Pulp Adventures Mod Released!

BentonGrey · August 01, 2016, 05:31:38 PM

Whoops! Yep, I did add Tracy. I knew I was missing somebody! Yep, I'm pretty happy with the roster. I can't believe I'm actually going to be able to get Jungle Jim and Kolu! I've been able to get my complete wishlist for this mod.

MP, in this context, means 'multiplayer,' as in, they aren't playable in the campaign because they don't have any part in that story....for the moment.

The expansion is going to feature the sci-fi characters in their own adventure!

kkhohoho · August 01, 2016, 05:57:06 PM

Quote from: BentonGrey on August 01, 2016, 05:31:38 PM
Whoops! Yep, I did add Tracy. I knew I was missing somebody! Yep, I'm pretty happy with the roster. I can't believe I'm actually going to be able to get Jungle Jim and Kolu! I've been able to get my complete wishlist for this mod.

MP, in this context, means 'multiplayer,' as in, they aren't playable in the campaign because they don't have any part in that story....for the moment. The expansion is going to feature the sci-fi characters in their own adventure!

Yayz!

spydermann93 · August 01, 2016, 06:10:47 PM

A Sci-Fi expansion!? That sounds really exciting!

Deaths Jester · August 01, 2016, 08:01:30 PM

What?!?! No Black Star? No Rafferty? No Crimson Clown? No Secret Agent X? No G-8? What the?!?!?!

daglob · August 01, 2016, 09:34:15 PM

C'mon, they're in the third expansion... Besides, Secret Agent X can look like anybody, and I haven't finished either Blackstar or The Bat.

BentonGrey · August 01, 2016, 10:57:54 PM

Haha, yeah, the only one of those I had heard of was G-8. I was surprised to see that the creator of Zorro also created some of those others. Neat!

Deaths Jester · August 02, 2016, 12:42:57 AM

Oh, BG, you're missing so much then. Characters like Nick Carter, Donald Carrick aka The Human Hound, Li Shoon, Mr Chang, Fantomas, the Red Raven gang, The Man in Purple, Thubway Tham, The Thunderbolt, The Black Hood, the Crimson Mask, The Ghost Detective, and tons more.

As for McCulley (Zorro's writer), he was like Max Brand - writing as much as possible, where ever possible, for cash.

kkhohoho · August 02, 2016, 02:29:15 AM

Quote from: Deaths Jester on August 02, 2016, 12:42:57 AM
Oh, BG, you're missing so much then. Characters like Nick Carter, Donald Carrick aka The Human Hound, Li Shoon, Mr Chang, Fantomas, the Red Raven gang, The Man in Purple, Thubway Tham, The Thunderbolt, The Black Hood, the Crimson Mask, The Ghost Detective, and tons more.

As for McCulley (Zorro's writer), he was like Max Brand - writing as much as possible, where ever possible, for cash.

To be honest, I hadn't heard of any of these guys either, but that's probably because they weren't exactly the movers and shakers of the Pulp scene. I may not be much of a Pulp aficionado, (yet,) but I at least knew of nearly every single character Benton put in his campaign. They're the big guys; the characters that even people outside of the hardcore crowd actually know exist; the equivalent of DC's classic Justice League or the Avengers in terms of their renown and importance. Even some of the lesser characters in the mod like Spider and Ms.Fury are still having their own comics being put out thanks to indie publishers like Dynamite. Now, I'm not saying that none of the guys you mentioned aren't awesome in their own right, because they probably are, but there's only so much you can put in a single campaign. Maybe Benton can make a followup mod someday that focuses more upon the lesser known guys if he really wants to, but this is still a good place as any to start.

Deaths Jester · August 02, 2016, 02:35:18 AM

Not to be picky here but if you ask pulp readers, Nick Carter and Rafferty are just as big (or in Carter's case bigger at one point) as The Shadow and the rest in BG's mod.

And outside the hardcore fans, Carter is very well known due to the long running mag that bore his name.

Also was giving BG a hard time, Kkhohoho. Jeez...

BentonGrey · August 02, 2016, 02:46:46 AM

Haha, yeah, I expect DJ to razz me some, especially after I somehow talked him into doing Jungle Jim and Kolu for this little project.

I'll tell you what, DJ. Any other classic pulp character that could fit the mod that you want to make, I'll include.

Hah!

Seriously though, I have actually heard of a few of those in that second list, mostly through the radio adaptions, which I understand are pretty different. I've also heard of a few of them in reference to other characters.

Most of the guys I chose are the ones who could be fun to play in FF, and even with them I had to take some liberties. After all, there are only so many ways to represent 'regular guy with a gun' in the game.

kkhohoho · August 02, 2016, 03:53:57 AM

Quote from: Deaths Jester on August 02, 2016, 02:35:18 AM
Also was giving BG a hard time, Kkhohoho. Jeez...

...Oh. Sorry about that. It's just that when all I've got is the written word, it isn't always easy to tell whether someone's just 'ribbing' or not. No offense, but there's a reason humanity invented emoticons.

BentonGrey · September 21, 2016, 05:31:38 AM

Hello my friends, the Pulp Adventures mod is released! This is one of my favorite projects I've ever done, and I am pretty happy with how it all turned it.

It tells an original tale of danger and daring do, teaming many classic pulp heroes and several modern characters cut from the same cloth! It features a huge cast of characters, including all of the two-fisted heroes gracing the awesome artwork above there, as well as a host of other crusaders for justice. The story features several classic pulp villains and a twisting, turning plot that ties in to the settings and adventures of many of the starring characters. So, what are you waiting for? Come, ride with Britt Reid, laugh with the Shadow, swing the trees with Tarzan, and buckle your share of swashes with Zorro!

http://greylands.freedomforceforever.com/PulpAdventures.exe

Patch 1:
http://greylands.freedomforceforever.com/PulpAdventuresPatch1.zip

Patch 2:
http://greylands.freedomforceforever.com/PulpAdventuresPatch2.zip

You can see the release page on my site, here:
https://bentongrey.wordpress.com/2016/09/21/pulp-adventures-released/

kkhohoho · September 22, 2016, 04:17:16 AM

Took you long enough, didn't it? Lazy bastich.

(JK!)

Seriously though, WOOT! I've been waiting for this! It's a bit late for me right now, but I'll be sure to check it out tomorrow when I get a chance. Thanks Benton, seriously!

Sioux City Dynamo · September 22, 2016, 11:18:13 PM

Very nice!

detourne_me · September 23, 2016, 12:25:55 AM

Man, it is just fantastic! Thank you for all the hard work you and everyone else put into it.
Just the little details like the radio drama narration, and voices make it so great. Each map is pretty unique, too. Awesome mod Benton!

kkhohoho · September 23, 2016, 02:23:24 AM

So as it turns out, there was a slight hiccup. I was all set to launch the game and get things going, but around 80% or so through the installation, my virus protection popped up and informed me that it suspected the PulpAdventures.exe of being a freaking virus, and promptly shelved it away to quarantine. Now of course, I thought that it couldn't possibly be a virus, so I labeled the file under 'Exclusions' and installed the whole mod again. When I tried to start the program, it turned out that my virus protection was right on the money, as the .exe started sending various infections to my PC. Thankfully, my virus protection was able to block each and every one of them, so I still had to delete it from my hardrive.

Now the good news is that I was still able to play the mod. I was able to rig a shortcut to the Pulp Adventures folder, and I've gotten the fancy title screen and everything. (It's really nice by the way, seriously.) But yeah, the exe didn't turn out so well. My advice Benton is to either make a new .exe, or just replace it with the standard shortcut. Heck, maybe you could do both; include the shortcut so that people can use that if the .exe doesn't work out. But either way, something needs to be done.

spydermann93 · September 23, 2016, 02:50:29 AM

While I can't say that I got any viruses like you did, the .exe did seem a bit fishy. My antivirus said it was safe, but a weird registration warning popped up when I tried launching through the .exe. While it may or may not have been malicious, I wasn't too confident in risking it, so I deleted the .exe and just set up a standard shortcut like I have for every other mod.

But so far, the mod works great when not using the .exe. Again, I didn't try running the mod through the .exe once that registration dialog box popped up, so maybe it was fine, but I didn't want to risk it.

kkhohoho · September 23, 2016, 04:07:45 AM

So, issues with the .exe aside, I've played through the first three missions and it's a hoot. Is it perfect? Not really, no, but what is? There's the odd cosmetic issue such as Shadow's 'The Shadow Knows' attack emitting a pink square for its' FX, but aside from that, the biggest problem is that when you save and reload in the middle of the mission, all of those specially scripted triggers go bye-bye. For example, you're normally supposed to get a message for completing a riddle in the first mission, but if you save and reload before solving it, you don't get that message. That's the big one though. That aside, the characters are all solid in terms of gameplay, and the missions are designed well enough that if you don't know who a given character is, you'll still got a good feel for who they are and what they do by the end of it.

What makes this mod really special though is the sheer level of professionalism that went into it. I'm not saying it's polished enough to count as a standalone game, because it isn't, (no offense Benton; just saying it like it is,) but for a mod made by one guy, it's pretty darn close. There's custom music -- sometimes multiple tracks -- that play at specific points during a mission; there is at least one custom scripted event in nearly every level; the voices are well done; and the radio voiceovers are a nice touch. (Even if they could be synched with their corresponding text boxes better.) It's a step above most mods out there short of The Strangers, and it's just a blast to play. Hats off to you Benton, seriously.

BentonGrey · September 23, 2016, 04:12:39 AM

Quote from: detourne_me on September 23, 2016, 12:25:55 AM
Man, it is just fantastic! Thank you for all the hard work you and everyone else put into it.
Just the little details like the radio drama narration, and voices make it so great. Each map is pretty unique, too. Awesome mod Benton!

Wow, thanks DM! That means a very, very great deal. I'm glad that you enjoyed all those little details. I'm very happy with how they all came together, and I worked really hard to add all of those things to the mod so that it would be something special.

Quote from: kkhohoho on September 22, 2016, 04:17:16 AM
Took you long enough, didn't it? Lazy bastich. (JK!)

Seriously though, WOOT! I've been waiting for this! It's a bit late for me right now, but I'll be sure to check it out tomorrow when I get a chance. Thanks Benton, seriously!

That's it, Kk is banned from my mods!

Ha, just kidding.

Yeah, this one took a LONG time to get released. It was almost entirely finished when I first came back to it about midsummer, but I kept adding to it, and amazing people kept giving me amazing art to grace it. I'm very glad I kept working on it, because it became a much more complete project over those months.

Thanks SCD, I couldn't have done it without you, man! And I can't wait until we do the sci-fi expansion, too! Your Flash is in this release in all of his glory, but he'll have lots of company one day.

BentonGrey · September 23, 2016, 04:21:27 AM

Gah, seriously? The exe gave virus warnings! What the freaking heck? I used an exe creator Alex recommended that makes them out of BAT files, so there shouldn't be any way that could happen. I don't understand that at all. Did anyone else have issues? Do I need to take the mod down and replace the exe with a shortcut? Please let me know ASAP if other folks are having issues. I don't want something I released to hurt anyone's computer!

Kk, your feedback: First, the issue with reloading in a mission breaking the scripting is a feature of EZScript and out of my control, I'm afraid. It's not ideal, but it's the best that can be managed with things the way they are. I'd love it if someone were to fix that one day, but I don't think it's going to happen.

The issue with The Shadow's FX sounds like a missing texture. I'll take a look at that.

Thanks for the compliments, and keep in mind, this mod had very little testing other than yours truly, and as you said, I'm just one guy.

Having one of my mods compared to the Strangers...wow, that's pretty cool.

kkhohoho · September 24, 2016, 01:19:36 AM

So I tried to start Mission 4, (the one with Doc Savage,) but before Doc Savage even speaks, I get this:

Code Select

alert: CTalkingHead::init, NIF has no main object, library\characters\male_hunter_suit\head.nif

Keep in mind that thanks to a mostly black screen caused by attempting to minimize the game and type in what was on the error message I got, there might be a typo or two, but that's the gist of it. I have no idea what's going on, but until this is fixed, I can't go any further in the mod. Which is a shame, because it's been a blast so far.

Also, I found this little typo in Doc Savage's bio: '...'help the hlepless.' Just a FYI.

BentonGrey · September 24, 2016, 02:42:06 AM

Kk, I clearly forgot to update the animated portrait entry when I changed meshes. Expect a small patch to fix that and the FX issue. Thanks for sharing that!

BentonGrey · September 24, 2016, 04:04:12 PM

Okay, here is the new patch that should fix those issues:

http://greylands.freedomforceforever.com/PulpAdventuresPatch1.zip

kkhohoho · September 24, 2016, 06:28:17 PM

Thanks Benton; the mission works like a charm now.

There's still a slight hiccup, but it's not too big a deal. At some point, I threw an Egg Grenade at a few thugs while they were on the stairs, but while it knocked most of them away, it somehow sent one of them straight into the stairwell. But this didn't immobilize the thug or anything, oh no, because even though thanks to a glitch he was now encased in solid concrete, he could still shoot at me through the stairwell. Shame the same couldn't be said about me, because I had to throw another Egg Grenade just to hit him and knock him out. I'm not sure if this is something that can be fixed, but I figured it was worth mentioning. Still a blast though.

Fronkenhonk · September 24, 2016, 07:07:13 PM

This is alot of fun. Got an errormessage on level 7.

CTalkingHead::init, NIF has no main object, library\characters\vx_mandrake\head.nif.

Thanks for the great mod.

BentonGrey · September 24, 2016, 09:13:52 PM

Thanks for reporting that, Fronkenhonk! I forgot Mandrake's head.nif. This patch fixes it:
http://greylands.freedomforceforever.com/PulpAdventuresPatch2.zip

Kk, glad to hear it! Yeah, I'm afraid the weird glitch with the thug under the stairs (sounds like a horror movie) is just a quirk of the game and out of my control.

Also, I'd like to issue an invitation to the folks who are playing Pulp Adventures. I don't have very many good screenshots, and I would like your help to rectify that! I don't have much time at the moment to play through the mod myself, as I'm buried in work. I would welcome it if, while you were playing, you snapped a few pictures of anything that you thought was awesome or exciting. If you'll send me some screenies, I'll put the best on my site and my mod DB page. Thanks guys!

kkhohoho · September 25, 2016, 12:32:09 AM

Quote from: BentonGrey on September 24, 2016, 09:13:52 PM
Thanks for reporting that, Fronkenhonk! I forgot Mandrake's head.nif. This patch fixes it:
http://greylands.freedomforceforever.com/PulpAdventuresPatch2.zip

Kk, glad to hear it! Yeah, I'm afraid the weird glitch with the thug under the stairs (sounds like a horror movie) is just a quirk of the game and out of my control.

Also, I'd like to issue an invitation to the folks who are playing Pulp Adventures. I don't have very many good screenshots, and I would like your help to rectify that! I don't have much time at the moment to play through the mod myself, as I'm buried in work. I would welcome it if, while you were playing, you snapped a few pictures of anything that you thought was awesome or exciting. If you'll send me some screenies, I'll put the best on my site and my mod DB page. Thanks guys!

If I'd known that, I would've snapped a shot when I accidentally blew up the left side of the Crime College in Mission 4. I think I might have done more damage than the actual criminals did...

daglob · September 25, 2016, 12:51:08 AM

Somebody is naughty in the eyes of Doc Savage.

BentonGrey · September 25, 2016, 05:05:52 AM

Ha! That's funny, Kk. Yeah, that would have been good.

DG, ehh, Doc's got the money to fix it.

What's one more mule train of Mayan gold?

daglob · September 25, 2016, 06:04:25 AM

Okay, I still can't get mine to work. The path to FFv3R looks like this:

D:\Program Files\Irrational Games\Freedom Force vs The 3rd Reich

I've tried to edit the Red Hat shortcut, but it still won't work.

Suggestions?

News:

Pulp Adventures Mod Released!