Interview with TDGMods on Hypertension (DC)

With all of the recent additions to the SEGA Dreamcast library, it’s almost weird to think that we aren’t even shocked or surprised by the announcement of another Dreamcast title hitting the independent scene. We’re closing out 2009 with entries such as DUX,Last Hope: Pink Bullets and Rush Rush Rally Racing, but 2010 already has a lineup going for it on SEGA’s white box that could. Perhaps the most infamous of those titles is a project by TDGMods that is looking to bring the gameplay of Blood to not only the Dreamcast, but also the PC, Mac and Linux formats along with compatible GP32X models or formats that support those OS systems. Entitled Hypertension, TDGMods has a lot to deliver with its promises, but as the game progresses, it becomes more and more amazing what the team has been able to accomplish with the Doom source engine and its other assorted tools and magic touch.

So far, the title has caught the attention of many through its promotion of videos on Youtube and its official blog, which has been recognized by many media outlets, exposing the game to everyone outside of the Doom and Blood modding circles. Up until now, Corbin of the game’s official blog has fed visitors of the site small tidbits here and there, showcasing the game’s technology and some of its gritty screenshot captures, but, after some extended time working alongside TDGMods, some of the crew graciously took some time out of their busy schedules to update us on the progress of the game and provide us with a number of details that have never previously been revealed outside of this interview along with an intense, brand new trailer for the title crafted specifically for Diehard GameFAN. Read up as TDGMods enters the newest phase Hypertension’s development and sparks up a lighter to shed some light on this dark, intriguing title:

DHGF: First off, can you introduce yourself and explain your role with TDGMods?

Corbin: Sure! My name is Corbin and I’m one of the founders of TDGMods, more actively the Project Leader for most of our internal projects.

zZaRDoZz: I’m Winston Branyon, a.k.a. zZaRDoZz, a lowly game tester for Hypertension

Fiend: I’m Fiend, and I’m a level designer for Hypertension.

DHGF: Just so we can understand TDG Mods a little more, how did this team originally develop and what you would say is the main goal the team is looking to adhere to when it creates its games?

Corbin: Well, actually, TDGMods derives from our old name, “The Doom Gods”, which was a mod team that formed in 2000. Ironically, our goal was to make “cool” Doom modifications, for the very same engine we are using now. It was a little gig that I formed in high school with a few other people (one who is still a part of our team). It didn’t really work very well because we weren’t too experienced, but almost 10 years later, here we are! Basically, we renamed our team and expanded our ideals outward. One of the biggest things that we’re about is the Retro gaming experience. We want to have our audience play our games and get the same flare they received in 1993, when they played Doom, or in 1996, when they first played Duke Nukem 3D. It’s all about putting yourself in that era of gaming, and you’re set. Basically, we have a multitude of projects under our belt from different designers – for instance, we’re doing a remake, similar to Hypertension, of Witchaven. It’s under our name, but it’s being built by a completely separate team. We’ve had a lot of failures in the past which I think is why we’re focusing so hard on Hypertension now.

zZaRDoZZ: In my recollection the team formation was a bit haphazard if Corbin will pardon me for saying so. Like any mod team, things kind of fell together. As for goals, quality gaming experience would be the focus of for TDGmods. If you’re sick to death of graphics being the prime mover in today’s gaming scene as opposed to a quality gaming experience, than TDGmods understands your perspective. I think it’s safe to say everyone at Hypertension sees graphics as serving the game phenomena. Once quality experience takes a back seat and graphics becomes the driving force it’s over for any indie development team.

DHGF: Even though the team has a variety of projects, the most notable one at the moment is
Hypertension. For those not in the know, Hypertension is an original FPS inspired by the classic Blood series. Where did the idea to kick off such a project come from? How close to the classic Blood can fans of the series expect Hypertension to be? Can you walk us into the setup, story and premise of Hypertension?

Fiend: We’re trying to get the feel of the original Blood down as much as possible. There feel of the game was extraordinary, and I remember reading an interview with the developers, Monolith, from before it came out that claimed that it would feel like “playing an action movie.” That was dead on. The way the player moved through the environment, specifically how the player jumped and glided through the air, was something incredible at that time in gaming. This was back in 1997, right after the original Quake, when the only way to move like that was to fire a rocket at your feet.

zZaRDoZz: This is yet another Corbin question. In short, I think Corbin had been toying with the idea of a Horror based shooter for some time. Reviving the Edge project (a Doom port) was also a goal so eventually the concepts merged as a rash of attempts to recreate Blood broke out almost simultaneously in late 07′ early 08. Corbin had already done some work along these lines with the Blood TC for GZDoom. In some ways Hypertension is a far more ambitious continuation of those Doom projects while incorporating the goal of updating the entire Blood universe. Needless to say the project has a full plate.

Corbin: I have always been a fan of Blood, ever since it came out. As I got older, I wanted to tribute it somehow. There have been other projects, like Zblood and Transfusion, that attempted, for the most part, a straight port of the original game. I always felt Blood could’ve done better than the second game, and that it could’ve been more cinematic. I started messing around with it last year, and then it became so much fun that I decided to take the deep plunge. Hypertension is a revisualization of the original game, a remake of our own vision. While much is changed (for instance, the lighter actually lets off a dynamic light, useful for very dark areas in the game), we’re still trying to hone as much of the original’s spirit as possible. I’ve never openly talked about the second design phase of Hypertension, but here you go!

Hypertension begins, basically, in a parallel world – one in 1928, and one in 2028. Gideon, the main villain, is head of an evil corporation called CabalCo in 2028. His intent is to resurrect an ancient demonic race. With Caleb dead for a hundred years, no one has been able to stop him. The game opens with a new character, named Aurelia, who is part of an underground demon-slaying/nu-mobster group (think Buffy), and word of a cross-dimensional rift being opened into what’s called the Makai world. In the ancient times, Tchernobog was a dark and vile God, reigning over humans and causing destruction wherever he saw fit. In those days, the only ones to best the Gods were a pure race of Demon, called the Mazoku. In the centuries before, the Mazoku race had always bested the Gods, generation by generation, they were defeated to ensure the safety of humanity, to prevent the Makai barrier from being destroyed. Well, Tchernobog, now in his 10th or so incarnation, boiled up a plan – a band of demon slayers, known as the Chosen, headed by the anti-hero of the first game, Caleb, to destroy these demons and sacrifice them to that dark God. They succeed in making the Mazoku extinct, and what Tchernobog finds out turns to him murdering Caleb and his wife, Ophelia, and winning over the demonic race.

This brings us to 1928 – where he’s needed to cleanse from Tchernobog’s evil influence. In 2028, Gideon’s main plan is to take control of this ancient demon race, bring them back to life, and become the ultimate ruler of all celestial planes. Gideon already teamed up with Dr. Herbert West, using his Reanimator serum to bring the dead back to life. Naturally, his only thorn in the future is Aurelia and her crew. It becomes interesting how the game plans out after that, playing in the past and then in the future suddenly. We’re even taking cues from H.P. Lovecraft, where Dr. Herbert West (of Reanimator fame) becomes involved in the back story. It’s really fun to see all these characters with different personalities and visions clash it out. And, of course, the soundtrack will have a lot to do with the overall mood of the game as these characters have their own themes.

DHGF: While the title is slated to appear on the PC/Mac/Linux and GP2X Whiz platforms, at Diehard GameFAN, we’re all about the SEGA Dreamcast, which the game will also appear on. I suppose the first thing on everyone’s mind is (not that we’re arguing against such a release) why the SEGA Dreamcast? Is the system just a favorite among the staff, is there an edge to the hardware, do you believe the system fanbase is that big? Also, putting Hypertension aside, what are your personal thoughts on how the Dreamcast performed when it was on the market?

Corbin: The Dreamcast has always been my favorite console. I was a big fan of all of Sega’s products, and the Dreamcast is no exception. A few years later I learned there were homebrew efforts, and I knew one day, I’d make a game for the system. This leads us to the present time. It’s easy to develop for, the fanbase is absolutely AMAZING and enormous, and, to top it off, we have a pretty famous indy Dreamcast developer who’s been hired to help bring our vision to life. The Dreamcast at its prime was everything a gaming console should’ve been – fun, entertaining, and not too overwhelming. I felt the Dreamcast had a great game library, but Sony overhyped the PlayStation, which already set itself in the mind of the MTV generation, and it was all over. Sega, by that time, was probably known as an old relic, symbolism of a once-upon-a-time thing, where wearing purple and orange shorts in the 90’s was hip (it still is!). This is ironic, since there are developers who still make software for the Sega. It just goes to show you that the popular kid isn’t always the coolest to be around – they usually end up disoriented later in life.

The GP2X Whiz is an interesting addition, one that we’re hoping sticks it out for the final release.

zZaRDoZz: Reaching the largest possible gaming audience is a stated mission for the team. Dreamcast has the audience that the PC modding simply doesn’t. We are unapologetically getting TDGmods on the map while reviving the Blood franchise all in one swoop. These are our goals, our reason for being if you will.

DHGF: Let’s talk about the development before we get into any juicy game details. Is there a simple way you can explain the Hyper3dge technology (a variant of the EDGE engine derived from the Doom source code) to us, such as what it makes possible in the game, what it can handle, etc.? What other tools have the team been using to construct Hypertension? What are your thoughts on developing for the Dreamcast so far? How has development on the Dreamcast version of Hypertension been handled along with the other two formats?

Fiend: It’s possible to do anything done in the Build Engine, such as exploding walls and all the environmental interactivity that made the Build engine games stand out, but at the same time it can go much further in terms of scripting and effects. It gives a great deal of depth to an old engine and improves the graphical technology without putting too much strain on hardware. I’m still hoping for a programming wizard to come along and port Hypertension to the Nintendo DS, but that will never happen.

Corbin: Basically, Hyper3dge serves as an extension of EDGE (which is the real underlying technology), not so much as a separate engine, which in itself, is an extension of DOOM. We’re able to do all sorts of things that EDGE was never capable of, as well as our exclusive portable options. It’s true – we’re using the Doom source code from id Software. But what we’re able to do with it, I’m sure, would even make John Carmack raise an eyebrow or two. We have things that Blood’s initial engine, BUILD, cannot even do to this day. Using it, we can have things like 3d models, scripted events, dynamic lighting and true 3d floors, so many other features that it’s impossible to list them all here. Hypertension is interesting – we’ve done modern things like 3d modeling, and old school efforts, like building and animating figurines for stop-motion animation – even live-action move filming. It’s things like this, getting yourself into the mindset that made the original and games of yesterday so popular, that’s going to breed a winner. At first, we were using two variants of EDGE – one for Dreamcast, and one for PC. We soon learned that we could take the initial engine, make changes to it, and fork away from EDGE, so we wouldn’t have to take time and develop for two different versions (which is how it used to be). It really simplifies things. I mean, there are a FEW things we’re changing around, like level structure, or slightly lower resolution objects for the Sega, but I doubt these things will detract from the gameplay, which has already received acclaim, even in our earlier versions. I mean, we even have bits of Quake 2 and Quake 3 code floating around.

zZaRDoZz: From the standpoint of a pure end user, I’d have to say it is simply amazing what the Hyper3edge gaming system can do. Hyper3edge inherited multiple scripting languages from its parent (Edge) that developers can use to quickly implement game code changes almost on the fly. If that weren’t enough, the developer has the ability to directly pre-load script that interacts with the engine. To reference a most recent example, Hypertension coders added a working decal system in less than a day. There is no other Blood modding group out there that could affect such deep changes so quickly.

DHGF: I noticed with your recent blog update, you’ve added a Miskatonic University level! What made you decide to do a Lovecraft homage and will we be seeing any specific creatures from the Cthulhu Mythos?

Corbin: Well, Blood was really full of those kinds of homages, but what sets it apart in Hypertension is that Dr. Herbert West (of Reanimator fame) is a major character in our title. So that makes for some interesting interactions and story pacing. He plays a huge role, and a lot of things are very closely tied with Brian Yuzna’s Re-Animator efforts (so if you’ve watched the movies, you’re in for a treat). As for the creatures, we’re still working on that. One of our team members is real into them so hopefully we can grab more influence as time goes on. For Hypertension, we can have a stronger focus on homaging horror movies from the 80’s and 90’s, and I think it’s a lot of fun.

DHGF: What sets Hypertension apart from the average FPS?

Corbin: Haha, that it’s old-school, retro, in-your-face fun. Sure, cinematics are there. But it’s ultimately the gameplay that’ll keep people coming back, you know? Blood popularized the lighter/spraycan. We’re bringing it back. =)

DHGF: How hard is it to get a dev team together for a Dreamcast game? For example how did you find level designers, script writers and the like?

Corbin: Well we started on the PC platform. I don’t actually have a dedicated Dreamcast team – just a Dreamcast programmer and an artist. The method we have is build it first on PC, and then just compile the engine and run all the material on the Dreamcast. It saves a lot of time, money, and resources.

DHGF: Getting into the gameplay itself, Hypertension is scheduled to have two different playable characters. Can you introduce these characters to us in more detail? It has also been said that each character will offer up a different gameplay experience. Can you elaborate on that a little? Also, while the game seems to be heavy on story, are there going to be any modes outside of the single-player story, such as a multiplayer deathmatch where players can take the role of even more characters?

Corbin: That’s right. Aurelia and Caleb, the latter being from Blood itself. Aurelia is basically a normal young adult, who lives a normal life. At night, she’s part of a secret society of Demon hunters, whose job is to destroy the minions that comes out of the CabalCo headquarters. She lives in the “present time” (being the year 2028 in the game), so there’s hints of a dystopian future. Her city is built on top of old, modern day cities (such as New York) that lay decaying and lost to time. It’s basically the world through the eyes of Gideon – who is the main villain. She has magic powers as she’s a novice mage. So her scenario plays a little differently – she doesn’t use firearms as nearly as Caleb does, so her game is a little slower paced. Caleb’s is almost a mirror of the original game, with guns blazing. The biggest change from Blood is that the game incorporates an RPG system. You can use the money you find in the game world (or otherwise bribe NPC’s) to build up weapons, purchase more health, and even buy alcohol and cigarettes. You can talk to various people and gather information from them. The system is similar to the old Rogue Entertainment game Strife.
So it’s a little different.

Regarding multiplayer – Hypertension will not have a multiplayer mode. The source port we derived from never finished the Networking code so it wasn’t developed. However, we will have a Quake3-inspired “BotMatch” which you can take on the various game characters and bosses, that behaves like humans would in a deathmatch game. We’re hoping we can start development on that really soon.

DHGF: I’ve brushed on the concept of the game’s story a couple of times now. From what I have read, it seems like Hypertension is going to feature a large-scale story. Am I to understand that the story will be told through a variation of styles – live-action, CG, etc.? What prompted the team to put so much effort into the game’s storyline? Also, how does the story work its way into the gameplay, especially with so many different methods of telling the story?

Corbin: This is the fun part. Originally, we were just going to do live-action, but it expanded outward to various other parts of film making. We’ve been in talks with a lot of indy movie production around in our part of California itself, and it’s certainly fun to think of the possibilities. We’re doing everything from in-panel cutscenes (think Max Payne), to live-action, to stop-motion photography, to using the same 3d models and sprites, CG effects, as well as a written script for the acting and voice-overs…it’s like a parallel production. I have to admit, we’re really on and off at this point since we’re still fleshing the game out, but the small amount of time we’ve spent setting up sets, costumes, it’s been really, really fun. It’s the other thing I think I’m most excited about, because a lot of amateur filmmakers around the area are excited about it. Doing it this way, we can avoid having in-engine cutscenes (something that the Doom engine just can’t pull off convincingly) and make it all more enjoyable. Right now, in this point in development, we’re still getting everything on one page, but once the movie script is done, that’s what we’ll use to build the game’s production off of. Of course, we’re using a lot of techniques from Brian Yuzna’s Reanimator films, which helps us get in the mindset of those times.

One of the biggest things that I couldn’t stand is that Blood had a lot of potential to expand its backstory. Blood itself had a decent story, but it was only told through less than a minute of cutscenes, and wasn’t very coherent. When Blood 2 came out, it became an even bigger mess. So, what I initially thought of was that we can rewrite Blood and Blood 2, bridge them together, and add a ton of originality to the entire storyline, and there’s a winner! I think the reason I’m focusing so heavily on the storyline is that it’s our way of getting our own, original storyline and vision into this classic game. Something that we can say we developed ourselves, because it’s hard on us when we say, “Yeah, we’re developing this game by ourselves”, when it was Monolith who designed the original. This way, we can lend a little more of our creativity to Blood. After all, that’s why we’re not calling the game Blood.

DHGF: There also seems to be a large number of toys players can dispatch enemies with. How many total weapons can players expect to find in Hypertension? Are there any planned for the game that haven’t been announced yet or even weapons that the team planned out, but couldn’t make it into the game? The weapons also appear to be very flexible as players can find alternate ammo for certain weapons. How does this work for players and how will the weaponry evolve through the course of the game?

Corbin: Haha, well we don’t want to overwhelm the player, but our engine can support almost an infinite amount of weapons. If we play our cards right, we’re looking at a lot of weapons there. Most of them have a use that was never intended in the original Blood. As I said earlier, the lighter Caleb uses can also be used to light up dark areas. Let’s say there’s a part of the level that you’re stuck at – you just can’t get around it since there are so many enemies. Well let’s do this – grab an oil can, make an oil trail, and light it on fire. The fire will keep the enemies at bay (might ignite them and they in turn can ignite other things). Or, you could make an oil trail, lead them to you, and ignite it that way. What if you want to be silent about it? Okay, smoke a cigarette, and flick the butt at the oil spill. There are tons of possibilities we have for various weapons and what you can do to play it off. And yeah, we’re experimenting with the ability to upgrade your weapons, or loading alternate forms of ammunition in them. In the game world, we’re planning to have people you can pay off to modify your weapons and whatnot. There are also weapons that aren’t really weapons in the sense. Doom has never really supported a true inventory system, which we’re making up for by having special items in a designated slot. You can do things such as drink alcohol, smoke some cigarettes, use a medkit and use an oil can – all this other stuff that comes in handy at one point in the game or another. There’s almost an RPG-like quality to it, which you can also interact with others. The EDGE engine is very flexible, but you have to have a creative mind to bend it to do what you want, and I think that’s what’s so great about the EDGE community, or even the Doom community as a whole – we think outside the box.

DHGF: What kind of enemies will the player encounter through the course of the game? Are there any returning enemies that might surprise fans of the Blood series? How many enemies are original to Hypertension and how many enemies does the game engine allow onscreen at once?

Fiend: We’re adding enemies all the time, some original and some from Blood. I had about fifty enemies on screen without any drop in performance, but I’m guessing that it could handle 200 or so.

Corbin: Blood fans will love to know that all original enemies are coming back in Hypertension, as well as a few huge handfuls of new ones. We’re even taking the enemies from Blood’s sequel and giving them a home in the other half of the game. The maximum amount of enemies on screen is staggering – for sprite-based ones, you’re looking at hundreds. For models, which we’re not going to use heavily for enemies, maybe 10 or more – models really bog down if they aren’t used efficiently. If you’ve seen our early trailer, we’ve been able to mesh 3d models and 2d sprites together in an almost unrecognizable way due to the lighting – it’s new yet old at the same time, and I think that’s what gets people moving over the game. We aren’t using too many 3d models or high-res stuff, even though we have them at our disposal.

DHGF: How has the public been responding to the Hypertension project? How do you feel about developers still making games for the Dreamcast well past its “expiration date?”

Corbin: Well, that’s a matter of debate. When the project was first announced (then to be a simple port with enhanced effects), it was received well, but only in the Blood community. After several new ideas and gameplay-changing efforts, it had a fallout, which turned into an internet soap opera, with the Blood and Doom communities battling it out. The Blood community we were involved in wasn’t very open-minded, and they contributed a lot to the initial hardships halfway into the first year of development. The Doomworld community, which is still the largest gaming community around and one of the longest lasting, taught me that there are such things as “fanatics,” who don’t care about anything but what appeases themselves. Not all of that community were like that, but it was the few who followed us around that gave Blood and their community a tainted public image. I’m sure there’s been a few things that have spilled out even on our own website from time to time. All in all, Blood fans are the El Numero Uno for us, but sometimes they get a little rough and dirty. We’ve had wild allegations thrown at us, people who’ve tried to turn the public against us, sometimes still to this day (one example was that this person accused us of stealing because we had sewers that looked like his, or blades of grass in the environment that he had first…truly head-smacking moments of a moron for you). Our response? A middle finger. Sometimes being real with people enhances the underlying meaning.

For the hell of it, I released an internal rough teaser trailer (soon thereafter made public), and it climbed its way up to retro popularity. The YouTube hits grew to over 20,000 by the end of the first month, and since May, it’s boomed to over 32,000 views. It was received very warmly, with coverage on 3 or 4 major gaming websites and on about 40 others, with the fanbase growing and the hype immense. It was from the true, passionate gamers that I learned – if you’re going to remake something, make it interesting, and it’s a real treat to see the people lower their mouths when they hear “Doom engine”, or see it in action. The Dreamcast community has been ecstatic – some of these people are excited to see Blood alone ported over. It was certainly overwhelming to all of us, mostly in a positive light. Still, some of these people are like “Dreamcast? WTF?”, or like “These graphics suxors!!”, but I know once the game is released people will rejoice, old or young alike. Blood was a fun game, Hypertension will be even more so.

There are still a few ideas that have left people scratching their heads, but I can’t appease everyone, but we’re hoping the new teaser (exclusive to your site) will change that. If there’s one thing we learned from famous Doom developer John Romero, if you’re making a game, make the game for yourself. It got very hard for us, before the popularity, and even after the popularity. But we learned to not get too embroiled in it and keep to our original vision, rather than have diehard fans hack away to their liking. You can’t appease everyone – and if the majority of those people are fine with the game, it’s going to be them that’ll remember the title for years to come anyway. It’s a double-edged sword, but I’m glad it worked itself out.

zZaRDoZz: Hypertension’s Youtube entry from may has had 30’000 views thus far. Most of the comments are positive and the feedback we’ve been getting is simply amazing. The Blood community has had some very mixed reactions to say the least. There was lingering hostility towards some of the other attempts to use a Doom port to create a Blood TC. To make matters worse some of the new characters the team was developing weren’t seen as complementary to Bloods gestalt if you will. Early depictions of Hypertension’s new characters used an anime/goth style initially during Hypertension’s brainstorming phase. The situation deteriorated rapidly into name calling and accusations of stealing. To give you an example of some of the vitriol that was launched our way, it was suggested by someone that Hypertension was raping Blood! One modder even claimed his own mod was made redundant by Hypertension and threatened to discontinue his own efforts if Corbin continued. It was ugly stuff to be sure. There are those in the Blood community to this day who see a person’s position on Hypertension as a make or break issue as far as maintaining a friendship is concerned. Some of the other Blood community sites, such as Transfusion for example, will not even allow the Hypertension mod to be mentioned in a thread! It was the Transfusion mod team that gave TDGmods permission to use their content in Hypertension. They have been intimidated into not allowing any discussion.

DHGF: Are the team’s other projects still moving along? Seeing as we’re recognizing the Dreamcast, I can’t just idly let Revenge of the Streets just slide by. What is the progress on that game? Can fans still expect to see this on their Dreamcast any time soon? What was the main motivation behind beginning this title, or any of the other titles that we’ve seen?

Corbin: Those are interesting, and something I’ve always wanted to publicly explain (so you guys are the first that I’ve openly talked about this to). Revenge of the Streets was a fun title that our core people (3dfxDevelopment), not TDGMods, were working to hold over our “major” project, Psykotik (which also had a very interesting history as being the original Splatterhouse remake). RoTS was to be an old school beat ’em up, very similar to Streets of Rage, with a few touches here and there – something easy to get our name up (after a huge multitude of project failures in the past). What ended up happening is that our core company grew apart because of an all-at-once personal web of problems (that stemmed from years of doing this) that ended up putting RoTS in limbo. Hypertension is what stemmed from my frustration with working with others on that project. TDGMods was always, and will always be, an independent effort, a way of having unknowns rallied together in a little furious band to work on smaller projects. The core company, however, was an attempt to get big, ambitious projects out the door (sometimes with 2 or 3 teams in parallel involving literally DOZENS of people), which we weren’t used to, done in a very short amount of time. We used to have such titles in production, sometimes for years, and it was just too much. I will be honest- we’ve been publicly humiliated in the past, but it all comes from taking way too much on your plate without proper execution (or the proper people). Experience is the key, so after 2006, we kind of faded away and I, and I alone, focused on how to make a game – yourself. I feel that proper execution, especially as a project leader, is to learn every single aspect of game creation yourself.

The experience was certainly rewarding (from the Postal Dude – “I regret nothing”), and Hypertension wouldn’t be where it is today without all of it (and my wonderful band of TDGMods devs). After Hypertension was started, I vowed that we would stick to a new rule – one project at once, period. Our project history is seriously extensive – but we’ve never been able to complete something. Even though we’re developing under a different name for Hypertension, we hope it serves as a landmark and pulls us all ahead as a family, emotionally and professionally. We have two cores to Hypertension – a local team that helps me here, in California, and the other, just as important people spread out around the world. It’s unique how we all make it work. We know Hypertension will make it, and we know people will play it. Those two thoughts alone is what drives us to make the best material possible.

All in all, I know that our collective as a whole is very unique, our approach is unique, and sometimes our attitudes speak for themselves (haha, not always for the best, I’ll be the first to admit that), but that’s what makes TDGMods so great, and I think that’s what connects us so well to everyone else. We’re just a bunch of random, unique people with a vision.

DHGF: Finally, is there any message you would like to pass along to Dreamcast fans or anything else you would like to say about Hypertension or any of TDG’s any other game projects?

Corbin: Anything is possible. It can happen, anytime, anywhere. And hey – if there’s some of you reading this and you think you can do it (maybe you’re good at drawing? Plotting lines in CAD? Good at making noises with your mouth?), you should let us know. Most of our team is compromised of people who never thought about making games, and that’s what is so fun about it. You’d be surprised if you ever met us in person.

There is one other title that’s being developed parallel – it’s called Witchaven. It’s a remake (in the same vein as Hypertension) of an old Capstone game that was never popular. It’s using the same technology as Hypertension and it just got started by a separate team, but so far it’s looking very interesting. If you remember Witchaven, you’ll love this. If you have any suggestions, let us know, and if you think Hypertension is the last Dreamcast FPS from us, you’re delightfully wrong.


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12 responses to “Interview with TDGMods on Hypertension (DC)”

  1. alexislight Avatar
    alexislight

    gracias por poner tanto esfuerzo en este juego! y gracias por portarlo a dreamcast !!

    yeah witchaven en dreamcast? :O perfecto!

    fuerza y mucha suerte!

  2. Angie Avatar
    Angie

    Awesome!! Everything about the game and interview is just plain AWESOME!! You rock Corbin, keep up the great work :0)

  3. […] gaming audience is a stated mission for the team,” said TDGMods member Winston Branyon in an interview with Diehard GameFan. “Dreamcast has the audience that the PC modding simply doesn’t. We […]

  4. […] Dreamcast is getting all kinds of indie titles from RPGs to FPS’s. Hypertension is a title created by using the Doom ID source code and it looks like a bloody good time (retro-style). There is an interview at DieHard Gamer. […]

  5. Bob Dobbs Avatar

    Awesome development.

  6. Paul Westphal Avatar
    Paul Westphal

    The Dreamcast and it’s fanbase never cease to amaze me. It is a wonderful group to be associated with. Projects like this make me pround to be a dreamcast owner since 1999.

  7. Jessie Avatar
    Jessie

    Dreams…coming true. There is info of a 32X port (!!!) on the wiki on the project site listing. Moar.

  8. Ravick Avatar

    Yes, that’s great, but… where can we get it? :D

  9. D.J. Tatsujin Avatar

    Ravick – The game is still in development and is slated for a TBA date sometime in 2010. You can follow the link listed in the second paragraph of the piece to go to the game’s official blog and get updates on Hypertension.

  10. […] game for the Dreamcast. Most homebrew games have been side scrolling shooters or puzzle games. Hypertension, which will be out in 2010, is a first person shooter and also is defying the usual choices for a […]

  11. Rakanishu Avatar
    Rakanishu

    any new information about this? i heard a 2011 date, why is taking too long? nice interview btw

  12. […] Now the trailer has been brought to us in association with the website, DieHard GameFan, who recently did an interview with TDGMods.  So if you have any questions about the game, you might want to have a gander at the full interview here. […]

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