MrFlibble

The most noticeable difference is that the levels in the DOS version are, like, totally different from anything in the console releases. Not in the sense in which, say, Duke Nuken 64 levels are different from PC Duke Nukem 3D levels, or the PlayStation Doom levels are different from the PC version levels -- no, the console levels have nothing in common with PC Powerslave levels at all, and are built on different technology (IIRC, the engine is called SlaveDriver). It's a true 3D engine and the levels are fundamentally different from the PC version, which uses the Build engine -- Lobotomy devs weren't even informed by 3D Realms that the engine supported sloped surfaces, -- so the comparison with Doom PC vs. Doom 64 would not be reflecting the full extent of how different the console releases of Powerslave are. I've never played the console versions but I believe they also have non-linear progression, i. e. you can enter one map, get an item and go back to a previously visited level and use that item there, for example, to access previously unreachable areas. The PC version has linear progression. The game is still cool and is one of the better "Doom clones" of the era. I also believe that the PC version levels are generally more detailed and look like "places" (especially open areas), while the console version levels look more like very intricate mazes. Again, different tech produces different results. But that might just be me getting wrong impressions from watching videos of Saturn and PlayStation gameplay though.

The body seems to be made by mirroring the Skeletal Warrior from Daggerfall:

Here's something I wanted to ask for a long while (and I hope that WAD discussion is more appropriate than Doom General discussion for this): while there have been created many professional-quality custom sprite sheets for new monsters/characters over the past decades, it seems that the story goes back to the 90s, even though back then it was less widespread. I'm generally talking about completely custom sprites created from scratch (drawn, pre-rendered, digitized, whatever), not frankensprites or edits of sprites from other games. I guess that the monster replacements from Hell 2 Pay (1996) definitely count among the earliest such creations, although their quality and design aren't that great. But they are legit pre-rendered sprites and they work sorta well in that WAD. I also vaguely remember a PWAD that replaced all Doom 1 characters with pre-rendered sprites, including toy dinosaurs (?) for the zombies and a yogi on a flying carpet for the caco. I don't think it included any custom textures or levels, and also do not remember the year of its release, but I'm pretty sure it was sometime in the mid-90s. The Army of Darkness TC (1996) includes three custom monster sprite sheets: Skeleton, Skeleton Captain and Evil Ash, the former two having ended up in Freed∞m's attic (and the regular Skeleton was at a time edited into the Arch-Vile placeholder). There is, of course, HacX (1997), but it's a commercial release, and the quality of the sprites is, of course, above average. Same goes for Chex Quest (1996). Bugs Doom (1996) from the creator of X-Men: The Ravages of Apocalypse replaces some of the low-tier monster with characters from the Bugs Bunny cartoons. I know there are other TCs and partial conversions (Batman Doom, Simpsons Doom, Aliens TC, Ghostbusters TC), but not a lot beyond that.

Well, there are studies that point to different video game genre preferences in males and females: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8141853/ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273345813_Examining_the_Role_of_Gender_in_Video_Game_Usage_Preference_and_Behavior#:~:text=The disparity between genders was,%2C educational%2C and simulation genres ( https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/55870539.pdf I am not qualified to judge how accurate the procedures employed in these studies and their results are. Of course, nothing of this suggests that there may be no female Doom players (for example), or that the share of female Doom (of FPS in general) players is disproportionately small. Moreover, the third paper appears to suggest that if you're into a specific genre or game, differences between males and females are mostly negligible. But on the whole, differences apparently do exist and the ratio is likely indeed not 50/50 like @Doom reboot World said.

These sprites are all from Hell 2 Pay, mentioned above and dated 1996. From what I can tell, this is @LilWhiteMouse's work, found in A New Hellspawn and also possibly in Hellspawn as well.

I believe that the mode of describing a video game character in the second person was a pretty widespread trope back in the early 90s. Here's just a few other examples (emphasis added): However, I do not believe that this was done to make players identify more with the character in some psychological sense, it was just a reflection of the fact that playing any of these games, you are directly controlling the respective main character, so you are that character, in a way, by the merit of making decisions and taking action in that character's boots. Neither does the use of the second person imply that any of these characters were intended to be gender neutral for any reason -- as far as I can tell, they're all unambiguously male in the above examples. Let's not forget that back in the early 90s the target audience of video games was assumed to be predominantly male, although of course this did not completely preclude the existence of female characters before Lara Croft made that a mainstream thing. I'll also reiterate here what I said before, namely that the Doom Bible had planned four playable characters, two male and two female, each with their own stats. Tom Hall later recycled this idea in Rise of the Triad.

Man, how could've I forgotten that! Of course, it's a number one Alien knockoff on PC, I guess. I also like to think of it as Doom's spiritual successor in a 2D side-scrolling environment.

Here's an Alien Breed clone you've probably never heard about before: https://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/alien-assault-ii Also there's this game called TECNO - The Base that gave me some pretty solid Alien vibes, although you fight rampaging robots and not alien creatures. If you're interested in other media, there are quite a few Alien knock-offs in film, you can look up reviews on YouTube, like Brandon Tenold's channel-- he's got some of those covered, including a few pretty obscure regional titles.

I was thinking, perhaps @Amuscaria's GARD thingy from Demon Eclipse assets which were contributed to Freed∞m could be used as either a Banshee or a Ghoul replacement/placeholder? I mean this creature: (I'm aware that it is currently being used as the "boss box" item in Phase 2, but it seems rather appropriate for the Banshee role.) As for the Mindweaver, have you considered the old version of the Technospider for it? Also, recently I found an even earlier version by @LilWhiteMouse called the Head Hunter, although it was never used in Freed∞m, and a larger sprite made from the same robot squid model, all shown here. Just some ideas.

@Revae, I'm extremely sorry to say this, but I just had a little run of E1M1 in my DOS port, and while the red stripe near the waterfall is indeed gone, I get exactly the same slime trail(ish) artifact in exactly the same spot in the second valley as I reported earlier.

@Metal_Slayer, it's been discussed before (and you have probably seen some of these discussions if you looked up the old topics here in the forums), and the main answer is that the less Freed∞m resembles D**m, the better. There has to be a certain degree of isomorphism (pardon my French) in the texture department for the sake of PWAD compatibility, but that's it. Personally, I quite like the non-demonic setting and art style of Freed∞m more than the original D**m. But regardless of individual preferences, I feel that it is generally the wrong approach to think of Freed∞m as some kind of D**m ersatz, instead of a separate game to be judged by its own merits. I also agree that the old assets from the previous releases have their value too, not in the least because of having this 90s D**m knockoff vibe that I find charming, and that they should be preserved and possibly polished. But, that's not because they resemble their vanilla counterparts more than the current versions, but because Freed∞m has existed in that state for a considerable period of time, and people have contributed original work on a bona fide basis, and that gives it value as a separate, unique game. With all that, there already exists a similar project called Satanic Infestation which claims to have the same goal of making IWAD content more "demonic" instead of aliens. There are a few unique art assets there, but the project has not really gotten very far. I strongly suggest that you abandon this idea, or keep it as your own personal thing (although if you have the commercial IWADs there's little practical reason to do that). Even if the legality of such "package" were more clear, it very certainly goes against the spirit of free software, which is what Freed∞m is all about as a FOSS project. If you want to cater to the interests of people who want to play D**m without paying, why not just buy them the game as a present if they can't afford it? (sorry, I had to say this)

You're right, the bishop does nothing. That's my level of chess proficiency, there's always one unsafe position I'll be completely unaware of until it's too late.

Regarding the possible title, I had this idea this morning that, if Raven had alliterative titles starting with an H, perhaps it would make sense to pick something starting with a B? Bösewicht -- English speakers may see a misspelled "witch" in this word, which could be a nice pun on Hexen; but the title is a bit generic Bosheit -- simple to spell, but people not familiar with German might be reading this as "bo-shite" or something; again, pretty generic when it comes to Googling For something more exotic, I took a dip into the Pennsylvanian Sumerian dictionary, and apparently bašmu means "a (mythical) snake; horned viper" in Akkadian.

I've been following the Freed∞m project for quite a while, and I have got the impression from previous discussions here that the priorities are as follows: being a libre, original game for the Doom engine first, PWAD compatibility second. It is furthermore my understanding that these priorities had changed at some point in the past, in part, because back in the early 2000s when the project was first conceived, obtaining a new copy of Doom was not as simple as it is today, so having a free counterpart was more of a crucial issue. As of today, the Freed∞m website describes the project as follows: The emergence of ID24 does not cancel Freed∞m's compatibility with any of the previous PWADs from the "back catalogue spanning three decades". Neither does it seem to me that the project's mission statement in any way implies that it necessarily should be compatible with any levels and mods created in the future, whatever they may be. That is, of course, purely my own interpretation, but I'd be interested to know what the project leaders/elders, @fraggle, @chungy and @Xindage would say on the matter. But, if Freed∞m is to go its own way, I'd say that doing something similar -- like creating a new episode and adding new monsters, but not making them a carbon copy of everything included in the ID24 standard -- would be a preferable approach to straightforwardly cloning the proprietary thing. Here's the opportunity to shine as a unique thing, not a copy of Doom. But again, even this does not seem very necessary to me -- although it's a venue probably worth considering sometime in the future. After all, if need be, the ID24 resource wad replacement could be entirely filled with placeholders (possibly taken from Freed∞m) and exist otherwise completely unrelated to Freed∞m in the first place.

That's what happens when you give Doom over to Bethesda.

Sounds nice! I like the idea of bringing in some Greek mythology vibes and designs into it (I know there's some Greek stuff in LQ too). If you played Will Rock, you know that Hades-styled underworld locations can work very well in an FPS. It would be neat to bring in at least the ice and flame levels from the first hub somewhere, although I have to confess that I'm generally not a fan of the first hub's design, although I appreciate the concept of elemental guardians as an idea. Winnowing Hall is a great opening level, but the rest falls short design-wise, in my opinion.

If an episode is going to be crowdsourced, I think it would also be a good idea to arrange levels thematically. I feel that Blasphemer lends itself very well for visual storytelling through maps, and I had this rough idea of how the story could progress: E1M1 starts with the protagonist arriving at a town that is overrun by unholy creatures. First attacked by harpies and then by ghouls, he fends them off with his magic staff and then finds his way into a building where the last survivor had barricaded themselves and fought off the invaders with the crossbow until being overrun. This is where you find the crossbow and some bolts. The Blasphemer then traces the monsters to the town's cathedral where the first encounter with a vampire or two can take place. This could be an entire level of its own, E1M2. The Dragon's Claw can be hidden on the roof or in the vaults perhaps. There is an underground passage in the vaults under the cathedral that takes you to the catacombs, E1M3. Many ghouls and some vampires here. You reach what looks like an ancient pagan temple hewn in the rock, with the first encounter with Grells (I'm so far sticking to the vanilla shareware arsenal and bestiary). This, again, could be its own separate level, E1M4. A teleporter from the temple could temporarily lead to someplace else, like a different dimension where the monsters come from, decorated using let's say stuff from the lava caverns episode. But that's just an idea. From the temple, you emerge into a cave and form there back to the surface. I'm not sure if the resources could support an outdoor level showing the Blasphemer travelling by road to a big walled city which is also overrun, E1M5. Reach the palace/castle -- would be nice to have the player entering via a drawbridge, if possible -- and fight more of the undead minions through the halls, courtyard, library and dungeons, if all can be packed into a single level, E1M6. The secret exit could lead to, I don't know, some more pagan ruins, but this time in the open air? I mean the stuff like broken pillars, half-sunken stone foundations and remains of walls, and something more intact towards the centre of the map, with perhaps some underground areas. I think a few Lovecraftian vibes linked to the origin of the monsters would be quite fitting (I remember that in Rats in the Walls, there was this idea of taking a secret passage from a family mansion to some ruins of a pre-Christian cult or something). Anyway, with the castle cleared, the Blasphemer finds clues to where to go next. Perhaps it can be hinted at that a wizard in the King's service was stupid or evil enough to play with the unholy energies and caused the invasion -- there can be a deserted wizard's tower/laboratory right in the castle level. Anyway, the path leads through a mountain river (E1M7) to a fortress at the top of a dormant volcano (E1M8) where the False Idols await. This is all a very rough sketch of how the story could go, but I suppose some decent maps could be built around this. Alas, my lack of mapping skills prevent me from trying this out myself.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think that Zauberer rings a bell for anyone, probably including many people who are aware of Freed∞m and/or Blasphemer. The project simply never took off, and except for the main menu title art, which can be replaced, there's nothing keeping this title. (I know there's a Zauberer page on Libre Game Wiki; but there's no game to play, and the page can be replaced.) I also personally feel that Zauberer sounds incredibly generic, both for those who know German and those who don't. I hesitate to suggest any alternative, but it also does not seem to me that simply using a German word, even of related semantics, is a good idea. Somehow I feel that Raven took the word Hexen not because of its German meaning (es gibt keine Hexen in Hexen), but because it sounded "cool" and begins with an H, like Heretic (note that the title Heretic also seems quite arbitrary when taken in the context of what's going on, and the in-game explanation of why Corvus is a "heretic" feels a bit contrived to me). So I quite support the name change, but also I think that it should be something unusual that pops at the top of search queries. Preferably, without any "did you mean freedom? showing results for freedom" prompts from Google, and no irrelevant results like a 100-volume ladies' romance novel or something. If this is going to be a Blasphemer tie-in (and there's likely no alternative, seeing as most resources will be inevitably borrowed from Blasphemer at this point), it would be helpful to have some guidelines concerning the plot and setting, which so far are very sketchy, AFAIK (apart from the protagonist being a half-demon). Ona different note, I would like to stress how helpful some assets could be from @Amuscaria's CC BY-SA Hell-Forged resources. We've already had those license discussions in the Blasphemer topic, but I feel that following the very strict approach (only 100% license-compatible assets allowed) will be an undue limitation at the stage when the project is in dire need of good placeholders. I've just looked at the text of both CC BY-SA and BSD-3-Clause, and I don't feel there is some fundamental contradiction that just precludes the use of CC BY-SA assets in any capacity. Also, @Cacowad's observation that BSD is primarily a software license, while Blasphemer and Zauberer contain mostly art and very little code (if you count the LANGUAGE lump and such), seems quite justified. There are also libre game projects that include art licensed under different terms, such as Wyrmsun, which does not seem to hurt these projects in any way -- a detailed credits file helps determine what art goes under which license.

Gonna ask another stupid question, then: if LoR does not use the ID24 standard, then what does use it? Except that the commercial port has it built in by default, and community ports are planning to adopt it, sometime in the future? Is there any pressing necessity to create a free counterpart of the ID24 resource file? Is there a need for Freed∞m to include this proposed resource file in its scope? It has been my impression that over the last decade at least, the general direction of Freed∞m's development was to distance itself from vanilla Doom, up to the point where PWAD compatibility was cited as a secondary, if still important, concern. I'll repeat what I said above: while the main IWADs can remain vanilla-compatible, any enhancement that Freed∞m may adopt can go into a different direction, like making its own unique selection of new monsters based on the attic and some other contributions (like the Grell which is currently replacing the Disciple in Blasphemer) and implement them via the MBF21 standard instead. Even more so since I've heard people say that the LoR content isn't much above community-created content. Perhaps this would even encourage mappers to create Freed∞m-specific content just for the game. Of course, this does not preclude any enhancements such as creating Freed∞m counterparts of unused/beta textures and so on.

Yes, I looked up the Savegame buffer overrun message, it's because there are too many entities on the map. Also when you emerge from the catacombs into the open cemetery part, the frame rate drops notably in Heretic128. Basically, I think that the majority of maps from Blasphemous Experiments are not suitable for the DOS version because they're too detailed. Yet I think it would be very nice to have a vanilla-compatible version (or at least limit-removing that can run in DOSBox without issues or lags) of at least E1 to make a viable DOS version of Blasphemer.

Cool, thanks for the explanation!

Was that a game of Brutal Chess? The poor White King has nowhere to go :-/ (if only he wasn't blocked by his own Bishop)

After reading that topic @Ferk linked to, I have a lingering impression that the entire situation is so outlandish to be borderline absurd. The way @Wereknight was apparently intending to control how the assets could be used by third parties was not only contrary to any free license, but also completely impractical to implement. Moreover, by that time @Wereknight's assets indeed had been present in the IWADs for a while (including in Blasphemer, for a while), so there's already no telling how may people might have (or will have) reused them somewhere by just following these projects' licenses. After some thought, I'm gonna ask the stupid question here: are the new standards going to be mandatory in the ports? I mean, if they're optional, Freed∞m in its current state still perfectly supports 30+ years of community content, plus anything created going forward that will not use the new extra features. It is not to say that a free equivalent should not be developed, but it does not seem like a pressing necessity to create the free equivalent right now, as it seems to me. (Also, is there a possibility that this act might draw unnecessary attention to the project from the powers that be?) On the other hand, perhaps the emergence of the new Doom standards present the perfect opportunity for a point of divergence which will make Freed∞m more unique and different from its counterpart, which is clearly a major development goal? As far as I understand it, the community MBF21 standards also allow to add new monsters, so perhaps, instead of outright mimicking what id did, Freed∞m should go its own way and expand vanilla features based on that? This would still retain compatibility with vanilla and pre-ID24 content out there while giving the game a unique flavour of its own. Much like Doom, Freed∞m has its own share of unused or replaced monsters -- even more so than Doom, actually -- so at least some of those could make a comeback, or a first appearance like the Lavamander, as the expanded roster which is not a copy of the LoR additions. I think that this is a venue worth considering.

@flamepanther, welcome to the forums! I presume you the creator of the original covers that @SecularSteve posted, right? If so, I was wondering, does GPL on the covers refer to the license? 'Cause it's only the Doom engine that is GPL'd, Freed∞m data is BSD-3-Clause. (If GPL means something else, please disregard.)

Well, I'm sorta aware of this situation, but that art I mentioned was explicitly made for and pretty much contributed to the project. Also it is not clear to me from that discussion on GitHub if Freed∞m project leaders indeed approved the removal of all of @Wereknight's assets upon request after all. I've looked through the other discussion you've linked to, which appears to be what caused the entire problem in the first place. It appears that @Wereknight indeed might have not understood the implications of contributing to Freed∞m under the project's license. Which is quite sad, really, but then perhaps it would be a better idea to steer clear of those assets. Bummer.