Doom 32X Resurrection

[ZeroTheEro]

lovely.

[Muusi]

I honestly can't believe how great this version runs on original hardware. 

[Blackpuppy]

16 hours ago, Vic said:

Yeah, we had to drop a few tracks to fit the game into a 4MB ROM

Just out of curiosity, why did you limit yourself to 4MB?

[Wavy]

On 10/22/2021 at 1:10 AM, Blackpuppy said:

Just out of curiosity, why did you limit yourself to 4MB?

It's a limit with the 32x and Genesis itself. The largest ROM size available is 4MB without bank switching.

Edited October 23, 2021 by Wavy

[Blackpuppy]

7 minutes ago, Wavy said:

It's a limit with the 32x and Genesis itself. The largest ROM size available is 4MB.

Ah, well there ya go! Themoreyouknow.gif

 

Looks like the next step is to make a 32xCD version! :p

[l11l1VeNoM1l11l]

Just finished it using Kega Fusion! Man, this was a blast to play through and I couldn't believe what I was seeing the whole way through. Infighting, 8-sided enemies and the improved lighting...an of course the improved soundtrack. It's just insane that it's all running as well as it is. There are very minor issues I'd like to address that I would imagine should be simple to implement, at least relatively.
 

1.) E1M7's music sounds god awful. It is the only track in the game that doesn't sound amazing. The lead guitar effect in this level is way too shrill and farty. I would suggest putting 'Sign of Evil' back in E1M8 and putting the track currently in E1M8 into E1M7 and the one or two other levels it repeats in. Just trash the E1M7 track altogether. This is all assuming killing E1M7's track would create enough space for E1M8's.

 

2.) The Always Run option, if enabled, also increases the turn speed, making it very difficult to aim. I prefer Always Run, but it just wasn't really usable because of this.

 

3.) It would be great to have a fully customizable 6-button option. This game would handle awesome with improved Auto-Run, strafe left set to A, shoot set to B, and strafe right set to C. Mode should be Area Map. Then X, Y and Z can be cycle weapons and action. This does eliminate a Run button, so maybe button combinations could be implemented as well?

 

4.) I think someone mentioned before that the Framerate option seems to just speed up the enemies' attacks. I actually love this - I would just rename it from "Framerate" to "Enemy Aggression" or something.

 

And that's all I have. Great work and can't wait for the next update (if there is one planned)!

[masterneme]

I just watched Sega Lord X's video and read some comments here.

 

I don't know if what I'm going to say is possible or not but, if some features or content can't be implemented or added because of the ROM size limit, why not slice the game into different ROMs?

 

I mean, if you can't put certain number of levels, music tracks or even text because it needs 6 megs or more, couldn't it be possible to have 2 different 3 meg ROMs?

 

At least for emulators and flashcarts it would be great because you just need to load the next ROM and enjoy all the content without limitations.

 

And then have a "lite" version that fits in a 4 meg cartridge.

[Vic]

1 hour ago, l11l1VeNoM1l11l said:

1.) E1M7's music sounds god awful. It is the only track in the game that doesn't sound amazing. The lead guitar effect in this level is way too shrill and farty. I would suggest putting 'Sign of Evil' back in E1M8 and putting the track currently in E1M8 into E1M7 and the one or two other levels it repeats in. Just trash the E1M7 track altogether. This is all assuming killing E1M7's track would create enough space for E1M8's.

 

2.) The Always Run option, if enabled, also increases the turn speed, making it very difficult to aim. I prefer Always Run, but it just wasn't really usable because of this.

 

1) I don't mind E1M7 music that much. Removing it won't help the E1M8 cause either, unfortunately.

 

2) Yeah, I agree. The fast turn mode should be deactivated if 'Always run' is enabled.

 

4) I'm inclined to remove the option altogether. It doesn't add anything to player's experience.

[l11l1VeNoM1l11l]

10 hours ago, Vic said:

 

1) I don't mind E1M7 music that much. Removing it won't help the E1M8 cause either, unfortunately.

 

2) Yeah, I agree. The fast turn mode should be deactivated if 'Always run' is enabled.

 

4) I'm inclined to remove the option altogether. It doesn't add anything to player's experience.

1.) Fair enough. What I was hearing may have been because the sound emulation was set to 22050Hz - I just checked. I was also wearing Apple Earpods while playing it on my laptop. I'll have to hear it on my home theater system.

 

2.) Awesome. Glad it's not just me.

 

4.) You're right. I just played through some levels and changed between low and high framerate and it made no difference other than exactly what it says it does lol. I thought the Cacodemons especially were much quicker with it cranked, but no - that's just how 32x Cacodemons are.

[Dark Pulse]

On 10/21/2021 at 10:12 AM, Wavy said:

It's a limit with the 32x and Genesis itself. The largest ROM size available is 4MB.

Bit of a clarification for the non-technical crowd: the largest ROM it can address without bankswitching is 4 MB. There are games that do break this limit (Pier Solar is 6 MB for example), and even an officially-released game during the system's lifespan (Super Street Fighter II) broke this limit at 5 MB.

 

The tricky part is, of course, in that essentially you would have to figure out how to handle the banking, because the system is still limited to only "seeing" 4 MB at a time.

 

Using the same mapper SSF2 uses would require either to use that game as a donor cart, or to have an Everdrive or similar flash cart that supports the mapper, as well. It's not simply something you can "do" for free on any old donor cart or flash cart if they don't support the mapper.

[Vic]

The patch has been updated to v1.1. Head over to https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/6269/ for download link. Here's the changelog:

• Added E3M3 “Deep Into the Code” music track.
• Added support for dedicated strafe buttons (Y&Z or C&Z, Y for Use), which enables circlestrafing.
• Fixed double damage taken in lava and slime.
• Fixed powerups expiring at double rate.
• The ‘always run’ mode no longer toggles fast turning.
• Lost souls should now bounce off floors and ceilings (vanilla Doom bug).
• Draw map titles in menus.
• Navigation is menus should feel snappier now.
• Removed the framerate option from video settings.

 

Edited October 23, 2021 by Vic

[John Rambo 787]

I love the new soundtrack replacement that Spoonybard did for the 32x Resurrection, but I couldn't help but noticed some Notes in E1M5 are in the wrong place. After the channel 2 Strings stop and the channel 3 strings for example, supposed to play D5, A4 and D5. but plays D5, A4, D5, E5, D5, A4, D5. before the next set of strings play and does the same with channel 4 except for the ending part before the loop. Just listen to both the Original Midi and Spoony's VGM version. I don't have twitter but someone could let Spoonybard know at least. Just an oversite. I've done the same before with music I been doing on Deflemask.

[Wavy]

Quite liking the LR strafing! But is there a way to toggle the automap or going back to the previous weapon slot with LR strafing?

 

Also, could the palette for the invulnerability be changed to the blue tint used on pause screen? I believe Jaguar Doom uses a blue tint for invulnerability as well as GBA Doom.

[Vic]

6 hours ago, Wavy said:

Quite liking the LR strafing! But is there a way to toggle the automap or going back to the previous weapon slot with LR strafing?

 

Hold START and press:

A - for previous weapon

B - for next weapon

C - for automap

 

Just like on a 3-button gamepad.

 

6 hours ago, Wavy said:

Also, could the palette for the invulnerability be changed to the blue tint used on pause screen? I believe Jaguar Doom uses a blue tint for invulnerability as well as GBA Doom. 

 

Yeah, why not. Although it's not clear why we should be emulating Jaguar or GBA Doom in this particular instance :)

Edited October 24, 2021 by Vic

[Wavy]

2 hours ago, Vic said:

Although it's not clear why we should be emulating Jaguar or GBA Doom in this particular instance :)

Well the yellow tint was made for item flashing, so using that for invulnerability just looks a bit odd IMO. The blue looks better and I think fits better for invulnerability.

[Dexiaz]

All of sudden my thought which is nobody asked for:

 

Blue color for invulnerability sounds like strange. I can understand white color, because it can be associated with inversed effect. I can understand yellow color, because Doomguy's eyes goes gold colored, and this is kinda seems legit. But blue? Eh, blue color is for soulsphere, but not for invulnerability.

[Vic]

39 minutes ago, Wavy said:

Well the yellow tint was made for item flashing, so using that for invulnerability just looks a bit odd IMO. The blue looks better and I think fits better for invulnerability.

But it sorta matches the color of the invul sphere and what the original port did as well.

[Wavy]

17 minutes ago, Vic said:

But it sorta matches the color of the invul sphere and what the original port did as well.

Fair, I just think that the yellow tint is weird, but do as you like if you prefer it yellow ;)

[Wesker]

It's great to have "Deep Into the Code" added. Shame it can't be done the same with "Sign of Evil". I believe it's now the only original Doom music which is still missing. Even "Donna to the Rescue" is in (associated to "Map 19: House of Pain", which originally was one of the maps playing "Sign of Evil"), despite Jaguar Doom and its derivative versions never having the proper "Slough of Despair" map (or an equivalent one taking its place) where this particular music track originally played.

 

 

Edited October 27, 2021 by Wesker

[zulmiro]

Hello,first congratulations on the amazing work!

The 30 fps are absolutely great and i love the 160x180 full screen!

 

However when elevators, doors, enemies and projectiles are moving... the 15 fps logic seems to have a bit of an impact?

 

 

I assume that was the compromise that the system (32x) pushed you to, and that it wouldn't handle much more.

 

But i wonder if the system could handle something like 20 fps of game logic, while maybe sacrificing the doom fading light mode?

 

I'd like to know your thoughts on the matter.

 

I just noticed that some of my bad impessions were while using kega fusion at 50hz (country set to EUR), when using USA at 60hz everything gets significaly better, is the later the more faithful to runing this on 32x even in a european one?

 

 

 

[zulmiro]

By the way i think i noticed a bug, when setting the controls(ingame), ie:

A - use

B - speed

C - fire

 

strafe will be trigered while firing (C) in stead of using (A)

 

 

About the above post, don't take it too seriously the game is absolutley great as it is!

 

[Wesker]

I miss a more fleshed out controls/gamepad customization screen (the current one is rather too limited) to avoid control issues like the ones you mention, or the ones that also arise in the map screen when remapping the buttons, since the map screen will always keep fixed button associations no matter what.

For example, if you set the speed/run function to the "C" button, since you need to keep pressed "C" in the map screen to allow moving yourself instead of moving the map screen, you will be forced to always run while moving yourself on the map screen. Even though this issue may be solved by simply inverting the "C" button switching logic in the map screen, so you will always move yourself by default and keeping pressed "C" will instead switch to moving the map screen. This would also be more faithful to the map control logic of most of the other versions (not only the PC original is that way, but also others based on the Jaguar version like the original 32X version and the 3DO version), rather than inheriting it straight from the Jaguar version like it is now (it's puzzling why they did that).

@Vic speaking about minor fixes, would it be possible to make the game remember the last area you selected when starting a new game during gameplay? So for example, if I'm playing in area 15 and want to go to area 16, it would save from having to manually move the selection from area 1 at all times (or from area 24 backwards which is also another option). Even the faulty 3DO version remembers what was the last area selected/played when the game boots, but it would be enough if this could be done when starting a new game during gameplay and not necessarily after booting the game (even though the SRAM save technically could also remember it), so it would make easier to move between levels from your current one.

Also, I noticed that in the ending, the enemy gallery animations are being played too fast and there's no sound when they fire. I guess those are also issues inherited from the Jaguar version. You already restored their alert sounds and death sounds compared to the Jaguar one, so I wonder if you could also do the same with their fire sounds and also fix the overacceleration they seem to have. Again, even the faulty 3DO version did this right, and the original 32X version also did it almost right too, if it wasn't because for some reason all the death sounds were replaced by shotgun shots.

[Vic]

I simply wasn't aware of those issues since I first played Doom 32X in January 2021 and had never played any other version before.

 

Pressing "C" in the automap inhibits the currently bound action, so actually you continuously won't run or attack by holding "C" there. That said, I'm not convinced that the current mechanics are better than alternatives so I may change it in the future.

 

The suggested improvements to finale screen and the "New Game" menu have already been merged to master branch.

 

Also, patches are welcome!

Edited October 27, 2021 by Vic

[l11l1VeNoM1l11l]

Thanks for the update, Vic. The changes are all very welcome. The only thing: I think strafing should be mapped to A & C. I know that sounds weird - but it allows the player to easily fire with B while circle-strafing. Or of course just make the controls fully customizable, but something tells me there's something technical holding you back from doing that or you would have already.

[Vic]

7 minutes ago, l11l1VeNoM1l11l said:

Or of course just make the controls fully customizable, but something tells me there's something technical holding you back from doing that or you would have already.

No, I'm just lazy and the prospect of putting many hours of work into something like this doesn't make me feel excited at all.

 

7 minutes ago, l11l1VeNoM1l11l said:

The only thing: I think strafing should be mapped to A & C.

Get 8bitdo controls with shoulder buttons, that's a game changer.

[l11l1VeNoM1l11l]

4 minutes ago, Vic said:

No, I'm just lazy and the prospect of putting many hours of work into something like this doesn't make me feel excited at all.

 

Get 8bitdo controls with shoulder buttons, that's a game changer.

Yeah, I get that lol.

 

I could get an 8bitdo controller, I just like to keep my hardware original and authentic. Then again, this port of Doom is anything but that anyway, I guess.

[Vic]

13 hours ago, l11l1VeNoM1l11l said:

Yeah, I get that lol.

 

That and the fact that I'd probably pour more hours of tedious work into this than people who're now asking for this feature would spend actually playing the game. I know how this works as I spent nearly 10 years working on and providing support for a free game. It's not like I'm going to sell an extra copy of D32XR :D

[scalliano]

Beat this on my hacked Mega Drive Mini last week and I have to say this is some stunning work. Unfortunately the official Retro-bit pads don't map the shoulder buttons the same way the 8bitdo M30 does so I had to kick it properly old school relearning the backpedal/turn manouevre from my teens. Haven't had the chance to try it on real hardware yet as my 32x is currently packed away but I'm looking forward to seeing this running on a CRT with crap speakers.

[Noiser]

Here's a very dumb question, but I wonder how feasible would be to port stuff from Doom 2 to this engine. That would be insanely cool.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I imagine people could make levels for this (as it is on vanilla), right?

[l11l1VeNoM1l11l]

15 hours ago, Vic said:

 

That and the fact that I'd probably pour more hours of tedious work into this than people who're now asking for this feature would spend actually playing the game. I know how this works as I spent nearly 10 years working on and providing support for a free game. It's not like I'm going to sell an extra copy of D32XR :D

I hear you there, however...this port is really making its rounds all over the internet. I've seen a ton of coverage on gaming websites and Youtube. It's pretty impressive. Obviously you won't make any money, but the recognition is worth it alone with what you've already done. So...good job lol. I think there's something about what you're doing here with an extinct game console with a huge cult following - on a title as important as Doom - that just blows providing support for basically any other free game right out of the water in terms of coolness and bragging rights...or even resume building. I think it's ultimately the fact that it was originally such a disappointing port of such a huge title and it's now arguably the best game for the system. Also the fact that the 32x has always been a huge pain in the ass to work with. I think this is a huge accomplishment.