Resident Evil: Behind the Mask [+Hazardous Battle]

[Necron]

Gemini, are you going to add the option to keep it always on screen? Personally, I'd like to keep it that way.

[Gemini]

Gemini, are you going to add the option to keep it always on screen? Personally, I'd like to keep it that way.

Given all the contrasting feedback I got on this, I decided it's best if the HUD works in three different ways and players can choose one of the following modes: always enabled, always disabled, smart. I'll add these to the in-game option screen with a brief description of what each does.

Meanwhile:

Arwen 37 added to the list of weapons as a definitive entry, finally. It took me a while to get this done for different reasons, one of them being the fact that the Arwen is really three weapons combined in one, depending on what rounds it loads. Magnums, rifles, and assault shotguns to go.

[Saavas]

Great to hear that You got some more weapons working ! I wonder - do You use weapon damage data from original RE games or do You just make it up ? And the same question about enemy HP? Also, will there be only 3 standard types of grenadegun rounds, or will You maybe add some more, like Anti-BOW rounds from CV ?

[Scream]

I'll be going with "always disabled". Yeah, I'm old school!

[Getta robo]

Arwen 37 added to the list of weapons as a definitive entry, finally. It took me a while to get this done for different reasons, one of them being the fact that the Arwen is really three weapons combined in one, depending on what rounds it loads. Magnums, rifles, and assault shotguns to go.

Wow, great news to hear! Have you decided how it is going to function? Meaning, will be feasible to load it with three different ammunition for example?

[Gemini]

I wonder - do You use weapon damage data from original RE games or do You just make it up ? And the same question about enemy HP? Also, will there be only 3 standard types of grenadegun rounds, or will You maybe add some more, like Anti-BOW rounds from CV ?

I use RE2 values mostly, since they provide better balance than RE1's, but I've also added new ones because of the upgrade mechanics. As for the weapons, I'm more or less strictly following the original formula. I'm adding weapons that were already in RE1 (also the Ingram Mac 10 and the Minimi for completion's sake), and a few more from REmake (assault rifle).

I'll be going with "always disabled". Yeah, I'm old school!

Well, technically speaking the HUD is just for Hazarouds Battle, which isn't that much old school to begin with. Still, I'm trying to listen to feedback as much as possible and see if I can integrate other people's ideas into my vision of an arcade RE game. I mean, as long as good input is provided, which is why I keep on posting updates as frequently as I can do. Can't stand when feedback is just a bunch of "good jobs" that add nothing, though.

Have you decided how it is going to function? Meaning, will be feasible to load it with three different ammunition for example?

My original plan was to have only one Arwen 37 item capable of switching round types in real time with a button combination (R1+R2). Turns out I'll have to ditch the idea because I can't fit sound data in the allocated SPU RAM, unless I ubercompress the samples (which I won't do). So right now you need to go to the weapon menu, select round type, go back and the game will load just the required sound samples.

[Getta robo]

My original plan was to have only one Arwen 37 item capable of switching round types in real time with a button combination (R1+R2). Turns out I'll have to ditch the idea because I can't fit sound data in the allocated SPU RAM, unless I ubercompress the samples (which I won't do). So right now you need to go to the weapon menu, select round type, go back and the game will load just the required sound samples.

I see. Have you reworked Arwen 37's explosion animation on enemies? I always delt that both the acid and the flame round should had a different visual effect on enemies. Is it possible that you could showcase it with some action any time soon?
Furthermore, are there any issues with the game's engine anymore? Have you been able to fully pass the past fuss with the coding or you have something currently troubling you?

[Ultimacloud123]

Gemini, would you say that your engine is more powerful or to par with the RE2 engine? How does it compare to it?

[Gemini]

I see. Have you reworked Arwen 37's explosion animation on enemies? I always delt that both the acid and the flame round should had a different visual effect on enemies. Is it possible that you could showcase it with some action any time soon?

You mean different from RE1 or RE2? The RE1 effects are kinda tragic on their own. My version of the Arwen 37 works very similarly to the M79 for what concerns explosions and effects.

Furthermore, are there any issues with the game's engine anymore? Have you been able to fully pass the past fuss with the coding or you have something currently troubling you?

My biggest issue at the moment is making sure the engine keeps being updated for BTM and HB at the same time. Some of the code needs to be written separately and excluded from link scripts.

On a related note, I've received several requests of people who'd like to see a File #1.5 of the battle mode, which would require an extra branch to my solution (which currently has 666 files). I'm open to ideas for this one, but I can already foretell the terrible amount of work to fill all those holes, especially for what concerns backgrounds of rooms that simply don't exist in the vanilla build.

Gemini, would you say that your engine is more powerful or to par with the RE2 engine? How does it compare to it?

Hard to tell if it's more powerful. It can definitively push more polygons on screen thanks to all the optimizations in my GTE code and some exploit to help the compiler get improved results. Usually my routines end up wasting a lot less time with RAM access (which is terribly slow on a PSX) as I abuse register caching to achieve best performance.

[Mikhail]

Smart hub only comes up when you've got a weapon equipped or when your unarmed and bitten, it doesn't just pop up automatically if it detects enemies within a room?, I still want to be suprised by hunters, lickers and chimera.

I wish capcom would add a ghost type enemy that electrocuted you making itself temporary solid / visable during it's attack then dissapeared only to return at random points within a room still stalking you, more or less like the unused bio4 hookman.

[Lebowski]

this looks absolutely amazing, really looking forward to playing it. i'm sorry if this has been asked before, but when do you expect to release it?

[RetroRain]

Gemini, the problem I have with RE2 is that it is just too damn easy. Go up to a zombie, 2 bullets makes him bounces back, and then the third shot makes him fall to the ground. Then you just aim down and finish him off. And it's easy to speed run the game and have a ton of herbs and ammo at the end of the game. I felt that RE1 was more challenging. The enemies were not such pushovers. Perhaps you could adjust the values depending on the difficulty setting.

On Hard Mode, a zombie wouldn't get pushed back until 4 or 5 shots, making it so that you'd have to be more careful and conserve ammo when you can. Just a thought.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

Agreed. The 'B' game felt like more of a challenge thanks to more regular boss fights sapping your ammo but still not as much as the first RE.

I think part of the problem stems from the fact they they didn't know how to treat the zombies from a gameplay point of view when it comes to higher enemy numbers & larger locations. Since none of the games saved the health of zombies when you left rooms, featured rooms you would visit multiple times and provided a decent amount of ammo to the player on a regular basis it really never made sense to just injure them and move on to conserve ammo. Nor were you presented with such an overwhelming number of zombies that you had to just cut a hole in the pack and risk running through that.

And whilst the Lickers were introduced earlier than the Hunters in RE2, they were much slower and rarely . I think RE2 would have benefited from a new enemy or threat when you re-enter the upper floors of the RPD, once you've been to the basement for the first time.

[Jimmy_Jazz]

Although RE2 did make the shotgun more interesting by reducing the range on headshots and making headshots only viable if you aim upwards, stopping it from also pushing back other close - medium range zombies.

[Gemini]

Smart hub only comes up when you've got a weapon equipped or when your unarmed and bitten, it doesn't just pop up automatically if it detects enemies within a room?, I still want to be suprised by hunters, lickers and chimera.

The HUD shall work exactly like in Dino Crisis 2. If that didn't warn you about any nearby enemies, so won't mine.

this looks absolutely amazing, really looking forward to playing it. i'm sorry if this has been asked before, but when do you expect to release it?

I'm trying to pull strings together to at least have the battle mode available as a demo with one stage available, a couple missions, and Jill+Chris playable. It wouldn't hurt to have a release by xmas, but I'm not sure yet because there are still many gameplay aspects to add or fix. I'm currently working on finalizing at least the interface, so that I can move fully into gameplay this week. This would be the latest progress I've done since I got up from a family business trip:

I'll probably skip shop and outfit selection for the moment, those won't be part of the demo. I was also planning to add Minimi and Ingram MAC10 to the weapon list, but I'll keep them locked up as well in the demo, I guess. Gotta preserve some exclusive contents for the real deal.

Gemini, the problem I have with RE2 is that it is just too damn easy. Go up to a zombie, 2 bullets makes him bounces back, and then the third shot makes him fall to the ground. Then you just aim down and finish him off. And it's easy to speed run the game and have a ton of herbs and ammo at the end of the game. I felt that RE1 was more challenging. The enemies were not such pushovers. Perhaps you could adjust the values depending on the difficulty setting.

Keep in mind RE2 zombies are perfectly suitable for arcade gaming, just like raptors in DC2. They die fast, come in great quantity, and they are enough of a threat with respawn. With BTM they are going to be a 'little' less simple to beat in order to counterbalance arcade vs survival horror mechanics.