[RELEASED] Spawn 2: Descent of Canopus V1.1

[vitriolicv]

This was really pretty -- great and very consistent style, especially with variants of simple textures and using busier textures only as highlights. However, it was really hard to navigate, and the backtracking could be uneventful (and also difficult) at times. There were also some difficulty issues I had: The cyberdemon and teleporting-archviles room (CPU core I think) was really hard (though that might be due to using BDLite instead of playing vanilla here). It was harder than the final boss fight, even. And then, the escape was hell: Even though I cleared the way completely of anything to fight, and nothing was locked, looking at the map to find the way out of each map and then remember which map had the escape pods on it and then navigate to the escape pods, just... since it was auto-saving at every map exit, if I made bad time evacuating one map, that bad time would compound until I was left with just a few seconds to get to the escape pods from the entrance to the map the pods were in, until finally, I'd end up with an unplayable autosave. I used the "resurrect" command a lot playing this

It was fun, and great to look at, just very frustrating at points.

[Fat_Angus]

This was really pretty -- great and very consistent style, especially with variants of simple textures and using busier textures only as highlights. However, it was really hard to navigate, and the backtracking could be uneventful (and also difficult) at times. There were also some difficulty issues I had: The cyberdemon and teleporting-archviles room (CPU core I think) was really hard (though that might be due to using BDLite instead of playing vanilla here). It was harder than the final boss fight, even. And then, the escape was hell: Even though I cleared the way completely of anything to fight, and nothing was locked, looking at the map to find the way out of each map and then remember which map had the escape pods on it and then navigate to the escape pods, just... since it was auto-saving at every map exit, if I made bad time evacuating one map, that bad time would compound until I was left with just a few seconds to get to the escape pods from the entrance to the map the pods were in, until finally, I'd end up with an unplayable autosave. I used the "resurrect" command a lot playing this

It was fun, and great to look at, just very frustrating at points.

Yeah, BD Lite might mess things up a bit gameplay wise. I did add computer map powerups in the game to make it a lot easier to navigate (regularly checking the automap is a good habit to get into in any DOOM wad, IMO). Make sure you use powerups too, and look for secrets - doing so will make it a lot easier - this WAD places more emphasis on exploration this time around.

Also, you can pause the game while using the automap.

[vitriolicv]

I always forget there's a pause function independent of the menu. Still... very tight escape. I wonder, what would you think of making the escape time decrease based on game difficulty setting? And are there any useful teleports on the route back to the escape pods?

[Fat_Angus]

I always forget there's a pause function independent of the menu. Still... very tight escape. I wonder, what would you think of making the escape time decrease based on game difficulty setting? And are there any useful teleports on the route back to the escape pods?

No teleporters, unfortunately. I did think about increasing the escape time, but I wanted to maintain a strong sense of pressure so that when the player does reach the escape pod they get a much greater sense of relief.

[Caleb13]

Good atmosphere, and some of the ingame texts and new console lines were truly amusing. However, running through the empty halls when trying to reach various objectives became boring after a while, so I just used noclip cheat most of the time (I edited the MAPINFO lump to enable cheats... was it really necessary to disable them in the first place?). I played on normal difficulty, do more monsters spawn on higher ones? I also used noclip to get the BFG, you really need to find ALL the secrets in ALL maps to open the warehouse?

Anyway, I'm popping in to report a minor bug with the final escape timer, the texts become overlapped when playing on 4:3 monitor:

https://imgur.com/a/VRU0vzu

Edit: I tried Spawn 1 in GZdoom 4.4.2 and there are some overlapping texts too, this time in consoles:

https://imgur.com/a/3IW4kPT
https://imgur.com/a/Z3Pawhg

BTW, I really liked the gameplay tips in Spawn 1. Spawn 2 should have something like that too, for example I found out about the interactive consoles only by accident when I hunted for secrets.

[Fat_Angus]

VERSION 1.5 RELEASED!

I came across a potentially serious bug that needed to be fixed and I decided to give it an overhaul while I was at it. So here it is, and here is the list of changes that have been made!
https://www.moddb.com/mods/spawn-2/down ... f-canopus3

V1.5 UPDATE CHANGELOG

-New powerup added - Fear!
-Enemy HP bars for individual enemies
-CONBACK graphic added
-Two new secrets + secret system revised
-Balancing overhaul, including ammo and powerup distribution
-Removed excess ammo
-Moved railgunners from Sado-Masochist to Hardened Psychopath
in Main Boss Battle
-Hardened Psychopath (Nightmare) difficulty is now considerably
more difficult
-Texturing issues fixed
-Light alignment issues fixed
-Additional enemies added in later levels
-Replaced obituaries for when player is killed by chaingunner or
by suicide
-Various bug fixes

[Fat_Angus]

I am having trouble with MODDB. The current version showing on the site may be the older version. Please don't download it until MODDB gets the site working properly again!

[Fat_Angus]

MODDB seems to finally be working again. The link should work properly now.

[Jimmy]

This project piqued my curiosity and I sat down to play the first Spawn to begin with, then the second. I've gotten some ways into Spawn 2 now, with a couple of keys under my belt, and I have some thoughts - there are some positive and some negative. I've tried to balance it!

I'll start with a blanket overview and surface-level thoughts: GZDoom's features have been used to very good effect here. Doom 3 influence is absolutely rife, which is obvious through the atmosphere and gameplay. The pristine architecture and visual design, particularly with Spawn 2 (which is definitely an overall improvement on the formula set by Spawn 1), convey an understanding of sound architecture and the process of making a place feel like a believable space while still leaning on abstract layout. The maps are lit quite nicely through dynamic lights, even if many of these areas feel overly dim and aren't exactly brimming with color.

While I have some issues with the gameplay which I'll get into below, I will say that I very much do enjoy the odd treasure hunt, and hub episodes are among my favorite styles of map in Doom-engine games. Give me a decent Hexen-style puzzle to unravel and I'll be very happy! Additionally, the scattered in-universe lore is fun to unearth through the interactive screens. If anything I was clamoring for more of that! (The bluescreen in the Research Lab? Oh my god I laughed.)

So, my biggest quibbles are the staunch linearity and corridor-heaviness of the hubs' gameplay, which feels extremely restrictive, and how there seem to be few-and-far-between directional cues (Spawn 1 featured automap markers, for example, and they seem to not be here in Spawn 2).

In the cases of both these releases, a good portion of my gameplay experience was spent searching for the next door to open in a veritable ocean of doors. Imagine how much the completion time of these maps could be condensed if perhaps like 90% of these largely useless doors were done away with! The gameplay would be streamlined by an order of magnitude even if each single door only takes like 1 second to open. Hearing squeal after squeal of the default Doom sound effect during an experience that winds up to be no small amount of wandering can be a real drain on morale. In the cases where doors are intended to restrict the lines of sight of monsters in the next room, some organic teleport ambushes would be a great substitute. Gameplay can be executed in many more exciting ways than open-door-shoot-gun!

There's perhaps the odd issue with telegraphing as well. Doors that are needed to be opened later happen to look identical to doors that can be opened any time, more often than not. Glass you can break looks identical to glass that doesn't break. Doors that require keys are often not signposted with strikingly obvious color - perhaps a small blue or red light just above the door, rather than the door texture/border itself conveying the key required. Simple changes here like using textures to differentiate locked and unlocked doors would help bring some much-needed conveyance to a player like me who is prone to getting lost (and actually doesn't mind that, generally speaking).

I intend to finish my runthrough of Spawn 2! Hopefully these bits of advice help you out with regards to future endeavours. It's clear you love what you've done and the "big-budget" appearance of these releases communicates that. I think there's still a lot you can learn from the simple-to-fix issues in these two releases you've put out in this series.

[Fat_Angus]

I wanted to put a waypointer marker system like Bioshock, but I couldn't figure out how to do it right. Also, there are often multiple ways of getting to different areas of the map which is meant to offset issues of linearity. As for the doors, yes there probably are some that could be removed, and there ARE colored lights for keyed doors.

I MAY bring back the map marker system from the old game, but I don't particularly have the appetite to make more changes to it again and release a new version.

[Fat_Angus]

This project piqued my curiosity and I sat down to play the first Spawn to begin with, then the second. I've gotten some ways into Spawn 2 now, with a couple of keys under my belt, and I have some thoughts - there are some positive and some negative. I've tried to balance it!

I'll start with a blanket overview and surface-level thoughts: GZDoom's features have been used to very good effect here. Doom 3 influence is absolutely rife, which is obvious through the atmosphere and gameplay. The pristine architecture and visual design, particularly with Spawn 2 (which is definitely an overall improvement on the formula set by Spawn 1), convey an understanding of sound architecture and the process of making a place feel like a believable space while still leaning on abstract layout. The maps are lit quite nicely through dynamic lights, even if many of these areas feel overly dim and aren't exactly brimming with color.

While I have some issues with the gameplay which I'll get into below, I will say that I very much do enjoy the odd treasure hunt, and hub episodes are among my favorite styles of map in Doom-engine games. Give me a decent Hexen-style puzzle to unravel and I'll be very happy! Additionally, the scattered in-universe lore is fun to unearth through the interactive screens. If anything I was clamoring for more of that! (The bluescreen in the Research Lab? Oh my god I laughed.)

So, my biggest quibbles are the staunch linearity and corridor-heaviness of the hubs' gameplay, which feels extremely restrictive, and how there seem to be few-and-far-between directional cues (Spawn 1 featured automap markers, for example, and they seem to not be here in Spawn 2).

In the cases of both these releases, a good portion of my gameplay experience was spent searching for the next door to open in a veritable ocean of doors. Imagine how much the completion time of these maps could be condensed if perhaps like 90% of these largely useless doors were done away with! The gameplay would be streamlined by an order of magnitude even if each single door only takes like 1 second to open. Hearing squeal after squeal of the default Doom sound effect during an experience that winds up to be no small amount of wandering can be a real drain on morale. In the cases where doors are intended to restrict the lines of sight of monsters in the next room, some organic teleport ambushes would be a great substitute. Gameplay can be executed in many more exciting ways than open-door-shoot-gun!

There's perhaps the odd issue with telegraphing as well. Doors that are needed to be opened later happen to look identical to doors that can be opened any time, more often than not. Glass you can break looks identical to glass that doesn't break. Doors that require keys are often not signposted with strikingly obvious color - perhaps a small blue or red light just above the door, rather than the door texture/border itself conveying the key required. Simple changes here like using textures to differentiate locked and unlocked doors would help bring some much-needed conveyance to a player like me who is prone to getting lost (and actually doesn't mind that, generally speaking).

I intend to finish my runthrough of Spawn 2! Hopefully these bits of advice help you out with regards to future endeavours. It's clear you love what you've done and the "big-budget" appearance of these releases communicates that. I think there's still a lot you can learn from the simple-to-fix issues in these two releases you've put out in this series.

I'm in the process of adding map markers now, and possibly moving the automap powerups as well. That should help with navigation.

[Fat_Angus]

Just released a 1.6 version, this adds a map marker system, and some more quality of life additions. Unless there are significant bugs I haven't detected, this will be the final update. The list of changes and new additions is below.

https://www.moddb.com/mods/spawn-2


V1.6 UPDATE CHANGELOG


-Added map marker system

-Moved computer map powerups from storage rooms to main entrances

-Fixed MAP04 console menu door activation mix up bug

-A few light source adjustments

-Messages revised - colored words of importance in messages

-Dead end door lights disabled; spark effects added

-Sparks added to flickering lights -

-Added startup menu colored title

-Typing 'secret' in console brings up cryptic hints for each secret

-Door speeds set to fast

-Windows now make breaking sound

-Nightmare difficulty tweak - enemies now also faster

-Two more tutorial strings at start of game

[armymen12002003]

Been playing through this liking it so far especially with Kreigsland, Doom Incarnate and the Wolfenstein 3D texture pack gives vibes you're infiltrating a secret enemy base great job looking forward to more from you.