The Apocalypse is Over

Tormentor667 has released his latest project, "The City Of The Damned - Apocalypse". It follows a different gameplay style than his usual, but if you liked his previous work, you will most likely enjoy this one too. You can get it here.

Tormentor spent many hours of work in his moon shelter designing this.

It is full of uber win and psychological nudity

Mini-review from your favourite anti-zdoom person! :D

I happened to play TCotD:A today, sortof halfway expecting (hoping really) that Torm would deliver a nice map. And lo, I was disappointed. The fairest way to describe it in one sentence is that it's definitely a sequel to the original TCotD, and some of the major differences reflect the evolution of Torms mapping style and the release of GZDoom. That being said, it has a lot of the problems of the original TCotD: it boils down to a really massive and confusing keyhunt, and the monster placement is, well its shitty. Also, totally unrelated to the original, ammo is way too fucking scarce. I ended up pitchforking monsters more often than anything else, because I needed to save ammo. On the bright side, the atmosphere is pulled off loads better than the original TCotD, which just felt like a ripoff of Blood put into Doom. Overall it's a typical Torm wad, pretty and atmospheric (for what thats worth), but severely lacking in the gameplay dept.

Vegeta said:

It follows a different gameplay style than his usual,

If by different you mean "very much a sequel to the original City of the Damned" or "uses lots of modified resources and resources from other games," then, yeah, sure, I can dig it.

but if you liked his previous work, you will most likely enjoy this one too.

Can't disagree with that, though how much of that has to do with quality of the map itself rather than the identity of the author is something that needs consideration

in b4 Elric

Eh, I personally thought that the wad could with a few more real puzzles. Most of the "puzzles" in the wad consisted of reading notes to find out where you could find keys. The only thing that could really be regarded as a puzzle was the floor maze in the church. Thamuz was a real disappointment for me too. I was really expecting a little more then just a recolored cyberdemon that shot lasers.

John Smith said:

Mini-review from your favourite anti-zdoom person! :D
If by different you mean "very much a sequel to the original City of the Damned" or "uses lots of modified resources and resources from other games," then, yeah, sure, I can dig it.

I played them both today for the first time. The original one plays and looks like a doom city level. And I found the gameplay rather good.
I didn't have the impression I was playing Doom or so, more an updated version of Blood when I was playing the sequel. And I didn't care much of the gameplay because I didn't compare with doom.
That the contents is inspired by other games is a good thing. How it is implemented I couldn't care less. There was a time when it did, I played trust and disliked. Years later I played it again and loved it.

This is excellent. It sure takes a lot of ammunition to kill some of these guys, I'd consider that a con, but the map more than makes up for it with the quality of the design. I thought it was pretty funny that the guillotine in the main courtyard outside the pub kills you if you walk under it.

I posted this on Wadsinprogress but the site hasn't updated its wads in like a week so here we go anyway:

"The pistols are insanely weak and there's barely any ammo, there are tons of cultists shooting at you with hitscan weapons and the only thing that kills them effectively is a pitchfork which you have to pick up every time after throwing. I was really enjoying it until these things just became too much!

Also: long texts in a mod that isn't either next-gen (not happening with Doom, ever) or hasn't invested the player deeply into the game already are a no-no in my book. I *at best* only skimmed the letters I came across because I just didn't care... yet.

Going to try this again on a lower difficulty because it seems very promising. Just a tad frustrating. "

... needs smoother animations....

Okay started again and managed to progress better and succesfully kill the enemies until I found the shotgun which is actually useful. It was pretty fun and very well-made and atmospheric, but now I'm just on some kind of crazy key hunt, I have the diamond and I have no idea where to go. ARG.

Haven't heard any sirens yet...

P.S. The hellhounds scared the shit out of me the first time I found them! Then after that I avoided that spot... not enough weaponry yet to take them down easily...

@Nick - Use the shotgun from the graveyard to take them out.

To all others who found this a bit frustrating in terms of gameplay: Try to think of it as a new game, not Doom related. It's so much inspired by Resident Evil and equal games that comparing it to Doom makes it very hard. The weapons are supposed to be weak as it makes one single enemy more of a challenge as it is in Doom :)
Though thx so far for your feedback!

Coldfusio said:

There was a time when it did, I played trust and disliked. Years later I played it again and loved it.

thx. very interesting wad.

Tormentor667 said:

@Nick - Use the shotgun from the graveyard to take them out.

Haha yup figured that out... they move fast though!

Tormentor667 said:

To all others who found this a bit frustrating in terms of gameplay: Try to think of it as a new game, not Doom related.

Very true, and why I actually started to enjoy it the second time through. I ran in the first time expecting the weapon balance and combat style to match that of regular Doom, so my tactics didn't change. After that frustrating episode of me getting gunned down continually, I restarted it the next day and played more cautiously. What do you know, the cultists gave me no trouble anymore and I was more careful in my approach to other enemies so that I could have a nice smooth game experience not punctuated by my own death every few minutes.

But now unfortunately, I'm a bit stuck!

So, Nick, that's exactly how it is supposed to work :) Where are you stuck?

If your stuck where I was stuck, then go into the Hellhound barn thingy and jump on a few boxes and see where you can go :)

Also, use the alt-fire of the shotgun to fire both barrels at once, in-case you didn't know that already.

I was stuck with the key-hunt for a while, but mostly because I couldn't find the hellhound barn area. It needs to be more clearly indicated where you need to go up to that point. Once I started getting the billions of keys and stuff, the map proceeded to be a good bit more fun. Even thought the boss is just a recolored cyberdemon, I thought it was quite well done, the attacks looked very nice, and it posed a challenge without being silly-hard (cough cough billions of source guardians in UTNT cough)

That's funny, I thought the final boss of UTNT was the biggest disappointment in the whole wad, considering how ridiculously easy the fight was, especially in comparison with the obvious amount of effort that was put into the visual side of that confrontation.

Killing one guardian and firing the secret weapon from map01 twice is not a satisfying ending for a wad that forced me to deal with heaps upon heaps of GZDoom gayness.

That said, I'm not even going to bother downloading this.

I hear a square box textured with startan3 was released for vanilla doom. I'd recommend you check that out, Belial, I hear it has tremendous gameplay!

NICK BAKER IS THAT YOU?!?!

Okay so, I have progressed a ton, but I'm stuck again. For now.

I absolutely loved the sirens. What an awesome device to freak you out and have you scrambling for cover that really adds to the desperation and freakishness of the whole place. The lights going out and everything is a great touch, the way the noises seem to follow you... But two bad things:

1.) Once, I waited outside after all the lights went out to see what actually goes on, rather than running to the nearest safehouse. I was kinda disappointed, it wasn't very scary or exciting.

2.) The sirens, after the first 3, start to feel like the nighttime in Castlevania II:Simon's Quest. Every played that old NES game? You'll be walking along when suddenly "WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A CURSE." and it changes to night where enemies are twice as strong and the village doors are closed etc. This keeps happening nonstop as you play and it becomes the game's #1 most annoying point, and the novelty of it wears off fast. So yeah - the sirens, which at first seemed extremely cool, start to feel repetetive and lose their power to frighten. They start to get annoying!

NiGHTMARE once said:

You'd prefer a level which was just an enormous square with a tonne of monsters, power-ups and weapons to an utterly amazing looking level without any things in it? To each their own, I suppose.

You're on to something, Hobbs :P

I've not played all the way through yet, but I REALLY like how modern DOOM source can be pushed to not feel like DOOM hardly at all!

Not that I hate DOOM, I love it, but I also love taking old things and seeing how far you can push them, I.E.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wDoZu9f0bEs

or in the case of the DOOM engine, not only see how far it can be pushed, but what it can be reshaped into.

What this made me feel like is that I was dabbling with an old Infogrames title called Alone in the Dark as opposed to DOOM.

Though some of you say it does not climax that well which is a let down because all Lovecraft (or most) stories climax very well, and it would be nice to see the story progress deeper, and to see original monsters and more creepy atmosphere, but if all we end up with is a modified CyberDemon then I'm kind sad. :/

None the less I will play through to see for myself if I liked it because so far I'm really taking in the work this guy has done, which is MUCH more original (despite borrowed graphics) than a lot of what I've seen from the community on a whole. Not that the community does not put out good quality maps and what not, it's just that a lot lack the artistic vision that this has.

Belial said:

That's funny, I thought the final boss of UTNT was the biggest disappointment in the whole wad, considering how ridiculously easy the fight was, especially in comparison with the obvious amount of effort that was put into the visual side of that confrontation.

Killing one guardian and firing the secret weapon from map01 twice is not a satisfying ending for a wad that forced me to deal with heaps upon heaps of GZDoom gayness.

That said, I'm not even going to bother downloading this.

Waaaaah, the big bad GZdoom wad made me play it all the way through! Must pay back by delivering excessive bitching.

GzStarWars said:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wDoZu9f0bEs

I really need to fix my Atari. I need to play that. :O~

Nothing beats the real thing, but if you screwed up and bought a brand new Winblows machine as apposed to an Atari 130XE for Christmas last year, well there is still a complete and legal solution to that here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=40606&package_id=32947&release_id=64318

and here:

http://atariarea.krap.pl/PLus/downloads_us.htm

and last but not least, the game:

http://yoomp.atari.pl/

Enjoy!

Ya know - I enjoyed it for the most part. Actually, I loved all the written notes, it made for a good read and I'm an advocate of Myst (that speaks for itself).

I was severely disappointed with the 'puzzles' - with GZdoom's capabilities, I know you can deliver some real thought provoking brain teasers Torm! Just keep that in mind for next time; also, is it just me, or was the pitchfork pretty damn powerful? Because I barely touched the pistol, that was a waste...

Of course, I had to throw the complaints in there ~ and that's really all I have to complain about! =) I think the overall design, atmosphere, and in some parts, the gameplay, are in their own right, quite brilliant.

I know this must've taken you quite a long time; it shows that you put a lot of backbone behind making this and I thoroughly enjoyed playing it. Kudos my friend, kudos.

My only huge complaint was how dark everything is. For me, I could not even see infront of me in the house. My small complaint is how the notes were displayed diagonal. Could have been a lot worse though. :P

zap610 said:

My only huge complaint was how dark everything is.

I pumped the brightness, but also the contrast, so that I could see where I was going easily yet it still had the nice dark atmosphere, and things didn't look washed-out in brightness because the contrast was up. Makes it much more playable and details are better seen, but the only downside is that the notes become veerrrry bright.

kristus said:

Waaaaah, the big bad GZdoom wad made me play it all the way through! Must pay back by delivering excessive bitching.

Heh.

I understand that in your world pointing out a flaw that took all the "fun" out of dealing with GZDoom's constant instability and crashes is excessive bitching.

Some time ago I could've posted almost the exact same words, replacing UTNT with Phobia:TA and GZDoom with Legacy.

GzStarWars said:

http://yoomp.atari.pl/

Nice to see Taquart deliver top quality software again.

Belial said:

Heh.

I understand that in your world pointing out a flaw that took all the "fun" out of dealing with GZDoom's constant instability and crashes is excessive bitching.

Don't you mean: Your computer's instability? Strangely enough I get very few complaints about that and most can be tracked down to some system specific issue.