realms of ZO0N. [v4]

[Jimmy]

~* Welcome to the world of the sleeping. The endless void of the uncertain subconscious. *~

~* Can you defeat us? *~

Download -- [v4]


Technical stuff:

IWAD: Doom 2
Map(s): MAP01-03, *04 pending*
Gameplay: Single + coop play
Ports Tested: PrBoom+, GLBoom+, Q/G/ZDoom, Zandronum (dev build), Eternity Engine
Format: Boom
Build Time: Yes
Textures: Zoon-tex (all included)
Requirements: Jumping and crouching off, freelook optional.

For all credits see the WADINFO lump in the file. (Will be the whole text file eventually.)

Known Bugs:

---

• PLENTY OF DEHACKED WORK IN THIS. I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HOW BADLY ZDOOM MODS BREAK THIS. you can blame Obsidian though
• FIXED - The custom bitmap message font will not display in PrBoom.
• ADDRESSED - Magic orbs give 10 when dropped by bishops in ZDoom, but 20 in PrBoom.
• Magic orbs' pickup messages do not appear to be changed properly in PrBoom.
• The new weapons might be imbalanced, or too much/little ammo for them might be an issue, one way or the other. This has turned out difficult for me to address.

[Sgt. Shivers]

Pretty neat stuff. I liked the overall look of the mod, each of the levels looked pretty unique, but were still consistent, the layouts got confusing at times but they never felt unfair.
I didn't like the high damage hurtfloors, once you run out of radsuits the map is pretty much over, maybe lower the damage enough for the player to move from safezone to safe zone? I also didn't like the goo dudes that did splash damage when they died. One of them died on a keycard meaning I couldn't pick it up without taking damage. The pistol was nice, are any of the other weapons tweaked? Some sprite edits to the rest of the weapons would go a long way in making this mod feel extra unique.

[Jimmy]

Cheers, man. Glad you enjoyed it.

The slime dwellers are very much a love-it-hate-it type deal from the general feedback I've got so far. They're basically area-denial enemies that you have to exercise care with killing. The catharsi fill the same general role in the latter two levels, to an extent. I think I know which slimeguy died on the key though (red key on map01?), I oughta make sure that doesn't happen, heh. Good catch.

The weird liquids are kind of the staple of the maps so maybe making them all super-damaging is a tad excessive, but I can always just plonk down more radsuits in the areas that need it. Where'd you get stuck?

I've been pondering adding more sprite edits, maybe making the chaingun a machinegun with a faster ROF or something. Wouldn't know what else to do with the weapons, though, I reckon it's fine as-is.

[Sgt. Shivers]

The map that had the white (milk?) hurtfloors was the one I almost got stuck on until I came across another radsuit after backtracking a bit. I also forgot to mention that I think some more ammo would be nice. Either that or just make the ammo that is there a bit more visible, maybe put 'em on tables or something.

[Redead-ITA]

Build Time: Yes

Wait does that mean:
Specific Build Time: Maybe

[Jimmy]

It just means I never keep track of the shit I make because I leave it hanging in a state of 90% completion for so long.

[_mental_]

Very cool maps.

Played on skill 1 and the difficulty fits well with lots of health, weapons, ammo and power-ups.
Slime dweller corpses are too damaging IMHO but maybe it's intentional.

A little nitpicking: alternative HUD in ZDoom has minor issues.
Monsters/items/secrets texts overlap slightly and weapon sprites for shotgun and chaingun are wrong.

Map(s): MAP01-03, *04 pending*

Waiting for MegaWAD

[Jimmy]

Yeah maybe don't use the althud, it's built for the DECORATE-centric features that ZDoom offers and not for DEHACKED modifications.

[Rachael]

Waiting for MegaWAD

Agreed. It would be really neat to see more of these maps.

[Jimmy]

Sorry, one more map is all I have planned. I've seen folks using the texture pack for their own purposes, though, and I do wholeheartedly encourage this.

[Jimmy]

v2 is out.

Changes:
- MAP01's closeted monsters aren't deaf anymore.
- MAP02 has a couple extra radsuits.
- MAP03 has some more ammo.
- Final fight can't be cheesed anymore.
- Crucial switches made more obvious.
- Some new sounds.
- Egregious texture misalignments fixed, for the most part I hope.
- Beefier-looking voidstaff attack (thanks D64 for sprites).
- Extensive testing in Eternity Engine, plus some EDF lumps that define the new strings in a working manner. Thanks heaps to Altazimuth for guidance.

Still lots of room for improvement, I imagine. I'm workin' on it.

[Rachael]

This is neat. ^_^ I will try the new version out later when I get a chance.

[Jimmy]

v3 is ready.

Changes:
- Added par times for all maps.
- Converted the bitmap smallfont to individual graphics. Color-remapped them to be completely within the green range minus the drop shadow.
- Added Boom translation tables. Many thanks to Altazimuth for doing them.
- Changed the M_DOOM to a previous iteration without the "realms of".
- Increased the damage done by Bishop attacks from 1 to 3.
- Reduced the radius of damage done by Slime Dweller corpses. It's still pretty much equally fatal if you just stand on top of one, though.
- Enemies can now die to Slime Dweller corpses. Including Slime Dwellers. :^)
- New sprites for the Baron's attack courtesy of David G (ItsNatureToDie).
- Imp/catharsi ball now uses all 5 frames of its animation effectively.
- Added GAMEINFO (doom2.wad now loaded automatically on ZDoom startup).
- Added MENUDEF. Just changes some colors in the ZDoom options menu.

[Jimmy]

Download v4.

Changes:
- Increased voidstaff ammo usage back to 40.
- Magic orbs, dropped or not, now always give 20 in ZDoom and derivative ports.
- Made MAP01's lowering bookcase glow.
- Moved some problematic stalactites on MAP02.
- Fixed MAP02's door and bars to be green on the automap.
- Fixed MAP03's key switches to show up as blue and red on the automap.
- All obituaries show in green in Eternity now. (Thanks Altazimuth!)

[Rachael]

Out of curiosity I tried this in 3DGE. Would this mod use a lot of specials not available to 3DGE? I noticed a lot of geometry was refusing to render and wondered if that was due to feature incompatibility, or if it was an actual bug with it.