Battle Hardened: Nazaam's Revolt

[kj-5349]

Hi everyone,
After the release of my last original mod Battle Hardened 3 and a lapse of 5 years, this is another new Battle Hardened mod and expanding the story arc a bit more (Split Levels and the SNES games are conversions and I don't count them as original mods)
The mod's name is as per the topic title, and I'm aware there are 2 other mods with 'Revolt' on them, namely by SuavePrince and Princeomkar.
However the Revolt here is fairly different and its meaning is the rebellion and uprising of the series' main villain.
This mod is a prequel storywise and focuses on the villain of Battle Hardened 2, Nazaam. For those interested in the intro sequence and texts, the story is set 200 years before the original trilogy.
Levels are linear and straight-forward though there may be light puzzles. It heavily makes use of the Trigger Any Tiles feature of CusPoP.
The difficulty is fairly easier than the earlier Battle Hardened trilogy with reduced floating tiles and less annoying back & forth travel. So the difficulty might be easy-medium.

Story has been thought of for some time but turned out it wasn't that simple. I had creativity block after BH3 and had no idea of furthering the story, let alone thinking up of proper level designs.
Ultimately the prequel idea came on during last year and making use of some sabbatical and Chinese New Year holidays (Lunar New Year celebrated in Malaysia recently), I pushed on to complete this mod.

Over some period of time, I noticed, mainly from Youtube, that Battle Hardened 3 seemed to have more response than the earlier 2 mods. IMO, actually the best game of the bunch is Battle Hardened 2 and this prequel is aimed at hopefully dragging more attention to BH2. BH3 had too many annoying parts and encouraged casual players to use Megahit while BH1 was too monotonous. BH2 had better level design overall with only Level 10 being the hardest followed by Level 8.

Notepad files and a few images taken from my PR folder are included inside if you like some stories and fan-fiction. Music has been changed and PoP v1.3 is used. Familiar music would be like SNES Power Rangers, Mario, NES Ninja Gaiden, Contra, SEGA Aladdin and etc, but in MIDI version.

EDIT (Feb 12 2017): The video is done. I would say this is 80% story and a bit of gameplay of the mod with more crescendo music accompanying it


Mod: Battle Hardened: Nazaam's Revolt
Author: KJ
Minutes: 80
Changed levels: 10
Custom graphics - Intro titles and characters
Custom audio - Music, for Roland MIDI
Description: This mod is a prequel and focuses on the Battle Hardened 2 villain, Nazaam. Story is set 200 years before the BH trilogy and you play a new hero, Shahreemaan. Level designs are linear and easier than the earlier trilogy

Mediafire link:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/um85z48kx ... Revolt.zip

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[kj-5349]

I'm in the midst of creating a trailer, and will edit the 1st post in a few hours...

But just to clarify, honestly when a trailer was first made (for Battle Hardened 3), the intention was totally different.
The trailer wasn't really meant to generate interest in the mod, or show off gameplay and mod features.

I was a movie fan ever since the start of MCU and Nolan's Dark Knight movies.
So the trailer was some alternative to a lot of mash up trailers that various Youtubers also made to celebrate their favourite movie before its release.
The trailer was meant to be movie-style and I also wanted to relate the story more into the trailer. (The story essence is lost once people play the mod, especially if they just skipped the intro, jumping straight into the game). So hopefully this can drag more attention to the story before people begin playing the mod. Or if they were interested in fan-fiction and stories, then the trailer can provide a bit more info and epic atmosphere, and appreciate the plot

[Norbert]

It's nice that you continued expanding the story.

Custom audio - Music, for Roland MIDI

As you know, for me, the regular DOSBox gives me no music, only sound effects.
When I launch from the mod directory an use my own DOSBox, it uses your dosbox.conf and displays:
-----
"vga" is not a valid value for variable: machine.
It might now be reset it to default value: svga_s3
MIXER:Got different values from SDL: freq 22050, blocksize 1024
ALSA:Can't subscribe to MIDI port (65:0) nor (17:0)
MIDI:Opened device:none
-----

I've also launched your included DOSBox executable with the Windows emulator Wine.
When I do that, DOSBox does not display any console messages (not in the wineconsole either), but still doesn't give me music.
This may or may not mean music only works on your computer.
Someone who is on Windows could check if music works with your included DOSBox when not using an emulator.

Currently, Total Pack probably ignores your included DOSBox; has its own version in the dosbox/ directory.
It appears to have several different .conf files in dosbox/conf/ that it probably uses.
Which one it uses probably depends on the context, but I don't know how exactly the Total Pack operates.

Assuming you want players to launch PRINCE.EXE with your included DOSBox...
...maybe rename PRINCE.EXE to LAUNCHER.EXE add a PRINCE.BAT file that calls LAUNCHER.EXE with your custom DOSBox.
Or, you know, something like that.
Then Total Pack users still won't hear music, but most of the people who download manually probably will.

[kj-5349]

Hi Norbert!

It's nice that you continued expanding the story.

Thanks!
So far most new mods focus on their levelset designs and nothing much else changed. Just only a small group like your excellent mods, Programmer's, Musa's, The Great Escape, Princess of Persia, KX-out of time having their custom intros. Additionally, so far your mods, Musa, jemanicek's, KX and TGE have their own custom stories. So I just thought of doing something different for a change, though with the sequels I'm probably copying MCU & DCEU

Custom audio - Music, for Roland MIDI

As you know, for me, the regular DOSBox gives me no music, only sound effects.
When I launch from the mod directory an use my own DOSBox, it uses your dosbox.conf and displays:
-----
"vga" is not a valid value for variable: machine.
It might now be reset it to default value: svga_s3
MIXER:Got different values from SDL: freq 22050, blocksize 1024
ALSA:Can't subscribe to MIDI port (65:0) nor (17:0)
MIDI:Opened device:none
-----

I've also launched your included DOSBox executable with the Windows emulator Wine.
When I do that, DOSBox does not display any console messages (not in the wineconsole either), but still doesn't give me music.
This may or may not mean music only works on your computer.
Someone who is on Windows could check if music works with your included DOSBox when not using an emulator.

Currently, Total Pack probably ignores your included DOSBox; has its own version in the dosbox/ directory.
It appears to have several different .conf files in dosbox/conf/ that it probably uses.
Which one it uses probably depends on the context, but I don't know how exactly the Total Pack operates.

Assuming you want players to launch PRINCE.EXE with your included DOSBox...
...maybe rename PRINCE.EXE to LAUNCHER.EXE add a PRINCE.BAT file that calls LAUNCHER.EXE with your custom DOSBox.
Or, you know, something like that.
Then Total Pack users still won't hear music, but most of the people who download manually probably will.

In that case, before adding it to popot, can the Dosbox related items be removed? Perhaps I can edit the package and add it as an attachment here?
Maybe the my supplied .conf would be interfering with your own Dosbox. Additionally if it's started from Total Pack, it's best to launch from TP's dosbox instead of mine.
Btw I was also going through the posts about my earlier MIDI music package. Could using ykhwong's Dosbox help resolve the music issue? Pls do let me know if it might work.
I'm aware of one hot-tempered user responding primarily in Popot thru comments and ratings, and I want test out if everything works OK in Total Pack before this version is finalised.

Thanks for the feedback!

[kj-5349]

My Dosbox is removed, so it's like a typical PoP1 package. This may be used in POPOT

EDIT: old version removed

[Norbert]

Could using ykhwong's Dosbox help resolve the music issue?

Probably, yes.
Maybe the next Total Pack should ship with that DOSBox.
As long as it doesn't break anything else...

[kj-5349]

Hi Norbert,
I just tested out from Popot just mins ago. In Total Pack it ignores the Roland setting, and goes straight to soundblaster.
I have readjusted. The Music Synthesizer is PC Speaker.
No other choice, but I now understand why Lost in the Forest 1 in Total Pack needed to have PC speaker settings. (Its also PoP 1.3)
EDIT: I got it wrong, its 1.4. But now I'm unsure how Dungeons of a Dark Magician (0000122) seem to sound different. xhul's KOP still sounds original, but maybe because it's not launched from TP, as it's incompatible anyway.

Also, the Setup exe cannot be opened directly from winzip inside Total Pack (software folder) and no adjustments are possible. The only way is copying over this zip from the current one in popot.
In this case, audio won't be altered any longer as it needs to use old school IBM speakers.

Thanks in advance!!

EDIT: old version removed

[Norbert]

I have readjusted.

I've updated popot.org to use your latest package.

[kj-5349]

Sorry Norbert, I've tested out again and despite Setup adjustment it still forces itself into soundblaster.
Now my last resort is copying over the midisnd dat files from Andrew's pop1.3, and it sounds like the original again.
Sorry for the multiple updates. This is hopefully the last one and the version is final...
Thanks in advance!

NR music reverted.zip

(385.44 KiB) Downloaded 47 times

Personally I feel it's a shame or wasted that it's like this in TP, and putting some effort abit into the tunes. (The inspiration actually came from noticing Mega Man hacks, especially MM2, and it would have been nice if PoP was capable of these types of versions as well)

[Norbert]

This is hopefully the last one and the version is final...

I've updated it again.

By the way, if you feel Total Pack could use DOSBox differently, you could post in this thread.
Even though starwindz hasn't been around for a while, he (told me he) still has plans to continue development.
After I've finished updating popot.org,(*) I'll ask starwindz to look into Total Pack.

(*) I will include replay file information in mods.xml. Also, if mods are SDLPoP or MININIM mods, I will mark them as such. Both should allow starwindz to improve Total Pack.

[kj-5349]

This is hopefully the last one and the version is final...

I've updated it again.

Thanks a lot for the support Norbert.

By the way, if you feel Total Pack could use DOSBox differently, you could post in this thread.
Even though starwindz hasn't been around for a while, he (told me he) still has plans to continue development.
After I've finished updating popot.org,(*) I'll ask starwindz to look into Total Pack.

Could using ykhwong's Dosbox help resolve the music issue?

Probably, yes.
Maybe the next Total Pack should ship with that DOSBox.
As long as it doesn't break anything else...

You're right. ykhwong's Dosbox can be a suggestion.
But regarding the "breaking" part... it means it musn't be hastily added, and he takes the time to test it out