Cacowad

(Descent) into the darkness:

That's what demos are for! I'm pretty sure you can update a wad on idgames.

Welp, then that was a blunder on my part! the wad was enjoiable for sure, pretty tame compared to others i played in the past (but that's also because i played on hmp). Hope you'll find usefull even the other demos!

Imho, your case isn't about lacking details (heck, e1m1 is far more detailed that it has to be), just inexperience. Yes, a warehouse is still a warehouse, but it hasn't to be a 512x512 square as it could be irl: maybe it has a part that has broken into another space, maybe the crates are all over the place, maybe it is two story tall with some sort of surveilance tower somewhere that unite the structure around it. Also height variation is key: use it, abuse it; stairs and elevators help break the landscape continuityand mantain things interesting without need of "details". Your e1m1 nails this aspect, with stairs and elevators everywhere, while e1m2 fall (literally) flat in comparison being a bunch of corridors sewn toghether (the circularity of the map is pretty good tbh). I noticed howhever how the quality of the maps improved each passing map, it is not a "It's still a complete wolfeinstein 3D" (that's completely false, well maybe just a couple of maps really suffer from this), so try not to worry as much. Also allow the old me a little rant: i personally loathe tormentor's style of detailing, i find it an exercize of style over substance. The guide isn't bad per se, some advices are pretty good, but the "add random stuff until you can't anymore" kind of detail is disgusting. /rant off Now, back on track: here's a pack with some demos, all pistol start, all hmp difficulty, mostly fda, all recorded with zdoom 2.8.1. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZKbxDBwJx7Osz-Jwp0BFY63N3dWOTmsr I tryied to write down something in chat during the gameplay, i can't remember if zdoom demos actually record that.

Well, that's understandable, one need to strike a balance. Heretic give the player a lot of ways to deal with crowds: tomes, bombs and even chaos devices can be used and abused to create massive fights, while the numerous portable medikits can get the player out of spicy situations! Btw, i forgot to say i recorded the demos with zdoom 2.8.1, so yeah.

Are you interested in some demos? because i got some! https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OMoaRCzdluAGYiTz-8Z1bgYhzg_pK8LZ https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ETxZyDydByxaNHYy-Q3vWZxh3Urj7zdW https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xoX15XcGK5Z0tlUSwvb-blskk2y_-Vc2 The last two are FDA and i failed at both of them (the last one was close tho). In general, i'd say that most ambients are vay too spacious for how much they offer to the gameplay (the starting area of the third map is the biggest offender in this regard); sometimes i got to wonder if a more slaughterish approach would have been better (putting more tomes and such), overall the product is enjoiable enough. On a lesser note: make sure that if you lock the player in a room then he must have the necessary tools to kill everything inside without relying on outside sources, otherwise we get the ridiculus scenario seen in the second demo, where i literally had to punch a lich in the face to progress (and die soon after due not having ammo nor health). Tomorrow i'll try to beat the rest.

Welp, i messed up by not restarting from the command line :P and no, i continued on the hard difficulty (i like maps where i need to manage my resources). On second tought i might have switched to normal difficulty accidentally, since i only got one maulotaurus on the underground city. Well, all in all it was a good ride: the ammo starvation and scavenging aspect got me hooked, but let's get things in order. Where we left off: after the offputting start, we enter in the "main" building. This time i managed properly my ammo, so i ended up with around 30 crossbow ammo, more than enough to clear everything inside and get the quiver. I jumped into the elevator without looking back. This part is where things got interesting for me: a lot of optional (?) areas with a lot of interesting things inside to explore; every building was it's own little adventure and i liked it a lot, and finding the claw was a big help. I promptly ignored the maulotaurus after dying trying to lure him into killing himself with the respawning gasbags, and moved on to the yellow key. Ammo was scarce but rnjesus helped me with some drops from the waredragons. This area is dope, not too cramped to be a problem to navigation while providing a lot of makeshift cover, very nice. The blue key area: this is a big area allright. The trend to make little adventures for every small area continue, and i'm enjoying it, died a couple of times while exploring, but it wasn't so bad. Also from this point onward i never actually needed to manage my ammo too thighly, there was always plenty (that is, if you don't miss very often). Rnjesus was very kind to me, deciding to drop me 2 tomes, pretty satisfied with that. After getting the blue key, we wrap around the entrance and get to the teleporter, nice, nothing to object here. I used the tomed wand to destroy the liches, and it was good. MOVING ON. The final fight was really good, like really good, i was pressured from every angle (floor included), while having just enough space to move. Nice way to end the map. Just a final nitpick: put some "end level" particles near the exit switch, i somehow got baited into thinking the empy area was going to get filled with mobs the moment i pressed it. Last words: Overall i liked it, it went better as the time progressed, and in particular i liked the underground city and the final fight. The start need a bit of polish, put some form of agency to the player that isn't "wait for the mos to kill themself from infighting" since imho is pretty boring, even a couple of early bombs and some respawning gasbags would do the trick. (ps: as a side note, as i noclip trough the level to remember stuff, i noticed that there was a gauntlet hidden near the elevator, since i got a couple of tomes i could have been really fun to drain-tank some sabreclaws for health. I also had a invincibility ring all that time, but never used it, i never find the right timing to do so.)

Uhuh, my bad then! Another (failed) demo: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1S1qt3TOdj57ETX4OpWCvgt6WFqcY8mJX This time i saved quite a bit, i hope it works. Another thing:i forgot to say i'm playing with zdoom 2.8.1 This time i knew the layout, so ammo wasn't really a problem (there was an exception, but i basically wasted ammo, so it's good).

Oh, boy, here we go. I could not have chosen a better map to reintroduce myself to the heretic scene, since my style is a bit similar. i'mma drop a (very failed) demo here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jVHeeoby5My2TuZh_oYGk9KU3Lc_oOVR Played on HMP, i basically got the crossbow and died right after opening the big building. Gonna be honest here: the opening suck big time, the player have little to no agency at all on what is going on: no ammo, no artifacts and an handful of (non respawning) gasbag makes Cacowad sad. That said, lets take the jerk hat off and start doing some constructive criticism. The very beginning: allright, we got a little cutscene, cute. We start off with some imps, nice, the ammo clearly isn't enough so we use gasbags, nice. The problems starts immidiatly after: a cave in happens and we get trapped on the balcony, i tried to nope out of there but the cave in did it's job well, resulting in my first death. All right, my fault, but from that time onwards i always skipped the opening, and oh boy if i was right to do so. The pit: So, now we move to the biggest offender of what i played. At this point, if we killed all the imps in the previous area, we ended up with some scaps of ammo, otherwise we have around 80 shots. Not so bad i'd say, if it wasn't for the infinite mass of imps (and sniping golems) that we have to confront. Let me do a premise: infighting is good (in moderation) and having no spots to camp is also VERY good for the pace of the game, but this is ridiculus: infighting is all you can do in this situation, the gasbags are nearly useless and pretty hard to detonate safely under the constant fire. The setup isn't bad per se, put at least 3 respawning gasbags (one where the nitrogolems are, and two above) and some timebombs (3 should be enough, add more for lower skill levels) and the problems will naturally go away (sort of, but at least it will be more engaging for the player). After that i died some more to explore the map, until i got a rough understanding on what to do and where to find those damn timebombs (bless them). The part up to the crossbow is good, nothing to say, you even put a nice secret to make the encounter a bit easier. After that the ammo starvation was starting to take a tool on me, i entered the main building with basically no ammo and very little shiled left due to my use of bombs, only to be greeted with even more mobs and more ammo starvation, i died right after, having triggered two (apparently) big encounters with no ammo at all. Thats were i stopped playing: i will play more of it even if it means lowering again the skill level. I can't just stop right here, can i? EDit: apparently you can't pause when opening the menù? is this intentional?

More heretic stuff? more heretic stuff.

Egregor, you heretical, absolute lurker, Thrower of stones and hider of hands, show yourself to me! You know what you did.

Generally i find stealth monsters to be unfun from a player perspective, so personally i never ever think about using them. Returning to topic: excluding bosses i suppose barons and aracnotrons are the most underused.

Repository to build from: https://github.com/Blasphemer/blasphemer/tree/experimental Prebuilded Iwad (may be slighly outdated, i can't remember): https://github.com/Blasphemer/blasphemer/wiki/Experimental-build(s)

I was wondering what was up with that. Allright, will do.

yes, there are some, but we are in hiding.