Grind : 'Darkenward East' v0.3 showcase!

Introducing 'Grind' : a first person shooter for Amiga 500, made with the amazing Dread-Engine!
The map presented here is a wip sample, planned to be one of the early levels in the game and showcases the game's visuals, art direction and gameplay!
This footage is taken using a plain a1200 with fast ram (which is the max recommended) and runs around 25-30 fps (the value at the upper left corner is VBI, not fps)!
On a vanilla a500 with 512+512 ram, it scores around 10-12 fps (which is the same as most Dread maps). Note that the game is full OCS, so the above visuals, resolution and gameplay is exactly the same on a500 as well!
The project, while far from being finished, has already come a long way and it's headed towards its second (successful) year of development, with the immediate goals being the addition of in-game music, more enemy types, better sfx, expanded weapon mechanics, more levels and important engine features (such as level progression, saving etc.)!
Links:
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-Support Grind on Patreon: / grind_amiga
-Visit Grind's Pixelglass page: pixelglass.org/#grind
-Join Grind's Discord server: / discord

[@visorleague]

I love the chaos engine like interface :) The fluidity of the game is just wow! if this was available in the 90's, it would have changed history.

[@KieranShort]

The history of Commodore anyway!

[@Asphodellife]

You sure? It would have made quite the impact 😄@@KieranShort

[@chrisforrester7782]

Is this running on a stock A500? Gloom was awful and melted my A1200!

[@LeoMumford]

It was and it did. It was called Doom 😅

[@beefquiche]

agreed

[@SomeOrangeCat]

Love the shift towards the Chaos Engine/Soldiers of Fortune aesthetic. It fits a game made for the Amiga like a glove.

[@EximiusDux]

It looks like the typical Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Doom 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior, Blood and Quake style menu or in game HUD.

[@The_Boctor]

The Id-map Brothers.

[@nicramtimzs6245]

Wow, the Bitmap Brtothers Wolfenstein!

[@bubbanstix2536]

I was really impressed by Dread and I knew less generic graphics would again add to this general impression, but I didn't expect Grind to look so much better.

[@miroslavzimcak3244]

Wow. Thats very impressive. I really like the days I spend with my A1200 back in the day. And this stuff is very impressive for that old computer. Wish we all can have game like this one in 90!s

[@NR-rv8rz]

Love the gross sound effects of the floating eyes.

[@sunspirerecords]

just unbelievable how good this looks! And it was quite exciting to follow the progress all this way so far .... amazing work! Amigaaaaaa!

[@realelaverick]

That’s fantastic. It’s been a few years since I’ve felt jealous of Amiga owners for an exclusive game.

[@bubbanstix2536]

I know there isn't enough memory for enemies to be drawn from every angles but I think it would add to the gameplay and general impression if one enemy type could be attacked from the back. It would only need two or three sprites more. One where the enemy is seen from the back. One where he spots the player and fully turns towards him. Enemies would be see from the front from nearly any position/angle, just like they already are. But from a 60° angle behind them, they would be seen from the back until the player leaves the angle and the enemy "spots" him and turns around.

[@pixelglass8898]

This is something we'll definitely consider (and already plan to test) 😉 But we'd like first to make sure everything fits and there's enough RAM left for the major features to come (like music f.e.)

[@bubbanstix2536]

@@pixelglass8898 For some reason youtube didn't notice me that you had answered. Grind is astonishing and it will be even without this feature, i allowed myself the remark because I believe it's doable and could open a few possibilities in terms of gameplay and situations. And yeah, music is more important and it's your game and your choice and It's astonishing.

[@bubbanstix2536]

The steampunk theme is really great. Wood beams, candelabrums, libraries everywhere.

[@ilkeryoldas]

Looks gorgeous! Some variation in sound effects would be a nice touch.

[@tommybgoode2]

Amazing! Yes it would be nice if we could see the baddies from multiple angles but it is surprising how satisfying it is just to be able to see the wall textures in a realistic way. Takes us 90% of the way there. Unquestionably this is spectacular on the hardware available.

[@asphalt_and_trouble]

Apart from the obvious technical impressiveness, it's the environments and atmosphere that look truly fantastic on this. Great job!! Keep on grinding!!!

[@georgeluyckx1437]

Very impressive but a punching soundtrack in the background would really be the icing on the the cake , keep up the good work.

[@PixelPipes]

So the descriptions says "better sfx" coming, but like.... those sound effects are already FANTASTIC. Don't change em for the worse!

[@pixelglass8898]

Thanks :) Most of them are already good enough, yes. But there are plenty remaining that could also get some extra polishing. The game also currently misses ambient/environmental and enemy sounds (making their presence known before you see them -or they see you). So these are planned to be added as well to consider the SFX part complete.

[@nocteensis1297]

it is phenominally impressive that you've done so much with the hardware limitation of the amiga, i'll be sure to keep an eye out for updates in the future i can only imagine how good the soundtrack is going to be when it's done (imho amiga music was always one of it's greatest strengths)

[@d_vibe-swe]

This is amazing! And those eyes looks terrifying!

[@torgo_]

nice eyeball enemies, very round and floaty

[@willwill2548]

Incredible

[@plasmaastronaut]

so high frame rate, low res wolfenstein tier engine was possible on an A1200 14Mhz with fast ram. Well done devs, but I doubt this can be pushed to doom engine standard. A good next project would be to aim to get a doom tier engine with medium res (320x240) view on a mid range amiga acel card: one that could be purchased by a school boy saving his weekly paper-round money in 1993AD i.e. a 68030 42Mhz.

[@KevinSaunders]

Such an Amazing game and on the A500 - well done PixelGlass team

[@thesystemera]

This is incredible. Amiga 500. Wow!

[@romainhector5931]

Great visuals and ambiance ! GG

[@opiejaye]

This looks incredible!

[@jakubkrcma]

It is like a much better Wolfenstein 3D. The art brings back memories of Eye of the Beholder etc. The overall presentation is slick. ❤

[@humanharddrive1]

game looks great, i love the look of the levels

[@GameplayandTalk]

Looks pretty sweet!

[@jury68000]

Game looks absolutely fantastic!

[@ddniUK]

Imagine if the Legends of Valour game could be recreated using this DREAD engine.

Absolutely spectacular.

[@Zoulz666]

Still blows my mind that this runs on a A500 with 1mb ram. Such an achievement! looks like Grind is shaping up to be a great game.

[@jury68000]

As said in the description, its run on A1200 with FastRAM. Nevertheless this game (and Dread of course) run on A500 also, but "a little" slower than this.

[@casinowilhelm]

Still impressive for a 1200!

[@xotmatrix]

Amazing work.

[@Yukatoshi]

This on an A500 is crazy. Just shows that done right the hardware was capable!

[@TemalCageman]

Wow! This is amazing!

[@MiGaNuTs2]

Incroyable !

[@tedeusz83]

Niesamowicie to wygląda, jak wyjdzie to kupuje!, bez kitu! Fajny Steam Punk, i troche LoveCraftowe vibesy..

Apart from the amazing engine, I really like the graphics style. The art looks fantastic and very atmospheric.

[@olevo1676]

Very awesome!

[@poipoipoi090909]

looks so cool.

[@tanteedelgard1921]

Imagine this game in 1993...

[@litjellyfish]

Well in 93 DOOM was released so it would be still seen as an inferior and simplified (although nice gfx) DOOM clone

[@raycastello2532]

fantastic

[@Reprogrammed_By_SEGA]

If the sky is going to be tiled you can't really have a crescent moon or any distinctive objects or it looks odd/illogical. Looking forward to see the lighting model update.

[@pixelglass8898]

Yup :) More so since the sky/clouds are already moving on their own (and the moon along with them). The moon is currently just a visual test/placeholder and will be removed. Until we manage to add it back in as a separate object that is (already planned and doable in the Mega Drive version). ;)

[@unrealdevon]

This is impressive.

[@ProBloggerWorld]

Great style and optics. I would really know tech specs. How is the rendering done? Great work here.

[@Cwiiis]

Looks fantastic - would love to see the ST(E) version too, I assume it's much the same with worse looking weapons/HUD but still :)

[@AmigaVR]

Really awesome 🤘🏻 maybe the death animation of the Eye could be more Bloodsplatt than explosion🤘🏻just a thought.

[@jimwalton8973]

Love the look and feel. Runs far better than alien breed 3d too.

[@Immorpher]

I would love to play this on PC!

[@adamhinde9538]

That looks stunning!

[@MegaTubert]

That looks fantastic!

[@SomeOrangeCat]

I keep hoping this gets a full release soon.

[@M3MB3Rrr]

Actually, this looks more Doom than Dread. :D We have zombimen, Lost So... Eyes, and some Cacodaemons too. :D

[@XMaximvsPayneX]

🤩

[@retrorter89]

Imagine this was available on a 1Mb 500 in 1987..... just think how many units Commodore would have shifted !!!! ...the Amiga Grind pack lol - I still can't believe how good this game is even though I played it on a real 500....mind boggling how the coders made this possible

[@litjellyfish]

As what was released in on the Amiga back in 1987 still was superior to other machines it would not really have affected it so much. I mean Shadow of the Beast was a WOW game and that was in 89. So Imagine if shadow of the beast would have been released in 85 how THAT could have sold Amiga even more… wait we had Defender of the Crown then that was WOW and indeed sold the Amiga a lot

[@CaptainNow2]

This is incredible!

[@AFourEyedGeek]

First I've heard of this, you planning on a PC Steam build? I'd be interested in buying this.

[@pixelglass8898]

Native PC build probably not as this would need recoding the game or using a different engine. There's also the option to wrap this with a free ROM and emulator though (self contained executable) so a PC release in general is not out of the question. We'll have to see about Steam.

[@AFourEyedGeek]

@@pixelglass8898 well as you probably know retro shooters are popular at the moment, and this looks great so far. I couldn't see why this couldn't join in with the rest.

[@pixelglass8898]

@@AFourEyedGeek It is not out of the question, just difficult at the moment cause a PC native port would need a lot of additional work. Our primary focus now is to finish up the 3 versions that are currently worked on (Amiga, Atari ST and MegaDrive). We'll see about the possibility of a PC port as well when the time comes. ;)

[@KieranShort]

That looks awesome. By the end, I was going for the baddies.

[@Myako]

Absolutely spectacular. 👏🏻👏🏻💪🏻💪🏻 Will we eventually be able to download a demo?

[@pixelglass8898]

Perhaps, the game needs to reach vertical slice first (there's still quite a lot to do) for that possibility to be even considered.

[@slashrose3287]

@@pixelglass8898 Incredible work. Are you planning a MD version once Amiga version will be finished? Sharing the same CPU is a good start.

[@pixelglass8898]

@@slashrose3287 Demoscener Kabuto from 'Titan' is in the team and working on a Mega Drive port as we speak. 😉 Earlier he already made and shared with us a draft (proof of concept) port of a Dread map, running fully on Mega Drive and with quite spectacular performance as well!

[@slashrose3287]

@@pixelglass8898 OMG..Kabuto!!! Thank you VERY much for this update, u made my day (well, almost 🙂!!

[@moltenwood]

nice artstyle and gameplay.. the numbers on the HUD are hard to read...

[@theopenrift]

Will there be a PC version as well? Or will it be Amiga-exclusive?

[@vealck]

I wish so hard I was 13 again an had this game on my A500...

[@Asphodellife]

Amazing! Could do with a bit more speed though; I don't mean FPS but walking speed.

[@shakeuk]

Will there be an AGA graphics mode as well or just OCS across the board?

[@pixelglass8898]

All focus is on OCS at the moment. Once this part is complete, supporting AGA (or extra ram) will also be considered. If there is enough time, such enhancements could be seen in the final release. Otherwise it will be considered for a later version, or even a standalone release. Remains to be seen. ;)

[@vertigoz]

If only there was a way to make an a500 to play this multiplayer, even if with the aid of external hardware so it wouldn't take precious CPU time

[@CrashUK28]

How does this work. Its not in a chunky planner mode so got be using planner modes with copper doing stuff as well.

[@closefm]

Are you planning to add a floor height change? Or will it be a wolfenstein-style project?

[@BSzili]

Wolfenstein 3D didn't have non-orthogonal walls, varying ceiling heights, different light levels, etc.

[@litjellyfish]

@@BSzilino but price visually it’s still more Wolfenstein than DOOM.

[@BSzili]

@@litjellyfish I have no idea what that means.

[@litjellyfish]

@@BSzili then I don’t think I will make you understand. For me it’s pretty obvious. If I look at it. With no stairs. Different height levels it looks more like how Wolfenstein looks even if the walls can be angled differently. In viewing impression it looks more like a game using a Wolfenstein engine than a DOOM engine. And that is why many bring that up that’s it’s more a Wolfenstein than DOOL game. And I agree with them. If this don’t explain it better then it will never do it

[@BSzili]

@@litjellyfishAh okay, so only the floor height changes matter.

[@friedpicklezzz]

Does this game ‘scale up’ in graphics on higher spec Amigas, such as the A3000/A4000?

[@pixelglass8898]

The engine does not support any change in resolution or screen sizes at the moment. It stays the same across all platforms (fullscreen and 1x2). To change that significant changes to the engine would need to happen (or most probably a different engine altogether).

[@friedpicklezzz]

@@pixelglass8898 thank you! 😊

[@francoisdebber6256]

please tell me the trick: how an Amiga 500 can do pseudo 3D texture at such a frame rate? I used to program demo 35y ago have a good understanding of 68000 copper blitter... I can see that pixels are 2x2 to divide by 4 the processing but still don't understand how this is possible. The closest routine I can imagine is the one from 3D part of Unreal (game on Amiga 500)

[@pixelglass8898]

Here are some highlights that made this possible on a500 (in a nutshell): 1) Blitter driven C2P. C2P conversion in general remains a massive burden for the Amiga hardware. In most engines it is done on the processor side, however here the blitter is used to do it, which offloads cycles from the main CPU. 2) Using BSP : compared to using a raycaster (like Wolfenstein does), BSP is a lot more efficient and lightweight. 3) Using lookup tables : a lot of stuff get precomputed this way to offload the cpu from expensive calculations. 4) Hardware sprites used for player weapons : while this does not add massive benefits to performance (well, it does vs using bob objects but not much), sprite animations are running on much higher fps, which helps sell the illusion of much smoother overall performance. 5) A ton of low level optimizations that yield marginal benefits on their own, but stack and can make the difference if added together.

[@francoisdebber6256]

@@pixelglass8898 Thanks so much,hopefully you could write a blog post or an article one day to go deeper in details, I am professional programmer for 30 years with a passion for performance, I hope one day I'll have time to go back to Amiga 500 coding as I used to do when I was a teenager 😁

[@ryuknight3951]

Any playable Demo?

[@miggy4eva980]

Does anyone know where I can download this? Not patreon

[@MGR-AmigaFanClub]

Is it possible to buy the full version of the game?

[@pixelglass8898]

Once it is released it will be ;)

[@TR-707]

Oh sht

[@silkee]

How is this possible? My brain can't understand this wizardry. Is there a tech explanation vid?

[@SomeOrangeCat]

Its running on the same engine as Dread, KK Altair goes through in great detail how it was made on his channel.

[@RAVE_GHETTO_BLASTER]

Is it possible to port it to the Sega Genesis? Thanx

[@pixelglass8898]

A coder in the team is already working on that ;)

[@RAVE_GHETTO_BLASTER]

@@pixelglass8898 Hell Yeah! It would be the most technically advanced game on the Mega Drive/Genesis👍🏻

[@spicha5888]

Πέτα τώρα τον Αλαφούζο τελικό αρχηγό και η μισή Ελλάδα θα κατεβάσει από τα πατάρια της την 500αρα για παγκόσμια Speedrun.

[@StefanNordlander]

Incredible