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Blastfrog

First person platforming in the Doom engine

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Am I onto something or am I just batshit crazy?

 

Controllable jump height, z-axis friction, different gravity depending on positive or negative z velocity, short-burst jetpack, dropkicks, slightly late jumps (less than a foot off the ledge) allowed, permissive and flexible stepheight behavior, horizontal air control without automatic deceleration (thanks @Linguica!), etc

 

Is it really that much of a surprise that platforming in general (first person or not) sucks when the player controls like a stiff, overlubricated brick? Imagine if Mario in SMB1 had the same player mechanics as Gordon Freeman in HL1 (or god forbid, HL2 and its completely fucked physics). Now stick Mario-like controls in an FPS. Perspective has little to do with it! You just need a reasonably high enough FOV for first person, and you're pretty much set. The rest of it comes down to timing of the jump key and making careful turns, it's really quite easy.

 

The jetpack here gives you a short burst that acts almost like a double jump (yet looser), but you can only use it once before landing on the ground again (and it infinitely recharges, no need to seek fuel pickups). You also have a dropkick, in place of where a crouch-jump mechanic ala Half-Life would usually be. This forces you to fall extra hard (and even cancels the jetpack entirely) until you've landed on something. Obviously, this is intended to deal damage to actors below, as well as force an immediate landing for yet another tool at the player's disposal to have precise mastery over their own speed, direction and position.

 

And yes, this map looks terrible and is empty. I am playing haphazardly in this footage due to a severe lack of sleep (among other things) and I was also attempting to "dance" with the music, it honestly controls far smoother than it may appear here.

 

 

Oh, and paging @Graf Zahl, GZDoom's portal collision's seems a bit broken in my unusual use-case, seems to snap me to the platform if I'm attempting to move up despite still falling when I reach the bottom of the top portal layer while hugging the lower wall. Obviously, I will share my materials if you need them to diagnose the problem.

Edited by Blastfrog : maybe i should try writing real posts for once instead of shitposts

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On 1/10/2018 at 10:31 AM, Blastfrog said:

You also have a dropkick, in place of where a crouch-jump mechanic ala Half-Life would usually be. This forces you to fall extra hard (and even cancels the jetpack entirely) until you've landed on something. Obviously, this is intended to deal damage to actors below, as well as force an immediate landing for yet another tool at the player's disposal to have precise mastery over their own speed, direction and position.

So, like a hip drop? Cool.

 

Honestly I liked the platforming in The Golden Souls, so I'd probably enjoy this more.  Due to the games I was raised on, I like it when the character winds up jumps, like Vorticons Keen, or those cinematic platformers, like Blaze Epic's oeuvre. Then again, SMB in the eighties has a learning curve to it compared with the average contemporary indie plat. Nintendo "fixed" that in the super version.

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On 1/10/2018 at 9:31 AM, Blastfrog said:

Imagine if Mario in SMB1 had the same player mechanics as Gordon Freeman in HL1 (or god forbid, HL2 and its completely fucked physics).

Works for Arthur and the early Belmonts.

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Seems cool. More ways to platform in anything tbh seems cool to me. Tbh it seems like another thing you would just need to practice in order to learn. Jumpmaze requires a certain skill, platforming in Doom (Sunder comes to mind) requires a certain skill. This seems like something else that I would just need to learn how to perform effectively.

 

But with 3d floors and portals you could definitely make some cool maps in Doom for this kind of stuff!

 

I'm weird though. I actually enjoyed the platforming in Half-Life (especially in Xen with the longjump), bhop in CS:S, etc. gl with your ideas!

 

 

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