Impie

Last night I painstakingly assembled my three Doom novellas into a trade paperback on lulu.com, so's I could have a print version on my shelf. The book is available only to those I send the link to, and it's set so the price only covers the cost of printing (plus whatever shipping methods the buyer chooses). I was curious if the Doomworld community would want their own copies since the stories were well-received here when I originally posted them (I think with standard ground mail the book cost about $10). If so, I'll post the link here for anyone who wants one for their shelf. I'm gonna inspect my copy first, though, to make sure they didn't fuck it up (it'll be here in about 15 business days). EDIT: Third Edition available here. Hopefully the goddamned page number issue has been solved this time. If the mods aren't cool with it, I'll take down the link and post photos when it shows up instead. The cover was sorta thrown together with whatever I could find so it wouldn't look too generic (formatting the document correctly was a hundred hells of agony, however).

Thanks guys. Also if anyone does get the game built and plays a few missions, please do share a play-by-play or at least general impressions and feedback. It'd help me a lot!

I'm posting the current build here for anyone who wants to try building and playing it themselves. I hope someone is able to in some capacity, even though this game is a craft project in itself. RULES COMPONENTS "SHADOW OVER TITAN" MISSION MODULE Thanks to everyone who stopped in and left encouraging comments!

Most of them seem kind of amateurish compared to the originals, but that undead caco looks exceptional. I'd like to see you play with that concept more.

Thanks for the kind words fellas! Each mission has a map with the full layout, marking where everything first appears (monsters, furniture, elevation levels, etc), and labelling any areas with important flavortext or events. For simpler maps, the Mastermind can "reveal" each sector as the Doomers discover it. For more complex maps, he's advised to build the entire layout ahead of time, but without placing monsters or furniture until they enter the Doomers' line of sight. The latter can work for every mission: the Doomers might have a basic floorplan of the area, but no idea what's lurking in the halls, nor where the Exit is. The trouble I'm having right now is a decent map format that's easy to read and easy for others to use, both when running the game and when making their own maps.

I'm still tweaking the rules and mechanics, but if they work consistently and the game is fun, I can probably do a "Hell On Earth" expansion adding Doom II stuff. I think I solved the darkness issue: turns out the darkness is fine, and it's just that the specters were too tough. I'm making it so they're tougher to hit in the dark, but in the light you see them fine...but they also don't have to reveal themselves when they enter a Doomer's line of sight, unless the Mastermind makes them reveal with an action, or a Doomer accidentally shoots or bumps into one. So you can enter a room with a couple of monsters, kill them all, then move in to scan for goodies, thinking you've secured it...only to have three specters jump you. I did have a little something in the rulebook about the darkness effect, stating that logical exceptions can be made. For example, Lost Souls are easy to spot in the dark and no harder to hit than in the light, because they're constantly on fire. Tough part of this project is balancing it so that the basic rules are concrete like a board game, but the players can still improvise like with an rpg, and invent or add things on the fly.

Thanks man! I wonder if you have any thoughts on the darkness mechanic dilemma I posted about over at Boardgame Geek.

I did a playtest with the most recent rules and components. I was planning to do a video play-by-play, but I'd rather wait 'til my fancy dice and piece stands come in. This post is IMAGE-HEAVY, so don't expand if your browser can't handle lots o' pics.

In Doom 2, yes. Because Doom 2 introduces tough support critters and new boss critters, which is why the super shotgun was introduced as well. For the foot soldiers, though, it's ideal: the spread is packed tight enough, and the pellets are numerous enough, to kill any of them in 1-2 shots at close- to mid-range. Even with tougher monsters it's useful, because it usually fires just fast enough to keep MOST of them from getting a shot off (not as effectively as the chaingun, but still). It's considered the best because it's got the best balance in firepower, firing rate, availability, and ammo abundance. So no, not overrated. Really no weapon in Doom or Doom 2 is: they all serve a useful purpose. And I could go on for days about Doom 3's mostly useless arsenal, but the shotgun is easily the worst. You can shoot a monster at point blank and STILL completely miss (happened to me more than once). I don't know why they bothered.

Well, part of the project's purpose was to make a cool Doom boardgame at a fraction of the cost of the ACTUAL Doom boardgame. As cool as the miniatures would be, they'd run me up a lot of dough... Messed around with map design again: I also linked Romero and Peterson to the photos. Figured they'd get a kick out of them.

I much prefer HeroQuest, myself. Got a better shot of an elevated area from tonight's playtest. Stacking 'em three high allows a single stair tile to make it obvious how to get up and down. I tried writing the improvised mission I did into a proper module for testing. Bad news is the one game took at least two hours. But this time two space marines made it out alive.

It could, but it was my blunder this time. If you guys are cool with your copies as they are, then I won't worry about it. Thanks for showing enough interest to buy a copy, fellas! Hope Coopersville enjoys them especially, since he hasn't read them yet.

Keeps crashing and corrupting my save when I save my game on the second map (bridges, missile cannons, snowy landscape, etc). I believe it was the latest version of the mod, and I don't think the fault was with the dev build of gzdoom I was using: I'm using the same gzdoom build to play Hocus Pocus Doom, and it doesn't crash at all.

It's no hassle, but thanks man. Apparently when I re-did the page numbers it treated the first book as one thing, and the other two books as a separate thing, so i had to insert page numbers TWICE to cover the entire book. But deleting one page number would delete them all. I don't get it.

UGH, thanks for pointing that out. The pdf looked normal. EDIT: Or not. Just a blunder on my part turns out. This is so fucking infuriating. You see why I called it a formatting nightmare... GreyGhost, Average, and Coopersville, PM me your shipping addresses and I'll send you a fixed version myself.

Lulu is such a polite lass...

I'm always interested in doom wad lists...but the Golden Souls link is dead....

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/Screenshot_Hacx_20140821_185435_zpsb045f2a6.png http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/Screenshot_Hacx_20140821_185555_zps0c4a4cef.png http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/Screenshot_Hacx_20140821_185645_zps98a6010d.png http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/Screenshot_Hacx_20140821_185714_zpsad96251e.png http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/Screenshot_Hacx_20140821_185922_zps240bc8cf.png Here's a Hacx map i've been toying with off and on. I wanted to do a small Japan-themed map set, but I wasn't sure where to go with it, so this was the only one I managed to finish. It's based very loosely on the Japanese Friendship Garden here in Arizona. Get it here. For Hacx 1.2 (Boom compatible).

Thanks guys. Yeah, the garden is here in phoenix and the website has some beautiful photos. I might upload to idgames if I can at least make it into a three-map set. Had it in mind to do a story/overarching theme along the lines of 70's chanbara flicks meets blade runner, and even do a custom title graphic, but it just hasn't come together yet.

There might be a link for a free downloadable version on the lulu page, but I could be wrong.

It just came in today. Here's a few photos. http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/IMG_0175_zps44afacf8.jpg http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/IMG_0176_zpsd5f7a07f.jpg http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/IMG_0177_zpsa50ca775.jpg http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/IMG_0179_zps57c6f41b.jpg The paper is pretty nice quality, and the page numbering came out right, which is a relief. I'm trying to figure out how to do a second edition so the page numbers will be centered, but it probably isnt a big deal.

I just used the master levels background pattern from Jdoom, or some variation of it. Wasn't sure who made it, but I can put their name on a second edition. It's nothing really special to look at, apart from using the Doomguy's status bar face for the author photo as a humorous touch. It'd be about two weeks before it gets here so I think I'll just post the link anyway (first post).

I have trouble with these when designing maps in Doom Builder 2 and often wonder what I'm doing wrong. Texture Alignment: When I, say, create a window, I'm only able to align the upper or lower linedef with the surrounding linedefs. One always remains misaligned unless I make the window the same size as the wall texture itself (i.e. 128x128 window on a wall of 128x128 textures). Is this normal? or is there a DB2 function I've overlooked? Sector Glows +1 (sector special effect): Never understood how to make this work at all. Do I have to make the sector brightness a specific value?

It never even occurred to me that both could be toggled at the same time... I really wish the help file mentioned this. If it does, I'll be damned if I know where to find it... Thanks guys!

Showing Heretic a little love with a modest-sized cavern map. Main opposition is weredragons, gargoyles, and lots of painful fluids, with some disciples, sabreclaws, and undead critters acting as support. Get it here. In ancient Scandinavia, the Ravendark Cult has assembled in their cavernous keep: there they shall awaken the legendary Midgard Serpent and command it to do their bidding, with the help of a forbidden tome that is locked away in the festering heart of the stronghold. A clever adventurer would make clever use of the cult's trove of stolen artifacts, in order to relieve them of their precious summoning book. http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/doomdragonscreenie1_zpsa8087697.png http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/doomdragonscreenie4_zps2692d593.png http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/doomdragonscreenie5_zps857e98ca.png http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/doomdragonscreenie6_zps0ce09b07.png http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a289/5thman/doomdragonscreenie7_zpsb4eb7234.png