Development Info Newcomer - Serious Incline for the C64

[Luzur]

Whoa. Not to sound like graphicswhore, but I didn't expect such a good graphics.


You don't really see new c64 titles these days with anything, but most rudimentary GFX.

dude, people are making new hardware for the C64 even to this day.

not to mention PET demos and games.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

http://www.newcomer.hu/

June 24, 2011: Three known bugs left...

Can it be...? Almost here?

 

[asper]

FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP

MOTHERFUCKING EPIC. CANT FUCKING WAIT !!!!

 

[Azrael the cat]

Certainly interesting.
Watching the intro, I like the SID music of course, as it brings back a little bit of "that feeling".
I like some parts of the intro as well, like the lightning animations, and the part where the guy is teleported into the labyrinth or whatever it is.

On the other hand, the game certainly shows a lot of influence from more modern games, I'd say. This whole "cinematic style" they're going for... I'm not sure whether it's just to try and show off what they (or the C64 for that matter) could do, or if they were "going with the times" so to speak, even if it seems strange to say about a C64 game coming out these days.

There's this old guy in the intro, explaining about the situation and I feel like this is something rather unusual for a C64 game. Most games would just throw you into a strange world leaving it completely unexplained why you are there, who you are, where you are etc. There wasn't this kind of exposition that we see in the intro to Newcomer.

I remember a game called "Terramex", which started out like a jump n run platformer with a lot of puzzle elements. My friends and I would play it, and at one point in the game we came across a telescope. Walking up to it and using it, the character took a look at the scope, then looked at the screen, at us, for a second, then back to the telescope as if he was saying "Am I not imagining this?" Then it showed the image of some astroid floating to space towards earth.
Maybe the game's manual, which we didn't have at the time, would have given some explanation. But the way it was, I remember this scene I mentioned as pretty striking. Well, for the time at least...

Many games had a pretty eerie feeling to me back then, and I think the kind of explanation we get in the intro to Newcomer wouldn't have been necessary. The part where the guy is teleported into the place evokes some of that same feeling, but the close up shot of the body and especially of their faces I don't really like.
Games like that usually had atrocious loading times as well, requiring you to flip over the disk or put another disk in, which could get pretty annoying. Of course it's not an issue today, if you play with an emulator...
So how many 5 1/4 floppy disks does this game span?

In all fairness, it was standard practice back then to have awesomely detailed manuals that would explain precisely why you are there and who the characters are (plus a whole fuckload of background lore that had absolutely zero implementation in the actual game).

Of course, in all fairness, most of the players were using pirated copy disks without the manual.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Damn, I'm so hyped for that game.

 

[Frau Bishop]

-November 1, 2010: Fixing the last known issues, in preparation for the Gold Master
-June 24, 2011: Three known bugs left...

Let's never ever allow these guys to get in touch with VD+crew. Holy shit, just ima.. no, don't.


But anyway, wow, the gfx look nice. And the features and stuff, sweetness! Wanna play! :D

 

[Excidium]

Game is approved. :D

I think I already posted this in another thread, but I really like that music in the intro.

 

[circ]

So it's the Witcher on C64?

I'm surprised you guys aren't all over BioWare when that's all it takes.

 

[Excidium]

Voyeurism is one step closer to tastefully done rape.

 

[asper]

Those c64 graphics are just so gorgeous

 

[Mortmal]

Someone should send that a guy an invintation card to our prestigious gaming club, i remmber i saw the gif flaoting around here... Instead we get devs like prosper, we get what we deserves i suppose.
I cant wait to play that, seems a mature , non cliché story , stats heavy oldschool rpg. Ill play that on emulator, my C64 died long ago, they werent the most reliable machines, some chipset was failing frequently.

 

[Luzur]

4 of mine still work, so i guess you had one of those faulty ones.

 

[cocorulverde]

You can download Enhanced Newcomer (the 2001 version) from here.

 

[Cynicus]

It's nice to see that despite the trials and tribulations of Newcomer's dark and mysterious world, the women-folk are able to keep their pubes nicely manicured.

Anyhoo, I played through the first area of the enhanced version several months ago, and it's indeed pretty sweet. The only bit that left me slightly limp was that combat can be rather tedious, at least early on. For example, the first combat encounter was a bare-knuckle brawl against a drunken punk, and it had to have taken ~15 minutes or more even though hits were doing as much as 200+ damage. Still, it was tolerable, and hopefully they ironed some of that out during the last decade. Regardless, I'll be playing the shit out of ultimate when it comes out.

Also, in before nextgen faggots cry about a lack of automapping.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Anyhoo, I played through the first area of the enhanced version several months ago, and it's indeed pretty sweet. The only bit that left me slightly limp was that combat can be rather tedious, at least early on. For example, the first combat encounter was a bare-knuckle brawl against a drunken punk, and it had to have taken ~15 minutes or more even though hits were doing as much as 200+ damage.

 

[Cynicus]

Erratum: I loaded up Enhanced after dinner and replayed the punk fight. I seriously overstated the time elapsed---the actual time, from contact to completion, was closer to 4-5 minutes (no pausing to read results or anything, just ripping through it). It's still rather tedious as options are limited. It's basically fight/retreat/approach --> F --> attack/equip/reload --> A --> are you sure (y/n) --> Y --> *hit* or *miss* --> rinse & repeat. I'm sure my earlier post made it sound worse than it is, though, so mea culpa.

 

[Luzur]

it cant be epic fights all around guys.

you come off as somewhat spoiled.

 

[Grim Monk]

Rundown on the news thats been coming out of Protovision:

July 9, 2011: Two known bugs left...

July 23, 2011: One known bug left...

October 25, 2011: We are pleased to announce that during the last 12 months Ultimate Newcomer has underwent an extra expansion phase, and as of today this expanded version is an official entry at the IGF 2012 Independent Games Festival Main Competition.

Here is a link Newcomer's competition entry:
http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2012.php?id=433

Edit: The game now apparently has a Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/ultimate.newcomer

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Bah....

RELEASE IT!

 

[Alex]

It looks like Newcomer didn't make it to the finalists of IGF. Again. At least there is the promise it will be released soon!

 

[Grim Monk]

Here's something I found that may be of interest.

An archive of the manual for ENHANCED NEWCOMER:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060926153143/http://www.newcomer.hu/Pages/ENCmanual26.txt

 

[mondblut]

Had IGF ever hailed anything which isn't some kind of hipster fag shit for the past 10-odd years? King of Dragon Pass might be the only all-time nominant of theirs which does not deserve to be shoved into an oven together with its developers.

Seriously, those screenshots make me insecure about my sexuality. It's like they are groping my crotch or something. They make me think Bioware and Bethesda aren't that bad, imagine that.

 

[Luzur]

Seriously, those screenshots make me insecure about my sexuality. It's like they are groping my crotch or something. They make me think Bioware and Bethesda aren't that bad, imagine that.

are you saying it looks like shit?

also, avatar, my dear friend.

 

[Alex]

Luzur
I think Mondblut is referring to the games in the IGF, not Newcomer. I was even going to point out Spelunky looked pretty clean, but apparently they have redone the graphics for the XBox.

 

[mondblut]

Luzur
I think Mondblut is referring to the games in the IGF, not Newcomer.