Gameplay Mod Walpurgis- 0.99 (For Doom, Heretic, Hexen) [NEW RELEASE!!!]

[eharper256]

Just spent the last 5 days in Hospital. Campylobacteriosis is no joke when you're immunosuppressed like I am. Strangely enough, this means no Walp work has been done for awhile and I think I still need more recovery time. Even so, I hope you're all enjoying 0.97 as it stands.

Edited November 17, 2022 by eharper256

[nickxcom]

3 hours ago, eharper256 said:

Just spent the last 5 days in Hospital. Campylobacteriosis is no joke when you're immunosuppressed like I am. Strangely enough, this means no Walp work has been done for awhile and I think I still need more recovery time. Even so, I hope you're all enjoying 0.97 as it stands.

I am enjoying it for sure. I am glad you are out of the hospital because from googling, that sounds pretty awful! Hope you are feeling better now

[eharper256]

7 hours ago, nickxcom said:

I am enjoying it for sure. I am glad you are out of the hospital because from googling, that sounds pretty awful! Hope you are feeling better now

Yep, its Food Poisoning cranked up to over 9000; making you run to the toilet 3 times an hour and get dehydrated and delirious since you can't take in enough fluids to cover the outgoings.

 

Not a fun time, to be sure. But on the mend now.

[eharper256]

New video!

Been a while since I've done a Heretic map again, so here we are. This is a single large map called "The Great Hall" by thebiomage. Very pretty map with lots of cool detailing; really making good use of those stock textures, and with a chunk of interesting encounter setups as well.

 

I set myself up for hell apparently in the secret area; which was an optional super-hard set of waves, the final one of which killed me 10 times (you only see the first death in the video, I cropped out the others with a subtitle explaining it, and eventually just god-moded that small specific section since I couldn't escape this either).

 

This video was also apparently cursed and made Vegas kill my system twice whilst attempting to render it, so I had to slap together pieces in AviDemux instead. Fun times.

 

You can get this map here:

[eharper256]

Big thanks to UnknDoomer for covering Walp as the Druid with Penumbra and Myrmidon in Shadows of Chronos, some of those rare good Hexen megawads:

 

Check out their thread here:

 

[eharper256]

New video!

Autumn has just left us, but even so, a new Bri wad is something I'll usually take a look at. As always, they look great and flow well, and this one is extra-intense and quite fast paced.

 

This video is covering the first three levels of Fallen Leaves. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a smart way to integrate Myrmidon into the title of the mapset for the video (lol), but ah well. And picking Cluster Hammers as my upgrade was a really good choice for this level with its packed mobs.

I am fully recovered now following my previous hospital stay, so I will be commencing consolidation on what I want to see in Walpurgis 0.98. I think we have all the upgrades we could need in 0.97 and we're approaching what I would consider feature-complete. I expect the road to 1.0 to probably add Slot-3 alternative weapons and perhaps a few inventory tweaks.

You can get this mapset here:

 

[eharper256]

What would Christmas be without an atrocious Christmas Doom Wad or two?

Walter Confetti understands this well, so brings us Fastest Shovels 2, a 4-map WAD designed to make you feel like its Christmas 1994 all over again, complete with obnoxious textures and enemies, but with some decent level design.

 

As for myself, I recall 1994 to be the year my Gran put too much Rum in the Christmas Pudding, so caused a flame six feet high and singed the ceiling.

 

Incidently, Walpurgis is actually reducing the obnoxious sound effects of this wad because of monster replacement (unfortunately changing the load order the other way around causes all sorts of weird issues, but all you're missing is Imps with Santa Hats and Bauble Cacos).

 

You can get this shovelware here:

 

[eharper256]

Happy new year everyone!

[eharper256]

New video showing maps 1-4 of TDAC 1632, a mapset where each level is based on a renaissance plague or disease of some sorts from a 1600's medical census. Sounded like a fun concept, and indeed makes for some fun and mind-bending levels.

In other news, I've finished some foundational work for 0.98, and have started the long road of spriting new weapons for the slot [3] replacers. First up of those will be the Magister's Geomancy, Lapis-Flos (tentative name).

You can get this wad here:

 

[eharper256]

Here's some Geomancy sprites!

The idle animation at the bottom shows the magister's vein's glowing with Verdant mana, which throbs like blood between the hands. Still needs some tweaking, but so far pretty cool if I may say so.

[nickxcom]

15 hours ago, eharper256 said:

Here's some Geomancy sprites!

The idle animation at the bottom shows the magister's vein's glowing with Verdant mana, which throbs like blood between the hands. Still needs some tweaking, but so far pretty cool if I may say so.

Sick! I love the attention to detail :)

[eharper256]

6 hours ago, nickxcom said:

Sick! I love the attention to detail :)

Thanks! Things are looking quite good.

[eharper256]

Geomancy is here!

The primary fire makes you conjure boulders of various shapes and sizes. They hover in the place you summoned them (and remember their direction), and you can hold the button to continue to summon up to 18 of them in total if you have the time. When released, all the floating stones rocket off and bounce around like boulders should do, often yeeting enemies into the air and pancaking others to the ground with the fury of a dozen catapults. It's pretty rocking!

[eharper256]

Here's a video showing the upcoming secondary fire for the new Geomancy Magic, Lapis Flos:

The walls, the floors, they're all out to get you! Well... get the monsters anyways.

 

This one fires a beam of geomantic power which passes through creatures and obstacles, and where it hits will change the effect. If it hits a wall, the wall will erupt with a few stones. If it hits the floor, stalagmites will rip from the ground instead. Either way, you end up with impaled or pancaked monsters!

[eharper256]

No video to show off this week; I've been working on the upgrades and mutations of Lapis Flos as well as the Tertiary Fire, but unfortunately, the implementation of the Tertiary Fire ended up quite rubbish compared to what I originally envisioned for it, and I didn't find it useful or unique enough.

 

In case you were wondering, it was originally supposed to be a localised tremour; a little bit like an Earthquake version of Firestorm's Tertiary, but it just ended up looking a bit pants (or eye cancer, with no in-between that I could manage). I also tried turning it into a directed fissure but this version, whilst more interesting, suffers from the problem that it only looks good on bright and uncomplicated floors (since dark crack-type floor decals don't show up well otherwise).

So we're back to the drawing board for that. At the moment, I'm considering an Earth Golem summon of some sorts, but take that with a pinch of salt. I always go through lots of implementations with stuff like this which is why it can take a while!

 

Also, heads up in advance, I'm going on a Cruise for a week from the 10th of March.

[eharper256]

Preliminary Bardiche Preview!!

This is a design for the Myrmidon's new in-slot 3 alternative weapon, the (as yet un-named) Bardiche. I considered what colours I'd not really explored for the Myrmidon and weapon niche's he was lacking, and a reach weapon using Red and Blue contrast was the answer I came up with after fiddling with Photoship for a while.

This does create a rather demonic weapon, doesn't it? I also deliberately designed that central gap to be the focus point for a potential magic circle for its powers. At the moment, given this, I'm thinking it's related to Haemomancy (blood) powers, possibly sapping small amounts of health to deal devastating hits; though this is open to debate and further design. As usual, obviously this sprite isn't final and is due for more tweaks and cleaning.

What do you think?

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Something bothers me about the perspective on the blade, but I'm not good enough with perspective myself to put a finger on what it is.  Otherwise it's a cool design.

[eharper256]

6 hours ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

Something bothers me about the perspective on the blade, but I'm not good enough with perspective myself to put a finger on what it is.  Otherwise it's a cool design.

Yes, I'm aware of that, should probably be a little thinner towards the tip of the blade. First person polearm perspective is a pain! This was the reason for the 'not final' note. Glad you like it though.

[Duke of Pathoris]

On 2/5/2023 at 1:54 AM, eharper256 said:

Geomancy is here!

 

Looking forward to causing havoc with geomancy but something about the rock projectiles just feels wrong to me. They kind of look waxy and un-hexen.

[eharper256]

Glad to hear it.

To make them more Hexen, I would have to turn them more yellow to match the default rock spires palette. But since I wanted something that could work in all the WADs I decided to make them a more standardised brown colour. Guess I could make them darker?

[eharper256]

This is the ready/idle sprite for the new bardiche! The set is coming along quite nicely, got most of the melee swing stuff done and am just starting the secondary and tertiary fires.  :)
 

We can also see the long awaited Pilum throw sprite, which will come as part of the tertiary fire upgrade for the Fists, replacing the rather strange jump kick that's currently there. This has been waiting to be done for quite awhile now. Since I'm on a polearm run at the moment, I thought it was time to get to it.

What do you all think?

[eharper256]

vv See below for improved Bardiche Video! vv

Edited April 25, 2023 by eharper256

[eharper256]

Last time I got a few comments on the discords about a few parts of the Bardiche animation being a bit rough in various places. Not wrong; I got a bit over excited about getting alot of the sprites and coding done, and probably should have left things in the oven for a bit longer. Which I've now done.

 

The perspective and feel of the animation has been improved considerably. Also, you get to see the secondary fire, which is... causing corpses to explode! Finally, the Bardiche was always meant to be a possessed/sentient weapon, with an evil spirit sealed inside. So it now talks a bit!

[eharper256]

Thought I'd try to composite a Dark Crucible replacement for Walp in order to try and make Korax more interesting to fight and give design space to give him more abilities and challenge for the Hexen finale.

 

That said, I kinda suck at mapping though compared to proper mappers; and might see if anyone here fancies a crack at it!

 

What are your thoughts?

[Bri0che]

2 hours ago, eharper256 said:

Thought I'd try to composite a Dark Crucible replacement for Walp in order to try and make Korax more interesting to fight and give design space to give him more abilities and challenge for the Hexen finale.

 

That said, I kinda suck at mapping though compared to proper mappers; and might see if anyone here fancies a crack at it!

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Looks good to me :)
I recently replayed an old wad named Osiris and the texturing is quite """similar""" to this, good vibes !

It also remember me some later Egyptian themed maps of Scythe II I believe, or was it Scythe I ?

 

[eharper256]

7 hours ago, Bri0che said:

Looks good to me :)
I recently replayed an old wad named Osiris and the texturing is quite """similar""" to this, good vibes !

It also remember me some later Egyptian themed maps of Scythe II I believe, or was it Scythe I ?

Thanks. Interestingly, I'm actually limited to textures either in the Hexen wad or the handful that I have in Walp already that are from OTEX that I use for the TITLEMAP and Testing Level. I guess Sand automatically helps give a deserty theme though.

 

Fun fact; originally the middle had red carpet on the sand. It looked kind of silly. XD

[Bri0che]

5 hours ago, eharper256 said:

Thanks. Interestingly, I'm actually limited to textures either in the Hexen wad or the handful that I have in Walp already that are from OTEX that I use for the TITLEMAP and Testing Level. I guess Sand automatically helps give a deserty theme though.

 

Fun fact; originally the middle had red carpet on the sand. It looked kind of silly. XD

 

Yes indeed, the sand helps, it could even remember me early maps of Ancient Alien, but without all of the purple side and with slightly larger sectors.

[eharper256]

What I've been working on for this bank holiday weekend; Korax getting abilities and a much bigger and detailed map. I also even voiced new lines for him myself (though no, I don't sound like Korax in real life, I'm just good with Audacity lol).

 

Still needs some tweaks to the level, probably. It made the video recording derp at a couple of points (you might notice, sadly) because I guess Korax now generates a lot of particles and stuff. Also, the final map needs more mana and stuff for balancing, probably.

 

If you have any thoughts on the design and how it could be improved, let me know. I'm not exactly a pro-mapper at all, but a jack of all trades, so thoughts on this are highly appreciated!

[eharper256]

Questions for everyone:
As you may have seen in the video above, Korax has some boss music during the fight. My thought was to do the same for all three of the Hexen deathkings, the Heresiarch, and the Wyvern as well. But of course, that's pretty much an instant +25Mb I'm adding to Walpurgis for unique music (even in OGG).

 

Is file-size of this magnitude actually a concern for people these days? And should there be only 1 boss music for all of the above or unique ones for each boss? Should there even be boss music? Do people even intend to play Hexen again just for revised bosses (lol) or are most people here using Walp with Doom?

 

It's easy for me to run off and go wupwupwup cool music but I figured I should ask if this is relevant before I spend hours looking for new tracks. :D

[eharper256]

You might have seen the earlier version of this last week; and I'm super glad it turned out as popular as it did. Since then, the boss fight has been given tonnes of polish!

There are now more distinct phases. In phase one, Korax is invincible until you destroy his shield and harasses you by flying about whilst you do so. Phase two lets reinforcements out of Dark Priests and allows him to revive Reivers; and he teleports around on platforms. The finale warps you into space (!) for the final duel.

Korax is now aware of which part of the stage you're on when it comes to triggering traps (so spikes and crushers and blasters are less indiscriminate and more in your general area) and also chooses teleport destinations in your vicinity when attacking you in Stage 2. Basically a lot more logical, which amps the challenge up quite a bit!

I probably still need to make Stage 3 more aggressive; but hey it looks cool!

Fun fact; this is actually the second recording, he wrecked me on the first one (lol).