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Proceeding the UDK Ultimate PS3 Update V2 release and my Gears of Kombat Free Game comes Fursan al-Aqsa: Knights of al-Aqsa Mosque for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360! :D

A free demo version will be available soon (ETA end of November), and along with @PSXHAX for support I would like to thank my Brazillian fellow ROD Lima for all his help with Unreal Scripting Programming. He is most known for his Resident Evil 2 Fan Remake in UDK Engine:

I would also like to thank my friends at UDK Engine Forums for all their help and support.

As you may know, recently EPIC asked me to put offline my project UDK Ultimate Engine (the custom build of UDK Engine with PS3 and Xbox 360 Export Support), however, they were very kind with me and allowed me to keep using my custom version of UDK to publish my games.

I even signed with them an Unreal Engine License Commercial Amendment, so now I am a Licensed Unreal Engine Developer and I am ready to pursue my dream of life!

I am Brazillian, from Arab ascendance, my father is from Palestine, and something I never revealed before, and one of the biggest reasons of me creating this game, is that my father was a fighter of the Palestine Resistance Movement, he fought against Israel Army in the Lebanese Civil War on the 70's.

From since I was a kid, I felt too much proud of my father and the Palestine People in general, because of their strength and constant resistance. So this game is kinda tribute to the brave people of Palestine and their resistance against military occupation.

Fursan al-Aqsa: Knights of al-Aqsa Mosque is a third-person action game where you play as Ahmad al-Ghazzawi, a young Palestinian student who was unjustly tortured and jailed by Israeli Soldiers for 5 years, had all his family killed by an Israeli Airstrike and now after getting out from the prison he seeks revenge against those who wronged him and stole his homeland.

This game is being developed during the course of 4 years by one person (me, Nidal Nijm), in a custom version of UDK Engine (Unreal Engine 3), using the best technology to tell a compelling story through a game packed with non stop action, advanced 3D graphics and modern gameplay mechanics, however keeping the soul of old school shooters.

You will play in missions across ground, sea and sky, you have many objectives to accomplish in each mission, epic bosses battles, powerful guns, vehicles to drive, helicopters to take down, and much more. Expect a LOT of action and adrenaline!!!

This game also is greatly inspired by Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid, Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Insurgency Sandstorm.

I hope you enjoy this game and support me by purchasing it. I decided to release this game as episodes (missions), each mission by a symbolic value just to cover my development costs, as everyone knows that develop a game is not an easy task, it takes a lot of time and effort.

It will be a very small value, however any copy sold of this game is very important and will truly help me. Please buy this game to support me (whenever I release it), because I truly need your help!

I hope by the end of this month (November) to release a free demo of this game for PC, PS3 and Xbox360 so people can see and feel what my game is about, enjoy the gameplay and feel the action.

I plan to make something similar to Metal Gear Solid VR Missions (if you may remember), on which I will teach the player the basis of the gameplay, like training the player for the true battle that will come on the final game.

About the first episode (mission), I hope to release it at the end of December or beginning of January 2020.

In the Spoiler below are some trailers of the game itself, a Beta version of this game. I am already redoing everything from scratch, remaking the models, animations, and maps, raising the overall quality, polishing things here and there, to deliver a high quality product for all people to enjoy.

Also you can see the new updated model for my character protagonist, and the difference between the new player model and the old one, so you all can be sure I am committed to do my best on this game. These old models were just placeholders for me develop the basic game programming framework and features.

Video Trailers & Screenshots of New Player Model In-Game:

Spoiler: Fursan al-Aqsa Video Trailers & Screenshots

You can follow the development of my game here:
Fursan al-Aqsa Dev Blog Updates:
Fursan al-Aqsa Knights of al-Aqsa Mosque for PS3 by Nidal Nijm Games.jpg
 

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Fursan al-Aqsa Dev Blog #7 - Making Of SplitScreen Multiplayer

In this article I discuss the technical details of how I implemented the Multiplayer with SplitScreen for my game.

It's worth a reading :D

Spoiler

Fursan al-Aqsa - Enemies AI Update

Spoiler

This video shows the updated enemies AI in action, alongside the preview of a very fun new game mode: "Blow Them Up" Let's frag!

In the next post I will reveal the tech detail of this new AI system I created using Kismet, the Visual Programming Language of Unreal Engine 3.

Cheers!

Fursan al-Aqsa Dev Blog #8 - Enhanced Artificial Intelligence for Enemies

In this article I discuss the technical details of how I created various AI algorithms for my game entirely in Kismet, the Visual Programming Language of Unreal Engine 3.

Spoiler

#FursanAlaqsaGame meets mortalkombat! #Blood #KnifeKills #FinishHim #FlawlessVictory #Fatality

Can you guess what I am planning next to my game?

Cheers!

Spoiler
 
Hello guys! Just want to show off here something cool I created. A cool HeadShots Counter for the Special Ops Mode. The basic tech behind it is very simple.

On the UnrealScript Class that control the enemy behaviour, I created a boolean variable called HeadShot. Then on the TakeDamage Event of the enemy UnrealScript Class I created a small function to detect which bone of the skeleton was hit by the weapon projectile (in case Head and Neck Bones).

So whenever the weapon projectile hits the Head or Neck Bones, the boolean variable HeadShot is set to true (it begins the code as false).

And then on Kismet there is a node which can read object properties (variables). So I simply added this node to read the variable HeadShot value, and if its true, I made increment in 1 another variable (kismet variable) which is the HeadShot Counter. So that means, each time the player shoots the head of the enemy. the HeadShot Counter will increment in one, so the player performs 3 headhsots on the enemy, the HeadShotCounter will be 3.

Next step is add another counter to count total number of enemies on map. It begins by counting all enemies an add them to an array, and then add an event (Enemy Death), and each time this even occurs, one enemy will be removed fromt the array (ObjectList).

So whenever this array becomes empty, that means we killed all enemyes. And after killing all the enemies, then we go there and check for the value of HeadShotsCounter variable.

If I want the player to perform at least 10 HeadShots, I need to check if this variable is >= (bigger or equal) than 10. If yes, then the mission is accomplished. If it is < (less) than 10, then mission failed. It's that simple! Cheers!

Spoiler

In this small video I show some cool and custom pickup items I created for the #Multiplayer mode, in the best style of #RetroFPS and Classic #FPSGames like Quake and Doom. Also you can see the finished HUD for Multiplayer.
 
Fursan al-Aqsa Episode 0 Weapons

Sharpen your Knife, lock and load your Gun, prepare yourself for the Battle. Holy War begins in March 2020.

Select your path towards Victory or Martyrdom, because the Houris (Maidens of Paradise) are waiting you.
Spoiler

Fursan al-Aqsa Dev Blog #9 - Making-Off Weapons and Projectile Physics

In this article I discuss the technical details of how I created the weapons of my game, and how I did the physics simulations for the projectiles using Unreal Script.

Hello guys.

I know there are almost two weeks without any updates, but be sure I am working, and VERY HARD to finish and release the first episode until the end of this month.

However, because I have published about my game on almost 100 sites, which I need to keep updated, I only publish whenever I have some significant updates.

But here on Twitter and also on IndieDB I always post at least a new screenshot of some feature I am developing/improving.

From since my last update about the Weapons, I have done basically two things.

I created a new custom AI Class especially for knife kills game mode. Now you can approach the enemy from behind without being spotted, however, if you touch the enemy, or stay a long time behind him, he will realize it and shoot at you. This was done mixing Kismet (the Blueprints of UE3) with UnrealScript. I even created a custom field of view to the enemy using a trigger volume.

Spoiler

Also, I am remaking the Knife Kills System, with updated character animations and a brand new camera animation, on the best Mortal Kombat X style. It even has the X-Ray effect!

Spoiler

Cheers and until next update!

I was thinking on releasing those test maps (with blue/white checkboard) from since last week, for people test the game, however, I think that these don't reflect the final game quality and may even harm this project.

As I said before, I will ask a very small value (something like U$ 2.00) for each episode, because I am in strong need to earn some profit (my financial conditions are very bad at the moment). So it's for that reason that I prefer release each episode on it's complete state, with fully textured maps, animations, mission objectives, and so on, for making this game worth the price. I know that even for a small price like this, people want a complete product, a fully working game, not just a "developer" bugged version of the game.

I hope you all understand the reason why I delayed a while the release of this game.

Thanks guys for all this support and interest on my game.

#FursanAlaqsaGame - Updated Knife Kills System - WIP (Work in Progress)

Now it's more Bloddy, Gory, Cruel.

It's more mortalkombat#Fatality #NoMercy #FinishHim
 
Hello guys,

Some new updates here, I hope you all enjoy.

Fursan al-Aqsa Episode 1 Coming in May 10th 2020!

Spoiler

Fursan al-Aqsa - Blades of Revenge Trailer

You, Brave Hero!

Get your knife and seek your revenge... The blood of the oppressed is calling you... Join the Resistance!
Spoiler

Just a note about using DOOM and Metal Gear Characters:

These 2 Characters are Free Unreal Tournament 3 Skin MODs available (for PC and PS3) on the web from many years. They are custom models created by GL&HF (Solid Snake) and skaa3w/skaa3z (DOOM Slayer).

I will release them as free separated MOD to people install it (they won't be a part of the game's release package). What I have done is just adjust my game's scripts (created a custom mutator to change player's skeletal mesh) to allow anynone install ANY Custom UT3 Characters Skin, and even create their own skins.

Finally accomplished another task of the roadmap towards the release of #FursanAlaqsaGame. I did remake the game's menu, and I am very proud of the results.

This was done in Scaleform (Adobe Flash CS4) and 3dsmax, the code behind it is ActionScript (Flash) and Unreal Script (UE3). I hope you like it.

Before going to the last step of my dev workflow (finishing the campaign maps), I just wanted to assure that everything which I have done until now, especially the latest game updates, work flawlessly on consoles (Xbox360 and PS3). Here you can see the Weapons Showcase Testmap running flawlessly and smoothly on my RGH Xbox360.

Sorry for the video quality, as I am using an Easy Crap lol!

Spoiler

Here is the game running on PS3 HEN (3.0.1):

Spoiler
 
Fursan al-Aqsa Dev Blog #10 - Updated UI - Scaleform Showcase

Spoiler

Hello there! New update here.

On this video I show off the finished UI (User Interface) of Fursan al-Aqsa, including a basic options menu, pause menu, and a very beautiful "Game Over" screen.

The UI Design was created in 3dsmax + Photoshop + Scaleform (Flash CS4).

The programming was done in Action Script 2.0 + Unreal Script.

I always try to make things as simple as possible. I always like to begin over a working framework instead of doing from scratch.

In the case of my game's UI, I opted to use the default UDK Engine Scaleform (Flash) UI, which came and works outside the box, however, I did customize it a lot, to give my own artistic touch.

The Scaleform framework is a very advanced UI solution by Autodesk, and it was used on many blockbuster games like Grand Theft Auto V and Borderlands 3

Spoiler

About the Options Menu, because my game runs smoothly even on the most modest of PC's (ignore the video lag, it's because bandicam capture software uses a lot of my PC's CPU and Memory), I decided to don't add options to reduce the game's graphical quality (model detail and texture size). I made it on the highest quality my PC can handle (also PS3/XBOX360). So the game run using the full quality of the assets (models and textures).

About Video Resolution, as I wanted a standard framework between PC and Consoles, I decided to add only 2 Resolutions Options, which are 720p (1280x720) and 1080p (1920x1080), as both resolutions are supported on PS3 and Xbox360. Anyway, is very easy to manually change the resolution to any value by just editing the ini files (I will include a README), however, the minimum resolution for the game is 720p and all my UI Assets are in 1080p, so that means, if you run the game in 4K, in example, the UI may look blury, and on a resolution lower than 720p, the UI will be stretched. Sorry for this, but UDK/UE3 don't support responsive UI Layout. I think UE4 supports because you can create UI in HTML5.

About Audio Options, I was not able to add a volume slider control (it was going to be VERY HARD and troublesome), however, I have done something more simple, which works and has a purpose. Many people who don't understand Arabic, want to have an option to turn off the game's nasheeds (arabic musics), letting only the sound effects (many claimed that this way the game would look more realistic). So I added this option, a simple button to turn off and on the game's music, letting only the SFX playing. I have done a lot of testing, and even with music on, you will be able to hear all Sound Effects arround you, as I setup the music volume on a very low level, enough for those who want enjoy listening the music, without making it overcome the Sound Effects volume.

About Control Configuration, as my game's campaign mode will have many scripted sequences with specific keys assigned, I decided to don't allow changing the control's scheme (anyway, you can also manually change it only on PC by editting the ini files).

Whenever you pause the game, you will see the control's scheme. Also, something very cool, is that my game is 100% compatible with Xbox360 Controller (I think even XboxOne because it uses the XInput protocol). Just plug and play. Also, you can use ANY Gamepad (I am using Nykko Airflo) through a Xbox360 Controller Emulator (I will include it with my game). And the pause menu detects what input you are using to show you the controller configuration scheme. If you are playing on PC with a Keyboard and Mouse, you will see PC Keyboard Controller Scheme. If you are playing on PC with a Xbox360 Controller, it will show you the Xbox360 Controller Scheme. And if you are playing on Consoles (PS3 or Xbox360), it will show the console's controller scheme (Playstation 3 Controller and Xbox360 Controller).

I hope you all enjoy it (as I am very happy with the results).

Cheers and until next update!

Now I am working on a new map for my game, based on Camp Filon, an Israeli Military Base located on the Golan Heights on the Syrian Border. This is not a replication of the real place, because I am using many Marketplaces Assets (models and textures purchased from sites like Turbosquid, Unity Assets Store, Unreal Engine Marketplace, and so on) to build this map. However, I am trying my best to make these maps have at least a similarity with the real locations.

This mission will be on the best Metal Gear style, you need to invade the enemy base at night, eliminate them without being spotted. I am also doing uniform (cloth) variations for the game's protagonist, Ahmad al-Ghazzawi, just to fit the mission. For this mission, the player will be wearing a black uniform to be like a shadow on the darkness, to be a trully nightmare for his enemies. It's just a comestic thing, but I think it adds that extra degree of polishment to my game (soon I will showcase).

Spoiler
 
Fursan al-Aqsa Dev Blog #11 - Maps Showcase - Camp Filon

Spoiler

Click here to see more Screenshots and Click here to see the Video Showcase of this environment, without gameplay (to avoid spoilers :D)

Hello my friends!

Sorry for the looooong delay without posting updates. Even though I did not post here on the forums, however, I am very active on twitter, and most important, I have been working VERY HARD on this game, and will show you now some important updates and information.

First of all, I want to apologize about the release date for Episode 1 of my game. I was planning to release on may 10th because I want to send my game to Brazil Independent Games Festival (BIG), and it had a deadline for sending the game until may 11th, so I was decided to release the game one day before it, on its current state.

As everyone knows, because Coronavirus, all the major gaming events were cancelled, and the same with BIG Festival. Now the deadline was extended until November.

So I continued to develop my game, and build the maps (the last step on my game dev workflow). I spent the last year of 2019 working on the programming and characters animations, and from since 2018 I did not build a new map for my game (I was only building small testmaps for testing the programming and animations).

So I began to build this map, Camp Filon, and I have done an upgrade on my maps building workflow, and I was able to build this map under 10 days. Because this I realized that in one month I can complete, finish designing 3 maps, which means, 3 missions (for the campaign mode), and also some extra missions using these same maps with some time of day variations.

Then I came to the conclusion that would be a lot unfair from my part to release this game with only 1 map when I can add more content to make this game more playable and enjoyable by the community.

For all these reasons, I decided to delay the release of this game a bit more, maybe one month, or two (no more than this), for the sake of polishing this game, adding more content, and raising the overall quality, so Fursan al-Aqsa will live up to all this hype and the community expectations, maybe this can be one of the Best Indie Games of 2020 :)

I think I am not harming anyone with this delay, because I did not make any kind of pre-order (or the like).

I am very happy with the results, and this new map which shows the final game quality, is by far the best map I ever created in Unreal Engine 3, and the next maps will be even better.

Also another update, I did a complete revamp of the game's website, made it very professional, with complete information about the game, specs, features, and so on.

Spoiler: About the release itself

Sorry for this long post, however, I hope you all understand me and stay excited with my game :D :D :D

Cheers and until next update (Jenin, the Camp of Resistance).
 
Fursan al-Aqsa Dev Blog #12 - Performance Optimization for Consoles

Spoiler

In this article I explain the new changes I made to my custom UDK/Unreal Engine 3 to fix textures streaming on consoles and make the game run and render as intended on both PS3 and Xbox360.

Hello guys (and girls)!

After one intense week of work, headaches, distress, and almost throwing everything (my PC and my consoles) out the window :), I finnaly got that last map, Camp Filon, running smoothly on consoles, the way it was intended to run, as you can see in this video.

Until now, all the gameplay features I implemented on my game, like Knife Kills, UI, Pause Menu, Game Over Screen, HeadShots Counter, and so on, if you see, I tested them on debug maps, empty maps, merely blocks, without texture, particles, or any effect. I mean, these scenarios did not represent how the final game will run.So, whenever I compiled the last map, Camp Filon, to run on PS3 and Xbox360, I discovered another bug, which I did not observe before. All the textures on the map were terrible blurry, I mean, indeed blurry to such extent that the visuals became horrible!!!

I know that consoles have much limited RAM memory than PC, and specifically PS3 and Xbox360, in rough terms, they have 256MB and 512MB of RAM, respectively.What was driving me nuts is the fact that the game run fine on PC, just on consoles the textures got extremelly blurry. After searching on legacy UDK Engine forums and on UDN Network, I began to learn more deep about Unreal Engine 3 on Consoles. The good of developing a game alone, is that it can be a true classroom for anyone. I myself, learned a LOT on this project. Specially, whenever I began developing this game, I did not know too much about Unreal Script Programming. Now, I learned a LOT, and I am able to do many things I could not do before.

Coming back to my journey, I discovered about Texture Pool in Unreal Engine 3, which, in rough terms, is kinda fixed memory space used for loading (streaming) textures to the screen. From what I understood (I may be wrong, but what matters here is that now it is working), Unreal Engine 3 throws all the textures currently loaded (which can be seen by the player view camera) inside this texture pool, and then it loads the mipmap of these textures as it is needed. The mipmaps here are kinda different versions of the same texture in different resolutions, to be loaded according the camera view distance, like, the closer the player view camera is to a texture, it will load a higher resolution of the texture, the further, it will load a lower resolution version of the texture. This is essential for performance.

So what was happening? The texture pool was filled up in consoles, so it was only loading the lowest resolution of each texture (16x16). The default Texture Pool Size in UE3 is 140MB, so I increased it to 200MB and voila! Problem solved! Not yet...

Again I compiled the map and did run on PS3 and Xbox360. It run beautifully and smoothly, with the textures on it`s full resolution, and the mipmaps loading correctly. However, another problem happenned, whenever I added the enemies on the map, it simply crashed the game on consoles with the error OUT_OF_MEMORY.

I was already entering into despair because this problem, however, my last try, was to compress all the TGA textures of this map in photoshop using the RLE algorithm. I created a small photoshop action script to batch compress all the 465 TGA textures (diffuse, normal and specular), and was able to reduce by almost half the total size of the textures. Before compression they were 576MB, and after they turned 278MB!!!

So this compression of textures compensated the increased texture pool size, allowing the game run, without crash, and with the mipmaps working flawlessly, as you could see on the above video.

Finally, I can use this new map as a template whenever building my other maps, as I know now that I need to optimize the maps as much as I can, and keep the maps size small, just like this, for the sake of performance, and gameplay. Cheers and until next update.

Fursan al-Aqsa - Demo Coming Soon...

Finally, after a lot of hard work and polishment, I am finishing, for the next few days, a free demo for Fursan al-Aqsa, so anyone will be able to test the gameplay, learn the combat mechanics and prepare for the big battle, which comes on Episode 1.

Spoiler

By the way, I only have a PS3 4K with HEN Installed (latest one 3.0.1 I think). Homebrew games to work on HEN must be signed with 3.XX firmware (I use TrueAncestor Resigner).

So I cant test on CFW, but if the game does not run on your console, you just resign the EBOOT.BIN to 4.XX and it should work.

The game runs fine on my PS3, as I have showed off here many times

Note: Resume discussion in my game demo's release thread here:
 
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