From the maker of Markistan RPG comes Hatchet. Hatchet is a heavy duty conversion mod for Deus Ex with a campaign all its own. Hatchet contains a unique storyline & employs free-roam mechanics to present a world we think will shock, satisfy, & puzzle you to the end.

Most of Hatchet's Plot has to be kept hush hush for proper reasons, but be aware it has been heavily thought out and layered with the concept of 12 different endings in mind. Additionally an all-new world style of mushy cartoon-like presentation and brutal action up its sleeve, we don't think you'll see what can be done in the frame of Deus Ex the same ever again.

The mod is expected to take quite some time, as many of its aspects are ambitious, such as all-new gameplay mechanics, totally remeshed characters, weapons, & decorations, and a large world with many fascinating locations to travel to and visit. A lot of ambition is set, but it's all within a technically practical reach with enough time and effort.

Check regularly (or "watch" the mod) for updates in screenshots, videos, and more.

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Hi. Wanted to give a check in. My last time working on Hatchet was about august this year, but my last formal update was March of this year. During march of this year, I got put in a nightmare job IRL, and it repeatedly totalled me both physically and mentally, and really put everything I was doing in my spare time on hold.

After this, I decided I wanted to work on things in a healthy way, but we're supposed to be shifting gears towards mapping some time soon. Problem being, of course, that my mapping experience is limited, so I wanted to play catchup. So my broad update points are:
-Did a bunch of mapping practice, on throwaway projects to grind up my mapping skills.
-Solved a potential memory leak (and sped up update code speed) for quest tracking HUD elements.
-Gustbow is still 1 animation sequence away from being done, so I'm looking forward to that, but it's a very complicated animation sequence that's hard for me to deliver on properly, so it keeps getting held up.

So unfortunately, the first bullet point is really ambiguous and can't be posted here because it's not immediately Hatchet related, but I've learned a lot practicing mapping. Practicing procedural ways of connecting large maps together, ways to alleviate BSP strain, trying out new tools to convert meshes to brushes and brushes to meshes, both of which have theoretical uses. And of course, trying to learn better ways of making geometry and to take in more practical concerns where I can (It's still not great). These things ultimately take time.

The next thing that's largely held me up is that my physical health has significantly declined in the wake of previously mentioned nightmare job, so I'm losing a couple hours a day trying to improve my physical condition despite a medical condition that makes it harder all around. Yay. Lastly, I recently took in a Husky dog from a family member, and she's lovely, but they're a lot of work, so I'm losing about another hour a day to taking care of her, but she's totally worth it.

And of course, my biggest problem has been that I try to avoid working on Hatchet when I'm in a bad mental state, for fear of putting water on the flame I've been trying to re-light in the past year or two. And, sadly, that's been a lot of it. I've also been hung out to dry on economic conditions, so my time in the next few months will be further reduced as I look for work and try to make adjustments to save money on a month-to-month basis.

I don't think any one of these things could be called what's stopped me, but the delicate state of trying to reignite my passion against a typhoon of random shit that's gone awry is just never giving me very long to get set up again. I've postponed this news post repeatedly because I hate giving excuses, I try to keep my IRL shit out of this space, and quite frankly I've always told myself "this month I'll get back into it for sure", but I think until I find consistent work for myself again, I'll probably be in such a complex array of conditions as to not have all the time I want to spend on projects. Even work on VMD is highly spotty at this point, but I've popped in for short bursts to chisel at it, because it's the easier project for me to work on. Anyways, that's all for now. I hope to have more to report in the future. The project is not dead, just on hiatus for the time being, trying to find a good angle to make a comeback from. Thank you all for your support over the years, and in the past few months.

Hatchet Monthly Update March 2023

Hatchet Monthly Update March 2023

News 4 comments

I did it. I avoided doing a bi-monthly update. And boy, what a good one it was, too. Here's the list: -Fixed ammo generation errors in the MP test environment...

Hatchet Bi-Monthly Update February 2023

Hatchet Bi-Monthly Update February 2023

News

It's been a busy 2 months, make no mistake. So, here it goes: -Added reload begin and relaod animations to gustbow -Fixed an issue with weapons playing...

Hatchet Bi-Monthly Update December 2022

Hatchet Bi-Monthly Update December 2022

News 1 comment

Sorry. I want to apologize for this being a bi-monthly update. I had some work I was trying to get around to, but I've had serious health problems in...

Hatchet Bi-Monthly Update October 2022

Hatchet Bi-Monthly Update October 2022

News

Howdy. I was out of state for a wedding, and was gone for much of the early half of the month, so I decided to compound a monthly update into a bi-monthly...

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 55)
WCCC Creator
WCCC - - 254 comments

Hey. Wanted to check in again for the month of March. Unfortunately, I've ran into another set of 6 injuries this month, so it was very on/off days I could work. Some of them were insanely painful as well, limiting a lot of my activity, not only in PC time, but time awake vs time in bed and such.

Anyways, Gust Bow is coming along, and the initial draft of its animation is past the first hump (I expect a second), and is in a good space to work on. However, I'm still learning the new animation process, and I'm trying to do 1 frame a day, when I can. Sadly we're only up to 14 frames for this animation, which while certainly long, is not as far along as I hoped to be. Hope ya'll have a good march.

Reply Good karma+4 votes
WCCC Creator
WCCC - - 254 comments

Hey. Popping back in to leave another mini update, once again not deserving of a full post. The biggest change this month was an update to my work schedule. I'm trying to do just a few minutes of work for Hatchet every day, on the primary objective. Starting small, getting the fire going again, since my tendency to think big requires a lot of mental bandwidth. Currently I've been messing around with and trying to animate the gustbow's last animation sequence. I got another 8 frames of animation done, which I'm really proud of, considering I had a major family emergency and 2 tendon injuries the past month. I was really, really hoping to have it done by the end of the month to show off, but turns out this sequence is pretty complex... Probably why I couldn't easily visualize it prior. Baby steps are better than no steps at all.

Also optimized some code related to how the player hands work, and fixed a bug where tilt and recoil sequences could rarely break your view position entirely along the y axis.

Thank you, and hope you're having a good 2024.

Reply Good karma+3 votes
WCCC Creator
WCCC - - 254 comments

Leaving a notice here since I didn't want to post 2 lines for a monthly report: Dec 2020 was spent tooling back up and making sure I was refreshed on shapekeys and how to use the blender vertex exporter... I'd only used it twice before, so I'm back up to speed now, and am better brushed up with the tech than ever. Gonna be working on integrating some assets this coming month, and maybe see if I can add a bitch of patching to O12G and the shuriken ring, as I've found a way to cheat the latter. Take care, folks.

Reply Good karma+3 votes
jdzero
jdzero - - 34 comments

Would love to see a full run-down of your process of getting from Blender 2.7 to Deus Ex. I've been trying to figure that problem out for forever, and at one point I 'kind of' got it by using Milkshape 3D as a pipeline.

Still, if you have a cohesive route for this, I'd be much obliged! Dunno if you want to post a huge thing in comments, or if you have a blog that you could link to with a more in-depth instruction set on that.

Been meaning to do some work updating character models for the vanilla game, myself. :D

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WCCC Creator
WCCC - - 254 comments

I'll shoot you a PM with the current methodology. Used to use 3ds2de, but that was inferior and the new Vertex Animation addon for 2.7 onwards is vastly superior in many ways. I'm happy to share, but it's a lot of text and may not make sense out of the box.

Reply Good karma+2 votes
Bogie12
Bogie12 - - 27 comments

I would love to help in any way, whether it's models, textures, sound design, etc.

On that note, join the OTP Discord if you need any extra modding help and such. Discord.gg

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WCCC Creator
WCCC - - 254 comments

Awesome! Always happy to get hands on deck. I'll try to navigate this, but I'll join the discord either way!

Reply Good karma+2 votes
Executor-64-
Executor-64- - - 1,288 comments

i've been reading through the articles and it looks like a lot of work building a game from the ground up in terms of resources. Are you by any chance monetizing/featuring on steam or a similar platform?

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WCCC Creator
WCCC - - 254 comments

I don't think it's possible due to the inclusion of assets owned by Eidos. Moreover, I'm in this for the fun I get to hand people and the fun I have solving the puzzle to get there.

And yeah, we're aiming to make this memorable in every area. We have the technical ability and experience, so it's just one foot in front of the other.

Reply Good karma+4 votes
Guest
Guest - - 689,587 comments

I see you putting that work in. I know you probably know this already, but make sure that whatever happens, you try to stay the course and don't lose your motivation.

Wish you the best of luck, Shanana.

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WCCC Creator
WCCC - - 254 comments

Oup! Yup. Well, yeah, I can't say I liked who I was in high school. Although I guess that's to be expected, and man am I glad to be out of the dramasphere these days.

Thanks for the words of encouragement, in any case. The wind in my sails, often times.

Reply Good karma+3 votes
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