Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

KickStarter System Shock 1 Remake by Nightdive Studios

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
https://www.pcgamer.com/nightdive-t...irection-expects-release-probably-q1-of-2020/

Nightdive talks System Shock remake's change in direction, expects release 'probably Q1 of 2020'
By Wes Fenlon 33 minutes ago

Why System Shock had to reset, and what they're doing now.

XRamC9T8CU4ZbtWCsSuJqC-650-80.jpg


System Shock is still coming. In February, we reported that Nightdive Studios' remake of System Shock was on hiatus as the developers reassessed the project, deciding it had diverged too far from the original vision: a direct modernization of the 1994 game. At GDC on Thursday, I met with Nightdive CEO Stephen Kick and business development director Larry Kuperman, who spoke candidly about where the project went wrong and where it stands now.

"We understood based on the backer feedback, especially, that we weren't going in the right direction with the game, what we promised to them," Kick said. "That's what really caused the shift in what we're doing now, which is going back to what we'd established and represented with the Unity demo."

Shortly after the Kickstarter, System Shock moved from Unity to Unreal Engine, which is what Nightdive plans to continue with going forward. Kick showed me the Unreal version of the starting room, similar to the one depicted in the Unity demo two years ago. It looked great: all moody blue lights and wisps of smoke and flashing display panels embedded in the walls. But it's also just a small part of a game that has much work left to do.

"As we geared up and started moving forward with it, we began to run into feature creep," Kuperman said. "All of those things like 'you know what would really be cool, how we might reinterpret this.' Various people wanted to put their imprint on it. As this process evolved over a period of time, it grew in complexity, and it veered away from this original representation. That doesn't mean that interpretation would've been bad, but it wouldn't have been true to the System Shock vision."

As we reported in February, some of the team working on the project has changed with the return to a more straightforward remake. Nightdive didn't talk in specifics about those staff changes.

"Our intention is to ship exactly the game that was promised, with as much of the features that were promised as we can, in a timeframe that will get it out as fast as we can. Our expectation is probably Q1 of 2020."

Kuperman gave that date with the kind of expression and shrug that conveyed: no, that date isn't what anyone wants to hear. But it's practical. He was unequivocal when I asked if another two years of development would put Nightdive in a financial bind.

"No it doesn't. We've also had renewed interest from some publishing partners, for whom the more complex and costly game was something of a challenge for them, that this is what they were hoping we would provide and renewed their interest."

Kickstarter backers will get a look at the Unreal Engine version of the room Nightdive showed me in the next update in early April, Kick told me. We'll continue to follow the development of System Shock as it progresses.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,235
Hmm. Well, incline I guess.

Don't know what to make of that statement but I guess it doesn't matter if they actually deliver in the end.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,171
I think they misunderstood the purpose of Citadel Station entirely.
It was a place made exclusively for work (research), and only the executive level had a decent amount of comfort.
Instead they made it look like it is a tourist attraction. I even saw child toys on some early screenshots.

:nocountryforshitposters:

It's because they think System Shock is Bioshock.
 

Latelistener

Arcane
Joined
May 25, 2016
Messages
2,579
"No it doesn't. We've also had renewed interest from some publishing partners, for whom the more complex and costly game was something of a challenge for them, that this is what they were hoping we would provide and renewed their interest."

Wait, what? So, publishers weren't interested in their new AAA project, but would happily finance the original pitch from Kickstarter?

gesture-full-face-two-hands-behind-monitor.jpeg
 

flyingjohn

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2012
Messages
2,945
They are waiting for system shock 3 to be released and to see how well it gets received.They aren't gonna put a cent or a minute of development into this until that happens.

If ss3 flops they will cancel the remake and since gamers have the memory of a goldfish most backers probably won't care.

If s33 succeeds they will to try to nab a publisher and get funding and will probably delay the game release date into 2025 with the excuse of "oh ,we got finding now so we are gonna go with our original remake vision which will take time".

In both of these cases,the kickstart backers get nothing that they wanted.They wanted a ss1 with nicer graphics and ui and will probably get a modern remake with new flaws or nothing.
 
Joined
May 4, 2017
Messages
629
You fools, do you really believe that this game is going to get released??

They spent all the money for escort, drugs and travels

While you fuckers are masturbating over the thought of the game

Good job
 

Pika-Cthulhu

Arcane
Joined
Apr 16, 2007
Messages
7,425
So, they spent how long pissing about to finally turn around and do what they promised on their kickstarter and now have it slated to drop almost 2 years from now? Must be a pretty good crowbar they used to pry their heads out of their arse, they should patent it and make billions.
 

Outlander

Custom Tags Are For Fags.
Patron
Joined
Nov 18, 2011
Messages
4,479
Location
Valley of Mines
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
:lol:

Citadel is an open-source fan remake of the first System Shock in Unity 5 Engine

I’m pretty sure that a lot of System Shock fans are a bit disappointed after what happened with its official remake. According to the latest reports, this remake now targets a 2020 release. However, we may actually a play a different remake of System Shock sooner than that. JosiahJack is currently working on an open-source fan remake of the classic System Shock game in Unity 5 Engine and has announced that he targets to release a beta version in Q3 2018.

As JosiahJack claimed, this project is now 80% complete and the team aims to release its first version on September 22nd, 2018. Of course nothing is set on stone yet and this fan project may get delayed. After all, it has been in development for a couple of years and originally targeted a 2015-2016 release.

According to its creator, the team needs to finish enemies (currently at 50% though most are only modeled), finish weapon item models, place all doors, place all objects, place all enemies, add mission logic, fix some hardware functions (e.g. target ID and sensaround), finish automap behavior and finish making enhanced level geometry. The two last features are not required for its beta release, but there is still plenty of work to be done.

As JosiahJack said:

“The first stage before beta release is to first recreate faithfully the original game, with enhanced controls, 3D objects, 3D enemies, and particle effects. After this is the 2nd stage – enhancement. Level geometry will be enhanced from the flat card walls with only two polygons to be like the image below. This in addition to added sound effects, ambience, better plants, more model detailing, etc. will be part of finishing the 2nd stage.

The 3rd stage is to make the game mod- and map-maker friendly. This will include documentation, editor scripts for friendly level design, guides on level creation, examples, and how different portions of the game can be tweaked or modified. All modding or level design is planned to be in the Unity editor (current version is 2017.2 but that can change).”

JosiahJack has also released a video showing this fan remake of System Shock in action that you can view below!



https://www.dsogaming.com/news/cita...-of-the-first-system-shock-in-unity-5-engine/
 

JBro

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 12, 2016
Messages
701
We're already getting a sourceport along with the source code.

His effort would be better spent helping Hank Morgan on Ultima Underworld Unity.
 

JBro

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 12, 2016
Messages
701
If you'd all bother Stephen on Discord like I do, we'd probably have it by now.
 

Zer0wing

Cipher
Joined
Mar 22, 2017
Messages
2,607
Like we ever need this "trve cvlt to the bone" remake by Nightdive with their attitude and no one saw the development falling apart coming. Nightdive got caught by their extreme form of arrogance - unwarranted self importance. The news about hiring Chris Avellone for "enhancing" the narrative part of the game writes itself. No hard feelings man, but your carcass don't belong among anywhere near the actual System Shock, LGS perfected their gameplay and story parts leaving no room for "enhancements". Then artists starting to feel arrogant to change the visuals is a direct result of it. Good that at least someone among the higher ups was able to see that and pulled an emergency break.
 
Last edited:

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598858095/system-shock/posts/2135868

April Update

General Update from Hiatus
Hey everyone, it’s Stephen from Nightdive with the latest update. The last few weeks have been challenging, but at the same time it’s been enlightening. As some of you know I’ve been spending more and more time with the community in Discord answering questions and making reassurances that yes, we are still developing the game. I’ve also been speaking and interacting with many of you one on one so as to better understand how the latest news impacted you and your feelings towards the project. The vast majority of you agree that we are doing the right thing and that what you want is a high quality game that adheres closely to the vision of the original System Shock rather than the reinterpretation that we were previously working toward.

We had a brief respite, and took the time necessary to make some tough decisions which included saying goodbye to some of the developers that you’ve come to know through past updates. What we’re left with is a concentrated team that consists of the original developers who worked on the Unity demo. With that said, let’s take a look at the work we’re doing.

eb62fb98cd19e4439a6765566b6187c6_original.png

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

a1caa94528de7843378e182485295725_original.png

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

bb692638746b76aad29e0125b2895f55_original.png

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

5c404de46471fe9691c4977b25acefec_original.png

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

So what does this mean?

It means we’ve gone back to the original vision we shared with you at the start of our Kickstarter campaign - this time with more reliable performance and higher fidelity visuals thanks to the Unreal Engine.

Are we starting over, is this all that’s done?

No, we’re not starting over. We have been able to re-use the majority of work we’ve done over the past year and we’re making significant progress in a very short amount of time. With that said we’ll be inviting our highest tier backers to privately test the game beginning in September at which point we estimate that the game will be fully playable, from start to finish. The majority of the art won’t be finished, but we’ll be ready to start high-level testing.

What else is changing?

Along with the return to the previous art style and overall direction, the audio department is also re-re-re-examining their priorities, and drawing new conclusions. I’ll let Jon take it from here...

Hey folks. I'm very excited to be able to show off this suite of some of the various pieces of music from the medical deck.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Since the beginning of System Shock, it's been my job to take the music from System Shock 1 and figure out how to capture that in a more modern way. I don't think we hit that in the music for the Kickstarter demo, and since then I've been able to more thoroughly explore what a modernization of System Shock 1's music means without losing the heart of the music. Its music, though limited by the technology of MIDI in its original form, was very inspired by the electronic and industrial music of the time. And 1990s electronic/industrial music was characterized by its own technological limitations.

So I have explored what it would mean if those technological limitations of the '90s (low samplerates and bit-depths, shitty DACs, digital skipping) carried over to today. Or even further - if we could exploit those limitations creatively and define music through it. When Stephen told me about the plan for System Shock, he told me to go and grab the essence of what we were trying to do with our Kickstarter build. We decided that I would do a demonstration of Medical's music and base it on the themes from the original SS1 Medical Deck music. I was able to take all of that stylistic definition and apply it back to the original System Shock 1 music. The first half of the track is more 'exploration', using the melodies of the "walking" state of the original game and building a more meandering musical piece from those melodies. And the second half, the original MIDI guitar was changed to a gritty industrial bass synthesizer which is developed and drives the whole 'combat' section.

I'm so excited to be able to apply all of this musical direction back to the System Shock 1 music! All of the gear that I've acquired for the sake of this project was entirely built around the idea of finding the heart of the SS1 music and intentions and extrapolating that past its MIDI limitations. The original music that I have to work with is far beyond its time, and I'm so happy to be able to take it into a modern - but still OH-SO-90s - light.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Streaming Schedule:

In an effort to remain transparent throughout development we’re going to begin streaming on a regular basis and inviting the backers to join us.

Head on over to: https://www.twitch.tv/nightdivestudios Click “Follow” and receive updates whenever we go live!

April's coming streams:

11th Gaming with Community Manager Karlee Meow

12th Deving System Shock with Chris Mansell

18th Gaming with Community Manager Karlee Meow

25th Gaming with Community Manager Karlee Meow

26th Deving System Shock with Chris Mansell

27th Gaming/Q&A with CEO Stephen Kick

bfcaae751dd1445b1bc0008edae9a379_original.png

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Source Code Release!
This first release is the original, unaltered source code that was discovered by OtherSide Entertainment and graciously shared with us a few months ago. It is Power Mac native so will require an emulation tool which we’ve linked in the repo. We have been hard at work updating this code and plan to release a new version of System Shock: Enhanced Edition as well as the code in the near future.

Here are some interesting facts we dug up while working on the code!

  • The game uses fixed point for all the math instead of floating point. However, some blitting functions, after being optimized in the Macintosh version, use floating point registers and operations to speed up copying stuff.
  • System Shock uses the rendering-with-unique color trick (similar to http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/miscellaneous/clicking-on-objects/picking-with-an-opengl-hack/) to detect object clicks and shooting targets. This same trick is used to show nearby objects when online help is on.
  • In order to draw outline fonts, System Shock draws the same string 10 times. First they are rendered in black with a 1-pixel displacement into each of 9 directions, and then the desired color at the center.
  • There are various pieces of code commented out or disabled (using the preprocessor's conditional compilation) meant to deal with a level editor and play testing.
  • Internally, the game usually treats the screen resolution as if it were 320x200 in order to achieve resolution-independent code.
  • The game is mostly written in C, except for the physics library written by Seamus Blackley (EDMS, the Emetic Dynamics Modeling System) and the fixed-point library it uses, which are written in C++, and some Assembly modules.
Grab it here: https://github.com/NightDiveStudios/shockmac

cd9ffe7f99f8e6f9e3ad0b761b7148ca_original.png

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Questions & Answers from Discord Community
A few weeks back I approached our Discord community and fielded a number of questions that were asked over the course of a few days. Here are my replies to those questions. Thanks to everyone who contributed.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

At this current moment in time, how many things are you planning to change within the game in regards to story, gameplay, and level design?

The story is going to remain unchanged but with the additional logs/emails added in from the backers of the CITADEL CREW MEMBER pledge. Gameplay will be very similar to what you experienced in the original game with the largest difference being the UI which is a hybrid of Shock and Shock 2.

What changes do you think NDS will be making with the remake's direction in terms of its style and feel?

We’re going to be re-visiting the style and feel of the original game. I personally feel as though we hit the mark the first time and by applying what we’ve learned while working in Unreal we can achieve a similar look and feel but with enhanced performance. Our intent with the art direction so far is to bring more of the vibrant colors of the original game while keeping the oppressive atmosphere of a rundown Citadel Station. We’re even incorporating some old school techniques like using sprite sheets for the animated computer screens.

While the remake is certainly getting made, I had the sense that it will be somewhat pared back compared to the original expanded-upon-the-original vision we heard about in earlier updates. Will this mean a game more akin to the original - closer to a 1:1 remake, or will there still be some expansion on the original System Shock's story and concept?

This will be closer to a 1:1 remake with updates to the weapon/character designs but without altering the core gameplay of the original. Expect to see something resembling the direction of the Unity demo.

Has the KS funding pool been toasted, if it has, can you sustain the investment required to get to the end 2019 timeline from your residual revenues (or will this potentially mean the project takes longer as funds have to trickle in)?

We still have the funds necessary to complete the game, but the timeline will inevitably move back with our shift in direction.

Is there prospectively more risk of slippage past 2019 (if so, best brace for it nice and early)? What is the exit plan if the project becomes non-viable?

Yes, at this stage the game could slip past 2019. Our only plan is to finish the game and deliver on the promise we made to our Kickstarter backers.

Which people still work on the SS1 reboot, as of now?

I’ve personally taken over as game director and I am now leading a team of developers, some of who worked on the original System Shock and the Unity demo.

Are you willing to share some details on why/how no successful publishing deal has been achieved yet, and how do you guys think you will still be able to get a publishing deal going in the future?

I am, but those details will be part of an exhaustive Post Mortem I’ll share once the game has shipped.

At what point in time, roughly, had NDS realized scope creep had hit the project?

It was soon after the Kickstarter when the team offered many suggestions that seemed great on their own, but in aggregate represented too much of a departure. However, I approved the proposed changes in scope after receiving positive feedback and a verbal commitment from a publisher to fund the game and the new design we submitted. We promised a bigger, better game and we were told that the game was going to be funded beyond the amount we raised on Kickstarter. Unfortunately, that deal fell through 7 months later for reasons we are still not clear on. To put it bluntly, we were left high and dry after making crucial, consequential changes in staff and scope.

My question is whether you have considered or looked into doing physical releases of any of your re-released PC games? If you have considered it, is there anything that made it not worth doing or prohibitively difficult to do? My understanding is it's a real pain to get physical games published on Xbox, but are physical console releases something you have considered or would consider for future console game releases? I'm guessing most of this is stuff you probably don't want to discuss publicly until it happens, but it would be very cool to see some physical Nightdive releases one day.

We’ve considered it! We have to find the right partner to help us achieve that goal, but for some of our PC-Only releases I’d love to have classic “Big-Box” copies re-issued. We’re currently looking into releasing physical editions of Turok & Turok 2 for Xbox One.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Japanese System Shock Poster - Now Available!

Thanks to our friend @MickeyWilsonSFX we’ve been able to clean up and create posters based on the original box art from the Japanese release of System Shock. For a limited time if you purchase more than one item from our store you’ll receive a 10% discount.


Click through to our shop to pick it up!

Continued Communication:

Please join us on Discord, we’re in there every day answering questions! It a great place to engage in the community as well as have active conversations with our devs:

https://discordapp.com/invite/nightdive

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Shout Out Corner⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Finally we shave a shout out to our friends at Three Flip Studios!


⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Armed and Gelatinous only has a few days left and is close to being funded!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/127380187/armed-and-gelatinous-0?ref=cl8ry1

Meanwhile, in the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy, an alien race of gelatinous space blobs has just been spotted blasting the hell out of each other in an all out war of epic proportions! Armed and Gelatinous is an online AND local multiplayer fast-paced bullet-hell space-shooter coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Steam later this year! With 4 years of development behind them Three Flip Studios has taken to Kickstarter to ask for help on the home stretch in hopes of creating the best-possible classic arcade throwback that the world has ever seen!

c2c0c61ae46a8080d17abeaa6434fdbf_original.gif

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

See you next time~!

(。・ω・。)ノ♡Karlee Meow

Also find us on:

https://twitter.com/NightdiveStudio

https://twitter.com/SystemShockGame

https://www.facebook.com/NightdiveStudios/

https://system-shock.backerkit.com/

https://shop.nightdivestudios.com/

http://forums.nightdivestudios.com/

http://www.systemshock.com/discord
 

agentorange

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
5,256
Location
rpghq (cant read codex pms cuz of fag 2fa)
Codex 2012
I'd rather have a reinterpretation that takes some risks. Why do I want the same game, which was already done as near as can be to perfection, done by an inferior-I'm sure they are talented but they are not LGS-team of peoples. The original game is sprite based and so abstracted that it's not as if the graphics have aged, unlike some mid-2000s 3D games which benefit from increased fidelity and resolution. Anyone who so fervently desires a faithful recreation of the game should be satisfied with playing the original, anyone who says they love the original game but can't play it because it's too archaic is a bullshitter.
 

JBro

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 12, 2016
Messages
701
I'd rather have a reinterpretation that takes some risks. Why do I want the same game, which was already done as near as can be to perfection, done by an inferior-I'm sure they are talented but they are not LGS-team of peoples. The original game is sprite based and so abstracted that it's not as if the graphics have aged, unlike some mid-2000s 3D games which benefit from increased fidelity and resolution. Anyone who so fervently desires a faithful recreation of the game should be satisfied with playing the original, anyone who says they love the original game but can't play it because it's too archaic is a bullshitter.

If you want a different game, play a different fucking game.
 

TheRedSnifit

Educated
Joined
Jul 6, 2017
Messages
55
Sounds like they gave Fader the boot.

I'd rather have a reinterpretation that takes some risks. Why do I want the same game, which was already done as near as can be to perfection, done by an inferior-I'm sure they are talented but they are not LGS-team of peoples. The original game is sprite based and so abstracted that it's not as if the graphics have aged, unlike some mid-2000s 3D games which benefit from increased fidelity and resolution. Anyone who so fervently desires a faithful recreation of the game should be satisfied with playing the original, anyone who says they love the original game but can't play it because it's too archaic is a bullshitter.

You really can't think of any ways in which System Shock can be improved?
 
Last edited:

agentorange

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
5,256
Location
rpghq (cant read codex pms cuz of fag 2fa)
Codex 2012
I'd rather have a reinterpretation that takes some risks. Why do I want the same game, which was already done as near as can be to perfection, done by an inferior-I'm sure they are talented but they are not LGS-team of peoples. The original game is sprite based and so abstracted that it's not as if the graphics have aged, unlike some mid-2000s 3D games which benefit from increased fidelity and resolution. Anyone who so fervently desires a faithful recreation of the game should be satisfied with playing the original, anyone who says they love the original game but can't play it because it's too archaic is a bullshitter.
If you want a different game, play a different fucking game.
I do that every time I play a game that is not System Shock 1. Also, you do understand that this remake would be a different game, right? It will never the original System Shock 1. At the very point where they alter the graphics it will no longer be the same game, let alone when they make "updates to the weapon/character designs." Why then would I want something that is not the original but is a poor approximation of the original, rather than something that at least makes an attempt to be unique.

You really can't think of any ways in which System Shock can be improved?
Not particularly, no, certainly nothing that can be accomplished by this remake. Nightdive already did, after all, release an updated version of the client that runs easily on modern systems and supports mouse look. System Shock 2 was itself already an improvement over System Shock 1 in some ways, worse in some ways but that was fine because it was not attempting to be the same exact game.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom