New Teaser Video of the Pitchfork

This is a very short video and pretty dark since I forgot to add any real lighting in 3Ds Max but it shows off the weapon in its early stages. Encoded in 640 x 480 and converted for YouTube so its pretty SD.

More weapon tests

Ok, so here's a few new screenshots.

So the image to the right should look familiar. It's a heavily modified Tesla Rod from Blood II. Right now it shares 95% of its code with the original DOOM plasma gun, which I will change out as time goes on.



One more screenshot coming up.

Here's a shot of our rendition of E1M1. What you see so far has been created by Pineapple and myself. Notice the beam shadows! The area is under construction but it's just showing high-res texture placement and dynamic lights.





Last but not least, here's a WIP render of our new pitchfork that Tyler is working on. I know it's not much but it's better than nothing right now.

Minor update

I've uploaded a WIP track of Hypertension. It's not finished but it sounded good enough so I uploaded it. Ben Wachal is the one experimenting with dark, ambient music. Nick Perrin is also set to track some music, which should be available soon. A lot of the musicians are getting content in and it's a good thing.

We should (finally) have more screenshots to show after the break. We have some really interesting stuff cooking up that'll be sure to knock you guys out of your seats!

Boide

Well he was born on April 20th, but I just got ahold of some pictures of him. If you don't know, he's Pineapple's baby (my mapper). He's doing well now, just shouting out a congrats.

His name is pronounced Bo-Dee. But it looks like Boyd...lol.

Anyways, he has hella free time now...so we're working on a few maps together, so hopefully I'll have some more things to show off.

25,000 youtube hits- Thank you!

It is fair to say the teaser is old news by now but thanks to a bunch wily console fans, Hypertension has become something of a minor phenomenon. We can't say just how grateful we are to those of you who've never actually played Blood and see Hypertension as an opportunity to to do so. Your positive thoughts and wishes have left our good karma buckets overflowing. There are those who continue their efforts to steal our good karma buckets. They will fail of course. Again, please know that we appreciate all your feedback.

Thank you!

zZaRDoZz

And the hits just keep on coming...

R&R

Don't worry guys, I've gotten a few comments asking if we're working on this or not. We still are, just want to wait a little bit before we show something, since everything that we've shown previously was mostly in the teaser. So don't worry, a little breaktime+relaxing was in order. We're almost done with that, and then we'll have some cool tidbits to show you.

"You go that way, I'll go home!"

So, we're still at it. The teaser has given us a chance to relax a little bit, though. It's been nice. Except for our friend Kurt's constant moronic rambling, things have been rather nice lately.

I'm almost done with the entire dialogue system, which I think I'll be able to code into the Dreamcast version too. I'm split on an issue - make the dialogue system fill the entire screen, pause gameplay, etc., or have the dialogue in the upper part of the screen, and have the "answers" to those questions near the bottom, leaving the gameplay screen unaffected. Both of these have advantages and disadvantages though. As far as framerate goes, I could just have it fill the entire screen, at least for the Dreamcast version. Another thing is having text output clear because the resolution on a TV is much lower than in a PC game, and I fear that it might get too blurry. As of yet I'm not sure a VGA Box would do any good since I haven't tested it out. A lot of Blood's original graphics needed to be converted to the palette for the DC version rather than internal PNG images (to avoid disc stress and constant texture loading), but it still looks good. Playing the game on the TV gives it an entirely different feel - but I'm worried about the dialogue looking shitty. I'll have to test it out - I'll post a screenshot of the DC version when I do.

Alright, back to work!

Go see Terminator 4!

Simply amazing. It defied all expectations I would've ever mustered for the movie. Outstanding. Me, Pineapple, and our friends went to see it at 12AM PST...it wasn't a letdown.

It was a nice break from the game. So many memories that they put into that movie. I don't want to spoil it...but defy all of your expectations. This was better than The Dark Knight, by far. It will not be a letdown.

Don't waste time, go get your ticket! Now! =)

quick news/updates

Teaser has over 10,000 views...really impressive. All of us here were pretty shocked at the amount of press the game has received.

I've noticed people around the internet wondering when a release would be...we hate setting them. I'm really wanting to say near the middle/end of 2010, at the least...but that's of course, off the record. We really don't have one. There's still so much to do.

But it would be 10 years since the Dreamcast so we're shooting for a playable, incomplete version around that time.

Well back to work for us, you guys should like the new content we'll be uploading in the next few weeks. It'll include some new weapon artwork, new creature artwork, more of the official soundtrack, and some behind the scenes video footage. If things happen like I want them to we should be on track for another video, which will be almost completely different from the ones you guys saw.

I would also like to take time and say that the teaser was never intended for the public audience, as it was an internal thing. So stuff in here will look out of place and probably mismatched (DOOM, etc), the music in the teaser isn't from us, blah blah. Like SegaNerds, who took the liberty to post it, said, "I believe they will be changing any items/enemies that are from other games during development."

So let's keep that in mind! =)

Thanks for all the publicity guys, good or bad! Remember that we have a semi-active IRC room and a forum board.

source successfully,

Finally compiled. w00t. Game works on Dreamcast now (still broken). Still have to fix the sound code.

I'll post screenshots when I get a chance. Using FreeDoom as a base for the DC wad, since it's too much work gutting everything out all over again.

Teaser has gotten almost 1000 views...very good news there.

0.98 is coming along well, although we've ran into more problems than the previous version. As I said DOOM's content was taken out so a lot of graphics are missing based on stock stuff. I updated the code handlers for a lot of the weapons since I have to replace the DOOM code now, just have to do the same with the enemies. Finally fixed the broken spraycan, and Caleb can now pick up 2 types of spraycans. I'll keep quiet about the other one when it's actually working.

Got the bloated butcher in the game finally. Now I'm trying to find ways to reinnovate his character. I updated some of his effects (cleaver throwing, acid puking) but his death frames are not correctly working...grrr....

Noticed some people got the cultural reference (inside joke) of Saddler from RE4 in the walls of Caleb's crypt. Many, many, MANY more of those to come. About time =)

IRC-CHAN

Just a reminder that we finally set the entire IRC channel up, all maintained and everything. Ride your happy ass over to our irc page and join in on our discussion. Or, we could be nice and link you directly to our 3dfxdev.net page. Basically, we broke off of Quake-Net and are using our own server now. (Links have been updated, so if you're the one person who actually bookmarked that, you have some work to do!)

Backwards face-man demands you! Actually, don't take that demand. Doesn't that picture just look creepy? God damn. Who would do that? Wait... that mustache reminds me of... (lifts up a rock). XD

In other game-related news, David has finished up all of the Zombie torso death animations. It looks so legit it's not even funny. Zardoz saw them and almost fainted. Haha. Anyways I just started on a good chunk of code for that, and I'll allow weapon-specific damage and heigh-specific (if you aim any of the shotguns at his torso area, in accordance with the HEIGHT value, it'll blow him in half). Otherwise, bad aim will cause them to probably get up.

Also, Sega Nerds has also caught wind of Hypertension. Thanks for posting the news guys!

xoxoxo

The junkyard

Looks like we've also made it to Dreamcast Junkyard! Thanks Aaron for relaying the news!

Also a big thumbs up to CubicVR creator, Charles J. Cliffe, for mentioning the news about Hypertension 2! Hypertension 2 already seems to be getting a good amount of hits for the inclusion of the engine technology CubicVR. We're currently hunting around for a programmer efficient with the technology to begin preliminary work on our branch.

About a game.

Sigh, time to head over to the Eclipse Project page and get this stuff sorted out. The program keeps crashing, not only to my code but now in Windows 7. I'm not sure why it's doing this. I'll figure it out.

I'm listening to quite a lot of Nirvana lately. Their angry music is actually helping me work on this project. For some reason emotions play quite a bit into making a videogame. Also working a bit on H2, here and there.

Seems our community is getting major hits again. Took it long enough. What, about 3 or 4 years of no activity...I still wish it was 2005. =)


We added a Donate button earlier today. It was agreed by the team that it'd help, because believe it or not, we're hitting financial problems. Paying the server bills, material costs, and other stuff is interfering with our lives outside of the game. I mean, how else are we supposed to buy everyone Dreamcasts? lol j/k...but in all Seriousness, every cent counts. All of us greatly appreciate it.

Smells like...hmmm...

I'm busy working on compiling Hypertension's Dreamcast counterpart with Eclipse CDT...so far so good except I keep getting an object handler error. Not sure what's causing it - PC version is compiling just fine.

Looks like we've made it to PlanetDoom again! Thanks Pappy for relaying the news!

That is NOT your daddy's Shotgun!

Hey all, quick update! Todd from Avenpitch are working on exclusive material for Hypertension's Phase 2 development! We've attempted to collaborate in the past on other projects but the recent teaser seemed to spike everyone's interest in the game!

Avenpitch, a Minnesota-based electronic band, have released 3 CD's - 2003's Avenpitch, 2006's Butterfly Radio, and more recently, 2009's Cast Off.

They'll be working on exclusive material, and will be joining the other OST guys in Hypertension's amazing soundtrack.

Quick shout out to Todd! Keep it real buddy! =)


In other news, I have recently converted over half of the code to work on the Sega system, now all I have to do is finish up the other half and convert all of the MD2 models into sprites. Things are running slow due to optimization issues that we hope to cover soon. Everyone seems to be excited, and our newest phase in development promises to be the best!

Phase 2 has begun.

The title says it all. Some early peeks are available at Blood Wiki, so truck your ass over there if you're interested.

In short, we've rewritten nearly everything, so now is it not only closer to Blood's attitude, it makes a lot more sense. It should even (GASP) quench PM, assuming they even care.

More updates to come as work continues.

Welcoming more members..

So I would like to quickly welcome Dave, our new sprite artist; Ben, our new musician/voice actor, and Tyler, our new 3d modeler. They are really good at what they do and we know they'll be invaluable to our core team.

So they're joining our already huge cast. Let's take another quick rundown:

Corbin - Project Lead
Alex Jabin - Lead Designer
Tyler Bezera - Lead LUA Programmer
Joppu - Lead Mapper
Brendan Doe - Lead Graphic Artist, Sound Engineer
Gael Romanet - Lead Texture Artist
Dave - Lead Sprite Artist
Tyler Weiss - Lead 3d Modeler
Melinda - sprite/graphic artist
Visplane Overflow - Programmer
Pineapple - Mapper
Tragos - Creature/Weapon Design, Sprite Artist
Unconscious - Mapper
Kyle Annis - Mapper
Ashley Tarrant - OST
Nick Andren - OST
Nick Perrin - OST
Ben Wachal - OST
Avenpitch - OST
Zardoz - Game Input, Beta Tester


...I think that's everyone. I hope I didn't leave anyone out of the list!

Tonight we'll be having our first ever, hopefully collective, coherent team meeting.



Just to let you all know, if you think you knew everything about Hypertension, you are wrong. The entire game will be redesigned...tonight. Get ready for it.

SEGA!

And so, with the push of the power button, the familiar orange glow snaps into reality, the soothing hum of the white bastard machine fills the room. Once again, it's Thinking.

Work has begun on the Dreamcast version once again. What this means is that I'm taking the entire codebase and rewriting it to work on 1.29. This means that I'll be up to my eyeballs in coding work to get everything looking somewhat decent. The response to a DC version has been overwhelmingly positive on all fronts - this lead me to this decision.

What I'm going to do is assign everyone on the team a duty while I keep busy on the Dreamcast version. This is not one of my favorite things to do, but I have to get everything up to speed.

I'll try my best to modify things around to look just as good as the PC versions will.

In the words of Martin Luther King, JR: "I HAVE A DREAMCAST!"



Also, just for laughs, I found this video hilarious. Pineapple is on the left (my mapper), and my brother (on the guitar) is on the right. They totally free styled this back in 2007. WARNING: NSFW

"You know, it adds a sense of order and stability to my life to see that you're still a pompous ass."

<- Just the few users on PM who didn't like the trailer. Notice I said "few". The alpha teaser has defied my expectations. Everyone loved it. Some even commented that the game took on a scarier feel than Blood did. Some felt the action was fast and furious, and complimented the original game. Some said that we added in a different kind of atmosphere that was lacking in Blood. I've even had people say that it could be the bridge that Blood's been looking for. I've also gotten a literal flood of emails from all sorts of communities.

We've gotten all sorts of comments. One in particular was from Nick, who is also working on his own game. What he told me will stick in my head for awhile to come - "the lighting and 3d models etc. work surprisingly well within the environment otherwise populated by gfx from a previous generation haha."

Now, let's take this quote and dissect it. First of all, one of the main common complaints, that was outspoken early in development was that our game horribly mismatched the 3d models and lighting. Using lighting balance, that I said I would from day one, we have overcome that obstacle. Second, those same models from TfN worked well in the environment even though it had much Blood content surrounding it. I blame that good fortune on our texture usage, as selecting the right backdrops can make or break a scene.

I've also received an email telling me "Hypertension was surrounded by an uncertain cloud of negativity. I took [time] and watched the trailer, and it didn't disappoint. Perhaps you found good use for the Transfusion stuff and make the single-player that they could never do". I took that as a huge compliment and it really goes to show the impact Transfusion had on the community. I don't like comparing the two but it's nice to know that people still remember that game and it serves as a nice boost of popularity for the both of us.

Next was a particular quote from a Dreamcast goer, "I Will Donate to this cause. I always wanted to play Blood on my DC and this game looks sick..." There was a lot more to that but I felt that was the biggest point of the email. It seems that those who thought we weren't raising awareness were wrong.

This site has almost hit 10,000 views in the short time it's been around, and we get around 60 visits and more than 170 page views daily. This week alone we've gotten 1,028 page views from the teaser alone. So we really thank the people who stand by us and help us make a better game than we could've ever hoped!

Just as so, Alex and myself are going to sit down soon. More than likely the entire design of the game will change, and that goes for characters and other stuff. Don't worry, he won't design some ripoff character of Caleb who sports an obnoxious mustache and down-syndrome face texturing.

We also got an inquiry for another musician, this time specializing in rock pieces...so stay tuned and thank you for being the badasses you all are! When the final trailer hits, take the teaser and erase it from your mind. It'll be sure to knock a few heads wide open.

With Love.

When

a teaser is released to public, you sit back and watch it unfold on your screen, unreal to how far it's come. Most of you remember when the project was first started, back in August, and how different and little I really knew. This project has grown so much bigger and I have wonderful team members to thank for that. After all the bullshit that we've received, we're still here to talk about it and finally released something! It was a trip down memory lane as I see how many things have changed, mostly in the phsyical pictures of the game.

With having said that, I've been really tweaking things. I removed a shitload of Doom content from the current alpha and it now runs without an official DOOM IWAD, so you won't need any copy of Doom to play it thankfully. Unfortunately it was the real last break away from DOOM and it broke a lot of things with the game, almost rendering it currently unplayable. Using FreeDoom as a base I hope to slowly start recoding everything to match DOOM's old code definitions. This will allow people to mod Hypertension and mess around with it once we release it. I've taken some advise and futhermore seperated it from Zblood by removing E1M1 and beginning work on a brand-new version. Pineapple's computer crashed a few weeks ago (by the way Congrats dude with the baby!) - on Teusday he'll have it fixed and once again seriously rejoining the team as a level designer.

More importantly, I called a little meeting with me and Alex to sit down and seriously refine gameplay, storyline, characters, budget costs, and promotional stuff. This might take some time and the results will vary, whether or not it affects current development is still unknown. We could end up changing a lot, or nothing at all. Alex got involved not too long ago but a lot of his treatement was written, but not accounted for, in the latest alpha version or gameplay video. Using his talent as a designer, we're going to tackle the game together and knock some screws loose (or tighten them, I can't decide which).

As always, keep checking back, don't forget to check our forums, don't forget to watch the teaser, and don't forget to drink your milk. ^^

Back by popular demand!

Greetings Bloodites!

Corbin's feeling little under the weather right now. Using powerful drugs, some fast talking and the help of a minor coup I've gained control here at the Hypertension blogger site. Pineapple and crew are already planning a counter attack so I have to move quickly.

I'd like to announce the public release of the alpha teaser footage ! I think you'll find it's highly atmospheric as it shows just how much work has gone into Hypertension's intense game play. And it's the gameplay is what matters most right? Hypertension is taking on some amazing attributes that I'm sure you'll appreciate. The combat is fierce, the enemies fast and numerous, and the fire... oh the fire! Any old pyros out their will feel that warm familiar cackle rising to your throats once more!

Enough of my droolings. It's time you saw for yourselves just what Hypertension is!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY4D_rpGidA&feature=channel_page

Video!

The slots were filled in a whole two days. So far the teaser has attained a great deal of positive feedback, even from people who disliked the project based on design ideas.

Let's hope things continue to go well.

I had to call in sick to work today, whatever I have is pretty bad as its affecting me pretty hard. I'm taking medicine for it but if I don't get better by tomorrow guess I'm going to visit the Sick Ward...lol. But no in all seriousness, the symptoms aren't very good so if it resorts to that then I'll let you guys know. Wish me well.

Tried working,

Didn't do too well. I was feeling very ill as expected so work wasn't very productive today. All the dayquil/nyquil won't help what I'm going through. ):

Anyways, slots are still open to view the teaser. The post below this one outlines the details.

Pre-Teaser footage

We now have a pre-teaser of alpha footage available on the internet. In order to view this footage, send us an email of request, and we'll shoot you through appropriately.

You can only see it if we allow you to (i.e. people we already know or are cool with). Since there has been much hostility towards the project, I regret to have to resort to this. Once we get things in a less chaotic state, then we'll go about releasing a formal (public) teaser and alpha to go with it. It's still a ways off from alpha and we don't plan on making a formal teaser until we get our coding issues sorted out, but you can check out what we've put together so far.

This is limited to only 10 people - first come, first served. Make sure to let us know here. Things not allowed: distribution outside of our terms, hosting of the file on other sites not approved by us, or unauthorized downloading of the file and/or sharing.

The game is in a severely unfinished form and the video contains a large amount of bugs, most notably in the sound code. There are still missing graphics, bugs with the weapons, enemies, physics, and models. So it's not in a totally presentable state but I did my best to avoid recording the demo with that stuff edited out. We feel that if we have something semi-proper to show the Blood/Doom/DC communities that it'll change a lot of those negative feelings towards the project.

Just let us know!

rts

i'm so exhausted. I worked 7 hours on stupid RTS scripting for the first level after I got off of 7 regular hour workshift (and a 4 and a half hour at Sprint). Jesus Christ. The rts stuff pissed me off so much. then i took an hour and encoded a new video.

Well anyway just wanted to say that. Yay, 10 in the morning at the DMV. better get the sleep I can get right now. Also, I can code in Decorate now. It wasn't that hard to learn. C++ is much harder for me to swallow.

I'll post some progress shots tomorrow. Things are looking good, alpha soon!

Hmm,

New weapon? I want to explain this one sooo bad. But I don't think I should. Try to figure out what it could be! (Sprited by CW)













I also brought the magnum from Zblood over, this time with major changes. The magnum can only fire 6 shots before needing to be manually reloaded. The gun has more than 3 frames of animation now (up to 10 that I created myself, Zblood's magnum only had 3 sprite frames), and has souped up magnum casings, gun smoke, and a new reloading animation. The gun can also jam on Caleb, causing him to swear as he fumbles to reload it. The weapon also kicks up in the air when firing, and can have a nice, bloody effect on our Axe Zombie friends. . . =)