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Doomkid

ROWDY RUDY'S REVENGE - 100% vanilla! (Now on idgames!)

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Pretty fun stuff. I played on "Hard" (HMP I assume) and thought the balancing was fairly good for the most part, but I do think that there's way too much ammo in some maps, MAP08's later half in particular is almost a BFG spam map.

 

Oh and I came across this impassable line in MAP05, the one right in front of the barrel:

 

JSXyvAM.png

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11 hours ago, Demon of the Well said:

Speaking of, has m08 appeared anyplace else? I'm 99% positive I've played it somewhere before, probably in a CP or perhaps some sort of miscellany compilation. Also probably my favorite of the maps in the set, incidentally, along with m09. That........thing.......you did with m08's exit door, though, assuming it's intentional and not some weird happenstance, well.....I'd like to think I'm pretty open-minded about weird progression stuff, but this is something I really can't recommend. It looks legit broken, not like a puzzle, and I half the suspect the only reason I didn't quit out of it with that assumption is precisely because I remembered playing this map (and seeing the same thing) at some point in the past.

 This was a single-map release in early 2016 but I didn't really do much with it so I figured it could find a home here. That exit door IS super stupid and I honestly forgot it was even like that. Absolutely will fix it for the final version.

 

The arch-vile on map10 also really needs to be completely changed. It's just too frustrating and not fun and feels like a stain on the map. I will retool that whole setup somehow to make it more enjoyable. I think making the entire path a lift in the final room is a good idea too, as well as moving some of the more (admittedly thoughtlessly placed) bits of decoration.

 

Thank you very much for your detailed post - It's insightful and it will definitely help to shape the third and final version that ends up on idgames.

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Your thread got buried on page 3...

 

I finally got back to playing map 08. There was quite a bit of goodies leftover in this one on HMP. Lets see... 1 blue armor, 3 berserk packs, 4 boxes of shells, 2 ammo packs, 2 stimpacks, 6 medikits and a soulsphere. Maybe cut back on some of that out.. or not. haha. By the way the first cyb is too easy I thnk. I went down one step from the window and backed against the wall and he can't get rockets in the window. Also at the end there's 4 walls that are very obviously unaligned... the ones beneath the 4 beams that spread out from where the gate switch is. Then the exit door texture scrolls when it's opened, so would look less weird if that had the upper unpegged taken off and set it to 32 higher instead (ooh wait, you said you're fixing that. Man I need sleep). Oh and I spotted that GZDoom reports some sprites are undefined when the wad is first loaded. Might be due to the missing SS_End marker I mentioned before.

Edited by Doom_Dude

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Thanks Doom_Dude, I had no idea I had been so generous on HMP once again on map08. (This is the big flaw of me only testing my maps on UV..)

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You're welcome. I meant to remind you I'm not pistol starting so I'd probably need some of that stuff otherwise. Anyhow will play through map09 this morning.

 

There's something about smaller, fun maps like these I really enjoy. Over the years I went from making small to medium sized maps to huge sprawling things. It's kinda funny, this one unreleased megawad level I made has a secret area that's the size of a small level. lol. So now I'm working on a set of smaller levels. I seem to have too many projects going on at once.

 

[edit] I was thinking about that cyb fight. What if part of the ground raised up a bit outside when you cross the steps, so he can shoot in the window or open up the wall more or maybe just leave it as is. ;)

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La la la double post time.

 

Finished map 09. At the end I had 9 medikits leftover. There was 2 boxes of shells I didn't use and since there was a pile of shotguns I didn't need you can probably remove both boxes. That one secret near the soulsphere pillar, that drops the 2 walls with the torches on them is a one off. That wouldn't be so bad but I went for the side that wasn't the secret so I didn't get what that was for until I did a reload and went to the other side. Is there a way to get back to the earlier portion of the map after you teleport? I couldn't find my way back through so I noclipped to check out what ammo and stuff was still about.

 

[edit] Had no problem with the final map. Made it through after a break. Liked the ending, which took me a couple tries to figure out what the deal was. That was a fun set of maps.

Edited by Doom_Dude

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You’ve been a huge help man, the detailed comments are exactly what I needed to put the finishing touches on this and get it uploaded to idgames soon

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I've played almost all the way through. It has a nice, unique and cohesive aesthetic. With everything being changed ever so slightly, it feels like unearthing a whole another forgotten (and very unoriginal) early 90s FPS. The elegant but basic mapping compliments that perfectly, I don't think anything fancier would feel right with the uglified textures. This is one of those mapsets that gives me more authentic retro vibes than DTWID does... I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I feel like the DTWID devs were all just trying too hard and it shows, even as they're trying to imitate relatively inexperienced pioneers. Rowdy Rudy just feels natural.

 

The melee weapons are both changed for the better. They're still far from overpowered, but they have the potential to be a lot more relevant. The only issue is the chainsaw's slowed down raising speed! From a gameplay standpoint it's completely unreasonable and annoying. It's neat that it animates, but if you don't have enough states to let it call Raise on every tic, it's not a good tradeoff.

 

The burst rifle is definitely a step in the right direction! It's faster and more accurate! That means it has some degree of advantage over the chaingun, at least in theory. It sure is a lot better than Deus Vult II's twin pistols, which keep the mapper from having to place a shotgun right next to the player on every map, but are still so objectively inferior to the chaingun that you almost feel bad for them. So yeah, the burst rifle is better... but still ends up upstaged by the chaingun. Maybe the chaingun could be changed to be faster but have some wind-down after you release the trigger, like Skulltag's minigun, Hacx's Uzi and the plasma gun? Or if you don't want to meddle with the adequately functioning weapons, maybe you could have the rifle fire just one bullet at once, but with the same DPS? It would give the player more choice over how to dish out the damage. Quite like the machine gun in Wolf3d, which most players continue to use long after they find a gatling gun.

 

The bouncy health and armor orbs are my favorite minor tweak. They're kind of silly, but very fun to collect. And they glow in the dark, as anything that counts towards Items should!

 

The biggest flaw of the mod is the proportion of enemies populating the levels... Most of the cool new Dehacked creatures are totally dominated and overshadowed by shotgunners, cultists, shotgunners, weak and strong chaingunners (that feel pretty much identical), and some more shotgunners on top of that. The Stealth Imps are great (I love how they're faster in addition to just looking different), the RPG and plasma zombies seem like they could be fun too... but I can barely even form an opinion about them, because compared to all those hitscanners they barely appear at all.

 

The way the hitscanners are used (that is, in every single encounter and often in high numbers) just messes up what could've been fun projectile-dodging action bits. Instead, I just hang out in the doorway until a group of concerned barons and cacodemons comes over to ask if I'm okay. And then I can only deal with them all one by one in a tedious non-fight as I explain that I would have loved to come out and play, really, but that would mean getting shredded by a crowd of Chaingunners Lite and Chaingunners Deluxe from every direction. I'm not the kind of person who believes that all hitscanners suck forever. I made countless Wolf3d levels, so I know there's potential in that. But it can be difficult to use them right, especially in such a projectile-oriented game like Doom. In this mod, they ruin a lot of things. I'd like to chainsaw more things, stab more things with they bayonet, use more rockets and plasma. But I gotta stick to my chaingun or SSG so that I can react instantly to another shotgunner that's gonna inevitably show up behind the next corner. Cause if I don't react instantly enough, I'm getting shot.

 

The yellow card ambush on MAP09 was one especially glaring example of how hitscanners can make things worse. If it was a crowd of imps (maybe even stealth imps on higher skills), the resulting challenge would've been challenging but fair. As it is now, the only option I had was to dash back to the entrance and carefully take them down from behind a corner. With a chaingun, of course. A rocket launcher would've been more fun, but they're shotgunners and there's a metric shitton of them, so I'm gonna get hit three times by the time I peek out, fire a rocket and hide again. Why does it always have to be shotgunners?! The Cultists seem like the least common hitscanners, maybe on par with the chaingunners. Sure, a single Cultist can't do much, but they're hitscanners! They're always a threat because you can't dodge them, and the low health and damage is just good balance.

 

If I had to improve gameplay without thinking too much about it, I'd replace many shotgunners with cultists and stealth imps, and replace most of the chaingunners with RPG and plasma zombies. Maybe the RPG and Plasma zombies could benefit from less HP, so you'd have an excuse to use them as often as you use the chaingunners. That would've been a lot more interesting.

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Really glad you posted this when you did, I’m just putting the finishing touches on now. Right off the bat I can think of quite a few spots too heavy on the shotgunners and chaingunners. I was afraid of overusing the rpg and plasma guys but they really are a minority here, too much so. Also th bit about concerned barons made me laugh my ass off, I’ll replay it all again to identify those particular spots and make them less tedious. Excellent review, very helpful.

 

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The text file doesn't mention the music tracks.

 

Those I identified by metadata:

  • Text screen: "Stalag 3-D", by Lee Jackson, from ''Duke Nukem 3D''
  • MAP01: "Cross-Eyed Mary", from Jethro Tull (dunno who made the MIDI transcription, though)
  • MAP05: "Preparation D", by Lee Jackson, from ''Duke Nukem 3D''
  • MAP06: "RoboCreeping", by Lee Jackson, from ''Duke Nukem 3D''
  • MAP07: "Water World", by Bobby Prince, from ''Duke Nukem 3D''
  • MAP08: "Act on Instinct", by Franck Klepacki, from ''Command & Conquer'', MIDIfied by "Alluro95"
  • MAP10: "Deeper Underground", by Jamiroquai, from ''Godzilla'' MIDIfied by "MORENO"

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Thanks Gez, I had no idea where most of these came from as I downloaded them in a big pack some time ago. A lot of Duke 3D tunes here.

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I've (nearly) finished a playthrough. Was very fun, a good mix of classic Doom level design with less classic custom enemies. The way most rooms are planned so that you get enemies attacking you from all direction made me rely on the chaingun as the main weapon instead of the SSG. One thing that annoyed me a bit, though, was the lack of radsuit combined with mandatory slime exploration.

 

I did like how some secrets were deceptively simple. A few times I've been wandering around, activating any suspicious wall, trying to lower a secret platform with visible goodies on it, only to discover later that all I had to do was activating the platform itself.

 

That said, here comes some pointless nitpicks:

Spoiler

hYtMK16.png

Texture alignment issue? These black lines on the support column are distracting.

 

p0lEfsV.png

Since this is a mandatory locked door, it probably should have a real door texture and the color-coded trims.

 

aznqxi0.png

This line is blocking, for no visible reason. The other lines around the slime pit aren't blocking.

 

HYIWBiL.png

I see you, arch-vile!

 

 

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I don't know how I missed that texture misalignment, it's irritatingly obvious. I've also fixed the pesky impassable line and archvile hand. Thanks for the review Gez! Once I get this issue with demos desyncing sorted out, I think this will be ready for a final release.

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Thank you for the find!

 

Edit: Where in the map did it happen? I'm trying to trigger it but can't, but want to make sure there are NO vpos..

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1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

Thank you for the find!

 

Edit: Where in the map did it happen? I'm trying to trigger it but can't, but want to make sure there are NO vpos..

 

It happens at the walkway up the lift that has the chaingun on it, if you go down the walk way to the blue armor and turn around it visplane overflow crashes

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Finished this today, really good stuff. The whole thing feels like a Doom that could have been if you get what I mean. The level design was pretty subtle and sweet and the challenge was good but not stupidly hard, although some of the last few maps did ramp up pretty shockingly in difficulty. The only things I can think to criticize are the over abundance of health , ammo, and armor is the first half of the maps as well as some of the custom enemies.

 

Most of the time I was able to complete the maps without needing half the health and ammo placed around. There were also some situations where blue armor and a megasphere would be questionably close to eachother. As for the enemies I liked a lot of the visual redesigns. The rocket zombie I didn't care much for as hes pretty much just a revenant that always fires a homing rocket, and I don't know if its me but I always had a very hard time noticing this guy. Something about his profile and color palette made him naked to my eyes. There'd be some fights where I'd repeatedly get slammed by homing rockets and shout " where the fuck is this guy?! "

 

Despite some downsides that didn't detract from my overall experience I really loved it, though, and It'd be great to soo some more of Rudy in the future.

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Very glad you enjoyed the mapset, maybe I should consider making the RPG zombie stand out more somehow - he does have a very muted palette. Thank you for the feedback! I think there's a good chance Rudy will return at some point too.

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I just finished version 2 on Expert (UV), played on Eternity, didn't had any issues.

Awesome maps and incredible enemies! Shotgunner reminds me machinegunner from Doom 3. Flame Caco just begs me to call him Carrodemon. RPG Zombie and Plasma Guy are very cool and fun, but i think they should have modified Doomguy's voice since they are marines too. I liked new weapons too, but my most used ones were oldies SG, SSG and Plasma.

Gameplay... it was challenging and in few places annoying, until i found strategies. Final level is MUCH MUCH better, smarter and cooler than the one in Doom II.

Also this track just kicks ass! I made recording from synth i use for everything. I recommend to listen it with some bass. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FfwHd6gzEB9SptBhvcztSQnvpB1WgFi9

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Just beat this the other day, banging wad you've made here! I greatly enjoyed the tweaks to doom's gameplay, all the new enemies spiced things up and the rifle felt properly powerful unlike the pistol. I always enjoy mapsets that make weapon 2 into an actually useful thing and give it some more airtime. You've done a grand job at capturing the feel of a standard not-quite-Doom 90s shooter as well, especially with the music used. While I found it a mixed bag in terms of personal taste - the theme of map01 was awesome and set the tone superbly but some of the later tunes annoyed me a bit after a while - you definitely nailed the sound of those 90s FPSes. Very cool, original take on the final boss as well, a great way to round off an overall greatly enjoyable map set with a strong sense of progression. Superb!

 

PS. Just one thing, there's a place you can get permanently stuck on the final level. Other than that I couldn't find any bugs :)

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NoWits and Rimantas, thank you both for the feedback. I'm very glad you had fun with it! Also, that remix you did was awesome Rimantas, you almost converted it back to the original sound!

 

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Awesome Doomkid! Time to grab that sucker and check the real final version. :D So what's next? Rowdy Rudy Returns?

 

[edit] Oh yeah, you got that 24 hour doomfest coming up too.

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4 hours ago, Doom_Dude said:

Rowdy Rudy Returns?

 

4 hours ago, Doomkid said:

Damn Doom Dude

 

Amazing Alliteration All of you!

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I was curious about your work...and man what a joy..what a ride! Very nice Job! I will the sequel for sure!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Austinado

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Just now, Doomkid said:

Thanks for the playthrough, I love watching people play my wads!

 

It was my pleasure!

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