Mysteries of Blood

Discuss and hash out the Blood universe here.

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DwayneA
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Mysteries of Blood

Post by DwayneA »

Ever wonder:

1. Why one of the cultists in The Overlooked Hotel is placed within the level as a wall sprite?
2. Why the level designer put a tesla charge in the Haunting, but nowhere in episode 2 can you find the Tesla Cannon?
3. Why the shotgun automatically reloads when you switch to another weapon?
4. Why if you load saved game when you load Blood does the depth cueing change in the level?
5. If an enemy drops an item after dying, if you blow up the corpse or killed them by burning, why do they drop an extra item?
6. Why you can access the secret level in level 4 in all four of the original episodes?
7. Why you can effortlessly dodge enemy attacks simply by ducking?
8. Why Tchernobog is so weak against the Napalm Launcher?
9. Why those statues that transform into the gargolyse bleed if you attack them?
10. Why Cerberus and hellhounds run in circles on lava?
11. Why Shial has no attacks of her own, yet there are sprites of her standing on two legs that are never used?
12. Why you can pick up Fire, Body, or Spirit Armor even if you have 100 armor points of that type?
13. Why there is sometimes no animation for opening the cigarette lighter if you select the Aerosol can?
14. Why the animation for flicking the cigarette lighter is longer if you select the aerosol can?
15. Why there is only one type of shroom despite there being four kinds?
16. Why you can't pick up boxes of bullets but you can pick up drums of bullets?
17. Why medicine pouches are never used in the original episodes and Post Mortem?
18. Why the alternate attack of the voodoo doll is so weak?
19. Why the pitchfork doesn't have an alternate attack unlike other weapons?
20. Why Post Mortem is Episode 6 despite it being the 5th episode you can select?
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Gila
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Re: Mysteries of Blood

Post by Gila »

1. Why one of the cultists in The Overlooked Hotel is placed within the level as a wall sprite?
probably an oversight. i think they developed and tested the game mostly in 320x200 (the weekly screenshots are that size, but might be due to just internet being much slower those days), and in that resolution you can't really notice that a specific cultist in that spot is a wall sprite, unless you come close and see him "turn" around. still weird though.
2. Why the level designer put a tesla charge in the Haunting, but nowhere in episode 2 can you find the Tesla Cannon?
maybe an doversight. but this is perhaps wrong tags/properties of that object, maybe it was supposed to appear only in multiplayer.
6. Why you can access the secret level in level 4 in all four of the original episodes?
following a pattern of episode 1. duke3d also had secret levels in episodes 2 and 3 accessed from level #5 (and another from level 8). similar thing was also in Quake1.
8. Why Tchernobog is so weak against the Napalm Launcher?
i thought he is just generally weakest boss, can be just burst down with damage, especially with akimbo
15. Why there is only one type of shroom despite there being four kinds?
originally there was 4, can be witnessed in alpha. alpha blood was closer to Heretic in feel, it was more "magic" kinda thing.
i guess these were just dropped.
16. Why you can't pick up boxes of bullets but you can pick up drums of bullets?
box of bullets was "cut" and changed to drum of bullets, sprite remained, but code disabled or cut?
17. Why medicine pouches are never used in the original episodes and Post Mortem?
same as shrooms and few other items. for example, there is a working item called Asbestos Armor, which makes you immune to fire (can walk on lava no problem), for a limited time. it is never used in any level.

another example is cloak of shadows, which can you pick up in the game, but nothing happens.
perhaps it was changed to invisibility powerup with new graphic sprite.
20. Why Post Mortem is Episode 6 despite it being the 5th episode you can select?
Episode 5 is BloodBath levels, see the BLOOD.INI

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also from alpha

- originally there were 3 sub-types of flare ammo with different ammo (like burning flare, explosive flare)
- originally you could pick up a separate stick and or bundle of dynamite, and also throw 1 stick or whole bundle
- "decoy" item/powerup (a la Holoduke), probably cut out early in development
- Post Mortem episode mostly uses levels from Blood Alpha
- the pods & tentacles, at least the sprites, were already in Alpha
- some unused cultist jumping animations (i think some are in the final game as well)
- bloodlust "meter" which would presumably fill by killing people and then you turn into Beast (POV beasthands/claws animated and present in alpha and in plasma pak art files)

etc
DwayneA
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Re: Mysteries of Blood

Post by DwayneA »

Here are some more:

-Why do gargoyles and hell hounds die instantly when they fall in water?
-Why is it still sometimes possible to use the aerosol can even when you have no ammo left for it?
-How come the producers didn't want any music to play during Fire and Brimstone, Ganglion Depths, and In the Flesh?
-How come track number 4 is used only once in the entire game?
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Gila
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Location: Russia

Re: Mysteries of Blood

Post by Gila »

-Why do gargoyles and hell hounds die instantly when they fall in water?
makes sense for the dogs, because they are kinda flaming
also spiders die as well, unless they are spawned in underwater sector (by shial)
-How come the producers didn't want any music to play during Fire and Brimstone, Ganglion Depths, and In the Flesh?
some levels have heavy ambience... phantom express for example. its set to play pestis cruento though originally, but commented out in blood.ini (i duno if it plays the cd track for it), also Hallowed Grounds, it has that chanting going on all the time, no music there either. fire& brimstone have moans if i remember correctly and in the flesh is non stop meat popping and slapping sounds.
-How come track number 4 is used only once in the entire game?
not to mention that dark carnival is completely different in MIDI form.
also, there are more music from the MIDI versions, that is not represented in CD tracks.

those times were weird where music was transitioning from MIDI/MOD to CD tracks (later to compressed audio, altho some games had experiments with stuff like directmusic aka interactive music architecture, namely shogo and blood2)
so in mid-90s it was transitional "musical" period which resulted in a mess.

blood - more MIDI music tracks than the CD tracks
shadow warrior - more CD tracks than MIDI tracks (i think midi is played only in shareware, retail doesnt even have midi playback)

another example is QUAKE1 (again), they have 1 intro track, 1 "level stats" track and 8 "level" tracks on the CD
which all 8 were used in shareware version of the game (if you had it on CD), for every level (7 + 1 secret, start map shared track with another level)
when they released the full ("registered") version of the game, episodes 2-3-4 levels reused same 8 music tracks.

i guess many things change during development of any game, sound and music as well
some stuff gets cut out, or just unfinished. and some things can be still left in the game files.
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