I am a huge fan of the first Blood game, and luckily I’m not alone and there is a whole Blood community that wants to see this game remade and continued.
Recently Jace Hall who was the founder of Monolith Productions Inc, the company who developed Blood – posted on The Postmortem forums his wishes for a modern enhancements port of Blood which will be available on GNU/Linux for free.
Take note that this is not intended to be a remake but a modernized port to suite the modern OS’s and hardware.
The compiled list of things discussed includes :
Port Necessities (Maintenance & Convenience)
- two executables of focus: Blood (the game) and MapEdit
- no modification of the original maps, art, sounds, music, or gameplay
- incorporate an updated BUILD Engine from the EDuke32 project
- this will immediately add cross-platform, stability, and video advancements
- multiplatform support (Linux, Mac OS X…)
- increased screen resolutions (up to 3072×2304)
- (optional) OpenGL rendering support
- widescreen support
- “highres” content support
- vsync
- uncapped framerate
- improvements to the map editor
- closed-source compatible license (but only for the engine; game and Mapster32 are GPL)
- This would actually need to be done or else a lot of time would be wasted re-porting the BUILD Engine from DOS.
- this will immediately add cross-platform, stability, and video advancements
- cross-platform support (start with Windows and GNU/Linux; Mac and all other ports follow easily)
- improved control setup and mouse input
- fix demo recording, which has always been broken in BloodBath, and in SP cannot complete levels
- replace outdated UPX network code with functionally equivalent or superior modern code
- fix MapEdit bugs such as inaccurate mouse pointing
- remove/increase level design limits, such as floor/ceiling mirrors causing hall of mirrors and maximum sector, wall and sprite limits (previously 1024, 8192, 4096)
- add support for using CD audio without a physical CD (via FLAC and OGG files)
- ensure proper support for the Bink/Smacker movies
- port the original Blood command-line tools as well
All of the above should be made first priority before the below is attempted.
Port Enhancements
- easier launching of user maps, mods, and TCs (RATM, Bloody Pulp Fiction, Deathwish, etc.)
- add support for additively-loaded zip files and user folders in addition to RFF
- add options to fix original gameplay bugs (warps, eternal fire, panel glitches, stone gargoyle, etc.) but it must be customizable like ZDoom’s compatibility options
- Multiplayer: client/server protocol, mid-game joining, map/kick/ban voting, “pure” flag, spectating
- Multiplayer: more configuration options
- option to have timelimit in multiplayer mode
- option to force players to respawn after a set time in multiplayer mode (very important with the timelimit)
- option to have team specific spawning points in team games in multiplayer mode
- support for more multiplayer spawn points per map
- option to force ‘show opponents weapon’ off in multiplayer mode, chosen by the player that starts the map
- Multiplayer: keep text chat record, visible in an overlay window when T is pressed
- per-player configuration of auto aim: complete enable/disable and options to tone it down (though cap it at original strength to keep it fair)
- support for additional episodes in the main game (ie. the ability to load user created episodes / maps within the game)
- status bar shrinking at higher resolutions
- “modern” small HUD option, like EDuke32’s
- bloody footprints (after stepping in a blood pool, footprint decals for 3-5 steps)
Dreams
- Multiplayer: additional game modes
- capture the flag
- monster rush / horde / endurance
- king of the hill
- 1v1 duel
- Multiplayer: voice chat
- Multiplayer: target hit confirmation, visual and audible
- Multiplayer: server lobby
- Multiplayer: leaderboards: frag tracking, map time records, # of secrets found, hit/miss accuracy
- Multiplayer: tournaments
- Multiplayer: multi-skin support, optional clan skins
- Lua support for modders
- surround sound
- achievement system
- patches and updates for years to come!
Stuff We Don’t Want
- “PunkBuster” or similar buggy and problematic anti-cheat
- anything having to do with ZBlood
- changing the original game (by default)
- a remake, either in whole or in part
I personally can’t wait for this game to be ported to the modern OS’s , you can join the discussion and help bring this project to life.
Thanks to Curly Brace for letting us know about those wonderful news !
Ah, so you did hear about it Maxim. As someone who is probably a bit more privy to information on this, I must warn everyone to curb their enthusiasm a bit. While it does indeed look promising, nothing is assured; that is a community wishlist so nothing on that list can be assumed as being set in stone. The entire project is still very much a concept only, and Jace still needs to get things pinned down.
And about Linux support, here are Jason Halls words to me about the subject earlier this month: “Currently, I wasn’t thinking of including Linux on the client side of supported platforms, but that’s one of those things that I would look closely at when the time comes and see what makes sense.”
So do not get too excited yet. It is promising, but a lot still needs to be demonstrated.