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Creaphis

THE SKY MAY BE *SECOND UPDATE - Improved SPEED demo*

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Why isn't this in the "miscellaneous demos" thread, you ask? Mostly because I'm an attention whore. But, ALSO because this is one of the most notorious wads in existence, yet has gone this long without having any speed demos published for it, despite having a, shall we say "unique" bestiary and arsenal that create a number of very interesting tactical situations.

Play instructions and my comments are in the zip.

*UPDATES*
UV SPEED in 5:04
UV MAX in 10:45

smb-0533.zip

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Making a The Sky May Be speed demo doesn't make you cool.

jk it does.

P.S. Whenever I try loading either SKYMAYBE.wad or _SMB417.wad in Chocolate Doom, I get "Error: R_InitTextures: Missing patch in texture COMP2". Works fine in vanilla and PrBoom, though.

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Well I sure can't explain that. The only errors I get loading those wads is if I accidentally use Doom2.wad instead of Doom.wad, or if I use -file when I should use -merge.

EDIT: Actually, that's exactly the error message I get when I accidentally use Doom2.wad instead of Doom.wad. For Chocolate-doom, make sure you specify -iwad doom.wad in the command line.

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Wow, I have actually made several attempts to make a demo for this, but have never been successful. Amazing that somebody actually accomplished this brain boggling demo!

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Creaphis said:

Well I sure can't explain that. The only errors I get loading those wads is if I accidentally use Doom2.wad instead of Doom.wad, or if I use -file when I should use -merge.

EDIT: Actually, that's exactly the error message I get when I accidentally use Doom2.wad instead of Doom.wad. For Chocolate-doom, make sure you specify -iwad doom.wad in the command line.

Yep, that's it. I'm so careful messing with the iwads in my vanilla folder I forgot to check this in Chocolate. Thanks.

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tempun said:

Thanks! I finally understood how to complete the SKYMAYBE level...


No problem! Wait for my other demo and you'll understand how to MAX it.

...If I can ever even record a successful attempt. Even after many hours of practice and the adoption of the best possible strategies there is an extremely low chance of survival...

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...If I can ever even record a successful attempt.

Then record a TAS please. After all, when one plays normally, it's possible to save & load.

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Nah, I'm all for seeing a real run like the first one. We all know TAS is possible, just like we know practically anyone can finish the WAD with saves, but a proper run would be a much more enjoyable achievement to watch.

To boot, releasing TAS runs of things that haven't been done for real first is kind of gay.

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I feel the same way as Myk on this. I considered recording a two-segment run (ie. using Prboom+ to take over from a good recording of the first half of the level, then run the second half without further cheating) but even that seems really cheap by Doom community standards.

Also I don't want to give in to the two-segment idea because I know that every speedrunner here with more experience than me could do it in one. What makes running this wad difficult is that every misstep is fatal. If I were to run some Doom level and make a small mistake, I take a bit of damage and lose a few seconds. Here, if you make a small mistake, you die. Or, at least, the run is ruined because you just fell off of a 4000-unit high, 2-unit wide ledge, for example. Those with more experience in not making small mistakes will reach success more often.

The other thing that makes this run difficult is the randomness of monster movement, and how you sometimes need monsters to move or attack in a certain way for the run to work. Monster manipulation is also where the most time would be saved in a TAS run versus a regular run. But maybe this is the case for all Doom levels? I don't have the experience to know.

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I have done it. I have recorded the MAX run for The Sky May Be. This demo is much higher quality than the earlier speedrun - in fact, at the end of the run I was so amazed at how well everything had gone that I literally started shaking with excitement, which almost caused me to blow everything.

smb-1045.zip

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wow, this was one of the most surreal doom experiences i've ever witnessed. congratulations!

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gggmork said:

Now all I need is doom 1.


If you put a copy of Doom.wad in the same folder as a copy of shareware Doom that should be good enough. Doom 1 is cheap enough on Steam if you actually don't have it and the shareware is everywhere.

dew said:

wow, this was one of the most surreal doom experiences i've ever witnessed. congratulations!


Thanks!

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dew said:

wow, this was one of the most surreal doom experiences i've ever witnessed. congratulations!

The authors are pretty good at bringing out the surreal elements of other games as well.

I recommend the System Shock and Deus Ex sections.

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Oh my goodness. This takes the concept of "surreal" and... Well, surrealifies it! The demos posted so far were absolutely top-notch - Well done!!

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Gingercat said:

The demos posted so far were absolutely top-notch - Well done!!


Hardly. Here's a speed run that's 29 notches higher.

The speed improvement comes from a couple clever new shortcuts, and a somewhat-better execution. It's still about 15 seconds too slow, actually, due to a number of unlucky monster encounters and some flubbed switch presses (I think this spacebar has issues). I'd keep trying to record a better run, but the variable-ratio reward schedule of demo recording isn't doing my brain any favours.

smb-0504.zip

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Thanks, Never_Again! Thanks also for sharing this on Youtube.

I've seen tapewolf's video before - it does a good job of summing up the absurdities involved here. I think I've also seen the level he uses as a demonstration - is that Artifact?

While many Dehacked patches offer a novel spin on traditional Doom, Blessed is specially designed to preserve the game balance


While this does seem like a ridiculous statement, I fully believe it - and would argue that this a large part of why The Sky May Be is still remembered. Many wads that are both ridiculous and impossible have been vilified or forgotten, and many super-charged dehacked patches are merely considered as gratuitous novelties, but The Sky May Be and its Blessed engine are remembered because they're actually well-designed. They're actually balanced, and playing The Sky May Be is actually a well-designed, satisfying experience (but very hard, even if you know what you're doing). In general, the powerful and absurd monsters can be defeated by the powerful and absurd weapons, as long as you also use the environment to your advantage.

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Never_Again, thank you very much for putting this on YouTube! The demo seems to desync on my computer :(

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