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Sporku

[Public Beta] Ultimate Simplicity (Episodes 1-4)

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I've decided to release a public beta of sorts for the revamped Episode 1 in Ultimate Simplciity, my oh so oxymoronic megawad. So.. here it is.

I can't really think of much to say in this thread, so I'll paste a bunch of random crap from the text file:

Ultimate Simplicity - Episode 1: Fortified Base encompases the first 10 maps of Ultimate Simplicity, a much improved version of the first episode from the original megawad.

So what's different?
====================

* MAP01-MAP04 have been either remade or revamped, with improved gameplay and moderately improved appearance.

* All other maps in this episode have been tweaked to improve overall quality of gameplay.

* All of the maps have been tested for Cooperative playability in ZDoom (2.1.7 and above) and Skulltag 97b (not yet released).

* Difficulty settings have been fully implemented. Lower difficulty settings have been made with the absolute suckiest of doomers in mind, while higher difficulty settings have been ramped up a bit from the original WAD.

There's probably a ton of other miscellaneous crap that has been done to the WAD since the release of the original Simplicity, but my memory is foggy. There's also some things about these maps that I'm still not overly happy with, but laziness prevents me from doing anything about it.

Comments and criticism (emphasis on the latter) are highly appreciated, as well as any bugs or errors you notice from playing the WAD.

You can download the WAD (okay fine, it's a PK3) here. The text file is here. You can find information and screenshots of the entire project here. The updated version of Episode 2 will be arriving shortly. Once the maps for Episode 3 are completed, a merged project with all 4 episodes will be uploaded on idgames. God only knows when/if that will happen.

EDIT:

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fp! Great to see that progress is going smooth, though I could have simply asked for a beta whenever I wanted, but I'm lazy like that.

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It's cool so far .. would be nice to see some more 3D floor stuff. It is zDoom after all. Some more battles where height variation makes a difference would be good.

The boss in level 10 kicked my ass. He teleported around so much, I could hardly do any damage to him. He needs to be vunerable while standing in the middle, or not teleport so damn much.

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udderdude said:

It's cool so far .. would be nice to see some more 3D floor stuff. It is zDoom after all :P

That would be GZDoom, my friend.

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udderdude said:

would be nice to see some more 3D floor stuff. It is zDoom after all.

What?

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udderdude said:

It's cool so far .. would be nice to see some more 3D floor stuff. It is zDoom after all :P


ZDoom doesn't have 3D floors, unless you're talking about its stacked sectors (which don't even work all too well in the first place). I can't really find a use for them, hence the reason why they're not there. Same thing goes for slopes, which I use very sparingly.

The boss in level 10 kicked my ass. He teleported around so much, I could hardly do any damage to him. He needs to be vunerable while standing in the middle, or not teleport so damn much.


Well, it does have a rather high chance of teleporting. I suppose it couldn't hurt to lower it a bit.

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AgentSpork said:
The updated version of Episode 2 will be arriving shortly. Once the maps for Episode 3 are completed, a merged project with all 4 episodes will be uploaded on idgames. God only knows when/if that will happen. [/B]

Mmh, I only count 3 episodes, what/where's the 4th one ?

Gonna check this out.

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Naan said:

Mmh, I only count 3 episodes, what/where's the 4th one ?

Gonna check this out.

Episode 4 is going to be a director's cut sort of deal. It has all of the (crappy) maps that were cut from the project during the course of its production. Didn't think it was important enough to mention.

udderdude said:

I meant fake 3d floors, aka objects you stand on. I know zDoom doesn't have true 3d floors.


I use those a couple of times in Episode 2 and 3. Again, I didn't really find any use for them, so I've used them very sparingly.

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I ran through each of the first five maps and took a quick look at the rest, taking down some notes.

Map01
-To be honest, I prefer the old one. The most notable change was simply making everything bigger, which I don't think was necessary. It feels too "epic" for a first map.
-The loss of the imps and hell knight that fade in by the blue key was nice.

Map02
-This map is an improvement from the original, but I still think making everything bigger is sort of silly and I miss the middle room from the original.
-Otherwise, a lot of good changes were made.

Map03
-This one wins the most-improved award, hands down. I didn't hate the original, but it did have some serious flaws.
-There's something about the whole blue area that I love.
-My ass was kicked several times. I'm not sure why, because the map doesn't seem like it should be that hard. Health might be a little tight.

Map04
-A big improvement again.
-It's not a big deal, but I think Map04 and 05 flow better in this order rather than the way they used to be.
-The two demon trap right at the beginning is obnoxious.
-The multiple paths are a nice touch.

Map05
-Here, I don't think the majority of the changes make a whole lot of a difference. I like the map the old way but I also like the new one.
-Comparatively speaking, this one seems easy. I had no trouble with it, while 03 and 04 were fairly rough. (all on UV)

Map06-10
-Map06 is and will probably always be my favorite Simplicity map. It's good to see little was changed.
-I like that the doors at the beginning of 08 were "fixed" and are less annoying.
-Did you decrease the chance for the boss to teleport from the original version? It seems like you can do a lot more damage to him, which makes the battle a lot easier.

I think this will really turn out well. Looking at some of he revised maps, I can't wait to see what you will do with the completely new ones. Even if I did like some of the old versions, I can't really complain since there will be the Director's Cut episode.

Ultimate Simplicity will definitely be awesome.

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RoneKyakone said:
I ran through each of the first five maps and took a quick look at the rest, taking down some notes.

Map01
-To be honest, I prefer the old one. The most notable change was simply making everything bigger, which I don't think was necessary. It feels too "epic" for a first map.
-The loss of the imps and hell knight that fade in by the blue key was nice.[/B]

I dunno. I thought the original was a little bit cramped. I don't think the increase in scale did any damage. The only map that I think was hurt by the increase in size was MAP05.

Map02
-This map is an improvement from the original, but I still think making everything bigger is sort of silly and I miss the middle room from the original.
-Otherwise, a lot of good changes were made.

Again, felt too cramped to me, especially in cooperative play where people kept running into each other.

Map03
-This one wins the most-improved award, hands down. I didn't hate the original, but it did have some serious flaws.
-There's something about the whole blue area that I love.
-My ass was kicked several times. I'm not sure why, because the map doesn't seem like it should be that hard. Health might be a little tight.

Thanks. I absolutely despised the original map, so I sought to make something better. I think it turned out pretty well :D

Map04
-A big improvement again.
-It's not a big deal, but I think Map04 and 05 flow better in this order rather than the way they used to be.
-The two demon trap right at the beginning is obnoxious.
-The multiple paths are a nice touch.

Heh, I guess the two demons at the beginning could be a little annoying, especially if you played it from a pistol start.

Map05
-Here, I don't think the majority of the changes make a whole lot of a difference. I like the map the old way but I also like the new one.
-Comparatively speaking, this one seems easy. I had no trouble with it, while 03 and 04 were fairly rough. (all on UV)

I'm still dissatisfied with this map, but in my opinion there's not a whole lot I can do to save it without creating something entirely new as with MAP03 and MAP04 (which I'm too lazy to do :P)

Map06-10
-Map06 is and will probably always be my favorite Simplicity map. It's good to see little was changed.

Yeah, I really liked the way that map turned out, so I really didn't touch it much, aside for some cooperative-related fixes.

-Did you decrease the chance for the boss to teleport from the original version? It seems like you can do a lot more damage to him, which makes the battle a lot easier.

Yeah, but there's a reason for that. Originally, the teleport was a counter-attack of sorts. In other words, when you attacked it, it sometimes had a chance of teleporting away from you. That proved problematic, as it made it almost impossible to use the Super Shotgun effectively on the boss. It now has a chance of teleporting as a regular attack, so there's a probability that it will happen less often.

I think this will really turn out well. Looking at some of he revised maps, I can't wait to see what you will do with the completely new ones. Even if I did like some of the old versions, I can't really complain since there will be the Director's Cut episode.

Ultimate Simplicity will definitely be awesome.

Thanks. :D I appreciate the feedback, by the way.

Kristus said:

I made graphics for Simlicity. Revere me.

But Kristus, I replaced the titlepic you gave me way before I even released the first version of Simplicity. (it didn't really fit with the other graphics I had made) :P

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AgentSpork said:

* All of the maps have been tested for Cooperative playability in ZDoom (2.1.7 and above) and Skulltag 97b (not yet released).

heh, you tested the co-op playability in 97b? A lot of things are still broken on my end :\ Oh well, it's still playable I suppose.

But anyway, looks great! :D (but you know this already because I've expressed that to you already numerous times)

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Da Spadger said:

I found this at map08, near the start.

Push button.
Recieve error.


Nice. Might be a good idea for me to fix that.

Also, when at the intermission screen, you can still get hurt/killed. If there would be a monster nearby, you'd be an easy target.


That shouldn't be a problem, considering it teleports all players outside of the map after exiting.

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AgentSpork said:

That shouldn't be a problem, considering it teleports all players outside of the map after exiting.


At map06, i killed that last revenant, dodged the fireball, ran into the goal, and still got hit by it. I'm pretty sure i was hit a second after i went into the goal too.
Also, i saw myself in the courtyard at the map07's intermission. I didn't seem in a hurry to teleport anywhere. :P

EDIT: It _could_ be because i was still using Zdoom 2.16 though. I'll test again with 2.17.

EDIT2: Yep, it was working in 2.17. The floor texture you see before the menu pops up doesn't work though. :P

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Oh, I think ZDoom 2.1.6 had a problem with ENTER scripts, which I used to set the player thing IDs, which in turn breaks the intermission script.

Floor texture?

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That's there for a reason. Its purpose is to mock an arcade machine starting up. Sometimes you'll see stuff like that. The reason you saw that floor texture in the first place is because of a bug with single letter hudmessages in 2.1.6 that really messes the whole thing up, hence the reason I put 2.1.7 in the text file.

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A map number might be nice... I'm going to assume MAP01, however. You uh.. push the switch. It exits the map.

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Sorry about not telling the map number, but either way, yes it's map01 and the button doesn't open up after the fight.

Edit: nvm, it's caused by the other .wads i'm using

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And i found bug at MAP07 however.... after taking out all 4 mancubuses anything doesn't happen! and i'm using newest gzdoom (based on 2.1.6 with enter script fix)

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Carnevil said:

heh, you tested the co-op playability in 97b? A lot of things are still broken on my end :\ Oh well, it's still playable I suppose.

haha, nevermind. Works great now! :D

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Got a little update for you guys. Here's a small list of changes:

  • Revamp of MAP05. I've made numerous layout and gameplay changes to the map. It's less scripty now, and overall I think it's much better. The gameplay could still use tweaking, though.
  • Fixed the door opening bug in MAP08
  • Some other small changes.
Comments and criticism appreciated, especially as far as MAP05 goes.

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Okay, Map01 and 02 are growing on me. As for 05, I think you do have it this time. I'm amazed at how much it's improved, though the one thing I do miss is the big outdoor battle. Only other thing I'm not too keen on is giving the SSG so early in the level, but considering the opposing force, you need it.

There's one weird thing that I also noticed. On the menu screen, the first area that's shown is slightly different than it appears in the actual game. There should be a light on the floor in that platform that extends into the nukage. The others might have been slightly different too -- I wasn't really paying that much attention and it's hardly an issue anyway.

In that same area in Map02, the nukage doesn't deal any damage. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it's a bit of a pet-peeve of mine.

There's one other thing I should have mentioned earlier, but didn't because I think it's partially an issue of style and also would take a lot of work to change. I'll throw it out there just for the sake of being thorough. I have no problem with symmetrical level design (not that Simplicity is suffering from an overabundance), but symmetrical enemy-placement does irk me just a little. I can't think of a reason why demons would be arranged in such perfect formation. But I know -- it's just a game.

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