Frightening Experiments 1: Recluse Tech (complevel 21)
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Hello all! Everyone knows about the DBPs, right? Well, with this project i want to do something similar, but for this forum! Except i want these to use mbf21 instead of limit-removing, more lenient with submissions, not as prioritized with mod compatibility, way more experimental and most importantly: Bi-montly! That is, two months of deadline with no breaks in-between. Now, what's this first installment's theme? Well...
Recluse Tech's theme is startan techbases in a dense jungle! With a vibrant tropical palette, gameplay changes and textures that will come to be reoccurring in next installments, and two new... "enemies". I won't list gameplay changes just to not overwhelm anybody, but only a few were made to keep a fast pace to gameplay while not modifying it much. Though, the mastermind and arachnotron have been made smaller to be more usable.
Sour Blossom
Stationary environmental hazard (so that is, non-killable) that shoots an expanding cloud of gas, which deals deadly damage when you're close enough. Comes in a regular variety which is triggered by proximity, and an angry variety which is always angry.Sour Bulb
Stationary obstacle which releases a poisonous cloud (similar to the Blossom's, but weaker) that lingers for a few seconds. They chain-react into one another very slowly, and a hacky use of them can be to overlap its hitboxes with an Angry Sour Blossom to keep it docile until the Bulb it's stuck in gets popped.Resources download: FE1_V3.4.wad
In the wad i've also included a (very much unfinished, but mostly traversable) sample map in the MAP02 slot (meaning also that the midi in that slot is taken), the same one showcased in the screenshots above, for reference/inspiration purposes. The deadline for the project is November 1st!! Good luck, and be sure to: test your maps on DSDA-Doom under -complevel 21, always put 1-4 player starts to make sure it's at least startable in co-op, and only implement difficulty settings after some feedback has been given.
Also, you might've noticed that the resources includes a lot of black textures. Those are just IWAD textures i blacked out since i thought they didn't fit the theme too well (you can still use them as black pitch panels of course). There's also some glitchiness with the statusbar in Woof and DSDA (on software renderer), but those are getting fixed in the ports themselves soon i think.
If you have any other questions, be sure to leave them below, and i'll reply and/or update the OP accordingly. Good luck!
I've also made a Trello to keep better track of who's working on what w/ details, that will be frequently updated: https://trello.com/b/GCRHKhdr/recluse-tech
Join my Doom discord server!! https://discord.gg/Yvbp4pj3WH
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Excited to see what comes out of this! What there is so far looks really pretty and promising.
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Really interesting project!
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Definitely digging the project idea, really solid theme and resource pack. Psyched for this one.
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@MattFright
kvsari_fe1_v1_fda.zipDNF
I know the map is incomplete but I though to give it a playthrough to see the theme in action. It's very nice! I like the leafy green set deep in a lush forest. Makes the whole place feel alive. I found the map hard and decided to replay it when it's complete. So far so good. But could you spare a little extra ammo and health for poor players like myself? We need the help.One think you should fix is the lift at the start to get your first green armour. You can fall behind the lift and get trapped. Also, there's a HOMs outside after the fight for the plasma rifle.
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@kvsari Thank you for the demo(s)!! You actually probably helped remind me of more things to fix than you realized
but yeah i definitely need to do some more rebalancing. This being a nonlinear map and still unfinished i ended up balancing it around my own little route (which i should account for in the future). It also helped a lot to see how someone blindly approaches the encounters already there (some of which i apparently need to tweak a bunch!). I'm glad you enjoyed it too i should be able to upload a fully playable (albeit not properly detailed to my liking yet) version later today, along with a new M_DOOM by @Tainted-Slav. Also made some changes to the OP to avoid some confusion because i didn't explain some things too well.
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Just updated the resources wad to V2! Included a bunch of new textures (some requested by @Nefelibeta), an appropriately themed M_DOOM by @Tainted-Slav and a 100% playable and completable version of my map. I still haven't finished detailing or even placing teleporters to get back if you fall out of bounds (so for now you just die if you fall outside the playable space of the map).
Some of the new textures are techy but i also included a few to justify the lava textures, so if you want to make a volcanic jungle kinda map you can do that. I also added in a new sky if you want to use that (either just make your map past map... i think 21? or make a simple umapinfo, or just use sky transfers for the time being. I can help out if anybody needs any with that.)
The link in the OP is obviously updated, but here it is anyways: Scroll down for the download, i screwed up this version
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Well, I have had some plans for mapping recently (mainly because my team lead request me get these back). So why not to participate, right?
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i THINK i broke the sky in V2. Here's a quick fix: (deleted)
EDIT: ffs had to fix some flats now. Here's V2.2!! FE1_V2.2.wad
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Looks like an interesting project, and the blue really pops in that palette. A few questions:
- Are you looking for potential mappers to official throw their hats in the ring, or are you okay with maps arriving unannounced?
- Related: is there a map limit, or are we flexing the might of UMAPINFO?
- Also related: are you accepting submissions from no-names like myself, or are you looking for established people?
- May I ask why you don't want difficulty settings implemented until feedback arrives? I often like the idea of doing difficulty settings in tandem; otherwise you may end up with one "properly designed" setting (usually UV) and two "afterthought" settings.
- Do you have difficulty or length preferences for these maps?
- Are you looking for MIDI's / can we score our own maps?
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@Large-Cat hello!
1- Either way is fine
2- Would probably use umapinfo if needed, yes
3- Anyone is welcome!
4- I'd like to see things balanced to feedback instead, to help better polish things out and to not spend too much time on something that may not be suitable
5- Length? Not really. Difficulty? Probably around Doom 2 at least, and around Valiant at most.
6- Sure you can! I included midis in the resources but they are mere suggestions to give an idea of what i'd think would fit the theme. You can of course bring in something else if you think it'd fit your map better. -
Apparently i did a pretty huge mistake: half of the blue key route is broken... Here's a fix if anyone wants to playtest:
mattfrightbugfix.wadIt should actually be 100% completable now, and i even added a bit more ammo and health to places.
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This looks awesome! I love the highly saturated colors, this feels very video-gamey and arcade-y, which is always fun to have in Doom (a game that normally trades in subtler more earthy tones). I'm taking a break from Doom modding right now but I definitely want to submit something to this.
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Hey guys, here is my Submission! it’s in both the map 1 and 10 slot, because I love the music in map 10 and I think it fits my map’s style. Feel free to try it out and give feedback. Btw, the map is called “Composting Station”
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@TripleGenesis Thanks for the submission! Though, i think there's a lot to be improved upon here. Before anything here's the demo i recorded (i strongly recommend you watch it): mfwillunnameddemo1.lmp
Starting with the positives: I liked some of the attention to detail! The light coming through the window in the first corridor was nice, the initial view showing you what your goal is was a very good idea to help the player keep track of their route and progression, and some ideas here (like the collapsing floor at the red key) were really fun.
Now onto the constructive criticism:
I can tell you were very excited to use all the textures in the wad but from the start there was already too much going on. I think the map overall could benefit from having a stronger, more cohesive palette and theme, rather than having each room and corridor look like it's from a completely different map. Nitpicks also being: using conflicting liquid textures on the nukage room (please don't use the iwad liquids, i forgot to black them out), sector light differences from one point to another too extreme and sudden, and a few sector borders too thin, making some things look paper thin and very flimsy (the teleporter downbelow the bridge if you try to jump to the exit area comes to mind).
As for the combat, if you watch the demo you can see i was able to avoid 60% of the enemies in the map (i ended up with only a little more than 30% kills) and honestly as a player, that was intentional since seeing those big arenas with no cover and a bunch of random enemies made me sigh and go "i don't really wanna do this". I think a lot of the map would benefit a lot from more polished fights, more thought put into enemy placement (so no 8 random types of monsters scattered around without much thought or reason), more cover/height variation, and no slaughter (definitely not without a BFG or non-secret rocket launcher).
Also as i said it before: that outside grassy area is way too busy, you really need to reduce the amount of grass, it's very hard to see and doesn't look too nice either
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It's been a while but i just updated the resources file with a TON of requests, such as a night sky (which currently has to be added to your map through sky transfers). Here's a screenshot of it in the 2nd map i'm working on for the project:
Download to the resources (including 99% finished update of my map): FE1_V3.wad
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@MattFright
What editor and nodebuilder are you using? I'm using the latest version od UDB and am switching between ZenBSP, DeepBDP and VigilantBSP and still getting a weird error. When I create a sector within another sector and elevate it it's invisible. I've doublechecked that the lindefs aren't self-referencing, that there's textures applied etc. Shows up fine in 3D view but in DSDA-doom on complevel 21 the sector is invisible and gives me HOM's. -
My UDB is up to date as of yesterday at least and I'm using ZDBSP (zero reject). That's really weird though, i don't think I've ever seen that before. Have you tried closing and opening UDB again? Maybe taking out the config even if temporarily? Ive had config issues before. Worst case scenario you could try reinstalling it.
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Thanks to @Cuppykeks for pointing it out, i apparently screwed up V3 (put the sample map in slot 1 rather than 2). Here's a bugfix: FE1_V3.1.wad
EDIT: @kvsari check if this somehow fixes it for you
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@MattFright
Sorry no dice. Still get the problem. Perhaps I should scrap the whole map and start again. There's barely 100 linedefs done as I just started.EDIT: Got it. It's working. It was the 3.1. I'd setup the testing parameters wrong and it was still using the old resource file. Thanks for your help.
