v1.1 unofficial -onifaq- by Lithium and Darkus
Table of contents
1. Introduction
1.1 About this FAQ
1.2 About the author
1.3 Where to get this FAQ
2. About Oni
2.1 What is Oni
2.2 Who is making Oni
2.3 Who is Bungie Software
2.4 When will Oni be released
2.5 What are Oni's features
3. Oni System Requirements
3.1 What are the System Requirements for Oni?
3.2 Will Oni make use of a 3D Accelerator?
4. Multiplayer
4.1 What kind of multiplayer will there be in Oni?
4.2 Will it be freely playable on the internet using TCP/IP?
5. Editing Oni
5.1 What is the Design Process?
5.2 Will external programmers be able to add-on to the game easily?
6. Oni Team
7. Where to find out more information on Oni
7.1 WWW
7.2 IRC
7.3 Public Forums
7.4 Hotline
8. Credits
9. Revision History
1. Introduction
1.1 About this FAQ
This FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) is about Bungie Software's game Oni. It offers you the most up-to-date info on the game, and hopefully answers most of your questions. I will be updating the FAQ as more information becomes available which will allow you a one stop place for all of your Oni gaming information. It contains quite a bit of information from the "Bungie Software Press Kit - April, 1999."
1.2 About the Author
Aaron "Lithium" Corcoran is a webmaster for Onicore.com and has participated in the gaming community for quite some time, working on other projects such as Ritualistic.com and Soldier-Of-Fortune.com.
Ben "Darkus" Rood is the lead webmaster at Onicore.com.
1.3 Where to get this FAQ
All current updates to the FAQ can be found on Onicore.com.
2. About Oni
2.1 What is Oni
Oni is a third-person 3-D action adventure that blends hand-to-hand combat and gunplay into a single action experience. One of the primary goals of Oni is to deliver, for the first time, a third-person game where the action is smooth and instantaneous without being simplistic.
The gameplay is divided 50-50 between hand-to-hand and weapons combat. While Konoko will have an arsenal of weapons at her disposal, from pistols to rocket launchers, realistic quantities and placement of ammo in the levels will prevent the player from tearing through the game with guns blazing. Instead, Konoko's punches, throws and kicks will be critical for attacking silently, saving ammo, and simply enjoying the visceral satisfaction of "hands-on" punishment.
The word "adventure" in third-person games typically implies puzzle-solving: finding hidden keys or punching the correct sequence of buttons. Oni has none of that. Instead, the adventure-game flavor comes from the enormous number of unique characters in the game and the huge, interactive environments in which the action takes place. Unlike most action games, where opponents are cookie-cutter two-dimensional characters, the opponents in Oni vary greatly in appearance, movement, fighting style, mood, even motivation. Non-player characters will fight alongside Konoko, friends will betray her and all will prove more complex that they first appear.
The Story
oni \O' nE\ O as in go, E as in easy: Japanese for "ghost" or "demon"
Set in the year 2032, Oni is the story of Konoko, an elite agent of the Tech Crimes Task Force who is on a quest to infiltrate and destroy a ruthless crime syndicate. The game puts the player in a world that can be imagined as a blend of action thrillers such as "La Femme Nikita" and classic anime such as "Ghost in the Shell." As the game progresses, Konoko wrestles with the terrible secrets of the underworld, confronts the frailty of her own identity and discovers that there's no one she can trust. You can find more detailed story information on our Story Page (coming soon).
The Action
Oni's control scheme uses standard first-person shooter controls, with the addition of punch and kick keys, to give the player explosive new ways to fight with a familiar configuration. At any time the player is free to switch back and forth between armed and unarmed modes of combat - a freedom of choice in fighting dubbed "full-contact action."
When the player's guns run out of ammo, they can drop it and take out their opponents with flying kicks and neck-snapping throws. If they're unarmed, they can kick an opponent's gun out of his hand, grab it and finish off a roomful of bad guys in a blaze of fire. If the action gets too hairy, they can kill the lights, ignite a concussion grenade and five through a plate glass window while the room explodes above them.
The two simple keys for punch and kick yield a wide variety of moves when used in combination with the movement keys. The mouse button, which fires weapons when armed, activates punching and kicking when unarmed, leaving the player's keyboard hands free for other tasks. Novice players will likely stock to the basics in fighting, occasionally triggering a thrilling special move, while more sophisticated players will master every one of dozens of complex attacks.
Also new to action games is how Konoko develops new fighting skills as the game progresses. In early levels, hitting the "punch" key might yield a simple jab that does moderate damage, perhaps making the opponent take a step back. In later levels, as Konoko becomes more skilled and also, consistent with the story, more vicious, the same keystroke might unleash a powerhouse blow that knocks out the opponents or even kills them.
2.2 Who is making Oni?
Oni is being created by Bungie Software, a Chicago-based company that has developed and published immersive, addictive, award-winning electronic entertainment since 1991.
2.3 Who is Bungie Software
The story of Bungie is the archetypal story of the American computer industry: a talented young man graduates from college and, in lieu of getting a real job, decides to publish a game he had made for his own amusement. In May of 1991, Alexander Seropian founded Bungie Software and published Operation Desert Storm, a meticulously researched tank-combat game. Shortly afterwards he teamed up with another gamer and computer junkie he met in an artificial intelligence class, Jason Jones, to publish his game, Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete.
With boxes assembled in Alexander's basement apartment, Bungie's first games were sold at trade shows and gradually gained access to distribution channels. Minotaur, released in February 1992, established a pattern of innovation for Bungie that would make it prominent among companies writing software for the MacOS. Minotaur was the first Mac game designed solely as GroupWare, which can only be played by two or more people connected via modem or an AppleTalk network. This unconventional approach was rewarded with the development of a hard-core Minotaur following and can locate each other via a nationwide Users Directory maintained by Bungie.
The next game, Pathways Into Darkness, was the creative leap that put Bungie on the computer-gaming map. Pathways was the first game for the MacOS to use texture-mapping in real time. The game achieved a smooth, continuous-motion 3D effect with richly detailed, high-res graphics, which combines with active-panning stereo sound effects to surround the player with its fantasy setting. Upon its release in August 1993, Pathways received rave reviews and won numerous awards, including MacWorld's Game Hall of Fame, the MacUser 100, and Inside Mac Games' Adventure Game of the Year. It is available in 15 countries around the world, and continues to sell heavily. It was also one of the first games to be written native to the RISC-based Power Macintosh platform. Pathways' success brought Bungie its first office and a small, hardworking staff.
Marathon, Bungie's next game, was a milestone not only for the company but for the Macintosh itself. The game pre-sold tens of thousands of copies and dominated online message boards many months before its release in December 1994. Players were thrilled with the game's high speed action, unprecedented freedom of movement and stunningly detailed graphics, and office networks the world over blazed with multiplayer Marathon contests. Winner of the Macworld World Class Award, MacUser Editor's Choice, GAMES 100 and others, Marathon has attracted the attention of filmmakers, authors and numerous software developers hoping to use its technology not to mention legions of hackers who make programs to edit, modify and otherwise expand the scope of the game.
Following Marathon's success, Bungie realized that a sequel was necessary, both because of the many additional features and enhancements the programmers had in mind and overwhelming public demand. Marathon 2: Durandal was released in November 1995, and far from being a cheap rehash of the Marathon story, distinguished itself by being a new game in its own right. A faster engine, enhanced graphics and sounds, full networkability and network game scenarios like King of the Hill made the game a unique multiplayer experience. Marathon 2 has outdone Marathon's own impressive sales over a comparable period, is available in English, French and Japanese and has followed it's predecessor onto the hard drives of gamers in the remotest corners of the Earth.
The year 1996 saw the most fundamental and sweeping developments for Bungie since its inception. With more artists, programmers, tech support and marketing staff, and with a war chest stuffed by nearly 500% sales growth, Bungie made the leap from Mac-only to multiplatform development, and from one to multiple titles per year. Marathon 2: Durandal was ported to Windows 95 and released in September. Marathon Infinity, released in October 1996, wrapped up the series and left players with all of the tools necessary to make their own Marathon worlds. Abuse, also released in October, was the first third-party game published by Bungie and breathed new life into the side-scrolling, platform genre. Weekend Warrior, the next third-party project, shattered the mold of fully 3D fighting games with a comic gameshow format, fully-realized multiple-elevation arenas and unique touches like FaceMappingTM, which maps a photo of the player onto their game character for the ultimate in "customization." Staking its claim at the high-end of available technology, Weekend Warrior was released in January 1997 in a bundle with the first generation of 3D cards for the MacOS.
Bungie felt it only proper to wrap up the Marathon series with a compendium of all things Marathon, and in May 1997 shipped the Marathon Trilogy Box Set. This package included all three Marathon titles, the best levels and add-ons the public had created for the games and the Marathon Scrapbook for a look back at the whole dizzying phenomenon. Also at this time, the organization spawned its first offspring with the formation of Bungie Studios West, an office for new business development and programming in the heart of Silicon Valley. This meant that Bungie could work on two internal titles simultaneously and alternate their releases to continually feed the game-hungry market.
Meanwhile, the team that had brought Marathon to life had not been idle. Though thousands of fans encouraged them to continue making sequels to Marathon until the end of time, they had their sights set on bigger "game". After four years of making first-person-perspective shooters, they were ready for a new type of action. Thus was born Myth: The Fallen Lords, by far the most ambitious title Bungie had attempted, and the first internally-developed game since Minotaur to depart from the 3D, first-person shooter genre.
Released simultaneously for Macintosh and Windows 95 in November 1997, Myth: The Fallen Lords has proved a phenomenal success. As the first real-time strategy game to put the player in a true 3D landscape, and forego the building paradigm in favor of tactical battlefield action, Myth stands out from the hordes of more traditional RTSGs in the eyes of the press and public. Thus far it has been declared Game of the Year by Computer Games Strategy Plus and Strategy Game of the Year by Computer Gaming World, ranking high in Editor's Choice lists across the industry. As of late 1997, the game has shipped 350,000 copies worldwide, in four languages, on two platforms, with tens of thousands of players vying for the top rank on its internet gaming service, bungie.net.
By any account Myth: The Fallen Lords has made Bungie a recognized player in the game industry, and the organization is growing in response. Bungie has brought in more than a dozen new staff to help market and support Myth and to speed development of future titles. It remains to be seen whether Myth will inspire other entries into the 3D real-time strategy genre, but if nothing else, it's proof that a small team with a strong product vision and the marketing cunning to back it up can still produce a very big game.
2.4 When will Oni be released?
Oni will be a simultaneous, cross-platform release for Windows 95/98/NT and Macintosh and is slated to ship in 1999.
2.5 What are Oni's features?
The Technology
Interpolation. Radiosity lighting. High-polygon count models. These highfalutin terms are perhaps unfamiliar to those outside the core gaming press. But the value of the effects they describe are immediately obvious to the eye.
Interpolation allows one animation sequence to blend smoothly and instantaneously into other ones. In other third-person games, for example, a "run" animation must progress through its whole sequence before a "jump" can be executed, creating a delay between the player hitting the jump key and the character actually jumping. With interpolation, a run can turn into a jump at any time, making the character instantly responsive to player commands. Konoko can spring forward, tuck into a dive roll, and then pop up into a flying kick, all in one smooth, continuous movement with no delays or "popping" between animations.
Radiosity lighting effects paint the setting with natural light by modeling the complex way in which light bounces off of surfaces and creates natural luminosity gradations. Real-time shadows around the characters anchor them in their setting.
Oni features high polygon-count models. They range from about 800 polys for some of the more basic characters to around 1200 for the more central ones, like Konoko. Not only does this give the characters a greater range of possible animations, in doing so it also makes them appear more lifelike.
Innovations
* Full-contact action: unified hand-to-and and weapons combat
* Real-world level design
* Huge, sprawling indoor/outdoor 3D cityscapes
* Interpolate character animations, providing immediately responsive controls and fluid movement
* Action game with hundreds of unique opponents
* Pre-conditioned, constrained neural net AI, with variable offensive and defensive postures and aggression levels
* Increasing skill levels; characters develop deadlier techniques as the game progresses
Features
* Anime-inspired art and setting
* Near-future sci-fi world
* "Noir" storyline
* Cinematic presentation of story
* Comprehensive physics model
* Endlessly repeatable gameplay
Non-player Characters and AI
The AI in the game consists of a sophisticated, multi-tiered system of modifications that the engineers call a "pre-conditioned, constrained neural net." Non-player characters in the game world have a wide variety of possible attitude settings, from bored to fearful to aggressive, and variable responses to attacks. They exercise self-preservation, running for cover under fire and running away when wounded or to set up an ambush. They communicate amongst themselves, calling for backup, surrounding Konoko, and coordinating attacks.
They also have different body types and ways of moving, from the ultra-fast and graceful "Ninja" character to the lumbering, powerful "Tanker." All characters, from dockworkers, to scientists to Konoko's TCTF buddies who fight with her, have their own hand-to-hand moves. With eight basic character classes, dozens of variations on each class and nearly a dozen unique characters, there are hundreds of unique individuals for the player to interact with.
KNOWN STORYLINE CHARACTERS:
Konoko - Our gun-toting butt-kicking heroine. Yeah, you play her.
Shinatama - Your friend and sidekick, also rumoured to be a supercomputer-controlled robot.
Griffin - The Chief of Police.
Muro - Leader of the "Evil Crime Syndicate" (image shown is of a Ninja, not Muro).
3. Oni System Requirements
3.1 What are the System Requirements for Oni?
-unknown- (at least a 300mhz Pentium II or an iMac should run Oni)
3.2 Will Oni make use of a 3D Accelerator?
Oni REQUIRES 3D acceleration in some form. The known 3D API's that should be supported are OpenGL, Glide, RAVE (on the Macintosh) and possibly Direct3D.
4. Multiplayer
4.1 What kind of multiplayer will there be in Oni?
Oni is a Full-Contact-Action game, so expect Oni's multiplayer to be a bit like a combination of Quake Deathmatch and Tekken/Virtua Fighter, only in the 3rd Person and requiring more mad skills.
4.2 Will it be freely playable on the internet using TCP/IP?
-unknown- (due the the difficulty of lag combining with hand-to-hand combat, this is unknown)
4.3 Will Oni be able to be played on LAN's? (Local Area Networks)
Yes. LAN multiplayer Oni has been tried by serveral individuals from the public at Macworld New York and E3 1999.
5. Editing Oni
5.1 What is the Design Process?
Unlike games with environments designed by level=designers, Oni's environments are being designed by two architects - professionals who have designed real buildings in the real world. An Oni level beings its life in AutoCAD, and the resulting environment is realistically scaled, functionally designed and gives players the impression that they're moving through real spaces. Experienced game designers then tweak these levels for gameplay purposes. Oni's levels range from a fully realized 15-story police tower to a massive underground research facility, to a mountaintop fortress.
In-game cutscenes, presented in letterbox format, give Oni a cinematic flavor while preserving the continuity of narration and gameplay. Cell-animated sequences in the beginning and end of the game will introduce and conclude the story in a style that will satisfy the most die-hard anime junkie.
Like other Bungie games, the multiplayer levels will be designed with fast-action net play in mind, mostly concentrating the action in tighter, arena-style environments instead of the expansive single-player levels.
5.2 Will external programmers be able to add-on to the game easily?
Bungie is releasing the file headers to the public, which means the creation of 3rd-Party tools should be much easier.
6. Oni Team
Brent Pease - Project Lead/Lead Engineer/3D Engine/Environment
Michael Evens - Character Animation/Character Combat/3D Studio Max God
Alex Okita - Concept Design/Modeler Kevin Armstrong - Networking/Dialogs/Sound/Etc Engineer
David Dunn - Architecture
Chris Hughes - 3D Character Modeling
Steve Abeyta - 3D Character Animation
Hamilton Chu - Producer
Quinn Sandra Dunki - AI Engineering/Camera/Scripting
Sean Turbit - Architecture
7. Where to find out more information on Oni
7.1 WWW
http://www.onicore.com
http://www.bungie.com/oni/
http://www.bungie.org/oni/
7.2 IRC
#oni on 3DNet. First you will need to get a IRC client (such as:(for Windows) mIRC at http://www.mirc.com OR (for Mac) Ircle at http://www.ircle.com) and select a 3DNet server such as:
chat.hexenworld.com
planetquake.3dnet.net
telefragged.3dnet.net
ritual.3dnet.net
chat.planetquake.com
Then type /join #oni and chat with other fans, and Bungie employees.
7.3 Public Forums
Forums at Onicore.com - http://forums.onicore.com
Forums at Oni Central - http://www2.bungie.org/forums/oni/oni.forum.cgi
7.4 Hotline
Bungie.Org Hotline Server: hl.bungie.org
Clan Plaid Hotline Server: cphl.dhs.org
- You can download the Hotline Client here
8. Credits
A very large thanks to everyone at Bungie Software for putting up with my constant harassment for more and more information. Without them, this FAQ would not be what it is today, nor would it even exist. Bungie employees contributed to various sections of the FAQ to help the community better understand the details behind Oni.
Thanks to Bungie Software for providing me with information via their April 1999 Bungie Software Press Kit.
A very special thanks goes out to Doug, who had to put up with the constant racket of the noise outside when I dug through his trash trying to scrounge up all the details possible on the game.
9. Revision History