A little piece of the past...

[Valin Halcyon]

This is, obviously, the main menu for Orbital's Descent IV.

I've recently dug out the archive with all of D4's materials in it and started poking through it. Since 2002 I've acquired a good deal more experience and knowledge (working for CCP Games and others..) and have decided to redo the design for D4 that we had in Orbital. However, it will not be called "Descent".

The thing is, a friend of mine had developed a game for a company that has since vanished and the IP rights to his game lost in corporate mergers. Rather than spend inordinate quantities of time hunting down IP and paying exuberant fees to acquire or license it, he created a vastly superior game with a new name under his own game studio, which he opened at about the same time as Orbital did. The games I'm talking about are Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander, and the designer is Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games.

For many, the logical name to use would be "Ascent", but like many trends in culture, the period of naming games with obscure 1 word titles is over. Instead, I'm taking a leaf out of Chris' book and calling it.... Material Defender.

MD will be a one man project. It will be built, and in fact already has a prototype built, on the Unreal Engine. I'm also working on getting access to the SDK for Enlighten (http://www.geomerics.com/enlighten/) and some other technologies. The game will differ from past Descent games quite a bit, as the design itself also badly needed modernization. There will be (and already is) trichording. No comments on ships, weapons, characters or the storyline at this time. Oh yes, I almost forgot. It'll be produced for PC/Mac/Linux and published on Steam.

[Sergeant Thorne]

And that's a little piece of the past? Sounds like the future to me. Cool!

I think you should try for better than "Material Defender", myself. Something about it just seems too plain. Maybe that's just because I'm a Descent fan...

[Aus-RED-5]

.........as in this Unreal 3 Engine?

[youtube]sG_GJfn5Gho[/youtube]

[Sirius]

Hmm. This may mean I don't have to do it, since the concept of using UDK for a 6DOF game seemed pretty obvious to me as well.

One-man or no, call out if you need levels, I'd be interested.

[Valin Halcyon]

To clarify, developing on UE3, not UDK.

[Sirius]

Interesting. A mod or you have a source licence?

[woodchip]

Pinch me, I must be dreaming....Retrovirus and now a new Descent game. Any chance for a playable demo for the Material Defender?

[CDN_Merlin]

Pinch me, I must be dreaming....Retrovirus and now a new Descent game. Any chance for a playable demo for the Material Defender?

Ditto

[Valin Halcyon]

Certainly not a mod. Can't sell mods.

[Sirius]

Alright. Well, keep us posted

[Sergeant Thorne]

.........as in this Unreal 3 Engine?

[youtube]sG_GJfn5Gho[/youtube]

That looks so cool!

You should try to put a small team together, Valin. A project like that would benefit from some think-tanking!

[Jeff250]

Linux

Finally some love.

[Alter-Fox]

This looks awesome. Suddenly your PM makes a lot more sense... and makes me crazy excited.

[Avder]

Just make sure there's a spreadfire cannon of some kind in the game, and I'll be happy.

[Burlyman]

Took you long enough

Image saved for posterity. meow

[Alter-Fox]

Just make sure there's a spreadfire cannon of some kind in the game, and I'll be happy.

x2

[Mobius]

Hi Valin. I am extremely glad you have not given up on another Descent game!

Just to muddy the waters a little for you (sorry) - why not wait until December when Retrovirus is released? If you have the resources still available, you will be able to plug these directly into Retrovirus, and build a new Descent game much more quickly and easily (according to the Cadenza team) because Retrovirus is specifically designed to be modded easily, using the editor and game tools which my funding will allow to be released at the same time as the game.

The huge advantages in doing this should be obvious: built in match-making, built in community and developer support (The team are very keen to see someone make Descent using Retrovirus), a large number of new users with the game installed, and downloadable via Steam (after December).

Perhaps you could get in touch with Matt Enright at Cadenza, and have a chat to him about what you want to do: I am sure he will be most helpful, and supportive. Matt is the man who developed the game engine and graphical characteristics of the game. It's built on XNA, and my understanding is that there are numerous advantages in this approach.

I have had it confirmed to me, that changing the way RV works (i.e. making energy centers, health and weapons pickups) is simplicity itself.

I have to say that switching to Retrovirus would make it more likely your game gets played, and it probably would have a much larger audience - comprising new Retrovirus players and old Descent players. In my view, it'd be win-win, as this might sell more copies of Retrovirus! Please think this through carefully, and have a good chat with Cadenza before progressing. I would hate to see all your hard work over the years not get the maximum chance of success it deserves.

I have contacted Matt and he will expect to hear from you: menright at cadenzainteractive dot com

[Alter-Fox]

Honestly, why not both?
With this, Retrovirus, and Miner Wars coming out, we'll practically have a new Descent trilogy in a few years . With more variety than the Descent games we already have.

[Valin Halcyon]

Mobius, while I appreciate your enthusiasm, I'm afraid I've already spoken with the RV people and they were not interested in my proposal. You're welcome to make that Descent mod for RV if you wish. I intend to make a complete game experience for the PC (win/mac/linux). I don't care about console support. I'm tired of, on principle, that consoles get so much attention from the big AAA developers and publishers. In the future, please do not play the middleman for me. It is quite unprofessional when unsolicited.

[Valin Halcyon]

Also, I've progressed beyond the initial prototype, I now have 2 levels of the D1/2 design, but not a replication from either, and can progress from one to the next and achieve an end game. In short, my iteration steps are proceeding well. My next sprint (Using Agile development methods) will reiterate over the ship controls and robot movement, while adding in some new things...

[Skyalmian]

I don't care about console support. I'm tired of, on principle, that consoles get so much attention from the big AAA developers and publishers.

I agree with that sentiment very much, considering that nearly all such games get "dumbed down" from what they could have been as a result (ala. "lowest common denominator").

[Top Gun]

I would say that there are many genres that work just fine on a console, and indeed some that pretty much beg for a controller as the preferred input device, but there are also many others that can't work there without significant simplification.

[Alter-Fox]

If it wasn't for the rivalry between PC and console gamers which leads companies to try and make games for all genres for all different platforms so that PC refusers can still buy games they want to play, the whole market would make a lot more sense.

[Valin Halcyon]

Platform exclusivity hurts everyone, BUT, since it's the console makers that are driving that aspect of the market, I refuse to support them. When's the last time you ever saw something billed as "Exclusive for PC!"? No...it's always "Coming soon for PS3 or Xbox360 or Wii!"...

[woodchip]

Just out of curiosity Valin, you getting any help from CCP?

[Valin Halcyon]

Why would I get any help from CCP? I don't work for them anymore. Besides, can you imagine a company spending money and effort on someone's hobby/moonlighting project?

No progress this week, I've been extremely busy. Maybe next week...

[Isaac]

Hmm.... there's no way we could get a ppa with unstable bleeding-edge updates, is there?