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Jan

No Sleep For The Dead [v1.0 released!]

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Szymanski said:

I know it's heresy but I do miss the dread of lurking arch-vile's in Doom


I actually prefer that my demons stay dead :p

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There's a slime trail in e1m3 (sector 186) as you look into the secret area towards vertex 716. You have to get the angle perfect so pretty minor(I tested with zdoom).
The end fight of e1m9 is pretty easy avoid.

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Szymanski said:

There's a slime trail in e1m3 (sector 186) as you look into the secret area towards vertex 716. You have to get the angle perfect so pretty minor(I tested with zdoom).
The end fight of e1m9 is pretty easy avoid.


I couldn't reproduce the slime trail in prboom-plus, but nevertheless, I fiddled a bit with the vertices there and hope it went away now.

I'm not sure if I want to "fix" that end fight. I know it can be avoided, but if the player is clever enough to do that, perhaps he deserves the reward? I'm okay with the player outsmarting god (the level designer) every now and then :p

On the other hand, don't we all want 100% kills when we leave a level? :)

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joe-ilya said:

This is truly feels like a DTWID episode replacement.

100% this. ^

I blasted through the first two levels (maxed) on HMP continuous (my default) last night. Great fun. Looking forward to tackling the rest; I'll probably restart on UV.

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I'm playing this with Dark Monsters and it is some of the most gosh-darned fun I've had with a levelset since Nihility.

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I might consider this for my upcoming playtesting stream on Sunday. Would be nice to see some more good Doom 1 wads that aren't done by cannonball (or Double Impact).

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I'll make some demos in PrBoom+ for you over the next few days. I love these maps so far; they ooze quality with every demon I kill. Btw, bonus points to you for allowing a telefrag on the (kinda) final boss ;p

*Edit*
Couldn't resist recording this one: E1M8 UV-MAX 2:45. Though I wasn't very efficient in the way I played things and I made a couple miscalculations, it wasn't too bad of a run. Fun, easy map ^^

I'll see about doing some more over the next few days.

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Well, I'll be damned, one of the best Doom mappers of the late 90s make a comeback with this spectacular episode! I downloaded and played through this wad and I absolutely enjoy it! It feels just like as if it was made by id themselves. First half of the episode starts off with Romero-esque techbase maps that we've seen in the original E1. Very fun and uses mostly the bestiary from the first episode, though there's the occasional cacodemon or two thrown in. The last couple of maps are probably my most favourites because they are in the style of Tom Hall. The finale was pretty cool, and the bonus level was a really fun yet challenging E4-style map. Job well done, Jan van der Veken! Been a huge fan of your work along with others. This is definitely a winner for the 2016 Cacowards hands down!

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Just finished this. What a ride! Never felt truly in danger on UV continuous, though I did die once or twice (not including M9, which killed me a bunch!) but it was a lot of fun. I managed to max everything—except for M4, where three monster closets didn't open (though I managed all secrets and items.) One of my favorite aspects of the WAD was the nesting of secrets. Very cool.

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Salt-Man Z said:

xcept for M4, where three monster closets didn't open (though I managed all secrets and items.)


I'm guessing after getting the blue key you simply backtracked by taking the long way around instead of making the leap out of the window? I figured nobody would do that :)

The closets get activated by leaping out of the window. In earlier versions, they got activated by picking up the blue key, but then you could simply pick off the spectres safely from up in the blue key room.

I guess I could rectify it by closing a 30 second timer behind the the player when he picks up the blue key, leaving the only way out through the window.

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Hm, could be, I don't remember; I'll have to take a look later. (That is totally something I would do, though.) I did noclip into a couple of them to confirm my suspicions: one held 5 demons, the other was 6 shotgunners. (The third I didn't look in, but also held 6 baddies on UV.) I'll see if I can grab a screenshot of the map for you.

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janvknn said:

I'm guessing after getting the blue key you simply backtracked by taking the long way around instead of making the leap out of the window? I figured nobody would do that :)

Just did a quick playthrough with IDDQD and, yes, jumping out the window opened everything up. Honestly, I saw no reason to jump out the window into a nuke pool instead of just taking the stairs around and down. :)

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Salt-Man Z said:

Hm, could be, I don't remember; I'll have to take a look later. (That is totally something I would do, though.) I did noclip into a couple of them to confirm my suspicions: one held 5 demons, the other was 6 shotgunners. (The third I didn't look in, but also held 6 baddies on UV.) I'll see if I can grab a screenshot of the map for you.


Yeah that's the one.

What I'm going to do is collect some feedback about small niggling issues like this, and then release a final updated version with fixes.

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I have always been a fan of your classic maps and this was a great episode Jan. It was really, really fun to play and looks fantastic. Great to see you back mapping again.

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Pretty interesting setup you have there. Also, have you ever tried some of the more modern doom editing utilites? (I.E. Slade, Doom Builder 2, GZDoom Builder)

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pcorf said:

I have always been a fan of your classic maps and this was a great episode Jan. It was really, really fun to play and looks fantastic. Great to see you back mapping again.


Thanks Paul, I appreciate that :)

I had a lot of fun making these levels too, but I am glad that the episode is finally out there and that people are enjoying it.

BTW, I hope this feels a bit more like a true "episode" than classic (progression and consistency wise I mean). Most classic levels were originally stand-alone levels in a certain doom theme, but they weren't really meant to go together so playing them in episode form can make them feel a bit disjointed.

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Breezeep said:

Pretty interesting setup you have there. Also, have you ever tried some of the more modern doom editing utilites? (I.E. Slade, Doom Builder 2, GZDoom Builder)


A few years ago I have tried Doom builder for a bit, but I wasn't really a fan of the DB way of doing things. So I went back to what works best for me (i.e. WinDEU). In any case, it would be a tall order for any tool to replace a tool that I can use with my eyes closed and in which I have all that muscle memory built up over 20 years.

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janvknn said:

You're gonna like the next thing I'm working on then :)

Wow, this looks good! Really reminds me of E2 minus the hellish textures. Please add it to your next version of No Sleep For The Dead! If I'm not mistaken, E1M6 seems to be based heavily on E1M1 of the Doom alpha version 0.5, am I right?

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T-Rex said:

Wow, this looks good! Really reminds me of E2 minus the hellish textures.


Yup, that is more or less what I'm aiming for: Doom/E2 if Tom Hall had been kept on to finish the job (without going all "Doom Bible" of course) and if Sandy had never touched his levels.

For this level, I also tried to adopt Tom Hall's methodology as I imagine it was: draw a big rectangle to define/contain the size of the level to start with, and then fill it up leaving little unused space between the areas (like it would be in the real world), add lots of interconnectivity/alternate routes, use other typical Tom Hall-ish style elements such as orderly rooms with repeating geometrical patterns, dramatic lighting, long hallways, ...

T-Rex said:

Please add it to your next version of No Sleep For The Dead!


No, this will be it's own thing. Current working title is Forsaken Shores. I have one level finished for it, and then the one I showed the screenshot of. We'll see how far I get, but I expect it will be a short set, not a full episode replacement.

I'm leaving nos4dead as it is, fixes excepted.

T-Rex said:

If I'm not mistaken, E1M6 seems to be based heavily on E1M1 of the Doom alpha version 0.5, am I right?


Correct. The level name should be a hint too.

Spoiler

it's an anagram

Spoiler

Tesla/Ohm Labs = Tom Hall's Base

Spoiler

Don't you just love nested secrets?

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I had a great time with this wad. Some nifty encounters, great level design (both fight-wise and architecturally) and really felt like E1. Nice balancing for UV too.

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HavoX said:

Well, color me impressed. With a setup like that, you could take on the world!


Well, it's certainly better than the Pentium 100 with 15" CRT screen that I used to make Dawn of the Dead back in the early days :)

People sometimes forget that in the 90s we often had to make do with limited computing power and 800x600 and lower resolution screens for creating maps.

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