Derceto - massive Doom 2 map

[Impie]

UPDATE: Derceto is finished and ready for testing and such, if anyone is interested in a sprawling haunted mansion map based on Alone in the Dark. Limit-removing source port is required, as is jumping. I didn't use ACS or anything fancy -- just plain Doom 2 textures and effects.

Get the wad here.

Screenshots from Version 1:

[Doomkid]

Do you intend this to be compatible with Doom2.exe? If so, you'll have to mind your size limits.

However, if you want to use Boom, Zdoom, etc - You can call it "Vanilla Limit Removing". All ports from Boom upwards allow exponentially more visplanes than doom2.exe does.

Hope this helps!

[Impie]

It does, thanks. The Doom Wiki words it in a way that made me a little skeptical -- I think the article just meant "if youre making vanilla-compatible maps, keep them under -20000 and 20000, regardless of source port."

Trying to keep the gameplay Doomish while still keeping the progression and traps true to AitD. Got a couple hairy events so far. I'm pretty much done with the attic and floors 2 and 3. I'm planning to keep the arsenal limited as well.

[rsl]

Wow, this is fascinating to say the least! :-D

Seriously, I have always been a big fan of the first Alone In The Dark game, and despite the age (and polygons!) I haven't been able to relive such a creepy feeling in any other game since then - to me, the atmosphere of that house with its "descent" progression goes somehow unparalleled as of today.

Only one thing, though: are you sure you don't want to consider more specific textures for this? I know you might see it as a major annoyance, but I believe the original atmosphere owes a lot to the internal beginnings-of-1900 decorations of Derceto... If you cannot reproduce exactly the original ones, some set of art-nouveau-styled motives with desaturated colours should work perfectly.

So please promise you'll think about it a bit, at least! :-)
Wish you the best of luck with this ambitious project.

[Impie]

Got a couple bugs (on this map and another map, actually) that I can't seem to find info about on the 'net: no mention on the wiki and I'm not even sure what specific terms to search for in a search engine. I could really do with a more complete list of glitches and errors that I can consult when this sort of thing comes up again.

1) Platforms that sit against a sky wall have visible flats in doom builder (like the highlighted texture in the screenshot), but in-game they either briefly disappear when a gun is fired, or are invisible altogether. Is the only solution to just put another wasteful sector between the two?



2) Door texture "stacking" effect.

Rather than making new doors by hand each time I needed one, I started copy-pasting doors from the upper "floors" and modifying them to save time, which seemed reasonable. Worked fine 'til I tried it on the "first floor" area, the lowest level of the map to date. Any east-west facing door that I give the "lion door" texture suffers the stacking effect in-game (second screenshot) but looks fine in doom builder (first).





This is how it looks with a door copy-pasted from the same level. When I pasted a door from the upper levels, the texture stacked even more: three bars of metal on the bottom before the texture continued as normal. It only occurs on the "west" surfaces (the opposite side of the door is fine), and only with this texture, and specifically on this door and any door aligned with it or positioned further south on the map. No idea what the cause is, but I figured somebody on the forums knows exactly what it is and how to prevent it.

Haven't tried making a new door from scratch to test if it goes away -- been juggling this and a bunch of other crap I'm working on.

[Gez]

Check the sidedef's texture offsets.

[Impie]

@Gez: Which issue? The doors? It's not the texture offsets, or it would look wrong in doom builder, too, like I said. Unless there's some weird little option that I'm overlooking.

The door problem went away when I just made a new one from scratch. Copy-pasting that one eliminated the issue, but I'd still like to know what the problem was exactly.

@rsl: I thought about that, but part of the challenge is to see if I can make it work with just the base Doom II graphics. Plus I don't wanna spend months and months on a TC my first time out...although if someone later decides my map would make a good base for one, I'd love to see it happen.

EDIT: Updated the screenshots in the first post.

[Gez]

Impie said:

@Gez: Which issue? The doors? It's not the texture offsets, or it would look wrong in doom builder, too, like I said. Unless there's some weird little option that I'm overlooking.

Not necessarily. IIRC, there's a bug with negative vertical offsets in vanilla that DB2 doesn't reproduce.

[Impie]

Well, playable beta is up now. Anyone who's interested can check out the first post for the download link.

[scifista42]

A REALLY oldschool-feeling map. Features tons of pleasant exploration in a simple-styled, huge quazi-realistic environment. Fights were simple and easy. There are many "weird" design choices (damaging floor in an evil-eye room, randomly lowering floor, impassable windows that look like they're big enough), which however fit the oldschool feel very well. Texturing often feels odd and textures aren't properly aligned = oldschool as well. I do like it, but this map turned out to be a bit too much for me (read further).

The map indeed requires jumping. Forget about any kind of vanilla or Boom compatibility, then. Jumping is exclusive to advanced ports, like ZDoom.

Be aware that a design full of side rooms is not very effective, because it means too much travel and prolonged time to the player, in contrast to an interconnected design. Also be aware that one-time only events are posing as an annoyance. I've noticed the first room secret already acts like that. Preferably don't employ such gimmicks on a path mandatory to reach an exit (you probably didn't, which is good), but also anywhere else. And remember, remember - instant death traps are BAD, BAD, BAD!

After I've entered the cave part, I actually got kind of bored and finished the map only with cheating. It was after a certain point I've found out that jumping is required and that there are one-time events like descending bridges (in the big room later), also that there's going to be a cave maze without an automap provided.

In my opinion, the map should have ended at the cave entrance. Till that moment, I had fun exploring the map. I felt I already did a lot, and then I realized there's a whole other part of the map, not even that interesting... No. You would split it into two maps, I can recommend it. And getting rid of the maze of hidden linedefs. Some things are just this annoying, and I didn't feel to withstand it. But otherwise it might have been okay. The final fight was a bit uncomfortably annoying too.

I like the kinds of your maps like Gwangi Palace and Escape from Skull Dungeon better. They're not exaggerated in size and keep a decent level of entertainment for all the time. This map did appeal me at first, but not overally. I can't speak for errors, I've only encountered a HOM in a light-goggles secret later in the cave. The texturing mistakes and tedious progression bugged me the most. Sorry. The first part of the map is definitely very good, considering the intended oldschool-ness.

[Impie]

scifista42 said:

I like the kinds of your maps like Gwangi Palace and Escape from Skull Dungeon better.

Same here. I did this mainly to feel out Doom Builder 2, but also tried to keep the map as true to AitD as possible...hence all the weird crap, like the instant-death at the mansion's front door. Incidentally, the mansion's more fun than the underground stuff in the original game, too...

As always, your feedback is appreciated and I'll keep it in mind if I do another update.

EDIT: If any specific texture or otherwise cosmetic things come to mind, don't be afraid to go into detail. I'd kinda like to make my stuff prettier when I can.

[plums]

scifista42 said:

The map indeed requires jumping. Forget about any kind of vanilla or Boom compatibility, then. Jumping is exclusive to advanced ports, like ZDoom.

You can jump in the latest PrBoom+ if you enable it under "compatibility with common mapping errors" and are not recording a demo.

[Impie]

I updated this map recently and uploaded it to my gamejolt account, since the idgames database hates my guts lately. I think most of the grievances people had with the map have been fixed, expecially regarding ugly tile choices. Of course, I might have just made things worse. Almost 90% sure I didn't though.

Get it here, or in the first post.

[Surreily]

Never played Alone in the Dark, but I gave the new release of this map a go. Here is a list of things I liked while playing it:

• Well detailed mansion.
  
• The occasional teleporting monster makes things more interesting.
  
• Final arena fight was cool.
  
• Library revenants!
  
• All sorts of hidden stuff in the mansion.
  
• Nice short story.

And here are some things that I didn't like:

• Insta-death teleporter.
  
• D_RUNNIN :(
  
• Dark maze area near the end.

I loved the mansion area the most, as it truly captured the feel of being sealed inside a dark, demonic mansion (with the help of some music from Jimmy's Jukebox). Preventing the player from escaping through the windows helped this even more. To be honest, the final areas felt rather filler in comparison, but were still fun to play through (although I didn't realize I needed to jump during the water area and was stuck for a few minutes). Overall, I enjoyed it.

[Impie]

Thanks for the feedback! I originally had some Alone in the Dark music for the level tune, but thought better of including an mp3 in this version. I'm as sick to death of D_RUNNIN as anybody, so the current version has a creepy tune from Anvil of Dawn added.

[Surreily]

I should also probably inform you that something is up with Ty, the dude responsible for accepting files onto the idgames archive. He's been absent for over a month now - it's not just you :)

[Impie]

Yeah, I read a few threads about it, though I've read he's gone on hiatus before (unless I'm high and inventing memories), so hopefully he's fine.

[Gez]

Very nice reinterpretation of the game. The last secret was a bit hard to get (straferun + jump using a monster teleport pad as a ramp) and the teleport back to the manor area seemed to make it look like you originally planned to do the "run back up while the catacombs crumble" escape sequence and it'd be a handy shortcut; but as the level is now it's more inconvenient than anything else.

Interesting weapon balance. No chaingun, no SSG, no plasma rifle, a lot of pump shotguns, a couple rocket launcher and BFGs. I ended up berserk punching all the demons and spectres in the catacombs, as well as pistol-sniping the imps and the mancubus there, to save some shotgun ammo. Guess I could have used the rocket launcher more, though.

[Impie]

Gez said:

Very nice reinterpretation of the game. The last secret was a bit hard to get (straferun + jump using a monster teleport pad as a ramp) and the teleport back to the manor area seemed to make it look like you originally planned to do the "run back up while the catacombs crumble" escape sequence and it'd be a handy shortcut; but as the level is now it's more inconvenient than anything else.

Interesting weapon balance. No chaingun, no SSG, no plasma rifle, a lot of pump shotguns, a couple rocket launcher and BFGs. I ended up berserk punching all the demons and spectres in the catacombs, as well as pistol-sniping the imps and the mancubus there, to save some shotgun ammo. Guess I could have used the rocket launcher more, though.

If I used action scripting I could probably have cleared the front door and allowed you to leave the manor that way, but I wanted to use stock doom stuff. So the return teleporter is partly for the sake of being a completionist, I guess (and providing extra rockets).

If you're playing the latest version, there IS a SSG; two if you play on easy.