"The Experiment" megawad [ + walkthrough on page 2 !! ]

[arch_93]

"The Experiment"

21 levels long journey into mental sickness in USSR in 1980ths =)

:: GZDoom only  (500+ lines of scripts per level, might not work correctly with mods like Brutal Doom)
:: Single player 
:: Has elements of quest and adventure =)
 

>> Turn music OFF <<

During play You will learn how to:
- Drive a subway train
- To be an electican
- How to mix chemicals to get valuable... something!
- To operate Nuclear reactor
- How to teach students
- How to be a plumber, housmaid and clown
- How to be a sound and light stage engineer
- How to be a soviet IT engineer and start a supercomputer
- How to operate robots!

Of cause You will have chance to save reality itself! =)

PS: script error found in level06 so if you downloaded PLZ re-download!
(or IDCLIP locked room in level06) (look at error description picture below)

 

PPS: I will add walkthrough lvl by lvl (warning: spoilers!)
 

Download here:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/gzdoom-launcher/downloads/the-experiment
 

Edited September 4, 2023 by arch_93

[RataUnderground]

It always amazes me that some of you make a 21 level adventure in a slavic uchronia with hundreds of new textures, voice acting, new sounds, 500 lines of script per level, cinematics, mapping that takes full advantage of everything GzDoom can do and present it in a post with five short paragraph lines xD
(Also, maybe it's for the sake of not making spoilers, but I think the screenshots don't properly highlight the great visuals).

Anyway, I've played about forty minutes or so and it's pretty cool. It requires some patience, but you guys have done a great job from what I've seen.

[arch_93]

1 hour ago, RataUnderground said:

It always amazes me that some of you make a 21 level adventure in a slavic uchronia with hundreds of new textures, voice acting, new sounds, 500 lines of script per level, cinematics, mapping that takes full advantage of everything GzDoom can do and present it in a post with five short paragraph lines xD
(Also, maybe it's for the sake of not making spoilers, but I think the screenshots don't properly highlight the great visuals).

Anyway, I've played about forty minutes or so and it's pretty cool. It requires some patience, but you guys have done a great job from what I've seen.

Thanks mate =)

Full story will reveal itself during gameplay) 
You're right, I can't tell it without spoilers.
It's based on two true storylines but with some... extrapolations))
Main villan will be revealed around lvl10 and he was realy a founder of occult order in top structures of Comunist Party involving KGB =) 
This order is stil acting by the way. My collegue and friend philosopher Andrey Kosmach told a lot of it  in rus u-tube.

Second storyline is a building of hadron collider in Dubna town in 1984. It's not known was it ever started or not. But... what if? ;)

[LadyMistDragon]

I didn't get very far. Pretty nice however!

 

 

[Serathis]

I think the music is broken

[LadyMistDragon]

It worked for the first couple of maps at least for me.....

[Lampenpam]

Music is broken for me too. The intermission music just keeps playing through the maps. Also this mod is not made for pistol-starts, right?

[arch_93]

1 hour ago, Lampenpam said:

Music is broken for me too. The intermission music just keeps playing through the maps. Also this mod is not made for pistol-starts, right?

It's better to turn music off. I used wav-recorded fregments for drammatisation (eq. in lvl03)
It shoul be enough weaon and ammo) on 2nd lvl the's a secret with super shotgun, RL in secret on 3rd. In 1st secret level (entrance with ticket from lvl03) is a random drop with all except BFG) 

[Blacklight]

Speaking of which! Seriously? WAD without music? Come on, couldn't you insert some tracks? Did you insert the USSR anthem on Red Square, or what?

 

Although at some Levels I did not play "Intermission", and in those places where music is definitely not needed.

[arch_93]

13 hours ago, Blacklight said:

Speaking of which! Seriously? WAD without music? Come on, couldn't you insert some tracks? Did you insert the USSR anthem on Red Square, or what?

 

Although at some Levels I did not play "Intermission", and in those places where music is definitely not needed.

It's good idea but it's released already 
So...

In a level with massacre on a Red Square there is a clock music from Spasskaya Tower)

 

[arch_93]

Script error found in level06

So if You downloaded it PLZ re-download!

(or IDCLIP locked room in archive section of level )

Sorry guys

https://www.moddb.com/.../gzdoom.../downloads/the-experiment

[brick]

@arch_93 there's a small error in MAPINFO, missing a comma at the end of line 234, it causes a string of error messages on startup and will probably break the intermission text after MAP16.

[arch_93]

3 hours ago, brick said:

@arch_93 there's a small error in MAPINFO, missing a comma at the end of line 234, it causes a string of error messages on startup and will probably break the intermission text after MAP16.

oh! Thank You!

[brick]

So I've gone through the wad during the week (using the fixed version) and just completed it, I'm going to note some potential issues than I ran into (most are minor), things that I like, things that I disliked. It took me 10 hours in total but I cheated copiously because a lot of the gameplay isn't my thing. For these 2 reasons, take any criticism I make with a grain of salt.

 

There are a handful of texture warnings in the console on startup, to do with "texture referencing itself as patch." I don't know if they cause problems, but I don't think so, none of these textures had issues as far as I could tell. The more serious texturing bug was on MAP15 with AEGG0X and AEGG01, neither is properly defined and the missing textures were very visible when doing the little excursion in Lilith's realm to retrieve the items. I did not attempt to get max kills but I tested the possibility with "kill monsters" and several maps did not allow 100% kills even with this: MAP14, MAP15, MAP18. The one in MAP14 is clearly a bug, it's an Afrit that sits way outside the play area and never activated. In fact I also missed one item in MAP14 (not sure where it spawned), and the secret is also bugged: there's a random Romero head also outside the play area that is tagged as secret, so it's impossible to ever get. I also couldn't get the secret in MAP18 to register even after walking through it, but this one is more seriously bugged, the way the ladders are set up I could not make it up all the way to the top no matter how I tried. This is the only progression-related bug that I ran into but thankfully it's optional (though it does make one miss a secret level). Otherwise the wad was free of any serious bugs, impressive considering the complexity in parts.

 

I'll admit up front that I did not like the combat much. The wad throws a LOT of enemies at the player, and I found it got very grindy very quickly. As early as MAP03 there's the successive activation of the speakers to summon enemies, and this kind of repetitive arena fighting happens often (though I don't think it's a problem for the secret levels, since, well, they're secret levels. The swimming pool one in particular was a fun setting. MAP14 though goes on way, way too long). The main issue is that sometimes doing the wrong thing or getting a puzzle solution wrong will summon enemies, and sometimes the only way forward is to repeatedly keep summoning enemies until the way forward opens, and it's often not clear which one is happening. It's actually my main issue with the puzzles, some are clever, some are interesting, but too often I had no idea what I was doing and just stumbled into the solution, or had to go read the script file just to understand what I'm supposed to do. I don't think you need to hint at the solutions, I actually enjoyed solving them most of the time, but maybe making it clearer what needs to be done would help, or having a bit more feedback about success/fail states. In MAP16 for example, instead of a generic "not all components found", changing the scripting to indicate which ones are missing would work wonders, since there's no inventory system it's otherwise impossible to tell. Speaking of MAP16 I found this one very frustrating because of a lot of backtracking, having to run back and forth to open the cells one at a time to check what's in them, and then later on there's the big multi-tiered room with alcoves and the central lift platform sloooooooowly going up and down, it took me over a dozen trips to make sure I didn't miss anything in an alcove. As early as in MAP02, falling down at the wrong point will result in minutes of backtracking to get back. Some of these situations could be good for atmosphere in smaller numbers but when done too many times start to feel like pointless time-wasting. This is also maybe just me but I found navigating the "3D maze" in MAP17 infuriating, this is the one map where I liberally used the fly cheat.

 

Despite cheating outrageously (god, fly, and checking the wad in an editor) I liked a lot of things about it. The early levels reminded me of that old FPS The Stalin Subway, and I liked the attempts are realistic architecture and the plethora of custom textures you used. Some maps have very cool setpieces, MAP06 with the switching of costumes was a really cool idea, as was walking along the rafters while Tovarisch Brezhnev gives his speech below. I'm not sure if everything worked properly here: I didn't find a use for the maid uniform, using the clown uniform to get the keycard worked but everybody became hostile when I opened the door (though they didn't trigger the alarm, so I guess that's the ideal solution?), and I'm not sure what you're really supposed to do at the speech at the end (I found the lever with the brain and they all attacked each other). The chemical mixing puzzle in MAP09 was pretty clever and the secret exit was well hidden. The reactor activation in MAP10 was a lot of fun, I think the identical repetition 4 times is unnecessary but it's entertaining enough that it's not a big problem. I also liked MAP15, the ritual here is well established and the game gives good feedback on what's missing, and the architecture looks impressive and so different from everything before; my only tiny complaint is that it's not very clear which linedefs need to be used to start the ritual, so I fumbled for a bit thinking I had missed something. And even though I did not have the patience to beat MAP20 fair and square, that last gauntlet looks incredibly impressive. And that ending...

It's definitely a unique wad, traditional in some ways but very experimental in others. The story is utterly bizarre, made even more so because I don't know any Russian and a lot of voice clips are not translated or subtitled, and some of the English text uses grammar rather, shall we say, creatively. I don't know if you should fix it or change it though, I think the typos and grammar add to the strangeness of the experience, and not in a bad way! The text definitely has a humorous touch ("You ruined a 'Swan Lake' ballet show, good job...", or all of the "today you've learned" messages) and I thought it works really well as a contrast with the more somber, horror aspects, and both combine well considering the strangeness of the atmosphere and of the story. Congratulations on the release!

[Serathis]

This feels more like a Half Life mapset. Most certainly interesting. Some things outstay their welcome (too many waves in the boxing ring and the metro tunnel). Map 5 has enemies that have 5x the health despite looking the same. Not saying it's bad, russian WADs have always been strange.

[arch_93]

4 hours ago, brick said:

So I've gone through the wad during the week (using the fixed version) and just completed it, I'm going to note some potential issues than I ran into (most are minor), things that I like, things that I disliked. It took me 10 hours in total but I cheated copiously because a lot of the gameplay isn't my thing. For these 2 reasons, take any criticism I make with a grain of salt.

...

Congratulations on the release!

Thank You very much for such a detailed review!
And for playing till the end)
- Untranslated speech is utterly noncense. As talk to info speaker in metro station. It came from child hooliganism, trolling of guard staff calling till they gets angry =) 
- Stations are real with wordplay Trubnaya -> Trupnaya (of Piplenes -> of Corpses) Tverskaya -> Tvar'skaya (of Tver' (town) -> of Abominations)
- As for textures it came from pack of my prevous wads compilation. Two testers haven't found any errors in levels. It could be great to clean up but may be I'll fix this later
- I think I'll make something like "Spoiler book" to describe each level because puzzles could be too complex as I see. Also the same about rituals and components. Thank You!
- Maid uniform is absolutely useless :D

Thanx for critics mate! It's impotant =)

[hakros]

Very cool recreation !

[TomRubicon]

Maybe I'm just being dumb, but i could not get this to run.

[arch_93]

10 hours ago, TomRubicon said:

Maybe I'm just being dumb, but i could not get this to run.

You need GZDoom. Then run TheExperiment.bat

[arch_93]

10 hours ago, hakros said:

Very cool recreation !

Thanx)

[RastaManGames]

Can you, very please, re-upload it?

I can't open archive even with "7z".

Spoiler

 

[Blacklight]

4 hours ago, RastaManGames said:

Can you, very please, re-upload it?

I can't open archive even with "7z".

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Strange... I also had similar errors, but everything unpacked.

[arch_93]

6 hours ago, RastaManGames said:

Can you, very please, re-upload it?

I can't open archive even with "7z".

  Hide contents

 

 

This is wierd
I reuploaded again. Try to download

[TomRubicon]

20 hours ago, arch_93 said:

You need GZDoom. Then run TheExperiment.bat

I attempted this but it did not work, may have been from the previous 7z error. Will try again.

[TomRubicon]

11 hours ago, arch_93 said:

 

This is wierd
I reuploaded again. Try to download

Got the same error, can't seem to launch the wad

[arch_93]

4 hours ago, TomRubicon said:

Got the same error, can't seem to launch the wad

Have You downloaded from doomworld? If so maybe it's broken there
Then how re-upload it?

Meanwhile get it here: https://www.moddb.com/mods/gzdoom-launcher/downloads/the-experiment/#8571578

[RastaManGames]

I re-downloaded archive (that marked as №3 on ModDB now) and still getting a CRC error while attempting to unpack it...

 

At this point it even asks a password in "Power Archiver" app:

Spoiler

 

[arch_93]

5 hours ago, RastaManGames said:

I re-downloaded archive (that marked as №3 on ModDB now) and still getting a CRC error while attempting to unpack it...

 

At this point it even asks a password in "Power Archiver" app:

  Hide contents

 

Wierd!
I repacked from the beginning (with winrar now) and reuploaded.

Try again plz!

[RastaManGames]

Now everything was downloaded and unpacked successfully!

 

P.S.: Please don't take this note as very rude poke, but you might want to compress some of *.wav files in a way to save some storage space of potential players:

Here, as example, I've unpacked all sounds after TEXTURE1 lump and before MAP01 lump...

Spoiler

I've used "preset 0" with *.ogg output format, since GZDoom supports this format w/o any problems and this is a game from 1993, so quality isn't dropped that bad, after all.

And it might be just me, but it is better for me to store ~150 Mb for 1 work, instead of ~600 Mb...

 

Also, I don't really sure why do you need to store some graphics in Doom format, since your targeted source-port of choice is GZDoom and not something Vanilla-like (like DSDA or Woof!):

As you can see, just *.png is more than enough for GZDoom to use and this is gonna be a less more heavy in the terms of weight.

Edited June 22, 2023 by RastaManGames

[arch_93]

9 hours ago, RastaManGames said:

 

Also, I don't really sure why do you need to store some graphics in Doom format, since your targeted source-port of choice is GZDoom and not something Vanilla-like (like DSDA or Woof!):

As you can see, just *.png is more than enough for GZDoom to use and this is gonna be a less more heavy in the terms of weight.

It's a news for me)
Thought I had to convert as for Zandronum for which i did wads before :D