Resident Evil: Behind the Mask [+Hazardous Battle]

[Gemini]

My original choice was Hawk Eye, I changed it later to Sniper Eyes to make an in-joke about the fact that Forest was formerly a sniper.

[Ultimacloud123]

Something I thought about, changing Sniper Eyes to Hawk/Eagle Eye. Seems more fitting but then again it's your vision.

[Gemini]

It's a shame that RE couldn't handle bodies remaining behind when you left rooms.

1.5 does something like that, but the idea was later discarded for a simple reason: it replaces corpses with extremely dull rotting corpse models (doesn't look too good). It could sorta work in a regular game that doesn't involve going back to rooms that get repopulated, and yet that would drastically kill any possibilities of spicing up the gameplay a bit.

Meanwhile I got my ass over with brainstorms of the remaining specialties for BRAVO Team:

• Enrico - Tactical Dodge: he can shake free of enemies much more efficiently that the other characters
• Forest - Sniper Eyes: works kinda like Chris' ability to make critical shots and he can also spot more hidden items
• Richard - Radio Sweepers: he can select a room where a STARS member will permanently remain to keep it free from monsters (doesn't work for boss rooms)
• Kenneth - Chemical Haze: he can combine two green herbs and get the corresponding combination of three herbs, or green+blue=g+r+b

I also renamed some of the previous abilities like Chris' CQC, which is now called "Miracle Hands", and Wesker's Super-Human became "Virus Overdrive".

Also got this done while I was bored of coding:

The joy of rendering+post processing. T-002 looks so nice with proper effects and an updated model.

[jayredfield]

hi !! i'm new on this forum but i follow it before many years nice job gemini

[Jimmy_Jazz]

Slighty off topic but all this talk of items has got me thinking. It's a shame that RE couldn't handle bodies remaining behind when you left rooms. There could have been some fun with searching corpses for items, especially if the file system gave you clues as to which bodies hold things.

You could then use files to tell the player about corpse specific features that you won't know about until you read the file first - such as someone swallowing a key before he died, or someone having a secret compartment on their jewellery.

[B.Zork]

I think BTM would benefit from a system similar to RE3, where the items are organized in "formations". In other words they cycle between pre-defined sets of goodies in order to avoid funky junk to appear instead of truly helpful items. On the other hand battle mode will rely almost entirely on consumable drops from enemies (like RE4 but nerfed a lot more), yet it will include some items you can collect in order to unlock special parts of the scenario for extra objectives.

sound like how we think for 1.5 too approach to possible randomization arrangement mode too.

[biohazard_star]

I was thinking maybe you could introduce the potshot feature from Outbreak for some of the characters, but I dunno how you'll balance out the gameplay if you implement it. As for special abilities, maybe you can have Richard and Forrest do increased damage with their specialty weapons (Forrest - bazooka; Richard - shotgun).

[Ultimacloud123]

Forest takes half damage from zombies but takes 2 times damage from crows, same follows with Kenneth but reversed. Just my 2 cents.

[Gemini]

I didn't change the geometry, all I did there were minor fixes to their UV maps in order remove seams and holes. So now that the battle cast is composed of 9 characters I have literally no idea what kind of specialty to assign to the new entries. I guess some external input could help making them completely unique to other characters. For example of what kind of ability I'd like you to propose, here's the current list:
- Chris has the ability to deal double damage with knife attacks and randomly performs critical hits with the Samurai Edge
- Jill has access to more rooms with no need of keys (perfect to unlock some of the extra stuff the easier way)
- Barry has increased firepower with standard handguns and shop upgrades cost less to him (Kendo is the shop owner, *wink nudge smudge snoo snoo*)
- Rebecca can self heal when she's about to die and can optionally auto mix herbs as soon as you get them
- Wesker can take a ton damage before he gets to caution, but when his health is depleted he takes double damage

[Scream]

Just wanted to say that the Bravo Team updates from Twitter are great. Nice work Gemini! If anyone hasn't seen them yet then hurry up and check out BTM on Twitter or FB.

That's probably the first time I've seen Kenneth, lol. Properly at least. Have the models been modified a lot?

[Jimmy_Jazz]

Just wanted to say that the Bravo Team updates from Twitter are great. Nice work Gemini! If anyone hasn't seen them yet then hurry up and check out BTM on Twitter or FB.

[Gemini]

I'm really looking forward to experiencing the engine on my CRT and comparing it to the originals.

My real hardware tests revealed the game looks truly good on old TVs or even on the PSP (which gives proper decompression, but can also load lossless backgrounds at double the speed with almost no still screens).

A couple of additional option suggestions:

- Blood Color (Red, Blue, or Green)
- Violence Level (Low or High)
- Dual Shock Vibration (On or Off)
- Randomizer (On or Off)
- Sound (Stereo or Monologue) (just for the hell of it)
- Picture (Color or Monochrome) (just for the hell of it)

Funny coincidence about most of those:

I had this implemented for a long while, since when the stealth code was added (i.e. back in July). Keep in mind that some options can't be applied on the fly to the game because their initialization takes a little and usually relies on different sets of data (like the blood color in Deadly Silence, which is just broken on some assets). Vibration and sound will definitively be added to the in-game option screen. Also keep in mind there are mainly two option groups: mission settings and game settings; the former can't be changed during the mission while game settings can be tweaked at any time. Sonic and I had some long brain storm sessions to include most if not all the options seen so far in the original trilogy and other stuff from later titles, ports, and remakes.

Truthfully, with the N64 version of RE2, I really didn't notice the difference between the Randomizer and the original game. I owned RE2 for N64, and watched videos of the Randomizer option. I didn't see items randomized. Did they really get randomized or not?

The RE2 item randomizer should be mostly related to ammo and healing items. From what I could gather from reviews, said randomization isn't exactly too good and you usually end up having a ton red herbs or flame rounds. I think BTM would benefit from a system similar to RE3, where the items are organized in "formations". In other words they cycle between pre-defined sets of goodies in order to avoid funky junk to appear instead of truly helpful items. On the other hand battle mode will rely almost entirely on consumable drops from enemies (like RE4 but nerfed a lot more), yet it will include some items you can collect in order to unlock special parts of the scenario for extra objectives.

[RetroRain]

A couple of additional option suggestions:

- Blood Color (Red, Blue, or Green)
- Violence Level (Low or High)
- Dual Shock Vibration (On or Off)
- Randomizer (On or Off)
- Sound (Stereo or Monologue) (just for the hell of it)
- Picture (Color or Monochrome) (just for the hell of it)

With Violence Level, Low means that limbs from zombies and other creatures can't be severed, High means they can.

With Randomizer, if it is On, all items are in random positions. If it is Off, all items are in their default positions.

Truthfully, with the N64 version of RE2, I really didn't notice the difference between the Randomizer and the original game. I owned RE2 for N64, and watched videos of the Randomizer option. I didn't see items randomized. Did they really get randomized or not?

I noticed something strange with the backgrounds, the lighting and shading looked a lot smoother although I couldn't put my finger on it, at first I thought they might be recreations but the original details were still intact. Thus the logical assumption was some trickery with Squeeze Bomb (I had forgotten its name!). It looks great by the way, I'm really looking forward to experiencing the engine on my CRT and comparing it to the originals.

[Gemini]

All of you stand correct in a way or another, but I meant something else to notice the trick of the 1.5 simulator. If you look carefully at the pictures you'll notice the backgrounds are post-processed with a Floyd-Steinberg dithering from one of my latest twits. So, to recap what you all guessed correctly:
1) Zombies move with slightly altered logic and the code can animate alright pretty much every version of them I can throw at the engine, given a few tweaks.
2) Elza's hair moves somehow, but I think I already mentioned this in some previous post when I talked about hair logic applied to several purposes. Of course, I made a specific version of the ponytail to mimic the 1.5 behavior, unlike "Elza replaces Claire" stuff I've seen around where her hair totally disappears into the head node.
3) Everything runs of course under the BTM engine (aka Squeeze Bomb); it's developed decently enough to mount pretty much everything from the PSX titles.

Also, since you guys asked for some menu pictures, I guess I'll repost here the battle mode option screen:

Huge inspiration came from the PC port of RE1 and partially RE2 as well. It's really nice to have playable characters making funny moves when you reconfigure pad maps.