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Lüt

Espification Commences! Back To Basics Released

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Following nearly two years of silence, Espi has returned, and he brings with him a megawad of classic proportions. Fully replacing Doom's Episode 2, Back To Basics lives up to its name as yet another showcase of the quality still possible in Vanilla Doom-compatible maps. A literal descent into the bowels of the nether world, the player is taken through an increasingly ominous moonbase as the line between "here" and "hell" begins to blur, leaving only the inevitable crossover for certain. Begin the journey.

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Yes, this is a quite Espifying surprise, to say the least...

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This is a pretty cool mapset. I got stuck on E2M2, I think, so I had to skip it. I think I last stopped on E2M5. Aside from the map I got stuck on, I like this.

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Wow. Now that he's back though, can we pester him about a sequel to SID or will we have to wait for Eternal Doom IV? which... I hope is awesome. If it's released.

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I have been absolutely loving this...good old fashioned doom for what it was meant to be...Great job!!!

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This replacement set for episode 2 is IMO the best megawad of the year for Doom1. First of all, I can't say enough about the layout of each of these levels. It adds so much fun to every map in the set. In addition, every level does a great job creating the OD atmosphere and feel. The ambience is nice, and the use of textures took me back in time to the early years. As far as gameplay, it's everything you look for in a wad. I've got no complaints. It's only a shame the CacoAwards have already been announced because this baby would definitely have been in the running. Great job Espi!

P.S. If it hasn't happened already, I hope there will be a demo thread started real soon for this set.

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Looks like people liked this little christmas present. =p Nice to see people still enjoy classic mapping.

And no, unfortunately there won't be a sequel to SiD. You went through the infested base to get a ride out of the whole mess (while the doomguy was saving the world or whatever it was that he supposedly did) and that's that.

Also I'm not a jobless bum anymore, so I actually have to spend time away from my computer. :(

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Espi said:

And no, unfortunately there won't be a sequel to SiD. You went through the infested base to get a ride out of the whole mess (while the doomguy was saving the world or whatever it was that he supposedly did) and that's that.


well, can you at least write a tutorial to how you did all those special effects? :-)

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espi seems to be my favorite vanilla doom level author at the moment. suspended in dusk was amazing, and this was really fun too. i loved it. as for whoever said do a tutorial on all those special effects, i agree. that would be cool.

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exp(x) said:

What the shit is this?

No doubt something to do with this.

exp(x) said:

It looks like the slime trails are needles or pins. I'm not sure if this was intended.

Doubt it; there weren't slime trails in eternity or zdoom, barring a slight sliver on the microphone when viewed from a specific angle. Seems to be a prboom issue.

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exp(x) said:

e2m5

It looks like the slime trails are needles or pins. I'm not sure if this was intended.


I'm getting the same thing here- if it's intended, then that is the craziest effect I've ever seen. Intentional Slime trails have never been done afiak.

also, if you go to the back of that room and look around at the entrance, the walls start to flicker/slide. Espi is really pushing the engine with this one.

Lut: I think zdoom rebuilds the BSP so maybe that's why you're not seeing slime trails. As for eternity, its renderer, cardboard, solves a lot of that problem.

Edit: it isn't a PrBoom issue as far as I can see; Chocolate doom is doing the same thing.

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Yeah, there's some unintentional slime trails, probably because of the small sectors of random shapes. ZDoom and some other ports have an improved renderer, with which they don't appear. I probably should've experimented with different node builders too, but oh well. =p

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Espi said:
I probably should've experimented with different node builders too, but oh well. =p

I tested with ZenNode and Ed came out slightly slimy but much better than with what you used.

The glitch isn't a big deal, but you could renode it, since it would be a quite quick fix. Better now than later when there are demos for it, and the slime will affect engines people will likely record with. It's a quite suiting wad for people to try with the newly released v1.0 of Chocolate Doom, in any case.

I've played till E2M6, where a bunch of cacos boiled me over a pool of blood. Great stuff from what I've played. Good item/monster balance, and fine spacing and layouts. Generally, the maps seem to fit quite well with the original level names, as if it were a "remake", and the yellowish sky works very well.

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myk said:

It's a quite suiting wad for people to try with the newly released v1.0 of Chocolate Doom, in any case.

Luckily the savegame buffer overrun behavior in 1.0.0 isn't quite vanilla. If it was, saving in a few of the later levels would cause chocolate doom to bomb out and lose your progress. Due to a bug, the game is still saved when the engine bombs.

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Heh, for the difference it makes, one might as well just use vanilla_savegame_limit 0 in the extra CFG while playing. Keeping the limit available in that way is still good, though, as it can help any map designer or tester know when saves won't be possible in Doom.

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Yeah it seems Zennode does a better job at avoiding slime trails. I don't think it's a big enough issue to re-upload the thing to get rid of most of those slime trails though... It's just that secret area, and it's not game-breaking.

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I saw a few random slime trails other maps, but they were barely noticeable. I agree that it's not major enough to warrant a re-upload.

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Espi said:

Yeah it seems Zennode does a better job at avoiding slime trails. I don't think it's a big enough issue to re-upload the thing to get rid of most of those slime trails though... It's just that secret area, and it's not game-breaking.


there's a lot of slime trails in E2M5 itself, not just the easter egg secret.

So, I have to ask: which nodebuilder has the best slimetrail control? Hell, That might be a question for another thread.

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I'm a fan of zennode; it did a good job of keeping slimetrails down in shdwpit2.wad compared to wadauthor's default nodebuilder. It also runs great on linux, which is always a plus.

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