FoH's WONDERLAND project (V1.0 Released, player testers needed)

Images:
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18

MAPSET
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MAP01 - Recall
MAP02 - Falling
MAP03 - Dreamscape
MAP04 - Brain Core
MAP05 - Essence of Fear
MAP06 - Nightmare

DOWNLOAD V1.0 HERE!
DOWNLOAD BETA HERE!
DOWNLOAD ALPHA HERE!
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*UPDATE 12/03/2011*
Beta finally released. I am in desperate need of play tester's at this point! Here is a quicky strategy guide:
MAP01- its trap laden, so look for clues as to what is going to happen. Make sure to clear out the enemies so they don't get in the way later.
MAP02- Run through the first part and collect as much as you can. Rocket launcher will be most handy here. You'll need balls and brawn for the middle stage encounter.
MAP03- Utilize skill and finesse here. Avoid falling anywhere, or you will be screwed in some way or another.
MAP04- Take things 1 at a time and you should be fine here. Always backtrack to pick up extra supplies. Seek out the four braincore switches and activate them to reveal the cores. Destroy them all and collect the red key. Multiple paths to take.
MAP05- Beat the level before the song depresses you to death. Seriously though, its an endurance slaughter map level. Nuff said.
MAP06- Mega super cool final boss level. Follow the glowing lava trail to the end where you will find the switch to end the nightmare.

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*UPDATE 11/21/2011*
I'll have to change my wording from the previous post. As it stands now, Wonderland alpha is zdoom compatible ONLY. It is still way to buggy under any other port. So if you want to get the most out my alpha, i recommend zdoom 2.5. Yup, good ol' software renderer is what I tested this with mainly. Sorry G L 'ers.

*REMOVED*

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*UPDATE 11/12/2011*
Here is the link to Wonderland alpha. It's a limit removing vanilla map for DOOM2. I'm posting it now because I don't have time anymore to work on it as much.

Some things worth mentioning:
-MAP06 ran a bit choppy on my modern comp in the beginning. It should clear up as you go deeper into the stage.
-MAP05 may be impossible towards the end, so feel free to idkfa.
-Difficulty settings studiously implemented on MAP01-MAP06, so tone it down if your feeling to young to die : ).
-MAP06's ending is underdeveloped, but totally passable.
-Yes I know, Textures are misaligned everywhere. Will fix in beta.


Help make this the perfect wad, so play test and comment here. Cheers!
*****************************************************************
*OLD*
Wonderland is a 6 map project that is just about wrapped up. I just need to polish it up a little before going alpha. For this mapset, my aim was to offer up short yet challenging levels while also pushing vanilla techniques to their extreme. Wonderland will be released within a week, so look forward to it or else...

(also look foward to Fight On!. Its getting worked on too!)

Looking good. A small bit of randomness but still looks good. Keep it up! :P

Looks interesting.

pic6 looks especially cool. will definitely play this when it releases.

Looking good. A small bit of randomness but still looks good. Keep it up! :P

I hope the randomness comes off as refreshing with each new stage you enter. Also I feel it complements that abstract surreal vibe I am trying to create along with the music tracks I've chosen for the project.

Thanks everyone for the comments. I expect to have this out by Friday or Saturday at the very latest!

Looks like a fun mapset to play.

Does this have anything to do with Alice in Wonderland or the American Mcgee games?

*puh*, I was afraid this was going to be something like all those hentai wads out there

Nightmare Doom said:

Does this have anything to do with Alice in Wonderland or the American Mcgee games?

Yeah, I admit it does. When I thought up of the title, I was thinking of someone stuck in their own hellish dreamworld and that's what inspired my design for all my maps.

D_GARG:
*puh*, I was afraid this was going to be something like all those hentai wads out there

cha, you wish brother. But alas no. Maybe I'll sneak some of it in for the sake of tastelessness... on second thought naaah.

Hi,

Alpha released. Go up top to download or read my update if you'd like.

Thanks!

Glad to see dling is happening on my alpha. I would like to hear from people too to see what they thought. Any play testers down for it?

Map 1: Some death-traps occur without warning. 2 come to mind.
Map 2: I might have missed it but is there a solution to the telemaze?
Map 4: Very easy to get lost.
Map 5: Very Laggy on a 2011 Computer. Lag makes map unplayable.
Map 6: Extremely laggy, way too many darned torches. Also perhaps extending the Icon's reach from the pyramid to the rest of the level (use scripting here to spawn boss targets at areas where players are and kill some of them as the player advances throughout the level). I also think the final battlefield should be made bigger.

Hmm lots of lag issues eh? Mind posting comp specs and the port you were using so I can get a reference point.

I'm running on a core 2 E5200, ATI 4XXX series vid, and 4GB of memory with zdoom v2.5 and the only issues I get is with the beginning of MAP06, and that's minimal.

Thanks for the insightful comments Pure. I'd like to get your thoughts on some things:
MAP01: i'm curious as to which death traps you are referring to? the ending one or the mysterious door that opens as you approach it? The former had run drawn on the ground 3 times and the ladder is just a pure classic!
MAP02: I wasn't sure if the tele maze was simplified enough as I was developing it. I had already reduced it down to half it size. This part ill make better.
MAP03: Any thoughts on this?
MAP04: were you able to figure out how to beat the stage?
MAP05: It's a shame you weren't able to run this one. I thought it offered some decent gameplay.
MAP06: Well this is vanilla wad, so I can't use any scripting here. I intended to make the level linear without any backtracking, so spawning monsters in the back would have been pointless. Will consider expanding the ending though.

On a side note, I got a technical question. What degrades performance more, sector count,sector size, neither, or something else?

I tried to play this with glboom+ cause you said it was a vanilla limit removing port. Well... it works in glboom, but you havn't assigned tags properly so lifts and doors won't work. The starting rooms in both map 1 and 2 have a "gr" tag to open the doors that lead out of the starting rooms. But you havn't tagged the linedef nor the sector, so nothing will happen when you shoot the door.

And the lag the other guy was talking about is probably port-based. The amount of torches are slowing some ports down, but glboom+ handles it without any lag at all.

EDIT: Delete this post please. I can't seem to be able to delete it myself.

fiend-o-hell said:

Hmm lots of lag issues eh? Mind posting comp specs and the port you were using so I can get a reference point.

I'm running on a core 2 E5200, ATI 4XXX series vid, and 4GB of memory with zdoom v2.5 and the only issues I get is with the beginning of MAP06, and that's minimal.

Thanks for the insightful comments Pure. I'd like to get your thoughts on some things:
MAP01: i'm curious as to which death traps you are referring to? the ending one or the mysterious door that opens as you approach it? The former had run drawn on the ground 3 times and the ladder is just a pure classic!
MAP02: I wasn't sure if the tele maze was simplified enough as I was developing it. I had already reduced it down to half it size. This part ill make better.
MAP03: Any thoughts on this?
MAP04: were you able to figure out how to beat the stage?
MAP05: It's a shame you weren't able to run this one. I thought it offered some decent gameplay.
MAP06: Well this is vanilla wad, so I can't use any scripting here. I intended to make the level linear without any backtracking, so spawning monsters in the back would have been pointless. Will consider expanding the ending though.

On a side note, I got a technical question. What degrades performance more, sector count,sector size, neither, or something else?

Map 1: Chainsaw Trap.
Map 3: Nope.
Map 4: If you include Jumping (non-Vanilla), then yes.
Map 5: Is a port thing. Works better with ZDoom, but sucks on my main port, GZDoom.
Map 6: See Map 5 about lag. Regarding the spawning, the monster spawner would activate in the beginning (or first battle), and spawn monsters throughout the whole level. The player would have to battle the originals plus new spawns as he fights his way through the level. Perhaps adding a monster spawner at each battlepoint works?

I use an ASUS that is 8 GB RAM plus i7 2.2 GZ, with NVIDIA GeForce 6T 540M card.

dannebubinga said:

I tried to play this with glboom+ cause you said it was a vanilla limit removing port. Well... it works in glboom, but you havn't assigned tags properly so lifts and doors won't work. The starting rooms in both map 1 and 2 have a "gr" tag to open the doors that lead out of the starting rooms. But you havn't tagged the linedef nor the sector, so nothing will happen when you shoot the door.

And the lag the other guy was talking about is probably port-based. The amount of torches are slowing some ports down, but glboom+ handles it without any lag at all.

Ok, I went ahead and tested my alpha using the latest versions of other ports under default settings. Here is what I found:

*[gl/pr]boom*
-non tagged door sectors activated by G don't work in this port. This is new to me. What other types have be fixed here?
-Voodoo doll mechanics work differently from zdoom. The copy does not share the same life as the player.
-Barrel explosion traps don't work right
-I think i'm gonna need testers specifically for this port to scope out bugs. If they find something that seems off, run it in zdoom to get a better picture of what should happen. I'll Start a test list above :).

*GZDOOM*
-Under default settings, all levels ran fine on my rig. I was even able to run this fast without to much trouble on maxed 1024x768 res(my max) and maxed settings.
- Again, traps were screwy. Most notably MAP01 barrel explosion trap. It executed the same as in the other ports, so its definitely something I'm gonna mess around with.

*DOOMSDAY (aka jdoom)*
-Some tracks sounded screwy. Could be settings I have to adjust.
-MAP05 and 06 ran super choppy under OpenGL and Direct3D mode.

*EDGE*
-Music from lumps won't play. Dunno why. I know next to nothing about designing for this port.

*Risen3D*
-Same trap problems as the others.

I think I covered all the main stream ports. I'm sure if I get all the bugs sorted out in prboom, it should work fine with the rest. If you would like me add better support for any other port I have or have not mentioned above, I'd be glad to do it as long as I can get people to play test it.

Pure Hellspawn said:

Map 6: See Map 5 about lag. Regarding the spawning, the monster spawner would activate in the beginning (or first battle), and spawn monsters throughout the whole level. The player would have to battle the originals plus new spawns as he fights his way through the level. Perhaps adding a monster spawner at each battlepoint works?

I use an ASUS that is 8 GB RAM plus i7 2.2 GZ, with NVIDIA GeForce 6T 540M card.

I'm liking that idea actually for MAP06. I'll see how I can implement it in.

And your rig is beefer than mine. Dunno why it chugs for you dude. Driver's issue maybe?


****UPDATE 10/21/11 POSTED ABOVE***

I don't understand why you kill the player for being curious in the starting room in map01. After being killed cheaply like that, I would never step into a secret room again.

If you're going for a limit removing vanilla wad, prboom+ is IDEAL for testing. You shouldn't really bother testing with gzdoom because it fixes errors for you (kind of). But that's just my opinion. You do it the way you want it.

dannebubinga said:

I don't understand why you kill the player for being curious in the starting room in map01. After being killed cheaply like that, I would never step into a secret room again.

If you're going for a limit removing vanilla wad, prboom+ is IDEAL for testing. You shouldn't really bother testing with gzdoom because it fixes errors for you (kind of). But that's just my opinion. You do it the way you want it.

Haha, I'm sadistical that way. But no, that was the intent. The rest of the level has the best secrets in the wad. That passageway obviously leads nowhere, but I'll add something to warn the player beforehand.

And I agree with you completely on using prboom for vanilla testing. Kinda shot myself in the foot there. Oh well, it is what it is now (a vanilla zdoom map). I'll make it work with as many ports as possible of course.

Well, it feels like this project is coming to a close. I have released a tremendously revised version of Wonderland in beta form ready for the good public to play test. I have updated the images section above to showcase the progress of my work. It's by no means finished, but its certainly no longer the rough stock that it was in the alpha. You may download above or below! Also read up on the the brief strategy guide I wrote above.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Change Log:
-General-
1. Fully tested in PrBoom. Should run on all other limit removing ports.
2. Added COOP compatibility
3. Dramatically enhanced visuals across the board.
4. All maps now fully playable from beginning to end. No cheating necessary.
5. Improved balance

-:MAP01:-
-Fixed non-opening doors triggered by weapon
-Fixed Barrel Trap
-Added more encounters and variety
-Extra secrets

-:MAP02:-
-Changed starting area
-added secrets
-streamlined the progression
-streamlined tele puzzle
-improved major middle game encounter

-:MAP03:-
-Added Instant death tele for those who fall out of play area
-Added Redemption tele for most inner pits
-Removed Floating monsters and replaced with pure ground based monsters

-:MAP04 & MAP05:-
-Mostly visual enhancements and balance

-:MAP06:-
-Overhauled monster tele system
-Changed and optimized most early encounter's and traps
-Ending area expanded
-Icon of Sin now activated at the beginning and spawns throughout level (good call Pure)

Awesome! I got some hits! I didn't expect that at all. So any thoughts out there on my map?

i saw this in recent uploads on the archive and remembered i had wanted to play this. i've only played maps01 - 04, but damn i really really love this.

there are some really weird things about it... like all the death traps in map01, among others. i can certainly see why it would be annoying but after i knew where *not* to go, and what would kill me, i actually had a lot of fun with it. things definitely look pretty odd at times (the texturing in map01) but it has its own charm for me. map01 i loved, map02 was fun though, map03 was fun though i got stuck so i had to idclip, and map04 was fantastic.

i saw an earlier comment saying it's easy to get lost in but... the exploration (and the deaths that came with it) was half the fun. it's such a compact, action packed level with so many little nooks and crannies. i died over and over and over but spent probably 45+ minutes playing and replaying it. loved it.

i've been playing in skulltag so i can't comment on compat bugs, though i think it could benefit from just a quick bug fix release. fix some of the obviously unintentional misalignments (some of the doors i think?), the homs on the ceiling in map04, door tags, etc etc. certainly not your typical levelset but i'm really enjoying it so far.

Thanks for the bump Tango. I was hoping to refine this wad further before a final release but I just couldn't get people interested in play testing it at the time. It just got sickening replaying my own levels over and over, and I really wanted to work on other projects.

Still, future revisions are in the works. Some have told me this wad has some great multiplayer potential, so that is definitely something I want to spruce up in the next update.

i hear you man. well, if at any point you are nearing/working on a refined bugfix release, just drop me a pm or whatever and i would be glad to give a more detailed bug report etc etc. i really love what i see so far though. so unorthodox, but really refreshing.

I just may take you up on that offer in the future. Likewise, pm me if you need any of your maps play tested ; ).