Halo clone with A6. Seriously.

Yeah, I know what's going through your head. "What is this guy thinking!? A Halo clone is a ridiculously ambitious project!" True, true, but one I've been working on for two years.

A very short promo for version 1.2 (which is, in fact, obsolete by two months) can be seen on this YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZdYx7ErlR4

The download link (and a link to a Facebook page for the game) can be found in the description.... or here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?a06xmakf2zeaxqi

The game is called "Epic Falo" (you know, the epic fail version of Halo), and features single-player campaign with AI bots (one level and a remixed version), multiplayer for up to 3 players split-screen (soon to be increased to 4), and glitchy co-op campaign, also for 3 players.

Network games are not currently supported. [Any plans for this have been discontinued due to complexity, animation glitches, and your suggestions not to include it anyway.] There is also poor support for XBox 360 controllers, but this is subject to change for the next update - I'm already working on fixing that.

Animation is also terrible, due to (a) I am not a good animator and (b) there is an awful glitch with bones animation and split screen (at least in A6) that further reduces my desire to do any animating.

Edit: Needed more media for you all to see... screenshots are below.
Screenshot 1: Basic game, HUD, hallways, and a shoop-da-whoop


Screenshot 2: No ragdoll physics, so killing an enemy looks like this.


Screenshot 3: Engaging aliens in long-range combat.

Hey haha looks funny I'll try it!

I admire your ability to not take your work too seriously. A halo clone is certainly an ambitious project but you're going about it the right way.

I'm downloading it right now, but a little extra media might be nice.

I have to say that it seems a little strange that you'd have a three player splitscreen mode and not a four player mode already. You should try to lay down that sort of infrastructure right from the start I think.

By the way: I suggest you don't bother with network play. At all. It's a fun idea but it will be a tremendous amount of work and in all honesty no one will ever play. I think the game is fine as a splitscreen multiplayer game.

Anyway I'll let you know what I think of the game shortly.

The lack of a four-player mode was due to Gamestudio's lack of support for more than two joysticks. I'll see about adding some screenshots and stuff soon.

Edit: New screenshots are up on the first post.

Random comments in no particular order:

- This game is hilarious. Well done! I haven't tried the slayer mode with anyone yet but the first mission of the "campaign" was very fun.

- I didn't actually encounter any notable bugs at all. The game seemed pretty polished, even as rough as it is. The game felt very much like a halo game, only much funnier.

- The achievements are a really nice touch that add to the xbox feel of the game. The enemy dialogue and the weapon and map descriptions are hilarious.

- I still have to stand by my original statement on the online mode. Humorous games like these lose half of their appeal when you can't enjoy them with anyone else personally. The four player mode will suffice.

- Add CTF. 'cause you know, it's halo.

EDIT: More comments!

- I wouldn't worry about the animation. Watching the enemies slide around just made the game more fun. Less work this way anyway.

- I feel the same about the poor textures. If anyone came along and offered to do a better job for you I wouldn't turn them down but otherwise just don't worry about them at all.

- It would be nice if you moved the profile info out of the title image.

EDIT 2: Even more comments!

- Second level was a massive lol from start to finish. Flying cinderblock ftw. Also amnesia reference which made me lol.

- Well I said "even more comments" so I should technically write at least two. That was my second comment.

Solid work !
Even with stupid AI, the game is really fun and enjoyable.

If you used your own textures and HUD you could make some special Indie retro clone game.
I like teh waepon effects and dynamic also

I'm so glad you guys have enjoyed the game! Personally, I don't mind the suggestion to leave out network support - just one less thing I have to do. I found a plugin for XBox controllers, so with all those inputs, four player mode - and therefore CTF - shouldn't be a problem.

nice to hear that also A6 is still alive!
Downloading now, will comment it after playin ^^
but the screens look great!

As a HaloPlayer i have to say: great job

Never played Halo before. Doesn't matter, it makes in fact fun.
You really should continue it, with or without "as halo clone" and keep this retro look but anyway replace some models and give them an animation.

And you use the templates, don't you? It's the first game, which use them, I played with fun! To fire the weapons feels good...

From what I can see, it looks like he used the templates for a few things like camera movement during the cutscenes, but wrote the greater part of the game's code himself.

Yeah. I based the biped movement very loosely on the templates (with heavy modifications for realism) and kept the original global ID script with a couple changes. Nearly all the rest was custom written.

The indoor level is ripped from Halo original game no ?
And how it is done : it is one mesh or tiled 3D pieces of room ?
Performance si good for A6 !

Haha game is funny, good work.
"I will bite your kneecaps off!"
Big minus for the installer though, unnecessary and annoying.

Nope, all level geometry artwork (except a couple textures in a couple maps, which come from the standard wad or old demos) is custom designed.

What I did was model each unique piece of hallway - i.e. straight section, corner, T-junction, etc - using level blocks built as map entities, and set up each one so that when you walk on it, it fires a trigger event. This event sets the visibility of all the other hall sections (and any bipeds and weapons resting on them) based on whether or not they can be seen from the section where the player stands. It's not too efficient (visibility has to be manually calculated by the map designer and gets less effective in multiplayer), but the game certainly runs faster than it would without it.

I would've just placed the halls as normal blocks and used the built-in BSP visibility calculations, but the build time for that method took much longer than I had patience for.

Edit: The two campaign maps handle visibility in two different ways. In the first one, every transition between map entities is clearly marked with three doors, or two doors and an invisible trigger. The first door makes only the first hall visible. The second door, upon being triggered, displays both halls. The third door displays only the second hall.
In the second map, I used the much more refined and reliable method of using small sections which trigger as you walk on them. No more doors to worry about.

Oh, about the installer, I will be sure to drop it for the next online release. That was set up for convenience to a local audience that was receiving the game on CD.

Or you could have maked some Metroid like sections also !
Some HUD seems really from Halo ? if nojt it's very well copied.
(something to avoid fi you would go commercial one day with this game ) !
If you don't target to animate ennemies, you can even use 3D models !
Or make minimal animations like this sort of retro RPG game :
Dot Game Heores


Would be retro ans stylized also !

You can add more than two joysticks. I spoke to JibbSmart the other week and he's done it for KarBoom. He uses the functions from windows.h that comes with the engine. Maybe try that out?

And I also advice you to stick with split-screen. Network is a whole new deal and porting a single-PC-game to being a network game takes years.

@ratchet: Actually, I created all the HUD art myself too. No actual resources were used from any Halo game. Also, that looks like an interesting game - I've never seen it before.

@Germanunkol: It probably works in A8, maybe even A7, but you have no access to that stuff in A6. A6's native features are very very limited compared with more recent updates. (I'd upgrade, but anything newer than 6.31 completely breaks collision, sight, explosions, and HUD elements.)

Dot Game Heroes is the one thing that keeps me seriously considering whether or not a PS3 would be a good investment at this point.

@Redeemer :
It's too much money for only paying one game !
I fisrt i found it great, but it became standard for me after some stages and boss defeat.
I dislike the very low resolution they used in PS3 , and the frame rate is not smooth you feel it really like some 30 FPS or under i think !
The animations are retro but they could have smoothed them, after some time with not so hight frame rate they look too much cutted or clunky robotic, too much for me personnaly. Well i didn't wanted to finish it at end and rebaught it,even if i was very happy at beginning !
Just to avoid you some disappointment perhaps

Yes, Halo could be remake that way, with blocky retroo characters why not !

LOL pretty cool!