20 Years of System Shock

[674217cc56ae4mahk]

Hello friends,

MAHK here, LG programmer from back in the day.

System Shock is turning 20 this month!

To celebrate, I'm going to be live streaming the game this Sunday, 9/21. I'll start at 1pm pacific. I'll be doing commentary and telling development stories and probably reloading my save game a lot. I've asked some other Shock devs to call in and help with the commentary, and it seems likely that some of them will be around.

The twitch channel will be here: http://twitch.tv/algorithmancy.

Hope to see you there.

Salt the Fries!

- MAHK

P.S. Tell your friends!

[674217cc56d11Kolya]

Whaaaa!

This requires diligent preparation: I'm thinking coffee and a bloodshot pizza box.

EDIT: See this event date in your time zone. (Thanks to Starker from TTLG.)

[674217cc56e19OmegaDEATH]

I shall sip 1 shot of whiskey  for every mistake.
Make me proud.. not hung over. 

[674217cc56edcJudicator]

Wow, good news!

Are you going to play on a DOS PC or go for DOSBOX?
Many thanks.

[674217cc571aeMarvin]

Woohoo. \o/
So,  which devs will be joining? Also, being one of LG's lead programmers, would you like to do a QA at some point in the future? I guess everyone here could think of a couple of questions they always liked to ask a LG dev.

[674217cc572f0Join2]

Welcome MAHK. Looking forward to the stream.

[674217cc57416voodoo47]

yeah, looking forward.

[674217cc575d6JDoran]

Brilliant! Welcome to the forums, mate, and thanks so much for such an innovative and fantastic game.

And sorry, but I have to ask, do you have access to the game's source code? I know that the answer is almost certainly 'no', and even if you did, then your hands would probably be tied by legal agreements, but it's worth asking as (as with Doom 1 to 3, Quake 1 to 3, Alien vs. Predator, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior 3D, and other games that had their source code released) is you did have it and could release it then it could be ported natively to Windows, have fan made features added, be ported to non-PC platforms, etc.

If you do have access to the source code, and think it might be possible to release it publically, then please consider it - it would not only be a wonderful gift to the System Shock fan community, but might very well entice lots of potential fans to try it to, if it results in other versions such as a native Windows version, a Linux version, versions for consoles, etc.

[674217cc57764ZylonBane]

This is awesome. Looking forward to the live stream!

[674217cc5784bMarvin]

Since I never used Twitch before, are the streams always recorded and available for some time or do you actually have to see everything live?

[674217cc57a1dmahk]

Will you be playing on DOS PC or DOSBox?

DOSBox.  Easier for streaming, plus I don't own a DOS PC.  I'll probably be playing with original controls (no mouselook) at least until it gets hard. 

What other devs will be online?

I'm not sure yet.  Some folks have expressed interest, but I don't want to commit on their behalves. Maybe some of them will post or tweet about it.

Do you have the source code?

Don't have it.  Sorry.  Wish I did.

Will the stream be archived?

It looks like twitch does archive streams for at least a little while.  I'll try to record it locally also and post what I have at some point.

Would you like to do a QA at some point in the future?

Sure, let's just start another thread right now. 


 

[674217cc57b63Kolya]

I just tested something that I wrote last night:
Sunday evening I'll switch https://www.systemshock.org to load this address: https://www.systemshock.org/20years.php
You will still be able to visit the normal page without video background via https://www.systemshock.org/index.php

[674217cc57c2dmahk]

Nice

[674217cc57d02Dizzy]

System Shock... 20 years...              Badass

[674217cc57de5Kolya]

Marc "Mahk" LeBlanc, Austin Grossmann and Dorian Heart on the stream now, having some minor technical difficulties.

//+ Timm Stellmach

[674217cc57ecfZylonBane]

Watching the stream. Holy crap the live video quality looks like something out of the same era as SS1.

[674217cc58055Kolya]

Yeah, it's pretty bad. But it's also because of the low res. I think Mahk is playing at 320x200. They tried a higher resolution earlier, but parts of the screen were cut off because twitchtv could not deal with the resolution switch.

[674217cc58211Kolya]

Some links dropped in the chat:
http://nothings.org/gamedev/thief_rendering.html
http://pastebin.com/epfmWNQJ
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.choiceofgames.starcaptain&hl=en

[674217cc58427Kolya]

Some tips by Mahk:
Online help turns itself off when you leave med, but you can turn it on again, making for an easy cheat feature, showing you hidden doors, interactive objects, etc.
Doubleclicking on a container while it is open gives you the next thing out of it.
Close the force doors of resurrection chambers to avoid being rushed by enemies when you respawn.
Disintegrate all severed heads. The important head cannot be destroyed.

[674217cc5851eZylonBane]

Someone just mentioned that the animating tiles in cyberspace are actually running John Conway's Life. Holy crap I'd never noticed that, but they totally are.

[674217cc58650Kolya]

Tim Stellmach: The lit panels on the walls of cyberspace are Life (with I think a slight rules change or two).

Conway's game of life.

//never noticed that either

[674217cc5874bKolya]

"We didn't have any resources for the destroyed earth scenario. And we scanned in a cover of the Boston road atlas and I drew the laser on it."

Mahk: The severed heads are the severed heads of the developers.

[674217cc58876Kolya]

Mahk: When developing Underworld whenever we had an interesting colour map we saved it and we used it in System Shock.

They were used for the "patches", ie drugs. Originally these didn't have any beneficial effects. But German censors didn't appreciate drugs for fun in a game, so they were given boosts, like a melee boost for Berserk. And then they were "medicine" and that was okay.

[674217cc58950ZylonBane]

So the "They're attacking us sir!" sound clip in Wing 0 is actually from Wing Commander.