Musically themed megawad

[MarketAnarchy]

Hi all,

So after a bit of lurking here and hanging out on #doomtwid and some pestering by several people, I'm making a thread to talk about my work.

A while back I played level 1 of doom2 and the song Thieves by Ministry at the same time and it just seemed like the guitar riffs matched up with the chainsawing of the imps. Similarly, the seams of the walls passed at the same speed as the beat of the music.

So, I decided to try to intentionally create musical "coincidences" for a series of wads. Not long after, I found that songs from TV shows/video games were particularly well suited for thematic environments.

One of the major goals is to have the midi for the wad timed so that a speed run will have sounds match up with specific areas/monsters/attacks. Some of this is done by timing a voodoo doll to open areas or just by play testing the distance and using the applicable SR40/SR50 to travel it.

So far the maps (midis) that I'm working on/have ideas for are:
Design Started:
• Atlantis - Underwater theme, some of the graphics are Stargate Atlantis inspired, not sure about the midi.
• Mortal Kombat - several "fights" in the MK world
• Secret Agent Man - Assuming a speed run, stealth is key, break into an office building, set a bomb and escape. Of course, you can just kill everything too.
• Stargate - Just a quick run through using the Stargate opening theme. SG-1 Gateroom, Abydos pillar gate room, outside Abydos, etc.
• Tron - leave cell, fight on disappearing rings, "light cycle" wall race, odd 3d effects

Concept Envisioned:
• Clubbed to Death (The Matrix) - Trinity's run away from an "agent" at the start (arch-vile that teleports into various people, jump from building to building into window onto stairs, teleporter in a phone booth at the end), Neo's jump to the distant building as a secret requiring SR40 going over invisible pillars, might make more than 1 map for this
• In the House, in the Heartbeat (28 days later) "spooky" ambiance with occasional hoards of zombies.

Midis being considered:
• Johnny Quest Theme
• The Devil Went down To Georgia
• Edward Scissorhands
• Blade Runner
• Seif Al Din by Epica
• Sandstorm by Darude
• Tales from the Crypt theme
• Outer Limits theme
• Hercules theme
• Hawaii Five-0 theme
• On the Run by Pink Floyd

Anyway, I would love to have you stop by my stream and comment.
http://www.twitch.tv/marketanarchy/


Here are a few images from the underwater level:
https://goo.gl/photos/Bd1JiTdr3C8efN2Y9

[Walter confetti]

Looks very well done!

Funny that i used Darude sandstorm for a jokewad i'm working...

[Doomkid]

That playlist reminds me of Dwango wads.. Popular tunes that don't fit into Doom, but are still catchy. Those screenshots look fantastic though! I love this concept and am looking forward to trying these maps out :)

[Revved]

I remember seeing a concept WAD like this where the author tried making levels that were thematically linked to Muse' Resistance album.

[Walter confetti]

If i remember correctly, that was a Jimmy project...

[Jimmy]

walter confalonieri said:

If i remember correctly, that was a Jimmy project...

That's weird because while I've certainly had the idea, I can't remember posting about it on the forums. o_O

In any case, I'd probably be willing to be a part of a project like this if the music was instead made specifically by MIDI musicians beforehand, then maps created around them. Perhaps teams could be created, with mappers and musicians working together to create something awesome and unique together.

Also if I wasn't bogged down with uni.

[Gez]

walter confalonieri said:

If i remember correctly, that was a Jimmy project...

The one I remember was by JPL, and with a NIN album, not Muse.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/54344-album-wad-the-fragile/

[MarketAnarchy]

I think custom midis and level design with musicians sounds like a great idea. When I came up with the idea I didn't imagine that I could get that kind of thing made. It would also allow the megawad to be more thematically connected and that's certainly more preferable. If there are musicians that would be interested, I'd love to discuss the idea.

I also wish Boom supported scripting that would change the music given specific constraints because that would help with the ambiance thing. I know that wads have used "alert" sounds from custom monsters for that.

Anyway, thanks for the comments, please keep 'em coming.

Robert

[Memfis]

No it really was by Jimmy, funny how he doesn't remember: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/56062-the-resistance-album-based-microproject/

[Jimmy]

Oh shoot, I missed Revved's post there. Thought walter was responding to the thread itself.

Yeah. That's my thing there. :P