1995 called. They want their Doom levels back.

[ketmar]

with so many slightly different engines (and have vanilla quirks hardwired into brain memory cells) it is almost impossible to not accidentally create something... let's say different. ;-) i am working on k8vavoom for more than two years now, almost on a daily basis, and i still don't know all vavoom quirks. i won't even dare to ask non-devs to remember everything and slightly more about several different sourceports. ;-)

 

what i mean is, you did excellent work by having so little bugs!

 

p.s.: i'm usually playing with Zan, and she's 64 units high, so i never even noticed that something is wrong with that secret. ;-)

[wrkq]

21 hours ago, Caleb13 said:

-E1M1: definitely the weakest map of the pack. It is cramped, confusing and fighting the monsters with the pistol (and later berserk) gets real tedious, real fast. In the end, I skipped it.

 

Full disclosure: I'm a boring pleb playing on HMP.

 

However, from that perspective, I would say that ZK quite successfully delivered that "pressure" feeling.

The concept is, more or less, "you can reach the exit very quick, but if you want to 100% it, it's not gonna be a breeze".

 

Sure it's not the flavor of pressure you get having to juggle your last two BFG shots and box of rockets against a horde of archviles in a modern slaughter map.

But just like that, its a bit more about running and staying alive than steamrolling through all monsters.

 

It actually works very well with my (very 1995) style of non-pro playing, tbh. And it felt kind of rewarding when I found the plasma in the end (with a few extra cells on the way) and could finally dispatch the cacos that I've been mostly trying to avoid and run from until then.

 

But of course, to everyone their own taste.

 

5 hours ago, Zylinderkatze said:

I might put a Chaingun in the small storage room where the sleeping quarters are.

Chaingun is definitely the better choice because you won't have to rebalance the map for shells.

And that location... might not be too bad of an option. It takes a little while and some dodging to get there.

 

Dunno if that's a good or bad idea, but it might be interesting to have this room locked with one of the red-sign bulkhead doors until the alarm is turned off - that way the (short and easy) mandatory progression to alarm control center must still be done with pistol only instead of having some players do a mad dash upstairs to catch the CG before doing anything else.

[wrkq]

On 12/30/2020 at 4:00 AM, tam said:

Nah I need more time to finish the music. Nowhere near done yet.

 

Pro Amateur tip:

Repackage the .pk3 as a .wad, simply keeping the D_E1Mx lump names as in the .pk3.

Load it into Crispy after the main wad.

Enjoy.

 

Much easier than setting up the "music pack" feature, especially as that one has a few quirks that makes it hard or impossible to have different songs on maps which shared songs (via duplicated lumps) in vanilla.

 

Despite Chocolate having the libraries for music decoding, it fails to play D_INTRO then crashes with memory allocation failure loading the demo - so it's probably deliberarely trying to blindly process the wad lump as MUS or such for the perfect vanilla-ness. So you'd need to do configure a musicpack there.

[tamara mochaccina]

6 hours ago, wrkq said:

 

Repackage the .pk3 as a .wad, simply keeping the D_E1Mx lump names as in the .pk3.

 

PK3s are more compact, and I didn't really mean for the music to work with Crispy Doom. A midi OST is on the way as @Zylinderkatze has mentioned, so yeh. Good that you're thinking about this kinda stuff tho :p

[wrkq]

2 minutes ago, tam said:

PK3s are more compact

Well, yes, they're zip-compressed while WADs are not. If it's full of stuff like doom-format graphics, the compression is pretty significant.

But a pk3 full of already internally compressed files such as ogg, mp3, png or jpg will not zip any much better.

Your pk3 is 52 534 KB, the uncompressed oggs are 52 710 KB, the WAD has 204 bytes of overhead in header and index so clocks at 52 711 KB. :)

But I've just been sharing a trick, I didn't mean you should repackage it, was a general "you, dear reader who wants to do this", not "you, tam", sorry for the confusion :)

 

 

[tamara mochaccina]

Oh yeah, dw! I'm not offended or anything, you know your stuff :p

[Zylinderkatze]

Y U NO UPDATE!?

 

Hi. Yes, I am still removing some bugs. Mainly in cooperation with wrkq because he's similarly weird (read: fussy) about the same things (read: details) as I am and he also found a few things that I had missed. Basically him and Lippeth are the ones who are driving the debugging and improving of the polished version of URE2020 the most :)

 

So my updates have been mostly in private messages but I thought I'd share a few things here!

 

In E1M9 there's a BROWNWEL wall that's actually a switch. Necessary for progression. It's well lit and all (intentionally so) but it could still do with a bit more of an indicator of what it would do, that it's actually interactive. A visual cue on top of the sound of a sector changing its floor height that can be heard nearby. So I give you:

 

^{The Nukage level gauge™ (idea by wrkq)}

 

Pretty neat addition (I can say this because it's not my idea! ha!). Thanks wrkq!

 

 

Still pondering:

 

Then there's a bit towards the end (of E1M9) where you can get.. well- not stuck so much as having to run back some ways (in case you missed a switch). Which can feel like you're stuck. Not good.

 

This is now a little better explained, contextually.. but the switch progression I settled on right now is still not perfect. Here, wrkq had a different idea (that might actually be better) but I need to have it filter through my brain and the map, first xD

 

Basically there's 2 consoles:

- One opens the doors so you can leave the area the switches are in (so it's mandatory),

- One enables a passage to actually walk out of the map, some further down the line.

 

They are independent of one another and you might not know that it's necessary to trigger the one that "enables the exit".

 

The way it is now (after my tinkering), you can't access the switch that opens the doors anymore. Unless you use the other console first.. but that kind of makes the other console redundant.

 

Basically, I want the player to find both and use both.. and kind of get "punished" for having missed the one that's missable.

 

The problem: With the new map layout, the way to the point at which you realize you might've missed something.. is considerably longer than it used to be. So that makes it kind of annoying, rather than just a small (well-deserved?) nuisance.

 

Perhaps, in line with the "alarm system" in E1M1, I'll just put a few blinking lights along the path to the exit (which will be closed / hidden, once the exit-opening console is used).. though that might not be obvious enough either. It might just look like "some weird red lights" ^^;

 

Though now that I think about it, maybe there's a way to make the "slow lift back down" (you'll know what I mean if you played the map) actually unusable until the right console is used. That would significanlty shorten the way back in case you missed it.

 

I think I'll do that!

 

Thanks, Doomworld forum! xD

[ketmar]

there is no such thing as "finished project", yea? ;-)

[Zylinderkatze]

8 hours ago, ketmar said:

"finished project"

There was untapped potential, let's put it like that xD

[Lippeth]

I just wanna say that E1M5 is CRAZY. These maps have been cerebral so far but this one is on another level in my book. If I hadn't cut my teeth on Hexen I would say that it was very obtuse and confusing, but this map scratched an itch that only Hexen usually can. Absolutely love the puzzle logic here. Great resource management, I ran out of ammo on occasion, but there was always a way out, and finding the berserk really helped with that. I didn't figure out how to get the rocket launcher or plasma gun, but honestly I was just happy to make it through to the end.

 

Anyway, I'm four songs in, five to go! Plus the intro, intermission and ending, so eight to go if we're counting that.

[Zylinderkatze]

14 hours ago, Lippeth said:

CRAZY

WHO ARE YOU CALLING CRAZY?!

 

Oh.. E1M5? Okay then.. carry on xD

 

I hope it wasn't too tough to find the exit. I already added a few more.. ehrm.. indicating "things" placed around the exit.. I'm this close to adding an actual EXIT sign inside the right door.

 

14 hours ago, Lippeth said:

five to go!

Don't kill yourself over this- take your time. Your music is so worth the wait.

 

Also it gives people more time to play the maps with Tam's music in the mean time xD

[Zylinderkatze]

More news, less screenshots!

 

E1M9 is now done, complete with a better way of communicating why things are closed off at one point.. and less confusion about finding the correct switch to get out of that predicament. Even smarter (though not really new): In order to be able to leave the very first room you start off in, you have to use the same "semi-obscured" switch that you will also need to open things up later on. It was kind of like that before already.. but now it's much cleared because it's practically the same thing ^^;

 

Also, maybe there's an added monster trap or 4. But I didn't go overboard really. Because I said I wouldn't xD

 

It's really just a callback to the 1995 version, actually :)

[wrkq]

35 minutes ago, Zylinderkatze said:

It's really just a callback to the 1995 version, actually :)

"And tonight it's caco party, like it's 1995..."

[Zylinderkatze]

Good news!

 

I think.

 

So if you've played URE2020 already you'll know that I replaced a bunch of menu graphics as well as the M_DOOM logo.

 

Basically with this:

^{I'm.. what?}

 

Yeah it looks "90's action movie title"-esque.. but it's only a facsimile. It's basically a recreation from 2020, as close to what I remembered the original logo looked like.

 

The reason why I remade it is because I though that I had lost all the graphics from 1995 aside from the splash screen and the F_SKY texture. However at the same time I was almost convinced that during my recovery efforts I did have the images at one point. So I went back digging and yes, in fact I had recovered them.. only I then put them into a supplemental WAD with just those graphics and gave it an obscure name. Not surprising if you know me.

 

So yes.. the updated URE2020 (once it's out) will have a retouched version of the original URE-logo! Awesome!

 

Here's a peek:

^Boom.

 

There is a subtitle under that logo (or "used to be"). I already removed it, because I'll replace it with the updated 2020 subtitle ^^;

 

That said, I am currently packaging up the 1995 (or actually 1996) version of the original "URE".

 

But I won't share it until tomorrow because it's late and I still need to write a readme xD

 

So.. tomorrow?

 

Goodnight!

[ketmar]

yay. authenticity at the max! ok, i'll wait a little more (because i still didn't finished the whole set -- i keep breaking the engine and saves, and had to start it all again and again...)

[Zylinderkatze]

TOMORROW!

 

I mean.. today.

 

Go.. go ahead. Revel in the unapologetically 90's cringe that is "URE1995"!

 

Complete with such thoughtful and intricate map names as "DEATH CANYON" and "RAGE".

^{It was really hard not to end that last sentence with an exclamation mark.}

 

Here it is: Download like it's 1995!

 

Or.. maybe Download like it's 2021, otherwise it might be a while until it's done downloading xD

 

And yes, it's called the "Ultimate Razor Experience". If your want to know why, read the readme file! xD

 

 

You want screenshots?

 

No you don't.

 

Okay.. in case you actually do:

 

^{E1M1 like it's 1995}

 

^{E1M2: Ashwall'd!}

 

^{E1M3 is Imptastic!}

 

^{E1M4's Caco says hi! <3}

 

The other 5 maps you'll just have to check out for yourself xD

 

Enjoy!

Edited January 27, 2021 by Zylinderkatze

[ketmar]

yay! now i can move it into E2 slot, and do one map at a time. that is, if i will ever stop breaking the engine, i mean. ;-)

[Zylinderkatze]

11 hours ago, Zylinderkatze said:

E1M4's Caco says hi! <3

actually this room in E1M4 didn't change much at all, from 1995 to 2020 but I liked the action shot ^^;;

 

4 hours ago, ketmar said:

move it into E2 slot

Yes please do whatever you like with it ketmar ^^ I decided against it (as in: against the original idea to publish old & new together, as we had originally mused about) mainly because I wanted to preserve the "original 199X-ness" of the old version, with the original title screen and all ^^ But feel free to move them around as you see fit. 

 

Enjoy!

[Zylinderkatze]

Also!

 

What a weird headline. Well.. not if you know me. But still.

 

I am currently preparing a "Revision 1" version of URE2020 right now that incorporates all the bugfixes and adjustments made after the feedback that came in.

 

I'm not sure if I'll get it done today, though.. I kind of got engrossed in playing my maps again while actually just wanting to check if I removed all the Player1 starts that I placed for testing.. ^^;

 

My maps are just too damn good!

 

Not really. But they do feel kind of comforting / comfortable to me xD

 

Stay tuned!

 

But don't hold your breath.

[Zylinderkatze]

Oh hey! I actually got it done?

Yes. And I even made a whole forum thread for it, it's testing results and subsequent updates:

I think & hope that this will bring in some more people who like to play maps but don't necessarily follow development threads.

 

I would like to ask everyone who tests the URE 2020 maps to reply on that thread from now on, if possible.

 

Thanks!

Edited January 31, 2021 by Zylinderkatze

[Zylinderkatze]

I guess this is farewell..

 

The main development of URE 2020 is at its end; Any further bugfixes will be documented and commented on the thread from the last post (see above).

 

For the "next big thing", please feel free to also check out this thread:

 

Thank you everyone for this awesome ride!

Edited January 31, 2021 by Zylinderkatze