Project Einherjar - Final Release

[Impie]

So I had a fun idea for a way to promote my dystopian adventure series Winter Agent Juno.
 

Why not a Doom mod?
 

5-episode GZDoom mod, 35 levels, all-new weapons and enemies. Shoot up the opposition with 8 brutal weapons, including a retrievable ballistic knife. Stomp bad guys with martial arts -- a good kick is always available with the alt fire key. Fight nasty bosses every few maps in the style of Wolf3D. Get engrossed in the backstory for each episode in the readme file.

https://mikestoybox.net/2017/01/04/project-einherjar/

 

Episode 1: The Gaulheim Hit. As a blizzard isolates Gaulheim from the rest of civilization, Juno Radcliffe infiltrates the lair of Dr. Gaul to assassinate her and put an end to her super soldier project and other crimes against humanity.

 

Episode 2: Deep Into White Hell. Juno awakens as a prisoner of the dreaded White Hell penal colony, where Warden Veidt has restarted the Einherjar project…and plans to use Juno in her next field test.

 

Episode 3: The Iron Invasion. Juno’s investigation of a cyber-drone attack leads her across the sea to warlike Jotunheim, where Baron Frostgard has been building an army of Einherjar for a full-scale invasion.

 

Episode 4: The Scourge of Mordin. Juno is poisoned by the mad high priest/dictator of the Mordin mountain colony, mistaken for an assassin sent by Matron. Now Juno must ironically fulfill the madwoman’s worst fear in order to get the antidote.

 

Episode 5: Return to Jotunheim. When a Jotun research vessel is sunk by a ship bearing the Midgard flag, a new war seems imminent. Only Juno can capture the offending ship and bring the architects of the impending war to justice.

 

Marty Kirra has been nice enough to let me mod a few of his assets here and there, since his Space Pirate and my novel's protagonist aren't too different (physically anyway).

About the Book Series

Juno Radcliffe is a former army commando and former POW camp warden who lives an empty, solitary life during nuclear winter in the fascist state of Midgard. In The Helios Legacy she becomes a pawn in a power play when the new dictator-to-be orders her to deliver a eugenically perfect boy to her sister dictator on the other side of the wasteland. With a treacherous despot awaiting her, a team of assassins on her tail, and irradiated tundra in-between, the delivery is anything but a simple errand. In Kingdom of Famine, she returns to her corrupt home town to bury her estranged mother and investigate the suspicious manner of her suicide, stirring up a bloody hornet's nest in the process.

 

The books and the mod both have a lot of Norse mythological influences. Mythological valkyries would choose which fallen warriors got to go to Valhalla; in the book, the Valkyrie Guard polices all of Midgard's male population. The einherjar was what those fallen soldiers became when they reached Valhalla; here, its the name of the super soldier project where hapless male subjects are converted into giant murderous fuck-apes. Etc, etc.

 

But wait, there's more! You can also get this on the download page:

 

Wolfendoom Fan Episode: Operation Arctic Wolf. A mod of the Wolfendoom adventure of the same name, replacing BJ and the nazis with Juno and the PE enemy roster, plus a few new faces. Contains a modified version of the original Wolfendoom mod, adding new stuff and fixing a couple of map details. Doesn’t need the original Wolfendoom mod to play: it’s basically self-contained.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2018 by Impie

[baja blast rd.]

Looks great.

[Angry Saint]

As wad author and writer, I find great the idea to combine the two. I hope the best for your novels.

[Impie]

Decided to change the title to the evil military project the plot revolves around. Makes more sense I think.

Future updates (hopefully):

- 6-level episode
- ballistic knife weapon
- alt fire does a karate kick regardless of which weapon is selected

[Impie]

So here's a few updates:

- Changed the voices for the redheads and the Amazons. They better suit the characters and aren't as annoying.

- 5 maps completed. I think I'm gonna leave this at a 5-map episode, and add more episodes later.

- PDF is nearly done. Got the intro story done, but not the intermission text.

What I need now:

- Fonts that match the setting (and to figure out how to use fonts in a Doom mod, since I've never done it before.

- Some awesome weapon stuff Marty was cool enough to help me with, including the ballistic knife.

- Other shite as I think of it, I guess.

[Impie]

I updated the OP with the mod's intro storyline, and a bit of info on the novel's plot. Hopefully that'll tide people over 'til it's released. Meanwhile the book itself is out finally.

[Spectre01]

Impie said:

- New sprites for the Einherjar Juggernaut enemy. I didn't like how it clashed with the Wolf3D-esque cast, so I threw together a custom thing out of some Wolf3D mod sprites to make him look like those things from Beastmaster. He only faces one direction, but at least he meshes with the other bad guys.

Bane?

[Impie]

rileymartin said:

Bane?

Not for long. Apparently ever since I threw this sprite together using a Bane head, it's all anyone is talking about. So I'll be going back to the drawing board and doing something else entirely before this one little thing completely dominates all my feedback.

[Impie]

Well nothing else worked, but I did get the Juggernaut heads to look more Beastmaster-ish finally. Apparently my memory isn't elephant-like.

[Impie]

Version 1 is out and ready for testing and such. Download link in the OP. Hopefully ironed out all the mistakes by now.

I'd like the final version to be a self-contained freedoom package so people don't have to have Doom to run it. Is there a tutorial on how to do that?

[Demonologist]

This thingie isn't getting much love here it seems... not good. While the level design is pretty archaic and simple for something zdoom-compatible (as it is in other works of yours I'm familiar with) - the gameplay itself is fun enough to compensate, as well as all of the subtle but plentiful changes to the core formula. Oh, and punching girls in the face? Yes please. Not to mention that female screams aren't the thing to be heard often in a Doom mod. So, sound-wise it's also rich enough, taunts and obscenities surely add a lot to the picture.

Overall, it's pretty short but fun and fresh enough in spite of architectural and visual simplicity, it's also amusing to see the Wold3D's nazis transformed into angry chicks... pardon me, valkyries with guns. Good work!

[Impie]

Thanks for showing it some love, Demonologist.

My design aesthetic is always kind of old-school. Never much cared for maps that are so detailed they lag my PC, so I try to keep it somewhat abstract. Helps me focus on the structure of a map, too, so I don't get carried away with the little details.

[Agentbromsnor]

Your book is about Wolfenstein 3D enemies getting shot?

I jest: it looks pretty good to me!

[Impie]

Agentbromsnor said:

Your book is about Wolfenstein 3D enemies getting shot?

Fortunately no. Aheheh.

The book is more of a western than anything, so the mod takes a bit of a tonal shift. I thought it'd be fun to make an Id-style adaptation of the source material.

[Impie]

A couple youtubers have already been enjoying the hell out of the mod, which I guess is a good sign. Hopefully the mod catches on enough to warrant more episodes.

[Impie]

So this guy on a Japanese mod blog posted about PE and described it thusly:

女エージェント 冬の陣
研究所アーマードシスター達を駆逐せよ

I threw it into Google Translate for fun and got this:

Woman Agent Winter of Jin
Whether Destroyer the Institute Armored Sisters

I'm localizing it as, "Winter Agent Jin: Destroy the Armored Sisters Institute!" and calling this the official Japanese alternate title.

[Impie]

Version 1.4 is up!

- Removed a blank page from the readme file.
- Changed the walls with the System Shock corp logo to the Valkyrie Guard logo.
- Slight adjustment to the spread of the shotguns, and listed the zip gun before the rocket launcher.
- Fratboys fire a tazer spread when aggroed, and say more than two things when killed.
- Ballistic knife pickup always gives 1 shot.

[Impie]

Update to 1.4.1 after realizing that the uzi sound effects were buggered due to a slight oversight on my part. Should make the gunshot sound for each bullet now, not every other bullet.

[VGA]

I watched most of that video, pretty cool! A LOT of work obviously went into this.

[Impie]

Thanks man, I sure did bust my ass on this. Hope you get a chance to try it out.

Sick and can't do much else, so I've been experimenting.

Juno is captured by remnants of Dr. Gaul's regime and taken to the late dictator's prison, a horror show known as the White Hell, where Gaul was testing her creations with heavy ordnance and heavier troops. Juno must escape and shut down the project, dishing out a little violent justice to the sadists who run the prison.

[VGA]

Can I use ZDoom to run this or will I run into trouble and should use GZDoom?

[Impie]

VGA said:

Can I use ZDoom to run this or will I run into trouble and should use GZDoom?

It works in zdoom, it's just that the colors get washed out and a few effects don't look right (see Major Arlene's video -- she used zdoom to play it). Otherwise it's perfectly playable.

[Impie]

Version 3.0 is out now. Made some new maps, and reworked some old ones. I realized that the Operation Body Count thing was never gonna be completed, so those maps were once again without a home until I decided to sit down and make a second Einherjar episode. I think those maps are much better suited to this project than the previous ones I shoehorned them into.

New Stuff:

- A new 7-level episode set in the dreaded White Hell prison facility.

- New enemies including brutal guards and helichoppers.

- Refined mechanics and weapons.

- Old maps refined a bit.

- Updated cast roll call, moved to the end of E2 instead of E1.

EDIT: A few last-minute tweaks brings it to 3.1.3!

[Merry Widow]

Just wanted to say thanks for such a great mapset.Really am enjoying this! :D

[Impie]

Thanks, grouchbag!

Updated to 3.1.4 thanks to skyrish recommending a new voice for the Block Docs! (3.1.5 now: voices were too loud).

[Merry Widow]

@Impie:You're welcome!

[Impie]

EDIT: 3.2 update, adding a few more map fixes and some new NPC characters such as shootable prisoners and crooked administrators.

[EffinghamHuffnagel]

Is the OP download link not being updated? Or are you waiting until there's enough changes to warrent a major update? The current download file is still 3.1.3.

[Impie]

It must not be getting updated for some reason. It's supposed to be replacing the file each time. I'll try to fix it within the hour.

EDIT: Apparently Mediafire was programmed by howler monkeys or something. Every time I tell it to replace the old with the new, it doesn't. It just leaves the old one there instead, hence why everyone's getting the old version still. Should be fixed now.

[Impie]

Minor update, mostly further refining some mechanics (like those damn dogs that keep vaulting over the player's head) and changing the Gungnir Rifle sound to give it more punch.

Also been testing out some new enemies for a prototype third episode. Juno travels to the more male-dominant Jotunheim to kick some ass and probably finish off the rest of the "vampire docs" that helped Dr. Gaul with Project Einherjar. Wanted the native enemies to sound foreign, as the vampire docs are the only enemies with foreign accents. Dunno if or when I'll work on this episode's maps, but I've laid the groundwork at least.