Nihility: Infinite Teeth [Shareware Episode] v1.21

[40oz]

I'm playing the first version now, and I'm up to e2m5. I'm enjoying this a lot! I personally found it very funny and its a bit obvious now why so many alpha resources were dropped in favor of the current ones in doom. (the pistol clip perspective for example looks weird when you're ascending a flight of stairs)

However the dehacked work is very impressive and the map designs are excellent! Well done sir, this is very fun!

[scwiba]

years said:

I've modified their palette a little and get rid of the blue and replace it with green like its death. It's still probably going to be aesthetically messy to keep some of the ugliness of the beta sprite, but hopefully its better now.

Much better, yeah. I think getting rid of just the one color makes it feel a lot less like Attack of the Rainbow Skulls.

Fair enough. I've added a sprite replacement for the red baron (now Heresy Lord) so he is more visually distinctive. As for the differences between the barons:

I did figure that out eventually. I think it was primarily that in low-light the brown and red barons looked really similar. The new sprite fixes that nicely (though I'm honestly not a big fan of the Heresy Lord sprite in particular, but that's neither here nor there), and I think all the other palette swaps are fine. There's a part of my brain that really appreciates the way the brown knight and grey knight mirror the regular imp and rapid-fire imp.

And a few things I've found since my last post...

M7: Linedef 2623 has the wrong texture. Also, I really like the gargoyle face as a switch in Nihility, but I often forget that it's not decoration like it was in Doom. For instance, I spent something like an hour looking for the blue key in M7 long after I'd found the other two keys because I didn't realize linedef 3162 was a switch. And at that point I'd wasted all the rad suits and that part became impossible.

M9: Linedefs 902, 696, and 1003 are missing a back lower texture OR the action on linedef 957 should be lower to highest floor, not lowest.

In general: Is there anything you might do to modify the BFG? I know it's a really minor gripe, but after all the other new weapons, getting the BFG and finding that it was totally unchanged was a letdown. Even just some sprite alterations would be neat.

[ShadesMaster]

Played through a few levels of this so far... EPIC!!!! Classic Alpha feel, Ep2-style....

[years]

Ryathaen said:

And a few things I've found since my last post...

All fixed. I put a glowing light sector in front of the garg switches so nobody has to run around nukage for an hour.

In general: Is there anything you might do to modify the BFG? I know it's a really minor gripe, but after all the other new weapons, getting the BFG and finding that it was totally unchanged was a letdown. Even just some sprite alterations would be neat.

Since the BFG isn't "officially" in this release I have not really bothered to change it, as it will only be used a few times anyway due to the low cell count. What I originally wanted to do is the BFG 2704 from the Beta, but I don't think I can program anything like that in complevel 3. I tried the MBF 2704 (since most of us use zdoom or prboom anyway) but couldn't get it working. (has anybody?) If I do get it working, I'll likely have the 2704 as an optional add-on for non-vanilla users. If not... I'll try and think of something by the time I release episode 3.

@ShadesMaster: Cheers!

[Deadwing]

I'm playing through this (currently on map 5) and wow, very nice job, I love that classic Doom vibe on it! The interconnections are very good and the settings is really refreshing.

Only things to "complain" are that some areas are too similar to original episode 2 and combat sometimes feels a bit too basic. Still, far from being a big deal. I loved the atmosphere (with no-music + sound effects) and the levels were really crafted well.

[scifista42]

FDAs for maps E2M1-M3, recorded in PrBoom-plus -complevel 3 on Nihility v1.21.

I really liked your layouts, architectural style, visuals, detailing, custom DEHACKED-ry, gameplay, balance, and secrets. On the other hand, I despised your decision to fill the maps with explicit homages to Doom 1 maps. The idea might have been "it'd be cool", but I see it as uninspired instead, and it's no cool to see the same designs rehashed in new mapsets again and again for no reason than an attempted "cool-ness", or for lack of actual ideas, it doesn't matter. And unfortunately, there were lots of them in your maps.

I've found 2 Imps stuck inside each other in M2, in the vine-y cage right behind the red door. Otherwise no problems.

Keep up the good work!

EDIT: E2M4-M6 FDAs. I stand by my opinion that everything is excellent about this mapset, except the homages, which nearly make me want to stop playing instead. E2M6 actually looked the most promising for being homage-less as far as I've played into it, I'll be sure to replay it properly.

EDIT2: FDAs for E2M7-M9, although I ended them relatively quickly due to feeling tired, not tired of the maps in particular but tired of playing at all and also sleepi-ness, sorry. I actually really liked how they have proven to be increasedly challenging from pistol start, that's right up to my taste. They also seemed to contain minimum homages if any. I'll replay them later. Overally, good mapset! Well done.

[years]

Deadwing said:

...combat sometimes feels a bit too basic.

In what way?

too many E2 similarities and homages

I'm starting to agree with this as well, mainly in the first few maps. What particular homages or similarities were too "done before"? I assume, say, the starting room of M2 is such an example (i.e. from Diemos Lab)? Since this is a recurring critique, I am willing to redo entire sections of the worst offenders.

Thanks for playing guys! I'll also get that double imp for v1.3.

[Da Spadger]

I sent you a PM, years.

[Deadwing]

years said:

In what way?

IMO, some places (or just corridors) has too many "heavy" monsters (with lots of HP, like Cacodemons and demons) that doesn't pose much a threat, so things end up dragging up a bit, since you usually kill them with the shotgun. Later maps are more interesting with the new monsters and setpieces, though.

One thing that I've been liking a lot is the atmosphere you have created, sometimes I feel I'm playing Doom 3 with all the darkness and ambient sounds, but with a superb level design.

[VGA]

This forum should have a button that adds the thread to your "favourites". Because there are projects I've been meaning to play but I forget their name and lose track of them.

[scwiba]

years said:

What particular homages or similarities were too "done before"? I assume, say, the starting room of M2 is such an example (i.e. from Diemos Lab)? Since this is a recurring critique, I am willing to redo entire sections of the worst offenders.

The most egregious homage to me was actually in the very first map -- the generally teleporter-heavy layout and especially the area with the SLAD switch (linedef 753) that raises the stairs to the cacodemon. I was concerned at that point that the WAD was going to be too heavy on ripoffs of id maps rather than doing its own thing, but for the most part the later homages give a fun sense of familiarity without being too similar. The only other one that comes to mind is that crate section in M2, but hey -- every mapset needs a crate section.

[vadrig4r]

Playing through this now thanks to some suggestions from the Cacowards nomination thread, really nice atmosphere.

Just in case anyone had forgotten (or like me, wasn't aware) you have to use -merge instead of -file in order to load this wad in order to avoid an error due to sprite replacements (found an explanation here); load the dehacked patch as normal with -deh.

[dew]

Great stuff, I crunched through it in three sittings, heh. I love the atmosphere despite usually not being a fan of alpha resources! Shutting off the music was just the perfect idea. And oh boy, the custom monsters were used very tastefully and efficiently, well done.

I spotted some bugs in v1.21:
- Map06 has a fatal bug: linedef 729 is tagged 0, so the entire map tries to make a squat.
- In map07, A few monsters in teleporter closet sector 440 are deaf, so they never teleport. A couple of them in sector 153 as well.
- In map08, imp t. 944 is placed in void, heh.
- Also in map08, sectors 255, 266 and 321 are all tagged as secret. I'd understand the first two, but the last one is surely pointless?

Also your teleporter closets are often of the basic "1 WR line" design, which leads to monsters trickling in for ages in the later maps where whole hordes need to port in. I'd recommend smaller separate closets with less space to roam for the last one or two stragglers. Having more lines to different locations helps too, of course, so those two methods should be combined, optimally. Also monsters in the closet try to come directly towards you, so the closets should be oriented towards the arena they're manning.

Oh and the last fight seems a bit easy after some of the previous battles for survival. Maybe drop the invul on UV for another big health recharge?

Also one more general opinion: there might be too much SG grinding, which makes the maps feel longer than they are. I totally dig that the power weapons need to have just limited supply in order to keep the suspense and danger high, but it does get a bit dull at moments - mostly when I either had just the SG, or wanted to conserve all the good ammo for important fights, but there was a cacodemon, three pigs or oh god a baron in the utterly ordinary hallway in front of me. Or a relatively mundane small room with no real importance has a pack of lost souls in it, so I play peek around a corner with them as I grind them down with the SG. Trimming this transitional filler (also known around these parts as "incidental gameplay") could perhaps improve the pace a bit without sacrificing any of the "meaty" traps and ambushes and other tricky situations. I know I'm vague, hehe.

[years]

Thanks all for playing guys! I'll try and get all the bugs out for the next minor release.

dew said:

I spotted some bugs in v1.21:

Will be gone in the next version.

Also your teleporter closets are often of the basic "1 WR line" design, which leads to monsters trickling in for ages in the later maps where whole hordes need to port in.

I might switch to your method (insofar as I don't go over the tag limit in vanilla), as obviously once you track their spawn they become sitting ducks, so I'll fix that.

Oh and the last fight seems a bit easy after some of the previous battles for survival. Maybe drop the invul on UV for another big health recharge?

Is this the cybie fight? As the invul is in tricky teleporter thingy. With the Heresy Lord fight, the invul is secret. If these were the problems, I'll try and balance it out.

Also one more general opinion: there might be too much SG grinding, which makes the maps feel longer than they are.

Are you playing from a pistol start? If so, then I kinda had to make the weapon balance as it is so you don't get overstuffed with high end ammo if you choose to play continuously from one level to the next, which means some low-end weapon grind for pistol-starters. If not, then I might replace some shells with some rockets.

Also, the next non-bugfix version will likely have some significant level redesign to the early levels to get rid of some (or all) of the more egregious homages. I'll also try and get rid of some of the shotgun-meat-grinding.

Also! Here are some (tiny) screens from the oncoming episode (e1 replacement) of Nihility:









Coming soonish.

P.S. Does anybody know how to get the MBF Beta BFG 2704 to work? I've been having no luck myself.

[dew]

Yeah, I played from pistol starts. I guess you're right, but you can still take my nag as a roundabout way of saying "beware of placing too many demons in connecting hallways, for they tend to be useless and fat", hehe.

And I meant the final cyberdemon fight. The invul is too much of a prize, imo. Even just running between the teleporters is a pretty potent strategy - you get to move in a circlestrafe-ish motion, so the cyb stays in the middle and the other monsters move towards him AND you'll most likely luck out with telefragging at least a few big baddies. THEN you get the invul itself and the fight is as good as over, just switch to RL and let everything else converge on you and the cyb while tag-teaming until nothing's left standing. 1on1'ing him with full plasma and plenty of resources lying around is pedestrian in this day and age. :p In a fight where I finally got up to 600 cells and there were still plenty more lying around, I felt it should've been more focused on plasma perhaps - although I guess that depends on whether one grabs the secret invul in the penultimate battle. Well, maybe I'm overanalyzing it.

[years]

Yep, next build I will:
-delete some demons and replace some with wraiths, who I think are more fun anyway. Same with other meatwalls, since there is no SSG.
-more RL
-renovate\redo the final fight. (two+ cybies + no invul?)

and hopefully a new episode too!

thanks for playtesting!

[Urthar]

Just finished playing through this, and it's excellent stuff. Really captures the vanilla hell-base style and oozes atmosphere with the ambient sound-scape and lighting.

That said, while I really like the dramatic lighting, it felt a little over played towards the end, and it would have been nice to have a few evenly lit sections to break it up the pacing by making the player feel relatively safe for a while.

I'm not sold on the Lost Soul replacement sprites, though they're not terrible by any means, and the new winged Baron is really nice.

There is perhaps too much reliant on the Shotgun, but I'm not sure how that can be best addressed as the atmosphere of the episode relies to a degree on a certain amount of ammo deprivation.

But these niggles aside, the heart and soul of this episode is totally in the right place.

[Spectre01]

Just wanted to give some feedback on the level design. I found the levels quite difficult to navigate and especially backtrack due to all the various teleporters, switches and elevated areas that make it hard to get around even with the automap. I spent 50 minutes total on map 5, half of which was probably switch/secret hunting to open the other exit. The keys are also frequently far away from the door you need to get/backtrack to which usually requires multiple elevator/teleporter usage. Not to mention there's frequently only one path to take and a big lack of shortcuts. I found the computer map near the exit of map 6 and backtracking to all the missed secrets would just be a huge pain. Now I like large and complex maps, but even Hellbound was harder to get lost in.

[years]

rileymartin said:

Just wanted to give some feedback on the level design. I found the levels quite difficult to navigate and especially backtrack due to all the various teleporters, switches and elevated areas that make it hard to get around even with the automap.

The levels are deliberately labyrinthine, and backtracking is there deliberately to encourage secret-hunting + atmosphere. Personallly, I love getting lost in huge levels - its terrifying - but this is obviously subjective. However, if this is a common complaint, probably the best I can do is signpost where to go next more obviously and add some shortcuts to some of the longer and more pointless backtracking. In e2m6 the teleporters around the level are there for exactly this reason, so I might apply the same to other levels, such as e2m5. Either that, or some more traps to make backtracking interesting. If you have any suggestions, throw them my way.

There is perhaps too much Shotgun

Funnily enough, I increased the ammo capacity/clip size for bullets precisely to offset the ammo efficiency of the shotgun (which is inherent to doom, it must be said). I'll try adding more bullets and rockets, but I can't go too far as I want to starve non-pistol-starters for ammo as well. Ammo is a privilege, not a right!

while I really like the dramatic lighting, it felt a little over played towards the end

I've already been applying this advice making the new levels, especially given that the alphas were pretty bright yet still atmospheric. That being said...



¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Firedust]

Hi, super sorry for bumping this. On m9 a winged baron seems to be stuck inside a pillar in the central area (where the invulnerability sphere is). I'll post more stuff should I come across anything else during my playthrough.
Thanks for this episode, it's been a blast so far!

EDIT: M7, crate room with the invisibility sphere. There are two monster closets where the monsters teleport from and not all of them are waking up.

EDIT 2: M7, northeast closet with wraiths, not all of them are waking up.

EDIT 3: M8, blue switch area, there is an imp stuck inside the walls (where the winged baron and grey imps are).

[Rayziik]

Also a heads up, there's an entire copy of the wad file inside the wad file, thus doubling the size of the wad. Kind of a silly thing to have happen, but I thought I'd let you know :P

[killer2]

I've found a possible bug/exploit. The BFG on E2M5 is actually possible to grab if you know what you're doing. Not sure if this is intended or not.

[KillCrazy]

I've been really enjoying this so far, but I seem to be stuck on M7. The red key seems to be missing from the map entirely.

 

Not sure what's gone wrong!

[EffinghamHuffnagel]

You're right. I just checked. The Red Skull Key is only tagged for Medium and Hard, not Easy mode. Wow. How'd that get missed for this long?

[Reisal]

Author hasn't posted since last May, so I don't see this project being full finalized.

[years]

On 4/21/2017 at 0:41 PM, Glaice said:

Author hasn't posted since last May, so I don't see this project being full finalized.

I just wanted to bump this thread and let everybody know that I still absolutely intend to finish this! I don't want people thinking it is dead at all. However, my PC died and I am currently stuck on mac, which has no Doom Builder. I intend on getting a PC almost purely to finish this once I get money (I'm pretty broke tbh, but that is another story). Hopefully I can get one in the next two months, and then at the very least I will start trickling new screenshots and being more active here.

 

On 4/20/2017 at 10:50 PM, EffinghamHuffnagel said:

You're right. I just checked. The Red Skull Key is only tagged for Medium and Hard, not Easy mode. Wow. How'd that get missed for this long?

I can't believe I missed this pretty game-breaking bug despite (thinking) I tested this on all difficulties. Whoops! :S
 

 

On 3/6/2017 at 11:23 AM, killer2 said:

I've found a possible bug/exploit. The BFG on E2M5 is actually possible to grab if you know what you're doing. Not sure if this is intended or not.

Not intended at all... I have never figured out how to do this myself, as I assumed it to be impossible given that the size of the BFG is smaller than the teleport. Maybe it some ports (I tested on Prboom and choco) have different line detection rules. So please let me know how you did it! (Maybe I should leave it in as a reward for finding such an obscure exploit.)

 

On 9/25/2016 at 5:41 PM, Firedust said:

(Bugs)

 

On 9/26/2016 at 3:35 AM, Rayziik said:

Also a heads up, there's an entire copy of the wad file inside the wad file.

(Yo dawg...) These are pretty annoying bugs. Since I don't really have the ability to update it right now due to lack of PC, these will have to wait unless somebody is willing to fix all the errors since the last release for me and give me a heads up. 

Finally, would people prefer episode-by-episode or all of them being released as a coherent whole at once? I am personally leaning towards the latter, as I have some big plans for this.

[galileo31dos01]

Well, your episode is in my to-play list, and from what I've tested a few weeks ago, it looks and feels great. So my vote goes for the complete pwad or whatever you have in mind, instead of episode by episode.

 

I'm running it under Crispy Doom by the way.

[Mayomancer]

The wad is just lovely! I hope you do make it into a full Megawad as i'm sure many would have as much fun playing it as i had. The feeling it has of being some kind of early Alpha version is so cool!

[Stealth Frag]

Just finished and I must say that this is the masterpiece. Architecture is so good and so true to the original classic, that I could believe that this is a real id designers work from 1993. Everything is well balanced, non linear and full of clever secrets and traps. I spend much time trying find way to secret level at E2M5 (I finished this level with every secret found except one). I use GZDoom to play it, but I think his fancy features doesn't affect negatively on overall old-school feeling. There's so many places here and there that look so good with clever texture placement and lighting - like in old good classic Doom. I hope you have more that kind of stuff to share with the community. 

[NoWits]

I downloaded this a while back but just beat it the other day, and all I can say is... wow! An absolutely awesome episode wad, it's not often that one of this length keeps my attention for all the way from the beginning to the end, but this one absolutely did! It took me a while to beat due to the length of the levels and the difficulty (alright, in reality I just suck balls at the game... I played on Hurt Me Plenty but I was quicksaving and quickloading enough times to embarrass myself in front of my more pr0 friends... but fuqq it savescumming is less skrubby than using god mode!) but in this case, the longer the experience was, the better! I didn't want it to end!

 

The absolutely awesome level design; the relentless contrast between light and dark; the gloomy, moody atmosphere (and oh boy is there T0NS of atmosphere); the incredible angles, use of heights, ceilings; the absolutely awesome DeHackEd work -- how could I have neglected to mention until now? I totally have a thing for DeHacked/BEX-based partial and total conversions, things that modify the gameplay or turn Doom into a totally new game but remain within the vanilla/limit removing/Boom/MBF constraints rather than encroaching upon ZDoom/DECORATE territory like a lot do. I've been proper enjoying Struggle, Dimension of the Boomed, Rowdy Rudy and of course this very WAD and would welcome any suggestions to play if anyone knows any similar .DEH/.BEX-compatible modaroonies! -- which encompasses the Alpha (aw yea! ALPHA THEME!!!) weapon replacements, chilling stimulating AmBiEnT sound effects (yep, dis ain't ZDOOM! it's vanilla) which really add to the atmosphere, and CUSTOM MONSTERS; the stunning, superb alpha texturing (I absolutely adore the Alpha themes! I really, really enjoyed @nicolas monti's Favillesco Alpha series (plus Reticula & witness of time, might I add) - yo dude, what's your next project in progress? I'm well pumped to play the next set of levels you put out, I've been absolutely loving your output so far bro! Is it gonna be another next level alpha ting because you me both, LOVE those alpha texturez!) but found the lighting to be rather too bright and neutral all round, see next point) combined with the Demios theme; the seriously striking lighting throughout the levelset - the bordering on stripey sometimes light, dark, light, dark lighting contrast! Crazy beams of light here and there, shadows all about, a moody dark sky, a darker take on the E2 sky, meaning that even outside it's dark and gloomy. Incredibly atmospheric high-contrast lighting that makes for intense, spooky and real atmpospheric gameplay. Love it. - plus the superb use of ambient sound effects by the DeHackEd mentioned above: all factors combined to create a truly mind-blowing experience. As I said earlier, I LOVE the alpha textures and resources, and this one absolutely knocks it out of the park!!! @years, Thank you! I absolutely commend this performance, and I'm really looking forward to the next episode... this one was DANK!