[Update] Marathon [A Doom Gameplay mod]

[TwelveEyes]

Marathon
A gameplay mod for ZDoom


I have always been a fan of both Doom and the Marathon Trilogy. So I decided, why not make a Marathon gameplay mod for ZDoom?

So, without further ado, I present the mod Marathon.

In this mod, armor protects you from 100% of damage until they are depleted, unlike in Doom. Almost all weapons need to be reloaded, utilizing the same reload system as in Marathon. That means weapons cannot be reloaded at any time. You must expend the entire clip before you can reload.

Ammo works a bit differently. Everything is picked up in clips instead of set amounts of bullets. Only your human allies and Pfhor Enforcers drop any weapons or ammo. As a result of that, ammo may be a lot more scarce, depending on the level you play through. Expect to do some punching now and again.

You health slowly regenerates, at 1 HP/2 seconds. But just trying to rely on health regeneration alone will get you killed. Taking hits is much more damaging then in Doom.

Health and armor bonuses have been removed.

Like in Marathon, not everything is an enemy. The Human BOBs and S'pht'Kr Defenders are you allies and will help you out.

Unlike in Marathon, you cannot dual wield shotguns. I was originally going to include this, but after trying again and again to get the reload frames to work right and repeatedly failing, I gave up. Also, you don't have a motion tracker like in Marathon because I don't have the slightest idea how to code something like that in ACS. Oh and none of the projectiles have GLDEFS because I am a lazy bastard.

Constructive criticism is welcome. If you have any suggestions on how the mod can be improved upon or bugs to report feel free to let me know.


Update changes

-Akimbo pistols can now be fired separately (a shameful code rip from Parkour-X).
-Akimbo shotguns have been added.
-It is no longer necessary to let go of the trigger to start reloading.
-Some weapon sprites have been centered.
-Pain and death sprites added to the Compiler.
-Fists now work a bit more like they do in Marathon.
-Other small tweaks.
-Picking up a second shotgun now actually gives you another shotgun instead of just ammo.
-Fusion pistol now has a proper secondary fire.
-Some bugs squashed.
-Nine music tracks added.
-Some menu/intermission screen changes.
-Changed the assault rifle so both triggers can be used simultaneously.
-Added the alien shotguns triple fire mode.
-Music is optional (but recommended).


Screenshots

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Credit - given where due

TychoVII & Hopper for the HUD (FloatingX HUD for AlephOne)
CryoS for the music
Nash for the blood effects (nashgore.wad)
Enjay for the splash and flats sounds (NJSPLASH.wad)
Xaser for the male jump and land sounds from Psychic (psy-pbt3.wad), dual wield code from Parkour-X
ZeroProphet for the player land sound from Zero Tolerance (zp-zerot.wad)
Also to the individual who made the Doom smallfont in Claustraphobia 1024 2 (1024cla2.wad)
and Bungie for making Marathon freeware.

Download (with original Marathon music in MIDI): http://www.mediafire.com/?x661egjdiu9s6bs
Download (with original Marathon music in MP3): http://www.mediafire.com/?7wb3co1y1qgghzz
Download (with custom Marathon music): http://www.mediafire.com/?9jrokgz043xsyc4
Download (without music): http://www.mediafire.com/?nqnzdk522dxrjpt

[Grymmoire]

Reminds me of how Unloved was released, out of nowhere and on the spot. And it was good.

I like the screenshots so I figure this should be worth a try, I guess I'll download it and give it a shot. Judging by the looks I shouldn't be disappointed

EDIT: One thing I noticed so far is that the monster replacing the revenant just vanishes upon his death state, no sprites or anything. Looks pretty odd. If there aren't any sprites to show it's death state then maybe create some sort of explosion effect to cover up the vanishing.

[Xaser]

Hehe, interesting. I'll have to play around with this a bit more, but it's neat seeing this stuff ported over.

Most of my nitpicks amount to things like "well x is different than the way Marathon had it" but one thing I really think should change is how the weapons don't reload until you release the trigger -- this really makes the KKV a pain to use, among other things.

[DBThanatos]

Holy! this looks fantastic. I really liked the games too, except that you couldnt configure the controls. Downloading right now

And loving this part of the description:

Oh and none of the projectiles have GLDEFS because I am a lazy bastard.

EDIT: Ahh! the memories! those "kill me" guys! I didnt remember em, and had a nice surprise once they approached to me
However, Im playing in Doom2 (UV) and Im completely out of ammo by the end of map02. Is it just my bad luck? or is that skill specifically designed to have you fisting monsters around?

[TwelveEyes]

However, Im playing in Doom2 (UV) and Im completely out of ammo by the end of map02. Is it just my bad luck? or is that skill specifically designed to have you fisting monsters around?

Ammo works a bit differently. Everything is picked up in clips instead of set amounts of bullets. Only your human allies and Pfhor Enforcers drop any weapons or ammo. As a result of that, ammo may be a lot more scarce, depending on the level you play through. Expect to do some punching now and again.

Most of my nitpicks amount to things like "well x is different than the way Marathon had it" but one thing I really think should change is how the weapons don't reload until you release the trigger -- this really makes the KKV a pain to use, among other things.

I'll see what I can do about that tomorrow. Originally I was going to give each weapon a dryfire sound but I never got around to it.

One thing I noticed so far is that the monster replacing the revenant just vanishes upon his death state, no sprites or anything. Looks pretty odd. If there aren't any sprites to show it's death state then maybe create some sort of explosion effect to cover up the vanishing.

In Marathon the Compilers would have a static effect overlayed over the sprite when they entered a pain state and when they died they would just drop and then disappear in a static flash when they hit the ground. I wasn't sure how I could recreate the static flash in ZDoom so I just had them disappear. Even with the static flash in the Marathon games I still thought it looked wierd. I just got used to it. But if you have a suggestion on what explosion sprite or other death I should use that would be great.

[DBThanatos]

In Marathon the Compilers would have a static effect overlayed over the sprite when they entered a pain state and when they died they would just drop and then disappear in a static flash when they hit the ground. I wasn't sure how I could recreate the static flash in ZDoom so I just had them disappear. Even with the static flash in the Marathon games I still thought it looked wierd. I just got used to it. But if you have a suggestion on what explosion sprite or other death I should use that would be great.

What you could do is make (manual, graphical edit) a couple of sprites in the shape of the Compiler, and make it show the static; the rest would be really easy in decorate (as playing those new sprites in the pain / death sequence). However, the work would be indeed in your graphics editing program.

A cheap option that comes to my mind if you dont want to edit any graphics, would be to create 2 tranlsations in ACS (one black, one white) and in the pain or death state, call them with one tic of delay between each, for a couple times; it would flash black and white, but I think it might work slightly better than nothing at all (could be wrong, since I havent tried this). Perhaps a bit of A_FadeOut for the death seq could help too.

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The black translation would be something like this

Code: Select all

CreateTranslation (50, 0:255=[0,0,0]:[0,0,0]);

While the white should be

Code: Select all

CreateTranslation (51, 0:255=[1,1,1]:[1,1,1]);

And then in decorate, you would call the translations

Code: Select all

State:
SOME A 0 Thing_SetTranslation(0,50)
SOME A 1 A_FadeOut
SOME A 0 Thing_SetTranslation(0,51)	
SOME A 1 A_FadeOut
Loop

However, Im not sure if the original colors could be restored if used in the pain state. I guess Im just brainstorming

[Jinal]

I see that someone has finally ripped Marathon resources which is a accomplishment considering that people for a long was saying that ripping Marathon resources was almost impossible.

As for the wad itself, I think you may have forgotten the dual sawed off shotguns like the pistols.

Also DBthantos, maybe you could add Marathon enemies to AEoD now?

[Da Spadger]

I see that someone has finally ripped Marathon resources which is a accomplishment considering that people for a long was saying that ripping Marathon resources was almost impossible.

Not really.

[Jinal]

I see that someone has finally ripped Marathon resources which is a accomplishment considering that people for a long was saying that ripping Marathon resources was almost impossible.

Not really.

Hmmm...Wasn't aware of that. I guess I was wrong although I was basing what I've probably read on this forum (or some other forum? I don't seem to remember) long ago.

[wildweasel]

This is a fine job, but the one thing that bugs me is that the weapons are not properly aligned to the crosshair. This is especially annoying with the Magnum and fusion pistols, and the flamethrower.

[DBThanatos]

But IIRC, in marathon, the pistols (magnum? Im no pro at this) werent aligned either. In fact it always looked to me too weird the way the player was in theory holding the weapons, but meh, overall, was acceptable (in the original game, and here )

[Xaser]

The weapons were center-aligned except when dual-wielding them. It actually had the opposite effect with the shotgun, which looked really weird when not dual-wielding.

Also, if you're interested in hacking things to hell, it actually is possible to have Marathon-style dual-wielding where you can fire each gun independently. Check out Parkour if you're interested in a sample.

[Davidos]

Oh...
my...
God...

I used to totally love this game for some reason...

[Grymmoire]

In Marathon the Compilers would have a static effect overlayed over the sprite when they entered a pain state and when they died they would just drop and then disappear in a static flash when they hit the ground. I wasn't sure how I could recreate the static flash in ZDoom so I just had them disappear. Even with the static flash in the Marathon games I still thought it looked wierd. I just got used to it. But if you have a suggestion on what explosion sprite or other death I should use that would be great.

A simple solution that uses stock resources would be to take the rocket explosion sprites (Cyberdemon, RLauncher) and create an actor with those that plays an explosion sound upon spawning and spawn a bunch right before the "Compiler" vanishes, have the explosion effects move outward (thrust the actors very slightly, in random directions) and that could work.

[TwelveEyes]

What you could do is make (manual, graphical edit) a couple of sprites in the shape of the Compiler, and make it show the static; the rest would be really easy in decorate (as playing those new sprites in the pain / death sequence). However, the work would be indeed in your graphics editing program.

I think I'll just edit the sprites by hand. That way I can get the effect I want much better than using color translations.

Also, if you're interested in hacking things to hell, it actually is possible to have Marathon-style dual-wielding where you can fire each gun independently. Check out Parkour if you're interested in a sample.

If I do decide to implement this, I hope you don't mind if I borrow the ACS code you used to figure out which mouse button was pressed.

This is a fine job, but the one thing that bugs me is that the weapons are not properly aligned to the crosshair. This is especially annoying with the Magnum and fusion pistols, and the flamethrower.

I was a bit lazy with weapon aligning. Seems the developers in Bungie were also.

As for the wad itself, I think you may have forgotten the dual sawed off shotguns like the pistols.

I was originally going to put them in the wad, but I could not get the reloading to look/work right so I just moved on to doing the other weapons and never got back to fixing them.