Does anyone know if the map format for Black Magic's Gloom has been made available? Failing that is there a map editor available?

The reason I ask is I am greating a gloom-alike engine as my first venture into Open GL programming. As I fondly remember this game it would be great if I could actually be running around gloom maps.

Last edited by Dafs on 04-Apr-2009 at 11:58 PM.

@Dafs

the author of Gloom3 and that other one apocalypse...or something is still around, i suggest you ask him.

he was last seen (not long ago) on Irc #amigairc ..

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Quote:

Toaks wrote: @Dafs the author of Gloom3 and that other one apocalypse...or something is still around, i suggest you ask him. he was last seen (not long ago) on Irc #amigairc ..

The game was "Zombie Massacre." Not so good, as it was just a Gloom Rehash- same game with different graphics and sound. It had a great intro that was done with AnimatED though! It was by Gareth Murfin.

Gloom was indeed great, but is showing its age now. I never liked the fact that it was all on one level, i.e. you can't go up stairs or into pits. The floor and ceiling are at fixed heights.

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The gloom map editor was made available a long time ago but it wasn't widely known at the time. I created a few map packs that I believe are still floating around on aminet, I had fun making them.

This all happened ten years ago and I have no idea if the editor was widely released after that time as I finally bit the bullet and bought a PC back in 96 without looking back until now.

JB.

@Squelchy

The Gloom 3 Zombie Edition (or whatever) CD contained everything to make your own Gloom-version. Try to get it from shops or Ebay.

Regards,

Reynolds

@Dafs

Talk about reviving dead threads.

I just happened across the gloom map editor recently, from trial and error I've managed to figure out the structure of the maps, textures, sprites, etc..

Anyone interested in a gloom remake?

@Dafs

Yes always... :)
Gloom had a nice engine at the time..

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@Dafs

Sure am sir
Cool avatar!

Rude!

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@Dafs

A Gloom remake would be cool!

Count me in as a wisher for a Gloom remake!

PS: For which platform? Classic68k, ClassicPPC, AOne or maybe NatAmi?

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@All

Currently I'm prototyping and re-implementing the level editor in BlitzMax for Windows. When I'm 100% satisfied I've nailed the file specs I'll begin the main game.

The game itself would be implemented in C+SDL with software and OpenGL renderers thus being cross-platform. I'll release the source and mapspecs at an early milestone.

I hope I can get Mark Sibly's blessing for this (the original programmer.) I'll email him when I have somthing concrete to show.

I'll post more details,musings and requests this evening (UK time) as I'm off to work now.

@Dafs

Mmmm... cross platform?
I can smell AOne and Wii conversions here!
Each of them would be very awesome.

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@ErikBauer

If someone is motivated to port to those platforms, yes. My development platform is Windows and will probably port to the following:

Pandora.
GP2X.

@All

It's early days yet but I'm interested in anyones opinion and assistance as to what direction to take this in. Basically I want to re-implement the game engine as faithfully to the original as possible but with the following enhancements:

-Cross platform
-OpenGL renderer where supported
-Sofware renderer (most probably raycaster) supporting variable depth/resolution
-Support for high quality texture-sets + sound effects
-Multiplayer over internet
-Moddable

Here's what I've originally planned but 100% open to change.

Milestone 1:
Map + assets file specs fully documented. (Almost done)
Basic level editor and map viewer constructed to proove accuracy of file specs. (Underway)

Milestone 2:
Appeal to Original Black Magic team to allow the original Gloom data files to be redistibuted as part of this project.

This is neccesary for the following reasons:
1) It's the polite thing to do.
2) Gloom's data files are compressed using CrunchMania. As far as I know no cross-platform open-source de-packer exists. Ideally I could just re-distribute un-packed versions of the files along with 'OpenGloom'.

Milestone 3:
Re-implement portions of the game-engine. Using the original data files.
-Script parsing.
-Naive OpenGL renderer.
-All events implemented. (e.g. teleports, enemy spawning, pickups, doors, rotating/morphing walls)
-Audio.
-Static enemies (i.e. spawnable and killable but no AI)

Publish data file specs
First alpha release

@Reynolds

On the Amiga Future Issue 75 are the Gloom 3 CD fullversion.

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Hmm...

@Dafs

That is coming along quite nicely.

Some of the earlier comments here make reference to the "Zombie Apocalypse" game, but as far as I recall, all that ever was was just some new maps made using Gloom Deluxes enclosed Map Editor tool, and some new weapon/enemy graphics. It wasn't a "new" make of the game at all.

I am fairly sure I had the map editor that Mark Sibly released somewhere.

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@_Steve_

I found Mark's editor on an LSD disk. It is also downloadable here for anyone that's interested.

I've never managed to be able to test maps from it though it would just play the normal game or crash.

I've emailed Mark Sibly about obtaining permission to redistribute the Gloom data files. No reply as of yet.

The less said about Zombie Apocalypse the better I think (and special edition 97 for that matter).

Last edited by Dafs on 04-Apr-2009 at 11:50 PM.
Last edited by Dafs on 04-Apr-2009 at 11:49 PM.

@Dafs

I love the idea of a new, OpenGL Gloom. I like the look of your editor, too. I still do work on Doom editors -- so much fun, such a great game, and so many wonderful tools for it, so I'm waiting in line for this. Imagine, editing for an Amiga game. Sign me up!

Like others have said, I'd really be psyched if the Gloom engine could be made more like Doom or Breathless, i.e., more 3D, with stairs, varying ceiling and floor heights, etc. That might be a bit more work than you're looking for, though.

Now if only someone would make an editor for Breathless, a game I absolutely adore, or failing that, a utility that can suck out all its textures, objects and sprites, so I could work on a Breathless TC for Doom...

That said, Dafs, I eagerly await your OpenGL Gloom + editor. That's a super-fun game and I will make a few maps for it.

"Beware of aggro skinheads!"

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@EmperorLongo

Thanks for your encouragement. I was considering making an engine more on par with AlienBreed3D in terms of features and merely converting the Gloom maps to that. But I'm not, like you say it's a bit more work than I'm looking for at the moment.

I'd love to see the breathless data formats documented also or more-so AlienBreed3D 1&2. In fact I'd love to see a repositry for all of Amiga's unique FPS's for the sake of preservation.

I'm confident enough to press ahead with the main engine today, whish me luck though. Still no word from Mark though .

@RoqueFort

Quote:

The game was "Zombie Massacre." Not so good, as it was just a Gloom Rehash- same game with different graphics and sound. It had a great intro that was done with AnimatED though! It was by Gareth Murfin.

I agree with it being not so good. Maybe the game was okay but everything else was shocking. I don't know if it came out before OS3.9 but "installing" it ended up destroying system libraries like ASL. I put "installing" in quotes because it didn't actually install the game either, it just wanted to know where to put config files. The game wasn't even installed! I hate games that take up megabytes on the CD and then don't even install themselves.

Honestly, I don't know why these programmers think they need to destroy system libraries just to make an assign or run a game. This game mucked up my A4000. And rendered my friends Sam OS4 system useless. I had to track down what it destroyed and restore it. Not fun!

The next worse thing is games hacking into 68000 interrupt vectors. Hello? It isn't a demo, or a bootblock loader. The OS let's you add an interrupt. Okay rant over.