Tahi - The Arocean War (9-9-09)

[Bob Dobbs]

I sent them an email request for an update.

[VasiliyRS]

i hope they have not given up with that project .
*waiting for an update*

[Bob Dobbs]

Reticon was nice enough to take time out to give us DC-Talk people an update (below). This is a positive update regarding the most anticipated release since the original run of the Dreamcast.

RETICON:
"All is good, we'll start working on Tahi VERY soon (within next week). Our reason for pause for about a month is because our artists, writers and programmers were busy with other projects that they absolutely needed to complete.

We have everything all set up and ready to go to start work for this entire summer. We've also started drafting plans for Project J-man to test out our render engine. I think everyone will be please with the outcome of J-man.

I'm working really hard getting the rendering libraries together to load textures, getting a camera node set up and interpreting mesh models and then we'll be pushing the Dreamcast to ITS LIMIT. We just have to make sure the code is as clean as possible to manage our memory as efficiently as possible (so that we do not get any nasty memory leaks which would cause slow downs or crashes).

Our artists are drafting up some wonderful designs for Tahi, it will really look atmospheric with the hardware limits we're working with.

As for J-man:
The rough basis for this game is about a Russian janitor. The game is based in 1982 and monsters have run amok. The thing is that the J-man is a Russian immigrant in the United States during the Cold War. It's a very simple background and it will have VERY quick paced and snappy gameplay.

If you have any other questions, feel free to email me at anytime!
We'll seriously be working overtime on Tahi with J-man as well, Tahi will take much longer to develop since the game is much larger and detailed in scope."

[VasiliyRS]

Thanks Bob for contacting them !
This is good news .

The rough basis for this game is about a Russian janitor. The game is based in 1982 and monsters have run amok. The thing is that the J-man is a Russian immigrant in the United States during the Cold War. It's a very simple background and it will have VERY quick paced and snappy gameplay.

Russian janitor ... Whom exactly he means saying "janitor" ?
To Reticon inc. - if you want to know anything about Russia and rus culture you can ask me .

[Anthony817]

I'm working really hard getting the rendering libraries together to load textures, getting a camera node set up and interpreting mesh models and then we'll be pushing the Dreamcast to ITS LIMIT. We just have to make sure the code is as clean as possible to manage our memory as efficiently as possible (so that we do not get any nasty memory leaks which would cause slow downs or crashes).

Our artists are drafting up some wonderful designs for Tahi, it will really look atmospheric with the hardware limits we're working with.

Wow that sounds fantastic! I always said that the DC never had a chance to really shine and show its graphical limits. I figure that it never got to do more than 50% of its true capabilities.

Lets hope that Tahi turns out to be one of the best, if not the best indie games ever released!

[Bob Dobbs]

Vasiliy,

What I believe he means is that there is a Russian who is living in America (USA). This Russian is working as a janitor in the USA. This Russian has to save the world because he is "J-Man". What makes it interesting is that he is doing this on a foreign land and he is not a super CIA or KGB guy.

J-Man = Janitor Man.

He is not saying anything bad about the Russians. If anything, he is saying that it takes a Russian to do the job and do it right.

[VasiliyRS]

11th june ... still no sign of life . i hope a summer is good time fo coding . Reticon and co where are you ?...

[Bob Dobbs]

I sent them a request for a status update.

[Bob Dobbs]

The following (below) is a reply from Reticon:

Dobbs,

Excellent timing!
We're all actually sitting down at the moment at a table and discussing the user interface of the game.

Everything is going well, we're beginning to gear up for the summer time. It has been much slower than expected, we were supposed to have started about two weeks ago but due to scheduling conflicts and extraneous work.

We'll be returning to DC-talk VERY soon as well as fixing that forum problem we've been plagued with by that shotty service we once had. The forum will be of our OWN and will never go down unless a serious, physical problem occurs (or software).

We're basically catching up with all of the data that we lost with that forum service who decided to cut and run with all of our research.

As for side project J-man, it will be actually put on hold. The development of the game has become much grander and deserves to be its own release! (you folks will love how quirky and weird it is!)

But for now, our focus is mainly on Tahi! and it will be for the upcoming months. I, personally am making the effort, every single night to take a full understanding of our render engine and make it work as best possible. That is our largest concern at the moment and it will be for a bit. Once we overcome that, next up is synchronizing dial-up communication...

But all is well. We may be pretty silent at the moment, but Tahi is ALIVE and WELL!

Thank you,
Reticon Entertainment
http://www.csulb.edu/~flima/reticon/bios/

[Radkin]

This is a message that Reticon sent to Dobbs:

Thank you for keeping tabs with us in regards to our game, it really means a lot to us that you're helping us out!

In regards to the short film, it was created a long time ago, I still may have it on a DVD somewhere, although the short film is about two minutes long with some really basic and plain 3D animation. It was created with a few friends of mine during my last year of high school, it did place first in a local film festival for technical achievement. The short two minute animation was created on two Pentium II computers, an AMD and a Pentium III and took 6 months to create.

As for the story of Tahi in the short two minute film, it isn't really shown. In the two minute film you see the Tahians run away from the evil Aroceans, their leader (which is a living creature at the time) finds some renegades emerging from underneath an abandoned building. The renegades are the hero and his lifelong friend/partner (names are: Gangaro and Calcavan). Then the evil Arocean leader sees them via telescope on a high tower and announces to an enslaved Tahian (Droug) to prepare the 'Project' which is the suit the evil Arocean leader wears, which has NOW been seen in the forums as that huge mechanized beast and that is basically the synopsis of the short film.

I will try to get it on youtube by the end of this weekend, just to let you and the rest of the forum know, that our animation and rendering skills have come leaps and bounds from this short film MANY years ago (almost eight years ago now roughly).

As for the game status update, still programming away. We're aiming to have some actual game footage for you all to see by the end of July! It's looking quite promising! also the website is going to go under some slight reconstruction to constitute the Tahi game.

Thanks again Dobbs for helping keep the forum posted and updated for us, it really helps us out, we're all really busy and working hard. Dreamcast's 10 year anniversary will not go out with a whimper!