Dominus Diabolicus - MBF21 33-map megawad [now on idgames]

[Nihlith]

1 minute ago, bofu said:

 

Thanks for the playthrough vid! Watching it now. (The buttons on the toilets in MAP02 do function, but you have to be pretty precise with them, by the way!)

 

I ended up deleting the custom monsters. I was going to try to use DEHEXTRA to make the Wolfenstein SS into supershotgun zombies and even had them fully implemented in a previous build (not used in any maps yet though), but I found that they produced a few issues and ended up scrapping them. They might still make a reappearance if I ever feel like they can fit in without breaking anything. (I do have plans for Commander Keen, though.)

 

I look forward to meeting the commander. Using custom monsters is a delicate operation. There's some coding that I haven't played with enough to master and some players hate them.  I love custom monsters though.

Still, the core roster is very strong and the slog never felt lacking for the conservative beastiary.

There's a definite charm to slow burning escalation, I felt wrong footed and striving the whole way. I'll take my sweet time next time.

[bofu]

Lately, I've had nothing new to report because motivation has sort of fallen off, but I did want to give a couple updates here:

 

• I've commissioned a certain Mr. Lee Jackson to write some original tracks in addition to my own.
• I've been working on some custom graphics and plan on adding a custom status bar to the project at some point.
• I'm currently working on MAP08: Reviled, screenshots below. After escaping to sea in the previous map, the player arrives at a techbase nestled in an active volcano that is being used to channel power to the gateway through which the demons are invading Earth. (No internet points for guessing what enemy is going to feature very heavily in this map.)

Spoiler

 

[bofu]

MAP08: "Reviled" has been added.

 

CHANGELOG:

Spoiler

• Added MAP08: "Reviled." A geothermal techbase powering the UAC's teleportation experiments hides a sinister secret... or several.
• Fixed the SSG closet in MAP02 not being flagged as a secret.

SCREENSHOTS:

Spoiler

 

 

 

[bofu]

MAP09: "Peekaboo" has been added. This one clocks in at over 400 enemies on UV.

 

CHANGELOG:

Spoiler

• Added MAP09: "Peekaboo." After taking the experimental teleporter out of the previous level, you arrive at what's supposed to be the UAC Gateway Project facility. Looks like Hell already beat you here...

SCREENSHOTS:

Spoiler

 

Download link: HERE

 

If you play this map, please do me a favor and reply with your thoughts on balance. It's probably a lot tougher than the previous maps, but I don't want it to feel grievously so.

Edited February 22, 2022 by bofu

[T-117]

I just finished map 9.  The detailing and general map aesthetic is probably the best so far in the series.  The difficulty definitely spikes in this one.  A couple of the fights took me several tries.  I liked the way the eye switches were done with the mini platform indicators.  It was easy to tell what you needed to do.

[bofu]

13 hours ago, T-117 said:

I just finished map 9.  The detailing and general map aesthetic is probably the best so far in the series.  The difficulty definitely spikes in this one.  A couple of the fights took me several tries.  I liked the way the eye switches were done with the mini platform indicators.  It was easy to tell what you needed to do.

 

Thanks a ton for the feedback! I was worried that the eye switches might be a bit too obtuse.

 

MAP10 is going to be a bit of a respite. Not much of one, but it'll be shorter, simpler, and probably a good bit easier. I've made great progress on it, I just need to figure out how to end it.

[bofu]

NEW MAP + OVERHAUL!

Thanks to some generous playtesters, I've made a huge number of improvements to the existing levels, as well as added a new one. As always, all maps support Deathmatch and Cooperative play. We're now up to 10 maps - almost 1/3rd of the way through the project!

 

To summarize, some additional visual polish was applied to several maps, balance was tweaked to be slightly less dependent on secret hunting, and additional monsters were added to some of the maps leading up to MAP06 so that the difficulty curve is a little more linear.

 

SCREENSHOTS:

 

CHANGELOG:

Spoiler

Maps

• MAP01: Removed the switch from the blue key area and just made the other side of the door blue key locked; various cosmetic improvements; made changes to the automap.
• MAP02: Various cosmetic improvements; added a few more enemies; made changes to the automap.
• MAP03: Made some secrets a little more obvious; various cosmetic improvements; increased ammunition supply; added a few more enemies; made changes to the automap.
• MAP04: Various cosmetic improvements; increased ammunition supply; added a few more enemies; moved SSG out of a secret area and made secrets slightly more apparent; made changes to the automap.
• MAP05: Removed a potential softlock in the bathroom; added a few more enemies; made changes to the automap.
• MAP06: Various cosmetic improvements; simplified the armor/backpack secret; made the rockets secret easier to trigger; made changes to the automap.
• MAP07: Made changes to the automap.
• MAP08: Made changes to the automap; adjusted the positioning of some pillars in the final area to fix it; fixed a bug that could cause a softlock on complevel 2.
• MAP09: Various cosmetic improvements; made changes to the automap; removed cheese from the final encounter; removed the invulnerability sphere since it trivialized certain combat encounters; removed some potential cheese from the courtyard fight; did not remove some opportunities for timeskips because they're cool; tweaked the cavern puzzle to allow the player to leave the first room and try to figure out the pattern again; made changes to the automap.
• MAP10: Added map "Tunnel Vision." The UAC teleportation research facility where the demonic invasion is coming from is now well within reach, but if you think the demons are going to make it easy, you're in for a rude awakening.

Graphics

• Added a modified sky texture courtesy of Mek.
• Brand new title pic, intermission background, and menu pic.
• Added a subtle black outline to the menu text and font so that the text wouldn't blend in so much with the title pic.

Miscellaneous

• Changed the par times to my personal UV-Any% pistol start best times. Good luck.

 

The link to download the latest version is here. As always, comments on the thread with feedback or suggestions are appreciated. (I feel bad bumping this thread every time when not a lot of people are looking at it!

 

Also, I've got some exciting news to share — the one and only Lee Jackson is going to be contributing some music to this project as well. I already have the MIDI from him for MAP11, which I've just started. (The map is called "Go To Hell," just in case you're curious.)

 

EDIT: Some minor issues were preventing 100% completion on MAP04 and MAP05. They have been fixed and the file has been reuploaded.

Edited March 7, 2022 by bofu

[i suck at nicknames]

commenting to follow cuz this actually looks really dope

[kalensar]

3 hours ago, i suck at nicknames said:

commenting to follow cuz this actually looks really dope

 Commenting to confirm that it is dope and already playable

[i suck at nicknames]

6 minutes ago, kalensar said:

 Commenting to confirm that it is dope and already playable

 

commenting to confirm that I take you at your word that it probably is dope, but I just wanna wait until the wad itself is complete (given the title suggesting that its a work in progress). I like to play things as a whole, as compared to a map at a time. 

[kalensar]

1 hour ago, i suck at nicknames said:

 

commenting to confirm that I take you at your word that it probably is dope, but I just wanna wait until the wad itself is complete (given the title suggesting that its a work in progress). I like to play things as a whole, as compared to a map at a time. 

Commenting to placate fears on play as this creator releases this incrementally for play tests and running add-on to the wad as a whole.

[TheCyberDruid]

Cool maps so far. Some of the music is excellent! The classic style of the maps works great and I like how map 10 slowly changes that (at least a bit). The only thing that I wasn't too fond of is the 'choose wrong = instant death' part of map 9, but I guess it's fine since most people will use saves. Great work and looking forward to more maps :)

[bofu]

7 hours ago, TheCyberDruid said:

Cool maps so far. Some of the music is excellent! The classic style of the maps works great and I like how map 10 slowly changes that (at least a bit). The only thing that I wasn't too fond of is the 'choose wrong = instant death' part of map 9, but I guess it's fine since most people will use saves. Great work and looking forward to more maps :)

That bit borrows a little from MAP30 of TNT. There's a hallway with colored torches leading to that room, so the player should be looking at the order of the torches as they enter the chamber. Opinions were pretty split about this, since some people thought it was really obvious, while others never even noticed that the torches were present. I might just have it teleport the player to the start of the puzzle in future builds, but I haven't decided.

 

In other news, MAP11: Go to Hell is about 90% done (it can now be completed). I just need to fill out some details, add some enemy encounters, then do a balance check. It's very large and non-linear, so another thing I'll be working on is trying to highlight the areas where the player actually needs to go. It also has a MIDI track by Lee Jackson that I commissioned.

[TheCyberDruid]

1 hour ago, bofu said:

That bit borrows a little from MAP30 of TNT. There's a hallway with colored torches leading to that room, so the player should be looking at the order of the torches as they enter the chamber. Opinions were pretty split about this, since some people thought it was really obvious, while others never even noticed that the torches were present. I might just have it teleport the player to the start of the puzzle in future builds, but I haven't decided.

 

Maybe make it the first (and/or last) kills you and the rest just resets. If the player misses the hint it's a bit of a time sink rather than something interesting IMO.

[bofu]

On 4/30/2022 at 3:50 PM, TheCyberDruid said:

 

Maybe make it the first (and/or last) kills you and the rest just resets. If the player misses the hint it's a bit of a time sink rather than something interesting IMO.

 

I've made some changes to the area that will be reflected in the Episode 1 release (I'm currently polishing up all of the maps; MAP11, the last map of Episode 1, is functionally done, but I'm incorporating some changes from feedback from my playtesters). To give a quick summary of it:

Spoiler

• The torches are now more prominent when you open the area.
• The first room currently does not kill the player; instead, if the player chooses the wrong door, the first time they choose it, it will teleport them to the start of the area with all six torches, in order, shown to them; taking the same wrong door a second time will kill the player outright.
• Once the player reaches the second room, the wrong doors will instantly kill the player; however, when this happens, the player will die in a room with the six colored torches in full view, in order, so they can at least receive some feedback. I see this as an improvement over the similar trap in MAP30 of TNT since that one didn't give you any feedback; it just killed you.

 

Some other changes I'm making:

Spoiler

• Increasing ammo and health availability across most maps.
• Going to trim some of the fat out of MAP07 and change the reward for killing all the Arachnotrons to something more meaningful (also so that the player can get plasma earlier).
• The BFG secret in MAP10 is much less annoying now.
• Tiny switches for secrets are being exterminated and replaced with more obvious cues.
• Closing off fights, particularly in MAP08, to prevent potential camping cheese.
• Making sure that in non-linear maps, such as MAP09, the player has access to sufficient weaponry regardless of which path they take at the start.
• Replacing a lot of time-sinky Barons to Hell Knights or other mid-tier enemies that take less time to kill and are more engaging.
• New MIDI tracks for MAP02, MAP06, and MAP09.

 

MAP11 is, so far, clocking in at 630+ enemies on UV and is both the largest and longest map. As the last map of Episode 11, it's a bit of a climax, and as I've teased previously, it features a track by the legendary Lee Jackson, commissioned specifically for this project.

[TheCyberDruid]

Sounds like a good way to change it.

[Rudolph]

12 hours ago, bofu said:

it features a track by the legendary Lee Jackson, commissioned specifically for this project.

Sweet! What would we do without you, @leejacksonaudio? :)

[leejacksonaudio]

On 5/2/2022 at 6:36 PM, bofu said:

as I've teased previously, it features a track by the legendary Lee Jackson, commissioned specifically for this project.

Refresh my memory if you would, please, since I'm not familiar with your DW alias. :) What is the name of the song I wrote for you?

[bofu]

7 hours ago, leejacksonaudio said:

Refresh my memory if you would, please, since I'm not familiar with your DW alias. :) What is the name of the song I wrote for you?

Mike Alfa Charlie!

[leejacksonaudio]

3 minutes ago, bofu said:

Mike Alfa Charlie!

Ah, yes! I know the one now. Thank you for the mental bump, and thank you again for commissioning me!

[Kor]

Played the first few levels you released, and thought they were pretty good.  The new levels in this release are better.  I look forward to the finished product.

[bofu]

2 hours ago, Kor said:

Played the first few levels you released, and thought they were pretty good.  The new levels in this release are better.  I look forward to the finished product.

 

Thank you for the kind words! Episode 1 is currently going through playtesting. I've also retouched the older levels a bit and have already finished the new MIDI for MAP02. I'm looking forward to sharing it once all the inevitable bugs are squashed.

[bofu]

Here's a little preview of some of the visual touch-ups I've made in a few maps (MAP01, MAP02, and MAP06 in particular):

 

Spoiler

 

[bofu]

Episode 1 is now complete and has been made available here! Now introducing MAP11: Go To Hell, the toughest level in the mapset by far. At this point, unless there are any bugs I happen to have missed, the first 11 maps will be considered complete.

 

This is a very beefy change to the WAD. Changelog is as follows:

 

Spoiler

MAP01

• New MIDI track.
• Made some layout changes, particularly to the yellow key area.
• Added a handful of enemies.
• Increased weapon, armor, health, and ammunition availability.
• Made visual improvements in various parts of the level, most noticeably the nukage pool and yellow key area.

MAP02

• New MIDI track.
• Added a new room.
• Added a handful of enemies.
• Increased weapon, armor, health, and ammunition availability.
• Changed the contents of some secrets around.
• Rebuilt the room behind the blue key door.
• Changed some enemy types.
• Made the Lost Soul nukage trap a little less daunting and a lot more worth it.
• Overhauled the appearance of several areas, particularly the front lobby the area leading to the blue key door.
• Changed the method of opening a secret.
• Various graphical tweaks in other areas.

MAP03

• Made the super shotgun readily accessible earlier in the map and replaced the secret with something else.
• Made the former super shotgun secret a little more obvious.
• Changed the method of opening some secrets.
• Can't cheese the end anymore.
• Increased weapon, armor, health, and ammunition availability.
• Various graphical tweaks in other areas.

MAP04

• Made the super shotgun readily accessible earlier in the map.
• Increased weapon, armor, health, and ammunition availability.
• Made the lava pit with the rocket launcher less lethal and more escapable.
• Lost Souls can now follow the player into the exit area.
• Various graphical tweaks in other areas.

MAP05

• Made the lava less damaging to the player.
• Made slight changes to monster types in some encounters.
• Some minor visual upgrades to a few areas.
• Increased weapon, armor, health, and ammunition availability.
• Fixed some linedefs being incorrectly displayed as one-sided on the automap and hid linedefs that were supposed to be hidden.
• The player can now exit the locker area without the yellow key card.

MAP06

• Increased weapon, armor, health, and ammunition availability.
• Changed the method of opening some secrets.
• Decreased the number of Lost Souls in the blue key area.
• Made the plasma gun secret, soulsphere secret, and mega armor secret a little more obvious.
• The player can now lower the platforms where chaingunnners attack them from.
• Various graphical tweaks in other areas.

MAP07

• No more hunting down Arachnotrons. You'll fight them during the course of the level now.
• Removed the annoying switch hunt from the optional encounter and changed the reward for doing so.
• Changed the contents of some secrets.
• Changed a few monster placements.
• Added some monsters and changed some existing placements and monster types.
• Added a secret.
• After escaping the courtyard encounter, the player can now use a teleporter to more quickly mop up any surviving enemies on the ramparts.
• Increased weapon, armor, health, and ammunition availability.

MAP08

• Certain encounters now trap the player (temporarily) inside of them to prevent cheese.
• Added some monsters to certain encounters and made the encounters more dynamic.
• Made the jumps in the final area much less annoying.
• Made lava throughout the level less damaging.
• Changed the contents of some secrets.
• Made some secrets more obvious, including the blue key, and altered the location of others.
• Changed the method of opening some secrets.
• Increased weapon, armor, health, and ammunition availability.

MAP09

• New MIDI track.
• Changed up the torch puzzle room and made the order more obvious. The first room will allow the player to enter each door without killing them, but the wrong doors will take the player back to the beginning of the puzzle the first time they're taken. Subsequent wrong choices in any room will kill the player but also provide additional feedback.
• Added a secondary method to kill the Spider Mastermind.
• Altered some of the monster types in a few encounters.
• Increased weapon, armor, health, and ammunition availability.
• Various graphical tweaks in other areas.

MAP10

• Made the BFG secret much less annoying.
• Added a small number of enemies.
• The player can no longer escape the final encounter until they make it through to the end.
• Went for the memes.
• Increased weapon, armor, health, and ammunition availability.

MAP11

• MAP11: Go To Hell. You've finally arrived at the UAC Slipgate Facility, which has long since been overrun by hellspawn. This level is the meanest one yet, especially if you go exploring...

GENERAL CHANGES

• Slight tweaks to some of the existing MIDIs.
• Complevel 2 demos have been added.
• CREDITS pic has been added.

 

[TheCyberDruid]

Pistol started map 11 on ITYTD and really liked the start of the map. Puts you on the edge of your seat, but (at least on ITYTD) isn't overwhelming. Sets the tone (along with the music) of the map. Loved the computer terminal and the forklift Doom cute :) Overall the design of the map is great. The 'revealing teleporter' ambush (after getting the red key) is a cool idea. I missed out on some of the mean stuff, but I will have another go on HMP on the weekend. Great map!

Edited May 18, 2022 by TheCyberDruid

[bofu]

8 minutes ago, TheCyberDruid said:

Pistol started map 11 on ITYTD and really liked the start of the map. Puts you on the edge of your seat, but (at least on ITYTD) isn't overwhelming. Sets the tone (along with the music) of the map. Loved the computer terminal and the forklift Doom cute :) Overall the design of the map is great. The 'revealing teleporter' ambush is (after getting the red key) is a cool idea. I missed out on some of the mean stuff, but I will have another go on HMP on the weekend. Great map!

 

Glad you liked it! I definitely wanted ITYTD to be a manageable difficulty for the average player, with HMP being the "standard" experience and UV being a considerable challenge (but not to the extreme).

[TheCyberDruid]

8 minutes ago, bofu said:

 

I definitely wanted ITYTD to be a manageable difficulty for the average player, with HMP being the "standard" experience and UV being a considerable challenge (but not to the extreme).

I wish more mappers would think that way.

[bofu]

6 hours ago, TheCyberDruid said:

I wish more mappers would think that way.

 

I agree 100%.

 

There are some great mapsets out there that do a great job of incorporating difficulties across all levels, and I tried to take inspiration from them. In some encounters, the powerups or pickups change based on what difficulty you're playing on, so a UV Soulsphere might be a Megasphere on ITYTD, or what might be a Baron of Hell or Archvile in UV turns into a Hell Knight or Revenant on another difficulty. 

 

EDIT: Oh, and because I doubt anyone's actually going to play DM with this mapset, I wanted to go over some neat things I did to try to make the maps playable in deathmatch:

 

Spoiler

MAP08 has some teleporters that open up to allow quicker traversal across the level. These teleports actually do open up in singleplayer, too, but only when the player gets onto the teleport pad at the very end of the level. Their primary function is to allow players to move quickly throughout the map, but it also allows backtracking for missed monsters/secrets.

 

MAP09 spawns the players in identical teleporter rooms that provide them with weapons and ammo, then teleports them into the final courtyard area of the map while blocking off the switch that allows them to "backtrack" to the start of the level while still allowing someone to activate the exit.

 

MAP11 has a second copy of the northernmost quarter of the map (the one with the big nasty fight that's totally optional), except the lava is non-damaging, monsters have been removed, powerups and weapons have been changed significantly, and the players can access all four of the "Arachnotron" ledges.

 

Edited May 18, 2022 by bofu

[tom3kb]

Just finished this wad.

Map design is great, loved all maps 10/10. Gameplay mmm on first 6 maps was great maps with many small rooms, small fast fights. Maps 7-10 are a lot bigger, we have more monsters and we have more slaugterish fights.

Map 11, o shit this one is big :D on difficulty easy i was having ~400 monsters to kill and ~300 of kills my potato PC started making slide show on this map. But somehow i finished this wad

Summary: i loved the maps but im scared what we will see in episode 2 and 3, fights with 1000 monsters :D

Played whole wad with project brutality.

[bofu]

1 hour ago, tom3kb said:

Just finished this wad.

Map design is great, loved all maps 10/10. Gameplay mmm on first 6 maps was great maps with many small rooms, small fast fights. Maps 7-10 are a lot bigger, we have more monsters and we have more slaugterish fights.

Map 11, o shit this one is big :D on difficulty easy i was having ~400 monsters to kill and ~300 of kills my potato PC started making slide show on this map. But somehow i finished this wad

Summary: i loved the maps but im scared what we will see in episode 2 and 3, fights with 1000 monsters :D

Played whole wad with project brutality.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! 10/10 is really high praise indeed. And I definitely designed it to be compatible with most gameplay mods (I've played through it using PB and DoomRL Arsenal + Bestiary myself).

 

While Episode 2 and 3 will definitely contain some tougher, bigger fights, there will be some peaks and valleys of difficulty. Not every map going forward is going to be as massive or as hard as MAP11, though there will certainly be greater challenges ahead.