TEiN Remake (All worlds)
The End is Nigh Remake is a project which aims to improve various aspects of the game. It’d be more accurate to call it a remaster, to be honest.
Visual appearance is the main focus, but there are plenty of other changes too.
Whether you consider these changes to be an improvement or not is up to you. Everyone has their own preferences.
The project affects TEiN in many ways. Here’s most of the work I’ve done:
- Fixed the bugs.
Broken level transitions, broken movement triggers. That kind of stuff. You’d be surprised how many instances of those issues there were in the game. Same goes for occasional visual bugs with backgrounds and NPC animations. - Tweaked the overall look of the game.
Better colors, better shaders, better particles, new decorations. This change affects every level.
Some of the cartridge intro images have also been reworked slightly. - Improved continuity between levels.
Putting screenshots of levels next to each other creates a cohesive map of the area, where locations of individual levels make sense. You can now trust your space perception when navigating complex areas, such as Machine or SS Exodus. - Added more depth to the sound design.
Ambient sounds in TEiN aren’t something players pay a lot of attention to. But if you do, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. You’ll hear the sound of dripping water in half-flooded levels of Hollows, the wind in upwards secrets, the waterfalls in Overflow… Instead of using one ambient track per area, the sounds change based on what you see in each level. Oh, and the music in Hollows isn’t overly loud anymore.
Cutscene audio is also more clear. - Improved performance where it was possible.
Low shader settings now disable shaders which were previously unaffected. Which means you can get significantly better fps in Hollows and Ruin, if you’re running the game on a weak computer. Another big source of lag was the Mother spam in Retrograde, Machine, and so on. Those areas have been optimized, but kept their yucky flesh-infested appearance. The best of both worlds, as they say. - Adjusted the gameplay in minor ways.
These changes were based on feedback from experienced and new players alike. Some levels with objectively absurdly precise jumps became easier. Some boring tumors were moved to new places. 4 out of about 750 levels were remade entirely. Previously missing tutorial NPCs got added in places where new players tend to get confused. Cartridges now allow for backtracking and should be less tedious to get all rings in. - Added new secrets and NPCs.
This was done in order to spice up the experience of replaying the game even further and give the players more incentive to explore the world.
Currently all real worlds are done and all cartridges that needed changes have been updated too.
Current version affects all ring cartridges, including the Super Mega Cart, all Iron cartridges, including the Tower of Ascension, as well as Pus-Man and Tombs & Torture.
Launching mods with the Workshop launcher prevents you from getting Steam achievements. But downloading the mod directly and unpacking it in your game’s folder doesn’t.
While I do recommend earning achievements in the base game without modifications, the difficulty of the Remake is about equal to that of the base game. If you prefer Remake over the original, go for it.
Dev blog post containing a guide for installing TEiN mods + a direct download link[teinshatteredspectrum.wordpress.com]
I’d like to thank Surreal Dude, Meh32, and Adenator09 for their help with some of the visual assets. They made my work a lot easier.
