Hi, I'm new to those forums :)

I'm a Spriter and a modder, and am bad with coding.

I'm more known at Doom, Wolf3D and Keen modding forums/communities.

Lately I re-found on my harddrive an old open-source Bomberman clone (DOS, Borland C++), sitting there probably for at least 18 years. It's very nice and proffesionally-looking, but without sounds, or single player mode or more advanced powerups etc...But pretty solid base.
It's not my source, and I now don't remember who made it originally and it's looks like abandonware.

I wanted to use it as a base for Bomberman modding.
On Wolf3D forums people weren't too excited...so I turned to "Commander Keen" forums and started "BomberKeen" project - and released an alpha replacing original art with Keen-related art and themes.
http://www.pckf.com/viewtopic.php?t=2655

But this is not the issue, just one example/application of such engine.

I now need a coder to advance this further as I'm very bad in coding.
I want to implement more advanced features/powerups and menus, to make it closer to SNES Bombermans.

Then as an engine - each community can take it for it's own purposes.... as sub-projects like BomberKeen.

So...anyone interested?

Hahahah, that's awesome. I don't know what the original game (pre-mod) looked like, but this looks pretty good. I like the way that you used/modified the Keen games' assets, particularly for the soft blocks and such. Also, it seems like a pretty solid engine for a Bomberman clone - not something that I've seen very often. Nice choice for a modding project.

I'm actually a big fan of Commander Keen - it's probably the first game that I ever played, and it is what first got me interested in game development and computers in general. I don't really have the time to invest in this, though. I'm involved with quite a number of things.

I do hope that you continue to improve this game, though. Best of luck.  

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3751922/bomberman_premod.zip


Thank you :) I think so too :)


Thank you, I'll do what I can :)
But I really need help, and without such it probably won't advance too far :( :( :(
Any chance you might reconsider?

Coercing a developer into a project is hard work, if we want projects, we already tend to have them. I'll also pass, because I'm not all that interested in BM clones sans quality netplay, nor do I really want to take over such a project.

Ok...fair enouph  

Hope someone will think otherwise.

It's not impossible, of course, just don't expect them to swim to you (or change their minds once they've decided not to). Best to do what you're doing and hit the relevant channels, and see if anyone shows up who's interested enough to help.

Could you throw me at the repo/where you found the original source anyway. Partially because it's polite to link to the original dev (and chances are, it is a licence requirement to credit them in some way in the first place), partially because if it's not a hassle, I may poke through the code slightly, so I can actually give decent advice related to it.

Yes, that's what I'm indeed trying to do...that's why I've registered this forum, hoping for help.


I don't even have the unchanged source (or link to it...don't even remember where I originally got it from, it's sooo old (from 1996 it seems, 17 years passed on my comp's dusty folders, go figure it now, I'm sure it's maker himself doesn't even remember it anymore), and don't know the author name...), as I used it long time ago to make more themes for the game to load and didn't keep the original variant - but I can replicate it easily (beside the author name maybe) deleting loading lines for new themes.

I'm probably the only person in the world to keep a copy of this all this years, passing it from harddrive to harddrive...

I can PM you the source now, pretty close to original version, or replicate/recompile more "unchanged" version later at home and send you a link.


It will help me much, thank you....thank you.

I honestly doubt that even 17 year old minor projects are forgotten all that easily. I remember most of the stuff I worked on as a kid, and those would've been smaller then this. You PM me your current source, though from 1996 I likely won't have a whole lot to comment on it, as finding relevant lib documentation may (or may not) be hard (and I wasn't really planning on compiling it, and currently I can't even run your compiled version (as it's complaining about my 64 bit Windows 7). Regardless, I'll poke through what you have.

I'm still not sure I'd be all to happy if one of my projects appeared sans credit, though, even if it wasn't done maliciously.

Ok, I will.
If not now (I'm at work) - in a few hours.


It's opening and compiling well and without any problems on Borland C++ 3.1.
Most of the relevant info is in Bomber.cpp and Library.h so it's not that much files to handle.
I scouted those files and now have relatively good picture of it's main functions, variables and such.
Still, seems to be beyond what I can code myself, beside minor tweaks.


You can compile it with Borland C++:
http://www.brlowe.co.uk/bc31.zip


Too bad, you'd see how nice and professional-looking it is.


Windows 7 is a bit of a problem indeed...the games runs very well on WinXP.
On Windows 7 you'd need a DosBox.
I use this build: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3751922/dosbox.rar

Just set in the CPU menu to MAX Cycles (instead of Auto Cycles), then make "Main --> Quick Launch" and there you go :)


Thank you, I much preciate that.


Well...what can I say? I'm not selling it or anything....and it was a free project to begin with I'm sure, and it doesn't even look to me as finished one - especially as the spritesheet had much more art than actually used in a game. And I really don't know the name of the author and have no bad intentions but inspiration to mod "Bomberman". As long as I don't claim the source as my own...

Author of this game is free to contact me anytime and I'll immiditely remove all links to the game/source by his request.
Moreso -I'd be happy to ask him to finish this game.

Oh, a DOS game? I'm not at all familiar with DOS game programming, nor DOS sound libraries, nor does a quick search net me all that much for info. I'll still poke into it slightly, but I won't likely have much to say.

DOS sound was a bit of a pain, and there were tons of middleware sound libraries. What sound libraries are good, or even currently (or freely) available, I have no idea.

Yes, it's a DOS game.

Well...if you can tell anything to help - I'll preciate.
Anyway - thank you for your interest in the project so far.

Sorry, I just have too many things to do. I'm already stiffing my involvement with certain projects, some of which are my own, in order to get things done and out of the way. If I tried to help with another project, I'd probably just stretch the development time out, as I wouldn't have the proper time to dedicate to it.  

Well, at least regarding this project - you can't stretch development of a project that has no current coder and is stalled coding-wise :) Anything is better than nothing...
But I respect your decision and priorities in any case.

... Yeah yeah, stop trying. I know for a fact he has 3 projects that cross scopes with this board alone. Hell knows what he's doing anywhere else. You really shouldn't directly pester people to help, it will just turn people away...

Ok...ok. I didn't try to pressure anyone, honestly.

One member PMed me on the other forum to help, though he is relativley busy...I meantime work on more characters :)

Project now has a coder, and I keep working on more art.
12 characters and 4 themes already done.

Plans include new game modes, powerups and special keenish behavour for each creature.

Cool. I don't have much else to say at the moment, but I'll be keeping tabs on this project.  

Thank you! :)

Quick update:

Found a coder...but the original code was messy and non-standard so he started new engine from scratch, which is in work.
New engine uses "standard" 8-bit (256 color) BMP palette/format, and not PCX which was hard to edit. New palette is quite good and vibrant, though lacks on grey shades, especially dark greys.
Meantime many characters got made, new themes, new title screen...we have neat ideas for game modes and creature attacks/abilities....this looks exciting, but there is still a long way to go.



Already new engine supports easy art editing, custom battle fields designs...

Ideas flowing so far:

We are slowly getting close to our first beta with a new engine.



18 different battle themes, 4-player support (with 2 gamepads), 17 keenish characters, so much more planned....