'Mytrosia' and 'Fallen By The Way' News

[Madison Lastrega]

Hello my friends..... Sorry for the long delay in progress reports.... I have been working alot and  have MAJOR news to report...... My fallen by the way web link will be fixed by june 1 st......... I have made MAJOR changes but am waiting to post a demo befor I raise anymore hopes...... So here it is I won't sugar coat....... I have officialy killed the the SoM project of fallen by the way..... Now don't be sad, Fallen by the way WILL be released next year, but I have decided to make it what I wanted in the first place... A REAL GAME..... 128 bit engine, and all the stuff a NEW game should have....... My engine is Crystalspace, an exellent but hard to use engine that works seamlessly with Blender..... it is open sorce , free and you can sell your work,,,,,, please wiki it to see what I mean..... I have a C++ college student helping me write the source game code......So all is well, and FBTW WILL live and WILL be a TRUE "games for windows" title...... and will look as good as the models I have spent 7 months working on.. Will feature true motion blur , particle effects , the works..... and , as stated before works with blender and blender's animation engine.FOR REAL CUSTOM ENEMIES AND NPC'S....... also works with most high end map editors...... stay tuned to FBTW.com in june for details....... NOW, for all my friends whom have helped me over the last 7 months..... I still love SoM , and recomend to any one whom wants to make a game to make an SoM game...SoM provides game theroy, event theroy, and of couse model making skills...... A must for any new devolper..... So for my fans and just to say I did it, I WILL be releasing a working SOM title called 'Mytrosia"    I have 4 maps ready made for it and will demo it soon....... Mytrosia is the prequel to fallen by the way....... Mytrosia is Madison's Home land..... it this game will document all the events that lead up to fallen by the way.......... I realized that my hopes for fallen by the way were IMPOSSIBLE for the weak and sad SoM engine.... and spending months trying to "RIG" som to do what other engines do standard was stupid and too time consuming...... Mytrosia will be a standard Som game with only a CGi opening and ending...... the video limitations of som SUCK..... Mytrosia is Island based and takes place on 8 islands...... 22 maps will be all there is to it....... I will also be using the standard som map set with all the ones I made for FBTW, that way I can get this game done, instead of making map parts for days at a time......... It will have many many customs that were made for both FBTW and DD.... (thanks Todd).... While it won't be the glorious vision I had of FBTW, it will be a solid som Based game with good plot.......... if anyones interested in knowing the story..Just ask ........ I will be hosting it here and on my own web site ,and  will be freeware, and will release all my parts open source, upon it's release........... I am making it for the challenge and, for the fact I did not spend  7 months F*%King with SoM to not make a game for it, I am just being realistic...... Som is so out of date that it hard to make a powerful game with it........ But I think Mytrosia will be as good as DoM and maybe even DD......... I thank all my friends on here , and promise to help anyone whom need SoM advice....... Stay tuned for further updates on both my Madison lastrega presents titles:).............. Love you all .........ML

[Hguols]

June 1st for the FBTW site.  I'll be there.

Looking forward to Mytrosia.

[Holy_Diver]

If you'll be making a bunch of custom stuff please consider back porting everything for use by Som sometime.

[Madison Lastrega]

Thanks Tom, I am moving with ease on my new project...... After a month with another engine, and writing boring C++ code.......Working again with SoM is easy..... and just so that everyone knows, Som has the easiest model importing EVER........ With Crystal space you have to make 3 of everything........ One model to view, one model for the wieght and physics, and one for collision......... SoM build and compile......... And Holy of course, eveything I build and do for Mytrosia is open source, so anyone can play with my goodies , as always...... By the way, great work with custom MDls, I hope that maybe you can get it figured out in time for me to use some in this title..........if not , will be awesome for future builders............ Here are the Gui's I built for Mytrosia what do you think?  will post all my stuff as always for my friends to check out.........

[Hguols]

My primary excuse (and that's what it is) on not finishing my 3rd game is that I don't have enough new "stuff" to work with. 

I thought two games with the same enemy designs, same NPC designs...   a 3rd game would be beating a dead horse.

[Madison Lastrega]

yeah my primary excuse for Fallen By The way is.......Som blow chunks (for modern games that is) and the game I want to make would be impossible to make , and the bugs..God the bugs......... So I am taking all my stuff I built for FBTW mixed with some new stuff, and the DD item and object set and crank out a good but REALISTIC SoM release, however I am still going to reskin all the npc's and some enemies to add some flavor...... and I am still making improvments to the SoM world in general...... For instance...I love trees, but hate the idea of trees as objects. So I made a pine map piece... very small only 65 k and works wonders.....And saves precious object slots...... I will make 5 more types of trees like this of  and BAMB....... instant low poly forest WITHOUT TERRIBLE LAG...... So SoM for me is far from dead...... I just cant make 60 plus maps with SoM without losing my sanity, my wife, you get the idea:)  and I want to sell FBTW...... and from will never come off the source code to improve it, nor will they allow anyone to redistribute it....... so will make a phat SoM game for free , then use GOOD software to make FBTW the way it should be......... Plus I can help myself and my charity with out a gazillion dollors in royalties.......... anyway , Dig the trees?

[Holy_Diver]

The big win for Som is the really enormous amount of quality assets you get for free. Assuming you won't be attempting to copy all the stuff over from Som you will have to either find an alternative treasure trove or make everything from scratch. The way Som is at the moment it's hard to recommend doing something that isn't either in the legacy of KF or for the love of Som. I know a bit about indie teams making games with CrystalSpace, Torque, Irrlecht, the list goes on and on. It doesn't usually work out and the offerings are even more forgettable than the indie stuff that makes it onto the likes of Xbox Live Arcade. It's very easy to get lost in the possibilities and none of these engines were really designed with any forethought so they're all really a mess which can be frustrating.

I discovered Raystorm HD last night. That is probably the coolest/best use of current generation gaming yet. There is something beautiful about Playstation era games before the possibilities were endless but not too stifling. Game makers have still not come to terms I think with how to effectively deploy modern technology in terms of a good game that is not all over the map. I guess the argument is people haven't figured out the basics so to me Som is at least as interesting as anything out there. Of course if it doesn't do what you need you're out of luck for the time being anyway.

When you have your demo ready if you add the movies you'd like for it to play instead I can make them play with your game/demo. If someone doesn't prepare a setup for me I got nothing to work with.

Som has a bright future for DIY games I think, as long as authors understand they're not trying to compete with the mentality of commercial games and just want to make a fun/clever game which can probably look as good as a PS2 gen game running thru the original Som runtime exe.

There are some very real probably insurmountable limitations but unless you know Som very well you probably don't know what these actually are.

I don't think the inside of Som is really based on the workflow of the map editor. Therefore it's probably possible to build a completely different kind of map editor from scratch. Personally I like the 2D map approach so imagine a map editor with at the minimum multiple layers to each map.

Also bear in mind ST was a pretty sophisticated game... I played it recently, and actually it's map transitions work like Som's more or less. So that might have been the inspiration for the black fade in / fade out teleport setup versus just being lazy and only implementing KF1's warp setup. Still once a remake is in the can KF2 style seamless transitions can be setup also.

I have a complete grasp of the MDL files which is the single biggest hurdle to a remake (I tend to work backward from the toughest obstacle) ...once there is a basic x2mdl setup ready I'm planning to build a PSOne disc ripper and rip everything out of ST so it can be added to Som's already extensive catalogue. Som's goodies are good enough for any project I'd like to do but hopefully some new stuff will encourage some new games.

We could also do the same for the KF games. Personally I'd like to see games done with different graphical styles. And even a very abstract style which if we had models for could be the basis for a faerie map style extension.

[Madison Lastrega]

Yeah I agree, SoM is a fabulous learning tool for any would be builder, I have gotten so much from SoM, and when things work , SoM can be fun........ In fact Working on FBTW, I stopped having fun, and thats why I knew I had to seek another engine...... I had to build Crystalspace myself...... Full build..... no pre fabs...... it accepts any source code you can throw at it........ Thats the challenge..... Making your parameter editor, map editor, ect..... All must be MADE, unlike som that does the 6 hardest parts for you, all you do is build......... but luckily for me I have a great college near by with a good stock of C++ nerds ready to "geek" away.......... What I am doing for FBTW, is using much of the sorce code from other open source games to make my editors, and "gameplay engine" call it cheating, I call it intuitive...... besides thats what open source is anyway...... AND I can get a pre fab design to fit what I looking for....... as long as I realese the source all is legal........ but as I said before the main reason I am using CS, is is't full intergration with Blender...... like a dream come true......... and it makes GREAT STUFF, I included some examples of projects made with CS, to show that with even basic sorce code one can make great stuff........ now if I had the source code of SoM, then I just redo SoM to add the missing features....IE reverse rotation...... Particles and true fog....... NON tiled maps....... Mp3 Sound engine..... OGG support, smoke effects...... the list goes on......but FROM will never come off of it..... and with CS that is what I am doing, I am taking other open source projects, out there and making MY SOM......... will take a while, but once done , it will be a snap to make FBTW .... Marketable, and most of all PRETTY.............Anyway I have boring stuff to do on Mytrosia, I am making more of thoses trees map parts:)............ Take care all..........http://www.crystalspace3d.org/main/Projects_Using_CS#Precursors

[Madison Lastrega]

Just a progress pic of my forest map set so far 3 different size pines and 2 types of tall pines...... More to come........ML

[Madison Lastrega]

TREES and More Trees....... Anyway another progress pic here is what the forest scenes will look like in Mytrosia...... add a few more oaks and instant low poly forest that gets the player in the forest like no other KF has yet..... Now if only I could set the trees on fire , then that would be awesome....... but thats another game:)..........................ML