Nightdive Studios, Piko Interactive, Ziggurat, Pixel Games and others rereleasing classic games

[Bad Sector]

I always thought it was by John Carmack. Even says so on the title screen:

Carmack really liked putting his name on the games he worked on, e.g. the main source code file of Wolf3D starts with

/*
=============================================================================

WOLFENSTEIN 3-D

An Id Software production

by John Carmack

=============================================================================
*/

In the case of Softdisk games however AFAIK it was just that the games were largely credited to the individuals who designed and programmed them (same person at the time) and the art, etc, was done by artists at Softdisk (specifically Andrian Carmack) who were doing other non-game related stuff too (softdisk had a lot of software unrelated to games). The wikipedia credits id most likely because almost everyone who worked on games at Softdisk moved on to create id Software.

 

[LESS T_T]

Ziggurat goes tactical squad with games by Krisalis Software.

Sabre Team, turn-based military tactics:

Who Dares Wins

The Special Air Service, or S.A.S., is a highly classified elite special forces unit with a stunning array of specialized combat and reconnaissance capabilities. They are tactical experts called in to handle the most difficult missions where the odds of success are considered remote under even the most optimistic assessment. Now, they’re being summoned to complete five new counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, and search and destroy missions under your command!

Sabre Team is an isometric squad-level turn-based infiltration simulation developed by Krisalis Software Ltd. that lets you assemble and take command of a Sabre Team unit of four hand-picked elite S.A.S. agents as they confront delicate and dangerous scenarios involving terrorist threats and hostage situations. Planning ahead and skillful improvisation in the heat of battle are necessary when one wrong move can mean the difference between success and failure. Put your strategic leadership to the test and achieve victory before your enemies even know what hit them.

• Dive into five harrowing missions, including an embassy siege, hostage rescues, and search and destroy missions.
  
• Assemble your elite four-member team, selecting each member with the right stats, experience, and specialties for the job.
  
• Customize each squad member’s loadout before each mission, including various types of weapons, grenades, and armor modeled after equipment used by the real-life S.A.S.
  
• Listen to a voiced briefing before each mission and get a closer look at events during the missions with cutscene artwork.
  
• Test your mettle against terrorists and opposing forces who act intelligently to counter your actions.

Shadoworlds, squad-based sci-fi action RPG:

Deafening silence in the deep darkness of space.

The Magna 6 system is home to the most advanced weapons lab the universe has ever known. Two months ago, communications with the orbiting facility mysteriously went dead without any warning. If the cutting edge weapons in the station were to fall into the wrong hands, the results would be cataclysmic. Knowing that quick action is necessary, but unaware of what terrors might have caused the break in communication, you are called in to lead a small team of brave but expendable explorers through the imperiled space station with a mission to ascertain the fate of its crew.

Krisalis Software’s gripping isometric squad-based sci-fi action RPG follows your team of four explorers as they trek through the dark environments of the Weapons Research Facility to uncover the mystery of what went wrong. Each member of the team is chosen by the player based on their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their personality and individual history. As the leader of the unit, you have full control over the inventories and actions of your squad, even down to deciding when to use headlamps to illuminate the darkness. But watch out – the inky blackness of space hides friend and foe alike.

• Traverse the dimly lit corridors of the Weapons Research Facility and beam down to the planet surface for terrestrial excursions.
  
• Craft weapons by combining interchangeable items found on your mission and use them to battle against hostile defense robots and other menacing threats.
  
• Marvel at the real-time dynamic lighting powered by impressive Super Photoscaping lighting techniques. Watch lights and explosions cast lights and shadows on the environment, and use your squad’s headlamps to illuminate puzzles along your route.
  
• Take full control of your team of explorers as you manage their inventories, guide their individual actions, and keep tabs on their life-giving fluid levels.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Ziggurat goes tactical squad with games by Krisalis Software.

Sabre Team, turn-based military tactics:

Who Dares Wins

The Special Air Service, or S.A.S., is a highly classified elite special forces unit with a stunning array of specialized combat and reconnaissance capabilities. They are tactical experts called in to handle the most difficult missions where the odds of success are considered remote under even the most optimistic assessment. Now, they’re being summoned to complete five new counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, and search and destroy missions under your command!

Sabre Team is an isometric squad-level turn-based infiltration simulation developed by Krisalis Software Ltd. that lets you assemble and take command of a Sabre Team unit of four hand-picked elite S.A.S. agents as they confront delicate and dangerous scenarios involving terrorist threats and hostage situations. Planning ahead and skillful improvisation in the heat of battle are necessary when one wrong move can mean the difference between success and failure. Put your strategic leadership to the test and achieve victory before your enemies even know what hit them.

• Dive into five harrowing missions, including an embassy siege, hostage rescues, and search and destroy missions.
  
• Assemble your elite four-member team, selecting each member with the right stats, experience, and specialties for the job.
  
• Customize each squad member’s loadout before each mission, including various types of weapons, grenades, and armor modeled after equipment used by the real-life S.A.S.
  
• Listen to a voiced briefing before each mission and get a closer look at events during the missions with cutscene artwork.
  
• Test your mettle against terrorists and opposing forces who act intelligently to counter your actions.

Interesting. Krisalis Software handled the PC conversion of the original "Laser Squad", resulting in a game that plays somewhat similar, but it still considerably different. "Sabre Team" seems to be their take on the genre, possibly inspired by Gollop's in-progress work on "UFO: Enemy Unknown".

Shadoworlds, squad-based sci-fi action RPG:

Deafening silence in the deep darkness of space.

The Magna 6 system is home to the most advanced weapons lab the universe has ever known. Two months ago, communications with the orbiting facility mysteriously went dead without any warning. If the cutting edge weapons in the station were to fall into the wrong hands, the results would be cataclysmic. Knowing that quick action is necessary, but unaware of what terrors might have caused the break in communication, you are called in to lead a small team of brave but expendable explorers through the imperiled space station with a mission to ascertain the fate of its crew.

Krisalis Software’s gripping isometric squad-based sci-fi action RPG follows your team of four explorers as they trek through the dark environments of the Weapons Research Facility to uncover the mystery of what went wrong. Each member of the team is chosen by the player based on their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their personality and individual history. As the leader of the unit, you have full control over the inventories and actions of your squad, even down to deciding when to use headlamps to illuminate the darkness. But watch out – the inky blackness of space hides friend and foe alike.

• Traverse the dimly lit corridors of the Weapons Research Facility and beam down to the planet surface for terrestrial excursions.
  
• Craft weapons by combining interchangeable items found on your mission and use them to battle against hostile defense robots and other menacing threats.
  
• Marvel at the real-time dynamic lighting powered by impressive Super Photoscaping lighting techniques. Watch lights and explosions cast lights and shadows on the environment, and use your squad’s headlamps to illuminate puzzles along your route.
  
• Take full control of your team of explorers as you manage their inventories, guide their individual actions, and keep tabs on their life-giving fluid levels.

This is a sequel of sorts to the game "Shadowlands" which is a Fantasy-based game using the same engine. What made these two games interesting back in the day was their cutting-edge lighting engine, and IIRC both games make good use of it.

 

[LESS T_T]

Ziggurat Interactive brings a bunch of Data East arcade games to Steam.

One more, Wizard Fire

 

[LESS T_T]

Even more Data East arcadies.

Joe & Mac Returns

Night Slashers

BreakThru

Nice, it has YouTube mode!!


Fighter's History

 

[lightbane]

The scrapping of the barrel's bottom continues!

 

[LESS T_T]

Ziggurat unearths puzzlers.

Zyconix (1992)

Revelation (1991)

And it's not so retro or classic but remaster of BloodRayne Betrayal by the original developer WayForward:

 

[LESS T_T]

Things Piko released on GOG sometime ago.






Also seemingly new re-release publisher in the name of Empire Interactive.

 

[LESS T_T]

PowerSlave DOS "classic" version is coming to Steam. This was released on GOG last year.

Nightdive will do "Kex" edition for supposedly both PC and console versions, eventually.

 

[Bad Sector]

Neat, though i hope they'll also do a Kex version of the PS1 game too since that was very different and had real 3D environments.

 

[SharkClub]

The console versions of PowerSlave are good but very overrated. I'm much more interested in an updated version of the PC version as it is one of the better BUILD engine FPS games that hasn't received a proper remaster. Even that fully playable/completable/finished KEX port of console PowerSlave that got released and then taken down due to rights just ignored the PC version's existence. PowerSlave PC is a great game in its own right and shouldn't be shit on by consolefags for being a straight up FPS instead of a puzzle platformer first person metroidvania amalgamation.

Though it looks like whoever has the rights to release PowerSlave on Steam here (Throwback, not NightDive) don't actually know what their product is, this release looks like a straight up "throw it in dosbox" sort of deal, and yet the description has:

Real time fully 3D rendered gameplay allows you to move between floors within a single level

Which is wrong... the DOS version of PowerSlave is a BUILD engine game as I said, and BUILD engine games are not fully 3D rendered unless you're using some modern source port with Polymost renderer or some shit (which this definitely is not). Classic BUILD games are 2D with lots of engine trickery to make it look 3D, just like Doom. The console versions of PowerSlave ran on the SlaveDriver engine made by Lobotomy Software which actually is a fully 3D engine like Quake's.

Any source for NightDive doing a KEX port of the PC version? The KEX port for the console versions literally already exists in its entirety it just got taken down due to copyright once whoever owned the IP realized they owned the IP and decided to take it down (Throwback Entertainment?). Since NightDive don't seem to have anything to do with this GOG/Steam DOSBox release I find it hard to believe they'd be making a KEX port of the PC version. The entire KEX port of the console versions already exists so maybe that's a little different if they want to come to an agreement with the owners of the IP. According to a review on GOG this DOSBox release is so lazy that it uses the European version of the game with European title screen (calling the game 'Exhumed') despite using the North American title (being 'PowerSlave'), so I don't have much faith in these Throwback Entertainment hack frauds to do justice with this game in future.

 

[Bad Sector]

The console versions of PowerSlave are good but very overrated. I'm much more interested in an updated version of the PC version as it is one of the better BUILD engine FPS games that hasn't received a proper remaster.

I've played both the PC and PS1 a bit at some point in the past (never finished any... or really played for any length of time) and they both seem fine 90s shooters, but i mentioned the PS1 version mainly because at least the PC version can be played on DOSBox(-X) with WASD and mouse support while the PS1 version can only be played with digital input (AFAIK it doesn't even support the PS1 analog joysticks). Also personally i like Quake-like graphics of the PS1 version.

Even that fully playable/completable/finished KEX port of console PowerSlave that got released and then taken down due to rights just ignored the PC version's existence.

I didn't knew that existed, neat. The source code was even released some time ago on GitHub with some people even making a few fixes.

PowerSlave PC is a great game in its own right and shouldn't be shit on by consolefags for being a straight up FPS instead of a puzzle platformer first person metroidvania amalgamation.

I do not think anyone shat on the PC version here. I remember back in the day a magazine "shitting" on it (softly) by placing it on the "misc unimportant stuff" section because it was still using Build and so it was outdated (that is the 90s graphics whoreism for you).

Which is wrong... the DOS version of PowerSlave is a BUILD engine game as I said, and BUILD engine games are not fully 3D rendered unless you're using some modern source port with Polymost renderer or some shit (which this definitely is not). Classic BUILD games are 2D with lots of engine trickery to make it look 3D, just like Doom.

Kinda, sorta, but not really. The renderer uses 90 degree aligned walls for sector lines, however it can also use aligned sprites (sprites that instead of facing you face towards some direction) to create decals and very simple 3D structures (e.g. the bridge in the first level of Duke3D) and the floor and ceiling are rendered as polygons. Also after Duke3D several games used portals to connect sectors and create room-over-room 3D structures - commonly seen in Blood and Shadow Warrior. I'm not sure if Powerslave does that though. Doom cannot do any of that stuff.

The world itself however is fully 3D in that everything is tracked in three dimensions - remember that aside from the x/y value of the sector vertices there is also the z value for the sector heights and in addition the entities (objects, etc) are in 3D coordinates, can be stacked and their collision also works in 3 dimensions.

The end result might look similar to Doom, but Build uses a very different rendering approach and world structure than Doom (even though both use sectors - i remember reading that Silverman took the idea of sectors from Doom after talking with Carmack but even then sectors are used very differently in the two engines).

Any source for NightDive doing a KEX port of the PC version?

No, i had a brainfart and thought it was Nightdive doing the port. I remember Stephen Kick mentioning the game often some time ago, so i thought they worked on it.

 

[LESS T_T]

Well from earlier on this thread. They intend to do Kex ports for both PC and console versions.



Also they're teasing things.



Samuel, the head of Kex team, the one behind Powerslave EX, has been tweeting about it time to time too.

 

[SharkClub]

If I recall correctly PowerSlave DOS can't even do slopes because it runs on an even older version of the BUILD engine than Duke Nukem 3D. The only other games on older versions of BUILD than Duke 3D are trash like TekWar and Witchaven.

I don't really care what way you swing the wording of things but labelling something as "fully 3D rendered" when it comes to BUILD is not true, as I said, all of that stuff about bridges and room over room, it's Ken Silverman's jewish black magic engine trickery. It's a 2D engine like Doom with a z-axis coded in for raytracing and it doesn't take much to tell, all you have to do is use the Look Up/Look Down keys to see the picture get distorted to fuck or have the automap open when traversing a "room over room" and watch as it teleports you to the other end of a map. Yes it's impressive tech, it's more capable than Doom's engine but it's filled to the brim with Ken Silverman's hacks and workarounds because fully 3D engines just weren't there yet, and this is also evident in the gameplay of BUILD games which are overall a whole lot more buggy and glitchy than Doom engine games. I find it much more easy to believe the Throwback Entertainment people that put up the game on GOG & Steam just either don't know what they are selling beyond watching a gameplay video or that they confused it with the console versions running on SlaveDriver.

I am excited to see a proper remaster of the DOS version of PowerSlave (even though it won't actually be BUILD, in the same way that Blood Fresh Supply isn't) so that's very nice to hear NightDive are still looking to do something with the game. It is definitely in much more need of a remaster than Blood ever was. Blood was getting by just fine with the official DOS release package of One Unit Whole Blood and had like 3 different high quality reverse-engineered source ports going by the time Fresh Supply came out, and Fresh Supply brought almost nothing new to the table while being a buggy and unfinished release (and still is, to this day the problem with the Bloated Butchers being more resistant to fire damage than they should be exists). There is practically no love for PowerSlave DOS that is comparable to the Blood fanbase and even playing PowerSlave DOS in DOSBox is riddled with bugs, glitches and just straight up gameplay issues that could be solved easily with an official remaster.

 

[Bad Sector]

I don't really care what way you swing the wording of things but labelling something as "fully 3D rendered" when it comes to BUILD is not true, as I said, all of that stuff about bridges and room over room, it's Ken Silverman's jewish black magic engine trickery. It's a 2D engine like Doom with a z-axis coded in for raytracing and it doesn't take much to tell, all you have to do is use the Look Up/Look Down keys to see the picture get distorted to fuck or have the automap open when traversing a "room over room" and watch as it teleports you to the other end of a map.

The engine is fully 3D but it doesn't use 3D meshes and the (visually) largest part of the view - the walls - have a limitation that they can only be 90 degrees because they are rasterized as trapezoids with the left and right sides being always in parallel. This is also why looking up/down you have a distorted image: since the walls are drawn as trapezoids the engine instead of performing a rotation around the X axis (which would require arbitrary polygons) it shifts the view up/down giving the illusion of looking up/down (though IMO Build games often overdid that). The engine is certainly not 2D (nor is Doom for the most part, though Doom does ignore the Z dimension in several cases which makes it more limited and its BSP calculations are done in 2D - however Build does not use BSP at all, it uses portals and they take height -ie. the third dimension- into account), of all classic FPS engines the only engine that was really 2D was Wolfenstein 3D (and its clones) because it never used the third dimension for anything.

Of course i wouldn't call it "fully 3D rendered" (and i wasn't really trying to justify that, just correct a common misconception about Build) since aside from the walls almost everything is rendered using sprites.

 

[SharkClub]

The hip kids call it a 2.5D engine, alongside Doom, but that's just mincing words. The point is that it's obviously not a fully 3D rendered engine. Duke 3D 20th Anniversary Edition runs on a fully 3D rendered engine rebuilt over BUILD, Duke Nukem 3D 1996 does not, PowerSlave DOS does not.

 

[Bad Sector]

Duke 3D 20th Anniversary Edition runs on a fully 3D rendered engine

Duke 3D 20th Anniversary Edition is as 3D as the original Duke Nukem 3D in 1996, the game is still using 2D sprites for pretty much everything.

I think you are just making the assumption that "3D rendered engine = uses triangles" and anything else is not 3D, which is really false. The main limitation in Duke Nukem 3D's rendering is that the walls are rendered as trapezoids so they can't be skewed when looking up/down, but that is it - they are even rasterized polygons, like triangles in other 3D games.

(also i never called it a 2.5D engine, TBH i find that term being a major source of confusion about these games' rendering)

 

[SharkClub]

No, Duke Nukem 3D 20th Anniversary has a 3D renderer mode that is on by default but can be turned off, similar to using Ken Silverman's Polymost renderer in eDuke. It allows for dynamic lighting effects and non-nauseating vertical mouselook. It's basically like Kaiser throwing Blood into the KEX engine for Fresh Supply.

 

[Bad Sector]

No, Duke Nukem 3D 20th Anniversary has a 3D renderer mode that is on by default but can be turned off, similar to using Ken Silverman's Polymost renderer in eDuke.

Polymost just renders the existing scene using triangles instead of doing the rasterization in software mode with trapezoids and scaled bitmaps. The scene itself is still using sprites (previously rendered as scaled bitmaps, now as textured triangles) and walls aligned at 90 degrees with the floor, just like the original game. This does not change the game from 2D to 3D.

It allows for dynamic lighting effects and non-nauseating vertical mouselook.

The vertical mouselook feels better because the walls, being rendered with triangles instead of trapezoids can now be rotated around the X axis so there is no need to "fake" looking up/down via shifting the viewport (though strictly speaking that is also possible to do if they wanted to). As i wrote previously this is basically the main limitation of the original engine's rendering - but again everything about the rendering is taking three dimensions into account even if it cannot skew the walls.

It's basically like Kaiser throwing Blood into the KEX engine for Fresh Supply.

Sure but that doesn't change the "3D-ness" of the game. Everything i wrote applies to Blood and its KEX version.

 

[SharkClub]

A game engine is fully 3D rendered when it is capable of running its environment and objects in a fully 3D rendered form, if it chooses not to that's another thing, but if it's incapable of it it's not fully 3D rendered. You're really just splitting hairs about triangles and trapezoids and coming off as a pseud who watched that one YouTube video. PowerSlave DOS does not run on a fully 3D rendered engine.

 

[Ed123]

And it's not so retro or classic but remaster of BloodRayne Betrayal by the original developer WayForward:

 

[Bad Sector]

A game engine is fully 3D rendered when it is capable of running its environment and objects in a fully 3D rendered form, if it chooses not to that's another thing, but if it's incapable of it it's not fully 3D rendered.

As i wrote previously i wouldn't call Build "fully 3D rendered" because almost all of its objects (and even bits of the environment) are represented as 2D sprites. Later versions of Build added support for 3D volumetric objects via voxels, but AFAIK the only game that used those extensively was Shadow Warrior.

You're really just splitting hairs about triangles and trapezoids and coming off as a pseud who watched that one YouTube video.

I'm not sure what YouTube video you refer to, i talk from my own knowledge working on graphics over two decades now. I have even written an engine with similar visual output as Build at the past (though it used raycasting instead of trapezoid rasterization for the walls, but like build it used portals instead of BSP and still used trapezoids for aligned sprites/decals). Since it uses vertical spans for drawing the walls (like Doom) it also cannot do up/down look, however pretty much all calculations (like Build) take three dimensions into account.

And i'm not really splitting hairs, the difference between triangles and trapezoids in this context is that trapezoids are polygons rasterized on the screen like triangles and the only limitation is that because of their left and right edges are parallel you can't skew them to look up or down. That is it, that is the main limitation that Build has and was done because rendering the walls like that allowed the engine to be a bit faster since it could avoid some calculations. But that has nothing to do with the engine being able to render scenes that take three dimensions into account or not.

PowerSlave DOS does not run on a fully 3D rendered engine.

Sure, but that is not because you can't look up/down but because a large part of the rendered scene is made up of 2D sprites.

 

[SharkClub]

You've literally spent the entirety of your postings here injecting bullshit nobody cares about into a discussion with no thought as to the end goal of doing so. I said BUILD isn't a fully 3D engine and instead of agreeing and moving on (because spoiler: it's not a fully 3D engine) you've got on some tangent about how it uses trapezoids to display wall sprites as if that somehow disproves it not being a fully 3D engine, and then end up agreeing anyway that it's not a fully 3D engine. Your posts are absolutely tiring and pointless.

 

[Bad Sector]

with no thought as to the end goal of doing so.

My end goal was to correct the common misconception that Build is not a 3D engine - it is a 3D engine.

I said BUILD isn't a fully 3D engine and instead of agreeing and moving on

What you wrote is "Classic BUILD games are 2D with lots of engine trickery to make it look 3D" which is wrong. When i replied to that part in my original post i didn't even outright disagreed (because i didn't disagree with the "fully 3D rendered", i disagreed with the "Classic BUILD games are 2D").

(because spoiler: it's not a fully 3D engine)

Ok, you may call this "hair splitting" but to me it is conflating similarly sounding but actually different things: Build is a full 3D engine, everything it handles is done in three dimensions, that is the very core of a 3D engine. I wouldn't call the rendering in most of the games that use it fully 3D because it relies heavily on 2D sprites, hence my agreement that it isn't "fully 3D rendered", but the engine itself is 3D (it can even be made to use 3D objects even in the original DOS versions via voxels, but even without that the engine is still a full 3D engine due to how it treats the world as three dimensional).

you've got on some tangent about how it uses trapezoids to display wall sprites as if that somehow disproves it not being a fully 3D engine

No, my "tangent" was to explain why the limitation for looking up/down exists in the engine and how this has nothing to do with the engine being fully 3D or not.

and then end up agreeing anyway that it's not a fully 3D engine.

I did not agree that Build is not a fully 3D engine, i agreed that its rendering is not fully 3D - these are two different things: one is about how the engine handles the data for the world, objects, collisions, etc (Build isn't just a rendering engine, it is a full game engine) and the other is about the renders it performs - and really the main reason i agree is because the whole "fully" thing is a bit subjective (so i didn't really want to argue about something that it depends on how much "3D" you see on something): it still produces partial 3D renderings since even if it uses 2D sprites, these are positioned in 3D space. Note that the part about the engine being fully 3D isn't subjective: it does handle everything in three dimensions and that is a fact.

Your posts are absolutely tiring and pointless.

TBH i get the impression that you are not interested in correcting your misunderstanding, but at least i hope my comments are informative to others to avoid perpetuating the myth that Build is not a 3D engine.

 

[SharkClub]

There's no misunderstanding. PowerSlave DOS does not run on a fully 3D rendered engine and I don't know why you're so keen to defend Throwback Entertainment's decision to use a falsehood in their marketing. Not going to bother to read the rest of your word vomit, probably more pseud shit.