Hocusdoom RELEASED (/idgames pending)

[Captain J]

New Episodes, maybe?? Looks impressive!

[Gez]

Are there new texture themes?

[JohnnyTheWolf]

Sweet! This reminds me that I still have not beaten the mod. I need to rectify this right away!

[Hisymak]

I've been doing a thing

Oooh, more stuff!
Btw, the tileset used in the first few screenshots, isn't that a tileset which you used to make your custom new level for the original Hocus Pocus game, using HocusEditor which I released back then? I would really love to see some mod for the original Hocus Pocus. Almost no new (public) content has been made with the modding tool since it has become available, which is kinda sad.

[ravage]

Are there new texture themes?

Seek new and exotic worlds and blow up monsters at each one!

I've been doing a thing

Oooh, more stuff!
Btw, the tileset used in the first few screenshots, isn't that a tileset which you used to make your custom new level for the original Hocus Pocus game, using HocusEditor which I released back then? I would really love to see some mod for the original Hocus Pocus. Almost no new (public) content has been made with the modding tool since it has become available, which is kinda sad.

Sure is! I really should get back to working on that. I only ever finished three levels for it.

[Hisymak]

Sure is! I really should get back to working on that. I only ever finished three levels for it.

Oh nice, I could only play the one level, and I would like to see the remaining ones, if you could provide your mod.
And it's good to hear you would get back into it, so that we would have also a full original Hocus Pocus mod! If you need any help with modding or the editor, let me know. I got ideas to improve the Pattern mode to be better usable than it is.
By the way, if you like making secret levels as a visit into another classic game. Would you like to visit Vinyl Goddess from Mars? That's my favourite one, I even made another level editor for, like I did for Hocus Pocus.

[RubyEyeShabranigdu]

I've been doing a thing

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That's look so cool!
WOW! (Not World Of Warcraft )
Great Job!

[ravage]

Hey boys, girls, other assorted genderlings, its been a while, huh? Sadly life's like that I guess.


This update fixes a bunch of things and brings me closer to getting it ready for the new episodes!



Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6cpmlrajvxwgf ... S.pk3?dl=1


changelog for - 2-19-2022

• removed weaker fire from the power wand. Its not really necessary in the grand scale of things
• changed the flamethrower effect for the power wand.
• new powerup: advanced spellbook. allows you to switch between active weapon spells. can't switch to no ammo but gives some flexibiity. only used in E5
• new weapon: tornado shot: fires a slow moving tornado that homes in on enemies on the ground. only used in E5
• new weapon: nova shot: fires bolts in a circle around the player. only used in E5
• fixed a bug where using alt-fire on a secret weapon if you have no bombs kills the weapon prematurely
• gave secret weapon a language string
• moved hocusdoom options to a separate menu so that its more visible (due to recent changes to gzdoom's menu)
• disabled mandatory opl override for music. let the players choose how they want to listen to the music (regardless of how I feel)
• fix bugs/small problems in many maps
• krull blade should now properly rip through enemies. (I hope. bouncing rippers always behave weirdly)
• breakable scenery now has +CANTSEEK. they shouldn't be prioritized over enemies when shooting
• fixed egyptian lights not casting light
• cleaned up all torch definitions because the way the embers for each torch spawned was different bothered me.
• removed maps 97,98, and 99 as they're no longer needed
• fixed blank line spam in the console when picking up treasure
• updated menus (partially)
• updated help, credits, story, and end screens (woo, animations!)
• changed secret weapon's rapid fire attack (still does the same damage)
• changed secret weapon's flame fire attack (the odds of ever getting this combo are very rare but its basically cheating)
• reverted an old change - rapid fire for your basic attack now shoots one shot for every tic, not every other tic. makes it twice as powerful, but the power wand laser is still more powerful.
• redid the fireball shot. different vfx and now throws flamethrower shots to the ground upon death
• reverted an old change - use the original sprites for lava spit projectiles I made
• added editornums for new weapons though first four episodes won't use them. they are available for anyone to use
• cleaned up monster and boss definitions
• Time no longer ticks while the Start Window at the beginning of the game is open
• Game is also paused while the Start Window is open
• particles scale up with distance like quake (but not as aggressively)
• health bar script no longer checks for cvars for bosses (less hardcody so you can have multiple bosses per episode if you wanted)
• reduced the amount of particles that most projectiles spawn (since they're bigger far away they're easier to see)
• monsters now have +LOOKALLAROUND. not sure why they didn't before.
• added a rainbow shader & dynamic light, based on the one from Void & Rainbow
• monsters can technically 'bleed' now, used for special effects
• invulnerability potion lasts for 15 seconds instead of 30
• split HELP and STORY into separate menus
• fixed a bug where player shots would give power wand charges on non-enemy targets like blocks
• fixed a bug where if you empty the power wand and immediately switch to another weapon, it would not passively charge itself
• balance changes to trolodon. more health, less resistant to the power wand

[RubyEyeShabranigdu]

Awesome! I love it!

[Broadwing]

This is amazing. Hocus pocus in 3D. That’s a dream come true, considering I still own and play my original hocus pocus copy.

Hisymak, a question for you: tha author of hocus pocus once worked on prior games (clyde’s adventure and clyde’s revenge). The games share some similarities in seems in conception. Do you think your hocus pocus editor could also work for the formers?

[NightFright]

Thanks for removing that OPL music override. I had already figured out how to remove the limitation by myself, but now I don't have to mess around with the official releases any more, which is better.

[Hisymak]

Hisymak, a question for you: tha author of hocus pocus once worked on prior games (clyde’s adventure and clyde’s revenge). The games share some similarities in seems in conception. Do you think your hocus pocus editor could also work for the formers?

I just took a quick look, and it seems that these games use different file formats, and also the levels have different features. That would basically require implementation of significant part of editor specifically for this game, which I'm not going to do, considering the games are not as popular as Hocus.

[Nilex]

Impressive work! Having only recently completed my childhood crave for the first time, the original Hocus Pocus, I have to say transition to 3D is fantastic. Care and detail put into every level is unbelievable. As are subtle liberties and personal touches to numerous enemies which in the original were reduced to but a simple reskins. Secret levels are truly amazing, all of them. I only recognized the 4th one, if someone cares to fill me in on the rest it'd make me happy.

Initially I heard about the MOD from IcarusLIVES video I watched some time ago and knew right away I'll have to push original HP up in my to-do list to play both sequentially. I expected simple and short level design much like it the original and first episode indeed fulfilled my expectations. After that things started to blow up and I was getting worried it my turn into a slog as in: what have I got myself into? But after getting to Ep2 forest levels I was blow away and the feeling stayed with me until the end. My other favorites are Desert and Halloween, which gave me Serious Sam and Graven vibes. The latter game (still Early Access tho) was disappointing btw but this mod showed what it could become.
Oh yeah I also loved the new enemies and weapons. Upping the challenge while remaining cannon/lore-friendly imho. Was ecstatic when I found the Rocket Launcher and now I wonder if there are more such Easter Egg goodies (happy Easter btw).

Anyway took me 5 days on Ultra. As far as difficulty and balance it's pretty much as expected, not too difficult to become frustrating. Only handful of hairy situations and couple of self-inflicted catastrophes involving quick-save and imminent demise I only have a couple of suggestions and bugs to report.

Suggestions:
Placing enemies right next to player spawn is not cool. Lots of examples.
Ghosts respawning should only trigger inside player's FOV if possible.
Gargoyle homing storm should have a cooldown. ~1 per 3 secs. No fun getting machinegun'd by them.

Bugs:

MAP12 - Lodged projectile at the ground. Looks like manually placed? Cannot be interacted with.

MAP23 - Hole was covered by 2 breakable blocks. Looks like remnants or abandoned plans for a secret.

MAP30 - Floating spikes.

In Ep4-L6 I could not get one enemy to spawn. Been sweeping up and down, left and right, back and forth to no avail.
May be it's no a bug but worth a look. Would a save file help (v2-19-2022)?

* * *

Well that's about it, let me just drop a huge Thank you for making this super fun high quality MOD. Who would have guessed this little obscure game would get such treatment down the line. Was also nice to witness how level and enemy design evolved with each new episode, even if it meant being on the receiving end of things I particularly liked draining water level in Ep4!

[ravage]

Suggestions:
Placing enemies right next to player spawn is not cool. Lots of examples.

Probably right, I can look into that.

Ghosts respawning should only trigger inside player's FOV if possible.

All enemies respawn, but what I think you mean is when ghosts in the spooky levels fade away. They're not respawning. They fade away, move elsewhere, and then become visible again.

Gargoyle homing storm should have a cooldown. ~1 per 3 secs. No fun getting machinegun'd by them.

I could nerf them. At least they don't shoot multiple clouds.

Bugs:

Bug - MAP12.jpg

That is a gzdoom bug involving rollsprite, bouncing projectiles, and slopes. I don't know why it happens, and is not something I can fix.

Bug - MAP23.jpg

That does hide a secret, but there should be a health--waaait you actually played on Ultra?! That's never been fully tested because its so unfair. Ultra gives you only one HP and removes all health potions. Guess what was in there. :P

Bug - MAP30.jpg

That's weird. I've never seen that before. I'll have to look in to that.

In Ep4-L6 I could not get one enemy to spawn. Been sweeping up and down, left and right, back and forth to no avail.
May be it's no a bug but worth a look. Would a save file help (v2-19-2022)?

Map36? Is it any enemy or just one specific enemy?

[Nilex]

In Ep4-L6 I could not get one enemy to spawn. Been sweeping up and down, left and right, back and forth to no avail.
May be it's no a bug but worth a look. Would a save file help (v2-19-2022)?

Map36? Is it any enemy or just one specific enemy?

Can't say for sure. I noticed in handful of rare cases enemies only spawned when backtracking, for no apparent reason. Excluding picking up keys or activating switch triggers. Simply going through an uneventful corridor one way then backtracking through it spawned new enemies. Possibly due to an unknown (to me) trigger. I assumed it was the case in this map so I preformed multitude of tests in attempt to activate all hidden triggers but level is so complex and has most enemies of them all so I likely missed one. I can for sure confirm there wasn't alive one hiding somewhere unless it's out of map bounds, even though I checked there too. Even contemplated viewing the map in editor to check if there wasn't a misplaced spawn point somewhere but my laziness overpowered my ocd. It could also be I broke scripting due to excessive amounts of qsave/qload. If that's indeed the case then I must commend GZ coders because it's only 1 in a million occurrence.
I'd give it a short check in map editor and forget about if I can't see anything, or until another similar report comes up.

Gargoyle compromise sounds fair.

Yeah I meant Ghost fade away. When they reappear is should be in player's FOV. Or give them some kind of distinct audio cue when reappearing. On Ultra they're too RNG to fight against, or alternatively too tedious if cautions approach is taken for a distance (not always possible). Goal is to stop random but common insta-deaths from behind.