[WIP] S.U.P.E.R Natural: Demo Updated

[Pyroscourge]

That being the case, does setting the health to 999 cause any sort of incompatibility with Supernatural? Does the health need to be so tremendously high for a specific reason? I'm well aware that it needs to be over 100, due to the new damage system incorporated into this game.

I'm not sure. I'll have to do a play through of my own to test, but I have a feeling I will need to find another work around. Sorry to give you such a sour experience for your first time playing the mod, but your help is greatly appreciated.

[Ral22]

It is not a sour experience at all. This is why demos exist, right, to find all these sort of issues. Now that I'm actually playing the game (Having altered the player health) it's been super atmospheric and greatly designed. I'll say a little more once I finish the demo completely.

[Ed the Bat]

STILL declaring playerclasses in KEYCONF?

In all fairness, it's not like it would be particularly fruitful to make this compatible with add-on characters, so... not as big a deal, I suppose. I'll try this out later tonight/tomorrow. I'm a huge sucker for dark atmospheres.

[comet1337_old]

about 10 minutes in
still wearing the same pants

but goddamn its looking good

edit: NEVERMIND IM SCARED

[Orb Swallowing Fox]

The visuals and immersion is excellent! Made me lose track of the hours but ending up wandering around the entire base now lost with no clue where to look next for progression =^@.@^=, I'll keep searching and see what I can figure out, it's been a long time since something as impressive as this came along! Excellent!

[DudeDesigns]

Good christ this was worth the wait. I've been exploring the base for a good 45 mins. It's got me spooked solid alright.
Can't wait for the finished product!

[Ral22]

Just finished it. It was amazing, really. The TITLEMAP was astounding and beautiful, perfectly setting up the rest of the game. Architecturally, every scene was stunning and breath-taking, especially the Radio Tower and the Lake. Atmospherically, I was wonderfully immersed from beginning to end. I would have liked to see a little more help in navigating, either a flashlight or just more lights placed around to help guide you.

More in the Spoiler, as to not spoil things for others:

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I died a little too often on the Static boss, causing me to get a little frustrated. So many energy balls are out to get you at the same time that it led to my death a lot. Maybe parcel them out, so not so many are active at once. Beside the occasional getting lost and running in circles in the military base portion, the boss was the aspect I disliked the most.

The ending part, everything after navigating through the lake, was the strongest portion of the demo, in my opinion; it was a little more linear, I wasn't lost as often, and actually having someone talk to you at the very end propelled the story-telling aspect into something that made me so curious about what comes next.

The one room where the TVs activate after you learn about the Radio Tower evacuation was one of the coolest little scripted events I've seen in Doom. And the interior room of the Radio Tower was, by far, the most elaborate, beautiful and well-crafted part in my play through. I was breathless when I first saw it, ascending the stairs of the circular room as the screens flicker and a chilling voice speaks to you. Ah, it was absolutely perfect.

Also, was that Slenderman in the elevator? The possibility of it being him really drew me out of the immersion because I laughed at the possibility of it, instead of being horrified by the thing in the elevator.

All-in-all, a supermassive effort that was well worth the play and this demo alone will easily net a Cacoward. I can't wait for the final version, especially since the story got jumpstarted at the very end and got me very excited for the rest. Keep up the outstanding work.

[idGamer]

Haven't played a whole lot of it yet, but it looks good so far - and has the potential to be quite scary

I love the personnel notes you can find. They add some nice immersion into the game, and I really like the last updates.

There are a couple of things that irked me, however:
1: The lack of a map makes navigation a pain. This wouldn't be so bad if the environments weren't so open, but since they are, most of my 30 minutes of play was spent wandering around the creepy base.
2: The base is really dark. Using the recommended Bright sector setting, the base was nearly pitch black (making navigation even more difficult). Although darkness did lend to the creepiness, when it's so dark that I can hardly see five feet in front of me, it made me just want to up the gamma correction so I could move around more easily.

But still, it's an enjoyable and frightening experience so far. Especially:

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the screens after the first evacuation note.

[Ed the Bat]

I've just begun playing, and I'm afraid I have to say, my eyes are REALLY hurting trying to read this tiny text. And I play at a moderately large screen resolution, too! (1600x900)

Also, I'm a little bothered with how far behind me the sounds of my steps appear to be. Wouldn't it make more sense to have them come from where I am, not where I was a second ago?

ADDENDUM: Finished the demo. On the whole, I thought it was beautiful to look at, and I want to see more.

[Cryomundus]

You really need a map, this is almost as terrible as playing a corridor maze map. I get the whole spooky atmosphere, but I just wound up quitting after wandering around the same areas not finding anything. It doesn't help that the whole place is friggin' pitch black.

Also, not too fond of "OH NOES SUPER INVINCIBLE MONSTERS THAT NO ONE CAN KILL EVAR." This is less survival horror and more wandering simulator, with 2 hit invici-mobs wandering about.

Now don't get me wrong, I love me a good horror/survival horror game. However, I could never bring myself to actually enjoy "hide and seek simulators," though that's more of my tendency of just walking up to the monster to see what it'll do, so I'll just reload a save and move around it, or if I'm playing something like silent-hill/resident evil, try and attack it in the gaps of it's attack patterns.

Ultimately, it's interesting, but really, really, really friggin' boring, even after the monsters showed up. And after getting the alternative gzdoom hud up and watching the monster count go up every so often, I honestly was just disappointed, as all it meant was that I had to first figure out where I had to go, and then reload an earlier save and rush to those points to minimize the monster count.

I was honestly hoping for more, and was pretty disappointed overall.

[agaures]

Top notch.

I'm feeling some inspiration from the rain mod. Might i be right in thinking this?

Edit:

*looks at credits* "Black and Green - Agaures (aka Krumzy)" Yay
(seriously not my best texturing work though.)

[zrrion the insect]

If you're having trouble finding your way around, map markers can still be placed to mark key locations.

And, Pyroscourge, if you are aren't already being paid to make games for a living someone should start doing that. This demo is unbelievable.

[Discordance]

Congrats on the demo release! I look forward to playing this.
No, I'm not pissed off that I have a shitty system that can't even open GZDoom, let alone run this at a playable framerate.
Not at all.

p.s. did I mention my laptop sucks?

[Yutrzenika]

Congrats on the demo release! I look forward to playing this.
No, I'm not pissed off that I have a shitty system that can't even open GZDoom, let alone run this at a playable framerate.
Not at all.

p.s. did I mention my laptop sucks?

God do I know that feeling. It drops down to 20 or so a lot for me. Sometimes worse.

Anyways, I'm really digging this so far. I completed the demo, and then I decided to do some exploring with noclip, found some pretty interesting stuff, and it only makes me look forward to the final product even more.

That said, there's one thing I've gotta ask, and I hope this doesn't come off as rude, but... Why Slenderman? So far he just feels very shoehorned in, and doesn't really fit with the overall aesthetic of the wad. Myself, and others have kinda associated "Slenderman" with cheap scares and those dinky "Slender" games you always see guys like PewDiePie playing, making over-exaggerated reactions on facecam.

[Jblade]

Played it, looks amazing and once I got used to the enemies' search patterns I didn't mind them. The atmosphere is superb.

A few criticisms - I'd definitly add more signs and directions to the bases, I can understand the desire to remove the map but in that case it would be better to have a in-game way to navigate the areas. The start of the base was also way too dark, I'd add tiny red lights that at least reveal some of the floor.

more spoiler stuff:

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One other thing I'd do is vastly cut down the bestiary logs, so it literally just describes how the creature looks for you but nothing more. I think if you understand the creatures they become less intimidating.

Also please, no Quake 2 music for bosses Of course it's your choice, but sites like Opengameart have tons of excellent tracks you can use that are original and ok to use (depending on the license)

That said, there's one thing I've gotta ask, and I hope this doesn't come off as rude, but... Why Slenderman? So far he just feels very shoehorned in, and doesn't really fit with the overall aesthetic of the wad. Myself, and others have kinda associated "Slenderman" with cheap scares and those dinky "Slender" games you always see guys like PewDiePie playing, making over-exaggerated reactions on facecam.

I do agree with this....the problem with Slenderman is that he's far too saturated on the internet. I know he was made along time ago on the SA forums (I think?) but his identity has kinda been ruined by the hordes of Slender games and the like. I'd like to have faith that you'll be able to pull it off and make his inclusion naturally fit into the story though, but I guess we'll find out when the final mod is released.