Strange Aeons 5.7

[JohnnyTheWolf]

So no widescreen bar then?

[wallabra]

I'd rather make a widescreen bar artwork in Paint.NET. If only I had a cool idea of what to do...

What resolution? I accept up to my screen resolution which is 1366x768, more than that and goodbye, tested widescreen bars!

[JohnnyTheWolf]

In E1M7, the ammo box on the counter opposite of the blue door seems out of reach as well.

Also, how do you access the third secret? I see there is a room left to the starting point, but I have no idea how to open its door or teleport to it. :S

[Impie]

If I have a cool idea for a widescreen bar, I'd probably apply it in 4.3 version.

JohnnyTheWolf said:

In E1M7, the ammo box on the counter opposite of the blue door seems out of reach as well.

It shouldn't be. Are you playing in zdoom or another source port? The mod is zdoom-only; even gzdoom has weird anomalies sometimes.

JohnnyTheWolf said:

Also, how do you access the third secret? I see there is a room left to the starting point, but I have no idea how to open its door or teleport to it. :S

Remember the shootable fusebox in E1M5...?

[JohnnyTheWolf]

EDIT: Nope, even with Zdoom, I cannot get the ammo box on that counter. :S

As for the shootable fusebox, I assume you are referring to the one past the blue door and near the exit teleporter? If so, I tried shooting it, but the door to the room with the Soulsphere did not open. :S

[Impie]

JohnnyTheWolf said:

EDIT: Nope, even with Zdoom, I cannot get the ammo box on that counter. :S

As for the shootable fusebox, I assume you are referring to the one past the blue door and near the exit teleporter? If so, I tried shooting it, but the door to the room with the Soulsphere did not open. :S

Indeed it didn't...but something else changed.

Meanwhile I'm still not having any trouble picking up that ammo. Are you playing with other mods?

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Smart Scavenger. I shall try again without it just to be sure.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Yep, Smart Scavenger seems to be the cause of my problem. How weird...

I apologize for making you alter your maps as a result of my misguided feedback. :S

[Impie]

If you're playing a new mod for the first time, you should be playing it without any other mods anyway. Glitches aside, you miss out on the intended experience.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Is the secret exit in E2M5 supposed to count as a secret? I noticed it does not in both my playthrough and your walkthrough video.

[Impie]

JohnnyTheWolf said:

Is the secret exit in E2M5 supposed to count as a secret? I noticed it does not in both my playthrough and your walkthrough video.

If memory serves, I only counted finding the key as the secret, since without it you have no hope of reaching the teleporter.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Really? Because I ended up leaving the level with only 85% secrets found. :S

I was convinced the secret exit was the last secret.

[plums]

Hey, I played all of episode one and a few other maps at random, here's some miscellaneous thoughts. I plan on playing the rest soon. Sorry if any of this was covered already, I only read the 1st page of the thread.

* The surreal aspects are really cool, definitely the highlight of the mapset so far. Floating islands and weird teleporters after falling are great. The sudden switch in E1M9 was awesome, simple as it was.

* By contrast, a lot of the first episode seems pretty "under-produced" apart from those surreal elements. The architecture is very simple, very sparsely detailed etc. I feel like it could have been done with a bunch more detailing and whatnot. Later episodes seem a little better in this regard.

* The theme is cool too, nice to see some kind of plot/setting that holds things together but also stays mainly in the background.

* Corpses floating on the "floor" of the void when you kill them looks kind of ugly. You might be able to do a transfer properties/fake floor thing to hide them. I haven't tested it but I think it might work? Probably not as much effort as it seems if you use Doom Builder's find tool.

* Gameplay was OK, pistol start was frantic in some places but more fun that way. A lot of maps feel quite hard at the start until you get a foothold and then have tons of ammo.

* Unlike a lot of ZDoom projects you seem to have a somewhat constrained list of monsters and extra powerups, which I commend. Nothing seems particularly redundant, and new enemies are introduced as needed instead of throwing it all at you at once.

* Those dark revenants, I forget what they're called, are super annoying when you don't have a rocket launcher.

* Your M_DOOM picture/logo looks really really ugly IMO.

* Some of the monster resources (the weird skeleton with a sword and shield in particular) also look ugly, guess you can't do much about that unless you want to hire an artist :p

* Music choice is great, System Shock 2 has a great soundtrack and I like the others though I don't recognize them.

* I agree with what people said on page one about Doom textures looking out of place among mostly non-Doom textures in a different style. It seems like there are very few of them at least.

All in all I enjoyed it so far, despite feeling like it had some flaws. Looking forward to playing the rest.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

As someone else pointed out earlier, Berserk works well against Death Incarnates too. Once you figure out the pattern, they are not that hard to deal with: shoot them twice with the shotgun, then finish them off with a rocket or a berserk punch. In Episode I, you can get a Rocket Launcher as a secret in E1M5. If you save your ammo for E1M9, you should have more than enough to deal with the Death Incarnates.

[Impie]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Since I based this idea on a Doom clone idea I had in the 90s I stuck with relatively basic Doom architecture. I didn't want to make a typically uber-detailed zdoom mapset.

While playtesting Nerves of Steel I learned how to better hide secret areas, so I went through all of the SA maps and hopefully made them harder to spot.

I also made a newer, better M_DOOM logo for the title.

I'll be uploading version 4.3 within the hour, so check back in a bit.

[Impie]

A couple of fixes in version 4.4 (upload pending):

- Devils appear to walk on air in e1m9, outside the windows. Fixed.
- Possible for ghoul buddies to prevent Dhole boss from spawning into the arena. Hopefully fixed, now that they all die before the bosses spawn.

[Impie]

New monster for a fifth and final episode. Remember that dimensional shambler that the Doom quit screen is always referring to? Now it's a thing!

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I noticed strangeaeons.pk3 is not included in release 4.4. Does that mean the mod is not longer contained in a single convenient file?

[Impie]

JohnnyTheWolf said:

I noticed strangeaeons.pk3 is not included in release 4.4. Does that mean the mod is not longer contained in a single convenient file?

It is. You just use the zip archive the same way you would the pk3: just drag it onto zdoom to run the mod.

It was tedious putting everything into an archive and then into a pk3, and I was already skipping that last step with Nerves of Steel, so I started making both mods an archive instead.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Makes sense.

Looking forward Episode 5!

[Impie]

BIG UPDATE! Version 5.0 is out!

- A fifth 9-level episode rounds out the story and concludes the Traveler's dream quest. Each of these maps is a hybrid of my previous one-shot maps, unfinished and unreleased maps, and all new content. The episode takes the player to the ghoul and ghast-infested Underworld, and to Cthulhu's own city of R'lyeh.
- New arsenal layout. The Scepter of Souls is now your default weapon, replacing the useless pistol. It also has the drawback of starting you with no bullets.
- Replaced several player sounds and the player's HUD face.
- Tweaked the other four episodes, fixing a number of errors and whatnot.
- New monsters, in particular the dimensional shambler and the Episode 5 boss.

There's no unique splash page for the end of Episode 5, since I couldn't find anything suitable.

Anyway, hope this newest release is satisfactory to everyone. Check the OP or my sig for the download link.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Not sure I understand the purpose of the Scepter of Souls. How is it different from the Chainsaw?

[kmxexii]

whoa! i will definitely get around to playing this sometime this year... maybe

[Impie]

JohnnyTheWolf said:

Not sure I understand the purpose of the Scepter of Souls. How is it different from the Chainsaw?

It does slightly less damage (I think), but you don't have to be right next to the target to hurt it. It has a limited reach of about 64 map units.

kmxexii said:

whoa! i will definitely get around to playing this sometime this year... maybe

I was just about to message you about it, to see if you wanted to do a follow-up review or something along those lines. Love your review of the previous version, and your writing in general.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Maybe it would be better if the Scepter of Souls were to replace the Chainsaw altogether, since they are so similar.

I did not mind the pistol, honestly.

[Impie]

I minded the pistol because the second you got anything better, you never used it again. A weapon that useless doesn't need to be there. The Scepter of Souls, on the other hand, is invaluable when you're low on ammo and dealing with unkillable skeletons or otherwise-tough-to-hit baby spiders.

As far as I remember, the chainsaw only appears once in each episode as a weapon you sorta go out of your way to get, mostly for fun or variety, but also to provide a quicker melee kill option, provided you're willing to get in the enemy's face. It's not essential like the Yithian rifle.

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I see. I am fine with the Scepter of Souls being the default weapon, but I would still replace the secret Chainsaws with something more valuable, but whatever...

Anyway, that reminds me: are we supposed to be able to jump in your mod? In E1M1, shotgunners appear on the roof of buildings and there are crates on the side of one that seem to have been put there for the very purpose of allowing us access to the shotguns they drop.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

There are missing textures in the final episode.

[Impie]

JohnnyTheWolf said:

Anyway, that reminds me: are we supposed to be able to jump in your mod? In E1M1, shotgunners appear on the roof of buildings and there are crates on the side of one that seem to have been put there for the very purpose of allowing us access to the shotguns they drop.

No jumping is standard, yes. You can't get the AKs dropped by the machinegunners on the lower difficulty settings, either.

General Rainbow Bacon said:

There are missing textures in the final episode.

That' really doesn't help me at all. I need actual specifics and screenshots.

[Salt-Man Z]

If you're not supposed to jump, might I recommend adding a MAPINFO lump to prevent jumping altogether?