CatacombGL - source port for the Catacomb 3D games

[Arno]

@Master O: yes, those items are still on my todo list for version 1.0.

Additionally, I'm thinking of:

• navigating the menu with the mouse
• mipmapping
• support for the Catacomb Abyss 1.12 shareware
• a big code clean up
• an automated build
• fixing any bugs that I'm not yet aware of

 

After version 1.0, there are basically two main area's that I'm really interested in to explore:

• Porting the source port to a non-Windows platform.
• Hovertank 3D support

There are many other possibilities, like ECWolf-like modding support, advanced rendering techniques, an automap, etc, but those are very longterm and uncertain ideas.

[Hellbent]

The function keys are not working for me. I am not able to fire a magic missile! 

 

I'm playing on a laptop, windows 10, shareware version of the game. FDA: 

 

 

Here's a video of my second attempt at the game:

 

 

Edited March 30, 2020 by Hellbent

[Master O]

@Arno See Hellbent's post.

[Scuba Steve]

Can I just say; how wonderful Catacomb Abyss looks despite using simply 16 colors? Thematically, it's much better than Wolfenstein 3D.

[Arno]

4 hours ago, Hellbent said:

The function keys are not working for me. I am not able to fire a magic missile! 

Thanks for your interest; I enjoyed watching your attempts to figure out the game.

I don't want to spoil it too much, but here are some hints to get you going. Pressing F1 gives you the original, unmodified help pages, which are only there for historical reasons. Within the source port you can just navigate via the WASD keys. Or shoot magic missiles with either Right Ctrl or the left mouse button. The controls can also be bound to different keys via the "Controls" option in the menu.

 

4 hours ago, Master O said:

@Arno See Hellbent's post.

Thanks, but no worries, I have this thread on my notifications list.

 

3 hours ago, Scuba Steve said:

Can I just say; how wonderful Catacomb Abyss looks despite using simply 16 colors? Thematically, it's much better than Wolfenstein 3D.

Very strict limitations, like a palette of only 16 colors, can sometimes spark a lot of creativity.

[Hellbent]

Thanks Arno! I have the hang of the game now. I am uploading my 3rd attempt right now. 

 

I have a suggestion, if possible: it would be *really* great if there was a mana bar for the magic missile. It could work like this: when your mana bar is full you can fire 5 magic missiles in quick succession before your mana bar is depleted. The mana bar is always regenerating so if you fire a magic missile at a reasonable rate (say two a second) then the rate of regeneration of your mana bar would keep pace with your rate of fire (so you'd be able to fire unlimited so long as you didn't increase your rate of fire beyond two magic missiles per second). As soon as you start firing it faster than two a second your mana regeneration will not be able to keep pace with your firing rate since each bolt you fire uses 20% of your mana.

 

I suggest this because most of the time I can just squash the enemy by excessive rapid fire of the magic missile without having to resort to using special attacks. Putting a limit to how much you can spam the magic missile would create need for more tactics and make the game more interesting I think.

 

#t=1m49s

Edited March 31, 2020 by Hellbent

[Arno]

@Hellbent: thanks for sharing your blind playthrough. It's both interesting and fun to witness your first impressions of the game.

 

I like your idea of a mana bar. I once thought about making the game optionally more difficult by increasing the speed of the enemies, but then the special attacks would still be neglected. With a mana bar, the regular attack would become underpowered against some of the fireball sponges in the later levels. That would force the player into using the special attacks more often, which would also lead to more careful resource management. As an option, it's an interesting idea. I'll think about it.

[Hellbent]

You could make a new potion that would increase the mana bar (+1) so that each time you quaff said potion (about as rare as extra lives were in Wolf3D). The number of shots you could fire in rapid succession before the mana bar would be depleted would increase by 1. So at the start of the game it would be 5. But by the end game levels it might be 15 or 20. 

 

Another option, if you don't want to go the potion route, is to have the player level up every so often as he does in roguelikes like Angband. This would mean you'd need to give the player an experience bar. Each enemy would net him a certain amount of experience and you would need to accumulate a certain amount of experience to level up. Each time you level up your mana bar would incease by +1 the number of magic missiles you can fire in rapid succession before the mana bar depletes. Each time you level up the amount of experience you need to level up again would increase.

[Arno]

To be honest, introducing new items or experience points is a bit too much change for my taste. Maybe I didn't express myself too well, but what I meant is that it could actually be a positive improvement when the player would become more dependent on the special attacks on the later levels. It's a bit of a downside of the original game that the player can defeat every enemy by just spamming the magic missiles. It is not uncommon to have a stockpile of 99 bolts and 99 nukes halfway the game, simply because the special attacks are not really needed. If the magic missiles were nerfed with a mana bar, the player would be more motivated in the later levels to use the special attacks and to keep searching for treasure. I think just to have the mana bar could be a nice option for players that are familiar with the original game and who seek a bit more challenge in their Nth playthrough.

 

 

 

[Hellbent]

Okay, sounds good. Game is very cool. The levels became very atmospheric and interesting with lots of secrets and sense of discovery. There was a big bluish troll boss guy that was really fun to fight as he had a gazillion hitpoints. I'm currently uploading my gameplay video of the crypt and the well/aquaduct areas.

[taufan99]

Just downloaded this, and every time I start the port, I always get this error message,

"Picture has invalid texture name (16)".

What makes?

[Arno]

@Hellbent: great, I'm looking forward to the next video!

 

@InDOOMnesia: ouch, thanks for giving it a try and the feedback. I'm sorry for getting your hopes up.

 

The error message means that one of the textures wasn't loaded properly. Could you share the contents of your %appdata%\CatacombGL\CatacombGL_log.txt file? Maybe I can figure out what could be wrong.

[taufan99]

@Arno No problem! I realize that the current condition isn't doing me some favor, but I'm still glad to be of help. However...

I've tried checking the file where it should be, but there's nothing. I've enabled "Show hidden folders & files", as a note.

Edited April 2, 2020 by InDOOMnesia

[Arno]

@InDOOMnesia: thanks for your support!

I will take a deeper look at what could have caused the texture error and also why the log file could be missing. This will probably take some time,  but I'll get back to you on this.

[Hellbent]

 

[Arno]

Your surprise encounter with the big blue demon ... I loved that! I think these demons were designed by Adrian Carmack, so classifying them as Barons of Hell isn't that far off.

[Hellbent]

Yeah, that was probably my favorite part of the game so far. :)

[taufan99]

They look like somewhere between the pinkies and Barons of Hell.

[Arno]

@InDOOMnesia: I've attached a development build to this post. I fixed the problem with the log file; thanks for reporting that.

I also searched Google for some of the limitations that need to be taken into consideration when running OpenGL on an early Intel integrated graphics chip. I made a few changes in the renderer accordingly. I can't promise that this will do the trick, as I don't have the same hardware as you do. But if you don't mind a bit of experimenting, then please give it a try.

CatacombGL-bin-0-4-3-x86-logfix.zip

[taufan99]

Works like a charm now! Thank you! The GL lighting effect makes the games all the more haunting, in an impressive way.

Also, I like how the Softdisk Trilogy has a more intuitive custom menu.

Just for the sake of more authentic proof, here's my CatacombGL_log.

CatacombGL_log.zip

And here's the detailed FPS performance on my device. Still greatly fast!

Spoiler

 

Edited April 7, 2020 by InDOOMnesia

[Arno]

Wow ... 201 FPS on an Intel 945GM, I wasn't expecting that. Awesome!

That means it should also play well in fullscreen and in the more demanding levels, such as The Haunt of Nemesis.

 

Also, thanks for the confirmation that the source port can run on OpenGL 1.4 hardware now, that's good to know.

 

Edit: post 666! :D

[taufan99]

All that with a 2GB RAM, which just makes it even more impressive! Well, yeah I know this is an old game source port after all, but given its use of OpenGL, I am still in awe over its performance!

And congratulations on becoming the Evil Member too! Yesterday I got my 666th post too :P

[Arno]

I went through this thread and also my Twitter account to collect all the feature suggestions from the past, which I've aggregated into this issue list on Github. I also added some of my own idea's. I'm quite certain that some suggested features will never be realized, but it helps me to have this overview when improving and extending CatacombGL step by step.  Of course, anyone is welcome to add more suggestions to the list.

 

@InDOOMnesia: nice, congratulations to you too for passing the Evil Member milestone.

 

[taufan99]

So I just saw the issue list and looked up external music suggestion issue. Will it only support modern formats like mp3 and ogg or will "older" formats like MIDI be supported as well? If so, will there be a soundfont option as well?

[Arno]

To be honest, I don't have any concrete plans in that area yet, since there's just so many other ideas that I would like to work on first. Your suggestion makes sense, but I have no idea what the impact would be. I've added your question to the Github issue, such that I won't forget it when the issue gets closer to the top of the backlog.

[Master O]

@Arno As a potential suggestion:

 

https://github.com/ArnoAnsems/CatacombGL/issues/25

[Arno]

Thanks, @Master O, an automap is an interesting feature suggestion!
The original source code from Catacomb Abyss even contains some functionality in C4_DEBUG.C to draw an overhead map when F10+O is pressed. Unfortunately it doesn't work without recompiling the executable, as by default it is disabled via a compiler flag.

[SiFi270]

Wasn't that accessed via a cheat in the original?

[taufan99]

I have recently published a blog article about your CatacombGL port and jval's RAD port. Head over here.

[Arno]

@SiFi270: I just tried it on the Abyss shareware version via DosBox, but F10+O doesn't seem to do anything.

Maybe you're thinking about the debug mode in Wolfenstein 3D, where TAB+O would enable the overhead map?

 

@InDOOMnesia: that was a nice read, thanks! I also enjoy seeing other non-Doom source ports popping up at Doomworld.