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Albertoni

Possible Doom walking simulator community project - Discussion and ideas

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After seeing this post by Linguica and a recent thread by a now-banned user called Megasphere, the idea of a walking simulator was floating in the back of my mind.

First of all, I already know this is kinda dumb. That's not the point. The point is, can we make something that's moderately fun while having little to no things to shoot?

Now this is the part I want feedback on:
My idea is for something between Hexen and Yume Nikki. A central hub with more or less a dozen entrances to separate "dreams" or worlds. Each of those has a very distinct theme, ranging from the inside of a mansion to something like void.wad to a street of a small countryside town to a nightmare deep in hell. In each of those, which are somewhat similar in concept to MAP13: Downtown (lots of rooms which are ultimately useless to complete the map, but pleasant to finish/solve), you walk around, admiring the scenery and maybe solving a few puzzles, preferably with heavy scripting (I can make scripts if needed).

  • Each level will have a button that does something to the main hub, and when all are pressed, you can proceed to the end of the game.
  • Each level can also have a powerup that allows the player to get to new places: A pistol with infinite ammo, jumping, crouching, a modified plasma rifle that shoots water so you can "kill" blocking fire things in the hell levels... And some useless ones like a non-blocking Lost Soul that follows you everywhere.
  • Combat would be non-existant. Maybe you could have to dodge revenant rockets as you run through an open area, maybe you might find a bunch of cyberdemons firing in straight lines and you need to weave through the rockets as you advance... Stuff like CyberDreams, you know.
  • Obviously, since the biggest point of the thing would be aesthetics, this would target GZDoom. Don't know which version, but the last stable one should be a good start, right?
  • --------------------
  • Question time:
  • What are good limits for adding new textures? I don't want to stifle people's creativity but also don't want to end up with a 300MB download.
  • What are some good, surreal, dream-like or plain weird wads? I know of void.wad, gravity.wad, imposs.wad... Those 3 are the kind of aesthetics we'd be aiming for. The gameplay of The Sky May Be also fits, but the visuals... Not so much.
  • Would it be better to have a few big maps where 2 or more mappers work in tandem in a single map, or smaller and more plentiful maps?
  • Would a time limit of a year or two be good enough? I don't want this to become another Mordeth, but at the same time I know how making really good maps takes a lot of time. Hell, I took a year to make 4 maps for my first WAD.
I know this is a bit vague for now, but I only started to seriously think on how it could work this afternoon and realized it's too much work for one person to undertake.

Finally, don't worry. I'll admit I'm inexperienced within the Doomworld community, but I've ran a few community projects in other forums, and I definitely know my way around ACS and the insides of a WAD. I won't disappear from this unless I get hit by a literal or metaphorical bus. Even if for some reason I get absolutely displeased by the whole community, I'll see this to the end or find a trustful replacement before disappearing.

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Albertoni said:

My idea is for something between Hexen and Yume Nikki

Creating something really abstract and weird/psychedelic? Huh. Sounds interesting.
Limiting about textures? No way...
when deadline? I don't know. Year can be acceptable.
Plus some monsters must be looks different in that world if you thought about it.
Anyway I will take a part but a little later... Mapping is quite annoying stuff.

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I'm down for this 100%- I might not be able to make much for things...but I'm hoping it becomes a thing!

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It's funny enough that I'm working on something along these lines, but with combat. Exploration based on small-scale levels interconnected via a hub with only a loose goal as you progress. And a snazzy soundtrack I'm shamelessly and legally-questionably adding from a semi-obscure band I like.



My suggestion is that if you're going to focus on a non-combative approach, interactivity, aesthetics, and MUSIC SELECTION are pivotal. Phocas Island comes to mind long before surreal maps. Also, keep map/"area" size moderate unless you want very well explained direction in your map - as massive sprawling switch/item hunts become tedious super fast (and can also impede performance on lesser computers.)

Secondly, a narrative is key in some aspect. You obviously don't need to write a Pulitzer, but there needs to be some kind of direction or notion of why you're walking around doin' the thangs you do. Even if it's vague.

Ambiance, custom sound effects/environments, colored lighting, fog - are also good ideas if you're working with gzDoom.

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Doom14 said:

My suggestion is that if you're going to focus on a non-combative approach, interactivity, aesthetics, and MUSIC SELECTION are pivotal.

This is obvious, at least to me, but thanks for saying it.

I was aiming for minimalistic or more ambient music, as that's easier to fit.
As for interactivity, I already had plans for a zone called Logician Nightmare with many, many puzzles. It's interesting how it's complicated to make a really compelling puzzle when all you've got is a state machine in the scripting.

Some other stuff like a void.wad hunt to find the skulls or other items to place them somewhere else is to be expected.

As for what I already have planned:
- I'm shamelessly going to copy the visuals of the White Desert of Yume Nikki. It's not my fault I had a dream a few years ago that was in that place, and the "storyline" of the dream would fit a Doom level.
- I've had dreams about Doom levels since forever, and while they were always interesting to see, they would play like crap with monsters. Feels like a good opportunity to put the ideas out.
- Nightmare-like parts like being trapped under a crusher with controls locked.
- A level inspired on a certain dream I had where I needed to hunt a few peanuts for a wizard. Don't want to spoil it too much, I'll just say that the peanuts weren't your normal peanuts.

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I think something like Monkey Island would be the most fun. I'm not so keen on any more surreal stuff since we already have more than enough in regular Doom, so a walking-simulator should also be more ordinary in its locations, IMO.

Maybe the player needs to do his tax-returns, and he has to walk to mail the letter, and he needs to walk to pick up his laundrey, etc.

That's the type of things I pictured when I read "walking simulator".

@Doom14, that's a fantastic screenie, by the way! Wonder why it's in miniature, though?

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gemini09 said:

@Doom14, that's a fantastic screenie, by the way! Wonder why it's in miniature, though?


Habit sometimes, when taking print screens.


If this project ever gets up and running, I'd love to get involved. Either to map or contribute assets (mostly sound/music suggestions. I'm not too hot at ACS or anything else.)

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gemini09 said:

I think something like Monkey Island would be the most fun. I'm not so keen on any more surreal stuff since we already have more than enough in regular Doom, so a walking-simulator should also be more ordinary in its locations, IMO.

Nothing technically stops us from taking a more LSD: Dream Emulator approach. There's some places that are very normal, some are quite normal but there's a giant horse galloping on the distance, then you get into really dream-like material.

Great, you gave me a perfect storyline for a level. Doomkid gets up to go to school, eats breakfast, gets his backpack then he starts to run late, finally when he gets to school he finds out there's a Demonology test which he hasn't studied for. We then make some trivia questions about Doom's enemies, which the player answers in a multiple choice fashion. Get all of them right and you get some easter egg or a useless powerup.

@Doom14: I just realized, is that a 3d sloped floor as ceiling? Dude, I want you in my mapping team, you know your s***.
And yes, this will get up and running. The only problem is getting at least 3 or so mappers. I can do half of the maps, but I honestly don't feel like a project with the idea of "dreams" would do well with just one mapper. It would get stuck into the same mindset for all maps.

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Albertoni said:

I honestly don't feel like a project with the idea of "dreams" would do well with just one mapper. It would get stuck into the same mindset for all maps.


You could always ask around for ideas from us, if you ever get in a theming rut.

For instance, I made really slow progress on a personal wad that was basically an empty techbase, with most of the lights off, and the player had to go looking around for switches to not make the place as creepily dark. The outside was dark and would reveal that the base was on an island in a black void. Monsters would be minimal to add suspense, and the music was ambience from Doom 3. Not exactly good for any gameplay wad, but sounds great for your style. Unfortunately I'm working on three other projects at once, so I probably can't place serious effort on it, buuuut would make an interesting concept for the dreams aspect.

Albertoni said:

Would it be better to have a few big maps where 2 or more mappers work in tandem in a single map, or smaller and more plentiful maps?


Try variety?

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Albertoni said:

Great, you gave me a perfect storyline for a level. Doomkid gets up to go to school, eats breakfast, gets his backpack then he starts to run late, finally when he gets to school he finds out there's a Demonology test which he hasn't studied for. We then make some trivia questions about Doom's enemies, which the player answers in a multiple choice fashion. Get all of them right and you get some easter egg or a useless powerup.


You could have several mini-episodes, each with different plots and characters.

So an alternative episode to "Doomkid" walking to school, could be "Doomguy" pulled over for DUI, and now has to walk home, and this is where the map could use random "earthquake" sector-effects throughout the path.

Regarding your idea there, the "running late for school" bit could involve strafe-running on a fence by the neighborhood or schoolyard, to make it in time.

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It sounds very interesting, but in order to have it working I think you need a strong cohesion between all level.

I can imagine you start in a house which you explore. In the house there are portals to other dimensions, which are related to memories from childhood.

We can take as reference for example Foreverhood, which was based more on walking than shooting (if I remember correctly).

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A walking simulator? Please make it like LSD: Dream Emulator in that case. That way we can all get nightmares and freak out over seeing weird shit. Sarcasm is sarcasm......

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Alright, where's my notepad...

@Royal_Sir: I'm not completely sold on variety. The more maps, the more mellowed out the experience; unless one can keep the quality level constant.
Still, if you don't mind, I might rework your idea. Hell, I am working with something similar on an experimental level, using subtractive / negative dynamic lights that suck your health away if you got too close.


@gemini09: Maybe an earthquake or maybe some script to randomly push the player sideways, while you're trying not to fall into the UACtreet(tm) or collide into other things... It's quite dumb, but it could work.
And yeah, while I'd rather not make glitches mandatory, I guess I could do what I did in my Shrooms WAD and hide easter eggs for getting into silly places.


@Angry Saint: Maybe. I'd hate to keep this completely tied into a story, but at the same time that's what people are insisting on.
I'd very much rather have a more abstract hub. At least if I end up making it, I'm terrible with realistic spaces in Doom.
And thanks a lot for mentioning Foreverhood, been meaning to replay it forever but couldn't remember its name.


@joe-ilya & dugan: Thanks, I'll look into those WADs to see what they did right and what didn't work for them.

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I'd happily lend a hand, but nowadays if I'm trying to map for someone else it's like I'm trying to weight-lift way over my strength --- there's just a bunch of "Hoooooaaaaah!!!"-sounds and no lifting.

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This is a nice idea and I like it, but there are some things I'd like to mention.

Each level will have a button that does something to the main hub, and when all are pressed, you can proceed to the end of the game.
Each level can also have a powerup that allows the player to get to new places: A pistol with infinite ammo, jumping, crouching, a modified plasma rifle that shoots water so you can "kill" blocking fire things in the hell levels... And some useless ones like a non-blocking Lost Soul that follows you everywhere.

I'd say, every area could contain several useful items, like key, knife, fire extinguisher or dynamite. If this is a walking simulator, it should not be any close to original doom, it should be more of a quest. How about implementing appropriate inventory and nonlinear levels with a lot of interactivity.

Combat would be non-existant. Maybe you could have to dodge revenant rockets as you run through an open area, maybe you might find a bunch of cyberdemons firing in straight lines and you need to weave through the rockets as you advance... Stuff like CyberDreams, you know.

Either you have some simple combat, like in old RE games, or have no action at all. There's no need to mix different gameplay styles. While simple combat can be implemented nicely, avoidances are either difficult or boring.

What are good limits for adding new textures? I don't want to stifle people's creativity but also don't want to end up with a 300MB download.

Textures don't affect too much on a size, even if there are too many of them.

Would it be better to have a few big maps where 2 or more mappers work in tandem in a single map, or smaller and more plentiful maps?

This question is kinda strange, it means that you think about too strict rules. Let people do the things as they want.

I'd like to contribute if I can see something that I like other than words.

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Archi said:

I'd like to contribute if I can see something that I like other than words.

Oh, it WILL happen. I am just looking for some posts like yours, letting the concept sink for a bit, taking a few notes here, a few suggestions there... And of course, gauging interest. If this thread had died in a pair of posts, I wouldn't have bothered.
You can be sure this will get somewhere before the end of this month.

What do you mean by "simple combat" though? I did play the original RE but simple would be one of the last words I'd use to define its combat.

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It was straight simple, no need to control the crowd, no fast enemies (except, maybe, Hunters), no need to aim most of the time. The hard part was to find weapons and ammo, combat itself wasn't hard at all.

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Hmm, yeah, I can definitely get a feeling for what you mean.
I'm not quite sure how to actually translate it to Doom terms, at least not with the vanilla enemies.

Maybe something like killing your pet pinkie as it's been getting quite old, arthritic and sickly lately, but I'm already feeling bad just thinking about it. >_>

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I actually made a combatless map a while ago. It was part of a mapset that I never got to finish but the map in question was completed.

It consists of exploring a temple and solving a few puzzles, with a bit of platforming as well.
It notably features a infinite staircase that gave me a hell of a hard time to build!!

The map works only on ZDoom, and needs doom2.wad. Jumping and crouching not necessary. Freelook with autoaim disabled is required though. Another piece of advice is to play with the sound and make sure the music volume is not turned too loud compared to sfx's one.

Maybe have a go at it and if you like it and think it would suit your project, then it's yours. There will probably have to be some tweaking and remaking of some puzzles but I don't want to start reworking it if you don't want it. :)

LINK TO THE MAP

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As it stands right now, yeah, it won't fit.
The infinite staircase was definitely interesting, the part where you shoot over voodoo dolls was creative, and the red key section had some nice ideas (but I got bored of dying 10 times just to find out there was more and more platforming so I ended up cheating and flying through it >_>)

As for the teleport maze, it wasn't a fun idea back when TNT was released. It's still not a fun idea. If you want to see a teleport maze done right (which means it's only annoying instead of infuriating) you should look for a recent release named Absolutely Killed, map E1M3 has the best teleport maze I've played recently.

Oh, in that puzzle where you need to press 4 buttons in the right order so the marines won't be crushed, how does that secret in the wall relate to the buttons? I thought that was a cool idea, but even with that secret guide it was a trial and error affair.

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Albertoni said:

As it stands right now, yeah, it won't fit.
The infinite staircase was definitely interesting, the part where you shoot over voodoo dolls was creative, and the red key section had some nice ideas (but I got bored of dying 10 times just to find out there was more and more platforming so I ended up cheating and flying through it >_>)

As for the teleport maze, it wasn't a fun idea back when TNT was released. It's still not a fun idea. If you want to see a teleport maze done right (which means it's only annoying instead of infuriating) you should look for a recent release named Absolutely Killed, map E1M3 has the best teleport maze I've played recently.

Oh, in that puzzle where you need to press 4 buttons in the right order so the marines won't be crushed, how does that secret in the wall relate to the buttons? I thought that was a cool idea, but even with that secret guide it was a trial and error affair.


No bother, thanks for testing anyway.

The teleporter maze can be beaten without trial and error, just got to find the combination hidden somewhere near... ;)

As for the 4-switch puzzle, I knew it wasn't obvious and I would have reworked the puzzle to give more and better clues.
But as it stands now basically, a combination of two faces on top will trigger the crusher wearing the face underneath.

A picture's worth 1000 words:




Although I must admit, the clue in the wall is wrong, two faces have been inverted, which makes the puzzle unsolvable by logic. On the picture above the mistake has been fixed.
My bad...

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