Doom Meets Powerslave/Exhumed in DoomEXHUMED

[Casketkrusher]

                                                                                                     

 

Fellow DOOMERS! I am proud to present the official demo for DoomEXHUMED. The project started out as "Pharaoh's Wrath", this was the first step into Doom modding, but I decided to rework everything, change everything. Some leftovers can be seen in some maps, which are all reworked and improved since the "Pharaoh's Wrath" project.

 

A project I've been working on for approximately 2,5 years, with very little knowledge about Doom modding I've managed to create something awesome with a lot of help by my friend Ozymandias81. Having made a handful of wads before this I wanted to make something resembling one of my all time favorite boomer shooters Powerslave/Exhumed. So I combined both of my favorite games together and DoomEXHUMED is mummified!

 

Take a glimpse at DoomEXHUMED inspired by Lobotomy Softwares' Powerslave/Exhumed, combining the best elements of the PlayStation1/Sega Saturn and PC versions of Powerslave/Exhumed.

 

This demo will showcase work-in-progress and potentially things that I might change over the course of development, so I am excited to show a sneak peak of what is to come in the near future, I have no deadline, this is all done in my spare time. I hope you enjoy the demo for DoomEXHUMED!

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

Download the demo here:

DoomEXHUMED Demo v1.1

Feedback is very welcome!

 

Gameplay:

The gameplay revolves around exploration, like in Powerslave/Exhumed you are able to backtrack to previous levels. You are on the hunt for the two symbol keys, the Symbol of War, and Earth. You need boths keys to end the demo. How you find these keys is up to you, will you struggle with your machete and lack of arsenal or will you explore and find new weaponry? Its up to you.

 

As a bonus I added in a Hardcore+ mode, if you find Hardcore too easy you might want to try Hardcore+ this will randomly replace regular monsters with "shadow monsters", these are faster, tougher and stronger. This is completely random however, so its possible you'll encounter many of them or just a few.

 

☥ Health orbs can be find laying around the levels, they can also be dropped by killing enemies.

 

☥ Ammo is scattered around in various breakable objects like pottery, this is a random drop chance so break some ancient egyptian pottery if you need some ammunition.

 

☥ Mana is used for the magical weapons you'll find, these mana orbs can be obtained by killing enemies only.

 

☥ Power orbs are used to power up your weapons, depleting one regular ammo and a power orb simultaneously, these are also randomly dropped by killing enemies.

Weapons that use the power orbs with alt. fire (right mouse click) are:

Magnum (a powerful 3 shot attack with high damage output)

Shotgun (Super shotgun)

M-60 (Rapid fire with increased damage)

 

Pickups & collectibles:

☥ Life Blood:

Ancient wine that restores +1 HP once picked up (your regular health bonus).

☥ Scarabs:

Increase your armor by 1, 2 or 3 depending on the color, these are always random.

☥ Poison Wine: 

Once picked up makes you cough and you lose 25 HP. Avoid these at all costs.

(Life Blood, Poison Wine and Scarabs do not count for completion)

 

☥ Air Bubbles:

These replenishes your air capacity, make sure to not drown!

 

☥ Ankh: 

These permanently increase your maximum HP by +10.

☥ Backpacks:

Fellow marines or adventures who failed their mission might have dropped their backpack, these increase your maximum carrying capacity, these do stack.

☥ Lungs: 

These increase your maximum air capacity by +10.

 

Powerups:

☥ SunSphere:

This powerup illuminate your surroundings by the power of the sun, some very dark areas might have one of these hidden somewhere.

 

Technical stuff:

IWAD: Doom2

Tested with GZDoom 4.10.0, future versions should work just fine.

Other source ports not tested.

Mouse look, jumping is required and dynamic lighting should be enabled.

Alt hud doesn't show air capacity and other information, so recommended to play with the fullscreen hud.

Mod support, none, but feel free to try anything out, not guaranteed something will be compatible.

 

Special thanks to:

Ozymandias81, the man, the myth & the legend.

The_Hockster

& VanDeamon aka Cacoburger

And my beautiful girlfriend Jamie, I love you!

 

Credits DoomEXHUMED Demo:

Spoiler

Scripts ZScripts, ACS & Decorate code:
MaxEd
MaxiClouds
Nash
AFaDoomer
Lex Safonov
Sergeant Mark IV

 

Sprites/Art:
Mechadon (Skyboxes)
RayMooHawk (Freedoom Cacodemon sprite)
FireSeraphim (Golden Imp sprite)
Seidolon (Snake, sprite edit)
zedotagger (Easter egg)

 

Casketkrusher (Various copyright free sprites edits (and other edits)
-Sprites
*COD1
*SPR1A0
*CSTMA0
*GRASA0
*SKU1A0
*SunSphere sprite (modified SoulSphere sprite)
And Hud

 

The big boys:
Raven Software
id Software
Lobotomy Software
Nightdive Studios
Capstone Software
3D Realms
Ensemble Studios

 

Sound effects:
Lobotomy Software - Almost everything is from Powerslave or Exhumed, both :'P 
id Software/GT Interactive - PlayStation 1 Doom
Naughty Dog - Crash Bandicoot 3
Various copyright free soundlibraries (I have used so many, some sound effects I edited myself)

 

Music:
All other music from Lobotomy Software: Powerslave - Scott Branston
Capcom: Devil May Cry 2 - Fire Away (Dante Battle Theme 1) by Masato Koda, Tetsuya Shibata and Satoshi Ise.
Capcom: Devil May Cry - ST-03 (Ocean Floor Stage) by Masami Ueda, Misao Senbongi, Masato Koda
Boards of Canada - Gyroscope © Warp Records, 2001

 

Special thanks:
Ozymandias81 for doing most of the internal workings, fixing code and organising the mess I made :)
The_Hockster for mental support
VanDaemon/CacoBurger a good friend

 

And everyone else I forgot to mention!

 

I also want to mention a recently released Deathmatch map set by my friend The_Hockster from Mind Over Matter Entertainment.

Check the forum post here!!!

 

 

Edited April 10 by Casketkrusher : Updated and fixed some minor issue with in the Demo.

[reefer]

looks awesome!

[Firedust]

I've seen you occasionally post screenshots here and there in the past few years and needless to say, everything looks stunning! Congratulations on the demo release!

[Insaneprophet]

Oh hell yeah!

[Casketkrusher]

16 hours ago, Firedust said:

I've seen you occasionally post screenshots here and there in the past few years and needless to say, everything looks stunning! Congratulations on the demo release!

Thank you! Atleast someone remembers it :P Such a long journey to finally be able to showcase a little bit of this project.

[Van Daemon]

Congrats for releasing the demo for DoomExhumed!! You did and are doing an absolute god's work! 

[NaliSeed]

😮😳😯😲

[DoomGappy]

The screenshots for this look amazing! I gotta try it some time soon.

 

Edited April 9 by DoomGappy

[LadyMistDragon]

I stopped when GZDoom started chugging during the recording (in the second map). Things are looking really, really good though! I suppose I'll probably be missing out on at least one weapon though.

 

 

 

 

[ByRntStarOEI]

As a Powerslave fan, I couldn't pass this up and had to give it a try. I played the heck out of the Saturn version back in the day and some of the PC version as well. Are you eventually planning to add artifacts that give you special abilities like in the consoles versions? I didn't finish the demo yet cause I ran into some problems, but what I have seen far in-game and the screenshots looks excellent, especially like the underwater ruin palace theme.  I like that it's a non-linear\exploratory type map tool.

I did run into some shuttering at the beginning of the second level, as well, until it crashed after I killed the spitting scorpion or snake (didn't get a good look at what i was shooting at) I gave it another shot and made it to the port area with the ship where it crashed while I'll was messing underwater with some weapons (I cheated them in to test them out). Can't say if it's the mod or not since it could be something on my end.

 

My only nitpick though, is that the weapons don't feel like they have any weight to them. It feels like I'm firing in slow-mo, especially with the pistol. The feedback is not as snappy like in the original Powerslave, but this may be intended to mimic doom more or you haven't fully complete them yet (Ignore my nitpick if that's the case). I do like how you have to swap back to the torch when you need more light though. And it's able to be used as a weapon/tool if needed. I have a tendency to do more damage to myself rather than the enemies though, haha.

 

Edited April 9 by ByRntStarOEI : spelling

[Gibbitudinous]

I was really interested to check out ExDOOMed but I can't really deal with how the framerate immediately starts chugging for no discernible reason upon entering the second map.

I know GZDoom is comically badly optimized but genuinely, is there anyway to deal with framerate dives like this?

[Casketkrusher]

13 hours ago, ByRntStarOEI said:

As a Powerslave fan, I couldn't pass this up and had to give it a try. I played the heck out of the Saturn version back in the day and some of the PC version as well. Are you eventually planning to add artifacts that give you special abilities like in the consoles versions? I didn't finish the demo yet cause I ran into some problems, but what I have seen far in-game and the screenshots looks excellent, especially like the underwater ruin palace theme.  I like that it's a non-linear\exploratory type map tool.

I did run into some shuttering at the beginning of the second level, as well, until it crashed after I killed the spitting scorpion or snake (didn't get a good look at what i was shooting at) I gave it another shot and made it to the port area with the ship where it crashed while I'll was messing underwater with some weapons (I cheated them in to test them out). Can't say if it's the mod or not since it could be something on my end.

 

My only nitpick though, is that the weapons don't feel like they have any weight to them. It feels like I'm firing in slow-mo, especially with the pistol. The feedback is not as snappy like in the original Powerslave, but this may be intended to mimic doom more or you haven't fully complete them yet (Ignore my nitpick if that's the case). I do like how you have to swap back to the torch when you need more light though. And it's able to be used as a weapon/tool if needed. I have a tendency to do more damage to myself rather than the enemies though, haha.

 

Thanks for the reply and feedback! What version of GZDoom are you using? Are you playing with Vulkan or opengl render? (Vulkan should be the best option..) While thoroughly testing this it never crashed once, so that's kinda strange. The lag isn't noticible on my end, but since more people have some issues with it I am going to look for the problem.

 

And yes special abilities are planned like the Sandals, Feather etc. And for the weapons, yes some are still work in progress and might feel a bit weak, but that's actually intentional since you can use power orbs to fire a more powerful shot. Also underwater they fire slower, since Powerslave doesn't let you use weapons underwater I wanted to be able to use any weapon underwater but they fire a bit slower because you are underwater. 

[Casketkrusher]

13 hours ago, Gibbitudinous said:

I was really interested to check out ExDOOMed but I can't really deal with how the framerate immediately starts chugging for no discernible reason upon entering the second map.

I know GZDoom is comically badly optimized but genuinely, is there anyway to deal with framerate dives like this?

Unfortunately this is a known limit of GZDoom, I am currently looking into the issue.

[Casketkrusher]

New version available that fixes some minor issues.

 

 Fixes & improvements v1.1:
☥ Framerate issue fixed on MAP02 outside geometry slighty changed.
☥ Shotgun sound changed and increased damage slightly.
☥ Hud improved, was missing the "Arms" text.
☥ Added lightdefs to the torch attack flames.
☥ Increased the pickup amount for magnum rounds from 1 to 2.

 

Download here:

DoomEXHUMED Demo v1.1

 

Thank you for the support and feedback!

[Gibbitudinous]

Okay made it past the second map with no problems, but I have a couple things I should point out.

The first and only thing that's definitely an actual issue, there are pops at the beginning of a few of the sound effects, such as the machete's slash.

 

Second is I'm not sure if you're supposed to be able to drink the goblets when at or above 100 HP while getting no extra health from them.

 

Other than those things, it's been going pretty well so far.

[ByRntStarOEI]

On 4/9/2024 at 10:40 AM, Casketkrusher said:

Thanks for the reply and feedback! What version of GZDoom are you using? Are you playing with Vulkan or opengl render? (Vulkan should be the best option..) While thoroughly testing this it never crashed once, so that's kinda strange. The lag isn't noticible on my end, but since more people have some issues with it I am going to look for the problem.

 

And yes special abilities are planned like the Sandals, Feather etc. And for the weapons, yes some are still work in progress and might feel a bit weak, but that's actually intentional since you can use power orbs to fire a more powerful shot. Also underwater they fire slower, since Powerslave doesn't let you use weapons underwater I wanted to be able to use any weapon underwater but they fire a bit slower because you are underwater. 

 

Yeah, it was a mistake on my end. I had the renderer set to the old software one (Not sure why I didn't pickup on the graphical anomalies it was causing). Swapping to Vulkan solve the problem.

The lag is not bad or unplayable on my end but I just notice minor areas that don't run as smooth as the rest. Only spots I notice it is at the beginning of level 2 around the chains with the hole in the ceiling and where the blue skull is acquired, when looking down in the hole. The rest played fine on my end. (Realized you released an update, a lot smoother in said areas now).

But I did do a second play through and managed to get to the underwater palace boss fight. Had to stop afterwards due to other thing I needed to take care of, but what I played through was enjoyable and there was some great work done with the mapping/texturing.  My favorite spots include the buried blue skull key chamber i the second lvl, the hidden alcove with the waterfall where the cobra staff is found, and the underwater bio-dome area before the boss (Actually the whole water palace level was awesome and easily could be made into it's own separate game)

 

There were a couple minor issues I encountered though. I realize this is still a work in progress, but I figure I'll give some feedback and hopefully it's of some use to you.

- On the second lvl, I believe the player can get soft-locked if they go after the blue skull key before the red skull key. This could be a mistake on my end, but I couldn't figure out how to open the iron gate that connects the two areas.

- Ammo is kinda scarce, I ran out during the boss arena fight (Had the SG, M60, CS, RoR at that point). This necessarily isn't a problem if setup well (I kept forgetting I could use the torch as well), but it kinda brings to light the next nitpick I had:

- Most fights could be easily skipped by just rushing past. Even the arena boss challenge was easily circle strafed to completion.  I think a better mixture of different enemy attacks may help along with some variation in enemy movement speed?

- Is the pistol intended to only carry a max of 10 bullets? Seems a bit odd since the other weapons carry a much higher amount. I also think the pistol's kickback should be a lot quicker, but that is just a personal preference.

 

But yeah, this some good stuff you got going here. I'll keep my eye on this for sure.

 

 

Edited April 13 by ByRntStarOEI : grammer

[Casketkrusher]

On 4/13/2024 at 4:12 AM, ByRntStarOEI said:

 

Yeah, it was a mistake on my end. I had the renderer set to the old software one (Not sure why I didn't pickup on the graphical anomalies it was causing). Swapping to Vulkan solve the problem.

The lag is not bad or unplayable on my end but I just notice minor areas that don't run as smooth as the rest. Only spots I notice it is at the beginning of level 2 around the chains with the hole in the ceiling and where the blue skull is acquired, when looking down in the hole. The rest played fine on my end. (Realized you released an update, a lot smoother in said areas now).

But I did do a second play through and managed to get to the underwater palace boss fight. Had to stop afterwards due to other thing I needed to take care of, but what I played through was enjoyable and there was some great work done with the mapping/texturing.  My favorite spots include the buried blue skull key chamber i the second lvl, the hidden alcove with the waterfall where the cobra staff is found, and the underwater bio-dome area before the boss (Actually the whole water palace level was awesome and easily could be made into it's own separate game)

 

There were a couple minor issues I encountered though. I realize this is still a work in progress, but I figure I'll give some feedback and hopefully it's of some use to you.

- On the second lvl, I believe the player can get soft-locked if they go after the blue skull key before the red skull key. This could be a mistake on my end, but I couldn't figure out how to open the iron gate that connects the two areas.

- Ammo is kinda scarce, I ran out during the boss arena fight (Had the SG, M60, CS, RoR at that point). This necessarily isn't a problem if setup well (I kept forgetting I could use the torch as well), but it kinda brings to light the next nitpick I had:

- Most fights could be easily skipped by just rushing past. Even the arena boss challenge was easily circle strafed to completion.  I think a better mixture of different enemy attacks may help along with some variation in enemy movement speed?

- Is the pistol intended to only carry a max of 10 bullets? Seems a bit odd since the other weapons carry a much higher amount. I also think the pistol's kickback should be a lot quicker, but that is just a personal preference.

 

But yeah, this some good stuff you got going here. I'll keep my eye on this for sure.

 

 

Thanks a lot of the feedback! 

 

The things you pointed out are definitely the ones I am going to improve upon. Its mostly a solo project and the things you mentioned are some of them I probably haven't really noticed myself while working on this. Glad you like the underwater temple!

 

I assume you mean the gate in the second map? There's a switch on a wall in the ruins section that opens the gate.

[Casketkrusher]

Making some more progress :)