Dec 21 2015

The Thing v2.4.2

It’s time for another round of bugfixes Captain. Not too bad this time.

v2.4.2 Fixes

Fixed 2 old descriptions in the “Field Guide”
Fixed a minor mistake with the Tutorial
Fixed Enemy SMG x2 Attack Animation to display correct animation
Fixed Facility Survival Mode Freeze bug/exploit
Fixed Walker/Diaz intro-scene so it will trigger if your already in the room
Fixed a weird issue with the torch/flare in Avery’s Story
Fixed a NewGame+ reward description
Fixed problem in Story Mode Field Base Assaults where an enemy from wave 2 didn’t show causing you to get stuck
MAY have fixed the “caught a fever” bug on the main menu selection screen

Discalimer

This ‘Traditional Style’ Sci-Fi RPG is a “Non-Profit” Fan Made game based on the events after the 1982 movie “The Thing” created by John Carpenter. It is in no way endorsed by John Carpenter or Universal Studios and shares likeness only in name. In my eyes it is the same as drawing a picture of a popular character and posting it online for all to see. I funded this game with my own money and I do not generate any revenue from ModDB or the ads displayed on my website (which I also pay for). If there are grounds for an issue with copyright then I am willing to take responsibility for that and make the appropriate changes where needed to resolve the issue. The Majority of the content (music, artwork, code) in the game is either licensed for use, originally created or credit is given where due for work used in ‘Free’ projects.

Let’s Play

YouTube user Sadonrii who did a let’s play of my game before has kindly agreed to play more of the game; you can see that below if you are unsure of what to expect. (Spoiler Warnings)

System Specs

Since the v1 there have been massive improvements to overall performance. I believe the game will run on a wide range of Windows Computers now and the v2 tanks far less in comparison to the v1. Below are the recommended specs based on those provided by the RPG Maker Team. (Official Specs)

OS: Windows XP or later
CPU: Intel® Pentium® 4 2.0 GHz equivalent or faster processor
RAM: 512MB RAM
Storage: 400mb

You can delete your old copies of the game as the v2.4.2 is treated as a new game. Please note that previous saves may not work with the v2.4.2 however the bugfixing wasn’t too invasive and v2.4 saves worked in v2.4.1 so there is a chance this time around although I do not guarantee it.

Download

Mediafire Link

ModDB Link

Good luck Captain; You’re our only hope…

Dec 14 2015

The Thing v2.4.1

Captain them things are everywhere! Looks like it’s time for some bugfixes!

v2.4.1 Fixes

SMG Burst fire was displaying 2 animations instead of 1, Fixed for all ammo types.
“Perry” in story mode wanted a Sledgehammer to be recruited but the game decided you should have a Spike Maul as the condition. This is now fixed back to Sledgehammer.
*Major Bug* After playing Thing Mode and starting a NewGame+ file with the thing mode save data the in-game menu access was still disabled. This causes the game to be largely unplayable. I will remove the v2.4 download and have uploaded the v2.4.1 in its place which resolves the issue. Your save files from v2.4 MAY work in v2.4.1 but I don’t guarantee that.

Disclaimer

Let’s Play

YouTube user Sadonrii who did a let’s play of my game before has kindly agreed to play more of the game; you can see that below if you are unsure of what to expect. (Spoiler Warnings)

System Specs

OS: Windows XP or later
CPU: Intel® Pentium® 4 2.0 GHz equivalent or faster processor
RAM: 512MB RAM
Storage: 400mb

You can delete your old copies of the game as the v2.4.1 is treated as a new game. Please note that previous saves may not work with the v2.4.1.

Download

Mediafire Link

ModDB Link

Let’s hope there’s not too many rounds of bug-fixing Captain…

Dec 11 2015

The Thing v2.4 Release

We’re finally here now Captain! The long overdue v2 expansion of the game is ready; free for you all to enjoy. I’ve attached some system spec guidelines and some other key notes I think people should read before downloading the game.

Disclaimer

Now that’s out of the way I just want to say that I hope you enjoy the game and any constructive feedback or general comments you can give me would be great. I think that this tested my mettle at times but I’m happy with the final product. YouTube user Sadonrii who did a let’s play of my game before has kindly agreed to play more of the game; you can see that below if you are unsure of what to expect. (Spoiler Warnings)

System Specs

OS: Windows XP or later
CPU: Intel® Pentium® 4 2.0 GHz equivalent or faster processor
RAM: 512MB RAM
Storage: 400mb

You can delete your old v1 copies as the v2.4 is treated as a new game. Please note that previous saves will not work with the v2.4.

Download

Mediafire Link:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/wmi235kzqrhvc6k/The_Thing_2_RPG_%5Bv2.4.1%5D.exe

ModDB Link:

http://www.moddb.com/games/the-thing-2/downloads/the-thing-2-rpg-v241

Good luck Captain, we’re counting on you…

Nov 29 2015

Thing 2 RPG November Update #4

Greetings Captain! We’ve got some interesting new Intel from the field for you for this last November post.

Last week I only did about 60% of the work I set out to do. Having said that upon testing what I’ve done it works (after a few minor adjustments) so that is progress. Based on my own personal schedule I can suggest that the release date for the v2 expansion/update of the Thing 2 RPG may be released on Friday the 11th December 2015. This heavily depends on work I am waiting on alongside my own testing and schedule.

Here is a breakdown of what’s left to do:

Voice Acting: Last week 1 character was completed leaving 2 more to do. They should both be in by the end of the next week (6/11/15). If this goes well I can begin testing the voiced section of the game properly to do any last minute audio balancing (Headset users you are welcome :P).
Once Voice Acting is complete and I am satisfied with testing I will be handing over an early copy of the game to my friend Sadonrii who will be doing a YouTube let’s play of the new voiced campaign which will feature as promotional content for me instead of making another trailer (I’m lazy but I think it’s a good idea).
Artwork: Jose is busting his ass off getting in Art to me. I think in the last 3 weeks he’s handed in 16 of the 32 images I asked him for. I’m hoping he will finish Mac’s artwork by 11/12 in time for release but you have to appreciate it’s not easy to draw a lot of images on demand.
MacReady now appears as a random encounter in the game, retells the events of US Outpost #31 and now I am at the stage where you take control of him for a “Choose Your own Adventure” story where you experience Mac’s adventure first hand. Having him retell it in flashbacks wasn’t as fun to me. I’m about half way done with telling his story so when it’s finished it will switch back to the main story again.
It’s just the start of Mac’s subplot as he has more stuff for you to do afterwards before eventually going back to US Outpost #31 with you for some unfinished business.

I’m hoping there’s 1 weeks’ worth of work left and 1 weeks testing. Based on scheduling myself and those I am dependent on for this final crunch time. You won’t get an update post off me until closer to release now as I focus my efforts on that. If there’s any questions feel free to ask but for the meantime here’s some spoiler free shots of Mac’s Story:

Be careful who you trust this winter Captain…

Nov 20 2015

Thing 2 RPG November Update #3

Hello Captain! It’s been a busy month, a lot of games came out in November. The Delay of X-Com 2 surely proves that Jake Solomon predicted these turn of events…

I’ve personally got my hands full but I’ve managed to get a bit done this week, here’s my report:

The v2.3a Test Build was released to selected players. It’s been productive feedback thus far but we still have a way to go to fix up the game for public release.
Sprites and Tile Graphics relating to MacReady’s Story are complete, in game and ready to go.
MacReady’s story has started, He now appears in story mode, explains the events of US Outpost #31 (Skip-able but recommended if for some reason you haven’t seen the awesome 1982 movie) and is ready to begin his “choose your own adventure” flashback sequence.
Artwork for MacReady’s Story is currently being made, 6 of 32 images are complete.
Corpses and more gore have been added to the game to replace most of the skeletons found previously. The Dead Space series approves.
Voice Acting is nearing a close (Finally!)
4 more voiced characters have finished recording and editing and are now setup in the game.
2 more voiced characters have just been handed in for me to edit and will be in game shortly.
1 more character needs recording and has just been assigned a voice actor (fingers crossed)
As requested I added an option to toggle voice acting on or off when starting Prequel Mode. It should be fine but no promises…
A missing file error has been fixed. I am attempting to keep download size low (its about 350mb currently) and I’m looking at ways to cut excess/unused files such as audio down. It’s hard to track what files are/are not used in the game.

If all goes well the game should be release in 2 to 3 weeks. Aside from Art/VA work; the work I am responsible for will take 2 weeks roughly to finish. I just need a week to test everything and play the 50 hour RPG making sure its smooth. It’s stable for the most part but I’m very picky about minor graphical/display issues. My spelling isn’t the best but I assume most people are creative when reading my text…

One other thing Captain; There have been rumours circulating about an 80’s Arcade Game ‘lost’ in the Arctic. I wonder who holds the high score…

Nov 11 2015

Thing 2 RPG November Update #2

Hello Captain, It’s been a busy week and even the release of Fallout 4 hasn’t hindered me! (Well not that much…)

In the last week I have been adding new graphics to the game, little extra touches like a pool table, new corpses and little extra bits like that. Jose has been busy handing work into me and we are close to the end now. We even put some time into a secret mini-game in the game which I’m sure you’ll find fun.

As promised I did make a video although It took me a few attempts as I didn’t really know what to show off, I didn’t want to spoil too much and I’ve already talked about v2 features as it is. Below is the video tease for Prequel Mode, View it on YouTube and read the description to find the voice actors credited.

I’ll post a recap of the v2 features as we get closer to the end. As for release November looks unlikely but I’m trying to get stuff done. My main concerns are with work contributed by others but sometimes people are busy I get that. I’ll keep you posted but I hope you don’t mind a December release, I want to release the v2 update/expansion as intended not half-done.

Work Left To Do / In Progress:

Voice Acting; when a developer is lazy and skips voice acting in favour of text there is good reason. It requires a whole extra scope of balancing, quality control and management that is purely cosmetic and while enhances the experience logically doesn’t add anything gameplay wise. There is 1 character left to record and 6 left to edit & get retakes. I started VA casting in August but wish I had started sooner as it has taken more time than expected. It’s not fair on the other voice actors if I release v2’s Prequel Mode half-voiced.

Macready’s Story; There are 3 parts to making this, the first (in progress, nearly done) is the sprite tiles and graphics. Jose has created most of what I need now and once that is all setup we can move to part 2.

Part 2 involves me putting the content in game. The plan is that you find Macready in Story Mode and he tells you about US Outpost #31 THEN he tells you about what happened after. I’ve got it planned so you take control of Macready and experience a choose your own adventure short story as told through his eyes. The multi choice elements will affect the outcome of his story and what happens afterwards. In the transition back to Story Mode he will set you a few tasks (general rpg quest stuff) and you will help him resolve any unfinished business at US Outpost #31.

Finally Part 3 is the “Art Assets” or Artistic Cut-scenes that are used to display parts of the story that are too difficult to sprite or more impressive in art format. Theres around 30 of these and they will take Jose some time to finish so during Part 2 I can leave “placeholders” where the art will go making it easy to drop them in once completed.

Simply put the only work on my end involves creating MacReadys content in game (2 weeks tops, its already written/planned out) and testing Prequel Mode with full audio (To iron out any issues or bad audio, 1 week). Outside of that I have nothing to do but play some more fallout…

As a side note the game is a lot more difficult now, general life expectancy of the average NPC has fallen significantly.

You’re welcome!
Richard

Nov 2 2015

Thing 2 RPG November Update #1

Captain! October was a slow month and we’re a little behind but a good portion of work was turned in at the last minute so let’s hope we can make that release deadline!

Work Complete / New Features:

Major Bugfix (I hope). I’ve removed a script that allows enemy summoning/spawning and replaced it with a less fancy but still effective approach. I believed that this script was responsible for not only enemy battle graphics remaining in battle when dead but was the cause of one significant and annoying game crash where RPG Maker would just, well… crash. It’s only happened to me a handful of times (for some reason especially at the medi-center in original mode) but it was annoying. Hopefully this fatal flaw is now resolved. I think the issue was the game didn’t know how to dispose of the spawned units and there was likely conflict with other scripts.
The game audio has been lowered for the most part across the whole game. This decision was made because the voice acting was hard to hear. I think I have struck a better balance now.
General changes and fixes have been made to the game and I am mostly personally responsible for testing game modes to make sure they work now.
Several new game sprites have been added to the game which include several more pop culture references and weirdness on my part…
Finally Jose has redone ALL the existing backgrounds in the game in a more updated style.

Work to Do / In Progress:

Voice Acting. I have good news and bad news. Good news I have edited over 600 files which are now placed in the game. I worked with amateurs and professionals so the quality is a bit mixed but I hope you all appreciate the effort and added immersion it brings.
More good news is that 1 more character is near completion 2 just need some retakes and 5 have just been handed in to me which I need to edit for game use.
The Bad news is that there is still 1 character left to do, one of the important story characters but I have someone trying to resolve that for me so I’m hoping that this doesn’t cause any delays and it can be complete this month.
MacReady’s Story. We have just started on sprite work for this, once that is done I will move away from testing and work directly on this. I will finish this in November BUT there are 30 art images that the story requires which is quite heavy work to get done in the month so I’m going to see what sort of timescale Jose needs for this. I’m hoping it can be done this month but I feel these images make MacReady’s mutli-choice story more immersive and personal as he’s a core character to the film.
Generally all I have to do is test things and fix things mostly. Survival Mode is being testing right now but Prequel Mode (voice acting/audio balancing test) and MacReady’s addition to Story Mode need testing when work outside my control is complete.

Steam Update

I fall into the category of a fan based game which Steam doesn’t really accept. I think largely it would be due to the grounds of “copyright”. The main issues I can see would be the games name and names of characters potentially. In the v2 a lot of the movie and 2002 game audio has been removed and replaced so that is no longer an issue but in short it’s safe to say I wouldn’t be accepted onto steam as it would likely bring me unwanted complications.

Release Date

I still want to say this month, November 2015. I will do my best to give weekly updates from this point as we move closer but 2 things hang in the balance of affecting the release. One is the last voice actor (sounds like an indie movie) and the other is the big old 30 art images I need after Mac’s sprites are done. At worst you can expect December as I really don’t want this to go into 2016. I’ll do the best I can to smooth things along and I’ll play every card I have left to try and get this November release going. I should have a video for you in next weeks post of prequel mode in action. I really hope it’s worth the wait.

Thanks,
Richard

Oct 8 2015

Thing 2 RPG October Update

Greetings Captain! It’s now October so here’s the update on the status of the v2 update of the game. It’s early in the month so I’m having to anticipate the timing of a few things..

Work Complete / New Features:

I’ve tweaked a lot of stuff in the game, there is a lot of balancing that needs perfecting but as of now it’s a lot better in comparison to the v1 game.
The game is still being tested by certain individuals and I am working on the various feedback I get where possible, the latest build released privately was the v2.2 which included the addition of the special enemy variants and a lot of the features I mentioned in the September Update.
Facility Survival (Survival Mode) is also now complete. It’s a 25 floor simulation that focuses purely on the combat side of the game. It took me a lot of effort to beat it, it’s not easy. Originally you could only save every 5 floors but I now have the option to save at the end of each floor to help counter the sometimes random punishment the game deals out. This has been the BULK of my workload last month. It took longer than expected but I enjoy the new survival mode compared to the old one. It also features a level based on US Outpost #31 with all 12 characters from the movie lovingly redesigned by Jose.
Enemy Art/Battle Graphics are all complete thanks to Jose and we have moved on to designing new battle background art assets for the ship story. His style is different to Shinn’s and I’ve had more budget to use this time around for more “realistic” backgrounds.
4 New Title Screens have been created for the game.

Title Screen 7 of 9, Blake leads his motley crew away from the crashsite

Title Screen 8 of 9, Blake and Faraday’s Bogus Adventure featuring old man Whitley

Work to Do / In Progress:

As for me I just have testing and tweaking to do really. The only real work left is MacReady’s Story but that’s not going to be too time consuming. What will take up a lot of my time is editing the audio from the voice actors…
In terms of Voice Acting I’m still trying to fill 2 more roles and am awaiting work to be sent in for 12 characters. It’s dragging out a lot and I hoped it would of been done by now, I dislike micromanaging and chasing people up but I’ll keep on it. Due to time constrictions I have decided not to pursue voice acting for MacReady’s style but will retain the art direction I wanted.
For Artwork Jose is currently creating backgrounds for me, after this I am going to get him to fix and update some of the game sprites (I’ve added new characters/changes since he last did it) and then he needs to create sprites, graphics and artwork for Mac’s story as well as voice one of the characters for me.

Jose’s more realistic background style/approach for Prequel Mode.

Outbreak!

Release Date and other information

I want to get video footage for the v2 uploaded asap but with missing art assets and VA work it’s selling the game a bit short. As for release I’ve said November a few times and I want to deliver on that but I’m very pessimistic about work that is outside of my control such as the Voice Acting. I also want to deliver a good experience, overall its so much better than the v1 in terms of efficiency and extra content. I’ll do my best to get the voice acting finished up this month, edited and in the game but I don’t want to rush Jose. So I’m going to say November but don’t hold me to that :)

On a side note there’s a lot of RPG Maker Games featuring on steam lately (most are very expensive) but I was wondering how much interest there would be if this game was released on steam (It would still be FREE) or do people just prefer to get it via ModDB and mediafire?

Thanks,
Richard

Sep 16 2015

Thing 2 RPG September Update

Greetings Captain, here is the latest declassified report on the progress of the Thing RPG 2 v2 update. Intel indicates the enemy may be preparing for you Captain…

Work Complete / New Features:

The majority of the artwork for the ship story/prequel mode is now complete. All that remains is the battle backgrounds and some sprite changes.
Voice acting is nearly complete! I just have to chase up a few people and find replacements for 4 drop outs.
A lot of balancing is going on in the game and the enemy is well prepared for you now, they’ve been vastly improved across the board and the game difficulty has increased quite a bit. I play the game on normal and am trying to find a balance that I like, so far the death/infection ratio is somewhat punishing but fair for what I expect of normal difficulty. Your troops better be prepared, only the strongest will survive.
Enemies have some new skills and abilities. They also have more access to grenades and medikits so let’s hope you make them critical shots count.
There are a few new “surprises” in the game, along with the things that pop out of crates there are:
1) Enemy Surprise spawns; In some areas there is a random chance that things will spawn. It’s not so common that it’s annoying or over done but it can make gameplay a bit more interesting.
2) Enemy Reinforcements; US Captains can call for backup in battle and in some parts of the game battles will “chain” so you won’t get breaks in between them.
3) Enemy Assaults; Sometimes and at key plot points the enemy will ambush you with 3 waves of “chained” battles so you better make sure you are prepared and make use of the “party” command in battle.
I’ve added new weapons to the game such as bullpup rifles, the AutoMag, RPK-74 and some other weapons.
I’ve also added lots of new relic weapons which you will find useful, some of these are quite obscure like the MARS pistol for instance. There is also a Plasma Revolver because why not?
I’ve added even more weapon mods to the v2 weapon mod system, there’s a lot of interesting combinations.
Crafting has been looked at, the engineer crafting is improved a lot and the medic/doctor has new options now. Scientists can also craft stims with “Scrap Meds” which are also used by the medic/doctor.
The Save Menu has been updated to show you what features you have unlocked. I couldn’t fit the survival rewards or Blake’s notebook progress on there but they are not as important.
I mentioned before in the comments that enemies now gain “traits” in battle, there is one for human soldiers that gives them a critical bonus which has given me some bitter defeats.
Attempts to improve the way Auto-battle handles itself haven’t been very good, to compensate a script by HIME now remembers your last actions so you can essentially spam attack more efficiently. It also improves the navigation in combat.
I’ve added a whole bunch of extra side missions and content to the games story mode with new locations and characters.
The game menu has been “cleaned up” (Below) and is easier to navigate.

Work to Do / In Progress:

I am currently building the survival mode, I went through a few different ideas for this but have ultimately settled on a facility with 25 floors to clear (having varied objectives for floors) I’ll let you know how this turns out but every 5 floors you complete unlocks a new weapon to be used in the game. It should be finished by the end of this month.
Then there is the matter of several new sprite updates and minor bits of artwork which Jose should have done by October/November.
Other than updating the game guide/walk-through (which I can do post-release) there is just the inclusion of MacReady and his little choose your own adventure story. I hope to start on this in October but it includes a lot of additional sprite-work for Jose to do and that takes time.
Then there is voice acting which I hope should be done by October.

Other Stuff:

I’ve got the game build currently marked at v2.2 and am still in the progress of testing and changing lots of stuff in game. As it stands I think the game itself is going to be about 40-50 hours worth of game-play if you play across all the modes at least once. I’d be interested to see what happens if anyone goes over the 99 hour mark as I’m not sure how RPG Maker deals with that :P

I hope to release a promo video for v2 content, mainly prequel mode/ship story as I put a lot of work into that and I hope people enjoy it. I’m just waiting on some art and voice acting before I go ahead and record any footage for it. I guess the game also needs a v2 trailer as the current trailer is somewhat outdated.

Finally….

Captain! We just received some new Intel on enemy units in the field. It seems they have updated their soldiers equipment and it looks like you won’t know what you might encounter in the field;

The Mercenaries won’t just be carrying SMG’s anymore captain, looks like they’ve been busy…
(Gen Inc and the US Army will be getting updated and more randomized soldiers too)

Expected Game Release: November 2015
Thanks for your patience,
Richard

Sep 4 2015

Thing 2 RPG v2 Quick Update 04/09/15

Just a quick post on the status of the Thing 2 RPG v2 build. I’m still working on it and I’ve added a bunch of new stuff since my post in August but I’m waiting on Artwork and Voice Acting to be completed before I make a full post on here and ModDB as I would like to upload a video with the next post of some of the v2 gameplay.

The Plan is still for a November release, despite Xcom-2 being delayed (removing the incentive and challenge from my life) and I’m confident that artwork and voice acting will be done in that time. Work on my end will be complete on time it’s just a matter of waiting on the others. I’m balancing the game a lot, I want to make it more difficult so you have more use for NPC’s instead of just carrying around 40 guys who do nothing.

I’m still eager to finish so I can start on a new commercial project and I’m glad people are patient and still interested in the game. It’s been a challenge for me and I’m glad to have gone back to make the game itself a lot better and playable. I’m currently updating the games survival mode into something new although I’m indecisive about it and once Jose has “caught up” I can start with MacReady’s long overdue addition to the game. The hardest task on my end is writing the online guide/walkthrough but I can do that post-release as the game title screen now has an option to go direct to the walkthrough.

Bare with me I’ll have a full post and video for you soon;
Keep Watching the Skies!
Richard