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Dark Engine
The Dark Engine is a game engine for Microsoft Windows developed by Looking Glass Studios. It was used in '' Thief: The Dark Project'' (1998), ''System Shock 2'' (1999), and '' Thief II'' (2000). Features The Dark Engine's renderer, originally created by Sean Barrett in 1995, supports graphics similar to that of the original '' Quake'', with ''Unreal''-like skybox effects and colored lighting introduced in ''Thief II''. Due to the limited hardware of the time, the Dark Engine was not designed with scalability in mind, and can therefore only display 1024 terrain polygons onscreen at once, as well as various other limits on objects and lights. In terms of textures, the game supports palletized PCX and TGA textures, in powers of two up to 256x256. Textures are grouped in "families" which share the same palette. There is a maximum of 216 textures and independent palettes, excluding 8 animated water textures. The engine does not natively support advanced game scripting, with AI ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thief II
''Thief II: The Metal Age'' is a 2000 stealth video game developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Eidos Interactive in March 2000. Like its predecessor '' Thief: The Dark Project'', the game follows Garrett, a master thief who works in and around a steampunk metropolis called the City. The player assumes the role of Garrett as he unravels a conspiracy related to a new religious sect. Garrett takes on missions such as burglaries and frameups, while trying to avoid detection by guards and automated security. ''Thief II'' was designed to build on the foundation of its predecessor. In response to feedback from players of ''Thief'', the team placed a heavy focus on urban stealth in the sequel, and they minimized the use of monsters and maze-like levels. The game was made with the third iteration of the Dark Engine, which had been used previously to develop ''Thief'' and ''System Shock 2''. ''Thief II'' was announced at the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo, as part of an e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rube Goldberg Machine
A Rube Goldberg machine, named after American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is a chain reaction–type machine or contraption intentionally designed to perform a simple task in a comically overcomplicated way. Usually, these machines consist of a series of simple unrelated devices; the action of each triggers the initiation of the next, eventually resulting in achieving a stated goal. The design of such a "machine" is often presented on paper and would be impossible to implement in actuality. More recently, such machines have been fully constructed for entertainment (for example, a breakfast scene in '' Pee-wee's Big Adventure'') and in Rube Goldberg competitions. Origin The expression is named after the American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, whose cartoons often depicted devices that performed simple tasks in indirect convoluted ways. The cartoon above is Goldberg's ''Professor Butts and the Self-Operating Napkin'', which was later reprinted in a few book collections, including th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Level Editor
A level editor (also known as a map, campaign or scenario editor) is a game development tool used to design Level (video games), levels, maps, campaigns and virtual worlds for a video game. An individual involved with the development of game levels is a level designer or mapper. Official level editors are typically made to assist game development or to allow for greater player creativity, while Fan labor, fan-made editors are usually created for easier Video game modding, modding. Level editors vary in complexity; level editors used in game development are usually more difficult and extensive than those made with players in mind. History ''Lode Runner'' (1983) is one of the earliest examples of games with a level editor. The idea of a level editor was conceived due to a lack of programming experience of James Bratsanos, a friend of the game's lead programmer and designer Douglas E. Smith. In a 2010 interview, game designer John Romero claimed that Smith added the level-editing fu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dromed
The Dark Engine is a game engine for Microsoft Windows developed by Looking Glass Studios. It was used in '' Thief: The Dark Project'' (1998), ''System Shock 2'' (1999), and ''Thief II'' (2000). Features The Dark Engine's renderer, originally created by Sean Barrett in 1995, supports graphics similar to that of the original '' Quake'', with ''Unreal''-like skybox effects and colored lighting introduced in ''Thief II''. Due to the limited hardware of the time, the Dark Engine was not designed with scalability in mind, and can therefore only display 1024 terrain polygons onscreen at once, as well as various other limits on objects and lights. In terms of textures, the game supports palletized PCX and TGA textures, in powers of two up to 256x256. Textures are grouped in "families" which share the same palette. There is a maximum of 216 textures and independent palettes, excluding 8 animated water textures. The engine does not natively support advanced game scripting, with AI ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unofficial Patch
An unofficial patch, sometimes alternatively called a community patch, is a patch for a piece of software, created by a third party such as a user community without the involvement of the original developer. Similar to an ordinary patch, it alleviates bugs or shortcomings. Unofficial patches do not usually change the intended usage of the software, in contrast to other third-party software adaptions such as mods or cracks. Motivation A common motivation for the creation of unofficial patches is missing technical support by the original software developer or provider. Reasons may include: *the software product reached its defined end-of-life and/or was superseded by a successor product ( planned obsolescence) * the software was originally designed to operate in a substantially different environment and may require improvement/optimization ( porting) * the developer has gone out of business and is not available anymore *support is not economically viable (e.g. localization f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PC Games
''PC Games'' is a monthly-released PC gaming magazine published by the Computec Media GmbH in Germany. History ''PC Games'' was founded in 1992 and included a 3½-in floppy disk, which was changed to a CD-ROM in 1995. By 1999 it became the leading computer gaming magazine in Germany at this time. From October 1992 to March 1998, the founders Oliver Menne and Thomas Borovskis were editors-in-chief. They were replaced by Thomas Borovskis from April 1998 to February 2000. From March 2000 to June 2001, the magazine was led by Florian Stangl and Petra Fröhlich. From March 2004 on, Petra Fröhlich was the sole editor-in-chief. Fröhlich left this post in December 2014 and was replaced by Wolfgang Fischer. Content The magazine has about 116 pages (extended edition), and also usually includes a DVD (earlier a CD) with drivers, demos, Video game modding, mods and Map (video game), maps. The DVD also often includes a full retail version of a chosen game. The magazine contains t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leak (Software)
An internet leak is the unauthorized release of information over the internet. Various types of information and data can be, and have been, "leaked" to the Internet, the most common being personal information, computer software and source code, and artistic works such as books or albums. For example, a musical album is leaked if it has been made available to the public on the Internet before its official release date. Music leak Source code leaks Source code leaks are usually caused by misconfiguration of software like CVS or FTP which allow people to get source files through exploits, software bugs, or employees that have access to the sources or part of them revealing the code in order to harm the company. There were many cases of source code leaks in the history of software development. *Developers may inadvertently leak source code by making mistakes when mastering. Two releases of ''Space Quest II'' contained parts of the source code to Sierra's AGI game engine, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unofficial Patch
An unofficial patch, sometimes alternatively called a community patch, is a patch for a piece of software, created by a third party such as a user community without the involvement of the original developer. Similar to an ordinary patch, it alleviates bugs or shortcomings. Unofficial patches do not usually change the intended usage of the software, in contrast to other third-party software adaptions such as mods or cracks. Motivation A common motivation for the creation of unofficial patches is missing technical support by the original software developer or provider. Reasons may include: *the software product reached its defined end-of-life and/or was superseded by a successor product ( planned obsolescence) * the software was originally designed to operate in a substantially different environment and may require improvement/optimization ( porting) * the developer has gone out of business and is not available anymore *support is not economically viable (e.g. localization f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Compact Disc
The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of holding of uncompressed stereo audio. First released in Japan in October 1982, the CD was the second optical disc format to reach the market, following the larger LaserDisc (LD). In later years, the technology was adapted for computer data storage as CD-ROM and subsequently expanded into various writable and multimedia formats. , over 200 billion CDs (including audio CDs, CD-ROMs, and CD-Rs) had been sold worldwide. Standard CDs have a diameter of and typically hold up to 74 minutes of audio or approximately of data. This was later regularly extended to 80 minutes or by reducing the spacing between data tracks, with some discs unofficially reaching up to 99 minutes or which falls outside established specifications. Smaller variants, such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sega Dreamcast
The is the final home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was released in Japan on November 27, 1998, in North America on September 9, 1999 and in Europe on October 14, 1999. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, preceding Sony's PlayStation 2, Nintendo's GameCube, and Microsoft's Xbox. The Dreamcast's discontinuation in 2001 ended Sega's 18 years in the console market. A team led by Hideki Sato began developing the Dreamcast in 1997. In contrast to the expensive hardware of the unsuccessful Saturn, the Dreamcast was designed to reduce costs with off-the-shelf components, including a Hitachi SH-4 CPU and an NEC PowerVR2 GPU. Sega used the GD-ROM media format to avoid the expenses of DVD-ROM technology. Developers were able to include a custom version of the Windows CE operating system on game discs to make porting PC games easy, and Sega's NAOMI arcade system board allowed nearly identical conversions of arcade games. The Dreamcast was the fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rock Paper Shotgun
''Rock Paper Shotgun'' is a British video game journalism website. It was launched in July 2007 to focus on PC game, PC games and was acquired by Gamer Network, a network of sites led by ''Eurogamer'', in May 2017. History ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' was founded by Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, Alec Meer and John Walker in August 2007. Gillen announced that he would no longer be involved in posting the day-to-day content of ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' in 2010, focusing more on his work with Marvel Comics. Rossignol founded his own game studio, Big Robot, in 2010. Meer and Walker left in 2019. In June 2010, ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' began an advertising partnership with the Gamer Network, Eurogamer Network. Also in the year, ''Rock Paper Shotgun'' partnered with ''Eurogamer'' to create Rezzed, a PC and indie games show spun off from the EGX (expo), Eurogamer Expo. In May 2017, Gamer Network acquired the site outright. A year later, website has partnered again with EGX (expo), EGX to l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eidos Interactive
Eidos Interactive Limited (formerly Domark Limited) was a British video game publisher based in Wimbledon, London. Among its franchises were '' Championship Manager'', '' Deus Ex'', ''Hitman'', '' Thief'' and ''Tomb Raider''. Domark was founded by Mark Strachan and Dominic Wheatley in 1984. In 1995, it was acquired by software company Eidos. Ian Livingstone, who held a stake in Domark, became executive chairman of Eidos and held various roles including creative director. Eidos took over U.S. Gold in 1996, which included developer Core Design, and merged its operations including Domark, which created publishing subsidiary Eidos Interactive. The company acquired Crystal Dynamics in 1998, and owned numerous other assets. In 2005, parent Eidos was taken over by games publisher SCi. The combined company, SCi Entertainment Group, which was briefly renamed Eidos, was itself taken over by Square Enix in 2009. Square Enix completed the merger with Eidos Interactive by November 2009, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
