Havoc 3D Released

October 25, 2024

While searching through one of my old hard drives for a project, I came across a build of my 'Havoc 3D' ray casting engine from March 2012. This build was more advanced than Milestone 4, which I had showcased in a YouTube video back in January 2012. By March, the project had progressed to being close to a game demo, but I kept it private due to dissatisfaction with the engine's performance - it slowed down significantly at higher screen resolutions. That same month, I decided to move on to other projects and discontinued work on the ray casting engine.

After playing the March build for a few minutes, I thought, 'Why let all that effort go to waste?' So, I decided to release it now rather than never. I took some time to update the project to more modern standards, upgrading the codebase to C++17 and SDL 2.0 (the original code was written in C++98, which was closer to C with some STL and basic C++ features, and used SDL 1.2). Over the course of a few days, I polished various aspects of the game, adding sound effects, music, menus, and even a basic map editor - features that had been missing until now. I also implemented directional sound, something I hadn't ever done before. The only thing I didn't significantly update was the AI, which remains fairly basic.

Although I don't currently plan to develop it into a full game, that could change in the future. For now, I've released a playable version along with a YouTube video showcasing the current build. Revisiting this project was an enjoyable experience, even if it happened by chance. Now, I'm back to focusing on my Doom-style engine.