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Descent, ported to the web

mrdoob.github.io

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Re: Descent, ported to the web

#61

Post by Dove »

netule wrote: post #28
bossyTeacher wrote: post #24

Seeing this kind of games so beloved by the HN greybeards, makes you wonder what will be the equivalent nostalgia games for the next generation. Pokemon red maybe? Perhaps Fortnite?

Minecraft, very likely.

That was my first thought, too. I and a couple of my kids have great affection for Minecraft. However, I don't think that affection really matches the absolute foaming-at-the-mouth excitement we felt for Descent.

I don't think it's that video games have gotten worse (though perhaps they have). I think it's more that it's impossible to recreate the way they impacted us back then. It wasn't just about the games, but also about the times. DOOM today is a fine game and even a classic, but back then it was the first time anyone had ever seen anything like it and we were inventing online play and fps tactics and amateur map design in real time. Descent had that same blockbuster feel, but that for me that feeling faded from new releases over the next few years. (Though I won't deny Minecraft caught something of that old bombshell energy.)

I suspect the way I feel about the video games I grew up with is a feeling my kids will never exactly have. Sure, they love their games, but the 90s were an incredible time for the art form. By analogy, I love the music I grew up with, but I don't feel about it the way my parents feel about the music from the 60's. Music is always special, but that was a particularly special time for music and if you weren't there, you weren't there. In time the absolute electricity of the British Invasion became "So what kind of music do you listen to?" So I think it will go with games.

Re: Descent, ported to the web

#63

Post by ralphc »

michaelteter wrote: post #17

I absolutely LOVED this game when it first came out. I played with a trackball + keyboard, and the 6 degrees of freedom, paired with an environment where there often was no natural sense of "up" or "down" (zero gravity, inside tunnels) really blew my mind. I experienced a sensation I had never before experienced, almost out-of-body. For example, you approach a "T" junction, and depending on your pitch angle, the bran…

I had a Spaceball Avenger which made it so intuitive to play.

From my old reddit post about it, "The Spaceball Avenger is a gaming peripheral. It has the usual buttons, but the big ball is used for six degrees of freedom movement. With pressure sensors the ball is pushed up/down, left/right, and in/out for X, Y and Z axes. The ball can also be rotated for pitch, yaw and roll.

Plugged into the computer's serial port it came with drivers for games such as Doom, for which it was a good controller, but the Spaceball really shined for the Descent family of games. Descent is a FPS with no gravity, where your ship moves in ALL directions, and controlling with with the Spaceball feels like you're holding the spaceship in your hand and you're just moving it to where you want it to go."

You can see it here https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/gmusxs...

Re: Descent, ported to the web

#64

Post by michaelteter »

sen wrote: post #40
michaelteter wrote: post #17

I absolutely LOVED this game when it first came out. I played with a trackball + keyboard, and the 6 degrees of freedom, paired with an environment where there often was no natural sense of "up" or "down" (zero gravity, inside tunnels) really blew my mind. I experienced a sensation I had never before experienced, almost out-of-body. For example, you approach a "T" junction, and depending on your pitch angle, the bran…

I used to consider it a form of flow-state when you’ve played Descent/Overload long enough that up/down stops being a thing. It always took a while each session to get to that point, but once you were there it all just starting flowed so damn well, and manoeuvring the tunnels became so much faster/easier.

Yes. Especially when deftly rolling 90 degrees before taking the next turn to arrive with the desired orientation.

Re: Descent, ported to the web

#68

Post by pjmlp »

dash2 wrote: post #45
ranger_danger wrote: post #3

Since it's not linked anywhere that I could see, here's the source I found: https://github.com/mrdoob/three-descent And Quake for web by the same author: https://mrdoob.github.io/three-quake/

Interesting: it was done with Claude, in about one day.

I used to do ports as means to get a taste of new programming languages, now it hardly seems worthwile the trouble with most AI tooling.

Re: Descent, ported to the web

#70

Post by The_President »

invader wrote: post #54
tombert wrote: post #30

I remember mostly playing the port of this to the PS1, which had a fully animated opening cut scene. When I got the PC port like fifteen years later at a Goodwill, I was disappointed to see that that was a Playstation exclusive. Descent is good, but I do think the series peaked with Descent II, if for no other reason than the rocking soundtrack. Very awesome, cool, industrial rock; I used to put the game CD in my car…

Yes, Descent II OST is on a totally different level compared to the MIDI-only Descent I soundtrack. And by famous musicians to boot - like Type O Negative and Ogre of Skinny Puppy, who created my favorite "Glut" and "Ratzez" tracks. It was the time when games became big enough to bring popular musicians aboard for the soundtrack, Quake with Trent Reznor being a perfect example. Also, the series was followed by Descen…

That Descent II map editor was a top level utility for making some super creative levels.
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