New Cheat Code Discovered in Sega Saturn Doom After 27 Years (www.retronews.com)
from Kain1@lemmy.world to retrogaming@lemmy.world on 10 Sep 16:39
https://lemmy.world/post/19615247

A new cheat code for the Sega Saturn version of Doom has been discovered, 27 years after the game’s original release in 1997. This newly found cheat allows players to make walls in the game semi-transparent, offering a unique gameplay feature that was previously unknown.

#retrogaming

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jordanlund@lemmy.world on 10 Sep 16:44 next collapse

Particularly interesting in that the Saturn had known problems with transparencies.

Davel23@fedia.io on 10 Sep 18:01 collapse

I'm not sure I would call it "problems", but doing transparencies on the Saturn required leveraging VDP2 and most developers just didn't bother.

jordanlund@lemmy.world on 10 Sep 18:19 collapse

Yup. Sega had it figured out and enabled Fishbowl Head in Virtua Fighter Kids, but it was out of the reach of 3rd party developers.

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/22b54609-229e-4905-92c3-1a794309fec5.png">

shinratdr@lemmy.ca on 10 Sep 18:43 collapse

Is that transparency? Looks like the same dithering/alternating empty pixels that all Saturn ports are plagued with.

jordanlund@lemmy.world on 10 Sep 19:13 next collapse

Oh, but it’s what passes for transparency on the Saturn. :)

Mozingo@lemmy.world on 10 Sep 19:16 collapse

Yea, that’s specifically not transparency. Megaman X 4 had actual transparencies, which you can see here with the glass tube, next to a spotlight using the dithering method.

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/63b71569-10de-48ec-9d5a-2d75a2595ec7.png">

AlbinoPython@lemmy.world on 10 Sep 16:46 next collapse

idkfa iddqd

psilotop@lemmy.world on 10 Sep 16:53 next collapse

Idclip OR idspispopd depending on Doom 1 or 2

EvilBit@lemmy.world on 10 Sep 17:40 collapse

Smashing pumpkins into small piles of putrid debris!

drasglaf@sh.itjust.works on 10 Sep 19:05 collapse

idbehold

NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip on 10 Sep 17:19 next collapse

Just from the screenshots in the tweet/article:

I would argue that is less transparency and more overlaying the skybox texture. In the city map with the Pinky you can’t actually see anything behind that wall, you just see the skybox.

Could just be “bad” examples but this makes sense. My understanding is that PC DOOM tended to use additive geometry in these cases so that the skybox is literally just a bigass box around the map. Whereas I assume the Saturn version had to do some magic to fit everything and may have used a different technique. Hence the ability to just overlay that texture over everything.

scutiger@lemmy.world on 10 Sep 18:02 collapse

IIRC Doom didn’t have a skybox per se, just parallax ceiling textures. You could put that texture on floors or ceilings and it would show the sky texture that would not be attached to the walls.

NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip on 10 Sep 18:26 collapse

The texture was definitely funky and I want to say was used as the ground portal in a lot of Ep3 levels.

But I THINK that was still applied to a giant box on the edges of the map. Which is how a lot of games still do that.

Strayce@lemmy.sdf.org on 10 Sep 22:59 collapse

As an old school doom mapper from the 90s, it absolutely isn’t. You build a room, apply F_SKY1 to the ceiling, and that’s it. The engine renders it more like a wall, but it’s not a traditional skybox in that it doesn’t exist in the level geometry outside of the room it’s applied to.

doomwiki.org/wiki/Sky

dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works on 11 Sep 00:18 collapse

Linking to xitter is like touching a dog turd

can@sh.itjust.works on 11 Sep 04:00 collapse

<img alt="" src="https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/c5e6ba6f-ada7-4249-a092-4256aa61a527.jpeg">