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Hello Oscar, thanks for the reply & the contact data! I was superbusy the last 24 hrs developing & coding my little Black Jewel Fan Game! As i mentioned, i was at 95% - now its done!!! i am super happy how this project turned out! Maybe its my best work so far!!! Hard to decide, when you re the creator!!! Thanks for your kindness, letting me do this with kinda your blessing?!!! I once created a replica and asked the creator if its okay... not everyone is as kind as you are, Oscar! Anyways, sorry for the huge text. I m excited about the project!

If you want to take a look, feel free to do so! It would make me very proud if you play my little fan game of your awesome game, and i m also interested what you think about it! Then you can see too, what i could do - if we once do a little project together!!!

doing this, i had already more plans in my head for another little barbarian game (with a headchop dash or something???) I will contact you for future stuff via mail. Thanks again & good luck in your future projects!

Hi Oscar, thank you for your kind & fast message! Much appreciated!!! Yes, your game is awesome & exactly my alley! The pixelart is just outstanding! ( I noticed it has the same color palette like this barbarian game on the c64 and the swamp thing boss ( in your games stage 3) is also reminiscent of this old c64 game (cant remember its name - because i never played it). I have it at 95%. I credited you ofc ( because its all your artworks) and the musician too. I hope thats ok. Besides that its not the full game and some sprites are missing in my recoded ver of your game! Yes i d love to talk to you via email? I dont have discord. Anyways thank you so much!

PS your robocop gameboy game is awesome! Keep them coming!

Hello Oscar, i buyed the game on steam (years ago) and i love it so much - in fact i did recode the first 3 stages completely ( non commercial interest - i m interested in improving my coding and i replicate games just to see what it takes to pull it off;) its a huge labour in the detail. You only notice the amout of work - when you do it yourself! Great pixelart by the way. 

Do you think thats ok if i release my replica the next few days? Maybe we could work together on a very little project one - because i believe i learned a lot in coding the last few years. But i m sure you re already busy enough! Anyways thank you. Sorry for the long comment.

Outstanding achievement by one of the best game devs ! They dont make games like that anymore!

Thank you very much! This was one of the first games, I played on my dads computer! I have a soft spot for it :)

glad you liked it!

Thank you very much!

Nope and theres just two levels :(

Oh thats great!!! I think  i wouldnt do any more levels, so i m glad you finally get a chance to play this classic with modern tweaks and stuff! the enhanced color set looks just awesome!

Oh that looks Awesome!!!

Hi,

I m glad you got used to the keybindings! Yes, its very annoying with those Keys and modern OS!

Yes, i know, what you mean, i have a soft spot too, for old pixelated and bright visuals - thats why i try keep reproducing them ! :)

Yes, by Jim Norwood, i think i have him in the credits?!! Yes, the game is inspired by the John Carpenter classic!!!

No problem, just thought i could use some extra power!!! Anyways good luck with all your doings!  I will definitely check your stuff out at some point - when i find the time. Thank you for your interest - just try to release another game!!!  I worked a month on it, as usual, then i lose the focus. Thanks again!

Hello,

Dont worry, I usually get back, but sometimes it takes me quite some time, i m sorry about that!

Yes, actually, thats my first game, that I didnt use such "old-school"alike keys (space, ctrl -  ecetera), and keep in mind, that the ALT key dont work quite well, with modern OS if you play in a window! That was q big issue for me, which keys to use actually, because I did hard code them. Maybe it would be better to include a general key binding - but then you also should consider my other keys, that the game use (v = game version, p = pause and so on). Thats why I choose keys, that fit my other geneeral key bindings, like ASD, and I thought of FPS games, where You re used to use them :) 

I can try implement a key binding (system) but like I said, if you set any key like P or V or C ecetera, it will not work properly. Also the Space Key is right now used for the Submenu.

No, it was not planned, to make the whole episode. The BGmusics are hard coded too - and it would use a lot more of resources (disk space), and the game isnt that great in general. No offense, to Apogee. I made this as a test, because I wanted to do an "Escape from New York" based game, what actually Bio Menace is too. But i m only a coder, and not an pixel artist. I still look for a small team, so we can do better games, with a bigger scope maybe.

Oh thats, cool that you ended up playing through the DOS version. I m glad you liked my game. Yeah, its kinda lame, that they didnt bother to make a grenade change key. The mines arent that bad, the problem is only that You have to waste them all (you know the drill! :)

Sounds great! I think I played through the demo, and I liked it. I even was almost at a point, to recreate the demo, because I was interested, how the game utilizes different depth with the tile based system!

I will definitely give your mod a try when i find time! Are you only a modder, or do you code and paint & create art too for videogames? We could work together on a game maybe? 

Thanks again for your interest. I m looking into the binding issue, it will help me to make my next game with that code better.

Cant promise anything about BM Remulletized so far!  

Thank you for your detailed answer. Sorry, reply so late :(

Yes I enjoyed the level design and the game! Yes, you re quite a profiled Level Designer - its an important part of a game, especially those kid of games! If I find the time i give another game of yours a try!

Good luck on your future projects, I see yoou have quite a history of developing :) Anyways sorry again, to reply a lightyear later, but I m very rarely here, only if i publish a game - you can find me here some time around! Thats cool, that you was lucky enough to get a permanent license for GMS !!! So there is no excuse to make another great game with great level design ;P 

Hi there, Thank you for the interest in my little project. Sadly, there is no option to rebind the controls. But I could change them, what is your suggestion for all the controls? Thanks again!

Hi there, mostly I use an older version of GMS (GM8 & GM8.1 - i think Agent 747 is made with GM8 too?) but i use GMS too, its mostly similar with the GML - just some minor changes and additional stuff (as you know). In my opinion GM8 etc is/are much faster for testing & compiling small projects than GMS. Thats why i end up with my games mostly with GM8/GM8.1 

Oh thats really cool - I made my own games before I started with replicating existing games. You re right, its a great way to learn game mechanics (and you need to think even more than with own projects to replicate some situations etc) Good luck then with your project! I m curious what your re replicating and what result you achieve in the end!

Thank you! BTW I played your game a bit more. Now I can give a more deeper analysis about it :) Its very solid made in general.  All is very well polished. I like the Save option & that you even can choose Difficulty level! The level design is very solid and though thorughly. If you designed the Levels by yourself - then congrats! You re a good level designer for 2D platformers. The levels are a good challenge & have a nice length. Not too short and not too long.

Toggle the music via key press is very nice. Not all indie designers are thinking about such things, but in the end it adds to the "polish" and presentation.

 If I had any negatives: I dont like that the jump button is keeping the player jumping while pressed. But thats easy to change via GML keyboard_check_pressed(key)- sorry, im sure you know. And the other thing, is maybe you could have gone more crazy with the sprites/art in general?! All in all, a great game - are you planning something similar in the future?

nice game! I noticed your work is very similar to some of mine! I think we use the same engine. I use also same key as your game to turn off/on bgMusic. Its well crafted and polished an impressive work. Your mainMenu is also like my mainMenus!

Hi there Grave Reaper Cushions,

yes i m trying at least to replicate it, but its harder (as usual)  than expected!!! But i just came here to release my build ! I m very happy how it turned out, even its full of bugs. Right now, i dont have time for stuff for Hellwomb, besides that its not my art. I think its up to the dev! But if you need them I can help you. Anyways, sorry for late reply, usually i m just here, for releases, and i dont get messages if i get a shout. 

Btw if you re intersted, i think there is a link somewhere in my comments for an alpha build for my Rise of the Triad clone. Its a year old and i have made much progress since then. But it needs still more work for release. But you can look the aplha build of you want.

Bio Menace remulletized - my best project coding wise. Its amazing how much you progress in a year whe you code a lot. We could make a game together once? 

Hello there Grave Reaper Cushions,

sorry for the late reply, i m working hard on a Bio Menace Replica just for fun and to see where my coding skills are right now.

Back to your question, nope, i had neither access to the original assets, so I had to recreate them via snapshot. Sadly they were cropped, so it was a painful process, i had to manually delete the lines that were drawn twice dou to scaling process of the original Hellwomb game.

Thanks for your interest in my little project. If i can be of any assist to your project, feel free to contact me again. I can offer your my bitmaps that i recreated or anything you need just let me know. Good luck with your project i m already interested.

One of my ideas was, to do the Exit Level Key via 3d Object, but sadly I didnt try it due to other stuff.

Thank you!

hi FilmGamerJ, sorry for bothering, i just replicared the first level of ROTT. A few features are missing nut it should be stable build. I changed some things in my engine (path finding of enemies) and some minor stuff (its not that easy to replicate ROTT i found out, but i learned a lot of new stuff!!! The smashing windows were a pain in the a$$ to do!!! in case you wanna try out take a look. Cheers!!! Thanks in advance

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vd2vpj606z2uqour2m4c7/ageRott_01_alphaTest.zip?rl...

hi FilmGamerJ,

Np, thats ok. Firstly, thank you for your interest in my project:)  

I am not sure, if i understand your question correctly more so, i am afraid i dont have the knowledge to understand what you mean correctly ! But heres what I can tell you,

By duplicating the original assets, you mean i redraw the sprites? During playing, i make a screenshot of the walls, and try refit them to a specific pixelsize. I played around a lot in the past with wall sprites/bgs. I found out for a boomer shooter, the "wall size"  that works best, is either 32 x 32 or 64 x 64 pixels. Whats usually easy to replicate due its limitation of said pixels. But back to your question, in Hellwombs case they re kinda huge ( i m not even sure if scumhead used symmetrical walls) so i made them 128 x 128 by now, what is quite big in my opinion for a boomer shooter. The thing with such raycasting games is, in the end it doesnt help much or looks any better, even if you set the games resolution higher. With the scaling in the games itself you always loose an amount of details, thats why low tilesized assets ( 32 x 32 or 64 x64) works best. Sorry if i cant answer you any better.

No i dont think my game will look better in case of the assets, but the resolution of my game is 640 x 360. Thats a low 16:9 display but it scales up correctly to any 16:9 display.

Most older fps have the 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 resolution. My goal is kinda make the remake more user friendly and with modern specifications. 

The game itself will have new functionality or a different "feel" simply just because its not the same raycaster/engine!

As for the engine, the original is made in, i have a lot of questions. I think you re the one to do so! And do you know how to play hellwomb in fullscreen or if this engine s resolution can be set? Because hellwomb runs in a quits strange resolution? Something with 576 pixels in horizontal. Thank you

hi there FilmGamerJ,

Thanks for your reply. I sure have done so, sir! First thing i did when i started remaking, i asked scumhead. Ofc i understand your concern about IP but i can assure you - i only code for challenge like i stated i m not a pixel artist just a coder. Seconf reason is i made my own engine and i want to prove that my engine is better or at least up to the wolf3d clones. Like you I try to maximize the limits of my own engine😅 if this makes any sense. Thats why i constantly look for small wolf3d clones that i could replicate. Like i said to challenge and to see what my coding skills did become.

Anyways i make huge progess with the remake. Its rad. I have alot of ideas i would like to implement scumhead ( since its his arts) i d like to draw him some exclusively new content for the game. I hope i can win him for the project but i understand he is quite busy developing. What about a gun that consumes players energy for shots or slowly drain life as long as its active. Or maybe drain energy from corpses or something like that.

Because weapon 1 ( i call it foul blade) is a hitscan melee weapon, weapon 2 ( i call it void cutter for now) is the only projectile based weapon and the last (w3) i call it eldritch eater for now is also hitscan. Its quite op because it works like a chaingun. In past i wasnt a fan of hitscan enemies or hitscan weapons but i found out for those raycasting wolf clones hitscan works best even if its so unreal ( yes games are unreal) but you know what i mean. Anyways i m excited what i have for now plays already quite nice. Happy developing! 

Hello FilmGamerJ,

why confused? Well I check out many raycaster fps with retro asthethics and/or are limited to the "wolf3d engine" gameplay wise and world building. Tbh even the wolf3d engine could have handled more than "one tile" in height. If that makes sense? The limits itself were set by the fact - that devs in the old days werent aware ( or maybe lack of creativity) because it was all about shooting enemies. So they thought. But within the limits carmack could have easily done said "tiles" differ from 32x32 (pixels) to example 64x32. Then you get a wall twice the height. Rott did this and its the improved wolf3d engine. I noticed you could do a lot more gameplay wise than get key A and find Door A. Most wolf3d clones get fast boring because lack of gameplay insights.

Why no one ever did a lot more than the usual goals? I think of NPC following you and maybe they can open a specific door. I think of doors opened by a switch on the floor. I think of moving lasers vertically or horizontally. I think of more than one floor texture per level. I think about glassed windows. I think bout doors that ARE actually 3D with a depth on the sides. And so on. As for different wall heights and ceiling heights it can be easily achieved.

Sorry for the long answer and not even answering your question.

Yes Hellwomb look so nice but its a bit on the unplayable side. In fact all games made in this engine suffer from that. I try to make the game better. And i made my own engine and i want improve on my coding!

Hello there,

i m a fan of all wolfenstein alike games and i try creating them by myself. I m only a coder but not an artist. Just saw your works and i found out you re exactly the person i would need! You really work thoroughly on pixel art. I m impressed. Anyways just working on a Hellwomb (by scumhead) remake. After that i thought maybe we can do a little boomer shooter together? Have a nice day and keep the good work up!

Hi there,

I did like the game. I m working on a remake in another engine. Can I do that, or do you mind, and whats your opinion about it. Thanks!