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kildeth

NOVA: The Birth - v1.1 release now on idGames!

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Looks like everything is going well for you lot, unfortunately though I have terrible news. My laptop (with Sensorium near-completion) is broken, and I am also in the process of packing and shifting to a new home which means it won't be convenient to get my laptop fixed within the next few weeks. This also affects my ability to playtest and look at other contributions as well as submit my map.

A few pages back I submitted a version of Sensorium that wasn't far from where the map is at now. At this point I'm ok with it if someone else picks it up and completes it as I'm sure you'll want to see its inclusion in the idgames upload of Nova. Just remember to credit Alwaysdoomed as well as I with the map's creation as he was the one who sketched out the original map concept.

I don't know how much I'll be able to contribute to the project in the following weeks, so I'm hoping you can all work as a team to bring this project to a finish or close enough to it in the time being or until I can work with you all properly again. I'm sorry for the inconvienience of all this but I'm sure you guys can manage it.

I'll be leaving dobugabumaru and EvilNed (is he still around?) in charge of Nova for the time being until I can get things sorted as they helped handle the project well when I was struggling with it before. I hope this is ok with them.

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Understood kildeth. I can empathize with your situation... sucks when you lose a lot of good progress on a map; makes you never want to look at it in Doombuilder again sometimes. I'll take up compiling the next alpha in your place.

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(double posting for the small bump)

Upon looking back on the updated maps since the alpha, I am in need of just the latest version of cannoball's Power Core. Thank you everyone else for keeping your maps & midi links available as it was pretty quick to comb through. Here's our current maplist.

MAP01 Outpost
MAP02 Administration Center
MAP03 Water Treatment Plant
MAP04 Factory Factor
MAP05 Hazard Facility
MAP06 Sewage Processing
MAP07 Service Station Sick
MAP08 Suspend
MAP09 Hell's Furnace
MAP10 Phobus Anomaly
MAP11 [EMPTY] (previously Roundtable)
MAP12 Teleportarium
MAP13 Warehouse District
MAP14 Ring of Gyges
MAP15 The Prisoner
MAP16 Man Cub Up
MAP17 Power Core
MAP18 Bad Blood
MAP19 Sewer City
MAP20 Extorta Nova
MAP31 Iron Exuviae

===Unassigned maps===

joe-ilya's BETA BASE
mrthejoshmon's COMPOUND
mouldy's THE SEVENTH CIRCLE
Arjak's CASTLE BLOODLETTING
mrthejoshmon's INCUBATOR
(Download all 5 here)

===Nearly finished maps===

dobugabumaru's IMMUNDUM
Paul D's IMMATERIUM
moudly's stygian labyrinth MAP
kildeth's SENSORIUM

This brings us to a total of 29 maps hopefully by the end of the month. Perfectly missing from those slots is a MAP30 (since telefragging is not accounted for in any map) and MAP32 (held by MajorRawne for a long time until he went mysteriously silent). I threw this idea out before for slaughterfest, but I think it would be neat to have MAP30 be a series of small areas a few of us map/work on (ie, I work on a section, moudly works on a section, EvilNed works on a section, cannonball, etc). That way we could do something special for the final showdown that wouldn't be as trite as another IoS elevator spam fight, and would showcase each of our talents in small bursts. And MAP32 will inevitably be filled by someone, I don't think we need to worry (just like MAP11's missing slot). Does this sound good?

The next order of business, which is quite a bit more tricky, is maplist. We have four more maps (Compound, Castle Bloodletting, Incubator and Immundum) which are E2 material (although Compound and Inc could fit in E1) which makes it somewhat difficult to determine what order to place the maps in, or how to introduce hell. Here is a maplist I contemplated while downloading and arranging the wads.

MAP01 Outpost
MAP02 Administration Center
MAP03 Water Treatment Plant
MAP04 Factory Factor
MAP05 Hazard Facility
MAP06 Sewage Processing
MAP07 Service Station Sick
MAP08 Compound
MAP09 Suspend
MAP10 Hell's Furnace
MAP11 Phobus Anomaly
MAP12 Incubator
MAP13 Warehouse District
MAP14 Ring of Gyges
MAP15 The Prisoner

MAP31 Iron Exuviae
MAP32 whatever map goes here

MAP16 Man Cub Up
MAP17 Teleportarium
MAP18 Castle Bloodletting
MAP19 Sewer City
MAP20 Immundum
MAP21 Bad Blood
MAP22 Beta Base
MAP23 Power Core
MAP24 Immaterium
MAP25 Extorta Nova
MAP26 Sensorium, mouldy's map, or additional hell map
MAP27 Sensorium, moudly's map, or additional hell map
MAP28 Sensorium, moudly's map, or additional hell map
MAP29 The Seventh Circle
MAP30 Big collab

Only possible issue with this is that there's no real hell intro as so many E2 maps push it all the way to basically MAP24, and it backloads mouldy's efforts into the final episode. Any of these are open to being shuffled around IMO, and I'm interested in suggestions. Also cannonball, if you could add a secret exit to Prisoner that be great as it fits very well in the middle of the megawad IMO (unless someone opposes this?)

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I like the idea of a collab map 30, maybe you could have a central starting hub room with portals to the different mapper's sections, that way people can do what they want without it being too jarringly different. A bit like scythe 2 map 30 I guess.

I've not played all of the maps so can't comment on the map list, but I'm fine with where mine are.

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For the IoS map we should have somthing like a unreachable IoS splurting out enemies in a huge arena that contains multiple switches that should be pressed to open doors that eventualy leads to another switch that crushes the IoS... Or is that too boring?

(P.S I like the idea of my maps being E1)

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Late reporting in but there was nothing I could do about that.
Maps done except the prisoner of course if that map remains in said map slot (map15), I would work a secret exit in there somehow.
Btw I would be more than happy to make a section for map30, I think it's a nice idea.

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Cool, with you guys on board I'm sure the level will turn out good enough. I'm eager to get working on it in order to take a break from my other map, so I guess we can start getting specifics out of the way.

I think the best way to tackle this is to have a central hub room like mouldy suggested, with our names tagged next to each of the portals in the automap. I'd start work on it today, but in order to know the size and of the hub and how many gateways we'll have, I need to know how many people are thinking of contributing. So far we have:

- me
- mouldy
- cannonball
- possibly mrthejoshmon?

I was thinking of making the hub pentagram shaped and to do that we'd need one more person. An IoS finale isn't a bad idea to put in, and I like the general idea mrthejoshmon is putting forward, but it'll take a lot more thought and work on that end. Finally, in order to make it completely balanced, the hub will feature all weapons with a touch of ammo, so when considering your map just remember the player will be fully armed.

EDIT: And I'll have the start be a GR lift for trap purposes.

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dobugabumaru said:

- possibly mrthejoshmon?

Unfortunetly I have no PC right now and I am actualy operating off of an Xbox, but with some hope I may get it back soon and I may be able to help, but I wouldn't count on it :(

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Would it be a case of each mapper taking it in turns to do their bit, or is it possible to copy and paste from one map to another?

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We could do the copy and paste, only thing I'm worried about is the tagged numbers, as I don't know how to import a map but push each number up to an unused one. Maybe you could start mapping and just claim tags 50-100 or whatever. Otherwise it should be fine to put in since the player will be teleporting into each area anyway.

Ideally too, I'd like the areas to be distinct from one another in theme, so if you're starting to map at least give a heads up. For instance, the area I'm planning is going to work on is going to be a maze-like cave using white textures, water, and gstone. I don't need a big summary, I just want to make sure people aren't doing the same thing. With mrthejoshmon out, we still have two spots open for anyone that wants to join in.

The goal in each area will be to get to a teleporter that'll take the player to a room I'll devise (if no one minds) where they just hit a switch that will lower a MARBFACE, correlating to one of the faces in the hub that'll lead to the final battle. When they go back through the teleporter they'll enter back into the hub. Thus, since MARBFACE is going to be the cornerstone texture of the map, remember to use it wisely to indicate fights or to decorate ominous areas.

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Good news everyone! I have got my old computer working again and so I might still be able to make maps and playtest if I can get Doom set up on it, which means I won't be out of the project.

In the meantime though, dobugabumaru is still in charge and appears to be doing a great job at it (big thanks!) and I am still giving up my map Sensorium because, to be honest, I was running out of inspiration for it anyway and felt like I was simply messing with the map towards the end rather than improving it. I really think it needs to be looked upon with fresh eyes before it can be called a complete and polished level.

The link to Sensorium here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?itlj7o2q1zm5l83
And its associated MIDI here:
http://www.free-midi.org/midi1/e/epica-sensorium.mid

I would also like to join in on MAP30 if I can, even if I just make a small area. We'll see how things go.

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Love what mouldy has done with my maps architectures so far, can't wait to see the finished version.

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I'm scheduling a new status report for August 1st. It won't be anymore formal than the one a few days ago, basically a just time to share screenshots/downloads and discuss maps so we can see what everyone is up to.

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dobugabumaru said:

Came up with a rough draft of an IoS battle. Made it up in about 10 minutes, but could be fun, I dunno.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3k4ocajhih96k48


Ha, that is quite mental, I like that. Although the invisible ground does my eyes in a bit, especially since you have to keep moving. I would need to have at least some ground there to prevent a headache..

We should probably agree on what size the individual bits should be so they are roughly the same size/take the same time. Don't think they would need to be epic adventures, seeing as its the last map.

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dobugabumaru said:

Came up with a rough draft of an IoS battle. Made it up in about 10 minutes, but could be fun, I dunno.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3k4ocajhih96k48

massive lols this is so similar to the map I made for "lets make a mad megawad" project
We would need a space style sky though to pull it off as the sky cut off would be an eyesore

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gave this a try just now, the quality of the maps is surprisingly high considering that it is (was planned as?) a beginner project.

some stuff i found - sorry, don't remember the map numbers, but they are posted chronologically. if they are fixed already, ignore this:

texture misalignments

wrong ceiling texture? don't remember there being a lower ceiling effect or anything.

same map, minor texture misalignments near the alcoves (the ones where there's a secret one with ammo etc.)

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another one
the "secret in the secret" door also has a slightly misaligned texture. opened it before making the screenshot, unfortunately.
that lighting effect looks kinda weird, idk.
something's wrong with the masked walls here, they move along with the player a bit (missing lower textures or something?)
misaligned texture
two more, they are on opposite sides of each other.
these lines should probably be hidden.

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more stuff that should be hidden.
non-unpegged doortrak
height difference oversight
brutal slime trail
the insides of the second moving platforms don't have textures
another non-unpegged doortrak iirc

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Damn, I'm too late to contribute to this. Oh well, maybe if there's a NOVA 2.0 in the making...

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Hurricyclone said:

Damn, I'm too late to contribute to this. Oh well, maybe if there's a NOVA 2.0 in the making...


As Paul D noted, we have a Hell map and MAP32 slot still open, and we encourage newer users to try and map. So go ahead!

As for the arenas for MAP30, I'm thinking as long as they fit in a 4000x4000 box we'll be fine. It doesn't have to be that big, but it shouldn't be larger than that ideally. We might have to compare early drafts just to make sure no one is making anything extensively longer. I'm thinking 5-8 minutes for each area would put the map total at about 30-40 minutes when they enter the final battle, which seems like a suitable size for the finale. Other thing I might do is reorganize maps so that we don't have 7th Circle before this beast, so no one gets exhausted at the end (which would be leave the perfect spot for a cool breather map *hinthint* Hurricyclone *nudgenudge*)

For the finale I'd be fine with making it into an actual arena, I just put the sky in because I was lazy and was hoping it'd look good (though as cb states we need a good repeating background). It might be fun to play with the geometry too, like putting lava on the outside and an elevated hill behind the tower for the player to run up.

Finally, don't be afraid to make your area merciless. NOVA is right on track to having a Scythe-oriented difficulty curve.

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dobugabumaru said:

As Paul D noted, we have a Hell map and MAP32 slot still open, and we encourage newer users to try and map. So go ahead!


Heh, my intended map crosses between a silver themed base to a hellish type area and back. Mostly shotgun action as well. So far I have two silver sections (with computers and other electronics connected with wires!), and one hellish area (of course with lava and imps). I plan to have two more hellish areas and maybe even a hard final area as well. Should have medium difficulty. Also should have pics soon.

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dobugabumaru said:

Finally, don't be afraid to make your area merciless. NOVA is right on track to having a Scythe-oriented difficulty curve.


How merciless :P
@hurricyclone, those pics remind me of dimensions of time, so much silver :)

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Hurricyclone said:

Pics now!


I like the stitch marks along the floor for the silver rooms, but so far they look pretty empty.

cannonball said:

How merciless :P


Let's just say we can worry about making it easier during playtesting ;) Of course don't make it stupid hard but I'm hoping that we can provide a challenge for no matter who plays it.

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dobugabumaru said

I like the stitch marks along the floor for the silver rooms


Those aren't stitch marks, they're wire cords on the floor. I tried to make the electronic things seem logical by having cords leading somewhere (too bad there's no plug texture here).

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