Faithless - a Heretic hub [FINAL]

[Jimmy]

 

The hellish minions left to wander in the aftermath of Korax's defeat during the battle of Cronos have now scattered across Parthoris looking for fresh meat, and a new realm to call their own. Beings of chaos roam freely, causing disarray in the realm. The citizens of Parthoris have barely had time to rebuild their lives in the wake of D'Sparil's reign of chaos, which was put to an end by a yet-unidentified outsider.

 

You are Corvus. You have laid low for a while in the dockside town of Port Mercy, and become aware of the situation almost immediately. Portals open in every corner of the town, legions of the damned pouring forth and slaughtering the populace. Stepping out into the pouring rain, you come to a scene of fresh blood dashed against the cobbles, deep red tendrils of it snaking into the gutters, and raging monsters bellowing vicious cries of revenge as the townsfolk meet a gruesome end.

 

They smell your blood and close in on you. Standing at the foot of the belltower, you brandish your elvenwand and confront the desperate beasts as they converge upon you. The gleam of its topaz gem sends chills of fear down their backs.

 

It's you - the faithless one.

 

Name: Faithless
Map Format: UDMF
Ports Tested: GZDoom 4.0.0
IWAD: Heretic
Map(s): E1M1-M9
Gameplay: Single play/co-op
Music: Frank Klepacki, David Arkenstone (Lands of Lore 1 & 2), and Tolwyn (E1M6's track)
Difficulty Settings: Yes
Multiplayer Placement: No
Build Time: A solid week of initial layouts, followed by 3-4 days of frantic thingplacing/testing (for RC1)
Textures: hexen.wad, shadowtex.wad, bak_leg.wad
Requirements: No jumping or crouching (enforced). Freelook allowed.

 

Download "Faithless" (15MB):

/idgames Mirror

Dropbox Mirror

GZDoom required. 4.0.0+ recommended. Only tested in this port/build.

Walkthrough text file (updated as of final release) - refer to this if you get stuck!

 

Credits for resources:

Gutawer - weather effects

Tormentor667 & co. - Baker's Legacy texture pack
Jaws in Space - Shadowcaster texture pack

Not Jabba - red key sprites/code
NeuralStunner - red key gizmo orb
Xaser - status bar edit (four keys)

Neoworm - trees, elixir sprites
osjclatchford - trees
NoozeArts - Granite Icon base sprite

Frank Klepacki, David Arkenstone - all music except E1M6 (Lands of Lore 1 & 2)
David "Tolwyn" Shaw - E1M6 music

Base graphic for TITLE retrieved from http://www.gsfdcy.com/hourglass-wallpapers.html

Manfred Klein - Titlepic font, "UnZialish.ttf"

Various authors on Realm667 for their custom monsters/items.

 

Screenshots!

Click here for full size.

 

Maplist:

E1M1: The Belltower
E1M2: Dockside
E1M3: Dread Gardens
E1M4: Kingdom of Roots
E1M5: Savaged Lands
E1M6: Unlit Serenity
E1M7: Halls of Atrocity
E1M8: Ironclad
E1M9: Breathless Wastes

Edited July 1, 2019 by Jimmy

[SOSU]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
nice c:

[Moustachio]

Yes!! Did not know that I wanted Heretic to get the Less treatment until I saw this, but it looks awesome.

 

Will probably be more captivating than the vanilla maps.

[CyberDreams]

Jeeze...i think i've only played through Heretic once (but i really liked it) but this looks awesome! Now i have to replay through Heretic and than play this and i only have a few days...Damn you Jimmy ;)

[Kepehn]

This is AMAZING!!!

I've seen new Heretic Projects this year, and this one looks veeery promising!

I can't wait for it's release! I'm so anxious...

Exelent Work!

[Beezle]

Yes! Looking forward to this, good to see Heretic get some love:)

[Lila Feuer]

This pleases the Serpent Riders.

[Dragonfly]

Jimmy you madman! What's the overall build time on this ~less project? The week mentioned in the OP, or is that 'a week so far'? :)
 

Spoiler

If Jimmy had a dollar for every time someone's called him a madman... Well, by this point he'd have a mansion and 16 cars, with change.

 

[Baratus]

First Wayfarer and now this? Heretic always deserves more love! I am inordinately hype for this levelset.

 

I hope the puzzles aren't too intellectually challenging, my brain has as much logical computing power as an Etch-a-Sketch. Still, from the screenshots, at least the levels look gorgeous to run around and get lost in.

 

 

Has a Heretic hub ever been done before? This feels like the first.

[Walter confetti]

Awesome! A speedmapping episode of Heretic!

[Not Jabba]

I am super psyched for this!

[Marlamir]

Another map pack from jimmy? Hell yeah. Is crazy how fast you can make awesome and fully working maps.

[captain crunchy]

Let's go! I love me some Heretic and Deathless was amazing. Can't wait.

[Kristian Nebula]

Nice one! Might have to install Heretic after a loooooooooooooooooong time to try this out :)

[Da Spadger]

YEET

[Fletcher`]

You have my undivided and d'spairil stomping attention.

[Gez]

What's next?

Aimless for Hexen?

Restless for Strife?

Fruitless for Chex Quest?

Friendless for Harmony?

Spoiler

Shapeless for Square?

 

[Marcaek]

33 minutes ago, Gez said:

What's next?

Aimless for Hexen?

Restless for Strife?

Fruitless for Chex Quest?

Friendless for Harmony?

  Hide contents

Shapeless for Square?

 

 

Careful Gez, last time you made a joke like this it spawned a community project

[Fletcher`]

Listless for Hacx

[ReaperAA]

2 hours ago, rf` said:

Listless for Hacx

 

Rekkless for REKKR

 

[Philnemba]

So April is now Heretic fever month? Ether way, great that there's been a increase number of Heretic projects here :)

[deathzero021]

Now when you say hub.. You mean a hub like in hexen? So will keys and switches carry over from map to map? Just curious. Looks great. 

[NightFright]

When spotting this thread, I felt sensations hard to classify in different parts of my body, especially the nether regions.

[kristus]

I approve

[boris]

So... where is it? Or didn't you mean Easter Sunday 2019? :(

[Jimmy]

I'm still thingplacing/difficulty balancing. It'll be ready today at some point.

[Apaul27]

On 4/19/2019 at 5:01 AM, ReaperAA said:

 

Rekkless for REKKR

 

Hedgehogless for Shadow & Rise of the Wool Ball

[Jimmy]

It's still Easter Sunday in most parts of the world, so happy Easter!

 

 

Download "Faithless" RC1 (15.2MB)

Requires GZDoom 4.0.0. Only tested in this port/build.

Walkthrough text file - refer to this if you get stuck!

 

Some notes:

- Could still be imbalanced, or buggy, or both. Please report in if there are any issues! Smite-Meister difficulty recommended. Black Plague difficulty has a few extra enemies, but hasn't been tested.

- Contains all the textures from Baker's Legacy and Jaws in Space's Shadowcaster texture WAD. Resource pruning is yet to come.

- "Repopulation" i.e. new monsters spawning into the level happens when you return to a level you've already visited. Each level will spawn different monsters. Minimise new monster spawns by optimising your route! Alternatively it can be turned off by typing "repopulation 0" into the console. (Or change the # to "1" to turn it back on again.)

- Weather can also be turned on/off, the cvar is "weather_enabled". The code for this weather system is by Gutawer and was first showcased in The Joy of Mapping 5!

- If the "returning to:" level name messages get too annoying you can turn them off with the cvar "returning_msgs". You'll still get the level names appear when you first visit a level, however.

 

Please enjoy!

 

Heretic is fun to map for. Hubs are also great. So yeah, more of both please!

Edited April 22, 2019 by Jimmy

[ShadesMaster]

 

I play through the first half roughly. Pretty cool, not sure where to go after but I stopped because I haveta take a nap b4 work, so perfect timing I guess? Anywho Part II should be the rest of it and I'll do that in the not-too-distant future. :) Good work so far!

[Jimmy]

Thanks tons for the video, but I think they need to add a clause to YouTube's terms and conditions to make it literally illegal to upload anything that has the Discord notification boop going in the background every 0.5 seconds. Do you have that playing any time anyone sends a message anywhere? How do you work with your computer doing that?! You know you can turn it off, right?!?

 

 

I got about 10 minutes in before starting to go mad. Will watch the rest of it without sound, heh.