Secretdoom: The Green Machine [Now on /idgames]

[Andrea Rovenski]

Your mission is simple. You have to find and activate The Green Machine in the heart of the Congo sector. The only issue is, this area has been completely overrun by demons. Your only way in is to locate portals that transport you throughout the facilities until you find your way there. You have no backup, and no way out. If you fail, the war will be lost.

Secretdoom: The Green Machine is the second installment in the Secretdoom episodic series. There will be 10 maps in the episode, as well as a few secret levels, and a revamped survival mode that changes up all the main levels into an endless horde mode with major twists.

I removed the survival mode and just fixed some stuff in the main game since I don't ever plan on finishing it.

MAPS:
MAP01: Outpost Delta
MAP02: Baseline
MAP03: Heart of the Jungle
MAP04: Slush
MAP05: Bravo Sector
MAP06: Canyon of Dissidents
MAP07: Sewage Deposit
MAP08: The Outer Base
MAP09: The Green Machine
MAP10: Gone Home

MAP11: Entryfall
MAP12: First Contact

And, screenshots:






Finally, current download can be found here.

[joe-ilya]

Sweet, and looks like greenwar2 too!

[xnv]

I played 3 maps so far and I heavily enjoyed it. There was a few questionable texture choices and a few pointless enemies (IMO) but it's great otherwise.
Why did I stop on map 3? Because I encountered a bug where I can't leave area (in fact it's RL area in third screenshot). I guess I'm supposed to activate wooden wall somehow and I can't do it. Am I doing something wrong?
Figured it out: it's activated by RL pick up but I had full ammo therefore I couldn't pick it up.

[Andrea Rovenski]

I'll change that trigger to something else that's more practical.

[kmxexii]

oh hey, hope your craft has improved since disrepair.

[Andrea Rovenski]

I'd like to think it has.

[scifista42]

Unique wad, in a way, I have mixed feelings about it.

Visuals. I'd say that they're literally beautiful in their (relative) simplicity, and I'm actually impressed by them. There's a lot of effects / new textures and other content involved, which I don't appreciate for themselves, but here it helped to make the wad unique, as I already said. And there's more about it. Wads with elaborate structure and high amount of detail tend to feel artificial and not always in a good way; wads with simplistic aesthetics and structure tend to feel lazily done; but you're maps are different from either, and I haven't seen such a wad... maybe ever. It really feels like you've created all the environments with love, every single part, and you've succeeded to make them appealing that way. The creative enthusiasm seems apparent to me.

Another thing connected with it - focus on exploration. Your maps are awesome for this aspect. Tons of optional areas, each of them seemingly created with love. Instead of just some goodies thrown into these areas like it usually happens, in this wad the exploration is rewarding for itself, for the feel and for the view. I admire it a lot. These levels offer one of the best (while low-scale and simple) exploration experiences I've ever seen, I believe.

Gameplay itself is weak, though. Almost all monster fights tend to be either:
1. Door fights. Open door, kill monsters, go on. No challenge, no possible threat.
2. Corridor shootage. All monsters are in front of you, just keep shooting. No challenge, easily can get tedious.
3. Slaying high-HP monsters with low-rank weapons. Very tedious, takes too long time. Minimum challenge anyway. Not fun.
4. Gameplay like in the secret MAP11. Just blatantly awful, from a gameplay perspective. By the way, the idea of the last map (MAP10) was a great conclusion to the whole adventure, but its gameplay sucked, with just 1 enemy type with high HP everywhere that bounce off like a gum ball when shot.
For today's mapset, it's very bad. Wordly "stale". There's so much more interesting and enjoyable combat scenarios you can make, and you should incorporate them far more often than you did and from the very beginning. We players like and need a bit of non-straightforward challenge.

Anyway, I liked the mapset overally. I felt tempted to play further and explore the maps, despite rather badly done gameplay. Thoroughly the wad had a very distinct Heretic vibe, but in nice Doom-like environments. Great use of music, to set a "relaxing" atmosphere. Good job - just if you could work on the gameplay, it'd be great.

[Andrea Rovenski]

Thanks for the reply. In regards to MAP11, it is basically just an easter egg level, I didn't bother with any gameplay in it really. It's based on a level from an indie game I really like.

As far as gameplay comments overall, I'll try to do a few new strategies in future projects. Definitely see the point.

[Andrea Rovenski]

Uploaded to /idgames, download can be found here.

[Suitepee]

Saw a bit of this on your livestream, and will endeavor to play this (and Disrepair) at some point via livestream in the future.

[Sokoro]

I played this until end of map05, I am not interested in jokewads...