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Here's some pics from my WIP, Antiquity. I'm planning on it being a wad focusing on action-adventure elements with puzzle-solving, breakable vases with goodies inside, new weapon graphics with tweaked behaviors, and an ancient Mesopotamian/Mediterranean theme.
That rules @Cuppykeks! Your stuff always has such awesome style.
Here's more WIP stuff for Antiquity. This is a new enemy based on the Nightmare Imp from Doom 64. Astral Imps here are tougher, faster, and hit harder. Also, they're a nice translucent blue. Basically an upgraded imp. Together with the officer (another new enemy that's basically an SS Nazi reskin with minor tweaks) and maybe another low-tier enemy I'd like to have the lower portion of the enemy roster filled out more to provide more variety while restricting the player to shotgun/chaingun.
This would be really cool! I've heard that UDB's developers aren't interested because they don't think there'd be anyone who would want to do this, but I think it'd be an amazing thing to try out.
@ChrisJEPlace that phone is adorable!
@Dusk-Iv Thanks! I hadn't mentioned it here, but Antiquity is definitely targeting Doom Retro-specific features, though all of these are aesthetics-only (for now). The wad should work in anything that can run MBF21, but the dream is to make the Doom Retro analogue to Heartland.
Mancubus runs a mukbang YouTube channel
Here's a fun lil forum game: Where In The Hell Is Doomguy? Based on a screenshot, name the WAD and level Doomguy is in. Extra points if you can point out the particular location he's standing in the screenshot. Whoever gets the correct answer first gets to post a screenshot, and so on.
Let's start off kinda easy:
When you pick up a radsuit Doom shifts the PLAYPAL to value 14, which normally has a copy of the palette with all colors slightly tinted green. You can set this to be whatever you want, however...
I got a plan for replacing the radsuit with like, a pipe or a hookah, and you smoke trees to astral project into another dimension so you can navigate puzzles involving huge flames that otherwise instakill you.
Another thread got me thinking about Frequency Modulation Synthesis (or FM Synth) and how much I appreciate that specific sound. If you've ever played an old DOS game or a Sega Genesis game (and I bet many of you here have) then you know exactly what kind of sound I'm talking about: that specific type of synthetic sound that comes from the most primitive of waveforms, tweaked and modulated to make interesting sounds, then put all together to make something that sounds deep and interesting and yet completely detached from what we consider to be "real."
Yamaha, the world's largest manufacturer of musical equipment, is particularly tied deeply into this sound, as their family of sound chips were used very widely across personal computers, arcade game cabinets, video game consoles, and even real "big boy" synths. I'd like to share some of my favorite sounds to come from the family of Yamaha FM Synths with you all.
"Spinner" by Jesper Kyd, from Red Zone, on the Yamaha YM2612 "OPN2" (This song actually got reimagined a couple of times by Kyd over the years; you might recognize this as "Apocalypse" from Hitman: Blood Money.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9iWKzBe_zs
"Asteroid Dance 2" by Alexander Brandon, from Tyrian, on the Yamaha YM3812 "OPL2" (The legendary Alex Brandon's first professional gig, and imo it holds up against his most popular work to this day.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLiOL0GIOUU
"Wondering About My Loved Ones" by Bobby Prince, from Wolfenstein 3D, on the Yamaha YM3812 "OPL2" (I love how melancholy and wistful this is, and imo it really does sound best in FM Synth form. I haven't heard a single good cover or "glow-up" of this.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMzhzRi3YZE
"Hacking" by Ryu Takami, from EVE: Burst Error, on the Yamaha YM2608 "OPNA" (What a meaty bass riff! Love the Morse code-esque beeping rhythm, and that melody definitely sounds like Ace Attorney's progenitor.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl0KuwiJzbI
"Opening" by Ryu Umemoto, from Yu-No: A Girl Who Chants Love At The Bound Of This World, on the Yamaha YM2608 "OPNA" (Umemoto is imo the most criminally slept-on video game composer of all time; all of his work is incredible and nearly all of it remains unheard of in Western ears.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URWNqs7FEXA
"Intro" by either Tim Ries or Greg LoPiccolo, from System Shock, on the ESS Technology ESS1688 "OPL3 clone" (This particular version isn't rendered on a Yamaha chip but a workalike clone of one. It has its pecularities which up making this song sound even more brutally sharp and electronic.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZRuDOqIIBA
Anyone else in love with this sound? I'd love to hear what you guys have to share!
I like the concept of the "reward fight", basically a big battle where, instead of it being an ultimate test of skill, it's essentially an excuse for you to blow away as many enemies and do as much damage as you can without much in the way of difficulty. Something like Half Life 2's ending where you are practically invincible and are destroying everything you come across with the super gravity gun. Putting this alongside an actual ultimate fight in either order is pretty cool.
I tend to design for a shade of difficulty between HMP and UV and then balance from there. I consider UV to be properly done if I'm challenged by it, but am able to beat it with all monsters killed without any secrets collected (as I tend to put extra supplies in these). From there I'll submit a map to people for crit/feedback and adjust accordingly.
Lower difficulties see less enemies and some get replaced with lower-tier ones, though I do my best to make sure the replacements have similar roles. I'll never replace a pinky with a chaingunner, for example, but I may downgrade a revenant turret into an imp turret, or swap out a chaingunner for a shotgunner (if I do this though I try to be mindful of the change this makes to what ammo the player will have and adjust ammo pickups accordingly). Changing out a baron for a hell knight's an obvious one. Once I replaced a trio of revenants on UV with a single mancubus on HMP.
Generally speaking I tend to group enemies into these threat classes:
And these roles (note monsters don't necessarily fit into just one group and can depend on how they are deployed):
(You may notice the Revenant is in almost all of these groups; its popularity is imo derived from its unique versatility as a monster!)
Higher difficulties I'll use less generous health pickups. A soulsphere on HMP may be replaced with a set of three or four medikits, or a medikit might be downgraded to a stimpack. Sometimes I'll downgrade a megasphere to a soulsphere (again I try to be mindful of the fact that the player won't get a blue armor out of the deal there).
I tend not to touch armor, ammo pickups, or bonuses, though on HNTR if the situation calls for it I might replace a green armor with a blue armor. I tend to leave blue armor only for secrets or if a big fight is coming and I want to make sure the player is able to survive it.
That rules @Cuppykeks! Your stuff always has such awesome style.
Here's more WIP stuff for Antiquity. This is a new enemy based on the Nightmare Imp from Doom 64. Astral Imps here are tougher, faster, and hit harder. Also, they're a nice translucent blue. Basically an upgraded imp. Together with the officer (another new enemy that's basically an SS Nazi reskin with minor tweaks) and maybe another low-tier enemy I'd like to have the lower portion of the enemy roster filled out more to provide more variety while restricting the player to shotgun/chaingun.
I think angled weapons are fine myself as long as all weapons in the wad are such. A crosshair isn't really necessary imo because frankly, the point of doom's gameplay loop isn't precision aiming
I know that! I don't remember the name, but I do know it's like, one of the first maps ever created. Might've been the first one with a custom BSP tree or something?
Was it a particularly big spoon or like, a soup spoon?
Timmy Tencent's at it again. This time he's giving away free copies of the nightdive rerelease of Doom 64 until August 25th:
@peridot The Thing You Can't Defeat does this, actually, kinda.
When you pick up a radsuit Doom shifts the PLAYPAL to value 14, which normally has a copy of the palette with all colors slightly tinted green. You can set this to be whatever you want, however...
I got a plan for replacing the radsuit with like, a pipe or a hookah, and you smoke trees to astral project into another dimension so you can navigate puzzles involving huge flames that otherwise instakill you.
Diode Milliampere rules. I nearly soiled myself when the drop came on this track of his:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtYOZRarQDs
There's a lot of really cool stuff in the tracker/chiptune scene with people making music nowadays not explicitly for a video game. Savaged Regime probably knows the YM3812 better than the layout of his home:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqWR_RjvNzk
naruto2413, best known for "Artifical Intelligence Bomb" and more focused on PSG sound chips, also does some cool stuff with Yamaha chips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeXCoeVdM68
Here's one that's straight up a 1970's anime OP, complete with lyrics specifically about FM synth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQW14UX_Rn8
My girlfriend Noyemi is way into this shit too, specifically making stuff with Music Macro Languages like PMD (Programmable Music Driver). These are interesting because unlike composing music in sheet-like notation like in a tracker, it's described with macros and commands, like a markup language. This lets you do cool shit like have separate lengths for your rhythm, melody, etc., meaning shit can loop for a long time without actually sounding similar.
