It’s been a long time since my last update on RigelEngine, but that’s not due to nothing happening in the meantime – quite to the contrary! So let’s have a quick look at what the project has been up to.
The first big news is that as of version 0.6.0, the entire game (including the registered version’s content) is fully playable without any game-breaking bugs or major inconsistencies. This is a significant milestone, as it means the project is now feature complete as far as gameplay goes. But feature parity wasn’t the only area where progress was made: Usability is another one, with quite a few nice improvements and additions. And finally, a ton of bugs and inconsistencies with the original have been fixed, making the game more robust and playable overall.
Usability improvements
First, the game now includes a graphical file browser UI for selecting the Duke Nukem II data files to use. After first launch, the path is saved in the user profile, so this only has to be done once. This makes it much more convenient to set up RigelEngine, and removes the need to copy files around or use the command line.
Next up is gamepad/controller support. While it’s possible to get this to work with DosBox, it’s a little fiddly, as it requires tweaking configuration files and going through a calibration step in the game. None of this is necessary with RigelEngine: Just plug in your controller (Xbox, PlayStation or similar) and you’re good to go. This includes full menu navigation, automatic naming of saved games to remove the need to reach for the keyboard, and a top-level in-game menu which doesn’t exist in the original:
New platforms
Thanks to the extended gamepad support, the game is now fully playable on devices like the Odroid Go Advance handheld:
The range of available platforms to play on has also grown in other ways, thanks to contributor Pratik Anand who worked on a Webassembly port. The game can now run in a web browser:
Ultimately, the plan is to host a version of this online with the shareware content. But first, we need to sort out some remaining issues, and settle on a hosting option.
Showcase video
To see some of the new features described in this post in action, check out the showcase video I made for the release of version 0.6.0:
What’s next?
Support for quick saving is a very recent addition that’s already been merged to the repo’s main branch, but not available in a release yet. I expect to make a new release fairly soon, which is going to include the feature. At the moment, quick saves are only temporary, meaning they are lost when quitting the game or finishing a level. Permanently saving on disk is planned for the future.
Aside from that, work is currently happening for implementing the original game’s demo playback feature.
Lethal Guitar 