Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Bloodshedder

Space Station Omega

Recommended Posts

I'm going to keep my blabbing short, because GooberMan himself has plenty to say about his latest level. Be sure to check out GooberMan's page hosted here at Doomworld, and get Doom Arcade and play it if you haven't already. Hopefully, Space Station Omega will be the first in a series of many related maps to be released in the future.
Screenshots

DownloadsGooberMan's Commentary

Space Station Omega is the first in a new series of levels. The series name is "The Gateway Experiments, or Doesn't The Military Ever Learn?" Why is this level getting a feature on Doomworld? It is the follow up to Doom Arcade, which was quite popular upon release. It is set 10 years after the events in Doom Arcade and uses the characters I have created for Doom Arcade and an earlier project, The Doom Chronicles.

The concept for the series was that of a TV show for Doom with a storyline that arcs over the entire season. I intended to release one a month, but that hasn't happened yet - this map was started in December 2001(!). The story is going to be different to the average Doom mod's story. While it starts out pretty cliche (yet another demon invasion???), it won't end that way. In fact, just as a little bit of a plot hint, the demon invasion you escape from isn't really an invasion at all. The plot will get bigger, grander, and go in directions you're not expecting it to go in.

Space Station Omega is the biggest map I have ever made, both in terms of size and the amount of scripts used. And it shows. Multiple paths; complete sections of the level you don't have to visit; a plot that runs throughout the entire level (and series); and the ultimate in ACS scripting to this date - an interactive speech system. For the first time in a story-based ZDoom WAD, you can choose what you say to people. As usual, the scripts have been included with the WAD if you want to see how I did everything, and I've even included some freebies in the ZIP in the form of a camera tutorial I wrote some time ago and a much cleaner version of the speech script.

Next Doom projects for me involve doing some scripting work for RTC-3057, and either another Doom Arcade map or Gateway Experiments map.

Anyway, enough BS from me, download the map and the latest ZDoom and play :)

Enjay's Commentary

Well first off, its a good map. The corridors in the space station use slopes both along their length and around the doors to give them a believable "space age" kind of architecture. Poly objects are used well too, from sliding transparent doors to the cool lift doors that actually behave like lift doors are supposed to. There are clearly functional areas within the map; i.e. areas that before things went horribly wrong you could easily imagine people working or relaxing in. Because of the use of lifts and so on, it allows the level to feel as if it is part of a much bigger station. It's not packed with detail and custom textures are only used where the stock ones simply won't do, but there is enough to "key you in" to what the level is all about.

As far as Zdoom special effects go, there are some really nice ones. The way the camera is used to simulate you getting up off the floor after being knocked down is a nice touch, and the intro with the space ship "actually" flying into the space station is a show stopper - and what got me interested in the map in the first place.

The scripting is a big feature of the wad, sometimes overtly, sometimes in the background. I hadn't actually realised that decisions I made, and where I went was having an impact on how the level played out, until I was told. And of course, there is the interactive speech system. This was easy to get used to, and in general the speech was paced well enough not to get tedious, but no so quick to be unreadable. It means you have to get used to a different style of Doom gameplay. I.e. you have to stop, think, take time and "listen" to clues. But that's kind of the point to this wad, isn't it?

I just re-read [the above], and realised it sounds a bit bland, 'cause I didn't say anything like "It rocks". Which of course I should have said, because it does. I don't think I stressed the innovativeness of it either, giving, as it does a totally different twist to doom gameplay.

So, just to put the record straight:

It rocks!

Share this post


Link to post

Very, VERY nice. Not only good gameplay/architecture but good scripts/story as well. The scripting was well-done, right down to that last scene with the plasma gun...

Important note: for me, it plays really well with psxmusic.wad - it makes this map's mood very Resident Evil/Silent Hill-ish. It's 48 megs but worth it. Hell, it's good for any wad that doesn't provide good music. Here's the link:

http://www.doom2.net/~elbryan/wads/musicwads/PSXMUSIC.WAD

Share this post


Link to post

The intro was cool. but lacked detail.

Edit: ok, how do I radio her so she opens the bloody doors?

Share this post


Link to post

First, make sure you have at least 37.cab. Then type in DOS:

zdoom gateway.cfg

You don't even need to put in -file ... Finally, use the 'g' and 'h' keys for the radio, elevator, etc.

Share this post


Link to post

It took me a while to figure out those radio binds. Actually reading the manual helped a lot, though. Hehe.

This map is a truly unique Doom map. The way the communication system works (with all the colored text) reminded me a lot of Day of the Tentacle. A very interesting experience. Good job!

Share this post


Link to post
kristus said:

hmm. ok.. why didn't he just script new binds with acs?


Because you can't :-)

I believe Skulltag has the capability to use console commands via ACS, but Zdoom hasn't copied that change to the code. The only way to do it is via console commands entered directly, or via a cfg file (as SSO does).

Share this post


Link to post

To append to AirRaid's comment, the blue text is really hard to read, especially at 800x600. The red text is okay, but as AirRaid said, both disappear a little too quickly.

Share this post


Link to post

This is easily one of the best wads I've played, and maybe the best zdoom one ever. It's so full of atmosphere, it's almost spooky. The story and dialogue are amazingly good, even if it does slow the game down just a bit. But it gives you a great sense of the game's feel.
I think this wad could have been made even better with a little bit of new music. The music that's used works very well, but it's very familiar and in that sense it's not as suspenseful for such an atmospheric wad.
The "to be continued" screen at the end tells me there's more where this came from, so that means anything could happen between now and the final version. That means a certain *small* bug can be fixed (I don't want to say what because it sort of gives away some of the excellent story, so I think I'll just e-mail the author personally rather than post it here)

1337 thumbs up.

Share this post


Link to post

Well, original music would be better than just taking someone else's.
I'm wondering whether I should offer my services in that department.

Share this post


Link to post
Ichor said:

First, make sure you have at least 37.cab. Then type in DOS:

zdoom gateway.cfg

You don't even need to put in -file ... Finally, use the 'g' and 'h' keys for the radio, elevator, etc.

It dun work for me. It loads up to the menu, try to play and Boom. Lockup hell.

Share this post


Link to post
ravage said:

It dun work for me. It loads up to the menu, try to play and Boom. Lockup hell.


are you using 38.cab? also be sure you run zdoom like this:

Copy GE1-SSO.WAD and GATEWAY.CFG to the Doom 2 directory,
then go to Start Menu/Run and type in "<directory>\zdoom.exe gateway.cfg"

dont add -file ge1-sso.wad to a a command line and gateway.cfg gateway.cfg adds in the wad. Also when i tried to do it with a command line it wouldn't work. But run does work.

Share this post


Link to post

It does take a while to load the game each time, around 30 seconds or so. I think that's because the nodes are being built each and every time the map is loaded. If it's still frozen after a minute or so, then you may have a problem.

Share this post


Link to post

I'm using 38.cab.
Copied wad + cfg file.
Ran zdoom.exe gateway.cfg.
1 min and up and no-go.
Huh?

Share this post


Link to post

Just curious, but why aren't the nodes pre-build? Everytime I load the map the console says "This map has an incomplete BSP tree" and then it builds the BSP tree from scratch.

Was it done this way to save precious webspace and bandwidth? Just wondering.

Share this post


Link to post

That was done because the hour or two it would have taken to compile the map with ZenNode or WARM was an hour or two I didn't have when I uploaded it. An updated version with bug fixes and compiled nodes will be uploaded soon, but the map will still take quite a while to load because it does have to load in quite a bit of data...

Share this post


Link to post

Are you sure it's locking up? Instead of selecting a new game through the menu, hit the tilde (~) key to go to the console, and enter 'map map01' and see what happens.

Share this post


Link to post
GooberMan said:

That was done because the hour or two it would have taken to compile the map with ZenNode or WARM was an hour or two I didn't have when I uploaded it.

Weird... even the most complex Quake3 maps imaginable don't take two hours to compile (save from the light process). And ZDoom was able to produce a BSP tree in a mere 15 seconds.

Oh well, it's still a brilliant map.

Share this post


Link to post

I finally got around to playing SSO last night - it's truly great map, and I can't wait to see more in the series!

I didn't have any trouble loading it, and in fact it only took 3.74 seconds to build the nodes :)

Share this post


Link to post
×