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Liberation

[WIP] Battle For Phobos - 5 map demo avaliable

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A new ultimate Doom episode 1 replacement. Aiming to be completely vanilla compatibly, thanks to the Chocorenderlimits fork, which is brilliant! Working within the limits is rather interesting and I'm planning on a full 9 maps, with the secret level being used as map4.

The first 3 levels are nearly complete.

-E1M1




-E1M2




-E1M3




Credits- Mechadon, once again for his great sky

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I remember the quality of your work from Threnody, so I'm definitely looking forward to this! Hurry!!!!! ;)

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So after a coming back to my project and deciding to scrap e1m4 and start again, m4 is starting to progress nicely.

-E1M4


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Map 4 is complete and now moving onto map 5!

-E1M5







Still rather Wip, the interior of the "labs" uses grey and blue. Just something I thought I try out.

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Howdy!

First 5 maps of my episode 1 replacement are ready for playtesting.

 

They are a little rough around the edges, I'm also in the process of making some extra textures (mainly computer screens etc) to add in to make things more varied.

 

A few areas get close to the seg limit, 1 area exceeds it, but you cant notice, its in the process of being fixed.

 

E1m9 is used as a map4 incase people think what the hells going on here, I'm hoping to make a new map screen so it makes more sense.

 

All feedback is welcome!

 

Credits will be in the final version, txt and ingame screen.

bfpa2r.zip

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After having a massive map block with e1m5, its refreshing that e1m6 is flying along. So without further ado

 

- E1M6

 

Screenshot_Doom_20170401_172549.png

Screenshot_Doom_20170401_172600.png

 

Still looking for feedback for the first 5 maps, if people would be as kind.

 

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How'd I miss this? Screenies look good and I've been looking forward to some more from you. Will play soon :)

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Hey Lib, I had the chance to play this a couple nights ago; fun maps! I haven't really had time to type up my feedback yet, but hopefully either tonight or tomorrow I'll get it done. There were quite a few minor bugs I found in the later maps, which can be seen in these FDAs. Apologies; the play is terrible. For some reason I was getting weird lag spikes often while playing, perhaps from my browser being open to DW at the same time? Idk; I closed it down (only other program running) after the 3rd or 4th map and it mostly went away. Great job so far; I look forward to more!

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11 minutes ago, Fonze said:

Hey Lib, I had the chance to play this a couple nights ago; fun maps! I haven't really had time to type up my feedback yet, but hopefully either tonight or tomorrow I'll get it done. There were quite a few minor bugs I found in the later maps, which can be seen in these FDAs. Apologies; the play is terrible. For some reason I was getting weird lag spikes often while playing, perhaps from my browser being open to DW at the same time? Idk; I closed it down (only other program running) after the 3rd or 4th map and it mostly went away. Great job so far; I look forward to more!

 

The catalogue of blunders for the first 3 maps are well known to me, so should be fixed. However m4 and 5, I don't think any ones played yet, so I'm going to settle down and watch your vids.

 

Thanks Fonze!

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@Fonze Just watched the videos, great to watch! Shame you missed the launcher in map04 (5th vid), near the start :-( You have also showed me a slight flaw in how I'm doing my maps, since you pistol start each time the map order will be wrong, the last map you played was meant to be e1m4 as e1m3 has a secret exit line not a normal line.

 

I've spotted a fair few bugs/issues, hopefully you didn't pick up on as many :-)

 

Thanks for the vids!

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Hey man, sorry for the delay in getting this to you.

 

So I'd like to start off by saying once again that I had a ton of fun with these maps! Apologies for the slow-moving demos; I pay for it now, too, as I rewatch them for memory's sake, lol.

 

E1M1:
 - A pleasant little opener, starting off with a strong E1 presence in the aesthetic department. I liked the coziness of that opening area; is it weird to consider an area filled with acid to be cozy? Idk, but either way, the opening shot was treated with the importance it deserves and that's always a plus. Funny little secret switch there, too, though it didn't line up too well with the nearby textures.
 - Speaking of textures, I liked the blend of the customs in here with the standard roster; they meshed well together and for some reason I've always wondered why yellow/orange/black stripes weren't in the original texture set. Regardless, stuff looked sweet. I always love seeing full-bright colored light textures in maps, too. Some of the comp panels in the comp maze room were a little weird wrapping around the corners, (same with the ones in the room with the first two zombiemen on the ceiling skylight) but a minor nitpick.
 - One of the slime+brownhug+yellow/black striped textures at the exit is misaligned. You can see it very briefly in the demo, but it's just to the left of the exit door and leftmost lamp.
 - The first secret sector didn't trigger right away for whatever reason.
 - The RK was a bit strange to find. I say strange for lack of a better word; I don't want to say tough, though it eluded me until after everything available was dead and I consulted the automap, then found the second secret, then consulted the automap again, heh. Upon finding it, it's just unceremoniously sitting there by a dead marine body tucked away behind a corner with no strings attached. The dead marine + key thing is always good for a little atmosphere/story thingy, especially in the beginning levels or on a low monster-count map halfway through the wad, after the difficulty has ramped up and directly after a high monster-count map, but I noticed that most of the keys in this wad, across all the maps, seem to be casually given to the player with few strings, if any, attached. Not necessarily a bad thing, just something different that I noted :)
 - I like the ending area in much the same way as I liked the first, aesthetically, and I like that you've taken the care to begin each map where the previous one left off. Always a cool little touch of TLC to see. The imp in the window left of the exit door was a bit questionable, placement-wise, especially given that the only shotty spawn is in a secret. Might be a good idea to give a free shotty or put down a shotgunner in that final, outside area so players who fail to find the secret don't feel bothered to go for the 100% kills, never mind that at that point a small handful of imps isn't much to stop a player from just opening the exit door, quick juke-move, then hit the switch, so a mandatory shotty would make skipping them less likely as well.
 - Which brings me to the gameplay of this wad; most of it is fairly laid-back, exploration-based-type layouts/setups, which is cool, but it might not be such a bad idea to add a little kick every now and again to make sure players stay awake ;D
 - This map had a fun little layout; I always enjoy having options, which on a map this small means that basically most of the map can be tackled whenever.

 

E1M2:
 - Continuing on with the general aesthetic of the previous map, this map has some nice architecture and texture use to start things off. I see the window-imp is ready-and-waiting there at the start, heh, which kinda strengthens the "continuous-play" (as compared to pistol-starting) vibe that this map set gives. I like that a shotty is given at the start of this map in the other room, though; I got all the love in the world for the pistol but one can only take so much of it past zombies. I was happy to see shotgunners used early in this map as well, gotta start ramping up that difficulty level at some point!
 - Moving out of the starting room, I liked the kinda trap-ish thing with the three bulls and raising wall, but let's be honest: it could have used more teeth ;p Maybe an imp or three on the other side of the room, or if the current dudes hiding behind the corner in the acid came out a bit sooner than when they see the player. Prolly just teleport in some imps would be the best bet. 
 - I loved the look of this whole room, including the acid portion, btw. But I notice that you use a few different flats in conjunction with the same STARGRN wall texture, (like where a 3D object would have a bottom to go with its side) which kinda looks weird when they can be seen right next to one-another.
 - This level also had a pretty cool layout; little things like the lifts and the way the map constantly presented 2 'unexplored' paths (even if they did lead to the same place) made for an interesting place to explore, which complimented the easygoing combat.
 - The CG was perfectly placed, right in time for those ledge imps. I'm not sure if making it a secret at that point is a good idea though, as those ledge imps would be potentially tedious to shotty down.
 - The room after the RK door was good; always fun to run in with the CG blazin', Rambo'ing out. That said, it wasn't particularly threatening at all, as the only immediate targets/threats were the hitscans, namely the two shotgunners, which made the room really easy to clear up, given the ample room to avoid the imp's projectiles and the bulls. Granted I did have the secret CG, so with the shotty it'd be a bit tougher, but not by much; the player doesn't really have to shoot anything but the hitscans to survive comfortably in that space. Cool-looking room, too.
 - The bulls outside the window, approaching the exit, seemed to have jumped the gun early and I had more than sufficient opportunity to gun them down from the safety of that room. I don't think that was intended. The exit area could have used a bit more pressure, too, but the difficulty level is ramping up fairly steadily so why fix what isn't broke I guess, heh.
 - I didn't want to ruin my FDA at the end by doing something stupid like running into an inescapable pit, (though I should've because that's always funny when it leads to a failure) but I wonder if the player can run onto the rail tracks there/fall in and not be able to get back.

 

E1M3:
 - This level does break a bit from the "things as you last left them" state of the previous level with the bars in front of the same exit switch from the previous level, which kinda actually confused me a bit until I pieced together my memory that neither the exit sign nor striped bars were present in the previous level.
 - I love seeing some good color in maps, and the blues of Ult. Doom always do it for me; the first room inside the building looked good, though I tend to prefer more abstract environments.
 - Idk why, but the bloodstain on the floor fascinated me. I was unsure if it was pointing to a secret or something, but it called my attention over to it, as I hadn't seen any bloodsplat flats used yet, I don't think.
 - Combat fairly consistent with the previous maps, though still ramping up ever-so-slightly. Not too much I can say about much of the combat for these maps since most of it is incidental combat, which again fueled the exploratory feel of these maps' interesting layouts.
 - Idk about the spectres in the dark area; I tend to like them when used in either normally-lit areas or areas with both light and dark sections, where they can be seen somewhat frequently.
 - In the dark, orange-rock hallway with the spectre, there is a HOM looking out the window towards the little slime area. I shot it with the shotty in the demo. Also, I like orange in Doom :)
 - I liked the higher density of monsters there after the fairly sparse, short, dark, orange hallway; it gave me the feeling that the action was ramping up. Moving into the room, the monsters coming out to play plus the monster closet opening gave the feeling of some nice impending action, but I was a bit let down at the lack of pressure from angles other than the front. That encounter could have used some imps from behind or something like that, just to keep the player's mind present.
 - Stuck bulls in said monster closet; shown in demo.
 - Much the same as the previous encounter, the BK room fell a bit short on the pressure department, with everything coming from the front until the player chooses to advance into the room, at which point there are two imp-turrets (which I liked, though the left one couldn't shoot the player past the lowered STARTAN ceiling adjacent to his box). Around the corner are three spectres that don't do too much aside from eat shells. That room would have better if there would have been some monsters to go with the two imps after the player advanced and if the spectres were either removed, reduced to one, or replaced with imps/shotgunners.
 - Much as with the RK in the previous two maps, the BK was given freely here. What's weird is that this one, more-so than the previous two, looks very much like a trap, which kinda was a let down. At least put in traps elsewhere if the keys will be free! Lol. But the whole BK area was quite tame in terms of pressure on the player.
 - I expected something much more after the BK door.
 - I wasn't a fan of the baron use here, though the arena for him was kinda nice. Still, single shotgunning an optional baron generally isn't good.
 - This map wasn't quite as architecturally enticing as the previous two, but it still looked great and was textured well! I really liked the color and general look of the baron-room.

 

E1M4:
First death...s. :) I made a run of the first life though, 'til that GAD lol. Dodge and live through hallways of shotgunners and a skull ambush only to GAD; I wouldn't have it any other way.
 - What's with the random little piece of orange rock mixed in with the white rock in the starting area?
 - This map perhaps could have used some more health in the area with all the hitscans approaching that BK, though there were two ways to go. Still, I don't remember much health that other way either.
 - I liked the small ambush at the RL.
 - I liked the layout of this map a lot. I got a bit lost at the very end, forgetting that there is only one way to the second half of the level: through the BK door, which I mistakenly ran through bee-lining to the exit. Might've been cool if there were one other BK door somewhere leading up there, but a minor, random, unimportant thought.
 - I wasn't a fan of the baron used in the lava room, given the weapon set; without the RL it's borderline tedious, saved only by the lava, and with the RL it's just really tight quarters. I suppose you could just lead him out, but that takes time.
 - I really liked the look of the hallway section with the BK door. The elevator afterward was a bit annoying, given that the trigger line was right there next to the door. I wound up having to take a fireball so I could run in just because I didn't want to fall down, rinse and repeat the process over and over again.
 - I wasn't a fan of the encounter right after this (in that outside area) either. The barons were actually fine given the player's RL, and I love both bulls and skulls when the RL is the weapon-of-choice, but all of the pressure was through the door and from the front! A shooting gallery. Also, Idk if the skulls can come through the windows there but if not they should be able to, just to at least add the extra possibility of danger for camping players. (Speaking of skulls, they can't travel over the railings on the sides of the pathway, which makes them useless aside from decoration) But really what that area needs is either a: pressure from other angles, like the back, or b: incentive for the player to run outside, after which (and only after which) the monsters come out to play from many angles.
 - Things got a bit tight health-wise here, just from being chipped down in general from tiny little things over time and hitscans; more health would be nice, or different, more convenient locations for the 3 nearby stimpacks.
 - The outside area approaching the exit was pretty cool-looking, but I wasn't sold on the combat of it. Nice monster selection, (could have used more meat with more rockets given :D ) but placement and presentation felt a bit too lax for getting this close to the final hurrah, 4 maps in. The way things are this encounter can easily devolve into a shooting gallery if the player retreats to the hallway/door they came in from. That said, I liked that the imps provided pressure from the left as the player turns right to deal with the large collection of zombies and imps over there, which they see first upon entering the room. A good distraction! Baron use was ok given the already-given RL and rockets nearby him, but he should have really come out to pressure the player as the player dealt with the zombie-mob in the opposite direction.
 - I was not a fan of the baron in the doorway as I left the exit area in search of the RK, nor was I a fan of the mass of bulls down there or the fact that these mobs were awake before I ever got a chance to go down there. I could have gone all the way around the level to get around to the area's back side, but the only thing that allowed me to enter in from this side was the RL and infinite-height explosions, which I'm sure wasn't intended. These monsters woke up when I was at the shooting gallery moving towards the YK.
 - I have a lot of trouble remembering the key pickups in these maps, heh, since they are all just kinda in seemingly-random places. Sometimes they are in a key-looking area while other times they're just sitting there in some corner, perhaps by a dead body.
 - The ending two barons kinda makes logical sense, but it does nothing but prolong the approach to the exit as they provide little-to-no threat with the environment and layout, plus the exit switch right behind them, making it easy to just pull 'em out, waltz on by, and hit the switch. Would be better if one were replaced with two imps or one cacodemon that both teleported behind the player making a happy little sandwich, the tough side being between the player and the exit while the weaker side would be on the back, which is optional if reaching the exit is the only goal. This would encourage players to target that back side despite wanting to make forward progress to the next-to-freely available exit switch and would spice up the small encounter.

 

E1M9:

 - My favorite map of this set.
 - Good start to the map; I liked the use of imps as turrets to compliment the bulls and hitscans below. Architecture looked inviting and texturing was solid. Nice flow as well :) This was also the most architecturally interesting map.
 - I liked the action of this map much more than the other maps, which kinda makes me happy I played them out of order as E1M4 felt easier than this one, despite my stupid deaths.
 - I wasn't a fan of not finding the RL for a while in the map, way later than I found the 3 barons in the acid room slightly reminiscent of E3M8. I guess in a way it's cool, since the barons will follow players who try to skip them around the map (unless they are led into a corner or somewhere they cannot get out, like that south-eastern outside area).
 - I got a bit lost trying to find the path to the RK, but nothing too bad. The ledge-imp might have been a bit too high to be of much use in the north-east, curving outside area.
 - I liked the RK trap; good to finally see one! Hehe. But it was very much a shooting gallery, which is kind of a shame. Made better with that baron from before though, heh.
 - The ledge-imp outside, on the approach to the exit-room's door (left of the door) was a bit useless it seemed.
 - I liked the collection of mobs in the final room, but without a non-secret RL, the baron is kinda meh. Still, the close quarters suit him so he wasn't used too badly. More-so that a RL should have been given at some point in the map, aside from the secret which I missed. Watching the demo, I can actually see it was that repeatable switch I found in the beginning that allowed access to that nearby lift, which I apparently space-cadet'd past.
 - I also missed three monsters in this map; 2 were barons I skipped and the last was in the secret I missed.

 

 - This map definitely, but possibly other maps as well had doors without the 'lower unpegged' flag assigned to their DOORTRAKs. I remember noting some other texture misalignments as well when I played, but I know I forgot to note them while watching them; apologies!

 

 

 

Sorry for the long wall of text. You've done a great job so far on these maps and it'll be cool to see where these and their following maps will go :)

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FDA for the whole set, continuous. I probably made a mistake by playing continuous, as it negated the encounters that might have been exciting, but I decided to do it on a whim after seeing how small e1m1 was. It's always fun to see what people bring to the table wrt Doom I replacements, and I liked the continuous design (cool ships, lol), the more mini-questy secrets (backpack was awesome!), and the cave areas the most. 

 

Unlike Fonze, I don't have much thorough feedback. But a couple of important things: 1) There are a few right doors right next to lifts, so I had to squeeze right up to the door to use it, because of the way triggers 'intercept' each other when directly nearby. 2) I did not find the RK in e1m9 at all. I couldn't, so I ended up deciding screw it, and glided through the bars after hitting just the BK switch. If you want to avoid the possibility of glides, try not to use 32-wide openings for bars.  

 

ep1alpha2r_rdwpa_fda.zip

Edited by rdwpa

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You should provide coop starts, so I can record myself playing with an AutoDoom bot. And besides that, they cost nothing to add.

 

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Wow, tons of excellent feedback and another video! Going to start with clearing a few things up first.

 

1. This map set is designed for continuous play, however I'm going to have to change things up slightly for people that do pistol start. Hence why you were missing weapons in some of the maps.

2. The way the weapon distribution works is, each level has a weapon in a secret place, but is given freely to the player in the following map. This again I'm going to change I reckon.

3. I'm not a great fan of key traps, its normally rather blatant, however I will add a few in to mix it up a bit.

4.  Every 3 maps is a mini episode, so the first 3 maps are about getting the monorail to the HQ, the next 3 are about clearing out the labs...

 

@Fonze That is an awesome amount of feedback and is exactly what I'm been needing, E1M9 (M4) is actually my favourite as well! On M5 I see that you and rdwpa suffered from the baron being stuck in that small room, that's a bug, even if it was amusing watching rdwpa back peddle out of that room in a hurry. As you can see I'm a fan of multiple options to complete maps, I like replay-ability I guess. You have given me a lot to think about, a lot of work todo and I'm very grateful! 

 

@rdwpa Thank you for the video, was interesting to watch! However I do have to ask on M4, you couldn't find the red key as you missed a third of the map, when you hit the switch for the backpack, you looked at the door at the far end of the cave, then dismissed it.. Is that because of the texture choice being a starting door? Also nice trick to get through the bars, you wont be able todo that again I can assure you :-) Thank you for the vids!

 

@printz I've been considering coop, so coop starts will be in the next alpha.

 

Well time to get cracking and get m6 finished, plus add in the changes in, as brought to my attention!

 

Big thanks to all who have given me feedback.

 

EDIT: On a side note, no one has mentioned it yet but I haven't put any potions or armour bonus in yet, I'm thinking about do something else with these, once the maps are done I will be changing a few things with dehacked, probably turning the pistol into a rifle and modifying the chain gun a tad, and changing the monsters slightly. 

Edited by Liberation

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Thinking back, it's not only that, but also the fact that it's situated in an out-of-the-way location that really looks like it's on the periphery of the map, where such doors are basically always for show. (I didn't really grasp the spatial relationship between that area and the part I peered into through the doorstop bars and happened not to look at the automap around then.) Some narrow portholes into that area would really help, if not a different door texture.

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