Shadows of The Nightmare Realm announcement

So I've been working on a new project for a few months now, and now that it's almost 2/3rds done, I suppose I should announce it (unlike what I did with Extreme Terror, which, uhh, well.... whoops :-P ). Anyway, it's called "Shadows of The Nightmare Realm" (SoTNR) and will be for GZDoom.

The premise is Lovecraft-inspired, but not part of any of Lovecraft's universes. The story involves Elder Gods, who are determined to succeed where Hell and the demons have failed. But, they know that the Doomguy is quite tough, and instead devise a plan to attack him in the only place he is still vulnerable: his dreams. Each level, then, will be a separate dream that the Doomguy has, and if he dies in the dream, he dies in real life. So basically, the Elder Gods are playing Freddy Kruger with the Doomguy.

Fonze has posted an excellent sneak peek of SoTNR over at This Week in Doom. That has more information there, as well as some additional screenshots.

As far as maps are concerned, SoTNR will have three levels plus a Quake-style start level when it's finished. The designs will vary, but will all be somewhat gothic in some way or another. The maps will also have my love of funky colored lighting, which is a hold-over from my last map. The gameplay will be pretty straightforward Doom-style exploration and combat, which is what I prefer and love (it's also just about all I know how to do - this will only be my fourth release ever).

SoTNR also has some new monsters (well, "new", in that they come from Realm667's repository but aren't in normal Doom), different textures, and new music (written by me) for all the levels. Music wise, it'll be some dark ambient-ish stuff I've been writing, sorta like Lustmord if you know who that is. There's a preview of it here. That's actually a remix of E1M5, but the rest of the tracks are all new.

Anyway, the textures and resources are all 99% done, with only minor tweaks needed to finish them, while the music is 50% done. Level-wise, the first level, 90% of the second level, and the start level have all been completed. So basically, the whole thing is about 66% done. Given that I work sorta slow, my guess is that this will be completed by October or November.

So yeah. Here are some newer XBAWKS HUEG screens in addition to what I've posted in the "What are you working on?" thread and what Fonze posted over at This Week in Doom:

I'd have more screens, but I suffered a minor setback last week where I lost two days worth of work :-/ Oh well, thank the gods for backups!

Update post April 22nd, 2017: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/90555-shadows-of-the-nightmare-realm-announcement/#comment-1740123

I really liked you Extreme Terror wad. It had a good quaketech feeling, the only problem IMO some texture choise here and there.

Looking the screenshots, this has a quake-horror theme and a Doom 64 colouring.

I would like to beta-test it. I may learn something.

I'm super-stoked for this. I first saw your screens on the "What are you working on?" thread, and I read Fonze's excellent write-up last night. Yes, drown me in atmosphere! I guess I'd better go check out Extreme Terror now.

2/3 done?! Wow, it sounds like my estimate for completion was waaay off, haha, and I'm glad to hear I'll likely be wrong. I'm extremely excited for progress on this!

Yeah, I ended up having some dreams myself (heh!) that gave me ideas for some areas. So I've been implementing those while waiting on dungeon and raid queues in World of Warcraft. I also did a lot of planning on a whiteboard, and spent a lot of time gathering resources back when I first had an idea for a project. This saved a lot of time later on.

Those screenies look delicious. Nightmares can be fun as well after all. I am also extremely interested in your music for this one here. If it sounds as good as it looks so far, it will be a nice trippy experience I reckon.

Bumping for updateness.

SoTNR is now about 75-80% done.  There will now be four maps + a start map, with the fourth one being a "boss map".  This is to keep level three from feeling too long.  The first two maps and the start map are finished, save for any last-minute changes that come up from play testing, and a little bit of work has been done on map three.

Plans for map three and the boss map are already in-place, so it's just a matter of biting the bullet and actually doing the construction.  Map three takes place inside of a "spooky cathedral" and will be a very dark and atmospheric level.  It will revolve around a large floor clock, which changes time as the player completes various parts of the level.

Anyway, new screenshots, and yes I know they're a bit dark (that'll be fixed):

This sounds like a cool idea for a level, and looks like a good execution of the GZDoom aesthetic. Looking forward to playing it when it's done!

Looking super snazzy! I'll be happy to test it out if your looking for testers!

Reminds me more of Blood 2 than Quake tbh, not that it's a bad thing or anything.

Odd, because I've never played Blood 2 :-P

Also, beta testing when? :^)

Going to follow this.  Those screenshots look incredible.  I love the see through grates on the floor.  It gives the room a whole new mood.

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Great use of colors! Subtle but unique and effective. The texture scheme is really nice as well, and it so far looks like the maps' layouts are pretty spacious and flowing too. Lots of luck with the rest of this project, I too loved Extreme Terror and am very keen to play this. :D

:E

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and yes I know they're a bit dark (that'll be fixed):

Thought the Darkness is rather a feature here?^....mhm reminds me of Doom3 abit, -with lots of traps to trigger maybe, suddenly monsters behind-style, to create an ambience of fear - the music supports that at least. (thought thats some action video and I could see some "mechanics")

Surely interesting on a first go, but wait till Zeromaster comes around with no fear anymore -  Speedruning will end the nightmare and switch on the light also on this map...theres simply no time to enjoy textures, you gotta understand ;)

50 minutes ago, PanterD2S said:

Thought the Darkness is rather a feature here?^....mhm reminds me of Doom3 abit, -with lots of traps to trigger maybe, suddenly monsters behind-style, to create an ambience of fear - the music supports that at least. (thought thats some action video and I could see some "mechanics")

I totally love Doom 3, but it honestly hasn't influenced SoTNR very much.  If it did it was all subconscious.  Most of the inspiration has come from playing Quake using Darkplaces and (surprisingly) World of Warcraft.

There's definitely some nasty traps in it, though.

52 minutes ago, PanterD2S said:

Surely interesting on a first go, but wait till Zeromaster comes around with no fear anymore -  Speedruning will end the nightmare and switch on the light also on this map...theres simply no time to enjoy textures, you gotta understand ;)

Although @Nine Inch Heels has done some awesome nightmare testing, it technically isn't a supported difficulty.  Neither is ITYTD.  The start map has hallways for "Easy", "Normal", and "Hard" difficulties only.  If someone wants to play it on nightmare or ITYTD, they'll have to go into the console and do:

skill 4
map corax01

Posted in the wrong thread, but now that I'm here I must say that the Doom GL stuff looks a lot softer on my eyes than back in the day :O

Looks nice. A color tip: Create a scheme of 2 colors. Let one be your main color and the opposite your complimentary color. The colors should be on opposite ends of the color wheel; Green and red. Blue and orangeyellow. Purple and lime. Teal and orange ;)

For instance. The shot with all the green fill light, introduce some small red detail lights in the scene at it'll drastically improve the overall look :)

Some of the shots are already going in this direction. Just needs another nudge!

Now that I have seen this thread I can stop reading SotNR as "Shadow of the Nerpent Riders".

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If someone wants to play it on nightmare or ITYTD, they'll have to go into the console and do:

console ^

7 hours ago, YukiRaven said:

skill 4 map corax01

When I did my NM runs I had to use skill 5 from the .cmd, which is nightmare. UV is skill 4 internally, as far as I'm aware. Not sure how the console handles this .cmd line argument is always -skill 5 for NM

EDIT: Thank Gez, I didn't know about this "quirk" in the inner workings. :-)

Internally the skills are 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. The command line argument makes them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That's why -skill 0 gives you skill -1 which spawns nothing (except player starts because they always spawn regardless of skill settings (except in ZDoom if you use the FilterStart command in MAPINFO)).

I get a mixture of quake and heretic themes from these maps, which, surprisingly goes together quite well. I'm looking forward to the final product.

3 hours ago, Shaviro said:

Let one be your main color and the opposite your complimentary color.

Is this based on some science or what? What is so special about these opposites?

My pro color tip is to pick colors that go together nicely regardless of where they are on the color wheel. 4 out of 5 scientists agree that this is a good way to pick colors. Serious business diagram: 

1 hour ago, Memfis said:

Is this based on some science or what? What is so special about these opposites?

It maximizes contrasts, which makes the colors pop more. That said, traditionally (before we got all science up in this biznitch) the color model was based on a Red-Yellow-Blue wheel instead of the Red-Green-Blue one, so most classical paintings were made with complementary color pairs being red-green, yellow-purple, and blue-orange. So you don't really have to go exact opposite.

I think Memfis is just saying that establishing a "rule" stifles uniqueness, to which I think I agree! But we probably shouldn't muck up Yuki's thread

Yeah, I know about the color wheel.  I use this tool from time to time, but sometimes I like to deviate from it for fun and do something weird/jarring/unconventional, and usually I just like to go with what looks pleasing to my eyes.

5 hours ago, Phade102 said:

I get a mixture of quake and heretic themes from these maps, which, surprisingly goes together quite well. I'm looking forward to the final product.

Quake as it looks with Darkplaces is definitely the main inspiration.  The final two maps have more of that stone look from Heretic and Hexen, and the whole project actually started out as a Heretic wad, but it wasn't as strong of an inspiration.

Looks more promising than the stuff I shovel out.

Haha thanks... too bad it takes me so long to map usually, otherwise I'd push out more stuff.