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Xaser

Hacx 2.0 -- Hacxmas Alpha!

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That image is a link. I've put together a 5-map alpha to share for the holidays. What better way to celebrate Christmas than by celebrating Hacxmas? ;)

For the curious and easily-distracted, here's a quick gameplay video showing off one of the heavily-revamped maps n' new things:



We'll be making another big push for contributors soon, so keep your eyes peeled if you're interested in lending a hand. Until then, grab the alpha and start Hacxing away!

Big thanks to Cage for the spiffy art, as always. ;)

[EDIT] Requires ZDoom at the moment -- 2.0 Final will support EE, but not just yet. Probably should've been clearer at first. :P

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Cool stuff.

If mapping interest is strong, would you consider ditching the existing maps and creating all new ones? Just the raised limits and BOOM compatibility will allow for much nicer maps to be made. Plus it would prevent a kind of quality clash between the old and new maps.

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I don't think they should be ditched entirely. The existing maps can easily be brought up to modern standards.

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I might be interested in making a deathmatch map, but I would need to see the 'rules' or 'design plans' for the multiplayer side of things before I started. I'm not familiar with Eternity, I'm guessing new maps will have to be in Boom format to be supported by both ports?

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I've looked at the 1.2 resources. I hope you'll take advantage of the targeted ports' features to clean that mess up thoroughly. Everything is named after Doom II stuff that is completely different, so you have concrete textures that DB2 sorts as wood textures, or blood fall textures that are actually stone, and so on. Plenty of the PNAMES point to non-existent lumps because it's nearly a direct copy of the Doom II PNAMES lump and so on. It is very confusing.

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Snarboo said:

I don't think they should be ditched entirely. The existing maps can easily be brought up to modern standards.

This is what we're shooting for... mostly. A couple maps (a few cyberspace-y ones in particular) most certainly need to be scrapped and started from scratch. But if someone does create a really god from-scratch map in the vein of one of the lesser-quality originals, replacing the old one entirely will certainly be considered.

Gez said:

I've looked at the 1.2 resources. I hope you'll take advantage of the targeted ports' features to clean that mess up thoroughly.

I'm slowly working on the sprites as I mess with the actors, but textures are going to be a lot trickier, since renaming them would mean going through each map and changing things around. That is, unless you know of a batch utility that can replace textures in a map by name or if someone's willing to write one. Then again, I suppose something like that wouldn't be too hard for me to figure out myself, so I might try that.

Captain Toenail said:

I might be interested in making a deathmatch map, but I would need to see the 'rules' or 'design plans' for the multiplayer side of things before I started. I'm not familiar with Eternity, I'm guessing new maps will have to be in Boom format to be supported by both ports?

Boom format is correct, yes. I should've been a bit more specific in the first post, though what I really need to do is get the editing guidelines up on the info threads at Nostromo's forum, along with an updated DB config set. I'm too slow for anyone's own good. :(

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Xaser said:

That is, unless you know of a batch utility that can replace textures in a map by name or if someone's willing to write one. Then again, I suppose something like that wouldn't be too hard for me to figure out myself, so I might try that.

It is planned for SLADE3. Vermil requested that a while ago already.

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Xaser said:

I'm slowly working on the sprites as I mess with the actors, but textures are going to be a lot trickier, since renaming them would mean going through each map and changing things around. That is, unless you know of a batch utility that can replace textures in a map by name or if someone's willing to write one. Then again, I suppose something like that wouldn't be too hard for me to figure out myself, so I might try that.


I can do some quick utility coding if you need it. I got a whole library of Doom related functions that are just itching to be used.

I can also do mapping, if required (I work far better under direction, anyway).

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Mista_T said:

I can do some quick utility coding if you need it. I got a whole library of Doom related functions that are just itching to be used.

That would be awesome, actually. Just something that can perform a texture/flat search and replace on single-map wads would work fine. It would probably make things easier if one can provide a textfile for input instead of typing things manually each time.

I can also do mapping, if required (I work far better under direction, anyway).

You're more than welcome to join. I can provide a set of ideas and guidelines for a map if you'd like, if working 'under direction' is your thing.

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Cool. I've joined the dev forums. I've left you a PM. We shall continue correspondence there.

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Just a quick bumpdate: There's a work-in-progress build of the 2.0 IWAD up on the Hacx forums, if anyone's interested in checking out a gigantic new MAP19.

Also, I've done a bit of reworking of the Hacx weapons that I'm looking for feedback on. Feel free to grab 'em from here and see the thread for more information on what's changed and what's unfinished. Let me know what you think of 'em. ;)

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Whoop, update.


Been working on improving the facade of a certain building. Progress is being made on other fronts too, but it'd be best not to spoil too much at once. ;)

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A bit more work, on MAP02 this time.



There's also a gun update and a bunch of other graphical tweaks (including a really interesting tidbit -- a candidate for a new palette) as of late. Fun stuff, either way.

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So, looking at shots 1 and 3 the map was actually suppose to be some sort of underground town, like the map name implied, rather than the sewers of the original (i.e that the map name wasn't just a pun)?

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Thanks there. :)

Graf Zahl said:

Just out of curiosity: Are you planning to rework all the maps?

Yes, though not all as extensively as what you're seeing here (some, like MAP03 and MAP13, don't need much besides minor tweaks). Any broken or questionable areas are most certainly going to get some TLC, so feel free to suggest some areas for improvement (assuming the map isn't going to be ditched anyway a la MAP20 :P ). Maybe I should start a thread on that...

@Vermil: The map was supposed to be an underground shantytown, according to the original design docs, though the final design really lost focus of the idea. I'm thinking of maybe releasing the docs publicly, if anyone is curious about what good ol' Hacx was originally supposed to be.

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Big bumpdate for the holidays -- just released a Christmas alpha and an accompanying gameplay video, so mosey on back to the first post to check it out. :)

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Really liking the new palette. :D I feel that some of the color ranges are still a little too close to Doom's, but hey, at least you guys got a new palette anyway.

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Pretty good so far (I'm stuck on Map02 atm), though the sounds all sound a bit muted (i.e. lacking oomph) for some reason. But that might be GZDoom's sound system (the only source port I ever played the original HacX in was Doomsday).

I was a little confused at first as to wheter the fan vents on the floor would hurt me, as they appear to have no cover or grating over them (as it turns out they don't hurt you).

My only real nitpick would be the new Tazor attack:

The damage seemed very inconsistent and it seemed abit ott that those seemingly harmless bolts flew out of the explosion.

Also that the Androids attack with the same weapon was visually a fair bit different; you fire a single projectile straight forward, while they seem to fire two streams of the bits that fly off the explosion of your projectile.

I did find that a Phage would often try to use their short range jump from places they couldn't get at you (i.e. the edges of corners, which led to them getting stuck). Personally, I also thought that attack was too effetive in bad guy infighting.

A map specific thing as well; in Map01, sector 376, you can fire over the cubicle walls at the heads of the bad guys. Also, thing 167 is inside the solid pillar.

On Map02, you can fall through the left and right sides of the fake 3d bridge above the second river of water in the final room and get stuck (the exit is down the first river).

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Awesome, I was just wondering about this project's progress the other day while talking with Cage. Downloading the alpha now and I'll be sure to give it a spin soon.

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Something doesn't make sense to me here, the map format is Boom and your using Decorate, Mapinfo etc. It doesn't make sense to me to use Boom format here you should be using ZDoom UDMF. I checked out the maps and they seem more of an advanced style Mapset that would benefit from an extended Map format and better lump management/structure.

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Pottus said:

It doesn't make sense to me to use Boom format here you should be using ZDoom UDMF.

They're planning on making it Eternity-compatible later.

If they keep the Boom format, it means all they need to do is write EDF/EMAPINFO translations of the DECORATE/ZMAPINFO code. It depends only on them. If they adopt UDMF, it means that in addition they'll have to wait for EE to get UDMF support, and this gets outside of their control.

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Gez said:

They're planning on making it Eternity-compatible later.

If they keep the Boom format, it means all they need to do is write EDF/EMAPINFO translations of the DECORATE/ZMAPINFO code. It depends only on them. If they adopt UDMF, it means that in addition they'll have to wait for EE to get UDMF support, and this gets outside of their control.


Thanks for clarifying that.

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