- Thread starter XL2
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XL2
Established Member
Here is the SAGE 2021 demo : SAGE 2021 - Demo - Hellslave : Project Z-Treme
I didn't have enough time to implement everything I wanted, so sadly it's not as complete as I hoped. It features only deathmatch (up to 8 players), with bots, so you can actualy play in a single player match against 7 bots.
I didn't have time to optimize the bots' AI, so with more bots the game will struggle.
Optimizing it would be a 2-3 hours thing max, but work has been very busy recently!
I also didn't have time to finish the maps Josh made, the forest temple and a cool looking ship, so that's something I plan to complete in the future, but I'll be taking a break for the next couple of weeks or months, so we'll see.
The only video that came out so far - I didn't even have time to do one myself - is this one, showing 3 out of the 5 maps currently in the demo:
I didn't have enough time to implement everything I wanted, so sadly it's not as complete as I hoped. It features only deathmatch (up to 8 players), with bots, so you can actualy play in a single player match against 7 bots.
I didn't have time to optimize the bots' AI, so with more bots the game will struggle.
Optimizing it would be a 2-3 hours thing max, but work has been very busy recently!
I also didn't have time to finish the maps Josh made, the forest temple and a cool looking ship, so that's something I plan to complete in the future, but I'll be taking a break for the next couple of weeks or months, so we'll see.
The only video that came out so far - I didn't even have time to do one myself - is this one, showing 3 out of the 5 maps currently in the demo:
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retrodadandmodernlad
Established Member
Hey, we have been playing the new hellslave sage 2021 deathmatch demo over the weekend and i have to say its excellent. In my opinion its already the best multiplayer game on the sega saturn and is so much fun. Every update you do the game just keeps getting better and better. I have also done a video that talks about the games progression and also showing off the five new maps from the sage 2021 demo. Thank you for all the great work you are doing and hope you enjoy the video.
This looks damn incredible, what an achievement! Considering how highly regarded Lobotomy is as a studio for their games, seeing this level of technical wizardry and gameplay coming out of a hobby project is astounding. Not to mention that 4 player split screen like this would have blown people out of their socks in 1997!
XL2
Established Member
XL2 updated HELLSLAVE with a new update entry:
HELLSLAVE 2022 Saturn competition edition
Read the rest of this update entry...
HELLSLAVE 2022 Saturn competition edition
Read the rest of this update entry...
XL2
Established Member
This is amazing, just seeing the WIP facing worlds running on Saturn hardware - I'm overly hyped 🙂 going to drop this in my MODE and challenge my brother next time he's over!
Keep up the good work XL, mindblowing to see what Saturn is capable of and that you've done all this without the resources of a mega-rich software company.
Keep up the good work XL, mindblowing to see what Saturn is capable of and that you've done all this without the resources of a mega-rich software company.
Hi I'm pretty much new to the Saturn scene.
I would love to give Hellslave a try, but unfortunetly I can't get it running on Fenrir 21 Pins. It doesn't even open when I launch the game on my VA9 PAL Saturn . I would love to play it, since it already looks like one of the best games that graced the console
I know that @dibz posted a solution before but it is done in Linux and I have no clue on how to do it since I use windows and it involves code on the Linux terminal and CDmage (both are things I've never used). If anyone can help me I would greatly appreciate it!
Hope that someday in the finished version of Hellslave we can get an ODE compatible version (wishfull thinking maybe, but would love to see that happen).
I would love to give Hellslave a try, but unfortunetly I can't get it running on Fenrir 21 Pins. It doesn't even open when I launch the game on my VA9 PAL Saturn . I would love to play it, since it already looks like one of the best games that graced the console
I know that @dibz posted a solution before but it is done in Linux and I have no clue on how to do it since I use windows and it involves code on the Linux terminal and CDmage (both are things I've never used). If anyone can help me I would greatly appreciate it!
Hope that someday in the finished version of Hellslave we can get an ODE compatible version (wishfull thinking maybe, but would love to see that happen).
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The latest version (the one you get from the Download button) should actually work as-is and my earlier solution shouldn't be necessary, though I notice you're on a PAL saturn -- I guess that could be an issue? And the usual question -- are you on the latest Fenrir firmware? A new update was released a couple weeks back give or take. I'll try and give this version of hellslave a shot soon on my fenrir, although mine is a 20 pin on a jpn VA0.
It might be an issue that I have a VA9 PAL console to play this game. I have downloaded the latest firmware for Fenrir 21 pins and when I launch Hellslave it simply opens a black screen... Also when I reset the console it only plays the music tracks in the saturn menu instead of launching the game.
What is really odd to me is that I can launch Japanese and American games with fenrir with no problems at all except Hellslave. I will try other homebrew games like Cubecat so I can test if it is somehow related to the way homebrew software is done.
It's a real pitty I can't play it.
What is really odd to me is that I can launch Japanese and American games with fenrir with no problems at all except Hellslave. I will try other homebrew games like Cubecat so I can test if it is somehow related to the way homebrew software is done.
It's a real pitty I can't play it.
Ok I can confirm that I could run Cube Cat just fine, it has something to do on how Hellslave runs on my PAL console probably. @XL2 Do you think there is any way I could help you to troubleshoot this issue and help your game to become more accessible?
XL2
Established Member
Which version number did you try?
Hi,
I subscribed here to confirm that I get the exact same issue.
I'm using the bin/cue v0.361 downloaded from segaxtreme.
To complete @luis answer here is what I observed.
- the problems appears whatever is the console is switched in 50 or 60 Hz.
- the game boots to a black screen when using the fenrir menu (from fenrir website) to boot the image
- the game actually boots when using the pseudosaturn menu installed on the fenrir (instead of the fenrir menu)
- using the pseudosaturn menu, it goes to the title screen, multiplayer game can be selected, map can be selected, then the loading screen preceeding a game session appears for a second and then freezes with a corrupted image (attempts to access the disc ?)
- when pushing the reset button AFTER the freeze, we arrive on the saturn dashboard
- then the dashboard reacts in a way I never observed with any other game images loaded via the fenrir :
1) it plays an audio track immediately after entering the dashbord, without pushing any buttons to do so. It is impossible to reproduce this behaviour with any other disc image. A normal behaviour would be the dashboard checking for the disc and after a few seconds allowing to read audio tracks or launch the game if recognized. Here, none of this, it plays a track right-away when entering on the dashboard, as if some instructions to do so were still loaded somewhere AFTER the reset.
2) the track 1 that should be data tracks cannot be selected (like it would with other saturn images), only audio tracks are listed in the dashboard, starting with the 1st audio track (which should be track 2 ?) as the 1st track, as if this was an audio-CD and not a saturn game.
- the issue is unstable, after a dozen of attempts (literally) and each time after a cold boot cycle, I managed to enter a game
- for some reason, only selecting map 02 works almost every time when I tried to launch a game, no other maps worked so far
To conclude, it appears that fenrir is unable to correclty handle the hellslave v0.361 image on, at least, some PAL v2 saturns.
Considering the stange dashboard behaviour, I suspect that something in the disc image structure confuses the fenrir. SO far I never managed to make the fenrir so confused even with other homebrew images, so I expect this issue is specific to hellslave image.
Hope this helps.
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XL2
Established Member
Thanks for the info. Honestly I have no idea what could cause that. I don't have a Fenrir, but I think there is a "feature" in Fenrir for "fast boot", which doesn't clear the Ram. Perhaps you can turn it off and try again?
privateye
Established Member
@luis and @benclaff : I observed the same issues and that's because Fenrir doesn't always play nicely with images in single-BIN/CUE format. Hellslave is playable on Fenrir by converting it to multi-BIN/CUE format using Sega Saturn Patcher; the latest version is included with the Wachenröder entry in the Sega Saturn 27th Anniversary Game Competition and requires the package labelled .NET Desktop Runtime 5.0.x to be installed from the following link: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/5.0
Once you've loaded the image in Sega Saturn Patcher, make sure that the 'Separate Tracks Files' box in the bottom-right corner is ticked, click the 'Rip Image' button, and save the image to BIN/CUE format.
Once you've loaded the image in Sega Saturn Patcher, make sure that the 'Separate Tracks Files' box in the bottom-right corner is ticked, click the 'Rip Image' button, and save the image to BIN/CUE format.
I confirm this solved the issue. Thanks ! And by the way, for me it also solved it for some old homebrew ISO such as Rocking-B releases. 😉
This actually fixed my issue as well... Awesome! And XL2 your game is outstanding, I hope you don't give up on it 😉
