[RC4] Serenade.wad (Vanilla compatible Doom 2 megawad)

Silence was very enjoyable so looking forward to the final release. Good luck on the project!

This was fun.  Played in ZDoom HMP.  Two issues I noticed during my play:

• Spoiler

   

  • On MAP06, the secret in the cyberdemon room that opens to reveal an invulnerability -- the passage to the invuln seems to be too narrow, such that there's no way to enter it and actually grab the invuln.
  • On MAP07, the large slime pit I think is unintentionally a death pit because the switch on one of the pillars that I assume would let you climb out doesn't seem to work.

   

   

Hope this helps.

1 hour ago, CrueCut said:

 

• On MAP06, the secret in the cyberdemon room that opens to reveal an invulnerability -- the passage to the invuln seems to be too narrow, such that there's no way to enter it and actually grab the invuln.
• On MAP07, the large slime pit I think is unintentionally a death pit because the switch on one of the pillars that I assume would let you climb out doesn't seem to work.

 

That passage is actually just a window into the invulnerability area, there's a separate secret that leads into that area and then opens that initial passage up more for a quicker exit.

I'm not sure what you mean by the inescapable pit, I'm pretty sure there's a way to escape all of the damaging floors in map07

I AM SO READY FOR THIS.

Can't wait to see what you do with the city levels, too. You did such a great job taking the Doom 1 assets and upping the stakes with Silence.

I always felt that D2TWID was widely uneven, kinda like the actual Doom II levels, but I have a feeling your work is gonna be more consistent and I am here for it all. Good name, too, with Serenade! Much better than something like Silenced... or Silencer... Silence II: Silence on Earth... Silence Harder... Whispers of Silence...

(Oh, on the Silence thread, someone mentioned that some monsters weren't teleporting in on the easy settings. I'm sure you're ready to be done with that for good but if it's a legit gameplay bug I guess it's worth fixing for idgames?)

EDIT: Okay, I probably should have just waited to post until I finished playing, but I was impatient! Okay, my thoughts:

1) This IS harder! And the early maps are very tight quarters combat, almost like a Zone 300. Not a complaint! Really intense stuff. I can see a lot of your Silence mapping instincts here and it's great. And some rooms that gave me flashbacks to your earlier work, like map 06 with the Cybie. That was a very Silence-y type of room. But more... uh... difficult.

2) I do like that you've somewhat tried to match the Doom II map names. Waste Tunnels does in fact have a waste tunnel. Dead Simple is a small, simple map with acrachnotrons and mancubi.

3) The only thing I came across that confused me was in that Dead Simple map 7. There's a button on one of the towers that doesn't seem to work. Is that on purpose? Admittedly it took me a second to figure out I needed to shoot the other button to make the platforms lift, so I may have missed something (is this a secret?). However, I beat the level, then went back with cheats and at no point could I get that button to activate even after I was at the point where I could exit and I was noclipping back and forth. If it's a secret I feel like you should hide it until it's active. If it's meant to taunt the player, it still kinda felt like a bug.

4) Overall a ton of fun to play... though I feel like the journey is just starting. Definitely not just a repeat of Silence, but I still see a lot of your same design instincts at play. Great work -- this could be another classic vanilla wad.

8 hours ago, CrueCut said:

On MAP07, the large slime pit I think is unintentionally a death pit because the switch on one of the pillars that I assume would let you climb out doesn't seem to work.

3 hours ago, Wilster_Wonkels said:

That passage is actually just a window into the invulnerability area, there's a separate secret that leads into that area and then opens that initial passage up more for a quicker exit. 

Ok, now that I've finished the 1.0 wad and played map 7, I now have context for this. This is what I was talking about in my above post. How exactly does the secret work? It sounds clever, but I definitely think you should tweak it so there isn't a visible button that just plain doesn't work.

10 hours ago, Captain Keen said:

3) The only thing I came across that confused me was in that Dead Simple map 7. There's a button on one of the towers that doesn't seem to work. Is that on purpose? Admittedly it took me a second to figure out I needed to shoot the other button to make the platforms lift, so I may have missed something (is this a secret?). However, I beat the level, then went back with cheats and at no point could I get that button to activate even after I was at the point where I could exit and I was noclipping back and forth. If it's a secret I feel like you should hide it until it's active. If it's meant to taunt the player, it still kinda felt like a bug.

I accidentally flipped a linedef around and broke that switch. It should lower the platform with the bfg but doesn't do anything now. I'll fix it for the next update. I'm working on the music and playtesting the levels more to find other issues so depending how long that takes is when the next update will come out.

Oh, and this automap screenshot might help you figure out how to get the invulnarability

Sweet! A sequel to Silence! Shame it is not a Thy Flesh Consumed replacement, but hey, three episodes are already quite an achievement.

Version 1.1 is live, I've reworked Map04's difficulty by providing the player with a bit more ammo and health, fixed some issues here and there, and completed the first seven tracks for the music.

On 7/2/2022 at 8:59 AM, Wilster_Wonkels said:

Version 1.1 is live, I've reworked Map04's difficulty by providing the player with a bit more ammo and health, fixed some issues here and there, and completed the first seven tracks for the music.

FYI the current download link looks like it still has the old v1.0 in it, though the music is now present.

maps 8-11 are now live, up next i'm starting work on the city levels.

Played the new release up to 11 in a continuous run; very nice maps. As you state, they're your take on D2WIDD, and actually I think I enjoy them more than their inspiration; as always for your stuff it flows perfectly from place to place (only looked at the map once!) and difficulty feels good. Keep it up!

@Wilster_Wonkels Just wanted to chime in and say I really enjoyed these 4 new levels. The quality of the level design is very consistent, a la Silence. The Circle of Death replacement was especially fun. Can't wait for some city level goodness!

New maps are great, really like the flow and design which has a great level of dynamics in the encounters and areas. Satisfying level of difficulty on UV with some seat of the pants moments. I have also played through the first 7 maps and overall the pacing is really good, I rarely have the time and energy to commit to a full megawad so I'm enjoying getting to blast through these in smaller chunks as they're released. I agree this is like a more consistent D2TWID. Looking forward to the next ones!

This is a pretty solid start, Wil. Your maps a short, punchy and a lot of fun with heaps of variety in terms of set pieces that keep the player on their toes. I'll edit this post accordingly when I get a chance to upload my footage.

Newest update is out, with the first four maps of the city episode included

@Wilster_Wonkels Great new maps! I especially liked 13, the Downtown replacement, with all the teleporting and the great usage of the Cybie (you hear him earlier in the level and then at the end he emerges from the shadows - epic!) You clearly put a lot of effort into making sure these weren’t large, empty and aimless. Nice tight mapping, at times it gave me some Plutonia vibes even and had some good tight combat. Those two arch-viles was a great reveal, got me good the first time. Great traps, which has been very consistent with your mapping.

Speaking of Plutonia, I know this is Doom 2 inspired, but I’d love to see a last city map reminiscent of map 29 of Plutonia where it kinda feels like an open city layout with some big central threat that can rain down destruction from afar. That was always my favorite city map of the official megawads and it out did the Doom II city maps imo.

Neat! I've had a taste of your work in E1 of silence way back before, I'll give this a shot as well and maybe sink my teeth in the last two episodes of silence later.

Next stop, Hell. Just updated the wad with the second half of the city episode and the secret levels. I hope everyone enjoys!

Edit: There's been a minor update to fix the secrets on MAP18

@Wilster_Wonkels Fun maps! I especially liked 18, The Courtyard replacement. All were the right level of challenge but not frustrating, and I think you do a good job with designing for open spaces. 18 was really good work, probably one of my favorite maps from you. Played through it twice.

I did notice some visual jank and overall strangeness in map 20. The little pit at the beginning with the rolling shadows has some weird visual stuff going on, and also the teleporting exploding barrels after the blue key... not sure what that was about. Seemed like it was on purpose but also felt like a bug or like it was triggered at the wrong time. I'd definitely give that one another pass. The layout is really well done, though. An ambitious map.

Looking forward to more Hell levels. Are you gonna do the Doom II style of Hell map where it's barely Hell (except maybe The Spirit World) or will they more resemble Inferno and what you did with Silence Ep 3?

EDIT: Oh, and for Map 20, the little ledge with the Cyberdemon had him mostly firing into the ground with the Mancubi. Maybe that ledge could be triggered to lower by the player?

On 8/31/2022 at 9:57 PM, Captain Keen said:

@Wilster_Wonkels Fun maps! I especially liked 18, The Courtyard replacement. All were the right level of challenge but not frustrating, and I think you do a good job with designing for open spaces. 18 was really good work, probably one of my favorite maps from you. Played through it twice.

 

I did notice some visual jank and overall strangeness in map 20. The little pit at the beginning with the rolling shadows has some weird visual stuff going on, and also the teleporting exploding barrels after the blue key... not sure what that was about. Seemed like it was on purpose but also felt like a bug or like it was triggered at the wrong time. I'd definitely give that one another pass. The layout is really well done, though. An ambitious map.

 

Looking forward to more Hell levels. Are you gonna do the Doom II style of Hell map where it's barely Hell (except maybe The Spirit World) or will they more resemble Inferno and what you did with Silence Ep 3?

 

EDIT: Oh, and for Map 20, the little ledge with the Cyberdemon had him mostly firing into the ground with the Mancubi. Maybe that ledge could be triggered to lower by the player?

 

 

Thanks for your feedback, I'll see what changes i can implement to fix up the maps a bit, and to answer your quesiton about the style of the hell levels to come, I think it will be more akin to E3 of Silence than Doom 2's hell episode, albeit with a higher difficulty, and maybe more experimental level design.

3 hours ago, Wilster_Wonkels said:

I think it will be more akin to E3 of Silence than Doom 2's hell episode, albeit with a higher difficulty, and maybe more experimental level design.

Sounds awesome!!
 

Your city levels really turned out well, nice work.

The first three hell levels are now live

LOVED these 3 new levels. Especially the last one. I know other maps have done that sort of thing, but I'm not sure if I've seen it done that well before, where you're walking on air basically and it goes verrrryyyy surreal. Felt like a Dali painting come to life at times. More of that please! It's weird in the best possible way, and makes Hell feel like some separate dimension from ours with different rules. Definitely take your time to craft more levels like this, and I also liked how the exits become the entrances of the next map. (I always think it's cool when mappers do that.) I played some of map 20 again too and it seems better to me... but maybe I'm imagining things, it's been awhile since I played it.

Only thing I noticed on the new Hell levels is the most trivial visual thing ever with the shadows, mainly in Map 22 (middle of the 3). There's a room with a rad suit where the suit appears to be under a different kind of shadow but just barely, and some of the flesh pillars in the first big room have harsh shadow lines on them that almost make it look like I should expect an invisible wall or something. Overall though the use of lighting and darkness is very well done and effective even in software rendering, which is how I like to play vanilla-ish wads.

Three more hell levels are out now, maps 25-27. Please note that the HOMs on Map 26 are intentional, and if you're renderer isn't displaying HOMs then you probably need to switch to software mode.

I tried it on HNTR and on map 13 the red key doesn't appear on 'easy'.

Damn Wilster, you really are serious about finishing this before end of year. Props to you.

12 hours ago, TheCyberDruid said:

I tried it on HNTR and on map 13 the red key doesn't appear on 'easy'.

that'll be gone in the next update, thanks for noticing it

4 hours ago, Captain Keen said:

Damn Wilster, you really are serious about finishing this before end of year. Props to you.

that's the idea generally, only have four maps to go and one's the boss level so i think it's reasonable.

I mostly loved these new maps. I’m glad you pointed out the HOM effect, as it looked like a bug at first. However, I actually kinda think it’s great? At least for that one map, since it’s in those major fights and then the walls eventually get covered up. I feel like it’s the kinda thing you wouldn’t want to overuse, but for one map it’s actually pretty cool and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do that before the way you have. You’ve hit a very cool surreal vibe with these maps and there’s lots of nice little intricate detailing and clever traps and clever ways of bending the levels back on themselves. I also liked some of the dark hallway moments, very horror-ish which I love to see in Doom maps.

I did notice a couple of things. Firstly, there seem to be a lottttt of inescapable pits. In just map 25 I fell into one right away. Not a complaint but I may have noclipped out of one and maybe a switch here or there could help with flow? Or am I missing ways to get out? Also, in map 25 in a courtyard a mancubus got stuck on top of a switch. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the problem again to take a screenshot, but somehow it get lifted on top of the switch and was stuck in an idle state.

I also noticed a HOM in map 27 when you go down a lift near the beginning. Was that on purpose? That one just felt like a bug to me. This is your wad so you should do whatever you want to do, but I would say be careful of overusing the HOM effect. I’d personally avoid it in tight hallways. I think it was effective in map 26 because it was wider open areas or small arenas and really helped reflect the chaos of the battle around you. But this might just be a bug in map 27.

Noticed a few bigger issues too. Maybe I’m just blind, but map 28 seemed to be broken? It said it had no enemies and the teleporter didn’t work. I tried shooting everything I could see. I ended up just exiting out of that one. Also map 22 isn’t present anymore as far as I can tell, it’s just switches and no enemies and it automatically exits when you press the switch. I didn’t go through all the old levels but noticed that issue.

Overall this is a cool wad and I’m glad it’s going to be finished!

EDIT: “Three more hell levels are out now, maps 25-27.” Ahhh I guess that map just isn’t ready yet! Definitely check out 22 though it seems like it accidentally got removed.

1 hour ago, Captain Keen said:

I mostly loved these new maps. I’m glad you pointed out the HOM effect, as it looked like a bug at first. However, I actually kinda think it’s great? At least for that one map, since it’s in those major fights and then the walls eventually get covered up. I feel like it’s the kinda thing you wouldn’t want to overuse, but for one map it’s actually pretty cool and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone do that before the way you have. You’ve hit a very cool surreal vibe with these maps and there’s lots of nice little intricate detailing and clever traps and clever ways of bending the levels back on themselves. I also liked some of the dark hallway moments, very horror-ish which I love to see in Doom maps.

 

I did notice a couple of things. Firstly, there seem to be a lottttt of inescapable pits. In just map 25 I fell into one right away. Not a complaint but I may have noclipped out of one and maybe a switch here or there could help with flow? Or am I missing ways to get out? Also, in map 25 in a courtyard a mancubus got stuck on top of a switch. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the problem again to take a screenshot, but somehow it get lifted on top of the switch and was stuck in an idle state.

 

I also noticed a HOM in map 27 when you go down a lift near the beginning. Was that on purpose? That one just felt like a bug to me. This is your wad so you should do whatever you want to do, but I would say be careful of overusing the HOM effect. I’d personally avoid it in tight hallways. I think it was effective in map 26 because it was wider open areas or small arenas and really helped reflect the chaos of the battle around you. But this might just be a bug in map 27.

 

Noticed a few bigger issues too. Maybe I’m just blind, but map 28 seemed to be broken? It said it had no enemies and the teleporter didn’t work. I tried shooting everything I could see. I ended up just exiting out of that one. Also map 22 isn’t present anymore as far as I can tell, it’s just switches and no enemies and it automatically exits when you press the switch. I didn’t go through all the old levels but noticed that issue.

 

Overall this is a cool wad and I’m glad it’s going to be finished!

I'm glad you're liking the hell levels. I fixed the homs on map 27, they were there to allow the floor to bleed through so the player doesn't see the trap coming, but i found a way to fix that too. I also fixed the mancubus on map 25. As for maps 22 and 28, neither are finished yet. Map 28 is just the opening room and map22 is currently a placeholder that i intend to replace by the next update. I moved maps 22 and 23 up a slot to make the names match better, which unfortunately for now has left slot 22 empty.