eharper256

Keep me as is.

Mmm, I looked into 4 weeks in SLADE, and it seems that there is indeed an ACS script on Hub 2 boss that is specifically looking for "Bishop": x = monstercount(ThingCountName("Bishop",0)); Walpurgis does indeed replace them with "BishopWalp" or "Cardinal" (if the elite version spawns) so that may cause issues~ I specifically patch out vanilla Hexen doing similar things to this with ZScript solutions, but that protection doesn't extend to custom scripts. It's generally better to count by other means than as ACS ThingCountName will break with any mod that replaces monsters in some way (also the case with Doom levels that use it or similar functions, though I specifically support Tag666 type replacements in Walpurgis as again, they are used by Vanilla Doom and Heretic). Counting by TID should also work fine as that is specifically passed on.

Pretty late reply as I rarely scour this side of the forum. For Hexen it's a pretty short list; Penumbra, Talparun, 4 Weeks of Pain, and the Scourge of Viscerus, as well as the Cyrgoth series. Obviously, as shameless promotion, if you fancy upgraded Hexen gameplay that also works with Doom and Heretic, check out my mod, Walpurgis: Furthemore, I also believe UnknDoomer did a playlist in a similar fashion. There are some reviews and videos in this linked topic and some on his older topics.

As an aside; when run with mods, this causes the start room to be flooded with Nazi's which turn into pots and chandeliers on death (lol).

New video! Autumn has just left us, but even so, a new Bri wad is something I'll usually take a look at. As always, they look great and flow well, and this one is extra-intense and quite fast paced. This video is covering the first three levels of Fallen Leaves. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a smart way to integrate Myrmidon into the title of the mapset for the video (lol), but ah well. And picking Cluster Hammers as my upgrade was a really good choice for this level with its packed mobs. I am fully recovered now following my previous hospital stay, so I will be commencing consolidation on what I want to see in Walpurgis 0.98. I think we have all the upgrades we could need in 0.97 and we're approaching what I would consider feature-complete. I expect the road to 1.0 to probably add Slot-3 alternative weapons and perhaps a few inventory tweaks. You can get this mapset here:

I usually get around to capping a vid for your levels, so here we are with maps 1-3, played with Walpurgis: Tough, but quick and punchy maps (picking Cluster Hammers as my Secondary Hammer upgrade really helped me out with how dense enemies were here lol). As always with your stuff, looks great and flows well too, so nothing to complain about, and Autumn is always my favourite season and aesthetic to see in levels for games.

I would say both to an extent. Flow is always a super-tricky thing to get right in level design but its what makes a decent level great; that constant feeling of progression. If you just press a switch and nothing appears to happen, that is usually discouraging for a player and often involves a wander around or a minimap moment; always have things open up which you can see or have monsters appear from a direction you previously came from or at least have the sound of a platform moving close-by that the player can follow. Holding Keys ties into that feeling of progression ("Now I have a Red Key, I can progress more"). Even if all you do is make the section where it normally auto-raises have a bank of key switches for the player to press to raise the stairs, that will help. People like collecting and pressing things; heck its the whole premise behind arcade gambling machines (and looter shooters, and gacha games which descend from that same father). If you really want the green goop as a stylistic choice, then yes, that's a good idea to start the player in it. If you're going to challenge well known staples, announce it up front.

Big thanks to UnknDoomer for covering Walp as the Druid with Penumbra and Myrmidon in Shadows of Chronos, some of those rare good Hexen megawads: Check out their thread here:

I played it; its a thing. Architecture wise its very solid; it's clear you've spent a long time making sure every section looks decent. On HMP, I got the feeling that HMP was UV; it's pretty tough for HMP. Though enemy placement is itself fine enough. However; it's lacking flow- I often got the impression that it feels like lots and lots of fights strung together haphazardly; when I wasn't embroiled in more archies and doots trying to spoil my day, I often spent ages wondering around lost, looking for the next switch to open up the level; often to randomly stumble upon another ambush which was indeed the "intended" progression but wasn't clear that it was supposed to be so. Most of this down to the rather circular, arena-ish nature of many of the areas; and the fact that switches don't signal what they do in most cases- you need more like that one key pickup that instantly opens a door behind the bars in front of you, that was pretty good. Also, I would change out all the nukage for water or that brown sludge; Doom players are typically trained to assume green will be damaging. I spent a while looking for a suit before I dipped my toe in to test it out to find it wasn't damaging. I also see you've done something odd with the keys that means they don't get picked up and instead trigger parts of the level, which will definately weird some people out. Still, with a few tweaks to progression, I can see this being a solid level.

New video! Been a while since I've done a Heretic map again, so here we are. This is a single large map called "The Great Hall" by thebiomage. Very pretty map with lots of cool detailing; really making good use of those stock textures, and with a chunk of interesting encounter setups as well. I set myself up for hell apparently in the secret area; which was an optional super-hard set of waves, the final one of which killed me 10 times (you only see the first death in the video, I cropped out the others with a subtitle explaining it, and eventually just god-moded that small specific section since I couldn't escape this either). This video was also apparently cursed and made Vegas kill my system twice whilst attempting to render it, so I had to slap together pieces in AviDemux instead. Fun times. You can get this map here:

Here's a video for you of me playing in Walpurgis: Very pretty map with lots of cool detailing; really making good use of those stock textures, and with a chunk of interesting encounter setups as well. The final wave of the secret arena encounter just flat out murdered me 10 times before I decided to nope it and just god-mode that specific part (you only see the first of those deaths in the video, but there were alot). This is partly Walpurgis making that part super hard since it replaces Nitrogolem ghosts with Jaegars: near-instant arrow hits from all sides and lava pools getting in the way is not something our poor Magister can deal with too well without having his 3rd/4th weapon, especially as in this case the previous waves had drained all my Quartz, there was not much armour around, and Jaegar's are tough enough to resist 1 hit from a proximity flechette. Even so, I imagine it to be obnoxious in Vanilla too if you're having to dodge a load of homing skulls with lava getting in the way, so maybe tone that down slightly? This video was also apparently cursed and made Vegas kill my system twice whilst attempting to render it, so I had to slap together pieces in AviDemux instead. Fun times. Other than that, though, I really enjoyed it overall. No idea where the other secrets were though lol.

Yep, its Food Poisoning cranked up to over 9000; making you run to the toilet 3 times an hour and get dehydrated and delirious since you can't take in enough fluids to cover the outgoings. Not a fun time, to be sure. But on the mend now.

Just spent the last 5 days in Hospital. Campylobacteriosis is no joke when you're immunosuppressed like I am. Strangely enough, this means no Walp work has been done for awhile and I think I still need more recovery time. Even so, I hope you're all enjoying 0.97 as it stands.

You can get the PLAYPAL here, and download it as another image to keep on a seperate tab or layer: https://doomwiki.org/wiki/File:Doompal.png As Doom is VGA at heart, you are restricted to those colours. I believe you use 255's pink for transparent but don't quote me on that. You should be able to export the original iwad one with SLADE as well if preferred. I use an old version of Photoshop CS6 I got on a big work discount, so I can't give you much advice on Paint.net though I'm afraid. Keeping Vanilla compatibility is definately super-hard-mode with mods, as there are many, many restrictions, but good luck.

For Megawads, my top ones include Whispers of Satan, Chainworm Kommando, 2048 Unleashed, Overboard, and Zone 400 to start with. And of course, here's also some shameless promotion for my mod Walpurgis:

Are you modding for GZDoom? If yes, then just forget the Doom Palette and use True-Colour PNG's. Otherwise, basically, you'll notice transparent pixels don't work and you can't use them. The old palette does not store Alpha data. So you'll have to photoshop something manually yourself. There are no big shortcuts in sprite-work like this, sadly. Some of the sprites I've made for Walpurgis have taken an hour or more per frame, and that is fairly normal. The eraser tool, set to block format, whilst zoomed into 400% with a 1-pixel grid and a optionally, a mask layer, are your friends.

New Walpurgis Trailer!

Thanks for the mention! Incidently, there's a new trailer today:

Brand new 2022 Trailer! The old one was getting a bit out of date (it was originally for 0.92 which seems an age ago!) so it was time I refreshed it. Hope you like it!

Walpurgis 0.97 is now out with branched upgrade paths (giving it +36 new unique weapon upgrades for a total of 80!), and also a small patch to work with Elementalism:

There are NO obvious problems with Walpurgis 0.97 and the new GZDoom 4.9.0 (switching to Portable, in my case, I prefer the ini in the root) that I can see from a quick test. But if you choose to upgrade to that, and you notice something off that could require a hotfix, I'd appreciate it greatly if you report it.

There is also Walpurgis, if you're interested. Much less RPG focused than WoC, but I do have a Lightbringer with upgrades, and a few similar/inspired by Hexen II weapons (Baselard, Axe Throw etc.). Ye olde Trailer:

As I made the above patch and hadn't actually got around to playing Elementalism yet, I took it out for a spin with the new Walpurgis 0.97 patch: It's a gorgeous level-set (and I only the cover the first two levels of Earth here; the other hubs are equally amazing looking!) but I guess that's to be expected of the Hellforge regulars. And of course, the elemental theme goes really well with the Walp characters too! I'm not entirely sure if jumping for the last part of the second level was the intended solution or if jumping is actually allowed normally, but I couldn't see what else to do to get to those switches and I did get a majority of the kills so I can't have missed a big chunk of the level or anything. All's well that ends well.

As I made the above patch and hadn't actually got around to playing Elementalism yet, I took it out for a spin with the new Walpurgis 0.97 version: It's a gorgeous level-set (and I only the cover the first two levels of Earth here; the other hubs are equally amazing looking!) but I guess that's to be expected of the Hellforge regulars. And of course, the elemental theme goes really well with the Walp characters too! I'm not entirely sure if jumping for the last part of the second level was the intended solution or if jumping is actually allowed normally, but I couldn't see what else to do to get to those switches and I did get a majority of the kills so I can't have missed a big chunk of the level or anything. All's well that ends well.

Thanks for checking it out, and glad that's your opinion since that was one of the goals of the mod. Walpurgis specific maps are entirely possible, it has DoomEd numbers if you load it as a resource in Ultimate Doom Builder or what-not. Though of course, any Doom/Heretic/Hexen map will work fine too.