A random idea I had for a WAD.

You guys remember Doom: Rampage Edition? I was thinking about it, and the original idea sounds preety cool: play as a demon and kill marines. I thought of a few ideas for a revamp.

-A Doom 1-style wad with 3 episodes:
E1: Hell.
E2: Phobos facility(or whatever planet or moon you want to use).
E3: Earth.

-3 classes you can choose from.

-An evolutionary ladder. Basically when you go to the next episode you'll become a more powerful demon. I've thought of one evolutionary ladder so far:

Hell Knight - Baron of Hell - Lord of Heresy

-Bosses. Simple idea: have a boss at the end of each episode:
E1: The final demon for the evolutionary ladder you chose (for example, if you choose the Hell Knight you'll have to kill a Lord of Heresy).
E2: Some sort of mechanical foe, like the Tankboss out of Psychophobia.
E3: The Doomguy. =D

These are just some rough ideas. Thoughts?

Ammo? Medikits?

Maybe when you kill marines you could eat them and get back health. Cannibalism FTW! Like I said, it's a rough idea.

Not really cannibalism if you're not eating your own species.

Phobus said:

Not really cannibalism if you're not eating your own species.

True. But somewhat off-topic. =D

Indeed :P As for the topic at hand - the problem with these kinds of ideas is that you either have to fundamentally change the way the monster is to make it a worthwhile playable character (faster movement and more variety in attacks being the main ones) or go the extra mile and invent a new monster to be, which kind of defeats the purpose. Even with purpose-made levels and specially crafted enemies to balance the game play properly, the game play idea is pretty weak.

The progression you mention reminds me of the ecosystem of 'monsters' in Stephen King's The Mist. What I liked about that movie, from a sci-fi perspective, was that the creatures weren't so much malevolent as they were panicky and hungry, and people just sorta happened to be in their new environment, lol. [:

I like it.

If the enemies weren't literally the mindless embodiment of evil and hatred, it'd be a bit easier to identify with them enough to play one. Play as the enemy is more justifiable when the enemy is human or human-like.


Anyway, there are other problems. Doom's core gameplay is a one-man-army against hordes. If you invert the role, you get a horde of one demon invading the world all by itself. Which is really not Doom. It can be Alien Hominid, though.


Then there's the balance issue, since monsters are slow and have one or two attacks with unlimited ammo. Yay play as a lost soul. Read story texts about how your lost soul has to complete an important mission against the mean marines because if you fail you'll disappoint your father (insert picture of pain elemental with a dad 'stache, hovering over an armchair while reading a newspaper).

Okay, that can be funny, actually.

I like the idea.

Perhaps, ammo recharges a bit after it's used up? Also, the player monster could have a slight increase in speed, strength, etc. I think this idea could work very well; but, like any other idea, it has to be done right.

Heh, I had a similar thought the other day (also thinking about similar attempts like DRE), being a lone imp up against a horde of human invaders from another dimension who eventually gets "promoted" to a hell knight and then a baron. Except in mine the final boss was a particularly powerful human with long hair calling itself "Romero". You'd have to kill him by decapitation using your melee attack to win. (I didn't quite figure out how his head would end up immured in a wall at the end of Doom II though...)

CODOR said:

Heh, I had a similar thought the other day (also thinking about similar attempts like DRE), being a lone imp up against a horde of human invaders from another dimension who eventually gets "promoted" to a hell knight and then a baron. Except in mine the final boss was a particularly powerful human with long hair calling itself "Romero". You'd have to kill him by decapitation using your melee attack to win. (I didn't quite figure out how his head would end up immured in a wall at the end of Doom II though...)

I think that's a question best left to [Hell's] historians.

It's a fun idea. Maybe you'd pick up magic scrolls, or something, that would allow you to go from using the attacks of an Imp > Knight > Baron as you describe. Seems the easiest way to work in a new attack - just make it a weapon pickup, only with a different lore.

Gez said:

If the enemies weren't literally the mindless embodiment of evil and hatred, it'd be a bit easier to identify with them enough to play one. Play as the enemy is more justifiable when the enemy is human or human-like.

Not for me. As long as I'm destroying the human race, I'm fine with being the enemy. ^.^

How's about a human player character who has chosen to side with the demons? The idea being that their success against Earth's military might would pave the way for the impending invasion. Perhaps on the promise of eternal power/riches/muff/whatever. As the game progresses they would acquire more and more supernatural powers (as opposed to the good guys' military hardware). Maybe end on a double-cross, thus sorting out the final boss issue. ;)

Sounds like Doom 3 played from Betruger's perspective.

Kind of what I had in mind, but more of an "anti-Doomguy".

Gez said:

If the enemies weren't literally the mindless embodiment of evil and hatred, it'd be a bit easier to identify with them enough to play one. Play as the enemy is more justifiable when the enemy is human or human-like.


Anyway, there are other problems. Doom's core gameplay is a one-man-army against hordes. If you invert the role, you get a horde of one demon invading the world all by itself. Which is really not Doom. It can be Alien Hominid, though.


Then there's the balance issue, since monsters are slow and have one or two attacks with unlimited ammo. Yay play as a lost soul. Read story texts about how your lost soul has to complete an important mission against the mean marines because if you fail you'll disappoint your father (insert picture of pain elemental with a dad 'stache, hovering over an armchair while reading a newspaper).

Okay, that can be funny, actually.

All good points. Concerning the one-against-all sort of thing, maybe the start of each episode could have you starting with a group of friendly demons that eventually get killed. Something like that.

As for attacks, I'm thinking that the player has "mana" of some sort that gets depleted when an attack is used and slowly regenerates. Regarding lack of attacks, there are plenty of units that have more than one attack that could be used (Diabolist, Lord of Heresy, Bruiserdemon). Also, I noticed a Mancubus Arm in the Realm667 Armory. That could be just one of many demonic weapons you could find. =D

Nice idea! Just hope it doesn't end up like DRE :P

This is an interesting idea! I've heard of something similar to this but I still think this is a good idea.

Also, speaking of Doom: Rampage Edition where can I find that WAD?

I wouldn't recommend trying to find it, it won the first ever Worst Award in the Cacowards. :/

NitroactiveStudios said:

This is an interesting idea! I've heard of something similar to this but I still think this is a good idea.

Also, speaking of Doom: Rampage Edition where can I find that WAD?

You don't want to know.... (shudders)