The City of the Damned : Apocalypse | Remaster | v2.0 | Oct, 31st 2023

[Tormentor667]

After the first release of a long remaster series has been done, the next project planned is its successor, The City of the Damned : Apocalypse. After concentrating on fixing and improving bugs and situations as well as the map flow together with Ozymandias first, Nash and Blue Shadow on the wagon and helped me to bring the whole remaster to a new level with things that I didn't even think about myself. With v2.0 you will not only get a full remaster. We will even go further and present you a whole new extended experience based on the classic from 2007 - 16 years ago.

Screenshots















Changelog

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An extensive overhaul 3 years in the making
Combat tweaks with punchier weapons
Improved gore effects
A journal to keep track of your objectives, as well any letters you've found
A new, custom font to improve readability
New areas to discover (city cistern, camping site, swamp)
Expanded areas (new rooms in buildings, new shortcuts to avoid backtracking)
New puzzles and quests
A new item to help you anticipate the impending nightmares
Unique ammo types for all weapons
Fully localized text
A new player skin to stay consistent
Improved user interface for reading letters
Improved grammar and language
High resolution letter images just for the sake of style
Revamped monster cast (improved enemies, new enemies)
Final boss variants depending on whether you choose the Path of Doom or the Road of Blood
New final boss battle music
Improved exclamation marks for quest objects and letters
New fullscreen HUD and a slightly customized alt HUD
Judicious use of shaders for some sprites, and post processing
Toggle-able fog and snow effects
Optional weapon sway and strafe-tilting
Voxels for some static decorations
Replaced line teleporters with real portals
Converted most doors into Polyobjects for increased realism
Faux volumetric lighting effects
Displacement maps
Widescreen support (21:9)
Animated TITLEMAP instead of a static graphic
Full color sprites and textures
Actor optimization and massive scripting cleanup
Improved player/actor scaling for fitting proportions
Full coop support (GZDoom multiplayer only; not Zandronum, experimental for v2.0)
Special: Finally you can visit the barn from the original TITLEPIC

Download
Original release from 2007 (v1.12):

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https://www.realm667.com/index.php/en/d ... apocalypse

Remastered release from 2023 (v2.0): https://www.moddb.com/mods/the-city-of- ... apocalypse

[Nash]

YES! My favourite TCotD! Say, I heard you need a final boss redesign? I might be convinced to provide a full original sprite set wink wink. ;)

[Solid-Head]

Look fantastic !

Out of curiosity, will you plan to update or change the siren mechanic ?

[SiFi270]

I remember you asking in the other thread if anyone had any suggestions for better revolver sprites. Mike12 made some real good ones.

[Tormentor667]

YES! My favourite TCotD! Say, I heard you need a final boss redesign? I might be convinced to provide a full original sprite set wink wink.

Thanks for that offer Nash, I'd be more than open for an original replacement, even more if it is the usual quality that I know from you That would be really awesome indeed. Maybe even a fitting behaviour for the final boss battle... I heard you are a reasonably good coder as well wink wink

Look fantastic! Out of curiosity, will you plan to update or change the siren mechanic?

Currently not yet, do you think it needs an overhaul?

I remember you asking in the other thread if anyone had any suggestions for better revolver sprites. Mike12 made some real good ones.

Thanks for the hint, it's indeed much better than what we have now. Expect this to be added

[Nash]

No promises, hehe. I am currently in progress finishing up several paid commissions, so those take priority. I'll need to play through this mod again though, it's been years since I last played it, hopefully it runs without errors on the latest GZ 4.3.3. If I were to work on this mod, I should re-familiarize myself with it first.

[Tormentor667]

Removed the so-called „beta“

[Vostyok]

I'm happy to hear of the changes to doors/silent teleport lines. I always found the originals slightly un-immersive (I know that's not a real word, why does English lack this particular meaning...)
Especially considering the atmosphere of the rest of the environment. I'm tempted to download the beta but I don't want to spoil it yet, as I would like to enjoy the full release as a dedicated marathon.

Very happy to see this update.

[Clownman]

I always wanted to see some sort of remaster/remake of this, The weapons in the original version of this mod were particularly what always kept bugging me.

Also, I think you finally answered the longtime question I had wether or not this was supposed to be set in the Blood Universe or if the player was supposed to be Caleb.

[Nash]

Yeah, the weapons are quite lacking in the punch department. I have a few ideas on how they can be improved but I'm not sure if it's too drastic and may not be what fans of the original would enjoy.

[Nash]

Alright, sorry to say but initial tests aren't so good.

With literally nothing else loaded (-noautoload), I am getting frame rate drops with the remaster. Just by standing at the campfire at the start (where the revolver is), I am losing a lot of framerates.

With original 2007, there's no such problems.

And I have a BEEFY rig too!

Intel i7 8700 @ 3.2 GHz
16 GB DDR4
nvidia RTX 2080
144hz display (so max FPS is 144)
All SSD drives for OS and games

What did you do? :D

[Tesculpture]

If I could make a suggestion; I always found the price of not reaching a shelter when the alarm sounds...

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...a little anticlimatic. The game builds up the supposed horror of the creatures plaguing the city, but when the worst case scenario happens, all that happens is you encounter a single invisible thing that touches you once, making you keel over without a lot of fanfare. I think the horror of being trapped outside could be better served by something less omnipotent; say, a massive horde of regular enemies that can be killed, but respawn endlessly, ensuring the player's death is long and drawn out as they run out of ammo, try to use melee, realize they can't do it without losing some health each time, try to flee only to get boxed in, etc.

[Nash]

Starting spot with 1 quick turn, remaster:



Starting spot with 1 quick turn, 2007:



1849 628 with 1 quick turn, remaster:



1849 628 with 1 quick turn, 2007:



Obvious difference here is the think time. Actor spam?

It's not just these 2 spots though, I am getting overall framerate drops all over the map.

[Ozymandias81]

I guess the problem is related to advanced portals, I only added distancecheck to fire effects so it should be even improved... I'll take a look to that tomorrow, or later tonight.

[Nash]

Yeah, from a look at the report given by "profilethinkers 7" - the highest think times don't look like they actually come from any live actors. My first suspect was the fire and snow actors, but it doesn't seem like it after all.