logitech Wingman Light. Never tried two sticks, always controlled strafing with keyboard

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#243
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct. It’s an awesome game though.

I tried it and literally couldn’t figure it out. I got like 15 minutes into and had no idea what to do. What makes it so good?

I didn't get it either, and I play tons of walking sims and narrative adventure games.

It feels more like a roguelike or a survival game to me with it's anti-features like falling damage and time limited resources and inescapable holes to get trapped in. And then you die and have to start all over again from the beginning. The epitome of not respecting the player's time.

It's the only game I have ever refunded on Steam, and annoyingly I keep getting recommended it because it's "like" all the other games that I play even though it clearly is not. I feel like I am in bizarro world with the amount of people who rave about it.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#244

My wife and I met on a Descent forum, our 3 sons are named for Descent friends (KoolBear, Jediluke, and Mark392), and we've attended weddings (and sadly one funeral, RIP JinX) for Descent friends. Even though I considered D3 the weakest of the Descent games, this news makes me happy. Thank you, Kevin!

KoolBear, Jediluke, and Mark392. Those are their first names?

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#245
post #79
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think Myst's innovation was mainly using a first-person perspective with (pre-rendered) scenes of a continuous 3D world. Otherwise it was a point-and-click adventure that arguably didn't reach the heights of some earlier Lucas Arts games. Unfortunately these games went out of fashion because most people want some amount of real-time action in their games. But they still get made occasionally by smaller developers o…

Wikipedia mentions another Myst innovation:

> The series caused a major shift in the adventure game genre. Unlike previous games, Myst attempted to keep players immersed in the world by removing all information not associated with the fictional world itself—no explanatory text, inventory, or score counters.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#246
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Myst's innovation was mainly using a first-person perspective with (pre-rendered) scenes of a continuous 3D world. Otherwise it was a point-and-click adventure that arguably didn't reach the heights of some earlier Lucas Arts games. Unfortunately these games went out of fashion because most people want some amount of real-time action in their games. But they still get made occasionally by smaller developers o…

There's Telltale games, but IIRC they are more visual/interactive novels, and I believe there were new Sam and Max games, classic adventure / point and click games. And a new Monkey Island.

There are other adventure games but without such established names behind them. So hardly anyone knows about them.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#247
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct. It’s an awesome game though.

I tried it and literally couldn’t figure it out. I got like 15 minutes into and had no idea what to do. What makes it so good?

It's basically a really well implemented Newtonian physics based platformer in a deterministic universe on a time loop that resets (22 minutes), so the loop is basically figure out how to get some place and then execute it (i.e. you could decide you want to de-orbit the moon into its planet, practice it, and get it right). Timing also matters as the celestial bodies orbit around and some of them fall apart.

So maybe it's less frustrating if considered like "a Mario level that's supposed to be difficult"

The story is understated, poignant, and one of those "ultimately nothing happened but the real story is what happened along the way". For reasons like this I consider it similar to Disco Elysium, a totally different game on the surface

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#248
I had the pleasure of working closely with Jeff Slutter early in my career. Was the first really fantastic engineer I worked with - he’s at Santa Monica Studios (God of War) these days. I think Matt Toschlog is there too now. Glad to see these folks working on an awesome AAA franchise.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#250
post #28

I played the original Descent over kali.net back in the day. Man, what great memories.

I've brought up Kali a few times on HN and never had anyone say they used it too. Glad to finally see another person! What an amazing piece of technology. I used it to play a modded version of Diablo's expansion Hellfire, which without Kali was single player only / LAN with a little hack. There was a great little community on that app.

There was also Kahn, which was a similar competitor.

I remember playing Duke3d over the internet. I was completely giddy as me and my friends all flew around with jetpacks on trying to kill each other with pipebombs.

The downside was that those games were obviously not optimized for internet latency and there wasn't much you could do about it. But I definitely had a blast.

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