Artifacts - An optional challenge mod

[Boondorl]

Inspired by the skulls in Halo, I decided to throw together a small mod quickly that allows you to add similar optional challenges to the gameplay. While there's nothing groundbreaking in here, it does lay out what I feel is a pretty cool framework for spicing things up.

Tested on GZDoom 4.1.3 but it should be compatible as far back as 2.4.

The Story So Far

Back for more, eh? You've cleaned the infestations of the Phobos and Deimos labs, battled your way through Hell itself, and came back to Earth to finish what you started. But it wasn't enough. Feeling bored, you needed something new to keep you going. Regular demons just weren't cutting it anymore. Looking through your endless supply of cells and shotgun ammo, you found some curious artifacts you had collected along the way. Gripping one of the alien objects, a burst of energy unleashed itself from the artifact, knocking you back and sending a pulse across the universe. "That didn't happen last time," you muttered to yourself as you got back on your feet. When you took a look around, however, you noticed the monsters that were once so frightened by your stature had changed. They were tougher, more aggressive, and were out for blood.

"This will work," you thought to yourself as a malicious grin swept across your face.

The artifacts have the ability to change your foes and make them tougher than you've ever seen before. Will you have what it takes to survive their relentless onslaught?

• Weary - This artifact will downgrade all health items a tier. You didn't need that Megasphere, though, right? You already dodge everything.
• Weakness - As if Weary wasn't bad enough, this artifact will downgrade all armor items a tier. The demons got smart and started hitting you where it hurts.
• Famine - And now they're taking your ammo, too! There's gonna be Hell to pay after that one, even if you have to use your fists to do it. This artifact downgrades all ammo boxes to their more fun sized variants.
• Feather - Light as a feather, as they say. This artifact makes you and your foes have half mass. Conservation of energy need not apply.
• Shadow - Spectres are easy. How about a Cyberdemon? All your foes now stay out of sight with partial invisibility when this artifact is active. You hope it's just as bad on them as it is on you.
• Iron - Now you know where all that armor went. Your foes stand dauntless while using this artifact, flinching far less often when you shoot them.
• Retaliation - With this artifact your enemies are more aware, switching targets instantly when taking damage. So much for using those Hellknights to distract that Cyberdemon.
• Rage - You know all about this one. When active, this artifact will cause monsters to attack you far more often.
• Catch - Hope you brought your glove, preferably over this artifact. Your enemies were training while they hid, and now toss their projectiles faster than ever.
• Undead - Things are supposed to stay dead when you kill them! But they just keep coming back for more. When active, this artifact causes enemies to resurrect.

All of these artifacts can be accessed in the options menu, if you're brave enough.

Worth noting that these artifacts only apply when enemies spawn in, so mostly at the start of the level.

Ok, kinda neat, but can I use it with anything else?
Yes! This mod should be completely compatible with any other gameplay mod. Obviously I haven't tested all of them, but there should be little to no conflicts. If there is, feel free to leave a comment here so I can fix it.

How does this work with difficulties that already have some of those things?
I thought about tweaking the difficulties to make up for that but since so many mods use their own, I found it best to not touch them. Rage won't have any noticeable impact when fast monsters are on, but beware of Catch. Unless you think you can handle projectiles moving at the speed of sound. I would leave Undead off when playing on any difficulty that has respawning enemies. I'm not sure what will happen, but it may cause some weird behaviors.

So, I had this idea...
Lay it on me. I can't guarantee it'll work since I'm limited by what GZDoom allows, but I'm always open to hear new ideas. Don't be afraid to report any bugs either so I can squash them.

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Update v1.1

• Fixed an issue with the Shadow artifact where custom enemies could break the transparency effect
• Fixed an issue with custom armor and health items not being respected by the Weary and Weakness artifacts

Update v1.2

• Fixed a critical issue with Weary and Weakness not being able to be toggled
• Fixed a bug where the player's mass would keep halving as they entered more levels when the Feather artifact was turned on
• Added the Famine artifact

[Enarkz]

Has a halo player bringed to doom because i crave nice single player content i must say that this is a very nice concept

[BradmanX]

Have you considered maybe a Grunt B-Day like one? Like maybe enemies exploding from a a defined excessive amount of damage or from it's XDeath? Since vanilla Doom (And most gameplay mods for that matter) don't have headshots like the Halo series does. Also maybe a Famine-esque one that lowers the tier of ammo pickups or cuts the amount of ammo given from ammo and/or weapon pickups in half (like ammo/weapons dropped by enemies in vanilla Doom). Love the idea behind this and can't wait to see what other Skulls/Artifacts make their way into the mod in the future.

[Boondorl]

Small update that fixes a standout issue with the Weary and Weakness artifacts. This fix is also important because it opens up a lot of new avenues for future artifacts! Stuff like downgrading ammo tiers and upgrading certain enemies a tier is now much easier to achieve without breaking mod compatibility. Another idea I had is to remove all armor items and have meleeing an enemy restore 10 points (up to 100). Lots of concepts to play around with in a game like Doom.

[Boondorl]

Another quick patch to fix a big issue with the Weakness and Weary artifacts. Also added the Famine artifact for those who really want some added challenge (you're going to learn to love the Chainsaw).