Deicide was one of the top 5 v1 games for sure. Probably even top 3. It would be awesome if the game was made over to properly end, and the gfx fixed up and whatnot.

I wouldn't be able to help, though, but would love to play it.

I'm not even sure if it was a custom one that this version used (there were a couple unreleased versions so my memory is a bit foggy on the subject). I think the short blip of info displayed at the prompt when a game starts says which one it is, but I never bothered to check. From what I recall, I think it was the same one used in Dreamseekers, so I doubt Vecna has the source to it. I think it was mostly used to implement an early version of the skill system, but I'm not positive.

Anyway, the problems I'm encountering do seem to be unrelated to VC glitches. I recompiled the various .vc's but no matter what I tried changing/fixing, the game kept crashing at a single point when using WinVerge1. Of course it also ran just fine when I was emulating the original Deicide .exe using DosBox (which means that the game was most likely using a custom version of the Verge main.exe), but it also skiped to an unrelated event at that same spot, so I can't be completely sure.

As for the graphics, yeah, we all knew they were pretty bad. In fact, they forced me to initially pick up a copy of DPaint and start creating some custom tile sets despite pixel art not being my forte. Mr. Superbad (who did Neocity) also donated his custom/ripped-from-the-Genesis-Shadowrun tiles, and I was adding them into a complete .vsp set that would be used to overhaul the entire city map when I had my hard-drive crash. My other caves/ruins tile set also perished alongside those two, and that obviously greatly discouraged me from working on the game. There were others who were helping with the art as well (I think Toen was contributing character animations while Shaky was turning out more kick-ass portraits), but I never got a hold of them.

This is starting to read like a real Designer Diary, heh.

-Radek

After spending most of the morning playing through the game and getting to the first crash point with various combinations of flag-values, it's pretty safe to say that these bugs are there to stay. Some of them are caused by minor .vc glitches, but the two kickers are the custom Deicide commands used with the skills system (it's possible to decrement what looks like an unsigned int even if its value is 0, which can cause some bizarreness), and the differences between WinVerge1 and the original main.exe being emulated in the newer versions of Windows.

There are also some instances where certain memory sectors are accessed when they shouldn't be. There's one VC event that holds a few text printouts, a flag++ and a MapSwitch() statement. At one point that event is endlessly looped through in the game, and in a fashion that suggests it's not being executed properly. First of all, the flag that's checked when entering the whole if statement inside that event is completely ignored, and the flag-value increment inside the code block never happens. In addition, only the third of the four text print-outs seems to initiated, after which the Mapswitch() is immediately called. This goes completely against the logic-flow of the code-block, so I'm pretty sure it's being accessed illegally (especially due to its relative randomness).

So it looks like it might be impossible to fix-up the game without the original source to the main.exe, but maybe I can still release a somewhat playable version. I already managed to skip the first crash event by temporarily altering some VC code (which I had to change back right away as it broke other parts of the game), so here's what I'm thinking: if it's not too much of a hassle, I'll play through the whole game and include all the after-the-crash save states that I can't fix directly. That way people who still want to check out the rest of the game can simply load the appropriate save-state when their game crashes or starts acting glitchy. What do you all think?

-Radek

Both Neocity and Deicide did share that Shadowrun-esque atmosphere, but while the first game was a short, cyberpunk-y demo, the second was a much longer title with a pretty damn good storyline, and a setting more akin to White Wolf's Changeling universe.

Myself and Feywood both hounded Justin for perhaps "borrowing" one too many aspects of the two aforementioned P&P RPGs, and I think it at least partially made him loose interest in the project. To be fair, these days he'd be the first person to acknowledge the somewhat cliche nature of the character archetypes and some of key aspects of the setting, but despite its flaws, I still have a pretty big soft spot for Deicide.

-Radek

Okay, it's finished!

I've fixed a bunch of small VC glitches, removed the standard save-game restrictions, purged the remnants of a preliminary battle system, and even got rid of some of the game-crashes.

Of course some still remain, and will likely do so no matter what I do, but I've also included a bunch of save states in the zip that correspond to the events that take place right after each individual crash. If you play the game and it crashes, or it starts acting all funky, skim the readme in the extra_saves folder to see if there's an available fix for your problem.

Anyway, here it is: Deicide v.5

If you haven't played the game before, then you might quickly become stuck (Deicide is a nice little combination of console-like RPGs and traditional PC adventure games) as the game isn't nearly as heavy-handed about telling you what to do next as you might expect. If you're stuck, the first thing you should always do is converse with your friendly neighbourhood bartender (over at the drunken haze bar), or Max, the crazy pawn-shop owner (to talk to Max, choose "Forget it" when he asks you if you want to buy something--the same applies to other shop-owners).

Also, make sure not to waste any of your money! You'll need most of the cash you earn/find lying around to complete game-specific quests, so don't waste it unless you're sure you'll need to buy a specific item. If you don't save up, you might end up getting into monetary trouble!

And, of course, read the readme!

I'll host the file for now as I'm not sure if a somewhat buggy game should be upload to verge-rpg.com. Still, I'd appreciate it if McGrue or someone else linked to this thread on the main page, but I digress. Download it, try it out, and if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, I'll be here to throw in my $0.02.

-Radek

I'm stuuuuck :(
Where on earth do I magically find $400 for the seismograph?

How obvious! :P
Thanks for the help.
(I'm reluctant do to anything after losing to the guy and before loading my save game because money is so tight.)

1). The line isn't printed twice, it's just the text-box reappearing back after other parts of the scripted event play out. I tried fixing it, but I didn't spend too much time on it since it wasn't a major glitch. I'm not sure if it even can be fixed, though, as it seemed more like a quirk with Verge itself.

2). Oh, thanks. I didn't notice that one.

-Radek

Gott im Himmel.

My buggy, ugly, weird-ass game is back. So it seems. I was convinced that the only people in the world with copies of v.5 were Skall and my ex-girlfriend.

Umm.. wow. I'm a little shocked that people continue to play and enjoy this game. But thank you. All credit is due to Skall for harassing me via e-mail to check out this "revival", and maybe get involved, work schedule allowing. Skall, you're a persistent bugger, and a flattering one. You kick ass. Thank you so much for pouring so much energy into this project. I am still mildly shocked you thought so strongly of this game.

Anyway. Old vergers and new, do thank Skall for getting the dessicated corpse of Deicide off its feet. I still am convinced it's a cliche-ridden, sub-par piece of doo-hickey, and I doubt I'll ever get around to finishing it. If I do, White Wolf and their horned legions will probably kill me and use my sun-bleached bones for toothpicks. But hell, who knows.

This is far too spammy. Again, Skall, McGrue, other folks, thanks a frigging kajillion.

More later.
- Justin

Here's a really stupid question. All of the game screens are truncated, the bottom half and the left half cut in by a few inches. Is this a game problem, a monitor problem, or what? I tried adjusting the monitor resolution on this (the absent supervisor's) computer, to no avail.

Wow. It's kinda sad when you have to ask technical support questions in regards to your own game.