Doom II - Hellscape :: BETA TESTERS WANTED

TL;DR Overview:
I am re-imagining the Doom II Hell levels (21-30), as I did with MAP29 in The Dying End.

Unnecessarily Detailed Overview:
Here’s a confession: taken as a whole, I cannot stand the Hell levels of Doom II. As far as individual levels go, “The Abandoned Mines” and “The Living End” are two of my favorites from the IWADs, but the rest are either ugly, gimmicky, boring, or some combination thereof (plus, it has been scientifically proven that those levels use the absolute worst sky graphic in the history of ID Software). So, I decided to remake those levels in whatever particular style I may have in hopes of gaining some sort of appreciation for the DoomGuy’s second tour through Hell.

For the most part, this has actually worked. As an example, consider “Bloodfalls” (MAP25): prior to creating my own version, I always thought it an ugly map with a horrible layout (and one with a texturing error in the exit room). Granted, I still think those criticisms apply, but after approaching it as a designer trying to re-envision it, I do have much more appreciation for it. For instance: it is one of the few ID levels in which major portions of it are completely empty – no monsters, no corpses, and few (if any) items – and, on UV, it even features a totally barren secret area. It begs the question: what happened here? Why is there this…nothing? With possible the exception of E1, much of Doom feels like a succession of small arenas that the player hops between; the blank spaces of “Bloodfalls” provide a fleeting glimpse that the player might actually be wandering through a small part of a much larger world – one that has persisted and will persist independently of the interloper.

(Or, Shawn Green could have just said, “Fuck it – I’m too lazy to put in any monsters so it’s good enough” – I realize I might be reaching a bit.)

Anyway, regardless of whether my appreciation is warranted or merely the product of cognitive dissonance reduction (“There is totally a point to this exercise!”), it has been illuminating to pull apart these levels. The disjointed, schizophrenic introduction to Hell that is “Nirvana” (MAP20); the relentless onslaught of false walls in “Monster Condo” (MAP27); the unabashedly gleeful gimmick of “Barrels o’ Fun” (MAP23); the gall of “The Spirit World” (MAP28) to actually try and replicate the barren lava caves of ‘classical Hell’ – these are all things I now value, even if I still tend to stop playing after MAP20.

Enough reading – let’s look at some pictures (consider the screenshots and level titles works in progress):

MAP21 – “The Suffering”

MAP22 – “Catatonic”
MAP23 – “Detonate”MAP24 – “The Caustic Depths”MAP25 – “Veil of Blood”MAP26 – “Quarry”MAP27 – “Condolences”MAP28 – “The Spirited World”MAP29 – “The Dying End” (v1.1; mostly cosmetic changes to align with the other levels)

MAP30 – “Iconic”For the record, this will require a limit-removing port; other than that, there are very few enhanced features (with the notable exception of floor/ceiling light transfers and a few false-floor effects). It’ll be done when it’s done.

UPDATE OCT 2016: I am searching for a few beta testers before releasing this publicly. Send me a PM or e-mail (include "D2HS" in the subject line) if you are interested, and I'll shoot out a link once I find somewhere to post the file.

As expected of Mr. Lutz. The visuals in the screenies look gorgeous. I thought you were done making stuff after CoD, this makes me so happy. Looking forward to playing this beast!

Holy hell. You, uh, wouldn't mind remaking maps 1-20 while you're at it, would you? 'Cause that looks absolutely amazing, and now I want the entire game remade like that.

Mind-blowing sceneries, great visuals and detailing, good! By the way, I remembered the MAP21 areas from your screenshots from the last year (mainly the TEKGREN one). http://www.doomworld.com/vb/post/1313508#1313508

omg omg omg

This looks really, really cool. You've squeezed a lot of interesting aesthetics and locales out of the classic textures, the lighting and architecture are super impressive.

I am a teensy bit concerned about the floor bumpiness in a few areas, like this one where the little floor bumps combined with the platforming look like a frustrating combination. It'd be a bit of extra work, but Transfer Heights could potentially be used to make those sorts of ledges behave as functionally flat while still preserving their current 3D appearance.

Holy Moly! I really fell in love with the Icon of Sin screenshot, looks really well done, keep up the good work, Lutz.

Ho boy! Now this is something I'll look forward to play!

Looks absolutely delicious! As hell is my favorite theme, I'm excited to see how this turns out

wow, this is some tasty looking stuff.

esselfortium said:

I am a teensy bit concerned about the floor bumpiness in a few areas, like this one where the little floor bumps combined with the platforming look like a frustrating combination.

I've been around the forums long enough to know that floor bumpiness is a concern for many, but I honestly don't know the reason why -- does the player not control as well? Does it affect manual/auto-aim?

Regardless, what I will say is that the platforms are close enough together that a reasonably well-aligned walk (not run) will get you across. I have yet to have a problem during my testing -- though again, I'm a little unsure what I should be looking for -- but I will certainly send this out to a larger community for testing prior to release and take good notes.

As other members, I am impressed, it's perfectly detailed, with an excellent lights/shadows game, to using the Doom2 stock textures only! That reminds me "Hellbound", but in more elaborate, I look forward to playing your mapset :)

Wow. Keeping an eye on this one.

This looks fantastic! Very nice usage of the stock textures and I really dig the architecture. The mix of tech and hell together in some of the shots is also something I really enjoy :)

I would like to echo essel's concern with some of the floor detail though. The problem I have with stuff like that tends to be how disorienting it can be when there's no vertical movement interpolation. You can see how jumpy the player's view gets in a port like PrBoom, but in ZDoom you barely notice it.

This looks incredible.

While ZDoom's movement interpolation does make bumpyfloor problems easier to miss like Mechadon says, the bigger problem (which still remains even in ZDoom) is that the player momentarily loses movement control and is just carried by their current inertia when walking down off a step, even a tiny one, due to briefly being in midair. As a result, having lots of small steps up and down nearby each other tends to really mess with player movement.

By using transfer heights to create an invisible flat floor for the player to walk on, the still-present floor bumps don't get to affect movement.

esselfortium said:

...As a result, having lots of small steps up and down nearby each other tends to really mess with player movement.

Gotcha. I will definitely take a look through what I have already built with eye out for this issue, and keep it in mind going forward. For the record, is player movement affected by holes/gaps too small for the player to enter (i.e. with at least one dimension less than 56)?

Lutz said:

For the record, is player movement affected by holes/gaps too small for the player to enter (i.e. with at least one dimension less than 56)?

In fact, it's 32. Player's radius is 16, therefore his diameter is 32. No, holes smaller than 32 units at least in one direction do not affect player's movement.

I look forward to these.

yesssssss

Loved The Dying End when it was released. Looking forward to this.

Oh dear God, these are gorgeous. I look at these screenshots and think "This is what Dr. Sleep could have made the Inferno if he'd had better editors and faster computers."

Wow.

Lutz said:

Gotcha. I will definitely take a look through what I have already built with eye out for this issue, and keep it in mind going forward. For the record, is player movement affected by holes/gaps too small for the player to enter (i.e. with at least one dimension less than 56)?

Pun? Anyway, this seems to accurately capture what id envisioned but lacked to skills and tools to accomplish. Exceeding the IWADs in detail, size or action is easy to do. But to take the master's own brush and out-paint him is something else altogether. These screenshots recapture an inkling of the wonderment which gripped me as a young boy, while I studied in-game screens on the retail boxes. Bravo.

Dat Doom architecture porn.

Some of the detailing is too intricate for my taste but the architecture is fantastic. Nice reimaginings.

looks awesome!

I have a hard time parsing this amount of sectors. But I think I'm in a minority.

That? That's hella purdy, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you can come up with by way of a Spirit World replacement/re-envisioning.

TheOrganGrinder said:

That? That's hella purdy, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what you can come up with by way of a Spirit World replacement/re-envisioning.

This one is next, and it is scaring the crap out of me.

Also, thanks for the kind words, folks; I truly appreciate them.

Wow! Awesome screenies. The room with the arches and the shadows is gorgeous.