The /newstuff Chronicles #268

[Bloodshedder]

Twas the night before Sunday, and all through Doomworld, not a creature was stirring, except for a Bloodshedder, who at 8pmish asked me if I'd pull an emergency /newstuff with him. As I was participating in a lame retro microprocessor argument on IRC and generally being an ass I had no excuses to proffer, so I said yes. No great chore though, just four new wads this week, and some revisions of previous releases.

Bloodshedder says: I could've handled it myself easily, so this was no real emergency...

pritch's gaybar reviews:


• Water Treatment Facility - MaxPower8905
  GZDoom - Solo Play - 1083KB - (img)
  First off, I must confess I didn't use GZDoom to test this as I haven't got around to making it work on this machine yet, but it ran fine in ZDoom 96x albeit missing a sky texture. I haven't heard of this author before, but like so many lately, it seems he's a disciple of AgentSpork. He claims in his text file that this map was inspired by Simplicity, and with its return-to-centre linear style, precision monster and monster teleport placement, neat texturing and tidy layout, it certainly doesn't fall far short. It's not quite as polished as a Spork release though. Even in his smaller maps (and at 5 minutes for a run-through this is certainly short) Spork always finds something extra to liven up the gameplay. This doesn't quite have that yet, but I'm certainly looking forward to future releases from this young mapper.
  
  
• Gunsmoke - Moniac
  doom2.exe - Solo Play - 124KB - (img)
  This map reminded me of Doom 2 in many ways. It's inconsistently textured, if competent, feels disjointed and counterintuitive, and has some strange lighting choices which just don't feel right. It feels precisely like the author's description of it—something done when bored. It's not that it's too bad to play, there are much worse, and there's a bit of fun to be had in places like the danger area, but all in all this is not a great map. If you like the Doom 2 feel though, you may see something in it. Also, why do people still put flashing Doom logos in maps (see screenshot)? So 1994!
  
  Bloodshedder's reviews:
  
  
• DuduCrazy's Guns SE - Luiz Eduardo (DuduCrazy)
  GZDoom - n/a - 945KB
  I'd like to review this, but GZDoom doesn't want to work for me, and it doesn't want to work for pritch either.
  
  
• Funhouse - Hans de Heus (Apocalypse)
  Boom Compatible - Solo Play - 222KB - (img) (img)
  This is a pretty good hellish-castle-type map. There are generally no shortages of ammunition or health, and the difficulty isn't incredibly demanding either. The architecture is competent if not decent-looking, though the amount of cramped areas may be a bit much. Keyed doors tend to be scattered about and often unmarked, creating the chance of wandering about trying to figure out where to use your newly-acquired key (this may also cause you a little trouble in finding the exit). Because of this, it's somewhat non-linear, but don't expect much of a challenge in the areas you've visited once already. There's also a cyberdemon battle that can more or less be run through in an area of the map that doesn't seem to match the rest thematically. Overall, this is probably worth your time.
  
  
• Happy Valentine's Day! - Love Marmot
  doom.exe - Solo Play - 18KB - (img) (img)
  A strangely pointless E3M8 replacement with a simple message spelled out in the automap. It provides no cover, so ideally you'd get the spider mastermind infighting with the other monsters and take it out quickly. Unless you like gimmicky-type maps, don't go for this one.
  
  

There's also an update to The Bad Guys which uh, apparently changes something cryptic enough I can't figure it out; an update to Bombay 72, which I remember playing about 7 years ago, and which also still includes DMAUD and DMGRAPH for some reason; an update to CleanWAD that is the exact same version that was already in the archive (1.53, and I can't tell what changed); and finally an update to Doom Textures for Doom II that restores one texture (or flat, I dunno) that was missing originally.

[Jehar]

Woo! FP! Good looking week, as well.
Linkage is biting the dust, buuudy.

[wildweasel]

Duducrazy's Guns SE is probably the highlight of this week for me (outside of MaxPower's map).

[kristus]

I haven't heard of this author before, but like so many lately, it seems he's a disciple of AgentSpork.

I prefer the original.

[Snarboo]

WildWeasel said:

Duducrazy's Guns SE is probably the highlight of this week for me.

Same. It's a very solid, great weapons mod. I'm definitely impressed. :D

[Martin Howe]

Bloodshedder said:

• ...update to The Bad Guys which uh, apparently changes something cryptic enough I can't figure it out
  
• ...update to Bombay 72, which I remember playing about 7 years ago, and which also still includes DMAUD and DMGRAPH for some reason
  
• ...update to CleanWAD that is the exact same version that was already in the archive (1.53, and I can't tell what changed)

Nothing much has changed :)

For Bombay72 and CleanWAD:

• Only the text files have been updated - the "Authors Web Site" bit has changed, I bought my own domain at last!

For The Bad Guys:

• The text file has been updated as with the other two.
  
• The Bad Guys, originally stuff from my WIP "The Butchery", reserved some of its DoomEdNums for The Butchery (when that is finally released). Unless somebody extended The Bad Guys in a new version, this didn't matter; however, it felt somewhat "unprofessional" so I fixed it.
  
• Eight new "fake pickup" keys have been created: cards and skulls in Black, Mauve, Green and Gold (which is slightly different from yellow). I made these for the Butchery; but because it took such a HUGE amount of work, due to the limits of the DOOM palette, I wanted to save anyone else the trouble if anybody else needed them.

And yes, Bombay72 is only being updated for the sake of it these days but cheesy as it is, it was my first released DOOM work and I'm still quite fond of it :) DmAud and DmGraph are needed to avoid including copyrighted DOOM II resources in the distribution for people who only have DOOM or Ultimate DOOM.

NOTE: The IdGames database text file entries do not seem to have been updated to reflect the changed text files, so what you see in the database is not what's actually on the server.

[Enjay]

Bloodshedder said:

but it ran fine in ZDoom 96x albeit missing a sky texture.

The sky texture will be the most obvious missing GZdoom feature, but there is some quite nice and subtle use of 3D floors too. Nothing that will prevent the map being completed if they're not there, just some of the icing on the cake will be missing.

(img) (img) (img)

I did notice that it is possible to jump over the wall in the area where the review screenshot was taken and end up trapped in the water or simply jump over the bars which raise to trap you. Cheating, I guess, but with a GZdoom map using new features it's a reasonable assumption that jumping should be OK.

[funduke]

Oops! I failed in reading on my own. Sorry!
Greetings
Funduke

[SyntherAugustus]

Ooo it uses one of the WadFather skies I linked to a long time ago.

[Jon]

The image links seem to be broken in the article (not the forum view, the article itself).