[complevel-9/Boom] Irkalla - An 11-map WAD for Doom II (/idgames link active!)

This looks to be epic!

I tested some of these levels some time ago and they are indeed epic! The screenshots don't do it justice. Congrats on the beta release!

Oh, I said, just another wad like many others.

I have to take those words back. I only played three maps so far, but man, this is just great in terms of gameplay, exploring and visuals. I has been long ago since I was that excited just to explore another room in these maps and just look at the clever and georgeous visuals. And the music just goes along with the maps too.

I just think you should ramp up the difficulty a bit, but still 11/10

I finished another play through of FTH the other day.  I'll have to give this a try.

Woah, this looks amazing. Will have to check this out (in GZDoom)! Congrats on the release!

1 hour ago, grrfield said:

I just think you should ramp up the difficulty a bit

Ask and you shall receive, if you keep playing (:

Cool maps. I'm on map 05 at the moment, though I gotta rest a minute first after, you know, the explosions... Few observations on 04:

Oh, man! Flashback to Hell was awesome! Nice to see SW still making maps!

Ah man.... Just when I was getting ready to go to bed and have sweet bunny dreams and then I get assaulted and a-peppered by this? I'ma play it ASAP.

Black and red aesthetic, my favourite >:^)

@Phobus Okay, this was super cool! Kinda felt like an Eviternity/Scythe 2/Unholy Realms/Sigil mashup. Felt modern, was challenging, yet didn't need to go full slaughter to do it! Thank you for not making me fight 500 revs in each map. Maps 3, 4 and 10 were all standouts imo, A+ work. I did notice some of the demon skulls had a weird discolored or shadowed stripe in the middle of them, was that on purpose? Also, are you planning on turning this into a full megawad? If not I'd suggest putting a hard stop at the end so it doesn't jump into map 12 The Factory after the text scroll.

I think you're gonna get A LOT of positive feedback from this. Definitely feels like a future Caco winner, or at least nominee. The visual style -- dark Hellish landscapes -- is one of my favorite Doom vibes. There's also a ton of variety in these maps, from cramped spaces to big open arenas, and we even get to revisit some areas. Oh, and the few minor changes you made to sprites, like the Arachnotrons, was cool. Well done!!

This looks like a great reimagining of E3 with added atmosphere and detailing.

Taking the opportunity, we're going to play the wad for Thursday Night Survival today. The session starts less than 8 hours from the time of this reply and you can expect it to be fairly active for 4+ hours.

A couple of issues I noticed from a quick look at the wad:

- missing coop starts in MAP05 and MAP09 (not a problem for ZDaemon but it is for demo-compatible source ports)

- if I try to open any map in Eureka it immediately closes with an error about SKY1 not having any patches

Based on the first 3 levels (dsda-doom, UV, pistol start).

Top notch visuals, if a bit dark here and there - had to play with adjusting gamma correction pretty high. Overall lighting does make well-placed spectres annoying, which is nice. Homages to original layouts recognizable even by my terrible memory of the original episodes' details are well-done.

Combat is not my cup of tea so far (no reason to die unless you facerocket is a bit too low-stakes), but it serves well as Doom I-esque combat with sparing usage of Doom II roster. Then again, there are still plenty of levels to go, I stopped at map 4 as it looks to be large by monster count if nothing else.

Two things I consider as issues:

And a little minor minimap cleanup.

Love the design so far, but map 4 needs some love for less skilled players (aka me ;). I didn't IDDQD through it, but even on ITYTD I really struggle to get through it.

Oh and whoever thought it would be a great idea to remake Unholy Cathedral should roast in hell :D

Some more notes:

With this I'm finnished with the wad. Yeah cool maps overall, really gorgeous architectural design, and of a widely accessible difficulty -- less vicious than I remember FTH being, excepting SuperCupcake's map, though nonetheless plenty of entertainment. Thanks for sharing!

Oops, I widescreened it again:

irkalla_wide.zip

Thanks for the great response and feedback so far! A lot of it has been taken on board and some early changes have been made for a quick update. There’s probably still more to do, but I’m sure there’s more feedback due yet! Here’s the link: Download Irkalla (Beta 2)

Thank you for the new beta. Map 4 is more accessible now, but the end (last two rooms) is still very tough. It's a lot better now though. I will play from map 7 till the end later and post about the whole experience then.

Edit: Overall the mapset is pretty good. The design is great and the encounters are fun for the most part. Some remarks:

Well done everyone and I hope the ending is a hint at more to come!

An impressive and brilliantly detailed set!  Fortunately it looks like the bulk of the issues I found were already reported by galileo.  I have a few additional ones in the spoiler.

Excellent work as usual, I particularly liked the clever explanation for E3M9-like revisit/trap. I played beta 1 on UV in GZdoom 4.7.1 and I noticed some bugs:

MAP04: sectors 1482 to 1484 shouldn't be damaging. The final arena was a big ammo drain, because I opened the BFG doors as one of the last. In the end, I had to skip the final cyberdemon and couldn't attain 100% kills. But even without the ammo shortages, this is definitely the hardest map of the WAD (the lava room is even harder than the final arena, IMO).

MAP05: sectors 4454 and 4455 shouldn't be secret. Revenant sector 3760 doesn't work and thus 100% kills is impossible.

MAP09: Two monster closets don't work. Sector 438 didn't open when I pressed the switch and there seems to be no way to open revenant sector 2306 near the exit.

Maybe these were already fixed in beta 2, but I missed that release.

Maps look very nice, played first 3. Fun too play but in few places way to dark, even miss a switch in dark place :) . 4th map 250 monsters, 5th ~400 little to much for me :) Maybe i will finish this wad someday.

If you are playing on GZDoom, you can use a mod called 10.5x to reduce mob density without breaking the maps.

Playing Map 02 in Walpurgis:

Map 2, Slough of Despair, is my favourite map in E3, so I had to do a video of the remake of it. XD

Why is Slough my favourite? Well, little kid me playing doom in the 90's obviously giggled at the Automap; but older me feels it encapsulates alot of what I find good in Doom levels; short and punchy, full of little nooks and crannies and secrets, balanced fights, and not too linear, but with a clear flow and obvious progression. And your remake does a good job keeping that whilst making it pretty, so good job!!

Bumping this to let you know that RC1 has been released. This addresses a bug that snuck into beta 2 with MAP06, and has a range of other fixes, gameplay tweaks and visual polish applications! If you've not already checked it out, this is definitely a good time to. If you have already, the changes may be substantial enough to warrant another go. Either way, here's the latest download link.

I imagine an /idgames upload won't be too far off now, unless any bugs are found that need a fix.

I loved this. Great atmosphere and really engaging. I like how it feels new but also has sections which are still recognizable. It's exceptionally well-built.

These are really fun. It's interesting to explore these levels and recognize the similarities, while enjoying the differences. Inferno is the worst of the OG episodes but I'm glad you guys gave it some love!

That start on the first map, is meant to be a Tower of Babel callback?

 

Wait, a new set by FOUR of my favorite maps (Peedolius actually made possibly the best map in DBP35)? Sign me up...well, when I have the time anyway.

Wonderful wad, thank you for it.