Phantom Phobos - Vanilla Ultimate Doom episode(ID Games link available)

Reserve Post for a thing.

So, is this only limit-removing or there's a chance to play it on vanilla doom?

Alright, so I played it till E1M4. It's overall pretty good and fun, good music, texture use, etc... The only complain I have is that some rooms are under-detailed and that placing barons at the end of every level is kinda annoying (until you get the rocket launcher in e1m3). Other than that, it looks good, plays good, and feels good. Keep it up!

@Walter confetti the thread title clearly says "Vanilla Ultimate Doom episode" ;)

Did a FDA attempt. Had to stop at E1M8 because of an inescapable pit that didn't kill me :/

Played on Crispy Doom with -longtics. Ultra-Violence. 0-philnemba-00000.zip

Overall, the maps are quite comfy looking, as expected from vanilla, and have a nice flow for the earlier levels.

The gameplay itself: ranged from good to dull. From the first map there are pinkies in large open rooms, which basically renders them harmless, and walking meat walls. This goes on for the rest of the maps. It's not annoying until E1M5 and onwards, where there are pinkies everywhere you go.

There was no incentive to kill the Barons and Cacos. You mostly gave me ammo for the Shotgun, and shotgunning bullet sponges is only time consuming. I just ran past them most of the times I could. There is definitely an abundance of Barons here, and a lack of actual challenge. I played these maps continuously for the demo, but if I pistol started, I doubt there'd be enough ammo to kill all of them, honestly; especially for E1M5 and E1M6.

The most fun was when I was gunning down low-tiers placed sparsely from each other, and that made the high quantity of Barons feel out of place. Why were they there? They aren't obstacles, I'll just run past them and hope to find more imps to shoot at.

None of the maps are difficult either, even E1M8: There is perhaps way too much health. You should've used medkits more often in the map, and not only Soulsphere + Mega Armor combos as the only way to recover. Although there's a large quantity of Cybers in that map, if you know how press A or D to dodge straight-line projectiles while holding M1, you're never going to get hit :/

In general, I think a way to improve the gameplay would be to increase the Zombieman/Shottie/Imp count, have more ambushes, use Pinkies only in combination with more threatening monsters, and if you want to keep the Barons, most certainly give a player a non-secret RL somewhere in E1M2.

The music choice was very good :) And you get bonus points for the Undertale midi in E1M6.

Edit: I'll have to disagree with @Cacodemon187. There's no such thing as under-detailed, because there's no pure form when it comes to how maps should look. Regardless of how "detailed" they are, they either look good or bad.

Some can look better than others, but that doesn't make others ugly. This mapset for example looks good the way it is, and that's great if it's the vision @Philnemba is going for. I won't deny there is room for more detailing / "improvement", but either this "improvement" we're speaking of is what Phil is looking for or not, is up to him, and so far the maps look good, so it's perfectly fine if he doesn't want to 'detail' them more. Because after all, there's people that enjoy or prefer this classic style way more than hyper-detailed maps.

@Cacodemon187 @Juza Thanks for the feedback as I'm planning to balance thing placement changes on both low & high tier monsters on most maps to give this episode a bit more challenge.  

11 hours ago, Juza said:

I played these maps continuously for the demo, but if I pistol started, I doubt there'd be enough ammo to kill all of them, honestly; especially for E1M5 and E1M6.

All maps were tested at pistol start so E1M5 & E1M6 are possible ;) 

My review in the form of a Haiku:

Quote

Holy shit, pure Doom!
Shotgunning Barons, like the
Old days once again.

 

Five golden stars. Doom just like I like it. Not too hot, not too cold. Will probably play it again, it fits me like a glove.

Video playthrough recorded, will post when it uploads a few years from now! (So probably tomorrow :)

That video F I N A L L Y finished uploading! Only took 16+ hours lol

Some idiot commented "what the hell am I looking at?!" and disliked the video the instant it finished uploading. Not sure what's wrong with that dip shit, but oh well. Great maps! An hour of classic fun!

I'll play this when I get the time and will post a review!

Really great show here. friend.

As this is beta, I thought I would point out a small 'bug'.

In E1M5, it is possible to strafe-run past the brown pillars (barely) on the right side - this will allow you to get the red key earlier than you're supposed to.

Not game breaking, but def thought I should mention it. Unfortunately, I forgot to screenshot this lol. I'm sure you know the location that I mean...

The maps themselves are awesome, and I have particular love for the last two levels.

Keep it up, I love me some vanilla single episode replacements! Cheers! :)

Played through this all on Zandronum on UV continuously. Some thoughts.

+ This was quite fun to play overall. I quite like slaughtermaps so the last few didn't bother me.

+ The music selection is awesome! (What is the track from E1M1?)

+ The progression in the maps was pretty good. I liked that it wasn't entirely linear and that you had some choices at places.

- I didn't come across a RL until E1M4. When you have Barons to fight, and no SSG because this is Doom 1, that is way too long to not come across a RL as part of the standard paths with no secrets. Shotgunning or Chaingunning Barons is not fun, and if you have to do it once it's maybe not so bad, it just means that you're more inclined to want to rush past them rather than fight them.

-  The large amount of Demons on E1M5 just made me want to run around them rather than fight them. I certainly didn't want to use the Berserk pack on all of them!

- E1M8 has way too much health. There's also an abundance of ammo given that you give the BFG at the start. Whenever you place a BFG into a map, it generally makes any large fights significantly easier, doubly so if there's no shortage of Cells.

Overall this was really enjoyable to play!

Pretty standard stuff, the only problematic point was the baron trap in E1M9 - the RNG failed me and 4 barons in a row needed 6 rockets to die instead of usual 5. The rest got me cornered and killed me.

BTW, where E1M9 music track comes from?

Just finished playing this, I didn't find the secret level but I really enjoyed the BFG focused e1m8. I feel there are too many barons here, they can be troublesome if you allow them to live and have to return later but most of them you can simply skip and never see them again. You did use them quite well at the end of e1m4 when you hit the switch to lower the exit and you have to fend of 4 barons as you wait for it.

Your music selection is great, no complaints there. I enjoyed the level progression, they never felt too long and ended just at the right time. Your maps were easy to follow and I never got lost. Still, I agree with Juza that most encounters weren't that exciting. Granted, Doom 1's small bestiary makes it more difficult to spice up the combat, but it has been done quite well in mapsets like 'No end in sight'.

On 12/6/2019 at 5:34 PM, Degree23 said:

+ The music selection is awesome! (What is the track from E1M1?)

Its from an underrated NES game call Journey to Silius: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BDAJS_8RSA

21 hours ago, Caleb13 said:

BTW, where E1M9 music track comes from?

Its from Fire Emblem although I've honestly never play any of the games and only know this from Smash Bros XD

@Doomkid @Arrowhead12 @Degree23 @Caleb13 @Ozku Thanks for the feedback and 2nd version of beta is still underway and will be post within a day or so.

Ok so a lot of the editing I'm doing on most of the maps is taking longer due to some RL stuff but here are some stuff that's coming in 2nd public beta:

- More monsters on each map but some added/removed thing placement changes too for gameplay balancing reasons except for E1M9 because its fine the way it is.

- Add minor details on some maps especially E1M3 & E1M4   

- More Lost Souls because I don't think I added enough lost souls in later half of the episode :P

Alright Beta 2 time :)

PhanPhoBETA2.zip

Changes:

- More monsters on each map but some added/removed thing placement changes too for gameplay balancing reasons except for E1M9

- Add a harmless Cyberdemon on E1M1 :P

- Add more minor details on most maps

- Add more Lost Souls particularly on E1M5, E1M6 & E1M7

- Fix rare VPO vanilla crash on E1M7

- Spooky hellish stuff happens every time you grab a keycard in E1M8 

- Replace midi on D_VICTOR because the previous midi sounded too quiet to me 

This will be the last public beta so next will be release candidate and if I'm lucky this will be fully finish before the end of the year :) 

Big Update announcement thing: 

I'm close to finishing this to where I'm releasing this as "Release Candidate" state which I'm planning ether Monday or Tuesday.

Here's some changes that I'm implementing:

- Minor changes to E1M1 start room to make Nightmare run hypothetically possible 

- Fix teleport trap in E1M2 where some demons wouldn't teleport 

- Minor texture changes on E1M8 near the yellow card key and blue card key rooms

- Replace M_E1M8 with a familiar popular midi from the 90s due to the original midi not playing back in Chocolate Doom. The original midi will still playback in Zdoom base source ports via MAPINFO.

- Gave Doomguy some glasses borrowed from HOUSE14.wad

- Successfully made a DEHACKED file to replace the Automap text and Episode 1 end text.

- Successfully made Replacement Doom text font for episode name on select episode menu and map intermission screen.

- Fixed a major VPO that I overlooked on E1M9 in the blue key room.

After painstaking testing and tweaking after over a week, This wad is finish :)

PhanPho.zip

EDIT: Thanks for playing, testing & giving me some feedback on the beta versions @Walter confetti @Cacodemon187 @Juza @Doomkid @STILES @Arrowhead12 @Degree23 @Caleb13 & @Ozku

ID Games link is up and Happy New Year :)