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pcorf

Doomed Space Wars - The Darkest Force (1st Demo)

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Hello everybody.

After the release of Zone 300 I have started work on a new Star Wars-like episode for Doom 2 which requires a Zdoom compatible port. The plan is to have 10 space station themed levels and 1 secret level in the final release where you fight mostly Doom monsters. I am not in any rush. The plan is to release a demo for play testing every 2 levels I complete.

The first demo contains the first 2 maps, both which are large levels. I am also working on an all new Star Wars-like orchestral music written from scratch which will be in .mp3 format in this wad. Feedback on the gameplay is welcome.

Features

* Zdoom compatible maps (Doom in Hexen format)
* Reverb
* Playstation Doom SFX
* Original .mp3 music
* Basic Scripting
* Classic gameplay, not slaughter maps
* Semi linear design
* No items in front of switches
* All difficulty settings
* Designed for SP

DOWNLOAD WAD: http://www.paulcorfiatis.com/sp_demo1.wad (14.8mb)

Shots



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This is really good! I wasn't too sold on the N64 Doom sounds (at least, I think that's what they are?) when I started playing, but as I got used to the Dark Forces textures the sound effects helped make it a new theme. The layouts are pretty square, but use lots of interesting textures and do well from having all the height variation and layers (I'm surprised you're still going with the Boom style 3D bridges - can't you use 3D floors?). I enjoyed the gun play, although the constant "and now you're surrounded!" scenarios did mean that health felt too restricted, even with me find about 12 of the 17 secrets in the two maps. Good job on the orchestral music - kind of lends the whole thing a campy old sci-fi vibe, which is very enjoyable :)

Looking forwards to more of this!

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Phobus said:

This is really good! I wasn't too sold on the N64 Doom sounds (at least, I think that's what they are?) when I started playing, but as I got used to the Dark Forces textures the sound effects helped make it a new theme. The layouts are pretty square, but use lots of interesting textures and do well from having all the height variation and layers (I'm surprised you're still going with the Boom style 3D bridges - can't you use 3D floors?). I enjoyed the gun play, although the constant "and now you're surrounded!" scenarios did mean that health felt too restricted, even with me find about 12 of the 17 secrets in the two maps. Good job on the orchestral music - kind of lends the whole thing a campy old sci-fi vibe, which is very enjoyable :)

Looking forwards to more of this!


Thanks for your feedback. What I do is I design the maps in Boom format and then convert them to Zdoom in Hexen format afterwards. Glad to hear that you found this challenging as well. Having many height variations is important to the design, especially accurate room over room effects.

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You can use 3D floors in Boom format too, if you really want to.

		special 281 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, opaque)";
		special 289 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, opaque, no light effects)";
		special 300 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, 50% translucent, no light effects)";
		special 301 = "-- 3D Floor (swimmable, 50% translucent)";
		special 302 = "-- 3D Floor (non-solid, 50% translucent, foggy)";
		special 303 = "-- 3D Floor (non-solid, invisible)";
		special 304 = "-- 3D Floor (swimmable, opaque)";
		special 305 = "-- 3D Floor (non-solid, invisble)";
		special 306 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, invisible)";
		special 400 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, opaque)";
		special 401 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, opaque, monsters see-through)";
		special 402 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, opaque, shoot-through)";
		special 403 = "-- 3D Floor (swimmable, opaque)";
		special 404 = "-- 3D Floor (swimmable, 80% opaque)";
		special 405 = "-- 3D Floor (swimmable, 60% opaque)";
		special 406 = "-- 3D Floor (swimmable, 40% opaque)";
		special 407 = "-- 3D Floor (swimmable, 20% opaque)";
		special 408 = "-- 3D Floor (swimmable, invisible)";
		special 413 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, flat, opaque)";
		special 414 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, flat, 80% opaque)";
		special 415 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, flat, 60% opaque)";
		special 416 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, flat, 40% opaque)";
		special 417 = "-- 3D Floor (solid, flat, 20% opaque)";
Those were added to get some amount of compatibility with Doom Legacy and EDGE, so that's why there's some redundancy.


By the way, if you don't edit after converting to Hexen format, then you really don't need to convert them at all. ZDoom is perfectly able to do the conversion itself on-the-fly.

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I'm a big DF fan, so I adore the visuals. I don't mind the linear progression either, DF was pretty linear despite hiding it well with pseudofreedom of direction and a bit of sandboxing. That said, you built a lot of square rooms, which is not particularly offensive in Imperial bases, but you could easily just squeeze some of them into more varied shapes with irregularities in plain geometry and such. The same style would get old over more maps. Anyways, the whole theme of the wad looks properly "Doom meets DF", which is fine by me.

What I'm not a big fan of is the gameplay, because you go for faux-DF layouts, but place monsters in a fully Doomy way. Just... teleporters and pop-up monsters kinda ruin the style for me. As does SGing two HKs (that thing, btw, is uninspired even for classic dooming and you should, say, port a bunch of pigs in the player's back instead of the other HK). It's probably because I like DF so much, but I felt stuck in this uncanny valley where I wanted things to be either more like DF (in the gameplay sense... meaning fast projectile enemies instead of hitscan/slow projectiles), or less like, so the layout would be more favourable for classic monsters. Arachnotrons spraying from faraway sniper posts would feel more appropriate than the constant ambushing, even though DF had a fair share of that.

Have you thought about hacking monster behaviour a bit? Say, if caco projectiles were slightly faster, they'd be quite like the Imperial drones, heh. I'm not entirely sure about details, I just thought it'd help you set the mood better.

Oh and some spots felt pretty cruel on UV because of lack of health and hitscanner ambush. Like the circular room in map01 where a lot of chainers port in and you don't have cover or a stack of health to help you through. The black room just before the exit is similar, monsters are everywhere around the player and since there's not much armor, the basic health tends to just disappear, especially when revs and chainers cooperate, heh. Sorry to be so vague, but I think you should push your concept even farther. :)

EDIT: One thing that could make the big hitscanner ambushes feel more DFish would be, of course, to fight them with the invis sphere. The stormtrooper rifle accuracy, right?

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dew said:

I'm a big DF fan, so I adore the visuals. I don't mind the linear progression either, DF was pretty linear despite hiding it well with pseudofreedom of direction and a bit of sandboxing. That said, you built a lot of square rooms, which is not particularly offensive in Imperial bases, but you could easily just squeeze some of them into more varied shapes with irregularities in plain geometry and such. The same style would get old over more maps. Anyways, the whole theme of the wad looks properly "Doom meets DF", which is fine by me.

What I'm not a big fan of is the gameplay, because you go for faux-DF layouts, but place monsters in a fully Doomy way. Just... teleporters and pop-up monsters kinda ruin the style for me. As does SGing two HKs (that thing, btw, is uninspired even for classic dooming and you should, say, port a bunch of pigs in the player's back instead of the other HK). It's probably because I like DF so much, but I felt stuck in this uncanny valley where I wanted things to be either more like DF (in the gameplay sense... meaning fast projectile enemies instead of hitscan/slow projectiles), or less like, so the layout would be more favourable for classic monsters. Arachnotrons spraying from faraway sniper posts would feel more appropriate than the constant ambushing, even though DF had a fair share of that.

Have you thought about hacking monster behaviour a bit? Say, if caco projectiles were slightly faster, they'd be quite like the Imperial drones, heh. I'm not entirely sure about details, I just thought it'd help you set the mood better.

Oh and some spots felt pretty cruel on UV because of lack of health and hitscanner ambush. Like the circular room in map01 where a lot of chainers port in and you don't have cover or a stack of health to help you through. The black room just before the exit is similar, monsters are everywhere around the player and since there's not much armor, the basic health tends to just disappear, especially when revs and chainers cooperate, heh. Sorry to be so vague, but I think you should push your concept even farther. :)

EDIT: One thing that could make the big hitscanner ambushes feel more DFish would be, of course, to fight them with the invis sphere. The stormtrooper rifle accuracy, right?


Gameplay has always been my weak point. I never get it right, maybe I try too hard. I have not played much of Dark Forces, it is very different of course but I want to have more Doom-like GP but on a Space Station setting. I'll look at adding a bit more health and probably a green Armor or something in MAP01, might also replace some of the scanners with Imps. There are tons of secrets to help out.

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The visuals in this are really schmick, consistent themeing is an awesomely rare thing in Doom mapping, but you've achieved it really well here. The music I found to be pretty hilarious honestly, but also suiting to the outer space/sci-fi theme. That titlecard is straight outta '95, in a good way.

I had some trouble with map01 and map02, but maybe I was just playing poorly. The PSX/N64 sounds don't do anything for me personally (other than the shotgun sound effect - dat satasfying reload sound) but that doesn't matter much at all in the scope of things.

Looking forward to more, really nice stuff here pcorf! When this is finished up, I'll leave a more comprehensive review.

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Dark Forces did have 3D floors so I'm surprised this doesn't also, but it looks good all the same.

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Avoozl said:

Dark Forces did have 3D floors so I'm surprised this doesn't also, but it looks good all the same.


No intention for 3D floors. Sorry. I might consider changing the title of the wad, not in any rush to complete the next 8 levels as I have many upcoming duties in my life. Hoping to have a more open up design for the next map. I am 100% sure that Doomed Space Wars will definitely be my final personal release. After that I will only occasionally contribute to community projects.

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No items in front of switches? My pcorf prayers have been answered! ;D

Played Map01, probably the most grueling pcorf map I've ever played. Got tired of us calling your maps easy, 'ey? Yes, there are many things I can complain about on the gameplay front, given that about 80% of it was traps, and about 50% of those were dick traps. It's a good thing I play with frequent save/reload and can tolerate a high death count, I'm guessing at least 15, because once I got behind the 8-ball in health, it didn't take much to kill me sometimes. Also, being a keyboarder, I really have no skills at door camping, which this map called for on many occasions, so in the blue key room I just ran out there and tried to provoke infighting, a tricky thing with Chaingunners and Arachnotrons in my face. Probably 8 deaths in that room alone. It was the worst in the map for me.

And then there was that platforming bit. We keyboarders love running across platforms and making sudden 90-degree turns, it so perfectly matches our skillset. ;D And then, when we miraculously make it on the first try, a Revvie pops up out of a solid floor! IMO, this looks ridiculous, and it looked just as silly a couple rooms later when a Baron popped out. I've toyed with this myself, but I'm removing this trick from every map it appears in. No prob if it happens on liquid floors, but solid floors is a no-go for me. Anyway, I leaped off that platform when the Revvie appeared, and it took another eight tries before I made it again. ;D

I wasn't in love with the super-fast crushers.

On the other side of the ledger, this map looks amazing. I've played a fair bit of Dark Forces and Jedi Knight, and from the start the look was spot-on and impressively executed, complete with wonderfully bombastic music in the Star Wars vein. The design is not "Semi-linear," it is completely and utterly linear, which I don't mind, actually. There were a lot of showy rooms and the lighting was fantastic. I loved those dark grey textures. Where did they come from? I thought the look was utterly fantastic from beginning to end, and I really liked the height variation and the occasional bit of epic scale.

So I was able to beat the map on UV in spite of the tight ammo/health balance and my phenomenal absence of skill. Therefore, I think there's no reason to make gameplay easier, since better players than me will sail through this thing, but there's enough blood, guts 'n beer to keep them occupied. I may whiz through this again sometime on HMP or HNTR for a more exploration-oriented experience.

Speaking of which, I found only 3 secrets, the gimme Soulsphere, the Plasma Gun and the BFG. Given the Extreme Trap Terror design of the gameplay, I decided to play on continuous so I can keep the big weapons.

All in all, a great job, Paul. I do hope that you don't continue with this trap after trap approach in all the maps. It will get old after awhile. You say gameplay is always your weak point in design. Not sure I agree, but for the sake of argument, let's assume you're right. So how many playtesters do you have, and are they the right ones for helpful suggestions? Just a thought.

Looking forward to the rest. :)

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pcorf said:

This is getting hard. I truly hate doing the gameplay! .... Maybe I'll just have fun making the rest of the maps and think of it on a positive note.


If you really hate doing the gameplay, then with over 300 maps under your belt, that's a whole lotta hate! ;D The Nuclear Option, of course, is to just do the layouts and then hand the map over to a trusted gameplay master and let them do it, giving them permission to make physical modifications as necessary for the ideal mix.

But as I said, just because I found this map difficult on UV is no reason for you to worry about it. So I died 15 times, big deal. In fact, if I was you, I'd smile and chuckle over how many of my pelts you gained, because over the years, I've played something north of 30 pcorf maps, and you never came close to this death count in any of them. Not in 2002:ADO, not in any Death Tormention, not in any of the others I can't recall off the top of my head because it was years ago.

Keep in mind, I'm a terrible player and I know it. I have a combination of low skill and a kamikaze approach, so any somewhat difficult map should kill me at least 4 or 5 times. I don't even get really discouraged until the death count hits 25. After that, it's a bit much, and it means I should really play the map on HMP or HNTR, the latter of which is how I deal with Ribbiks maps, though I think I can probably handle some of them on HMP. But UV would be insane for me.

Let's take the blue key room and try to imagine how, say, Demon of The Well would deal with it. First, remember how I dealt with it. I ran straight out there and veered right, exposing myself to Chaingunners and Sergeants, in order to loop left behind an Arachnotron in hopes that stray bullets or buckshot would strike it and "let the infighting games begin." I can state with some pride that this highly intellectual strategy worked . . . on the ninth try. :D

DoTW, on the other hand, being a top-flight mouse player, would probably camp the door, popping out for a flick left, a flick right, to take out the small fry on the flanks. Once that was accomplished, he would quickly and efficiently deal with the Arachnotrons and the Revvie or two, and might not lose any health points as opposed to the bloody bits of flesh that got shot off of me. So the final death count would be SteveD:8, DoTW:Zero. DoTW would view that room as dead-easy.

The round room with the Baron guarding a switch killed me twice, first when all the hitscanners teleported in because, as dew noted, there's no cover, unless one alertly uses a Pinky as a meat shield (I seem to recall a couple Pinkies in the initial rush, might be wrong). Once that death happened, my strategy was to hit the switch and run like hell for the entrance door, which made that room a simple matter of killing the monsters as they got chokepointed at the door. Not a huge thrill, really. My second death in there came when I first hit the central switch and stood there like a jagoff while Caco fireballs slammed into me from the sides. I didn't even know the gasbags were there. ;D After that, killing them was easy.

Then you had a large room that went dark and unveiled several individual monster closets. Once again, I turned tail and ran out the way I came in, and just waited for the monsters so I could rocket them. Again, that trap ends up more as a jump-scare than a killer. I mean, I'm not gonna stand there in the dark and slug it out when I hear a Baron and my health is at 40% or so. And if you had made it a locked-room trap that just would have been dickish in the situation. There were at least 3 traps of this type in the map, so by the time I reached this one, I knew what to do.

I might have taken a different approach if I had already found the BFG or PG, but I only got those later when I saw the PG from the exit and went back on a secret-hunt. I really should have found that BFG earlier, since by the infamous standard of highly obtuse pcorf secrets, that one was a bit obvious. ;D So the biggest weapon I had for the dark room fight was the RL, like I'm gonna use that with a ton of meat closing on me. Nope, it's "Run away!" or, if you prefer, "Advance to the rear!"

Anyway, gameplay can be tuned in this map if you wanna tune it. If future maps in the series could have a more interconnected and flowy layout and more incidental combat, the ambushes can become more effective. The maps might also be even better looking than they are now.

I'm gonna play them all, of course, no matter what you do, though if Extreme Trap Terror remains the iron standard, I'll drop down to HNTR for a more casual playthrough.

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pcorf said:

When I originally play tested I kept on saving cos I kept on losing health fast and dying but now I think I have made a big improvement.


Just read your edit, and it sounds good, but I want to call attention to your above sentence. As a fellow mapper, I very firmly believe that it's not our job to create maps that everyone can FDA to the exit on UV. The ability to do that should be a mark of distinction for especially gifted players.

I play with frequent save/reload because I know I'm not such a player, which is why I was able to do what I did in your blue key room. I saved at the door. ;)

Just the same, some tuning was needed in this map. Glad you did some modifications, but don't abandon your tough-as-nails attitude. ;)

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Paul, I have a small proposal to spice some early stuff in map01 up. I mean, the later cruel ambushes... yeah, do what you said you were doing. But early on, you have that ledge where imps keep coming from the walls, just before you get YK. That would be pretty damn fun if the ledge was fenced and you wouldn't be able to just jump off, totally hamstringing whatever danger the imps posed. If there were slightly less imps, that could be a fun little scenario as they push you towards the wall and more and more appear from the side and you have to take them out quickly with the SG.

Then as you jump down to get the YK, you unleash a small army of weaklings. The two-forked attack is a good idea, but only the guys marching down the hall are fun in the "mow a mob of zombies down" sense. The guys coming from the side are seriously lamed down, because they spawn right next to you from one teledestination. So you just aim at one spot as more and more monsters respawn and you check the side if the other guys are close enough or what (they're not, they're too far for that and they have a big chance of infighting anyways, heh). Actually, it would be a much more interesting fight if you teleported the two HKs (from behind the YK door) both at once to scare the player and chase him down the hall towards the zombie mob.

What I have to point out as really fun was the punchout in the pitch black darkness with the revenants. Cool fight.

Oh, and when player runs over the pillars to get... was it blue key? 1) let the player heal up a little (I was very low at that point and no proper resources around), 2) sink the pillars behind him so he's forced to fight in the room. I just ran back on the pillars and neutered the ambush. It'd probably take a switch upstairs to raise the pillars again in case the player falls down before getting the key.

Oh and that perceived difficulty. Keep in mind you're the author and despite all effort, you won't be ever taken by surprise by some of the nasty ambushes, hehe.

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Thanks for all your suggestions people. Much appreciated.

I have already made some changes.

* Less Imps at the start after getting the yellow key. Groups of 3 instead of 4.
* Decreased the amount of hit scan teleporting enemies.
* Crushing ceilings now slower.
* Addition of some more health here and there.
* Unblocked monster lines around the blue key.
* Final room before exit, removed the Health and Armor bonusses, added a better hint to to the lite amp visor secret. Replaced the Revenants and Hell Knights with Demons and Imps. Just before the exit, removed the Revenant from the trap, added an elevator that raises up so if you fall off the ledge near the exit you don't have to backtrack. Might consider adding the final Revenant back.

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I have now decreased the monster ambushes in MAP02. I have an idea for MAP03 floating around in my head. The aim is to create something which has areas similar to Zone 300, MAP15 but its all indoors. I will also be adding more textures too.

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I love the space theme and star wars references. The Playstation Doom SFX are appropriate for the map. The textures kick-ass too. Are you looking for any mappers for this project?

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doomguy93 said:

I love the space theme and star wars references. The Playstation Doom SFX are appropriate for the map. The textures kick-ass too. Are you looking for any mappers for this project?


Thanks for your comments. Nope. I am not looking for any mappers, just me and my linear ways. Not in any hurry, just going to take my time with it. Before I start on MAP03 I might finish work on a tune up an older unreleased map of mine from back in 1996 if you remember Botero's Mansion.

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Update: Work on MAP03 has started. I say its about half complete as I type this.

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