[Boom] The Fireblue Conundrum - A Boom episode of varied themes (RC2)

[Valhen]

The Fireblue Conundrum is a miniwad for Doom 2 of varied difficulty and gameplay. It's Boom compatible and every map is meant to be played from a pistol start. Tested with DSDA Doom 0.21.3 on complevel 9 and GZDoom 4.2.0 on Boom (strict) compatibility.

 

The Story:

Spoiler

A source of energy and corruption has opened a gate to a hellish dimension, where demons have swarm out to invade different worlds, utilizing portals of their own to traverse between them as well as bring destruction and chaos. The UAC has tracked down one of said portals, and has set you to clean each infested area and close its portal before humankind meets its demise.

 

Screenshots:

 

 

Changelog:

Spoiler

RC2:

- Major balancing done to map05 and map08

- Made some maps more max friendly

- Fixed minor graphical bugs

- Added difficulty settings to map08 and map09

- Minor changes to map10

 

RC1:

- Added Map08 to Map10

- Changed the hitbox of gray trees to make movement on map05 easier

- Fixed map titles on dehacked

- Minor edits on map06

 

Demo V4:

- The original Map04 is now a secret map (map slots were reordered accordingly)

- Added Map07

- Added missing details in Map02 and Map04 (formerly map05)

 

Demo V3:

- Added Map06 (formerly Map07)

- Added extra ammo on Map05 (formerly Map06)

 

Demo V2:

- Added Map05 (formerly Map06)

- Re-did all the map title graphics on the intermission screen

Download

 

As a bonus, here's a small patch for those who really hate shotgunners :)

Older versions:

Spoiler

RC1

Demo V4

Demo V3

Demo v2

Demo v1

 

Credits:

Spoiler

Textures:

32in24-15_tex_v2.wad by various authors

jimmytex.wad and zoon-tex-2.7.wad by James Paddock

greenwar2-tex.wad by various authors

Cage's Texture Pack by Cage

Doom font created with Doom Text Generator

Skulltag Textures by various authors

Wireframe Texture Pack by Dragonfly

 

Sprites:

Dark Imp from Skulltag

1K Cyber from Thamuz (sprite edit done by Jimmy)

 

Music:

Title Music: "d_runnin.mid" from The Talosian Incident by John Bye

Map01: "Shame Cube" by James Paddock

Map02: "Mysterious" from Eternal Doom by Rich Nagel

Map03: "Bluroc" from Heretic by Kevin Schilder

Map11: "The Enchanted Orchard" by Bjorn Lynne

Map04: "Warkanoid#42.mid" by Vakhtang Adamiya

Map05: "Devil's Grounds" from Requiem by Mark Klem

Map06: "Coal" from BTSX E1 by James Paddock, "Power Plant" from One Must Fall 2097 by Kenny Chow

Map07: "Disposition" from Memento Mori II by Mark Klem

Map08: "Short Circuit" from Hell Revealed II by Metabolist

Map09: "Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert, sequenced by Don Carroll

Intermission and Map09: "Warkanoid#18.mid" by Vakhtang Adamiya

Map10: "A Secret, Sleeping in the Deep Sea" from Final Fantasy VII by Nobuo Uematsu, sequencer is unknown

 

Special thanks to The Entryway, Hellforge and Meowgi's discord servers, FrancisT218, James Paddock and Colossus_afps for additional playtesting :)

 

Edited February 4 by Valhen

[Colossus]

I playtested this, it was a lot of fun and shaping up to be a really good wad. Give it a try and you wont be dissapointed.

[Lippeth]

Enjoying this so far. Maps 01 and 02 were great, fun set pieces and great design, though the music started to grate on me in map 02. Map 03 wore me down with all the sections that lock you in tight 360 arenas so I had to take a break, but I look forward to finishing this.

[Valhen]

New update! Added Map06 and changed some minor stuff. Go get it on the main thread!

[LVENdead]

Thought I'd poke my head out to do some playthroughs of these. Here is Map01

 

 

[LVENdead]

Here is Map 02.

 

Thought it was an interesting mix up from the first map. I was expecting it to ramp up the action but it felt like a bit of a step back. I like that it makes pretty efficient use of the space. Not a big fan of the MIDI...

 

 

[LVENdead]

Here's my run of Map 04

 

I started recording Map 03 but uh...I had to skip it. I think I got to the yellow key trap and just realized it was making me too mad to record on a video lol. So I quit partway thru Map 03 but I think so far it's my last favorite map of yours and I'm very sorry to say that because I feel like they are all quality. This one just got on my bad side I suppose.

 

But anyways, I loved Map 04.

 

 

[Valhen]

It's been a long time, but finally here's a new update! Added Map07: Urban Chaos. Here's a sneak peek for what you can expect ;)
 

Spoiler

 

[philcul]

There is surprisingly little fireblu in these screenshots!

[Valhen]

9 minutes ago, AdNauseam said:

There is surprisingly little fireblu in these screenshots!

Don't worry, there's way more fireblue in-game ;)

[Jimmy]

Oh hey you named this thing!

 

The maps in this that I playtested were mighty enjoyable. Go check this out!

[Valhen]

Hey would you look at that, a new update has been released! With it comes a new map, Islands of Inferno, and a new level order! Go get it on the main post :D
Here's a sneak peek of the new map :)
 

Spoiler

 

[Maribo]

I was waiting for the other two maps to play the full thing, but I decided to play through what's already here since it's been quite a while.

 

I think the best way to describe this WAD is that its answer to the question of "Where are we going?" is "Wherever the hell I want". The maps I enjoyed more on average were the ones that delve into a bunch of slaughter setups (Grotto of the Circlestrafers, Islands of Inferno), but it will take you just about everywhere else as well, from partial-Tyson combat puzzles to frantic run-around exploration (Urban Chaos is a really cool city map). I think The Hell Express is the best map here, though, and it pulls its gimmick off so well... Warping a "moving" train with hell's influence splattered all over it is so charming.

 

I do have one major bone to pick with Gothic Funk, which comes down to Doom's funky collision with sprites. The way that the player collides with sprites makes it pretty excruciating to try and navigate through the tree maze portion, it's really easy to accidentally hang/wobble on one and just Die Instantly because of all of the projectiles that are inevitably flying around. I'm not quite sure how I'd fix it either, the room's design might not be conducive to something like sector trees, but maybe dehacking the physical size of the tree sprites to be smaller would make them less awful to traverse. It's a bit of a sour note in an otherwise cool map and WAD.

 

I hope you haven't abandoned this, it's still something I'm eagerly anticipating completion (and I'm sure many others are too!) :)

 

tfc-maribo.zip - casual UV playthroughs for every map (played on demo v4), -dsdademo format and play back on v0.27.5

[Valhen]

On 12/22/2023 at 1:26 AM, Maribo said:

I was waiting for the other two maps to play the full thing, but I decided to play through what's already here since it's been quite a while.

 

I think the best way to describe this WAD is that its answer to the question of "Where are we going?" is "Wherever the hell I want". The maps I enjoyed more on average were the ones that delve into a bunch of slaughter setups (Grotto of the Circlestrafers, Islands of Inferno), but it will take you just about everywhere else as well, from partial-Tyson combat puzzles to frantic run-around exploration (Urban Chaos is a really cool city map). I think The Hell Express is the best map here, though, and it pulls its gimmick off so well... Warping a "moving" train with hell's influence splattered all over it is so charming.

 

I do have one major bone to pick with Gothic Funk, which comes down to Doom's funky collision with sprites. The way that the player collides with sprites makes it pretty excruciating to try and navigate through the tree maze portion, it's really easy to accidentally hang/wobble on one and just Die Instantly because of all of the projectiles that are inevitably flying around. I'm not quite sure how I'd fix it either, the room's design might not be conducive to something like sector trees, but maybe dehacking the physical size of the tree sprites to be smaller would make them less awful to traverse. It's a bit of a sour note in an otherwise cool map and WAD.

 

I hope you haven't abandoned this, it's still something I'm eagerly anticipating completion (and I'm sure many others are too!) :)

 

tfc-maribo.zip - casual UV playthroughs for every map (played on demo v4), -dsdademo format and play back on v0.27.5

(Just saw the message now, sorry for not answering earlier, haven't logged into Doomworld in a long time :P)

Thank you so much for playing! I really appreciate it :) My apologies for the lack of updates to this wad, it was a mix of being busy with stuff outside of Doom and also being burnt out from mapping in general. Fortunately, I've picked up development last December and I'm currently working on the next two maps. I will probably release them together, hopefully very soon. I'll also look into what you said with Gothic Funk and fix it too :)

[LVENdead]

33 minutes ago, Valhen said:

Fortunately, I've picked up development last December and I'm currently working on the next two maps. I will probably release them together, hopefully very soon.

 

Let me know when you do and I'll reboot my dormant YT channel with a video of your maps again :P

[Valhen]

It has been a long time coming, but the last three maps have finally been finished! Link in the thread has been updated :)

[Plerb]

I am ABSOLUTELY playing this, for no other reason than that you used songs from the greatest game soundtrack of all time, Warkanoid.

 

Edit: I just beat the first map, it was really fun!

Edited January 25 by Plerb

[Valhen]

New update! Balanced some maps + other minor fixes, link in the thread :)

[Dagazur]

 

[Dagazur]

 

 

[video_ouija]

only a few maps in, but this is a great, fun wad. good work