EDuke32: I just couldn't wait...

After downloading the High Resolution Pack (HRP) installer, which includes EDuke32, high res versions of all the textures, and the Duke Plus mod that enables many more things than Duke Nukem 3D ever had in it, I just had to install it.

Then I just had to run it.

Then I just had to play for a while.

When you start it up, you'll get a window that looks similar to this one: (The HRP installer isn't updated quite as often as the core engine installer, so it comes with an older version of EDuke32 than the most current one available)

You won't really need to do much on this window other than hitting Start unless you want to enable Duke Plus, which is enabled in my screenshot.

Once you're in the game, you can (and should) thumb through the options. You can play around with the graphics and sound and everything and tweak it to your liking. Most notably, turn that resolution up.

The high resolution graphics are way better. They take a while to load at the beginning of each level, but I think the vastly improved visual experience is worth it. The old school 2D sprites of enemies are replaced with 3D models. Since I can easily turn the high res stuff off and back on again (there's a toggle in the options), here's a few side by side comparisons of good old E1M1, Hollywood Holocaust. I've customized the HUD and the crosshair a little but other than that these screenshots reflect EDuke32's default options. Both screenshots of each location were taken without moving between taking them.

The spawn point. The texture difference is huge, just look at the wood floor.

The theater, with the film turned on. The difference in the quality of the film is like night and day here. This screenshot also shows the much better overall colors in the high resolution graphics vs. the original graphics.

The bathroom. Screencapped through the mirror for fun. You can clearly see the difference between the 2D sprites and the 3D models here. They might be difficult to see, but the hand dryer and urinals are 3D models as well.

Just like other source ports of other popular old 3D games like Doom Legacy and D2X-XL, EDuke32 allows you to run the game in higher display resolutions than the original engine did. My only gripe regarding this is that it sets my refresh rate to 60Hz, which I can see refreshing. Fortunately, in eduke32.cfg there's an option called MaxRefreshFreq that you can change from 60 to 75.

EDuke32 packs a whole slew of new options. Mouselook is enabled by default and the mouse sensitivity is very configurable. Everything is configurable through its in-game menu, there's no need for the old setup.exe from the old one.

I guess I should talk about that. The installer (for the HRP at least, but I'd imagine that the regular installer does this too) asks at one point if you want to search for the original game's data file, duke3d.grp. If you hit Yes you can tell it where to look and it'll automatically copy it to the right place. Then when you run EDuke32 everything just works. This is in direct contrast with the setup for D2X-XL, where you have to manually move files around into their appropriate directories, and if you want high resolution textures you have to download and decompress like 5000 files separately.

I mentioned that the HRP installer includes a mod called Duke Plus that adds even more stuff. Duke Plus adds all sorts of effects like rain and snow, extra weapons like an SMG and a Gravity Gun (hi there Half-Life 2), movable objects, soda machines that vend health-replenishing soda, grabbable ledges (you can grab a ledge and then move on it to cross a pit, or use it to jump up to higher places), working ladders, and a ton more stuff. It's completely optional but it really does add a lot to the game. It has its own series of levels that show off what it can do, so just start it with Duke Plus selected in the custom game content dropdown (see the startup window above) and then hit up the Duke Plus Levels episode to try it out.

Something I noticed while taking the in-game screenshots: It saves them in .tga format. Photoshop handles them just fine, so it didn't really bother me when I was making the side by side comparison screenshots. I don't think there's an option to make it take .png screenshots instead, which kind of sucks. Luckily, there are free image manipulation programs available on the internet that you can use to convert your screenshots to a more usable format. If you want to travel the open source route, try The GIMP, and if you'd rather have something else try Paint.NET.

The verdict: Hail to the king baby! Duke Nukem 3D running natively on modern operating systems = instant win.

Just in time...

The snow is almost completely gone, and I can most definitely go to MAGFest. I haven't packed yet, but that's always the case. I never pack for a trip until right before leaving. It always works out, so... I'll keep doing it.

Since Jon St. John (The voice of Duke Nukem) will be there, I'm going to take my copy of Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition and see if I can't possibly get it signed. This also reminds me that I still haven't set up EDuke32 yet. I'll download it now and set it up at MAGFest or something.

I signed up for staff shifts nice and early when I could take my pick, and the result is awesome. I have one two hour shift each morning at 2AM and then both LAN teardown shifts. Due to how they're weighted, they count for enough to get me all the staff perks. I'd have an exact number but the staff system is down since it's being moved to the hotel.

What this means is I'm basically free to do whatever I want during the day, then staff a couple hours and maybe get some sleep or something. I chose my particular shift timing so I could go to the concerts. I've been missing out on most of them, so I decided this year that I'd just go to all of them.

To make this easier I have a package of earplugs. This way I can enjoy the concerts without going deaf. Most people put them in wrong and thus have them sticking halfway out of their ears, and then claim that they don't really work very well, but most if not all soft foam earplugs come with directions that show you exactly how to put them in.

If not, it's simple: Roll one up between your fingers. Pick an ear. Reach around your head with the opposite hand, grab your ear, and pull it back and up. This straightens out your ear canal. J-J-Jam it in there (carefully, don't want to damage anything!) and repeat with the other ear. To remove, twist it as you pull it out slowly. The ones I have are rated at 29dB noise reduction, so I'll be good to go.

All I really have left to do in preparation other than packing is topping off my gas tank, which can either happen this evening or tomorrow before leaving. I'm really trying to avoid having to drive anyone back this year. No offense to the guys I've driven back the previous few years or anything, but I'd really just like to be able to get back to Charlottesville, go home, and go to sleep.

My computer's going with me. I'll have it in the LAN room. Depending on how bleak the internet situation is there (we thought everything was set, then a couple weeks ago it all fell through, but we have another plan now. Just not sure what the new plan is...) I might be able to post, but I probably won't. There'll still be a summary post afterwards, that I'll probably work on during the event because afterwards I usually have a hard time putting it into a definite series of chronological events. That sort of thing happens when you're experiencing high levels of awesome.

Classic DOS Games: The 7th Guest

I've mentioned running this game in DOSBox a couple times, but here's a post dedicated to it.

Since this is a full retail game with no demo, I can't just provide you with a link to obtain it. I'm trying to stay legal with these posts.

A few important notes pertinent to running this game in DOSBox:

• I find that I have to increase the cycles to about 10000 with Ctrl + F12 for the game to run smoothly. You can set this in your config file so you don't have to do it every time you start the game up, this is even easier if you have separate config files for each game like I do.
• The game will capture your mouse pointer when you click, so press Ctrl + F10 if you need it back.
• Since the game is on two CDs and you will need to switch partway through the game, if you're running it using .iso images (as I am) you can mount both of them at once and swap when appropriate using Ctrl + F4. Inspect the usage of the imgmount command. Again, you can set this up in your config file if you have separate config files for each game.

Now on to actually talking about the game.

The story of The 7th Guest, though laced with inconsistencies, goes somewhat like this. Henry Stauf was a poor man who had resorted to crime. One night he dreamt of a doll. When he woke up, he remembered the doll and created it. He gave it to a bartender who said his daughter might like it. Then he dreamt of another toy and made that. People loved his toys, and so he built a business around them.

Then, defying any remaining sense of logic, a virus hit and killed lots of children, who died clutching their Stauf toys.

There was one more dream, of a mansion that Stauf eventually built. This is where the game is set.

The cinematics are all of past events that took place within Stauf's mansion, and the people you see are rendered brightly and slightly translucently, giving them the appearance of ghosts. This is only one small element of the horror. Everything about this game tries to creep you out. People's faces will turn into skulls, there's blood everywhere, and plenty of things happen suddenly.

The core gameplay is a point and click free roaming puzzle game, kind of like Myst except a lot creepier. The comparison to Myst brings up another point: all of the graphics in the game are beautiful for a game of its age, due to the fact that they're all prerendered. Today's computers would have no problem rendering the Stauf mansion in real time, but back when this game was released, the only way to get graphics of this caliber was to prerender them.

As you explore the mansion, you'll discover the puzzles. There's one in each room, and you have a map that uses shading to tell you which rooms are accessible and which rooms you've solved a puzzle in. To aid you in getting around the mansion, there are secret passageways everywhere. One of my favorites is the pocket of the pool table in the game room that takes you to the inside of the oven in the kitchen. I'll leave the rest for you to discover.

Below the house is a giant crypt. It's very easy to get lost in if you don't know the way. There's a puzzle you have to solve just to enter it, and a puzzle to solve at the end of it as well. Somewhere in the mansion you can find a map of it, you might be wise to look for it and maybe jot it down or take a screenshot (Ctrl + F5 in DOSBox).

Most of the puzzles are fairly standard puzzles, ranging from placing eight queens on a chess board such that none can capture any of the others, to rearranging cans that have letters on them to figure out what the message is, to more cryptic things like turning lights on in a toy building in a certain pattern. In at least one of the puzzles you're actually playing against Stauf. The most notoriously difficult puzzle in the game is the microscope puzzle. I personally have yet to beat Stauf on this puzzle, but it is possible.

If you get stuck, the book on the table in the library will give you hints. Using it three times will solve the puzzle for you. So if you really just want to turn your brain off, you can just use the book to progress through the game.

As you go through the game, it's only natural that you may find that you really like one or two of the puzzles and want to do them again. Fortunately, there is a way to do this without having to start the game over and get back to that point again, or anything else weird or cumbersome. After you beat the game, it creates an open house save where you can explore the house freely and solve any puzzle you want.

Speaking of saves, you can save at any given time. You can't save puzzle progress, but it'll reload you right at that puzzle. You get plenty of save slots, so if someone else wants to start the game from the beginning just have them use a separate slot. The slots are numbered, but when you choose one you can give it a name.

The mouse pointers add to the creepiness too. Your basic mouse pointer is a skeleton hand. It will wag a finger when you can't do anything, it will beckon when you can go somewhere, and it'll turn into a skull with moving eyes and pulsating brain when you find a puzzle. There are eyeball cursors as well that show up when you're selecting things to move or place or use in a puzzle.

I often confuse elements (particularly the puzzles) of The 7th Guest with those of its sequel, The 11th Hour. Both are set in Stauf's mansion, but the puzzles are all different and The 11th Hour has a lot more stuff to do. I'll touch on The 11th Hour in a later post, though I will say this now: even though they're still prerendered, The 11th Hour's graphics are much better.

Completely late wallpaper update

Yeah, this is this year's festive wallpaper update. I was hoping for more wallpapers, they never appeared, and then I forgot entirely because I had breakfast burritos on the mind. I don't even know if this qualifies as a "festive wallpaper update" since less than half of the wallpapers are actually festive.

Regardless, have some fukken wallpapers. Also, there's a nude filter in here, so if you don't like that sort of thing, don't look at it.

There will be another Classic DOS Games post before the end of the year, I swear.

Melty Blood: Actress Again

Engrish title aside, the latest (and from what I've heard, it could be the last) installment in the Melty Blood series is pretty cool. It has several new characters and a couple new gameplay twists to add to its depth and variety.

Aside from balance changes and new moves, there's one important new thing that you'll notice right away: styles. When you choose your character, you now get a choice between three different styles. These change various aspects of gameplay for your character.

Crescent-Moon Style: Balanced. If you don't know what to choose, choose this style. It's the most similar to Act Cadenza/Re-Act Final Tuned. If you've played either of those, you'll be right at home here.

Full-Moon Style: Offense. You can charge your gauge by holding A+B+C (the same combination you press to enter Heat and Blood Heat), but you're vulnerable while doing so. Charging begins slowly but if you keep the buttons held it speeds up. Regular Heat is not available. Move lists are adjusted slightly.

Half-Moon Style: Defense. When you shield against an attack (D button), you automatically counterattack. Your gauge only goes up to 200% instead of the usual 300%, and when it maxes you enter Heat. Max Heat and Blood Heat are not available. This means no Last Arcs and no high power version of your character's Arc-Drive, since you have to be in Blood Heat to do either of those. Move lists are adjusted slightly, but in a different way from Full-Moon Style.

The style someone is using is denoted by the moon icon next to their character portrait. The icons are fairly obvious, so you can easily tell at a glance what to expect during the fight.

Going through arcade mode, as is necessary to unlock the hidden characters, I discovered some of them have Dust of Osiris as their end boss. Since that means nothing if you haven't already fought against her, she stands on the hand of a large monster that takes up the entire screen. She deals tremendous damage and you're always within melee range of her. When her Magic Circuit is charged all the way she almost always immediately uses her Arc-Drive, which can't be blocked (it can be shielded if you time it right). This Arc-Drive deals massive damage and is usually enough to finish you off, though on a few occasions I've survived it.

Thankfully there's a fairly cheap strategy that makes beating her easier. Jump in the air and spam B and C. Occasionally she'll knock you back, push towards her and hit a button to recover and launch yourself back at her. Keep spamming B and C and you should win. Luckily, you only have to beat her once, whereas she still has to beat you twice.

There are also several new characters, some of whom need to be unlocked. Here's a combination list of both new and unlockable characters. In no particular order... (usually when someone says "in no particular order" there is in fact an order, but here I just listed them randomly)

Riesbyfe Stridberg is kind of slow, but powerful. She has a cello shield thing that's also her weapon. She's the only new character I've gone through Arcade mode with so far.

Tohno Akiha isn't new, but there's an unlockable school uniform version of her. This version plays somewhat differently from her regular version. To unlock this version, complete Arcade Mode with Tohno Akiha and Akiha Vermillion. Order doesn't matter. Sounds easy, but involves beating Dust of Osiris twice.

Kohaku & Mecha-Hisui, despite being named like Hisui & Kohaku, aren't a tag team character. Instead, half of the move list (and the d-pad and attack buttons) controls the primary character, and the other half tells the other what to do. To unlock them, complete Arcade Mode with Neko-Arc (who is unlocked by default this time around).

Neko-Arc and Mecha-Hisui also aren't a tag team character. They work in the same manner that Kohaku & Mecha-Hisui do. To unlock them, complete Arcade Mode with Miyako.

White Len is playable on some of the PC versions, but to my knowledge this is the first console version she's playable on.

Michael-Roa Valdamjong uses lightning and is quite annoying to play against in Arcade Mode. I haven't yet played as him.

Ryougi Shiki I would imagine playing fairly similarly to Tohno Shiki and Nanaya Shiki. She's holding a knife in her character portrait, so... yeah.

Archetype Earth Arcueid I haven't actually unlocked yet, so I can't really comment except to say that she's the only playable character that uses the Eclipse style. This style, among other things, automatically charges your Magic Circuit over the course of the battle. According to GameFAQs, complete Arcade Mode with all characters to unlock her. Some people on the message board for the game also report unlocking her when completing Boss Rush mode without continues.

Neko-Arc Chaos is unlockable and plays like a weird combination of Neko-Arc and Nrvnqsr Chaos. How the hell are you supposed to pronounce Nrvnqsr anyway? I just say "nerv-en-q-sir". To unlock Neko-Arc Chaos, complete Arcade Mode with Hisui and White Len. Order doesn't matter.

I briefly mentioned Boss Rush mode when talking about Archetype Earth Arcueid. I'm not entirely sure what the condition for unlocking it is. I got it after unlocking all unlockable characters other than Archetype Earth Arcueid. In Boss Rush mode, you'll have to fight against a series of characters that all use Eclipse style.

The character select screen has the costume selection mechanism from the PC version of Act Cadenza ver.B, where you can freely move about the 36 available colors for each character. This is way better than the PS2 version of Act Cadenza where you just had to hit Triangle to cycle through them, and if you went past the one you wanted you had to continue hitting Triangle until it came back around.

I'm not sure if this is a new mechanic or not, but you seem to be able to dodge attacks if you push down+A+B while on the ground.

Now don't mind me, I'll go back to whacking explosive balls around the screen with Half-Moon Style Kohaku...

Breakfast Burritos

I spent a while doing painstakingly delicious research trying to arrive at a good recipe and I think I've finally got it. This recipe will prepare ten of them, with a serving being one or two.

Ingredients:

• 20 strips of bacon (I use Oscar Mayer Lower Sodium Bacon, 2 strips per burrito)
• 5 eggs (one egg for every two burritos)
• 10 Tortillas (I use ¡Tam-X-íco's! whole grain tortillas because non-whole grain anything sucks)
• Shredded cheese (I use Sargento 4 Cheese Mexican, no definite amount per burrito, just "not too much". Normally I'd say there's no such thing as too much cheese, but we actually want these to roll up)
• 1/4 cup Milk (I use skim milk, because whole milk tastes weird. Doesn't scale as linearly as everything else when making more/less)

Let's go! These directions work best if you have a friend helping you, but that friend will probably want some breakfast burritos in return...

1. Start by cooking the bacon. For burrito purposes you'll want it to be chewy, not crispy. This way it doesn't interrupt the soft texture of the eggs, cheese, and tortilla.
2. While the bacon is cooking, crack the eggs into a measuring cup and add the milk.
3. Break the egg yolks and stir your eggs-milk mixture until it's consistent.
4. When the bacon is done, pour the eggs into the bacon grease and stir slowly with a spatula to scramble them.
5. Stack your tortillas on a plate, with a paper towel between each so they won't stick together. Microwave for 15 seconds. (1200 watt microwave)
6. Remove the eggs from the heat. Split them up as best you can into ten small piles. They will look too small, but that's ok. Once you put a burrito together you'll realize that one of those small piles is plenty.
   
7. Put together one burrito:
1. Put one pile of eggs on a tortilla.
2. Add two strips of bacon, and some shredded cheese. Don't go too crazy with the cheese, you'll need to be able to roll this up.
   
3. Roll up the tortilla. This can be difficult, so I'll try to explain how:
1. Push all the toppings to one side of the tortilla, then rotate the plate so the toppings are close to you. The bacon should run parallel to the edge of your counter, not perpendicular.
2. Fold over the left and right sides of the tortilla, angled so that they're folded over farther on the side with no toppings.
3. Slowly and carefully roll up the tortilla. The tapered sides should gradually un-taper, this is normal.
4. Apply slight pressure to hold the burrito together. This is only really important if the tortilla tore at all while you were rolling it up. The rest of the time it just serves to make you pace yourself.
   
4. Place the now finished burrito aside. Set it down on the flap so it won't unroll.
8. Repeat the construction and rolling process until all burritos are made.
9. Place all burritos in an oven-safe pan and bake at 350°F for 6 minutes.
10. Carefully free the burritos from the bottom of the pan with a spatula. Optionally arrange them on a serving plate.
11. Serve and enjoy. Refrigerate any extras and enjoy them later.
    

I designed these to be small enough that they can be eaten alongside other food for breakfast, but yet large enough that you're satisfied when you finish them. It's a delicate balance, and I think I achieved it.

If you want them to be bigger, that's no problem. You'll need bigger tortillas, and you should double the amount of eggs per burrito (at the least). You may find it necessary to add some more bacon to each one as well. Another viable alternative is breakfast soft tacos, in case you really suck at rolling tortillas or are just plain lazy.

Also, these things are awesome with some hot sauce on them. Choose your favorite. I go with Tortugas' Lie Habañero Peppa Sauce because it fucking rocks.

I served these to my family this morning and they were very well received. I observed seconds being taken. Of the ten I made, there was only one extra, and 5 people were eating them, including myself.

Just a friendly reminder...

Corn syrup doesn't keep forever. Here's an example.

My dad pilfered this from my grandfather's refrigerator a while back, and for some reason we kept it around. By our estimation it was either purchased in 1984 or 1985. If it isn't obvious from the picture, it's a glass bottle with a metal cap, instead of the plastic bottle/plastic cap Karo uses nowadays. I took a picture of it so we could finally toss the stupid thing in the trash.

The more you know.