VOGONS


Projects you never finished

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First post, by Hater Depot

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I thought it might be fun/masochistic to reminisce over projects you got off the ground but never finished... me first. 🙄

Game Genie compilation - I still have a handful of text files containing every GG code I ever came across on the internet. One day I'll get around to finishing this and uploading it somewhere, because there doesn't seem to be any comprehensive archive anywhere.

Zombie game - a Doom mod about fighting your way through a city of slow but numerous zombies with very limited ammo, requiring you to use a baseball bat most of the time. I built the beginning of the downtown and a neat museum, but all the source files were lost when my old HDD died. should probably check my USB sticks for a backup.

Spy game - this was a text adventure about a spy trapped in a hotel with bad guys that he has to pick out from among the hotel guests. Still have all the source code and design notes but haven't worked on it seriously in years.

I have a bunch of other game ideas that haven't gone much beyond design notes... maybe I'll get to them when I finally finish grad school.

Korea Beat -- my cool translation blog.

Reply 1 of 23, by shock__

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- Covox to Disney Sound Source Adapter (never figured out exactly how the FIFO works, I've got a semi-ready prototype soldered, but found a software in the meanwhile, which does the job just as good)

- Innovation SSI 2001 clone (sadly can't derive the full scheme and didn't get my hands onto the card)

- L.A. Rumble CTF for Doom (Building a capture the flag map based upon the "L.A. Rumble" Map from Duke Nukem 3D ... Got sick of the Zdaemon community while building this map, handed it out to another guy to finish it, but seems like he never did)

Reply 2 of 23, by SKARDAVNELNATE

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Several games I started playing but lost interest in including:

  • Homeworld 2
    Independence War 2
    Painkiller
    Revenant

I used to make fixes to Planescape: Torment and handed off the project a few years ago when I started college. It's still in the back of my mind that I should look into it again and see what I can modify.

I made a data sheet for the Hyades sector in Lightspeed / Hyperspeed. I started making one for the Cerebus sector and planned to do the same for Ragnarok and Sassanid.

I started writing a guide for Alien Legacy but moved on to other things after getting half way through the game.

I wanted to learn how to read through a file by looking at it's hex values in an editor. I've read enough to have a concept of how it should work but not enough to interpret it or how it effects some of the peculiar behavior in certain games that I was trying to understand.

There were a few science fiction type stories I started writing and still add to occasionally when in the proper mind set. Each is only a few chapters in and not even halfway where I had in mind they would go when I started.

I'm in my 20s and have yet to get a driver's license. I've read through the manual a few times but I find it so discouraging that by then I've lost all motivation to get a learner's permit.

For my current project I've imaged all my games and written a document on installing the older ones in DOSBox along with settings and downloading patches. I've started doing something similar with my games on Windows 98 and XP. I expect I'll get board with it and become distracted by playing them instead.

I'm also currently doing a clean install on each system as well as documenting that process. I have some Tandy computers and a few other old systems from the attic I want to fix up eventually.

Reply 3 of 23, by F2bnp

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Jazz Jackrabbit 3D - Mod for Unreal/Unreal Tournament

We had this in the works last summer, me and friend of mine had figured out a few things like how to get the maps from JJ3 to be rendered properly in UnrealEditor and a bunch of other stuff. We had 2 programmers willing to help, tons of musicians and a few level designers.
Unfortunately, Epic said no 🙁

Reply 4 of 23, by WolverineDK

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So F2bnp, you got an S&D letter from Epic ? well you are not the only one who has gotten an S&D letter from the powers at be, cause there were two separate attempts of remaking one of my favourite RPGs Chrono Trigger, one of the two projects was actually completed, but it was never released, and is now sitting on an HD some where (here I am of course talking about Chrono Trigger Resurrection) and the other used the Unreal engine, but Squeelix (Square and Enix ) went bugger all crazy on them, and that is why every time I see Squeenix , re-releasing Chrono Trigger . I get a bad taste in my mouth, and I feel contempt for them. Cause what the guys did, was making the best tribute you could ever do, to such an epic game like Chrono Trigger is in my mind anyway. But the powers at be, screwed them over.

Reply 5 of 23, by Tetrium

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Wow...theres just too many to call!

Examples of things I've always wanted but never finished:

-An AVP2 mod where in the campaign you play a runner instead of a drone (workaround is you can use cheats to accomplish the same thing, but I just wanted a neat solution)
-Several mods for TA (mainly units and maps)
-Actually, I planned (and in many cases started) creating maps/missions for games which never amounted to any finished work
-Same with hardware, I plan so many rigs, often I build them halfway, often run into somekind of trouble, put them back on the shelf like "I'll fix these later". Then after an X amount of time passes, I need some parts for another build and cannibalize the parts from the half finished machines.
-I was modding Janes Fleet Command, wanting to add ALL of the ships/classes that were ever planned, layed down or projected. This mod ran into problems due to buggy editing programs that corrupted the database every time I started making progress. Could never work out what the problem was, so at some point I decided to give up.
-Unreal 2 missions. I planned to make a scripted "war" mission where 1 team would have to defend some 'base' and another team was to attack it. Basically wanted it to become some major firefight, lasting a good while for some delightful quality fragtime 😁

This isn't all (BY FAR!!) but just a couple examples of the things I'd wanted to do.

Reply 6 of 23, by leileilol

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- A Quakeworld mod that had lots of weapons, with new models and sounds designed for autodownloading to be very compact. I think it was 500kb in size total uncompressed. I had fun pixel-pushing the skins a bit in it (32x32 / 64x32 / 64x64 is plenty to plot)
- A Quake mod designed in 1997. YEP, YOU READ THAT RIGHT, a recent mod trying its best to pass itself off convincingly as a 1997 mod. Avoiding anachronistic inconsistencies is a fun challenge. It's mainly personal nostalgia fuel, making the dream TC I dreamed of (in 1997) with all my current abilities. 😀
- A Free Content project replacing Duke3D assets completely from scratch, not even trying to be similar to the IP (similar to OpenArena's approach). Ironically, being the most legal game project to use the GPL Duke code, this was threatened by Joe of 3DRealms (at the time). It has stopped since 2008 October. Wolv if you thought the standard practice of required enforcement of their IP is a boneheaded (and I disagree), you've yet to know the stupidity here - I was even accused of copying levels (which... there is no copying involved). Despite pointing out the obvious to Seigler providing direct comparisons and even showing the SVN itself to prove nothing is stolen, i was ignored like I didn't exist. Ah, well. Says alot about 3DR's infamous incompetence.
- A Team Fortress 2.5 redux from scratch to be all next-gen and even cartoonyish. A bit inspired by TF2 but mostly inspired by Fortress Forever. This was announced like in 2007. Nothing has come out of it as there was no interest.
- Her:
feliciaut13.jpg

Last edited by leileilol on 2011-01-09, 22:43. Edited 1 time in total.

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long live PCem

Reply 7 of 23, by F2bnp

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WolverineDK wrote:

So F2bnp, you got an S&D letter from Epic ? well you are not the only one who has gotten an S&D letter from the powers at be, cause there were two separate attempts of remaking one of my favourite RPGs Chrono Trigger, one of the two projects was actually completed, but it was never released, and is now sitting on an HD some where (here I am of course talking about Chrono Trigger Resurrection) and the other used the Unreal engine, but Squeelix (Square and Enix ) went bugger all crazy on them, and that is why every time I see Squeenix , re-releasing Chrono Trigger . I get a bad taste in my mouth, and I feel contempt for them. Cause what the guys did, was making the best tribute you could ever do, to such an epic game like Chrono Trigger is in my mind anyway. But the powers at be, screwed them over.

Yeah it was very sad, I didn't think they would care really,but they did. Mark Rein himself told me "we can't allow that". I never got a S&D letter I contacted Epic and they said no.
Yeah Chrono Trigger is one of my favorite games as well, such a shame that Chrono Resurrection was cancelled. Maybe it will be released one day, look at King's Quest The Silver Lining 😁

Reply 9 of 23, by shock__

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leileilol wrote:

- A Free Content project replacing Duke3D assets completely from scratch, not even trying to be similar to the IP (similar to OpenArena's approach). Ironically, being the most legal game project to use the GPL Duke code, this was threatened by Joe of 3DRealms (at the time). It has stopped since 2008 October. Wolv if you thought the standard practice of required enforcement of their IP is a boneheaded (and I disagree), you've yet to know the stupidity here - I was even accused of copying levels (which... there is no copying involved). Despite pointing out the obvious to Seigler providing direct comparisons and even showing the SVN itself to prove nothing is stolen, i was ignored like I didn't exist. Ah, well. Says alot about 3DR's infamous incompetence.

Bah, just plain f-ing bah! I remember seeing videos of that replacement project ... seemed quite promising to say the least. But I guess 3D Realms prefers 14 year olds using warez of their only successful game, rather than simply enjoying it legally for free. Good thing they went belly up, if they threatened fan projects like that.

Reply 10 of 23, by leileilol

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yeah it sucks when that happens, and then you see blatantly illegal scavenge GAMES based on their code, IP and assets (as well as from other games) like Duke Theft Auto and WGRealms2 getting away scratch free... not fair!!!

I wonder if the situation has changed since Gearbox and all that... probably not. I could've took it further up with the EFF like it's some GPL bait situation. And then there's those 'rebel' types in the FOSS community that encouraged me to continue and 'fight' as if I had time for it. As if, i'm a safe>sorry person, so I didn't bother with getting EFF defences.

I even had a content project based on Shadow Warrior code in which its direction is ENTIRELY INVERSED - instead of playing a stereotypical chinese notsowise-cracking ninja man in a psuedo-real cgi world you played a japanese miko woman in an anime world who hardly opens her mouth (also solving that 'offensive stereotype' problem). That way it's impossible to confuse with the original game, yet it got the same exact treatment.

At least no grief was given about the excellent GPL command-line tools that were made to build them. Assembling .art files from a directory of BMPs > messing with buggy VB-based GUI art tools 😀

Though it's been three years since all that, 3DR had a restructuring and the project has not had a single change of file since then...

Tetrium wrote:

Mind if I ask you why you needed permission to release mods?

In his case he was using a trademark "Jazz Jackrabbit" for the title, and there's also assets from the old leak of Jazz Jackrabbit 3 game that was canceled. Despite being canceled, it's still Epic's intellectual property, one that was released without authorisation and used without authorisation even though the email is about obtaining that authorisation. Similarily, in a recent MakeSomethingUnreal contest, a Jazz Jackrabbit skin for the Bunnies player pack was excluded and made third-party instead.

Wasn't there a recent iphone game based on Jazz?

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long live PCem

Reply 11 of 23, by Jorpho

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WolverineDK wrote:

cause there were two separate attempts of remaking one of my favourite RPGs Chrono Trigger, one of the two projects was actually completed, but it was never released, and is now sitting on an HD some where (here I am of course talking about Chrono Trigger Resurrection) and the other used the Unreal engine, but Squeelix (Square and Enix ) went bugger all crazy on them, and that is why every time I see Squeenix , re-releasing Chrono Trigger . I get a bad taste in my mouth, and I feel contempt for them. Cause what the guys did, was making the best tribute you could ever do, to such an epic game like Chrono Trigger is in my mind anyway. But the powers at be, screwed them over.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Resurrection , the demo of CTR was completed, but there wasn't a total recreation of the game. Or is that what you meant?

Reply 12 of 23, by temptingthelure

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Why dont you try that duke thing leilelol? The situation's very different now. Gearbox owns the game now, and they're much different from those 3dr idiots.

Reply 13 of 23, by WolverineDK

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Jorpho wrote:
WolverineDK wrote:

cause there were two separate attempts of remaking one of my favourite RPGs Chrono Trigger, one of the two projects was actually completed, but it was never released, and is now sitting on an HD some where (here I am of course talking about Chrono Trigger Resurrection) and the other used the Unreal engine, but Squeelix (Square and Enix ) went bugger all crazy on them, and that is why every time I see Squeenix , re-releasing Chrono Trigger . I get a bad taste in my mouth, and I feel contempt for them. Cause what the guys did, was making the best tribute you could ever do, to such an epic game like Chrono Trigger is in my mind anyway. But the powers at be, screwed them over.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Resurrection , the demo of CTR was completed, but there wasn't a total recreation of the game. Or is that what you meant?

Yeah, but I also read some where, that they had completed the game too. I can just not remember where it was I read that, whether it was on ASSEMbler, or on youtube. and I must correct myself, it is not S&D, but C&D letter.

Reply 14 of 23, by Qbix

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lei: with a bit smaller claws, she would be awesome! The hair is great

Water flows down the stream
How to ask questions the smart way!

Reply 15 of 23, by Davros

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release anonymously - for great justice

Guardian of the Sacred Five Terabyte's of Gaming Goodness

Reply 16 of 23, by Hater Depot

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Thought of a few more...

Mortal Kombat series FAQ - was to compile all the disparate information about combos which is currently spread across probably dozens of sites.

I always wanted to sit down and find a bunch of new Game Genie codes for Sunset Riders and F-Zero... emulators plus a little practice would make this a lot easier today. I discovered a fair number of MKII codes back in the day.

There are some really good ideas in this thread BTW. We should really all get to work. 🤣

Korea Beat -- my cool translation blog.

Reply 17 of 23, by dosquest

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I started fate trader of souls mod pack but I got bored.

Reply 18 of 23, by digitaldoofus

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I once started an extensive Cheats/Easter Eggs list for "classic" DOS games (pretty much all pre-1995 DOS games that had cheats or eggs).

I had contacted programmers, developers, etc...TONS of people, and had quite a collection.

Then...the great Hard Drive Failure that taught me the value of backing up my files, or losing them forever. 😵

<<sigh>>

Once you try retrogaming, you'll never go back...

Reply 19 of 23, by ratfink

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I once had pretensions of getting Doom or Quake to use libcaca as the graphics library. Coloured text mode.