I was doing some research not so long ago and came across an interesting article on a Facebook group dedicated to Dreamcast News.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dreamcast ... 1909710228DCN: Hello there, I love the professional website layout
I run a small Facebook group called Dreamcast News, and would love to know any news on your upcoming DC project, the last I saw was it was due to be ready 8-2011, is this still on course? I would love the chance to cover the game on the Dreamcast News page so any news would be great - even if it's just to say you guys are still busy on it
Reticon:Thank you very much for your kind comments.
We are still busy, toiling away with the game. We've divided our team efforts into research and execution. We're making some great headway on programming the game together. We're currently in the modeling stage for the most part. I as well as Roscoe are programming the game together (I animate and model as well). Though the Dreamcast has posed a GREAT challenge for us, we're enjoying the challenges it presents to us every step of the way. We have utilized some labs at a California State University for our research endeavors, coding it specifically in the C programming language.
Our website will have some great updates here really soon (no definite date, since I'll be working on it with my free time) but it will include a ton of press pictures as well as newly rendered models for the game.
Our story structure is complete for the game, it has been for quite some time now, however it does go through some changes if we run into any logistical problems.
DCN:It's fantastic that your team are hard at work on what seems to be, a very grand scale project, there are a couple of questions I would love to ask if I may?
Firstly, what urged you guys to start working with the Sega Dreamcast? Have you any experiences personal to you about the machine or was it more a left field decision to work with it?
Secondly, I'm sure many would love to know the answer to this one... What's it like working with, I can only assume the comparable low amount of processing power of the Dreamcast? As I noticed that you guys enjoy working with the challenges the machine faces... Have you had to cut a lot of the graphically trickery to fit smoother into the Sega machine?
I must admit, I love the thought of being able to play something a little different for the Dreamcast and equally can't wait to see some early screens on this exciting title!
One last question... Have you and your team thought of getting RedSpotGames or Goat Publishing to handle disc printing (when the time comes of course
? I only mention this as I reported recently on RedSpotGames looking for new software to publish specifically for DC.
Thanks for the first reply, it's nice to see a developer with such good customer relations
Reticon:Sure thing Forbes,
The original inception of the Tahi game actually started in 2003 after the short film. At that time I did not have enough technical knowledge in programming to complete such a task. It was not until recently (over a year ago) I found my old files and attempts at programming the first Tahi game in a folder, locked away in a cabinet and thought to myself, 'It was time'. Previously to the game and short film in 2003, Tahi was a subsequent set of short stories mended together by a massive time line and lore (which I still write and add on to this day). I chose the Dreamcast over the PC, XBOX 360 or any other platform for many reasons.
I chose the Dreamcast because in my personal opinion (which, of course, may be biased) gaming died with the Dreamcast. You may be probably wondering why I say this. Well, let us look at the facts here, SEGA left the console market with the Dreamcast, so the competition between SEGA and Nintendo ended after that. Also the definition of what we knew as a 'console' would soon be warped into something entirely different. The Dreamcast was possibly the last console to ever implement a true console interface; it was MADE to just play games. Maybe an audio CD here and there, but its main functionality was a gaming machine, not a photo viewer, not a movie player, not a downloader. It basically was not a personal computer. It was made basically to do a few tasks and that was it. All consoles today act like personal computers. They do not have a define line for gaming, gaming is now considered a 'gray area' intermingled with the architecture of the consoles. Returning back to 'gaming dying' with the Dreamcast, if you still do not believe me that gaming is dying off, look at the sales (
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Midmarket/Vide ... er-276968/). It has continuously been dropping bit by bit (no pun intended).
Another reason why I chose the Dreamcast was because of its interesting history and great library of games. Even though it was not on the market for long, the games that did release for it were great! Take for example, Phantasy Star Online, Crazy Taxi, Space Channel 5, Sonic Adventure, Marvel vs. Capcom; I mean the list goes on and on. Also subtended by its history and library of games, was how the games played on that console. They did not have the best graphics in the world or the most power but, I stress this, THEY WORKED WITH WHAT THEY HAD (very important!), they stretched their limits as far as they could with what they had and I have a very important motto that goes with that:
'Creativity is spawned by the limitations that are imposed onto you.'
Meaning, the less you have to work with, the more amazing the finish product is, because you have to use all of your mind and skills to find work-arounds and use those limitations to your benefit. With technology today, most of the hardware is so powerful, you could basically do just about anything you wanted to graphically (again, for the most part, there still are limitations) and technology today has gotten to the point where it all has begun to look the same visually (the human eye, even with a 720p+ HD TV will not be able to tell). Also the MOST notorious problem with modern technology and programming games on modern consoles is that there is a MASSIVE amount of code sharing, which at first may seem like a great idea, right? I mean, why program a graphics display if other companies have already created engines to do just that, like the Unreal engine. Well that actually is a massive problem, it homogenizes the gaming industry! If everyone is using the same code to do the same thing, the games are going to start looking, feeling and playing the same! And why play the same, old thing over and over again? It's simply pointless and boring. Also, on the programmer's end if people start to use more code sharing (basically building off of the wheel), programmers will have a more difficult time understanding the importance of building classes and programs from scratch; thus their problem solving skills will drop, and their understanding of abstraction will change.
And lastly, the reason why I chose the Dreamcast over other consoles is why would I release software to a system that already has tons of competitors all doing the same thing. If I decided to release it as an XBOX 360 game through XNA Game Studio and XBOX Live, I would be basically competing with hundreds, if not, thousands of others, all doing the same thing. I chose the Dreamcast because it does not release home brew games very often, so there is a considerable time put into the games and more focus can be put towards the game on both the programmer/studio aspect as well as the people who want to play the game, thus making the game much more significant. 'Obsolescence', as people know it, is a term coined by the industries in order to pump out new hardware and thus increasing their profits and putting them on the 'edge'. Software and Hardware does not truly go obsolete, it just ages. People still use machines and programs compiled in COBOL which is one of THE first programming languages ever created (created in 1959) and there are still programmers out there who program on those languages and on old machines and these machines are owned by BIG industries.
So is it really obsolescence as we know it? Possibly not. That is the MAIN reason why I chose to program on the Dreamcast, to prove to the industries and studios across the gaming world that there is no such thing as 'Obsolete', and they can do the same. Obsolescence is just a term used for industries to force out a new product; there is no need to fix what isn't broken. Just because a console or system is old, does NOT make it useless. So this game (TAHI) is to PROVE to the other industries and studios that it is possible to create something out of the ordinary, out of the 'flock' and stand out from the rest. This is a gaming revolution.
Answering your second question, It is interesting to work on the Dreamcast compared to other systems because not all libraries exist on the Dreamcast to be programmed on, so we must do research and code new libraries to give us added functionality. Granted, KOS does give us a lot of the basic necessities to get the job done, such as programming interrupts and allowing us to display via the audio/video ports, it still misses on complex 3D objects (other than boxes and spheres) and also does not do collision detection or bounding boxes. So it's not necessarily the processing power that may be the issue, it's the holes in our libraries that we must research ourselves and code in ASSEMBLY to function properly. Albeit there are processing limitations of the Dreamcast, the largest of which is actually the memory. We can only swap so much memory back and forth with the Dreamcast so we use techniques like decreasing our drawing distance for our 3D objects and in place, using an emulated fog to cover up what isn't drawn yet, which also helps out the processor. We also must limit our polygon counts on our models and terrain in order for everything to display properly, which IS easy to do by optimizing our models poly counts before taking their raw data and feeding it into our experimental ION display engine. You also have to take into consideration that a processor can only take in one process or thread at a time and process it, so audio is a big hit as well to the processing power of the Dreamcast. So basically we take it with a grain of salt and experiment to see what our limitations are. Basically we try to overload the Dreamcast before we bring down the requirements.
As for your third question, we have not come to that point yet in our development but we are avidly looking for publishers to get the game ready to print and distribute! So as of now, we're looking but have not come to a defined conclusion yet as to who.
DCN:Frank Lima is one of THE nicest people in the business I have had the pleasure of talking with, I hope this interview will give Dreamcast fans an insight into the independent Dreamcast scene. I would love to take the time to thank Reticon and Frank for taking the time to share with us all the ups and downs of our favorite 128Bit wonder.
(Here is the link to the article:
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=1 ... opic=14829)