ENEMY!!!

Hoping to get a fair amount of mapping done over the Christmas period when I'll have a fair amount of time off work.

I've been dithering around deciding on what mod base and game to map for over the past year (oscillating between Doom and Quake, and I had a long stint of experimentation with K8Vavoom).  In the end I've gone back to a gameplay mod I was developing based on Eriguns back in early 2021, which commits me to GZDoom as the mod relies heavily on ZScript and also incorporates Nashgore and Nash's Doom 3-style custom PDA system.  The main drawback of GZDoom for me is the lack of horizontally moving platforms, but K8Vavoom lacks support for quite a few GZDoom features and Quake's bestiary doesn't appeal to me as much (plus in Quake mapping it's harder to map efficiently without blocking out areas beforehand, which I don't enjoy doing).  Thus, there is no perfect engine for what I'm going for, which makes it a tricky decision, so I just have to be decisive.

What's remaining constant is that I'm intending to chiefly use Ben "Makkon" Hale's Quake textures for these maps, with a bit of backup from OTEX and/or FoxTex (especially for liquids).  Although I've ultimately decided to create my planned maps for Doom rather than Quake, I've started enjoying playing Quake as much as Doom in recent months and I keep a close eye on the Quake Mapping Discord and their jams.  My failed attempts at Quake mapping have also helped me to appreciate how to use the Makkon textures effectively (especially the trims, which were a new concept to me when I first encountered them, but they've grown in popularity recently, I've seen a number of trims in FoxTex as well).

Yay, another year of Doom!  The Cacowards are top notch as always, and the winners are all very deserving of their awards, so congrats to them ^_^

For me, I did a lot more with Doom than I normally do this past year.  Oops! All Greyboxes!  was released, as was The Unending and Freaky Panties IV.  Then I also finally finished up my in-development-for-25-years megawad Kill.  That was something I had been working on consistently in small increments here and there.  Thanks to a friend poking me to finally finish it ^_^

Of course I also found Wadazine.  That place has become a home for me, and I am SOOOO thankful to be there.  I love working with everyone there, especially on the Wadazine Master Collection series, which will see FOUR releases this year!  Insane.  Those maps are always a blast to play and putting together the resource packs is always fun.  And WMC means another four maps from me - again, a lot more with Doom than normal XD  So yeah, check out WMC01, WMC02, WMC03, and WMC04 once it's released very, very soon.

This month I'm having to take an extended break from Doom due to some family health issues.  Not mine, but a close family member will be having a major surgery and has been needing my help during the lead up, and will need more help afterward.

The Eschatology series will see its first release next year for sure.  I'm still turning it into a series of individual maps instead of more episodic releases, but I did decide to go ahead and keep the hub idea for the first release just because spliting up my development tree was too much work for too little gain.  Each map will just be added to that as I go, then.  Kind of a compromise between what I originally intended (larger project with packs of 4-5 maps released once every year or two) and what I mentioned in my last major status update (all concise individual maps released as they're finished, each one a small project).

Speaking of "development trees", I seem to have standardized how I manage/structure my projects.  I need to do a write-up on that sometime, because having a set structure has really made it easy for me to spin up a new project quickly.  Kinda along the lines of the practice of having "src" and "doc" folders together with a Makefile/configure script for programming projects.  Things like reusable ACS libraries for common things I do in every map, a standard set of folders and tools, consistent versioning rules, that sort of thing.  Call it an early initial foray into "Wad Engineering" (like Software Engineering), if you will.  Just a concept I'm tinkering with that I think may help others.

Anyway, happy birthday to Doom!  Go eat some cake.

PS: Don't forget to join my Matrix server.