Hyperion: Super Pre-Alpha Edition Demo of Awesome
polycounter lvl 16
Indecom presents unto you dudes: Hyperion: the performance edition! Lol, this project has been a labor of love of mine for the better part of a year, of course off and on since i had a real life job to do until recently lol. This game was inspired by one of those pixel art mockup contests done a while back, demaking a game onto the gameboy. I was actually inspired by seeing vpk's retro demake of doom 3, which you can see here: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=5016.0
There i sat and pondered what it would take to actually produce something that looked like that, and decided to make a video game that would be the next generation of oldschool gaming. This is a term that I coined myself, yet it fits my idea perfectly. I want to create a game that has the look and feel of an oldschool game, but with features that you only get in next generation titles, like:
*dynamic lighting with realtime soft shadows and baked in lighting
*super smooth pixel perfect animation (even procedural animation eventually)
*keyboard and mouse based control system that requires the player to actually aim rather than place the mouse on an enemy on the opposite side of the screen.
*robust particle system
*weapon randomizor (aka near infinite number of guns, with different buffs)
*customizable weapon hotkey so you can define your experience
*weapon and item upgrade system
*rpg inspired dialogue system
Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg, and not all of this will be featured in this tech demo that i'm about to link you to, since this demo is mostly for performance testing. I suppose i should also probably link you guys a screenshot to grab your interest rather than blabbing on forever lol. So here are some links:
I'd like to know how this performs on your machines, to uncap the frame rate press control, and let me know your highest frame rate, as well as your pc specs, feel free to post your feedback here on this topic, or to the email address included in the readme file. I've put a LOT of time and effort into this, and you're barely seeing the work i've done in this file alone. If you have any feedback at all on anything you see, I want to hear it. Btw, to quit press escape, and to go full screen press alt-enter.
Thanks for taking your time to check this out, I hope all the work i'm putting into this pays off and you have a good experience playing with this little demo.
There i sat and pondered what it would take to actually produce something that looked like that, and decided to make a video game that would be the next generation of oldschool gaming. This is a term that I coined myself, yet it fits my idea perfectly. I want to create a game that has the look and feel of an oldschool game, but with features that you only get in next generation titles, like:
*dynamic lighting with realtime soft shadows and baked in lighting
*super smooth pixel perfect animation (even procedural animation eventually)
*keyboard and mouse based control system that requires the player to actually aim rather than place the mouse on an enemy on the opposite side of the screen.
*robust particle system
*weapon randomizor (aka near infinite number of guns, with different buffs)
*customizable weapon hotkey so you can define your experience
*weapon and item upgrade system
*rpg inspired dialogue system
Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg, and not all of this will be featured in this tech demo that i'm about to link you to, since this demo is mostly for performance testing. I suppose i should also probably link you guys a screenshot to grab your interest rather than blabbing on forever lol. So here are some links:
I'd like to know how this performs on your machines, to uncap the frame rate press control, and let me know your highest frame rate, as well as your pc specs, feel free to post your feedback here on this topic, or to the email address included in the readme file. I've put a LOT of time and effort into this, and you're barely seeing the work i've done in this file alone. If you have any feedback at all on anything you see, I want to hear it. Btw, to quit press escape, and to go full screen press alt-enter.
Thanks for taking your time to check this out, I hope all the work i'm putting into this pays off and you have a good experience playing with this little demo.
Replies
intel i5 2500k o/c to 4.2 ghz cpu
nvidia gtx 560 superclocked 2gb gpu
16gb g.skill pc3 12800 ram
500gb 7200rmp hdd
phenom ii 3,2 black edition
4gb of ram ddr3
ati 6670 saphire
It was GameMaker; I had to try.
Specs:
Windows 7 home premium 64 bit SP1,
Intel core i5 cpu 650 @ 3.20GHz,
6.0GB RAM,
NVidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (Which is, I believe, 1 GB)
Edit: Just updated drivers to the latest, and now I sit around 95 to 97, uncapped.
Got a constant 60fps capped, ~200fps constant uncapped.
Vista Home Basic - 64bit
AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3Ghz
Radeon HD 6950 (2GB)
8GB DDR2
I'm really appreciating all the positive feedback i'm getting from this, guys. Really helps me to know that all the hard work i've put into this is paying off.
@stinkhorse: Well the soft shadows are already implemented in this demo, though they could use a little tweaking to increase the effect. The lights and shadows honestly are really here for atmosphere. I'm looking to create a really dark, gritty, terrifying atmosphere. Which as far as i'm aware, hasnt been done in such a limited palette and resolution.
Keep up the comments guys, i'm working on the next update as we speak, probably going to implement more shaders into how the actual framework is handled, so that should hopefully improve performance even more.
Well, visibility (in a real sense, not so much in an atmospheric, mood-building sense) could be an issue depending on where you take the gameplay, but man, it looks shit-hot.
Out of curiosity, are you doing your lighting via pixelart normal maps, so to speak? And I guess some sort of palletised ramping?
Love the idea of a custom lighting ramp
Intel Q9300
8Gb DDR2 800
Radeon 4770 512Mb
All stock stuff, nothing overclocked.
Windows 7 Home Premium X64 SP1
Also, here's some feedback:
The pixel art feel is nice, but right now it's very very noisy and overly dithered. This does not benefit the game, and you should really start working with larger surface areas. That one glass plate just below the spawn for instance, it is very very hard to see what it is. I literally spent some time just looking at it trying to find out what it was.
Also, VPK's work very clearly uses different tones to indicate foreground and background: the computers are only the darkest two colors for the most part, while characters, floors and ceilings are mostly the lightest tones. You have a few more colors to work with, but you should still keep a clear separation of 'planes' in the game.
Lastly, the controls feel off. Not the wasd movement, I know there's no physics and collision etc. I'm talking about the light/mouse. The snapping is rather annoying, as is the fact I can not move the cursor further than X away from the character.
I believe that the current dark is too dark. Have some more ambient light around the computer screens etc, and have a stronger flashlight. For something from the future, it's got darn little light output.
Don't get me wrong - this has MASSIVE amounts of potential, but right now it's not feeling too great.
btw in the next update a fix is featured that will keep the gui elements from blending into the background since they share the same color palette.
Uncapped = 74-76fps
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
Intel Q9400 @ 2.66GHz (No overclocking)
8GB RAM
280GTX (1GB)
Loving the style you're going for. Please post more. Do you have a dev blog anywhere that might have more detailed info about the development side of the project?
I like the cursor snapping to objects, but I wonder if it needs to be quite as heavy. If you make it snap 50 - 75% less, that'd probably be a nice way to lock onto objects.
Uncapped: 84 FPS
Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.07 GHz
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1
12GB RAM
GeForce GTX 480 @1.5GB RAM
The one thing I's suggest would be different effects depending on where and how you shoot whatever enemies you include in the game. It makes a big impact (no pun intended) on the suspension of disbelief.
This looks really sweet, I'm looking forward to seeing where you take it.
I'm seeing 175fps here on my AMD X2.
Oh this sh*t is so friggin cool man, seriously! Like, dynamic lights & shadows... In teeny tiny pixels like that? THAT IS SO RAAAADDD!
You gotta get this finished. I'm a fan already!
Oh and with my shitty ass computer I get an average FPS of 60/105 (capped/uncapped).
Win 7 x64 SP1
AMD Phenom x3 (more like xD) 2,4 Ghz
4,0 Gt RAM
GeForce GTX 260 (oc)
Home:
core i5 2400
gtx 560
8 gb
Work:
Core2 Quad Q9550
gtx 280
8 gb
One odd thing I noticed is slight hue shifting when the camera is panning, though it could be my eyes playing tricks on me. When static, I'm getting an overall brown tone, but when I move, the colors hue shift to a greenish tint. Is that intentional?
Also I'm going to set up a devblog on an old site i was running a while back, with a fresh update and some new content, including a big fat donate button, so i can at least try to afford rent this month lol.
Edit:
Hey i've got my devblog up and running again, you can check the link in my signature, and be sure to follow me!!
@snader:
Thanks for the constructive feedback, i'm actually tweaking my tilesets and sprites to make them not so noisy so that should improve the visibility of the game a good bit, and i'll also be spending some good time actually setting up proper lighting when it comes time to actually design the playable levels, so things won't always be so dark.
As for your concerns with the crosshair, that's actually intentional that you can't move it too far from the character, because i believe that it takes away from the reality that i'm trying to add, in order to shoot someone you need to aim at them, you dont just place a crosshair on top of them and click on them, that also makes it so you can't just pick up some object on the other side of the screen. Makes interaction local, just like in real life. Now i may add some technology that gives the player the ability to reach things from afar, such as a gravity gun or telekinesis ray or something, but that wouldnt become available until later in the game.
Cap:60 Uncap:98-100
AMD Phenom Quad-Core 2.2GHz
8Gb DDR2
HD5770 512
Cap:35-45 Nevermind uncap:P
Laptop AMD Athlon XZ 1.8GHz
3GB DDR2
X1150