Anomalous Reincarnation

Chris Lutz has updated the Chaos Crew page with the newly released full version of Phobos: Anomaly Reborn--yes, the full episode replacement release is here in all its hyper-detailed glory.

Screenshots of the project can be found here, although most of them are of the work-in-progress and the actual in-game scenes will be in some cases quite different.

This release is not without problems, however. As with the previous release of the 4-level preview, there is quite a bit of wasted space in the wad file, which doubles the download size and more than doubles the extracted file size, at least until Chris Lutz can get a properly cleaned-up wad file uploaded to replace the currently released version.

Update: The currently available download for PAR on 3d Archives is the corrected version.

One of the links on the page is the "incoming" directory, which is upload-only. You can't download from it, so posting a link isn't useful.

... which doesn't prevent you from downloading it using the third link.

Okay, folks, so Arioch was kind enough to send me a link to a clean version. I'm currently waiting for Ty Halderman to get back to me on the archives replacement policy, but as soon as I know what I am doing I will upload the new, much smaller .ZIP file. So, those of you with dial-up service may have to hold on for another day or so; for those lucky bastards with DSL, however...enjoy.

Just for the record, I did attempt to clean up the .WAD, but everything I tried to use either locked up or simply crashed; regardless, I apologize that this must be an issue. Although, given the engine craziness with Caverns of Darkness and the fact that SmashDM just disappeared, it's starting to look like the Chaos Crew just can't get anything out the door without some serious problems. Dammit.

Bulk issues aside, what do you guys think? I would appreciate any feedback.

One more thing: apparently, when using the latest version of ZDoom, you get stuck right at the beginning of E1M2. Of course, if you read the text file, you would see that P:AR wasn't created for OR tested with ZDoom 2.[whatever], so quite frankly: tough. Just use no-clipping to walk forward 2 feet and turn it off.

Looks amazing, but I'm having difficulties with getting caught on various detailing and having to jiggle a bit to shake loose. :P

Nice and hard, too, but I'll play it a bit more before I say anything else.

Just FYI, the stuck-in-a-wall ZDoom 2.0 bug is also present in E1M6.

OMG, these levels are nice, but they lag alot on my computer. (yes, I am using zdoom).
Well... maybe I should try a other port.

Can't clean up the wad? Hmm.. Have you tried Wintex? NWT 1.03? I'd hate to see such a great wad get weighed down by unneeded size. If you want, I'll download it and fiddle with it, although if YOU can't get it to work, I probably won't have much success either. :)

Wait a minute... Did you say Arioch has a CLEANED-UP VERSION?! WHERE!!

I found it funny that in the TXT it mentions an attempt was made for some zdoom compatibility (but by no means full) because some people have trouble running mbf. And indeed, who uses mbf at all, and who has problems running prboom, which should be able to do anything mbf does (maybe a few do, but I gather that's not many people)?

personally, I like MBF better than PrBoom for playing. one thing, isn't MBF 16-bit based off of Boom. Prboom is windows 32-bit layer.
MBF is really the improved Boom. then there is Zdoom1.17c too.

DEMOn said:

personally, I like MBF better than PrBoom for playing. one thing, isn't MBF 16-bit based off of Boom. Prboom is windows 32-bit layer.
MBF is really the improved Boom. then there is Zdoom1.17c too.

Uh.

Prboom is mbf-based. The only mbf feature not supported is doom beta emulation, if I am not mistaken. The old prboom developed solely by proff (v2.02) was a boom only port, but the 2.x.x versions by proff/cph are mbf-based.

Hey Lutz, is P:AR compatible with BOOM 2.02? You said BOOM/MBF compatible, but I like BOOM better than MBF -> more stable and less fuss with sound/music.

Since when is boom more stable than mbf!? Man, someone ban both engines, they have driven quite a few people insane!

DEMOn said:

then there is Zdoom1.17c too.

Heh. :)

myk said:

Since when is boom more stable than mbf!? Man, someone ban both engines, they have driven quite a few people insane!

Perhaps they are frustrating for some, but I *like* MBF, and that's what P:AR was designed for; for the record, it's never crashed on me, whereas PrBoom (apparently) runs according to the phases of the moon, at least on my machine. (BTW, I think it should also be BOOM 2.02 compatible, but I don't know.)

Once again, a Chaos Crew release has been met not with "I like it" or "I hate it" or "Here's some feedback," but with "Why didn't you make it for this port?" and "I never use anything but this engine, moron!" -- quite frankly, it's pretty disheartening, folks. If you don't want to play it the way it was intended, DON'T PLAY IT. I don't try to run Quake TC's with the Unreal engine, and I certainly don't bitch when they don't work.

Anyway, for those of you willing to actually try to play the way I intended, hope you're having fun.

The new .ZIP file is now in the /incoming folder of the archives, and Ty is going to swap them tonight. In the meantime, I've posted a new, smaller .ZIP file on the Chaos Crew website. Get it here.

No one said that... I assume you couldn't have taken my post too seriuosly, which was, anyway, not directed at P:AR's compatibilities, but at what some people remarked about relations between boom engines.

I'll grant that people being used to certain engines will have a harder time setting up other engines they have used only sparingly, but the fact stands that many people don't run DOS-only engines (I am, actually, and exception to this, as are some other people.)

Also prboom pretty much is mbf as I noted, and aside from the fact that it might not work on a few people's computers (as you say) nowadays it is much easier to configure and run flawlessly than DOS boom engines. My point was about the TXT mentioning zdoom as a second option when prboom might as well have been mentioned because it is more suitable. It wasn't really much of a critique... more like a tip for whoever would like to play it.

And boom should work as much as mbf unless one of prboom's few additional features are being used... that seems not to be the case.

As for running it as it was meant, being prboom and eternity pretty much the same as mbf those can certainly be considered "meant for" engines for P:AR, or not?

Apparently, according to this thread in the ZDoom forums, the particular problem was with placing a player start on a vertex that is between two sectors of different height.

Hooray for this ^_^

What I meant is that MBF plays a LOT closer to the real game than PrBoom does... in feel.
proof?... try lv30-034(or faster) or s3m1-035(or faster) with Prboom/Legacy/Zdoom. I bet you can't do it... or at least not nearly as easily.

Arioch said:

Apparently, according to this thread in the ZDoom forums, the particular problem was with placing a player start on a vertex that is between two sectors of different height.

The explanation Randy provides makes sense, but I have never thought about it. Interesting.

As for the port issue -- does it work with PrBoom? If so, great. And myk, sorry I was bitchy; it wasn't really directed at you, per se, but was more a general attempt to halt 40 different complaints about "This doesn't work with HyperGlobalSuperDOOM 9.23554 beta 18.7" (and to the future creators of HGS-Doom: sorry).

Opulent, you mean the mouse response? Well, that has a lot to do with getting used to certain settings. I personally feel most comfortable using doom or zdoom (actually zdaemon, but it's the same.) And not surprisingly they are what I use most, quite. Legacy's mouse feels pretty much like boom's to me, but this depends on what mouse driver is used for DOS. Prboom does feel a little stiff, if you ask me, but I'm sure using it more would change my perspective a bit. Other than that you have the changes in zdoom and legacy due to things having actual heights and slight changes in wall running and whatnot, but nothing else. The point does become somewhat moot and applies only to you and other similar players from a general standpoint.

Some of you are forgetting that people using the SB Live!, the SB Audigy 1 & 2, and various other soundcards can't even use Boom or MBF (or indeed pretty much any DOS port) if they actually want to have sound.

Anyway, aport that no-one has recommended yet is Eternity, which is based on SMMU, which is in turn based on MBF. It comes in both DOS and Windows flavours too, so no sound problems :)

Heh, I did mention etenity.

P:AR seems pretty cool from what I've seen yet. Good use of boom features and architectual complexity. These two being must in my opinion if you want to make an exceptional multi-port compatible "limitless" WAD. I mean, it certainly feels and looks like something quite impossible for doom. Lucky for me I like 320 x 200, but people with a better video card might be able to run it at higher res using prboom's gl counterpart.

Very uncharacteristically, my internet connection is running quite well today, so I didn't wait for the "cleaned" version, and I got the "uncleaned" zip in just under 90 minutes. Just as a matter of interest, I used DeePsea's PWAD fixing tool to reduce it from 41,500,168 bytes to 18,955,647 in a matter of seconds. That's a helluva reduction!

Anyway, I've played it right through and it is fantastic. Real top quality stuff. Surprises round every corner and more eye candy than I care to shake a stick at (whatever that means).

I played it with Zdoom 2.0.31, and other than the E1M2 and E1M6 start spot problems it went fine (as far as I could tell). I was aware of a little lag in some of the more complex areas, but nothing that slowed things down to anywhere near unplayable.

One of the things I really enjoyed about this compared to the taster we got a while back is that I felt more able to know what to do next than before. In the preview I spent a lot of time wandering, and wondering. Not so with this full release.

Great job. Even the so called sub P:AR levels are better than many of us turn out.

Unfortuantely some of the levels give me a segmentation violation. Using zdoomdos. Odd. (oh and I didn't find the sub P:AR levels. :(

Myk: I agree.

ravage said:

Unfortuantely some of the levels give me a segmentation violation. Using zdoomdos. Odd.

The reason it does that is because the version of ZDoom (v1.17) that ZDoomDOS is based on is not 100% Boom compatible - that didn't come until something like v1.21. Quite a lot of levels desinged for Boom crash ZDoomDOS with the segmentation violations - there's several in the 10 sectors wads.

You'll just have to use a different port I'm afraid.