JustAthel Posted June 28, 2022 (edited) ' Artifice is a full episode 2 replacement for The Ultimate Doom (-cl 3), completely vanilla-compatible. Following the events of Emblem, you find yourself whisked away to the dark crevices of the fallen civilization known as The Arvent, fighting to find the fabled Emblem you were sent to find. If only you had gotten the memo that the search was called off right after your disappearance... Spoiler for Screenshots Spoiler This project features the following: Nine whole new levels*, which takes the E2 theme you all know and love, and twists it into its own original world! Eleven new enemies added to the roster! Keep your distance from the kamikaze bomber, watch out for the belphegor's triple barrage, and so much more! Two "new" powerups! Reach up to 300%** Health when you grab the Lifesphere and enjoy double the health per bonus pickup to get you out of tough binds! Introducing a new weapon, the Plasmatic Rifle, replacing Vanilla's Plasma Rifle. It has a lower rate of fire but the damage output has been buffed slightly to make up for this. A new soundtrack composed by yours truly!*** A beautiful title screen made by Maria Kinnun (PocketNinja85)! * - In this release, M4 is incomplete, but is still playable\explorable and has the basic gist down. ** - Depending on your health, you may only get up to 200+, this will be fixed in the final version. *** - D_E2M3 and D_INTER are still missing from this release, I hope to get them done soon! This is being shared both as a way to gather community feedback, as well as to serve as my own little reminder / backup place should anything (heaven forbid) happen to my files, which with my luck as of late becomes closer and closer to reality with each passing day. Like Emblem, this has been tested in Chocolate Doom and DSDA-Doom. More extensive testing will be done as development continues, but it's a safe bet to assume that this won't be compatible with ZDoom-based ports until AFTER everything else is done and polished. What I am looking for is any feedback on how the WAD as a whole plays: are some encounters too easy / too hard? Are some levels too tricky to navigate? How do the other skill levels play out for you guys? Anything and everything would be greatly appreciated so that I can make this the best it can be! You can download the DEV Public Beta version here! (artifice-dev-public-beta.wad) I look forward to seeing your responses to this, and I'm eager to not spend a whole two years on this project :D (/j) Edited March 20 by JustAthel : DEV Public Beta version! 18 Share this post Link to post
JustAthel Posted December 14, 2022 About 5 months later, I have returned to this thread with updates to the project. As promised, most of the development of this WAD is largely being kept under wraps until it's at a state where I feel I can comfortably show off what I've done. However, with the amount of progress that's been done on the WAD, as well as circumstances both in my own personal life and in the community, I feel as though now would be appropriate to shed some light on what's going on. First, the OP has been updated with the official TITLEPIC image for Artifice! It's a combination of a Fiverr commission and my own logo, paletted for use in game. I honestly don't think it looks too bad! Map-wise, things have been kind of slow, but thanks to a recent surge in motivation (as well as speedmapping here and there), I can now say I at least have 6/9 levels started and somewhat exitable, with E2M4 and E2M6 being the most recent additions. In addition, I don't want to spoil TOO much, but the bestiary that is present in this mod has greatly expanded beyond that of Emblem, further utilizing some new tricks I've picked up, as well as some creative innovation that's come with editing Ultimate Doom stuff. There's even a new powerup put in! Screenshotted below are a couple of WIP editor shots, as well as an action shot in game, showcasing a bit of what's been added. Spoiler for screenshots Spoiler Lastly, the MIDI soundtrack for the mod is about halfway completed as well! The end result will be something that sounds like one continuous song, broken up into twelve pieces. You can listen to the soundtrack by following this YouTube playlist link here. I hope to get a release out with everything done so far semi polished enough to be playable. Thanks for following the project, everyone! I'll see you guys, uhm... soon-ish! 7 Share this post Link to post
FireWarden1000 Posted January 22, 2023 I completed maps E2E1 - E2E3 of artifice-rough-sketch.wad with Crispy-Doom, you have a long way to go. The layout of the maps are well designed, the gameplay is the worst part of this DOOM mod. Most enemies are placed in the middle of a room. The Demons are not able to move down the stairs in most parts of the maps, enemies are not able to leave certain areas of the map, and most of the maps are overall very empty. I would give you a 70/100, because I am able to complete the maps, and the maps use the Ultimate DOOM theme. My recommendations, remove any extra rooms if the rooms do not need to be added to the map. Build smaller rooms, because larger rooms take significantly longer to build unless the room is intentionally left empty. Overall well designed maps, the gameplay needs to be improved. 0 Share this post Link to post
JustAthel Posted January 23, 2023 I've probably already tackled most of those issues in my latest dev build which I'll hopefully get posting soon. It makes sense that the gameplay for the rough sketch is bad, because, well... most of the enemy placements are there just as a rough idea! 0 Share this post Link to post
JustAthel Posted June 1, 2023 Hello, everyone! It's been a hot minute since I've stepped in this thread, but I'm pleased to announce that I am now uploading a "First Look" version of the wad! You can download it here (artifice-first-look.wad). I will be updating the thread with the proper credits for all the resources used shortly. Here's what you can expect from this WAD: You can also view the trailer I made for this version of the WAD here! E2M1-E2M9, completely playable! Some maps are incomplete, however most of them are in a state where I feel they can be shown off now. Eleven new enemies added to the roster! Keep your distance from the kamikaze bomber, watch out for the belphegor's triple barrage, and so much more! Two "new" powerups! Reach up to 300%** Health when you grab the Lifesphere and enjoy double the health per bonus pickup to get you out of tough binds! Introducing a new weapon, the Plasmatic Rifle, replacing Vanilla's Plasma Rifle. It has a lower rate of fire but the damage output has been buffed slightly to make up for this. A new soundtrack composed by yours truly! There's still a couple tracks missing, and a few of the tracks will be changed / added on to. A beautiful title screen made by Maria Kinnun (PocketNinja85)! I'm uploading this now in the hopes that someone will play it and I'll get a new set of eyes on this to tell me how to improve, but also because during the development of this mod, I have run into a rather weird issue running this under pure DOS. The game seems to hang during specific points (such as a belphegor entering its pain state or when firing the Plasmatic Rifle), and I'm hoping to find a vanilla enthusiast to point me towards what's causing these issues and how to fix it. Everything runs just fine in Chocolate-Doom, so I suspect it MIGHT be something memory related? I've tried DOSBox and a VM running WinXP with the same results, so that has me stumped... I hope you all enjoy, and I hope to hear some thoughts / feedback from you all! 5 Share this post Link to post
JustAthel Posted September 29, 2023 (edited) Hey, guys! Got some pretty exciting news! Artifice is now finally reaching the final stages of development before I can get an RC out! I have recently finished making E2M5, here are some screenshots for you to look over! This is the most "e2" map I've made for this entire mappack, for better and for worse 😅 Spoiler I've also managed to fix up my issue with vanilla doom.exe--turns out you actually HAVE to have codepointers on frames that originally had them. Who knew? All that I have to really do is fix up the music tracks, make DM-specific arenas, and test on all skill levels, and we'll be looking at a release candidate! I want to make sure I'm taking my time with this and don't make anything overall boring or subpar. Hopefully I can get something running for you guys by the end of the year, we'll see. Thanks for following the project, guys! The end is nigh! 3 Share this post Link to post
JustAthel Posted March 20 (edited) Hey, everybody! Figured it's time for an update! Almost every single level seems to be complete (by my standards, anyways). E2M4 still needs a bit of work, but I thought I'd give a public beta / call out for any playtesters from the community as a whole. I've been able to do some testing in my own time, and have recently completed a full playthrough in Ultra Violence, but I know there's still a lot I can improve on. I figure with a fresh set of eyes, I could get the feedback I'm looking for! You can download the DEV Public Beta here! (artifice-dev-public-beta.wad). What I am looking for is any feedback on how the WAD as a whole plays: are some encounters too easy / too hard? Are some levels too tricky to navigate? How do the other skill levels play out for you guys? Anything and everything would be greatly appreciated so that I can make this the best it can be! FDAs are more than welcome in this regard! Lastly, I have posted in the OP some new screenshots of my favorite areas from each level. I want to try to get all of the finishing touches on the WAD and get this finished pretty soon, so that I can move on to more newer projects of mine. I look forward to hearing your opinions, and I hope you enjoy what I've got so far! Spoiler for things \ bugs I'm aware of: Spoiler Not all skill levels are implemented properly across all levels Not all secrets are fully fleshed out Some tutti-frutti / texture issues in some secret areas Some levels don't even have secrets in them yet E2M4's exit door is actually an exit switch. I am unsure the most about the progression of this level and would love to get feedback on this one specifically Not all music tracks are done The demos are not yet implemented Patching DOS Doom.exe with the DEHACKED patch in the wad freezes. This will be fixed in the final Lack of ZDoom compatibility Kamikaze Bomber's double explosion, but this is more of an accidental "feature" than a bug(?) 3 Share this post Link to post
