Ultimate Doom Redux v1.0 [GZDoom]

Many of you have tried my redone versions of Knee-Deep In the Dead and The Shores of Hell.  I have finally finished Inferno (including some of the most creative mapping tricks I have ever come up with) and I combined all of the maps into a single megawad.

 

Required:

- GZDoom (hardware and software rendering should work fine)

- Single player ONLY

- No jumping (unless you use the jump button to swim, which could occasionally be used)

- No crouching

- Free look required to shoot a few switches

 

There are a lot of surprises and tricks I learned as I worked on this project, hence why my skills improved as I went.  A few of them have been so reworked that they basically feel like new maps.

 

Knee-Deep In the Dead starts on MAP01.

The Shores of Hell starts on MAP09.

Inferno (and a few pieces of Thy Flesh Consumed) starts on MAP31.

 

The purpose of this wad is to utilize source port features while mostly maintaining the feel of the original episodes.  There are new secrets, parts of entire levels are rearranged, and pretty much all Doom 2 enemies/items/weapons/etc. are utilized in the original Ultimate Doom maps.

 

Looking back, if I had to pick some highlights, I'd say the most creative work was done on these:

MAP06 [E1M6] - A major section near the different has been entirely redesigned.

MAP09 [E2M1] - Instead of pointless teleporting, the map all flows together as a single entity here.

MAP14 [E2M6/7] - I despise the original version of this map, so it was fun to "fix" it. Less mazes, more action. Surprise at the end!

MAP15 [E2M7/8] - This is a complete and total redesign. Really outside the box thinking here with many multi-floor rooms.

MAP16 [E3M3] - Try to find all 3 skull keys. And also, The room-sized elevator in the Haunted Mansion at Disney World inspired me on this one.

MAP17 [E3M4] - "Wait, I was just here....How is this totally different???"

MAP19 [E3M6/7] - I've never seen anyone use the flooding effect in a Doom level and it really works on this one.

MAP20 [E3M8/E4M5-8] - This one should feel really satisfying to play through.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/62tafepaszyfz7w/UltDmRdx.zip?dl=0

 

It is unlikely that this will work with any other source ports because of ZDoom, Doom Legacy, and Edge linedefs/sectors, so please consider this a final release (with the exception of any bugs I may have missed).

 

Have fun, everyone!  It's definitely a challenge and episode 3 especially has some really fun changes.

 

-Kevin

Looks cool! I'll give it a try and tell you about what I think about this later on.

It's a pity you didn't implement difficulty settings in this one since I am not a fan of Ultra Violence gameplay. But well, at least you get the benefits of ITYTD if you choose the lowest difficulty (2x ammo, 0.5x damage taken). Still helps to some degree.

 

Anyway, I couldn't resist making a MAPINFO for this one.

 

What it does:
- Lets you select Map01, Map09 and Map31 as Doom 1 episodes: Knee-Deep in the Dead, The Shores of Hell, Inferno

- Episodes end with Map08, Map15 and Map20

- Episode ending texts from Doom 1

- Level names from Doom 1

- Skies assigned to levels according to Doom 1 (Map01-08: SKY1, Map09-15: SKY2, Map16-20/31-32: SKY3)

 

This should give a nice extra touch to this project. Hope you like it!

 

mapinfo_udr.zip

Edited May 15, 2018 by NightFright

I just gave took this one for a spin myself, finished up to MAP08 on UV -fast and I've a couple things to say about the project as I've seen it so far.

 

Difficulty is rather low for me (why I turned on fast monsters), but MAP08 had a section I really did not like. Forcing the player to choose between a soulsphere and cell pack is one thing, but forcing them to choose a partial invisibility or a radsuit when they're about to get dropped into a trap on a hurt floor in a pitch dark room full of fatsos is ridiculous. No, I wouldn't have had such difficulty if fast monsters had been off, but that was a result of the pitch dark hitscanner rooms before, which I didn't like either, but was fine with.

 

The maps seem really uninspired to me. When I saw Ultimate Doom Redux I imagined something much more grandiose, I suppose, maybe more in the vein of KDIZD, though more like KDITD proper. Some of the areas were interesting, but it really felt like I was playing Knee Deep in the Dead with Doom II monsters and a few GZDoom features here and there.

 

The mid-tier monster swarms the player sometimes faces seem less dangerous and more grindy than anything else.

Like here. This took forever to work through and didn't add anything to the map except somewhere to exercise my SSG.

Cacodemon swarms were also common and irritating to work through.

 

All that said, I'm going to continue in the hopes that the later maps are more interesting, and the mod itself is fairly good, but I held very high hopes for it and they've so far been dashed against jagged Phobos rocks.

NightFright....you are a class act.  Thanks!  But.....do I just add it using XWE?  Which category to I add it under?  Thanks again!

 

Aquila Chrysaetos: Appreciate the thoughtful feedback.  The first episode's edits were a bit overkill in some respects, and looking back, I'd have done some of them differently, with less grinding.  If you're looking for more substantially different gameplay out of the maps, you'll like Inferno and parts of The Shores of Hell.  My editing skills improved as I went and I started looking at the maps in different ways.  I think that Hell Keep, House of Pain, Pandemonium, Unholy Cathedral, Mount Erubus will be much more interesting to you.  From The Shores of Hell, have a look at Deimos Lab, Halls of the Damned, and the completely overhauled Tower of Babel.  My personal favorite is what I did with Mount Erubus (MAP19) and Pandemonium (MAP17).  They will surprise you.

I've already been through up to Deimos Lab and the Shores levels are better. I'll jump back on it today and finish up Shores and give you a review on it before moving on to Inferno and Thy Flesh Consumed.

I'd like Pandemonium regardless, I'd be willing to bet. It's really my favorite level of Episode 3, though that doesn't say very much, as Ep 3 is my least favorite episode.

As for MAPINFO, you can just throw it in the wad. It's a standard text file, so the engine will read it. I'd suggest sticking it above the maps so it's easy to find.

Cool, man.  And yeah, I juuuuust checked the mapinfo lump and used Slade for the first time because it was so easy.  Done and done.  Here's the file:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/62tafepaszyfz7w/UltDmRdx.zip?dl=0

 

^ NightFright really did a bang-up job on that mapinfo lump, btw.  What a lad!

 

Also, Aquila, I think the pic you showed above, where it appears you are trying to kill the Mancubuseseses (Mancubii???) was not how I envisioned it.  I figured people would just throw the switch and be lowered into the next area and go fight them up close with a rocket launcher or plasma gun.  The swarms of Cacodemons are supposed to be intense enough where you opt NOT to kill them.  That was my thought anyway...but of course, what matters most is what other players think.

 

I didn't do Thy Flesh in its entirety, though, just so you are aware.  MAP20 (final level) has the whole lot of pieces from it, though.  It's a pretty epic final level in what it tries to accomplish, so hopefully you find it fun.

 

Holy shit, dude, was the latter half of Shores a wild ride.

Still UV -fast, so I'm still taking my time.

That was why I took the ambushes the way I did, because if I dropped into the courtyard with the fatsos (mancubi), I'd have been annihilated.

 

Also, missing texture.

MAP13 I think? The E2M5 one. Just before the three key door, if I'm remembering properly.

 

Speaking of MAP13, you got me good towards the end. I got the blue card expecting an ambush and one never came. Then in the little flesh room past the three key door, I was noting "That [the blue card] didn't go the way I im-- Uh, oh!" Right as the doors slammed shut and I was trapped and monsters began teleporting in.

You magnificent bastard, that one was beautiful!

 

Also, very good job mixing up the hitscanners and projectile throwers, because on UV -fast, I tend to door camp for the hitscanners, but then a projectile thrower would arrive and make me drop everything to get away.

 

The changes are much more notable here, too, which is good. I liked Halls of the Damned and the way you did Spawning Vats and Tower of Babel.

That start was hectic and scary as hell. Good work there.

The map was a little slow, but that's okay, I was going ridiculously slow as it was, and then the cyber fight happened and everything was going at the speed of light all of the sudden. Hard fight at first, but once I got my bearings, I managed it and had a lot of fun in the process.

Combining Spawning Vats and Tower of Babel into a singular structure you had to traverse along each axis was really cool, it's not often I see that one. I don't even like Spawning Vats, but this was a really neat rendition.

I found myself running really low on ammo toward the end, but that was partly because I'd been using my shells on pinkies. Perhaps an ammo/shell box behind each of the locked doors at the elevator might mitigate that somewhat.

Also, it took way longer than it should've for me to figure out where the yellow skull was, but that's forgivable, because that was a neat take.

 

Anyway, I'm on MAP31 now and I'll continue tomorrow.

 

Edit: I will update to the newer version after I finish the mod up, but I have to finish with this version first.

Edited May 18, 2018 by Aquila Chrysaetos

I'm really happy that you're enjoying these maps more than the KDITD.  Like I was saying...looking back, I would do some of them differently.  A lot of those are too long and feel extended simply for the sake of having more enemies teleporting in and stuff.  Later on, I was more creative with the traps.  Especially using GZDoom/Legacy tricks.  I think you'll be even happier with what I did on parts of Inferno.

 

Tower of Babel took FOREVER because of all of the 3D floors I had to do.  Check the map out in an editor and see if you can make sense of it.  At one point I was originally going to try and make the top floor of the tower a giant 3D floor over the whole thing and instead I opted for teleporting to a duplicate.  would have been pointless madness otherwise. :D

 

As for the yellow skull, my thought was that if you wandered around and saw that room was randomly full again, it'd make you curious and you might look and see it.  I guess unless a monster happened to be dead right on that particular spot.

Did you build it in Doom Legacy format or something? I thought for sure it was GZDoom Hexen or UDMF format, but the 3D floor actions didn't match and I noticed that the way you had things placed was extremely meticulous such that they would stay on their floors.

Nevermind, I found it. You built it in Eternity format, which is unusual to me.

 

I find it rather impressive that you managed to do all that with under 600 sectors. It looked like you made use of your space as efficiently as possible, so I've really got to hand it to you for that. I've been a poor user of my space, and so my maps tend to have upwards of well over 1,000 sectors and run up above 2,000.

 

As for a map taking a long time to build because of 3D floors and tricks and things, I most definitely understand that sentiment. Check out these GZDoom Builder images for a few of my maps that took a ridiculous number of hours to complete.

Each one of those has well over a hundred tags and many are 3D floors, so I commend you for building such a well functional map like that.

 

The yellow skull was covered in corpses, so I never noticed it, that's most likely what happened. I'm excited to see what else awaits me.

I actually built it in [G]ZDoom format, but used Doom Legacy sectors and linedefs for 3D floors or water, etc. I used Eternity (I think?) for one 3D floor in MAP20.  Didn't use UDMF because I couldn't figure out how to get it working.

 

Yeah, it was a reeeeeal doozy!  Stuffed a lot of stuff in there!  Glad you liked it.  Can't wait to see your review of Inferno.

Glad that the mapinfo was of some use to you. It's really a nice addition to have a bit of the Ultimate Doom structure in the menu and the levels, isn't it? I need to get started with episode 2 soon! ^^

That's an understatement!  Every tutorial I ever saw on MAPINFO was garbage and I learned more just looking at the file you sent than anything I've ever seen.  No joke.

 

And if previous reviews are any indicator, I think you'll find The Shores of Hell and Inferno/Thy Flesh Consumed to be significantly better than my edits of Knee-Deep In the Dead.

 

In my opinion, my versions of Mt. Erubus/Limbo, Pandemonium, and Tower of Babel are really awesome.

Up to map06 Central Processing.

 

Interesting take on an old classic.

 

Line 1077 and 300 in map02 are not tagged as doors and you can become trapped in the closet (sector 193) with the soul sphere.

 

Thanks for the mentions on the missing tags/textures, all.

I dunno if it's the same thing cornchips reported, but when you reach the outdoor area in map02 going for the exit door, you cannot return to the indoor area since the lift won't activate from the outside. For me it sucked because I didn't have all the keys to leave and had to go back.

11 minutes ago, NightFright said:

I dunno if it's the same thing cornchips reported, but when you reach the outdoor area in map02 going for the exit door, you cannot return to the indoor area since the lift won't activate from the outside. For me it sucked because I didn't have all the keys to leave and had to go back.

 

Can't figure out which part you are talking about.  There's only one outside part, and that's the secret lift by the red key to get the supercharge.

Here are the lines cornchips mentioned. I can't find what NightFright is referring to, though.

Yup, that'll be fixed on the next version. :D

I guess it's much later than map02, actually. Probably map07, just cannot check it right now. The end is based on E1M7 (Computer Station) and I guess it uses the map07 special (once you kill the mancubi outside, a small pillar with a soulsphere or something lowers). You need to go outside to reach the exit door which requires all keys. To reach that area, you have to lower a lift in the room where the exit in the original map used to be. This lift is the one I mean. Once it takes you down and you leave it, I didn't find a way to lower it again. Effectively, this gets you stuck in the outdoor exit area. Unless there is a switch or something I did not see.

Edited May 18, 2018 by NightFright

Probably MAP07 then.

 

Anyway, I just muscled through the Hell Keep and Pandemonium and holy shit was Pandemonium hard.

Still UV -fast, of course.

Hell Keep was probably the best Hell introduction map I've ever seen. Obviously it took a lot from Warrens, but it seemed really appropriate to have the areas be trapped, like the demons are trying with all their might to kill the Doomguy, but he's a bad enough dude to get through.

 

Pandemonium was really well done, but that elevator ride of death with all the viles and chaingunners was absolutely brutal, then the massive death trap right at the three key door (which I couldn't open) only compounded on top of that. Then, right after I'd almost finished everything, the viles decided to come out and fix all the damage I'd done.

 

Honestly, I'd rather have had more nonlinearity like Classic!Pandemonium had, but the way you handled it was really cool, so I'm good with it. You did that map justice. I imagine I missed probably a third of the map at least because I only got the yellow card and blue skull. I'll give House of Pain an attempt tomorrow, Pandemonium made me pretty mad with that trap at the end. I imagine without -fast it's much more manageable, but I'm hardcore fucking insane, so I'll finish it UV -fast for you.

 

With what I've seen from Inferno so far, I'd like to implore you to redo KDITD. There's a lot of potential there.

I would also love to see difficulty levels implemented eventually. I can do UV but I'd like to explore the maps in a more relaxed way without this insane slaughter going on. I'd say reduce monster count for ITYTD and HNTR by 50% and HMP by 25%.

prty good redux this is reminisent of old dooms style

Thanks again for the feedback.  As far as MAP07, I know the part you're talking about now.  I had thought that you needed all the keys to get that far.  I'll fix it.

 

As for Pandemonium, if you find all 3 skulls, your life is a LOT easier at the end.  See if you can find them all.  Also, the Arch-Viles barely have any HP because I rigged a room to injure them before they are released.  Chaingun should get 'em easily.  The elevator ride of death isn't too bad if you just keep moving and plug the guys randomly as you keep moving.  Maybe I just have a lot of practice after testing it.  Then again, I never tried it with -fast.  There's some non-linearity in Pandemonium to find those keys.  Have at them!

 

I could probably do difficulty levels.  As I understand, it's pretty much 3 levels, so that shouldn't be too bad.  And redoing episode 1?  Maaaaaybeeee. haha.

Just finished it.

 

In the Mt Erebus area, the entire area didn't flood, only most of the area around the edge, so I had to use fly to get back to where I needed to be.

Screenshot of the scene in question:

It might be better to make the lava a solid floor instead of swimmable, because that made navigation really difficult.

 

Also, in MAP20:

That looks really weird. I would use the same marble texture as those on the walls so it looks more normal.

 

Also:

Cute.

 

Anyway, I felt rather disappointed with the difficulty drop after Pandemonium (which was probably exacerbated by -fast and not finding the three skulls) with House of Pain and the Cathedral. House of Pain felt like a breather level, which I was really grateful for after the hell (pun intended) that Pandemonium put me through. It was really neat, but the secret with the BFG, megasphere, and blue armor seemed a little odd because the blue armor became useless since you'll grab the megasphere first. The cyber fight was unexpected, but easy enough.

 

About the Cathedral, good job on it, so my only real complaint about it was I had to use IDDT to find where I was supposed to go at first. Perhaps the wall you need to open first should have some sort of hint as to its true nature.

 

Mt Erebus and Limbo aren't my favorite maps, but they were well done here, problem addressed above excepted. The cyber fight here was really easy, too, and overall, the map wasn't too difficult.

 

The E4 map was damn brutal. It felt more E4 level difficult than actual E4 did, which is either really good or really bad. The start wasn't too bad, but the difficulty shot to the moon really quickly and it seemed like I'd get pounded into the dirt half a dozen times before I got through a room. The end was more than I could handle, so I had to use god2 to get past the first spiderdemon immediately after a really improbable stroke of luck in the courtyard immediately before. The fight with the spiderdemons and cyberdemons and the big wall demon titan thing was more manageable due to that megasphere, invulnerability, and BFG with all those cells, which made for a remarkably anticlimactic end despite all the shit going on in the area. Really nice rendition of Dis, though. I really commend you for that because Dis is my least favorite level of Doom.

 

Stats for each level incoming.

MAP01: 81/81 kills, 0/3 secrets, 6:42

MAP02: 140/140 kills, 8/8 secrets, 13:58

MAP03: 182/182 kills, 1/1 secrets, 14:04

MAP04: 112/112 kills, 3/3 secrets, 10:10

MAP05: 156/156 kills, 4/4 secrets, 12:49

MAP06: 235/246 kills, 5/8 secrets, 18:56

MAP07: 191/191 kills, 1/1 secrets, 15:50

MAP08: 163/174 kills, 2/4 secrets, 13:47

MAP09: 79/79 kills, 3/3 secrets, 6:16

MAP10: 195/206 kills, 6/9 secrets, 17:00

MAP11: 242/242 kills, 4/6 secrets, 16:16

MAP12: 184/185 kills, 2/4 secrets, 17:42

MAP13: 398/398 kills, 5/6 secrets, 22:46

MAP14: 290/296 kills, 5/7 secrets, 25:00

MAP15: 312/314 kills, 0/2 secrets, 25:03

MAP31: 147/147 kills, 3/5 secrets, 12:09

MAP16: 185/220 kills, 4/9 secrets, 13:06

MAP17: 240/248 kills, 6/7 secrets, 17:35

MAP18: 155/156 kills, 2/3 secrets, 16:00

MAP19: 276/288 kills, 6/7 secrets, 24:49

MAP20: 498/558 kills, 5/9 secrets, 25:06

Total: 4,461/4,619 (96.58%) kills, 75/109 (68.81%) secrets

Time = 5:45:04 = SUCKS

^Lulz

Anyway, good mod. Definitely recommend running it through at least partway with -fast, because it gets really fast and totally insane and it's awesome.

Speaking of -fast, I learned something. Fuck the pain elementals. They go from a mere nuisance to a Grade A threat on -fast, even the chaingunners and viles aren't that bad. They made MAP20 infinitely more difficult than it had any right to be with its monsters.

I'm not sure what happened on Mt. Erubus!  I've never run into the situation you see there and I'm not sure how it could have happened.  Did you jump a wall or something once you teleported up to the red tower the first time?  I've tested it a lot.  One thing that might be the issue is which source port you are using.  GZDoom handles a 0 tag like a real tag as far as Legacy 3D floors, so it might be something like that.  Feel free to plug through with -nomonsters and see if it works this time?

 

Buuuuut I need to run through with -fast to see how bad I get my ass kicked.

About Mt Erebus: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I was using GZDoom 2.4.0 and I never ran into any sort of problem, but I did use a flooding type think myself, but I specifically tagged the sectors in question, so it could be the 0 tag and GZDoom is just going "tag 0? dafuq dis meen?" and is just being ultra-confused or something.

It might be best to tag those "non-tagged" sectors down in Erebus proper to something like 255 (assuming you're using Hexen format or Eternity or Legacy or whatever) so it stays out of the way and works properly on all ports (theoretically) that support 3D Floors.

 

As for difficulty with -fast, note my times. Only two levels were under ten minutes and most hovered around 15 or 20. I was slow.

But then I got to the end of MAP20 and I decided I had to go fast or I was going to die.

Welp, I changed the tags to 135 for anything previously marked 0 and achieved the same thing.  Here's a video of me testing the flooding portion.  I think you'll like the level a lot more having seen this.  Forgive me on the upload quality.  I'm new to screen capturing and still need to tweak things a bit.

 

 

Looks sharp. I'd still prefer a solid lava floor, but this should solve the problem regardless. Yeah, doing that part with -fast was a pain in the ass with everything shooting at me and nothing to hide behind.

I haven't done a screen capture myself, but the video looked pretty good.

Since you'll know where everything is, UV -fast shouldn't be as brutal for you as for me. Just take your time and doorcamp for hitscanners pretty much all the time and you should be okay.

I wanted it to feel like you had to tiptoe from part to part like a bunch of catwalks.  Also, there should be enough health to help you survive, especially if you have the BFG.

 

Also.......you didn't play MAP32?  The secret exit on Hell Keep takes a few steps to find.  But nothing too out of the way.