Sunlust [on /idgames]

[SyntherAugustus]

Maps and music are great so far (Up to MAP05). Not sure if I'm going to edit my version of smooth doom since I did in fact notice the palette change (Red is now dark red with zombies and blood). It looks nice, but I don't think it's intentional. :P



I have a version lying around with unpalleted sprites, but I think it's time to update. Project day!

[NinjaLiquidator]

Am I the only one who thinks its too dark? Like 50% of levels are using boring dark texture pack. It would be nice in 2 levels, but not in 20. So far I liked design of Map05 and Map13 and there are nice ideas in all maps, but what from it, when I can barely see it. Maybe just change the pallete to lighter colors?

[Memfis]

NinjaLiquidator said:

Am I the only one who thinks its too dark?

No. On many maps I have the dilemma of either playing with low visibility or with gamma correction 2 or more, which makes everything look ugly. Lots of dark textures don't help either (maps 06, 08, 10, etc). The sun is shining brightly right now though, maybe playing at night will be more comfortable.

[Gez]

You know, I actually like this spectre effect and find it cool looking.


The extra info doesn't mention the sources for the non-map music (title, intermission, readme). The intermission has metadata that identifies it as "Alundra - Dust to Dust (CronosGeo)" but the other two don't have helpful metadata.

Also typos for MAP22:
MUSIC: "Prolouge" from the game "Castlvania 64"
I guess it should be "Prologue" and "Castlevania 64".

[scifista42]

The top-obvious and easy Archvile-jump skip to the exit on MAP05, was it left in intentionally?

[dannebubinga]

The maps were all tested with gamma correction 1 because we thought it looked the best that way. Some monitors may be a bit darker though and that's too bad. I hope you can appreciate the maps even if you have to go up to gamma 2 or even 3.

[SFoZ911]

Street of Rage 2 midis FTW.

[SyntherAugustus]

Since we're on the "is this intentional" bandwagon, I remembered something from last night worth mentioning.

http://imgur.com/0IrB8LR

I autopiloted onto this ledge in MAP03. After some thought and doing it again after dying, I realized it may not have been intentional and the player should be falling into the pit instead.

[dobu gabu maru]

Just wanted to say thanks a ton for mapping and releasing this guys, it really made my day :)

[Archi]

MAP05:

Why is it so difficult on HMP, it's supposed to be one of the easiest ones. It looks like the only way to play it is to know it. There's not enough ammo and not enough health if you choose wrong route.

Bugs:
http://i.imgur.com/9aA51xQ.png- non-impassible.
http://i.imgur.com/C6bkZEk.png- went here before they raised.
http://i.imgur.com/BAQdTjB.png- misalign.

MAP22:
I don't get it. I found all three keys and wasn't able to get PG. Also I didn't found RL. Also, I was able to shoot down masterminds from far and I think you should teleport them after player moves closer, so it wouldn't be so easy. Haven't finished yet.

Bugs:
http://i.imgur.com/UdcG15g.png- floor is moving here. And flat texture moving too.
http://i.imgur.com/TynlWlg.png- maybe change flat texture on switch or lower it to floor?

PS Thank you forum for converting links into images!

[Rez]

scifista42 said:

Spectres appear glitched in ZDoom and Zandronum, what is that?

Huh. That's a cool effect, even if unintentional.

[scifista42]

Except that the white pixels only appear on certain non-dark backgrounds, which makes it look like if dark objects behind the Spectre were actually in front of him, which looks even more glitch-like to me.

[Memfis]

here HMP FDAs for the first 12 maps.

[Gez]

Are you sure Journal is sequenced by Simon Agozzino? The file's metadata contains "Copyright (C) 2001 by Steven Blom". Also, Simon Agozzino uploaded himself the Flashback songs he sequenced on vgmusic.com, but Journal was uploaded by someone else.

And to make the music credits more precise...

MAP02 song: Composed by Tetsuya Kawauchi, sequenced by Magnus Andersson
MAP03 song: Composed by Jeremy Soule, sequenced by The Jade Emperor
MAP04 song: Sequenced by Hyena
MAP05 song: Made for TNT2: Devilution
MAP06 song: Composed by Kenny Chou, sequenced by James-Alan Nguyen
MAP13 song: Made for NOVA: The Birth
MAP16 song: Composed by Sonic Mayhem, sequenced by Jay Reichard
MAP18 song: Metadata identifies the title as being "Your Mission" from Resident Evil 2, also corroborated by this Youtube listing and this wiki page. There's no song titled "Extreme Battle". I guess we can add Composed by Masami Ueda, sequenced by Necro (aka Echo, Altimit)
MAP19 song: Composed by Michiel van den Bos, sequenced by Per Kristian Risvik
MAP21 song: Composed by Eric Heberling
MAP29 song: Composed by Yuzo Koshiro, sequenced by José Felix
MAP30 song: Sequenced by Jay Reichard

[Demonologist]

Some bugs:
- map15, linedef 10101 - wrong texture I presume
- map22, sector 495 - the floor is scrolling and isn't letting revenant out.

Anyway, this was surely anticipated for quite some time. Grats on the release, guys! Maps 20 & 29 alone will surely keep me busy for a while, brutal stuff. Also lol map32. Yeah, practice solves everything.

[WH-Wilou84]

On map 20, it seems there's no way of teleporting back into the ending area if you go back to the beginning of the level with the teleporter near the end.

Amazing map btw :o

[jmickle66666666]

Ribbiks said:

^^ not a bad idea. though my change of some of the redundant whites to dark reds also had an unintended automap consequence of turning the player arrow black, thus impossible to see. so it might be worth just redesigning it at this point.

can i put in a vote for some extra darker oranges? because the default fade into dark browns is not fantastic. I did some tests for oints and my results are thus:

As you can see it makes a huge difference, and considering the amount of sunlust maps which use the colour orange, it'd be a welcome addition

[SyntherAugustus]

I'd love to see a "definitive opengl truecolor" version full of png textures. That seems like a long shot to ask for though.

[Steve D]

I took a peek in and played Map01. Slipped on a banana peel and died early, then managed a full go on the second try. Nice-looking -- as expected! -- with relatively calm (before the inevitable shitstorm) gameplay. Looking forward to more and to see how far I can go on UV pistol-starts before I capitulate and play the rest on HNTR. At least you'll get that setting tested. ;)

[4shockblast]

So far, maps 1-6 are awesome, I streamed them on my channel. Sorry for frame skips.

On map 7, you can glide out to the area with secret sector 837, and you get stuck. :P

[ReFracture]

The text file states this wad is designed for co-op, however Map05 has just one player start.

[Ribbiks]

Thanks for the bug-finds and whatnot, everyone. We're making plenty of changes based on feedback thus far.

I've corrected the palette, which solved the following problems:
- spectres now look normal
- automap player arrow is white again
- maps are brighter overall (my shitty palette was unintentionally making all textures slightly darker!). Excessive grim-dark textures aside, maybe memfis will hate it slightly less now :p

the sole purpose for the altered palette btw was for map17, which looked like absolute shit (in software mode) due to the way the default palette transitions from reds into browns due to the absence of dark-reds in stock content. My goal was to have it as unobtrusive as possible, such that it wouldn't even be noticed unless the player was on that map, and in software graphics. The unintended fuckups in the process sort of belied the intended goal, but I think I got all that ironed out now.

@gez: thanks for the metadata. I had that info for a few of the midi, but because I didn't have it for all of them (e.g. sequencing/arrangement credits) it was excluded from the textfile. Since you did all the hard work for me I'll include that in the .txt :)

@blackfish: yup, intentional! You can go either route just fine. I wasn't sure how obvious it was, but strangely enough I think pretty much every single playtester opted for the higher-ground.

[Demonologist]

Speaking of the music - I believe the track from 26 is actually the remix of Heretic's E1M6 from Hexen 2, not the original track. Here it is. Composer for both midi and CD versions is Kevin Schilder.

[Gez]

Demonologist said:

Speaking of the music - I believe the track from 26 is actually the remix of Heretic's E1M6 from Hexen 2, not the original track. Here it is. Composer for both midi and CD versions is Kevin Schilder.

Yes, it's casb2.mid from Hexen II, good catch.

[Touchdown]

Just finished a continuous HMP playthrough. An absolutely amazing job guys! Very clean, technical gameplay, as expected, and outstanding visuals.

I find it incredible that mappers can still create levels for that old game that visually make my jaw hit the floor. Most of the architecture is mindblowing and there were many places where I just had to stop and admire the surroundings. With that said, there were a couple of weaker maps. Particulary the

Spoiler

flesh/snow

levels were pretty underwhelming compared to everything else. But other than that - awesomeness. Lots of really cool lighting effects and pretty vistas.

Gameplay was probably the biggest surprise to me. I didn't expect so many encounters that are unlike anything I've played before. Lots of Boom trickery. Very interesting setups overally.

I do have one complaint though: Map30. This thing is annoying as hell to navigate. I haven't been stuck on a single level except for this. Not only it has a frustratingly hard fight (with huge walls coming down) but it also has the worst design decision in the entire set: the switch that opens the final fight. It doesn't work at first but you can still press it so at first I thought that it maybe lowers some secret lift. Discovering its real purpose was pure accident. The final showdown was also kind of tiresome and the whole level was too long (took me an hour, compared to 15-20min for every other map). But that's the only map I didn't like.

A continuous HMP playthrough was not as difficult as I expected. Only Map29 and 30 proved to be problematic while pretty much everything else was not too hard. I'm sure pistol-start/UV would be A LOT tougher but HMP is not a murder. Not that I'm complaining, I specifically played like that because I didn't want to be frustrated by the difficulty.

Generally, it's a Megawad that I think everyone should play, especially other mappers. Lots of stuff to see and to draw inspiration from. Great work!

[TheNerdTurtle2]

In MAP05 after I killed all the monsters I spent a good 15 minutes looking for the last helmet. I walked past this door like eight times and never noticed it. I might be stupid but I think making it a little more noticeable would help

[dannebubinga]

Thanks for all the feedback dear community! We are working on fixes now.

scifista42 said:

Except that the white pixels only appear on certain non-dark backgrounds, which makes it look like if dark objects behind the Spectre were actually in front of him, which looks even more glitch-like to me.

Are you playing with gzdoom? I think the AV throws you 64 units up in the air in gzdoom, while he just throws you 32 units in prboom. Dunno if I will leave it like it is as a speed route for the more modern port players hehe.

TheNerdTurtle2 said:

In MAP05 after I killed all the monsters I spent a good 15 minutes looking for the last helmet. I walked past this door like eight times and never noticed it. I might be stupid but I think making it a little more noticeable would help

I gave the borders a nice red light that's blinking.

Archi said:

MAP22:
I don't get it. I found all three keys and wasn't able to get PG. Also I didn't found RL. Also, I was able to shoot down masterminds from far and I think you should teleport them after player moves closer, so it wouldn't be so easy. Haven't finished yet.

You have to choose which weapon you want. You could pick up both PG and RL and get BFG. You have to replay it to figure out how to. It's my take on making a map that plays different depening on which order you do things. You can finnish the map with just 1 key.

ReFracture said:

The text file states this wad is designed for co-op, however Map05 has just one player start.

I must have overwritten the original map05 that had coop settings implemented. Working on a new version now :) Can't believe I missed that though.

Touchdown: What was weak about the maps? The design, theme or gameplay? Just curious if there's anything we could do about it.

[Memfis]

Going through this in 3 player coop with no item respawn.

Dunno if this was reported or not, but on Map07 in multiplayer there are stuck chaingunners in sector 1292.

On Map09 4 megaspheres instead of 1 in multiplayer seemed way too much to me, they made the rest of the map a walk in the park.

3 soulspheres on Map04 was weird too, maybe you wanted to ensure that many people could get one but doesn't that make things too easy?

Some smartass trigger abuse is possible, like on map10 you can hold the sector 781 door so that your friend can easily get out. Maybe you could be evil and make doors like this crushing or something, not sure if it's worth the effort though.

Also, unrelated to multiplayer, there is one thing that I find a bit annoying about this wad. Often you use voodoo doll corridors for various actions, and quite often the delay between pressing a switch\door and something actually happening is too long to my taste. It's not elegant and makes you feel like something doesn't work correctly for a moment. The final lift on Map06 is the most obvious example. It also doesn't help that there is no activation sound when you press it. Just feels uncool. So I would recommend making such triggers as close to instant as you're able to. And in cases like this you could put switch textures on lower\upper parts of lines where they can't be seen so that they would actually make an activation sound. Just some tedious work suggestions for you guys. :P

[Plut]

Very lame HMP FDAs for map01-12 - http://speedy.sh/jDvBd/Sunlust-map01-12-Plut-HMP-FDA.zip .
Very beautiful and fun on HMP megawad so far. Definitely a new Speed of Doom :).

[scifista42]

dannebubinga said:

Are you playing with gzdoom? I think the AV throws you 64 units up in the air in gzdoom, while he just throws you 32 units in prboom. Dunno if I will leave it like it is as a speed route for the more modern port players hehe.

You are not correct. Archvile attack always (= in every port) boosts the player 48+ units upwards, which allows him to climb 72+ unit high walls (because step height is 24). Vertical splash damage in ports with finitely tall actors will cause additional vertical boost, but that's unimportant here. I made the jump in PrBoom-plus, and it was trivial to do, other monsters didn't even disturb me at all.

Note that you must do it with a run-up, you must not be pushing your body against the wall while waiting for Archvile's hit, and you must not hit the wall's lower side before you're high enough to climb over. Otherwise some collision detection oddity will prevent you from climbing over, even if you're high enough to be theoretically able to step onto the wall.

Said "collision detection oddity" applies generally and everywhere, not just in your map. ZDoom-based ports fix it, though, and that's why it's even easier to AV-jump over walls in ZDoom.