For Total Conversions and projects that don't otherwise fall under the other categories.
Forum rules
The Projects forums are only for projects. If you are asking questions about a project, either find that project's thread, or start a thread in the General section instead.
Some of you may remember this project thread. This is a continuation of that project.
Spoiler: What happened?
I had originally planned on making this thread after I had some sort of public release ready and the project was almost done, but frankly, progress has been slow and I was starting to worry if all the work I'd put in so far would go to waste. Since its previous incarnation, this project has gone in some new directions. Hunted was inspired by projects like Unloved and Phocas Island, and I wanted to make some kind of survival-horror themed exploration thing. But, the more I worked on the project, the more I felt like it was just not living up to what I wanted it to be. Hence, why I stopped working on it.
But, eventually I came back to the project when I got in the mood to make some custom monsters and the ones I had already included in Hunted offered a good starting point. I discovered that I really enjoyed making custom monsters, so as I got more ideas and "what ifs," I added more monsters to the growing bestiary. To complement the monsters, I changed various weapons and items, and then set myself back to the task of making the levels to go with all this stuff. Work has been on/off for the last few years. I am sure that if I put in consistent time every day to work on this project, it would have been done two years ago. As it turns out, I'm a lot slower at making maps than I used to be, and so here I am now.
Hunted is still a survival-horror inspired level set. The project now has a stronger focus on combat. The player will explore several different types of locations, solve puzzles, and deal with tougher, smarter enemies. Essentially, I want to make something like Unloved, but with more non-linear map design, and difficulty through challenging situations (using fewer enemies) rather than slaughterfests in cramped spaces.
Spoiler: What is done?
The map shown in the screenshots is still included in the project. I have edited it heavily to be more appropriate for the new style of play, but otherwise it still all looks the same, if not better. I've also finished a hub map.
Original music and ambiance, courtesy of jdagenet.
A full bestiary replacement (and then some) -- since the monsters weren't created with a specific overarching goal in mind, but were more experimental (i.e. it's all a bunch of gimmicks), I can't say if they all really fit, but they can be changed if necessary. The enemies are stronger and smarter than Doom's vanilla enemies (not a high bar). Doing this project over a long period of time has some advantages: since I started working on the mod, ZScript got released and that allowed for more possibilities beyond what I could accomplish before. Further down in the post, I will give more information about the enemies.
Modified weapons and items to complement the new enemies. Each weapon has been edited to better fulfill a specific role, and the overall arsenal is redesigned to emphasize resourcefulness and use of the environment. A direct approach will not work. The final product will encourage use of traps, the environment, stealth, and other indirect means to handle encounters.
Custom brightmaps for just about anything that could use them.
Interesting interactions between different monsters that goes beyond resurrection (but also includes a new resurrection system where monster "evolve" upon respawn and become more deadly).
Dangerous boss encounters where the only safe option is to run. You are, after all, being hunted.
Spoiler: Screenshots are from the previous post (because I should have something to show). This version of the project has no flashlight, however.
Spoiler: New screenshots
Used a flashlight mod (not included) to light up area around player:
Actual map brightness:
Lit up the area in the previous shot:
Spoiler: Help wanted?
Kinda, yeah. I wouldn't necessarily turn help down. I'm in the mood to get this project done sometime this century.
It would be a huge help for the project to have some sprite edits done, especially for monsters whose sprites don't quite fit (but they were the best that I had available) or those that are too familiar to players.
This goes without saying but I'm also open to suggestions on what could be improved based on what I have so far.
I don't really need mappers, per-se. But if capable mappers are interested, I'm sure that our combined effort will help finish up the project quicker, and make for a more quality final product.
The downloadable file (available within spoiler below) includes assets stripped away from the larger project. I want to at least release what I've done so far, so I've taken what I have and turned it into a gameplay mod. It includes almost all the enemies, weapons, and items. It's not balanced to be a replacer, however, so not every vanilla monster has an optimal "role replacer." Furthermore, it is significantly more difficult than vanilla, and if you want to try it out I'd recommend an easy-mid difficulty map set, or even just vanilla Doom 2. Most of the monsters have moderately complex behavior and I do not advise running the mod with maps that have thousands of monsters running around.
All that being said, I did want to have players "discover" how things worked while playing the full mapset, but I would rather have the WIP stuff out there than have it sit on my hard drive for another year or two while I continue working on this.
There are two ZScript files in the download that are shamelessly ripped from the library. Nashmove is required (monsters movement speed is balanced with this modified player movement). Acthonic is not but I didn't remove it before uploading here. I'll remove it if I have to.
TL;DR spoilers:
There are 3 enemies that cannot be killed by any means. One of these enemies is always hunting the player. It can appear randomly, at any nearby location, at any time. It will chase the player for some time and temporarily disappear. While it may give up the chase, it does not give up the hunt. Another one only moves when the player is not looking at it. I won't pretend that this is a new concept, but it felt appropriate to include. The last one only moves when the player moves. This means that the player can potentially end up in an unwinnable scenario, if the player is careless.
Several monsters are capable of resurrecting corpses, but only one can do it repeatedly. There is a tier-based resurrection system, where more powerful enemies have a higher chance to resurrect an alternate version of the dead monster being revived that is significantly more dangerous.
I made a monster that walks on ceilings but like how monsters walk on the floor, so they're not stuck at a fixed height or can only go in one direction.
Mimics! Enough said. Trust no pickups. A watchful eye can spot them.
Traps! Environmental hazards! Sometimes some areas have interactive props that buff monsters in some way, or just make crossing an area more dangerous. Some resemble monsters. Not all non-player actors will attack the player on sight! Sometimes you can avoid an "enemy" entirely by not disturbing them.
Dynamic monster interaction: E.g., horde monsters gain speed when their pack is larger. Horde underlings become deadly in the presence of higher level horde monsters. Larger packs, in turn, make those leaders more dangerous.
Masochists will goad other monsters to infight with them, but they become more dangerous after taking damage from other monsters.
Soul collectors have underlings that do their bidding for them. They keep their underlings close, however, because they need them.
Some monsters predicatively fire at where the player will be instead of at the player.
Some monsters change their behavior based on where the player is looking or moving.
Last edited by Grymmette on Sun Feb 09, 2020 12:45 am, edited 8 times in total.
-Ghost- wrote:The monsters in this are pretty cool, I like where you're going with it!
Weapons are a little weak feeling, though.
Thanks!
Weak feeling in what sense? If it's raw damage, that's somewhat by design. I want to emphasize encounters with fewer (but tougher) enemies and where going in guns blazing is not a good choice. I guess my point is that the player is supposed to feel weaker than the enemies, and hopefully, given the right atmosphere, that will be a good thing.
I think it's a mix of damage and not much feedback. The recoil is kind of funky feeling on most of the weapons, and there aren't many effects or sounds accompanying the shots to make the impact felt. A little more blood and more bass in the sounds, along with smoother recoil might help.
-Ghost- wrote:A little more blood and more bass in the sounds, along with smoother recoil might help.
I'll see what I can do about the recoil, maybe there's still too much. Weapon design isn't really my thing so feedback on those is useful because I wouldn't know what to do without it.
As for the blood, I didn't package this with any gore mod because I thought it would be better to just have people run it with whatever gore mod they prefer. I tried various mods and I couldn't find one that felt quite right for the enemies I've got, so I thought it better to just leave it up to personal preference.
I've updated the OP with some shots of one of the maps.
Spoiler: Actual new content
Used a flashlight mod (not included) to light up area around player:
Actual map brightness:
Lit up the area in the previous shot:
Shut and Bleed does the horror stuff pretty well as far as damage goes. Ammo is scarce and the starter guns are weak so the enemies still feel pretty beefy without getting tedious. Then you still have access to stronger stuff, like the shotgun, but ammo is limited.
