Dark Castle Soft is making a voxel based shmup

[Laurel_McFang]

Similar to viewpoint / xevious in design with a little r-type bioterror in the bosses. The gameplay and scoring mechanics haven't been revealed yet, but it looks awesome.



Their twitter: https://twitter.com/DarkCastleSoft

[trap15]

Ugh. Voxels are basically the worst thing ever.

[Lord Satori]

I don't know, I think it looks pretty cool.

[Despatche]

yeah this looks fucking amazing. i hope it actually plays something like viewpoint or xevious 3d/g.

[Laurel_McFang]

Yeah it looks like a genuine work of love. You can tweet him and get more info on the mechanics.

I just checked and this isn't is his first shmup either:

http://xout.blackened-interactive.com/Games.html

[niall]

Ugh. Voxels are basically the worst thing ever.

And in years to come, when each voxel is smaller than a pixel, will it still be the worst thing ever?

What did you say about QuakeGL running at 320x240 at the time - that worked out pretty well I reckon!

[Laurel_McFang]

Ugh. Voxels are basically the worst thing ever.

And in years to come, when each voxel is smaller than a pixel, will it still be the worst thing ever?

What did you say about QuakeGL running at 320x240 at the time - that worked out pretty well I reckon!

Bigger question is what do you say about resogun
Voxels galore in that one

[LordHypnos]

Speaking as someone who stopped playing video games all together about 4 years ago until not all that long ago, and was not even remotely in tune with the times back then, what are these voxels, I keep hearing about?

[KAI]

3D pixel. Retrofags love them.

[LordHypnos]

Ah. Do they...do anything? or is it just a style thing?

[Oniros]

Ah. Do they...do anything? or is it just a style thing?

Mostly. In games like Resogun it looks cool as fuck though.

[Laurel_McFang]

Ah. Do they...do anything? or is it just a style thing?

Mostly. In games like Resogun it looks cool as fuck though.

It's a lot easier to make procedural 3D worlds with them ala Minecraft because they have simplified geometries. Also the depth aspect (polygons are hollow) means enemies can have realistic mass and bones and stuff.

[EmperorIng]

Speaking as someone who stopped playing video games all together about 4 years ago until not all that long ago, and was not even remotely in tune with the times back then, what are these voxels, I keep hearing about?

Well try to picture every game looking like Magic Carpet.

[ptoing]

If Magic Carpet used voxels, you mean?

Speaking as someone who stopped playing video games all together about 4 years ago until not all that long ago, and was not even remotely in tune with the times back then, what are these voxels, I keep hearing about?

Voxel just means Volumetric Pixel, and that is pretty much what it is. Each voxel is just a point defined in a 3 dimensional space, much like a vertex in 3D. And then these point are displayed with whatver you want really, flat squares which always face the camera, cubes, circles...

As far as voxels being the future, I would have to agree with that, mainly because polygonal 3D is fudge on top of fudge on top of fudge. There is no real volume, doing transparency and stuff like that is a pain because of how graphics cards handle sorting among other things. Textures are a fudge too. All this would be fixed if voxels would be how things were displayed. Of course given a high enough voxel resolution. Also voxels can be LODed much better than 3D in that you can easily collapse a bunch of voxels into one as things go further back, and at the same time generate more voxels from a single voxel in relation to other voxels using some kind of "smoothing" algo.

That said, in this game they clearly look more like a gimmick than anything. Also it seems like the perspective of the game changes, something I personally never was a huge fan of.

[Ghegs]

Voxel Dobkeratops ahoy! That looks awesome. And the same guy who did Prototype and Prototype 2? Those were fun, if slightly flawed, R-Type clones.

[LordHypnos]

If Magic Carpet used voxels, you mean?

Speaking as someone who stopped playing video games all together about 4 years ago until not all that long ago, and was not even remotely in tune with the times back then, what are these voxels, I keep hearing about?

Voxel just means Volumetric Pixel, and that is pretty much what it is. Each voxel is just a point defined in a 3 dimensional space, much like a vertex in 3D. And then these point are displayed with whatver you want really, flat squares which always face the camera, cubes, circles...

As far as voxels being the future, I would have to agree with that, mainly because polygonal 3D is fudge on top of fudge on top of fudge. There is no real volume, doing transparency and stuff like that is a pain because of how graphics cards handle sorting among other things. Textures are a fudge too. All this would be fixed if voxels would be how things were displayed. Of course given a high enough voxel resolution. Also voxels can be LODed much better than 3D in that you can easily collapse a bunch of voxels into one as things go further back, and at the same time generate more voxels from a single voxel in relation to other voxels using some kind of "smoothing" algo.

That said, in this game they clearly look more like a gimmick than anything. Also it seems like the perspective of the game changes, something I personally never was a huge fan of.

Thanks. This explains a lot of what I've heard about them.

[Kaspal]

I like the look of things in that game. Count me in when it's released.. specially if they give out the level/ship editor with the game... i'd be great to tinker with those tools.

[Aleksei]

One of those Sc look like Exception, which I enjoyed, so it could be a cool game.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I found A.M.O.K. badass looking on Saturn (RGB CRT). 3D Dot Game Heroes graphics struck a chord as well.

[Laurel_McFang]

I like the look of things in that game. Count me in when it's released.. specially if they give out the level/ship editor with the game... i'd be great to tinker with those tools.

It might be made in voxatron and if that's the case it should be up on the voxatron projects sections. Not sure if it is but I will check soon.

[Krooze L-Roy]

Voxels are the future for sure. I'm picturing a future where crashing a car into a mount of sand or loose dirt will have realistic results rather than just launching you like a ramp, which is probably the most boring voxel-related fantasy anyone has ever had.

[God]

A little R-Type? That's 100% the Dobkeratops! It's got the tail, the face popping out of it's chest, those 4 weird things have become eyes, the same weak point... The ship even has a charge attack.

[Squire Grooktook]

There's no force though.

But yeah the boss is pretty much a voxel for voxel copy of good ol' Dobby.