The story of one game

I remember standing in the yard in 2002 (maybe even the end of 2001, who will now remember). Then we started making this game. On the hands were already some developments. I must say that these developments could not boast of a beautiful picture, grace, grace and even uniqueness. All that was in these developments simpotichnogo - chips. At that time I was drawn by my brother. But to show the game to the white world was still very early and not very good. She was still cheese and except for the mechanics could not boast anything, except that bugs. I did it at that time alone and showed only my acquaintances and friends who, of course, liked her very much. Let's be honest with ourselves, friends always “like” everything from what you do. Not everyone is ready to lay out the truth, as they say, "in the forehead" and say that everything is terrible.

In those old days, many were obsessed with Fallout and his amateur handicrafts. They did (or rather tried to do more than do) fashion. I monitored several forums with such orientation. In the same place, zagostvo started and I got into the team of Digital Geckos enthusiasts. After a while I was “singled out” by the artist Weilard 'a, with whom we ennobled the game. For my part, it didn’t take so much to add a couple of screens and change the graphics. And the game is ready.

By the way, she looked like this after these simple operations:
')

Lines Tactics, 2001

In game development, I was still quite green and insanely impressed with the result. However, Weilard did not want to stop at this and suggested that the game be expanded, supplemented, made more beautiful. I would say that he proposed to make something incredible, grandiose from such a simple, casual game. Of course for that time. Then casual games with such style and scope did not do.

Similar games always looked something like this:


Screenshot from Arcade Lines. Somewhat later than ours.

No sooner said than done. He wrote a whole design document, made an insane amount of graphics and 3D models (crazy for such a small game).

We did the game for almost 2 years. That something cutting, something tinkering, then struggling with laziness. Basically, of course, my programmer. However, the game did everything planned and it looks great to this day. As in my opinion, so just great.

“To do something more or less correctly (caused by the utter mess in the company in which I was working at that time) led to the development of my own game, in the evenings after hard working days. But love for rust and for the game Fallout defined the style ”- Weilard .

Weilard has since instilled in me a certain perfectionism in the game of devil devil, since he worked through every detail in his pictures. Well, what can you find fault here? Is that the fact that everything is typed in upper case? No, because it is an imitation of some strange apparatus, and in such a technique they so often do. And you can only find fault with a repetitive texture on the left block of buttons. See for yourself:



The first game was written on the old Delphi versions and used the DelphiX framework. In general, it suited us to almost everyone, except for the absence of translucency (which was compensated for by software) and by the use of DirectDraw. The latter was in every way abandoned and thrown out by Microsoft, which complicated the launch of the game on the new OS.

A little later, it had to be rewritten into something newer. To do this, I took PowerDraw 2.42, which already used Direct3d and allowed to use transparency and all sorts of other joys of life. I had to rewrite, not least because our free game has a publisher who wants to give money and release the game only in English and with its logo on launch. So a slightly cropped version of the game appeared, but it didn’t get into the network due to the fact that the publisher at the last moment decided to give up, for unknown reasons, to release the game and pay the fee.

Since then, the source of the game gathering dust on my disk. While the game itself was walking on the network, slowly dying, since it could not run on win7 / 8 at all.



Alas, but the size restrictions due to the speed of the Internet at that time made it impossible to add 2-3 audio tracks to the game. Although I wanted to do it. But we did not spare the place on the graphics and even small, modest animations.

In the game, they even allowed themselves to prank a little, having composed a couple of dozens of different questions when leaving the game.

And we did not spare the forces and made a whole section in the rules of the game. A detailed description, jokes and animated pictures of the figures that need to be collected in the game.




How now it hurts to look at the layout of the text in this old version. Align the text and defuse it will be another item in the remastering. Be sure, where without it!



What is the result? I categorically do not want to bury the game, so I decided to make it remastered. As part of the remastering will be:

• Support Windows 7/8/10
• Transfer to the new quad-engine
• Improved special effects
• Widescreen monitor support
• Progress

I must say that I would have with great pleasure added to the game and music, which she was deprived of 12 years ago. Who knows, perhaps at the time of major changes, Weilard will tighten up and slightly update the graphics.

Why do I paint the whole story, showing screenshots and video of the process? Yes, everything is simple. This game was my first serious completed game. A lot of energy was spent on it and it turned out great. Now I want it to remain as such, but to be accessible to people. In connection with this, I opened the Steam Greenlight page to vote to release the remastered version on Steam. Free, no ads, micropayments or any other nuances. With pleasure to distribute it to all lovers to poke “color lines” for free. And all that is needed for this at the moment is to get the missing couple of thousand votes in favor.



PS: And finally, I want to give a link to the same, the old version.

Download version of 2003 (5.9Mb)

Alas, it only works on older operating systems and is not as good as we would like. In win7 / 8, you can start it by putting a launch in compatibility mode with WindowsXP in the settings of the shortcut. Like this:



Thanks for attention!