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[v0.2a Re-release] Blocks of Doom II - Seeking contributors!

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 2:44 pm
by Jimmy
Image

>>> Download version 0.2a <<<
Must be run with ZDoom r1599 or higher! Get it here.

>>> Download Editing Package <<<

-- OTHER STUFF --

>>> Download the thrilling prequel <<<

Run with this and go to MAP44.

Old versions:
Version 0.2 (bugged)
Version 0.1


Development forum: http://z3.invisionfree.com/Blocks_of_Doom_II/
Latest releases: http://jimmy.phenomer.net/wad-files/
Blog entry: http://jimmy91st.phpnet.us/projects/blocks-of-doom-ii
WIP page: http://www.wadsinprogress.info/index.ph ... s&wad=1280

What is Blocks of Doom II?
I'm glad you asked!

Blocks of Doom II is a top-down gameplay mod for ZDoom (and perhaps Skulltag) that approximates the gameplay of the 1992 DOS game Chip's Challenge. I say approximates, it doesn't totally replicate it. There's plenty of new obstacles and beasts to overcome, and the puzzles, like Chip's Challenge, are at times incredibly frustrating - not necessarily because they're hard to solve, but that everything is out to get you, and you only have 1 precious health point!

Did I mention there's a timelimit, too?

Who's behind the project?
Version 0.1, I'm a little embarrassed to say, is all my work. However, when development came to an utter standstill due to me severely buggering up the ACS library system, I was fortunate enough to be rescued by Carlcyber who has since gone and almost rewritten the entire coding system, and made it much neater and more organised. During Version 0.2's development process he also fixed a plethora of bugs within the mod, some of which prevented me from actually continuing the project. Big thumbs up to Carlcyber - I couldn't have got this far without him. :)

How does the gameplay differ from a normal Doom mod?
Basically, the player is placed at a spot on a 16x16 grid of square blocks. The player can switch between a first-person camera and an aerial isometric view of the whole grid. The blocks raise around him in a fashion that creates a small maze or puzzle that he must escape from. Technically, the blocks are called "tiles", and there are several types of tile that you will encounter - more as the game progresses. Some will immediately kill you (lava and slime), some help you reach certain areas (elevators and teleporters), and others you may have to be incredibly careful walking near or over them (item thieves, unstable wooden blocks and slippery ice).

Every level has a different objective that when completed, exposes (or "unlocks") the exit block. Some levels require you to collect all the spheres on the board (these just appear as regular blur spheres but without the invisibility effect), others require you to destroy all the monsters, and others will be just plain mazes that you must seek the way out of. When you complete the objective, the exit block raises up somewhere, which you must then find, and walk over it so you can move on to the next "level".

There are 20 levels per "world", and each twentieth level will have a boss fight. Each world has its own looks and difficulty, and there are four of them: (1) Terra, (2) Egypt, (3) Castle and (4) Hell. Bonus levels (in the fifth secret world, (5) Ice) are also available if the player manages to get every single sphere in an entire world.

Therefore, 20 levels per every one of the 4 worlds, plus 4 bonus levels, equals 84 levels. Yep, high stakes, and I'm not normally a betting person, but hey, the original game Chip's Challenge had 149 levels, so there. :p

Why is it called Blocks of Doom II? What's with this "prequel"?
Long story. About a year ago, Xaser, the mastermind behind TurboCharged ARCADE!, made the project open development. At current the project is sleeping, but during a buzz of activity I contributed a map to the project (amongst a few others which will be included in the eventual release) - a short top-down-gameplay map called "Blocks of Doooom". This map involved the player walking madly around a 7x7 square grid, dodging out the way of imps' fireballs, and avoiding massive blocks of lava called the Blocks of Doom. There were 8 rounds including a ridiculous boss fight at the end, and all this was done in the wacky style and humor of TcA.

However, there are several ways that the gameplay has been expanded from this. The grid is now more than twice larger, more types of block ("tiles") are available, only one health point is given per map (instead of 666 like in the prequel), and there is a LOT more out to kill your ass.

You've got screenshots, right?
Look no further!
Spoiler: Screenshot batch #1: v0.1
Spoiler: Screenshot batch #2: v0.2 (old screenshots) - New levels (World 1: Terra) and World 2: Egypt
Spoiler: Screenshot batch #3: v0.2 - Large OpenGL shots of new levels, tiles and worlds
Can I join the project?
You sure can! As of version 0.2's release, the project goes open development, during which time I'll be asking for willing volunteers from the community to create user levels. The levels themselves are generated by two vast arrays in the ACS lump for each map, but luckily you won't have to know too much about ACS in order to make levels and get them to work. Me and Carlcyber have been hard at work trying to get user-editing for this project as easy as 1-2-3. Even creating your own tiles is relatively simple.

Be sure to view the Editing Documentation for detailed notes on how to create user levels!

What is included in version 0.2 that 0.1 doesn't have?
Well, quite a lot actually.
  • 15 levels for World 1, 5 levels for World 2, a demo map for Worlds 3 and 4 and a bonus level (World 5).
  • The level code has been rewritten so the maps are generated via arrays instead of line-by-line code. :wasted:
  • Several new tiles including item thieves, ice, slime, force floors (conveyor belts) and teleporters.
  • Some new pickups.
  • A new status bar courtesy of SBARINFO.
  • More configurable overhead camera system.
  • A TITLEMAP.
  • A very easy-to-use editing pack for user levels.
What will be included in version 0.3 that 0.2 doesn't have?
Taken from the upcoming features thread on the dev forum:
  • An undetermined number of new levels!
  • New powerups! The fire suit and slime suit will make you immune to fire and slime walls (but not to walking over them like the boots do) while you have them!
  • Skippable helpscreens! Simply hit the use key while at the helpscreen and the level will start immediately.
  • Free camera rotation! Hitting a certain keybind will toggle full mouse control over the camera, allowing you to change its yaw and pitch at your own leisure!
  • An alias for cheat-warping to other levels in-game.
  • A "makeblock" console cheat that creates blocks in-game for testing purposes.
  • A Healthsphere powerup that gives the player 100 hit points and blue armor protection. A "Player Health" bar appears onscreen to indicate the player's remaining health.
  • Trap buttons that trigger all sorts of interactive obstacles on the grid.
  • Tesla coils that aim lightning bolts at the player! They can be activated and deactivated by trap buttons.
  • Fire traps that shoot out fire onto their eight adjacent tiles, damaging enemies. Some barrels remain stationary and shoot out fire when damaged or when triggered by a trap button. Some barrels are pushable, but can only be triggered by buttons.
  • Stone head traps that behave like the tanks from CC. They roll forward, crushing anything in their path, until they hit a wall. Their direction can be controlled by trap buttons.
  • Clone machines that spawn certain objects next to them. They are also triggered by trap buttons.
  • More when I get off my lazy ass to implement them. :P
Sounds great! Will this be multiplayer-compatible?
NO! SORRY! Next question.

:(
Sorry, but due to the way the ACS is set up it would take more than a lot of rewriting the code to give it multiplayer compatibility. This is a decision I and Carlcyber made quite early on during version 0.2's development, so sorry... but unless someone else is willing to create a multiplayer-compatible version of this mod (only doing so with my express permission), it won't be a reality, and that's pretty much final. Sorry once again.

Why have you jumped on the "answer FAQs in the first post of a release thread" bandwagon?
I don't know! I guess I'm just starved for popularity. :wasted:

So yeah, downloads and feedback would be appreciated!
Hey, I'm making the declamatory statements here! *whack*

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 3:26 pm
by Shadelight
Hey, there's a neat idea. I might try this when I get home.

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 3:33 pm
by Xaser
Xaser approves. :thumb:

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 7:04 pm
by Imp Hunter
Map10 = OWNED

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 11:30 am
by XutaWoo
Dying on Level 6 causes you to go back to level 5. It this intentional?

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 11:39 am
by Jimmy
Yeah it was, but not anymore. ;)

I made it autosave every other level, until level 7 (then it autosaves every level). Level 6 will also autosave in the next version.

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 12:09 pm
by Cutmanmike
This is really cool! I find it extremely hard to navigate from an angle like that though, even if I can adjust the zoom and height. Is there no way to rotate the camera? This sort of thing I thought would be better completely overhead, but I can see that simply not happening in zdoom :P

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 12:18 pm
by XutaWoo
I played through it on First-Person mode. It really helped.

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 1:19 pm
by Jimmy
Cutmanmike wrote:This is really cool! I find it extremely hard to navigate from an angle like that though, even if I can adjust the zoom and height. Is there no way to rotate the camera? This sort of thing I thought would be better completely overhead, but I can see that simply not happening in zdoom :P
The camera doesn't rotate - but I could probably make it. :P

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 3:10 pm
by MG_Man
At the very least, you can add a crosshair where he's aiming or something.

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2009 3:41 pm
by Jimmy
These puzzles are mainly movement and speed oriented so there's no shooting required (yet), so a crosshair isn't really needed.

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 2:25 am
by Unknown_Assassin
Cutmanmike wrote:Is there no way to rotate the camera? This sort of thing I thought would be better completely overhead, but I can see that simply not happening in zdoom :P
Seconded. I keep touching the lava strafing left and right.

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Sun Apr 12, 2009 6:56 am
by Jimmy
Oh, fine. :grumpy:

Image

;)

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 12:37 pm
by Jimmy
carlcyber has helped me out tremendously with this thing after I broke it beyond recognition. :P

v0.2 will be released soon.

A few major changes have taken place...
  • Maps now use (very large) arrays to generate themselves. Making maps is now more kinda-WYSIWYG.
  • A prototype of the in-game level editor will be available.
  • New SBARINFO status bar (the ACS one stays, though - as the fullscreen status bar).
  • Camera can now be rotated 45° at a time.
  • Camera homing can now be switched between no homing, x/y homing only, and x/y/z homing.
Some more changes still to come...
  • TITLEMAP.
  • New tiles, new maps (potentially).
If you're interested in making user levels for this project, then please let me know (you may post in this thread if you want). I'm aiming to have ~20 maps for each of the 4 "episodes" (or worlds: 1. Terra, 2. Egypt, 3. Castle and 4. Hell). You may even want to create your own tiles. I'll leave it up to you if you're interested. ;)

Re: [v0.1 Release] Blocks of Doom II - The Ultimate Challenge

Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:42 pm
by Imp Hunter
Want a suggestion for the new tiles?

Do a turbo pad and a jump pad! :D