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WILL

Subject 33: Return of the Robots

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Hey folks!

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ID:	296 Well I've been doing a bit of traveling lately and it's actually given me some time to crack open a few of my old projects again. Subject 33 was one of those projects that I got really attached to and wished that I had actually finished in some form. I started writing it back when I was just learning to use DelphiX back in 2001.

It was originally a clone of an old Intellivision console game I used to play when I was a kid. It had been kicking around as such for some time until eventually I got my hands on a really cool book on AI called 'AI for Game Developers'. I figured that the old clone would be a great way for me to learn some of the cool things that this book taught, amoung them A* which to date seems to explain it way better than some other sources do.


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ID:	300So I took up the game and threw in some A* pathfinding to make the Robots in my game seem smarter. This worked really well so I just couldn't stop there. I added quite a few other ideas on top of my original, simple AI so I decided to leave out the --to me-- silly bats and spider from the game and focus just on the robots in the game. This was great because I could instead put most my work into adding evolutions of robots that got smarter with each enhanced model I threw into the game. And with that idea in mind, I came up with the title Subject 33. The label that appears on the 'suit' that the player wears in the game. It's meaning of course can be assumed that he is the 33rd test subject in a twisted experiment to create a better killing robot.


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Intellivision game console, Night Stalker original packaging & in-game screenshot


So that is the start of my neat little game and it was such a shame that I was not able to complete it. I did release the source some time ago for others to take and use as they please, however since not many really seemed interested and I still to this day want to see the game finished, I've just recently gotten back to the source and started working to finish those missing parts of the game from where I left off.

Doors and Keys have been added to allow locking off and opening up of different areas of the map. Most of the Robot movement glitches have been removed, only a few remain. Rockets when they impact now explode and do area damage taking out other near-by robots. Fog of War has been turned off by default as it makes the game really really hard. Plus a few other various glitches and tweaks have been thrown in.

I've really only just begun as I am planning on adding extra weapons, level exits and a map editor for a series of designed levels so the game will play a little bit more like a top-down kind of Doom game. When I've completed most of the core game functionality, I also plan on changing the game graphics to OpenGL and display at full-screen. Then I would create a simple menu system, upgrade the graphics via hired artist and adding sound effects and music to complete the game experience.

I'd eventually like to complete the game, port it to Windows and Mac OS X and possibly the iPad should I figure out a proper interface that works on a touch screen. I've been talking with someone about putting together a commercial version of the game and seeing how it does.

We'll see how we do, but I'm hoping that if nothing else I can finish a feature-complete version of this fun little game eventually.

You can check out earlier versions of Subject 33 in the forums under the old Subject 33 thread found here. I'll be uploading an updated version to PGD for people to try out soon.


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Comments

  1. paul_nicholls's Avatar
    Sound great Jason...keep it coming!

    cheers,
    Paul
  2. WILL's Avatar
    I've just posted the latest build in the Subject 33 thread. Please go try it and provide feedback!

    Get it here!