Deluxe 2 was my original project where I wanted to re-do the missions of H&D, really I only completed C1M1 however I did work on C1M4 but have no idea where it has gone. I spent a lot of time going through the models and adding the different faces from the original game onto the models. This really took a lot of time but was worth it for later use. The plan was to swap the 1st person weapon views over, however I could not get them working correctly. I think I might know what is wrong with them now actually and will look at it again once I have time. It could be a keyframe animation thing, the gun fire animation or flash shows up when you switch characters. Obviously we needed to decensor the images, so I added that into it. Another minor change was the theme music, seriously why did you change this guys (@lonelycatgames). I mean the FFF/DB music was good don't get me wrong but the H&D1 theme is fucking epic, you don't mess with our theme, every fan loves that theme music
Also, ever since the release of FFF/DB we've all wanted the weapons from it to be in the original. So I wanted to go through and change that but that wasn't complete and got me thinking...
All my ideas weren't getting out fast enough plus I didn't have the skills needed to complete Deluxe 2 on my own and still don't. In fact I will probably hire some people to build some models for me so we can all use them. As I was looking through H&D1 vs Deluxe I noticed a lot had changed in the missions and a far amount of the feel had been lost due to minor issues. That's when the H&D Restored idea came. I'm proud of my efforts to get C1M1 back to how it originally felt. It was way too bloody light in the Deluxe version. Definitely check it out. All the work I did for H&D Deluxe 2 could be transfered over as I used it as a base. I edited a lot more missions to use the different models and weapons from H&D FFF/DB. From memory a lot of the music was missing from FFF/DB so I added that back in as well... still not 100% about what was missing or changed.
Basically all that's in there in what's been said. It's not much that has been changed you can really just see these packages as a base to develop your own mod/missions.
In the H&D Deluxe 2 package I have a system for guards being on patrol. They just go back and forwards like idiots never stopping to wait and "look" around but I came up with a way to make them patrol with a pause. Like in Death to Spies or Commandos. The one thing I really wanted to improve was FFF/DB C1M1. I wanted it to have more stealth aspects. If the guards don't stop, how can you silently kill them from behind? So I did figure out a way to have them do this. Check it out!
These projects are definitely closed now. But I have other plans. As you know I am working on the re-creation of the Flash Mini-Game this will be completed because it's the only Flash related project I have to do and I've spent the past 1-2 years learning Flash, Flex and Adobe AIR... I'm not letting those skills go to waste!
After that I will re-create Snow Demon from scratch using the Insanity 2 engine. If it works then we'll see what else I can do, if it fails due to the engine being too old, and all it's limitations being too much then I will move the project to another Engine. Perhaps UDK or Unity. However, if I can't mod for Insanity 2 the way I want I can't legally create a H&D game on anything else. Therefore I will start on my own flavour of H&D which I have been dreaming about for years
I'm an Australian, we were in Tobruk... Commando raids... enough said!
So my time line...
- Deluxe 2 > spawned Deluxe Restored > both came to an end 2010
- Failure to locate original copy of H&D 2 mini-game and lots of skills to re-create spawned H&D 2 mini-game re-creation
- Re-create Snow Demon in Insanity 2, depending on outcome re-create rest on mission by mission basis or create my own squad based game/mod using another engine
Why don't you mod for H&D2? When the game first came out I was unable to play it for ages, when I finally did I was so disappointed. Still am. Sabre Squadren is much better, H&D2 has some good missions but the feel of the game from the original is not there. Sabre Squadron C1M1 is H&D on H&D2's engine, yay! the rest of it is H&D FFF with bits of H&D2. I want an editor, make it easy for me
I'd love to edit the missions and put the original feel into some of them but the engine is just, well a pile of shit to be honest it fails to create atmosphere. Love the stealth aspects as I've said a million times.
My biggest regret is leaving the H&D community for that slut Red Faction
her editor was nice, oh was it nice
I stopped creating H&D Deluxe missions. Not even sure I made any more after that, maybe the Assassination mission? That was my last one but not sure when I released that originally. I created 3 maps for Red Faction, planned a mod and had a team working on it but that fizzled out. We all just stopped working on it. I was young back then... what can I say. Then life kept me away and by that I mean sex errr relationships. Then my old job too.
We all share the experience of H&D, the original game was/is amazing. I remember the feelings from playing certain maps. It had a profound impact on my gaming life. My love for this game will never end, it's fucking awesome. Re-visiting the game now is not as much fun, lets face it. We need to continue it, we need to re-create it. We can't get swooped up in other games or new fads or styles and try to mix them into H&D. It's difficult to create a once off map for H&D because it's a campaign game that continues. You need an element of story in there with lots of events and those events affect the outcome.
So, what about the website? Well, how long have I said now that I'm working on it? You've seen bits and pieces here and there. I'll admit that when working on projects I get caught up in the little details then reaching a crossroads where I find it difficult to decide what to do next. I'm a perfectionist and that does cause productivity issues
The new website is coming. I've changed the design again. Going back to an older style I had mocked up ages ago.
The thing is I'm a professional freelance website developer. I make my living developing websites for other people, when you get time off you rarely want to get right into your personal projects. So I think the way I will handle it from now on is to treat my personal projects like commercial projects and even do them during work times. When I have no other work to do of course
Being a freelancer has really changed my life, for the better and has freed up some time for me to do other things. The work that I do does contribute to this website in that I have more skills to put into it. It's just time I really need.
But what about H&D 3? Have you played Mafia 2? Oh Illusion Softworks, H&D died with you didn't it? 2k Czech people told me to stay updated with their website and twitter account. So yeah... you communicate with people for a while and think you have a sort of friendship only to be given silence then a standard line
Guess what? I tried buying out Mafia Scene but they wouldn't sell
I had plans to create the 2k Czech Gaming Network... registered a whole bunch of domains. So glad I didn't follow that one through. I worked on the website for a while. So that took time away from the actual H&D website.
So that is where we're at here, I hope this answers some questions
