So i've been testing a game all night with friends...
 

And I thought I should finally share some of the goods I've been working on very hard for you guys :)
Consider this a teaser, and expect to see more very soon ;)

http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1296085928

Some additional information, I rigged and animated all models myself but dit not create them. I did create a lot of the level's geometry as the original (Munch's Oddysee) files were unusable. Program's used are 3ds Max and Unity3D. There are still many things left to do which I will do before or after the release depending on the time they take.

I don't want to set a release date yet as I have a busy and changing schedule so I may get more or less time than planned to work on this. :)

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What type of game is it?
It is an online first person shooter (fps). I am still busy setting up the networking part of the game but have played online with three other friends (who help me test it).

Can I help test the game?
No sorry, As soon as the build reaches a stable version I will release it public on these forums and anyone will be able to play it and the first week will probably also be used for debugging and balancing.

Update 1
Just to clear up some things, The screenshot is an actual-in game screenshot from a gaming session I had with three friends yesterday to test network settings. I finished a stable build yesterday morning and send them to those friends, that evening we tried and debugged the network process till it worked good.

I hosted the game for about one hour until we confirmed that it worked. I will now concentrate on some more animating, modeling, scripting and texturing and then will release a first build.

I am stil setting up the server I will use to run this game on (As I don't have much money I will have to improvise a lot. No worries.)

Screenshots
http://buoyancyinteractive.com/oddwo...shot1Small.jpg
Full size (1280x800).

http://buoyancyinteractive.com/oddwo...shot2Small.jpg
Full size (1280x800).

Models
The new Blitzpacker gun, the one on the left is the original Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee Blitzpacker Gun and the one on the right is the modified one to have a bit more detail. (Bechause the gun is used in First Person mode you see it much closer than it was in Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee and thus it needs a bit more detail to look good. :)
http://buoyancyinteractive.com/oddwo...itzpacker1.jpg
http://buoyancyinteractive.com/oddwo...itzpacker2.jpg

Disclaimer:
All models, textures etc. are modified (edited & upscaled) versions from Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee and/ or Inspired by Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee.
All assets used in this fan project are based on assets created by http://www.buoyancyinteractive.com/o...itantsLogo.png Oddworld Inhabitants. All rights belong to http://www.buoyancyinteractive.com/o...itantsLogo.png Oddworld Inhabitants.

Abe...
with a GUN!

FUCK YEAAH!

First post updated with some new information about the game.

^ This.

I love the very look of this and join the eager wait for what is probably the best fan-game I've seen in development on these forums.

So tell can you tell us a little about what you plan on the game including? I take it it's an FPS.

~Blessed be

is it gunna be an online fps or is there a storyline?

great work by the way

Yeah sure :) It indeed is planned to be an FPS (first person shooter). I have thought about a system like Stranger's Wrath, switching between first and third person but decided (for now) take it simple and just use FPS and maybe add Third Person later if people enjoy the game.

I think I will include one level in the first public release, and that one is probably going to be Sloghut 1027, the one you can also see in the screen shots. I am still working on increasing texture size (by redoing the whole texture) and increasing the 3D meshes so that they have more detail.

It already includes a working Recycler (Had to rescript and reanimate the whole machine.) Also already in the game are Snuzi and Blitzpacker vendo machines. There are three weapons in the game as of now which are the Snuzi, Blitzpacker (Can be seen carried by two of the mudokons in the first post screenshot) and the Spoocebow (carried by the mudokon on the upperleft in the first post screenshot.) As you can see there are also different characters to choose from, but as of now are limited to the Mudokon race only. Currently included are Abe, Native, Shaman, Tomahawker, Slave and Mudarcher. (Abe, Slave and Tomahawker can be seen in the first post screenshot.)

Again, if people will like the game I will add more features such as new levels etc.

Its going to be an Online FPS, I am currently evaluating my options for the network side, I might use smartFoxServer which has an excellent reputation within the Unity3d community and has a free version that supports up to 20 players. I am not to familiar with it but I am learning on the go. :)

Here is another cool thing, how it currently looks in first person. (Mind you, the meshes and textures are stil low-quality and the White line and dot are used for debugging and scripting the weapon's functions)

http://buoyancyinteractive.com/oddwo...shot2Small.jpg
Full size (1280x800).

oh..

my..

god..

The good or the bad one? :p

Will this be Windows specific?

My Mac could run this, but my Windows computer is stuck in 1999.

I use Unity3D on my Macbook Pro to develop this game and Unity3D is able to compile to both Mac and Windows so yes it will be released for Mac and Windows. :)

I gave you Rep points. It good :D

Looks and sounds like it's gonna be really great :) Nice work Tim!

I don't suppose you have any idea what the necessary PC specs are to run this?

Tim Cottenham.
Can you make this game (offline) downloadable executable with story line?
Single player only like half-life.

Thank you everyone for the great comments :)

As the game is not in a definitive build yet I can only guess what kinds of specs it will require. I am trying to optimise the game in such a way that it is very accessible. :) What kinds of specs does your pc have?

It isn't in the planning sorry, the point is that creating a single player game takes a very, very long time to develop such a thing. For now I am only making an online game. :)

If it's going to be an online FPS, add some sort of ranking system eventually.

Is it going to be team based or just a general free for all deathmatch type fps?

This is an awesome idea by the way, keep it up!

nice game! plus rep+ could i ask,will this be the only view or will we have the out view(and could i ask will sligs be too?)

Hmm, perhaps you could add classes...races and new weapons like the lung buster gun.

It will be released as a free for all deathmatch based FPS. Any other game mode will be an update later on. :) I think the first release will only contain a kill counter per player. :)

Thanks :) It will be released with only first person view. Third person might be added later. As for Sligs, I've tried them but it's really difficult to balance the game (Make it fair) because Sligs are much smaller than Mudokons and that means that they will be harder to hit and kill. Might be update, not promising anything :)

First things first :) I want to have a basic released version up and running and will continue on expanding that version with ideas and feedback from the community. :)

Tonight I will be working on some new textures, takes a couple of hours in Illustrator and Photoshop to come up with good high resolution replacements, will update when I have something cool to show :)

what's the maximum number of players allowed in a game? And who hosts the game? Or, is there a server?

I can't tell you that yet, It depends on how good my scripting and the network system is haha :) A server is (for now) out of my reach due to costs. The way I plan on having it working in the beginning is an old unused pc (already configured) that runs the game only as a host. After 25 kills it resets the game so it is online as long as the pc is connected to the network.

Intel G45 Express chipset; not very good for intensive games, but it can run Munch's Oddysee fine.

I'm guessing using the same assets =/= the same spec requirements though.

!!this looks beautiful i would kill to play this!!

On the subject of different races being unbalanced because of size...you could balance it by giving them different characteristics. They're allowed any weapon they like (unless their characteristic prohibits it) but they vary racially; for example...

Mudokons can be balanced all around. Sligs can be slightly weaker, but have a bonus to their speed (ever so slightly) or something (I don't mean they will actually do that but it's just an example).

Don't really know how to describe this but I hope it's more clear than I think it is. Never posting at this hour again

As Tim said, he wants to make sure the basics work before he does more stuff.

I think it should have Control Points and Capture the Flag as gamemodes
that would rock!

.

it should have scrabs and paramites and stuff too! they could be like NPC's!

It will probably be able to run it :)

Thank you guys for all the input! :) Really appreciate it! :) When I get to that stuff I will open up some discussions so everybody can talk about what would be the best "expansions".

It's friday, i'm just out of school and haven't planned anything and that means that I have like the whole weekend to work on the Oddworld FPS :d

Another thing, i'm almost done with my 4th year in college studying Game Design and I am trying to get into the school of fine arts for the next 4 years, to get allowed to that school I have to make a non-digital (board) game that involves me and game design... Anyone can help me out with some original ideas?? :) (monopoly customized for game design is not original enough hehe)

Anyway, as soon as I have made some progress this weekend I will of course show you guys! Thanks for all suport :)

Update
Here is the new Blitzpacker gun, just finished the model, still need to redo the texture. The one on the left is the original Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee Blitzpacker Gun and the one on the right is the modified one to have a bit more detail. Enjoy! Feedback appreciated :)

http://buoyancyinteractive.com/oddwo...itzpacker1.jpg
http://buoyancyinteractive.com/oddwo...itzpacker2.jpg

looks great! its more realistic than the one with paper holder and pointer or whatever is it called

Tim, I wanted to help you in some way so I've found a clear image of a Big Bro holding a Blitzpacker thing

http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery...g-bro-slig.jpg

Hope you appreciate it. It shows that the gun barrell's supposed to be round. Not that it matter's too much, but if you're like that, you might want to change it. :)

Oh, and it shows a sexier texture job.

Hey :) It all has to do with performance, I don't know if you have any experience with 3D modeling but 3D models exists out of triangles. All 3D models exists out of triangles, this means a mesh connected to 3 points (called vertices).
A good example of this concept can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mesh_overview.svg

When a game is rendered it gets rendered by drawing thousands if not tens of thousands of these triangles to make up 3D models. Simply put, the more triangles a game has the better the specs of the computer has to be to be able to run it.

As I decided to have a low specs requirement for this game that limits my game to a couple of thousands triangles per frame. And to do this I need to use as less triangles as I can, this is why it is not actually round as how rounder a cylinder gets, the more triangles it uses. :)

I hope I explained it a bit :)

Edit
To clear it up a bit more I went into my 3D modelling app and created a simple example of what I mean.
As you can see these cylinders get more round the more tri's I use. (the square things are called poly's and consist of two tri's). Also, these cylinders are already shaded to look more round, This will also happen to the Blitzpacker Gun so it will eventually be as round as the most left cylinder. (Same triangle count.)

http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1296256465

Yeah, I know... but.. maybe just a bit rounder? haha... just a few more sides to that 'cylinder' would make a positive difference, particularly if you're going to use the First person view like you said and have the gun in that view.

PS. I hope the texture reference is useful anyhow

Yeah thank you for helping anyway man :) appreciated. :) It will get a bit more rounder with smoothing on, I will quickly do a test with that to show you :) Update in a few minutes. :)

Edit
Crap my virtual machine crashed. :( (I am running 3ds Max on windows, emulated on my Macbook Pro haha :) ) It isn't that stable :p nothing lost though thats a plus :p I will post an In-game version of the blitzpacker gun soon and then we can all decide if it needs more triangles deal? :D

Edit2
Ah AvengingGibbons! What did you do to me haha! I made a quick version of the higher detail Blitzpacker gun and fell in love with the detail hehe, so I think you win :p
Left is the old one, 738 Tri's. On the right the new one with 834. Acceptable increase for the visual benefit in my opinion :)
http://www.oddworldforums.net/attach...1&d=1296257049

btw: I know I screwed the textures up on the new version, will fix that soon haha!

hehe, glad you're happy and it will look so much nicer with the new texture once you've done it! Good luck with your project!

EDIT: Just seen your blue cylinder examples. I'd go with the 2nd one in the lower examples (I think it's probably the same as the 2nd one above it.. but yeah, go with that one)

Thank you :-) Will work on the texture tomorrow then at least one of the most important parts of the game will be finished :D expect an update tomorrow :-) going to bed now.

This looks fantastic! I can't believe I didn't know about this before, although I haven't been on much lately. Graphics are awesome, the idea of Abe with a gun is just insane:D My conclusion is, I can't fucking wait to play this!:D
And great job with the Blitzpacker so far, the textures look great anyhow and so does the 'roundness'.

Tim, I'm assuming it would be possible for custom maps to be made for this too? Like, a slig barracks?

hm why are the maps in munch unusable?

Nice change to the Blitzpacker, I want it on Team Fortress 2 :D