The Broken Hourglass

[jcompton]

It's intriguing to see IWG2 brought up in relation to this project, since Wes's experience with IWG2 was in fact a key consideration.

 

If you'll permit me the historical digression...

 

With IWG2, Wes was trying to shoehorn a story he liked into an engine (ruleset) he liked. Of course, he was doing this with (at best) a hand tied behind his back because he couldn't alter the engine directly, only through file modifications. After X amount of work on it, it was clear that there were some irritatingly fundamental differences between the two engine flavors which couldn't be easily papered over.

 

What not everybody realizes is that before he started the project, he gave serious consideration to bypassing the shoehorn and simply writing a new engine which could give him a similar result. In essence, he chose the wrong option, but by time he realized it, the moment was gone and he wanted to work on other things.

 

So, yes, when we first discussed this 18 months ago, we went over what had happened with IWG2, whether he had made the "right call", and whether he still believed he was up to writing a novel CRPG engine.

 

In some ways, of course, the task is easier now than it would have been in IWG2-land--that was a project meant to play a specific game, which would have meant supporting all of its filetypes and quirks and whatnot. Our engine is built differently. It also afforded him the opportunity to implement a ruleset he liked even more than the 3E (ish) offered by IWD2.

 

Now, whether he would agree that he made the right move in terms of his free time by saying, "Yes, Jason, I can write a new, novel CRPG engine for you" is another question, but the fact is that he did say he could and he has, in fact, done so.

[Nick_i_am]

This thread just took a turn for the awsome (w00t) " :ph34r:

[Musopticon?]

Eh, who cares where Weimer gets his drive from? If the game delivers, great.

[Judge Hades]

I think I might want to get this game.

[Cantousent]

I find the premise interesting. I'm game for a good game and even more game for a great one. I don't care if they're ex-modders or ex-spetsnaz. Not having played a BG mod, I'll judge any game they make based on the game and not past efforts.

 

I mean, this isn't going into the pre-order column, but if ramza can keep us abreast here, it's all good. It lets us know about a new game and keeps him from talking about the Black Hound.

[Lare Kikkeli]

looks kinda nice imo, will def check on this one later

[karka]

Time to necro...

 

First screenshots:

 

http://www.planewalkergames.com/content/view/62/1/

[ramza]

It's kinda ugly... I really feel disappointed now...

They should have used the Infinity Engine instead: its graphics never get old at least, and are far more detailed than the broken hourglass' ones.

 

Wasn't Bioware supposed to distribute the codes for the IE for free? What happened? I am sure a whole bunch of modders would have been happy...

[Gorgon]

". Not too sure where it comes from, though >_>"

 

It's Mike Mignola, probably a Nazi scientist about to summon Hellboy for the first time.

[astr0creep]

It's  Mike Mignola, probably a Nazi scientist about to summon Hellboy for the first time.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Wasn't there a movie about that guy? Starring Tom Cruise?

 

"RESPECT DA ****"

[Gorgon]

:S

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I'm not sure the AV I regurgitated now was the same back then but the one I'm using again is indeed Mignola art. The character is Lobster Johnson, who was the basis for one of the protagonists of teh awsum mod me and Volourn would make. And this relates nothing to The Broken Hourglass. So there.

[Wistrik]

Hmm, I'll continue to wait for Valve's and Bioware's upcoming games. Maybe this project will actually be finished, and maybe it'll turn out fun to play, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

Edit: My feelings aren't specific to this crew. I have a general feeling of disappointment/disillusionment with many modern games (or attempts at games), and so I've returned to the singleplayer Ultima games to rekindle my original love for CRPGs. If you think TBH's graphics aren't that great, try to imagine 2D, 16-color tiles. (Although fan-made 256-color VGA & MIDI sound upgrades now exist.) For me the story is what made Ultima, not necessarily the graphics, though they certainly have their own charm.

Edited January 8, 2007 by Wistrik

[Tigranes]

Looks pretty good actually, the screenshots I mean. They look pretty much exactly like IE in art style, just lacking a little in quality. The characters are a little different and bigger, though.

[aVENGER]

It's kinda ugly... I really feel disappointed now...

They should have used the Infinity Engine instead: its graphics never get old at least, and are far more detailed than the broken hourglass' ones.

 

The crisp looking graphics of the IE games were mainly the accomplishment of the artists who made them as most of them were hand drawn or pre-rendered 2D images. I imagine that the same holds true for the Broken Hourglass (as it's also based on 2D graphics) so it's not really the engine's fault.

[Diamond]

I thought graphics look more detailed that that of IE games. Just need improvement in artistic direction (with the most obvious being unnatural shadows).

[Tale]

The game looks interesting. I'll try to remember to keep an eye on it.

[Lilandra]

The graphics look dated, even more so compared to the IE games.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

so.. he couldn't finish a huge project like Icewind gate... and yet thinks he can make a full game? 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I believe there were issues in regards to compatibility... IWD2's engine was a heavily modded version of BG's so... welll it' was alot like square plugs in round holes, it could be MADE to work, but only in a buggy and unstable manner... Well something like that.

[metadigital]

What not everybody realizes is that before he started the project, he gave serious consideration to bypassing the shoehorn and simply writing a new engine which could give him a similar result. In essence, he chose the wrong option, but by time he realized it, the moment was gone and he wanted to work on other things.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Fairly poor research in the beginning of the project, then: that's a lot of effort to spend on a project to come upon a show-stopper than should have been seen during the preliminary scouting.

 

He might, though, have been simply using the whole project as a learning exercise , too ...

[blue]

Fairly poor research in the beginning of the project . . .

Retrospection doubles the IQ.

 

 

Hourglass shows promise not because of (and maybe in spite of) the 2d graphics. Documents published on the Planewalker website suggest a commitment to developing a unique and textured story, cast and ruleset. Yes, the term "commitment" is typical PR boilerplate, but the publication of original short stories & other background material suggests an active interest in developing more than pretty screenshots.

 

Whether this indie studio can pull it off remains to be seen. I'm skeptical about the company's business model and their ability to publish a polished product, but given the past success of Weidu -- a stable, efficient and flexible system that's become something of an industry standard for 2d modders -- I think they're building on solid ground. Good luck to them.

[Wistrik]

Wes successfully wrote a tool and subsequently felt he could do anything. Well, a good programmer can, but there are also the matters of time and other resources to consider. Experience teaches these things; they aren't usually obvious to someone who's just getting started. I felt similarly back in the 80s when I was writing games and editors and programming applications on my Vic-20/C64/C128, and I had my share of disappointments.

 

I'm not surprised by Tutu's success because the engine versions used by BG1 and BG2 were both done by Bioware. Thus many of the changes involved additions, with only a few minor changes to existing features, and the rules are the same so that makes it easy. In fact Bioware copied much of BG1's data to be re-used in BG2, as is readily evident to anyone with an IE browser tool. Black Isle, on the other hand, liked to do things differently so they created a more heavily modified version of the engine for Icewind Dale and later IWD2. And the core rules changed in the latter game. Thus I knew better than to waste time trying to make IWD2's engine work with BG2's data. (Better off writing a new engine.) Of course, since I'm not part of the online modding community, no-one asked what I thought of the matter, and I had no motivation to share. Such is life, sometimes.

[metadigital]

Fairly poor research in the beginning of the project . . .

Retrospection doubles the IQ.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I did caveat with my following comment ... after all, if he was seriously thinking about writing a new engine, he would need to scope it, and that would have been part of the process, so I tend to think it was more of a "let's see how much we can do in this engine" rather than "let's do this project to completion."

 

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

BG 1 & 2 in IWD2's engine, very unlikely... extremely time consuming. I wouldn't even entertain that project for fun, it's freaking pointless, it'd be more sensible to write an engine that will read from both a produce a new result so to speak...

 

New engine using old assets and files... And even then, totally pointless in my opinion, nothing more than an exercise.

[blue]

Fairly poor research in the beginning of the project . . .

Retrospection doubles the IQ.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I did caveat with my following comment ... after all, if he was seriously thinking about writing a new engine, he would need to scope it, and that would have been part of the process, so I tend to think it was more of a "let's see how much we can do in this engine" rather than "let's do this project to completion."

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I should have quoted you in full. My comment partly referred to Wes' learning curve -- ie, "experience teaches these things." Hopefully now Wes is as experienced as Wistrik.

 

Question for Wistrik (or anyone): did the ToEE Circle of Eight modders use Weidu or another system?