Ray Mohawk's Manic Monday - Ray Mohawk 1 [Now on idgames!]

[st0agie]

this is my kind of wad. the aesthetic is beautiful, and the levels are pretty fun and chill (especially the first map, favorite one)

 

Nice work.

 

 

[Brxyz]

Very lovely wad and fun midi choices. I've reached map 05 so far and damn, the ending was a surprise.

 

I like the rifle which replaces the pistol, but my main complaint would be that picking the chainsaw seems like a downgrade with how good the knife is.

[Gokuma]

How'd I miss this?!   I always do enjoy the shores... of Hell.

[PeceMan]

Just played it! It was a lot of fun, and i love the custom music.

It could'be used some more secrets though

[Doomkid]

I totally agree - I’ll be adding at least one more secret to each map!

[Doomkid]

 

Hey everyone, I've taken a bunch of feedback into consideration and built an updated version of the wad.

 

(old outdated link)

 

A few more enemy sprites have been replaced to be more summery and some minor details were revised and fixed up for this version. I almost added a new boss fight, but decided against it - As this wad is now, I'm content with it.

 

If you find any bugs, please inform me! If I don't get any reports in the next week or so, I'll consider this ready for an idgames upload.

 

Thanks again for all the feedback!

Edited August 27, 2020 by Doomkid

[D1m3]

Two of these buggy hud-faces is still seems to appear(with screenshots this time,so there will be no confusion about versions)

[Doomkid]

Crap, thanks for reminding me of those. There's always something forgotten! Will be fixed before idgames upload.

[Rince-wind]

Bit late to the party but nonetheless wanted to say it's unsurprisingly fun and cheesy.

I'm curious though if for your next wad you'll try to incorporate the advice given to you from the ADVICE WANTED thread, to see if it's possible to teach Zappa to play new instruments.

[Doomkid]

I will! This and Rowdy Rudy II are, hopefully, going to be my final "old style" wads, for a little while anyway. I want to make something modern, even if it's something small.

[Gez]

laffo these imps, this is the silliness I hoped for.

 

So very last tiny bits of polish I'd suggest:

 

1. A small LANGUAGE lump (or BEX section in the internal DEHACKED lump) to rename the fist and pistol since they're a shiv and rifle in ZDoom ports.

TAG_FIST = "Shiv";
TAG_PISTOL = "Rifle";

(This shows when you turn on the option to display weapon names while using the next/previous weapon actions from the mousewheel.)

 

2. A "Game over" MAP07 so you don't get dumped in Dead Simple after finishing. No need to do anything elaborate, a big rectangle room with "Thanks for playing" written in sector letters would be enough. Or perhaps an "empty" version of MAP01, without the exit, secrets, items, monsters, weapons & ammo, etc., to show Ray coming back home after I guess tearing a new one out of Industry. Dunno.

[Doom_Dude]

Finally got around to playing this. It's pretty silly for sure and a bit of fun. Imps in grass skirts reminds me so much of the stuff Looney2ner used to do.

 

Gotta like how well the knife works.

 

lol @ Larry David.

[Doomkid]

Thanks for the positive feedback Doom_Dude, and excellent suggestions Gez, will absolutely implement those improvements.

[Demon of the Well]

FDAs pack, m01 - 06, skill 4

 

Presumably used the most recent version as of the time of this post, though I did download it from the OP rather than the update announcement on this page. Not much I saw in the way of bugs regardless; the Doobie Brothers track doesn't play in m05, instead the stock m05 track plays in the current version (using prB+). The arch-vile outside the 'cabana' in m04 was also behaving very strangely -- he refused to acknowledge me until I directly attacked him, even after his booth had opened and with me standing right in front of him at kissing distance -- but it did occur to me that this may have actually been intentional.

 

Clearly in a very similar vein to Rowdy Rudy's Revenge, this -- I guess we could call it a 'spinoff?' -- of similar length, difficulty, and (natch) authorial style, though for what it's worth I felt that this episode is more consistent in both tone and general quality than RRR, which I think I'd attribute to the arrangement of the maps, and the pacing of action through them. That is to say, I felt that the first map had as much of a particular identity and about as much gameplay content to offer as the final map, as did each of the maps in between them. RRR, in my memory at least, had 2-3 more fleshed out maps (one of them far predating the set itself in vintage IIRC?) where most of the action was, and then some that read as fragments or bits/pieces filling out the maplist, whereas each level in Ray's adventure is just deep enough in both concept and actual map expanse to immerse, which I feel is an important and often sorely missed quality in mapsets which are actively designed to be small/short/casual.

 

On that topic, 'small/short/casual' is generally not my bag, and the use of the word "fair" as a selling/marketing point generally sets off all kinds of alarms and cowbells and warning klaxons and such in my head, but!.....this episode does a nice job of overcoming my misgivings (and prejudices) on these matters, which I think simply comes down to you giving me lots of things to fight/kill at more or less all times, wholly independent of the question of how easy/hard the whole thing's supposed to be. Blue armor + screaming machinegun + lots of barrels vs. droves of soldier-goons is the core conceit -- it's simple and old as dirt, but it works well when you commit to it, and this 'signature' flavor to the action across the mapset serves it in better stead than trying to cram a more "traditional" challenge/style progression into an already highly compressed space would.

 

Maps 03 and 05 are my favorites of the set; there's not a whole lot I'd change about m05, I do feel there's room for another barrage of soldiers to mow down in the 'main building' once the player takes the yellow key, but before entering the yellow door, currently a bit of a dropped beat. m04 is interesting/memorable as well, largely because it has something more of an awkward 'rifle-start' to it than any of the others. I was able to do well enough with some poking/prodding, but if accessibility (or a truly uninterrupted stream of running/gunning) is your goal, I would suggest making it possible to get a slot 3 or slot 4 weapon at the start without having to expose yourself to gunfire from all sides by wading into one of the two forks -- maybe station a chaingunner or shotgunner right behind each of the two doors, so that the player can take/use his weapon without being compelled to hang back and wait for infighting to thin the suppression enough to move in and take the 'placed' chaingun or w/e without risking getting shot full of holes.

 

I did find the conclusion somewhat lacking. I think this is the third or fourth WAD I've played by you -- practically in a row! -- that handles the conclusion in a similar way, i.e. teleport to a kind of gaudy Hell-place and scramble around figuring out what buttons have to be pushed in order to win before attrition catches up to you; this one doesn't land as well as it might not only because of how many times you've gone to this particular well (recently), but also because the pressure's ineffective as actual pressure (if you're skilled enough to walk around the perimeter without running into a wall you'll be fine indefinitely), whereas using an actual IoS at the end of RRR (or Shovelware Adventure, or....) tends to light a fire under the player regardless of their individual level of skill and playstyle. Here it's just anticlimax, compounded by the IoS death happening "offscreen." Now, I don't reckon putting in an actual IoS fight would be very popular with most folks, and what I'd personally call a "real fight" would probably be off-brand/jarring here, but there's definitely room for something different in future, nevertheless -- since a lot of your recent sets include (light) dehacked work, maybe try out a custom boss or such? Lots of folks willing/able to contribute in that regard if you'd rather not tangle with it yourself.

 

Oh, and I forgot to mention, but I really like the knife here. It's fun/satisfying to use even before you get a berserk pack, something quite rare for a slot 01 weapon. If you decide to revisit Ray Mohawk at some point in the future (as Rowdy Rudy is currently being revisited now), I would definitely suggest doing a map themed around the idea of being a knife-wielding maniac; neat as it is, in this set it usually falls by the wayside for how bullet-centric all the maps are.

[Doomkid]

I appreciate the review, DotW - I always enjoy reading your writeups as they invariably provide me with interesting info. I can always find out what landed and what didn’t. The main takeaway is that the boss fight was crap - even in being a rehash of an old concept, it was done worse - but that the consistent approach used across these maps worked better overall than that of RRR.

 

Thanks!

[BoJustBo]

Just played through this in one sitting and I greatly enjoyed it. I really loved the cheerful theme, it's just what I needed after playing some murky zdoom maps.

That boss fight though, yikes. Seeing as you don't have to kill everything I felt the teleporter should have been more visible when it becomes available, I mean, it's under a berserk pack and I only discovered the teleporter when I was trying to grab that to heal.

[Demion]

I was playing on UV using Chocolate Doom, and i didn't realize it was map 6 what i was playing and totally skipped, by mistake, the whole Cyberdemon ending, i thought it was map 05 haha! Didn't know that teleporter could mean the end of the map, and I hadn't saved at all...

Anyway, I've enjoyed it very much (and i mean really much), and will replay it sometime soon. The flow and pace is great, and levels are cute as hell!

Obviously, i've already taken note of this one for my 2020 Cacowards mentionation post.

[Doomkid]

I really appreciate the comments @BoJustBo and @Demion. Since this hasn't been published to idgames yet I am considering changing the end, even if only minorly, to be less abrupt (and lame). I'm glad to hear you had fun with it!

[Gokuma]

Now this is prime Hamburger Wars material.   Just needs a reanimated Bernie staggering around and flailing his arms when hit.  I laughed my ass off at the imp's gib death.   Definitely don't cut anything from the ending.   At the final exit I thinking "Oh shit!  I have to take this on now?!"   But it was just the coolest looking exit ever.

 

EDIT: With the cyber room, I would make the platform with berserk not a teleporter, and then have a narrow catwalk between all the cybers with a switch to open the teleporter.   So if you if try to hit the switch before you take them out, you'll likely be blown to bits or knocked into the lava pit to die.

 

I really liked the knife and starting rifle sure beats the pistol.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Gokuma

[xvertigox]

I fucking love the Angry Beavers midi A++

 

The aesthetics of this wad are absolutely fantastic. Never stop making vanilla wads @Doomkid The 90s feeling just oozes out of the screen, I love it.

[Doomkid]

Thank you both for the excellent comments :) I really like Gokuma’s suggestion with the catwalk too.

 

I wanted to have this sucker on /idgames weeks ago, but it got rejected for having unmodified resources. I tried to use @ketmar‘s wadcheck utility ( https://doomshack.org/~doomkid/Utilities/wadcheck_540413.7z ) to see exactly which entries were duplicated, but despite working fine in the past, I couldn’t get the dang thing to give me a readout.. I want to say the command prompt itself kept crashing but I can’t remember.. it was something dumb like that though. This tool is so invaluable, I hope ketmar decides to make a “for morons” version at some point, I feel like it’s one of those tools that - despite not knowing it - the community desperately wants and needs!

 

Anyway, enough of my tangent. Thanks again for the comments!

[Doomkid]

 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/m-o/mohawks

 

Hey fellas, this is finally 100% finalized and uploaded to idgames! Not much has been changed - Just minor tweaks and improvements. I definitely would have missed a few details, but this thing just needed to get out of the oven already.

Thanks to EVERYONE who participated. Enjoy!

Edited February 6, 2020 by Doomkid

[Doom_Dude]

That's awesome Doomkid! Gonna play this asap!

[RonnieJamesDiner]

Those moments when a user's avatar match their post perfectly, haha. Congratulations on the release, this was a super fun set! I'll definitely return to it again in the future, I'll be looking forward to the tweaks you made :D

[CyberDreams]

So i've finally gotten around to playing this and i have to say that i loved it! It's the first WAD of yours that i've played and i think it's great! Now, i haven't played Doom on PC in quite a while and i usually play Ultimate Doom mapsets so when i first saw the Archvile i freakin' died lol. Same with a few Revenants until i remembered how to handle them. Now i was playing on the "Playing For Fun" difficulty so it wasn't the highest but it also wasn't the lowest either. I did notice a sharp increase in difficulty towards the end of the 5th Map and by the 6th one it was just a little too insane for my skill level, which i guess is ok considering this only has 6 maps so i would expect a fairly steep increase in difficulty. Since i haven't been practicing Doom playing, or Doom II maps for that matter its expected.

 

I have a feeling that "Cruisin'" might be a tad too easy on the early levels for me but fine for the last one. I'm just in between skill levels i guess LOL. I'll give it a shot though and let you know.

 

Anyways, i really liked the layouts of the maps. They weren't too hard to figure out and they had an "old school" feel, which i kinda figured they would ;) I found most of the secrets on my first playthrough as well, which helped me out quite a bit. Also the bright colors and sprite replacements looked great too. I should note that i played continuous though so i'm sure that helped me out quite a bit. I just used the recent version of GZDoom (4.3.3) via Software mode and i actually had on Doom (Strict) as i didn't realize i had it on until about half-way through my playthrough but since this is a vanilla compat set i figured that it was okay to just leave it. 

 

Like i said before though since i haven't played Doom in quite a while (besides Doom 64 on console) i probably needed to turn down the difficulty for the last map as i struggled most of the way through it. That's just my current skill level though. I plan on replaying the whole thing on the "Cruisin'" difficulty and seeing how it is. Not sure when i'll do that. Maybe tonight or tomorrow. I'll see how i feel. I just wanted to leave some feedback. I'm not sure if it'll help though since i'm not a "PRO DOOM PLAYER" ;)

 

Oh btw, the music was awesome :) I also didn't start off with the fact that i only planned on trying this out for a few minutes just to see what it was like due to the fact that i was tired and my neck hurt (like it normally does) but i was enjoying it so much that i played through the entire thing in one sitting. I guess that says something.

[Hypnotik]

I didn't get to go on vacation yet this year, But this will suffice for now. Cheerful music. Imp's in grass skirts. Palm tree's. The Beach. Booze as far as the eye can see. And for once, a useful melee weapon in case you run out of firepower. What more could you ask for? Absolutely fantastic. Looks great with Low Resolution/"crispy doom" settings on GZdoom. Suns out, Guns out.

[Doomkid]

Thanks a lot for the positive comments Hypnotik and CyberDreams (I only saw your comment a couple weeks ago for the first time, lol). Reviews like that help give me more excitement for creating future wads!

[RottingZombie]

I also enjoyed this recently. I don't usually go for 'silly' wads but this just made me smile.

[Dimon12321]

Surprisingly enough, Ray was mentioned in the Special Features section of 2020 Cacowards!

[dei_eldren]

Finally i played this, and lucky me i did!  The visuals may be pretty as fuck, but that can't distract from the fact that the level design itself is very fine, the gameplay is classic, and there's a very serious game beneath all the apparent lightheartedness.  The combination is absolutely atrocious and works like a charm.  To be honest, the change from the usual Doom surroundings of Hell and techbases is really welcome, and felt like a breath of fresh Caribbean sea-air... ehh.  Just wish the native hula-hula girls would've not been replaced by Imps.. oh well, can't have everything!

 

To be honest, i couldn't make heads or tails of the last room with four Cybies, and didn't finish it, but doesn't bother me :D  i had a blast getting there.