Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Descent 3 Source Code

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 347 posts

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#201

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

Xiol32 wrote: post #143
rux wrote: post #142

Descent's control system is for me what cemented the "invert Y axis" on the mouse for controlling first person gaming forevermore. My brain absolutely clicked with the 6DoF mindset, but it has meant that all FPS games from that point on had to conform to it, even if the game wasn't in any way flying-based.

Inverted Y players unite! Descent also contributed to my ruined brain, along with Flight Simulator 95. Cannot play without inverted Y.

I got made fun of for being a Y-inverted person, but I had my revenge when none of my non inverted friends could reliably control the bucket on a front-loader I had rented. Neener neener.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#202

Post by ralphc »

nier wrote: post #164
jasonjamerson wrote: post #154

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.

I play Descent I and II today, on period hardware. How do you hook up two joysticks and have them be used in the game?

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#203

Post by [deleted] »

phrotoma wrote: post #129
fileeditview wrote: post #109

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…

I think about this often. How many youngins with the curiosity / aptitude to get into systems engineering will never know they have the knack?

[deleted]

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#204

Post by rtkwe »

rux wrote: post #142

Descent's control system is for me what cemented the "invert Y axis" on the mouse for controlling first person gaming forevermore. My brain absolutely clicked with the 6DoF mindset, but it has meant that all FPS games from that point on had to conform to it, even if the game wasn't in any way flying-based.

Same for me I think. It was Descent Freespace on my grandparent's computer and ever since I've been an inverted look freak (/s).

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#205

Post by ckozlowski »

fileeditview wrote: post #109
dcanelhas wrote: post #43

As a 12 yo I learned about IRC from reading the Descent FAQ and tried setting up IHHD to play over a 14,4k modem. I made levels in DEVIL. Today I'm an engineer and game developer. Thanks for putting Descent out into the world. It had a huge impact on me personally.

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…

I concur.

When I was young, my parents bought me a copy of X-Wing (CD-ROM) for our Win95, Pentium 100 machine. My parents were not computer savvy, and being only 13 myself, I didn't know much about computers. My dad couldn't get it to work, and so the box sat on the shelf for months, maybe even a year. (Time's warped when you're a young kid. =P ) I'd leaf through the manual and gaze longingly at the box art, and look through the little technical leaflets that were included. The latter of which may have been written in hieroglyphs. I set it aside, played the Descent demo over and over that came with out PC, and surfed AOL.

I kept learning more about the computer in the meantime.

One day I was performing my old ritual, when I noticed one of the paper leaflets in the box. Rather than being hieroglyphs, I knew now what it was saying. X-Wing needed DOS EMS (Expanded memory), and this paper was telling me I needed to edit CONFIG.SYS on Windows 95 machines to get this to work. My parents had forbid me from touching anything in the "WINDOWS" folder (there be dragons, according to them) and after having wiped a lot of my mom's files on our earlier Tandy, they didn't want me messing with things I didn't understand that they couldn't fix.

But I was confidant. I edited the file, and hoped for the best. The computer restarted, and just as I'd done countless times before to no avail, tried to start up the game.

Listening to the Star Wars theme play MIDI over the speakers, I jumped up, ecstatic. It was late at night, and my parents were watching TV in the living room. I ran downstairs. "I GOT X-WING WORKING!!!!!!"

It was a feeling of accomplishment, that to this day I look back on and say "that's when it started". I think I knew it then, to some tiny degree, that this was going to be my path.

I'm 40 now. I'm a solutions architect at AWS. My computers were all built by me. And my X-Wing box sits on my shelf still.

-----------------------------------------------------------

I've talked with my niece, and with some other kids over the years about their gaming, experience with PCs, and the like. There's not much to figure out. I don't blame them; I don't shake my fist at these kids. After all, I recall the frustrations too. Building PCs that wouldn't start for no reason (well, this still happens), the unreliability of early home routers. Many early games that just wouldn't start on your PC but run just fine on your buddies. I remember LAN parties with my colleagues with a combined technical know-how in the room of several CCNAs, MCSEs, etc, and we still can't get our Unreal Tournament server to be seen by everyone's PC. Don't get me started on copy protection woes.

But there was a joy in finally getting it working, and through the stress, we learned a lot about how it all worked. The current internet and computer environment doesn't have that in that you need to know how it works in order to enjoy it. I wouldn't reverse the state of affairs; things are much more mature and stable now. And it's not as simple as saying "well go off and do these projects". We can motivate some to do so as a stretch, but nothing was motivating the same way as sheer necessity like we had it.

So I see it as just something to observe and note and appreciate for how we had it then, both maddeningly frustrating yet glorious in how genuine and unrefined it all was. Hopefully later generations will find their own versions of what we experienced.

I'm glad to have lived through it. It kick-started a love of computing and a lifelong career.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#206

Post by Cthulhu_ »

fileeditview wrote: post #109
dcanelhas wrote: post #43

As a 12 yo I learned about IRC from reading the Descent FAQ and tried setting up IHHD to play over a 14,4k modem. I made levels in DEVIL. Today I'm an engineer and game developer. Thanks for putting Descent out into the world. It had a huge impact on me personally.

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 foray into coding, and it's a much, MUCH larger amount of people that get in touch with the deeper levels of tech than "our" generation had.

Don't underestimate "this generation"; don't generalise them either by trying to state they only spend mindless time on their phone.

[0] https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/uefn/learn-pro...

[1] https://create.roblox.com/docs/luau

[2] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/minecraft/creator/scriptap...

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#207

Post by claar »

ralphc wrote: post #202
nier wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I play Descent I and II today, on period hardware. How do you hook up two joysticks and have them be used in the game?

Ouch. "period hardware". That does it - I'm officially old.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#208

Post by yesimahuman »

Xiol32 wrote: post #143
rux wrote: post #142

Descent's control system is for me what cemented the "invert Y axis" on the mouse for controlling first person gaming forevermore. My brain absolutely clicked with the 6DoF mindset, but it has meant that all FPS games from that point on had to conform to it, even if the game wasn't in any way flying-based.

Inverted Y players unite! Descent also contributed to my ruined brain, along with Flight Simulator 95. Cannot play without inverted Y.

Inverted Y for joystick/thumb stick makes sense to me and is what I use...but inverted Y for mouse!? That's just crazy :)

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#209

Post by orthoxerox »

rux wrote: post #142

Descent's control system is for me what cemented the "invert Y axis" on the mouse for controlling first person gaming forevermore. My brain absolutely clicked with the 6DoF mindset, but it has meant that all FPS games from that point on had to conform to it, even if the game wasn't in any way flying-based.

I wonder if I am the only one who wanted to invert both axes when playing a third-person game on a gamepad.

Ultimately, I found both control schemes equally unintuitive in practice, I'll have to wait until someone manages to make modern Zeldas work with a mouse.

Re: Descent 3 Source Code

#210

Post by marcellus23 »

jaegrqualm wrote: post #14
shermantanktop wrote: post #3

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/

If we're including Outer Wilds, wouldn't almost every other space sim/pilot game also qualify? Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen, etc. They all have 6 DoF for both rotation and strafing.
Post reply on HN