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Joshy

Surge - 17 levels Boom mapset- final version released (Idgames Link is up!)

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Hi all,
Was working on a megawad, but due to real-life, university, I have decided to quit mapping for good (not to say I won't map ever again though, maybe in a few years?) and also stopped the megawad which I had finished 17 maps. I start university again soon, am in my third year, and I'd very much like to get into Honours as well. Doom mapping as a hobby takes up a lot of time and it's also time I have another hobby that keeps me away from the computer and isn't as time-consuming.. I have no regrets with all the projects I've done and I don't think I have the need to do any more. I can say though I am particularly proud with my additions to Essel's Back to SaturnX project, especially my magnum opus Poison Ivy map, so definitely check these out when the project is released!

Back to the project.. Basically, Surge was intended to be another Scythe megawad, a Boom-compatible short and sweet (shorter than Speed of Doom, and certainly not as much emphasis on the looks and more on the flow, etc). I have made up to 17 maps with an incomplete barebone layout of Map18 within a month.

So, in short:

17 maps, no difficulty settings, scythe-like maps, boom-compatible. Theme goes like this: Destroyed-hell with dark sky > Black bricks hell > Tech bases (kinda like the reverse, after destroying hell, you find your way out scenario). Hope the first 17 maps (well the first one is kinda shitty, but the rest) was worth working on, and is enjoyable for you as it was for me.

Final version: http://www.mediafire.com/?9nuwo51bnj8jzmb
Idgames Link: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?id=16720

Tested with prboom-plus.

CREDITS:
Textures- same one from Speed of Doom, with some additional textures from Esselfortium
Ralphis for fixing up my horrid texture-pack bug.
Dew for playtesting and advice.

I think that's about it. Enjoy!

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Crap, for some reason, the player start of Map10 changed back to the voodoo doll. Blah. Fixing this ASAP.

EDIT: Fixed it, updated the link in OP.

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You'll be baaaaack

Thank you for releasing what you have done. Did you manage to get any work done for Necromantic Thirst?

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the first skullswitch on MAP03 is reachable without having to use the stairs to get on the cliff. That's no big deal though. Gonna finish playing through this tomorrow. So far so good :)

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kmxexii said:

Did you manage to get any work done for Necromantic Thirst?

I did start the map, the layout is mostly done, although I may have to ask Wilou or others to finish it off on my behalf. Hopefully it'll be okay!

40oz said:

the first skullswitch on MAP03 is reachable without having to use the stairs to get on the cliff.

Good catch, that was intentional ;-).

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Awesome news about Surge, a pity your quitting mapping, I was secretly planning on doing a collab with you for RoD because I think we make an excellent team, but at the same time I really hear you on the Doom consuming real life thing. :P

Hope to see you come back at some point, man. :)

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I know how you feel - particularly about wanting to get away from the computer. I'd be surprised if you didn't come back to it sooner or later, given how heavy you've been on mapping in the last few years :P

I'll be sure to check this out at some point - probably after the /idgames release.

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Had a flick through a few maps, indeed very Scythe-like. I'll give it a good play later on as it looks to be fun. :)

DeathevokatioN said:

RoD


RoD? Is there a DeathevokatioN project in the works that I've missed? :D

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Thanks guys. :)

And, good stuff Memfis; I can never trust myself to release something without having the public test it out :P I'll get these fixed.

As for the midis, they were quickly put together.

Map01- U2 Love is Blindness MIDI
Map02- U2 Ultraviolet (Light My Way)
Map03- Music from Hellcore by Slayer I think?
Map04- TNT Map14
Map05- Heretic E1M4 I think?
Map06- Hexen Grove map?
Map07- Shawn's got the gun
Map08- ROTT You're dead?
Map09- Doom E1M5
Map10- SOD's Map29 by James Paddock
Map11- SOD's Map1 by Stuart Rynn
Map12- SOD's Map3 by Stuart Rynn
Map13- AV's Map1, don't know where it's from originally
Map14- U2 Love and Peace or Else (Yes I am a U2 fanboy)
Map15- Doom E1M4
Map16- SOD's Map9 by Stuart Rynn
Map17- Doom2's Map9

Hope this helped!

DeathevokatioN
Awesome news about Surge, a pity your quitting mapping, I was secretly planning on doing a collab with you for RoD because I think we make an excellent team, but at the same time I really hear you on the Doom consuming real life thing. :P

Hope to see you come back at some point, man. :)

Thanks bud, I would have not hesitated to do that collab map with you, just a real pity it's a bad time right now. I really hope the project's going along really well though, and I must say I am really looking forward to playing your and Darkreaver's maps :-)

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More stuff:

map14 - cyberdemon easily gets stuck, just shoot a few rockets at him and it's done. Maybe add "block monster" flag to the lines surrounding him?

map15 - Medikit (thing 192) doesn't move with the lift: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/689/doom667.jpg/

My FDA pack - http://speedy.sh/wrY57/surge-mem-FDA.zip
Last two demos should give you a good (or evil!) laugh. :) Some excellent gameplay situations here.

map01 - Sky cut-off looks kinda silly, maybe add rocks or something here? - http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/407/doom669.jpg/

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Damn, you are one of the best mappers around there for me and it's sad to see you going. Best wishes for your projects, please don't forget us if in a few years you have time on your hands :-)

This mapset is a pretty gift. I have yet to test it though.

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K!r4 said:

Damn, you are one of the best mappers around there for me and it's sad to see you going.

This. If Erik Alm had a spiritual son, you'd be that guy...

Good luck for Uni / real life stuff :)
I'll make sure to play Surge very soon.

Edit : And of course it will be okay for us to finish your NT map, thanks again. :)
We'll contact you about that soon as well.

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The official definition of megawad for the idgames archive is "15 levels or more", so it is a megawad, even if it doesn't have the full 32 maps allotment from Doom II.

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FDA, up to map16. I used IDDT sometimes and gamma level 4 all the time after a while, as I got stuck too often.

It felt like the way it's intended to play is running forward like a maniac. Hanging back and shooting stuff, I often found myself with an empty level and keys to collect, and several maps are made much easier if you skip through everything.

Of course, to an extent this is the kind of criticism someone could make about Scythe as well, so whether this is a flaw or good design is a matter of taste. That said, Scythe was more nuanced and didn't frontload all the meat of the level like this, while it was clear the intent was also speedrunning there's several ways of playing it differently, whereas here it clearly felt I was stepping off the railroad tracks.

Admittedly, using Scythe as a standard isn't very fair. Overall, Surge is very polished with some memorable scenes in there. I liked the mancubus corridor fight in particular. Thumbs up. :)

I believe there was a revenant stuck in a pillar/voidspace in one of the early maps during my playthrough, can't remember which.

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Verified and completed songlist:

Map01 (D_RUNNIN) - Love is Blindness [U2]
Map02 (D_STALKS) - Ultraviolet (Light My Way) [U2]
Map03 (D_COUNTD) - CBLOOD7 [Blood]
Map04 (D_BETWEE) - Cold Subtleness [TNT Evilution MAP14]
Map05 (D_DOOM) - The Guard Tower [Heretic E1M4]
Map06 (D_THE_DA) - Sacred Grove [Hexen]
Map07 (D_SHAWN) - Shawn's got the shotgun [Doom II MAP07]
Map08 (D_DDTBLU) - You Suck [ROTT]
Map09 (D_IN_CIT) - Suspense [Doom E1M5]
Map10 (D_DEAD) - Unknown Organism [Speed of Doom MAP29 by James Paddock]
Map11 (D_STLKS2) - Surface [Speed of Doom MAP01 by Stuart Rynn]
Map12 (D_THEDA2) - Cold Wires [Speed of Doom MAP03 by Stuart Rynn]
Map13 (D_DOOM2) - CARMID03 [Carmageddon]
Map14 (D_DDTBL2) - Love and Peace or Else [U2]
Map15 (D_RUNNI2) - Kitchen Ace (And Taking Names) [Doom E1M4]
Map16 (D_DEAD2) - Core [Speed of Doom MAP09 by Stuart Rynn]
Map17 (D_STLKS3) - Into Sandy's City [Doom II MAP09]

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Phml said:

Stuff

Thanks for your comments :)

I actually agree with those differences you mentioned between Surge and Scythe. If there was an excuse, it's pretty much my way of creating gameplay and the mapset was made in mind the player should surge through the maps rather than holding back too much. Surge isn't so much different to Speed of Doom really, with all the chaos that ensue, although it's a LOT easier. I realised I never really did make easy maps so it was an exercise in making easy ones, although I guess I'm not so good at it! :P I was planning to make some quite hard ones with the later maps but unfortunately that won't happen.

Gez said:

Verified and completed songlist:

Wow, nice job with the detailed listing! Thanks for that :)

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Surge isn't so much different to Speed of Doom really, with all the chaos that ensue, although it's a LOT easier. I realised I never really did make easy maps so it was an exercise in making easy ones, although I guess I'm not so good at it!


You know, on that point it's a homerun. I ought to have mentioned this earlier but my first thoughts playing this was "this is like SOD, without the ball-crushing difficulty" ; and honestly, I was a bit overwhelmed by your maps in SOD, whereas here, nitpicks or not, I did play this one full hour in a row. :)

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dunno if my opinion is needed when i'm already mentioned in the credits, but i second phml... the wad works best when you play along and follow where the map is trying to herd you - and fast. in SoD that'd result in getting crushed between mancos and archviles or something, here it's just demons and HKs... and it's fun. :)

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This was non stop from the start. No time for a breather ! ;)

My findings ...

I think all secrets were clearly visible on the automap.

map 01 ...

1. Lines 210/221 etc. would make more sense with the texture BFALL1 - OR - have sector 46 etc. have the flat RROCK01.

map 03 ...

1. The skullswitch - line 169 can also be activated from sector 21 near line 82.
2. For ports that support mouselook, sector 174 and nearby, would look better with the flat LAVA1 - OR - not have LFALL1 on line 1482 etc.

map 04 ...

1. Sector 100 doesn't do damage - lava.

map 06 ...

Line 1240 is causing unclosed sectors. Removing it will fix.

map 08 ...

Line 1197 etc. is tagged but no corresponding sector tag.


map 09 ...

1. I admit to hating the cyberdemon at sector 51.
2. T111 - revenant - is stuck at line 445. Phml has made reference to this.

map 14 ...

I thought that being forced to pick up the berserk at the start was a bit annoying.

Cheers.

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Impressive mapset. Visuals were inconsistent across the board alternating between simple and complex architecture, but it more than makes up for that in game play.

Standout maps for me were map06 and map11. I loved the quick, intense fights in those levels. The brevity of the levels are a plus for me. I also liked the Jenesis moments where you reach a previously unreachable ledge, get a key or hit a switch, and drop right down into a previously explored area only to walk to the other side to open a door with the former key/switch only to walk into another unexplored area( HuffPuff ). Not to much of those, but its nice when it happens.

I had to skip half of map03. Didn't know where to go after I got the blue key.

Here are some bugs I found...
1-
map03 near the start, shows up in both zdoom and prboom. Node problem?
2-map04, side chamber, blood pool, you can see a grey tex below in the monster holding floor sector.
3-map05, stuck rev (as previously mentioned)
4-map13, stuck munc at the back of hallway trap.

Apart from that, I must ask about the track from map13. Its from the game Carmageddon right? Which track exactly? Couldn't find it on you tube. Its just that its all kinds of awesome!

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fiend-o-hell said:

Apart from that, I must ask about the track from map13. Its from the game Carmageddon right? Which track exactly? Couldn't find it on you tube. Its just that its all kinds of awesome!

As I posted above, it's CARMID03.

Carmageddon didn't make use of its MIDI files. They were just leftover from development. Presumably, the songs you can find on Youtube are from the actual in-game soundtrack; not the unused MIDIs they forgot to delete.

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There is an issue with map 15 for at least (g)zdoom and Risen3D users. When player hits the switch at line 950, the player just restarts map 15.

This is easily fixed by just removing the player 1 start at sector 123.

Is there any particular reason why T6 is there ?

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Thanks for the bugs reports.

hawkwind said:

There is an issue with map 15 for at least (g)zdoom and Risen3D users. When player hits the switch at line 950, the player just restarts map 15.

This is easily fixed by just removing the player 1 start at sector 123.

Is there any particular reason why T6 is there ?

That's a weird bug, hah. It was to kill the player instantly, but guess it's redundant with all the barrels as well. :P

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Played up till Map08, really awesome stuff so far. :)

Is there a specific comp level I should be playing because after killing the mancubi and the arachnotrons on Map07 the platform didn't raise high enough for me to reach the exit.

And I have no clue how to lower the yellow key on Map08.

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Yes, "Boom" implies -complevel 9. If a map is described as "Boom-compatible" and doesn't work with -complevel 9, you probably have a map error to report. Note that the differences between Boom and vanilla are not just in terms of special linedefs - some other things simply work differently, which can break maps designed for one format if they are played with the other's behaviour.

BTW, there are already some wads called Surge. Of course, you don't have to avoid naming confusion, but in case you're not aware of this, I thought it was worth mentioning.

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