DEAD TECH Episode One (1.1.4)!

[Hor1zon Str1der]

Episode One Released (See Changlog)



Somewhere in the vast cold of space, in distant years, old machines reawaken. Technologies long dead and forgotten live once more, and abominations of metal and corrupted code begin to roam the surface.

You are the last human on the planet. Human being relative.



Dead Tech is a science fiction themed Total Conversion designed with GZDoom in mind. Set on a planet in the far flung future, seemingly inhabited entirely by robots. The player takes the roll of a more machine than man cyborg armed with a machine pistol.





SCREENSHOTS:

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Planned features:
Three Ten level episodes
A large and varied enemy roster
A number of bosses
A number of new weapons
An in game story line

1.1.3 Changelog:

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-Reduced enemy bullet projectile size. (For some reason their radius was 16.)

-Slightly reduced player radius.

-Removed Player.RunHealth from the player.

-Slightly buffed the Hunter enemy. Increased Health, Faster projectile.

-Increaced length of pain state for most enemies.

-Added a short wind up to the Brute's firing animation.

-Buffed Laser Drill boss health

-Added new enemy sounds to differntiate certain enemies and avoid confusion with player sounds.

-Updated enemy death sound.

-Fixed an error where one of the enemy sounds would not play.

-Added more secondary ammo to several maps.

-Reduced Rivet Gun ammo slightly.

-Buffed Grenade AoE and damage

-Added knockback to the fist

-Buffed Leadsprayer sligtly.

-Fixed an inaccurate texure.

-Fixed a mapping issue on map 2 and map 6.

-Made the Switch textures read more as switches.

-Tweaked difficulty slightly.

-Removed unesessary invisible walls (You now have the option to fall to your death. )

-Turned the enemies in the first room in Map 7 around so they no longer start shooting at you when the map loads.

-Rearraged weapon slots.

-Map 9's endless desert overlook is more interesting.

-Added More FX.

I'm happy with the state the mod's in, so unless there are any game breaking bugs, I'm considering episode one complete and focusing on episode two.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1weJ3uo ... drive_link

Credits:

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Every one who worked, and works on the zdoom wiki, I never would have been able to figure out Mapping, decorate, or ACS without it.
WildWeasel for his weapon tutorials
Captain J, ReformedJoe, Enjay, and everyone else for feedback.
Jimmy for the SimplyUnreal font

Textures music and sprites were created by me.(Not to brag, of course!)

[Captain J]

Beat the whole demo and i must say, this is promising and totally has own unique feel to it. The dystopian atmosphere that's lifeless but only machines roam around of this TC is brilliant.

Tho i must say the enemies in this game are quite tough to fight even in easiest difficulty. I guess the projectiles are rather fast and they rarely go to Pain State. Small enemies are also pesky to deal with. Especially the aerial one's hit detection is quite weird. I mostly miss my shots when i'm fighting with this thing.

And i would like to see SMG being slightly accurate so i can spare my ammo and snipe the enemies from distance. Otherwise, this TC's cool! This is like Rampancy plus System Shock in one and i love it.

EDIT: oh i mean "System" Shock. Haha

[ReformedJoe]

I like this and I think it has potential.

That being said I have a few points:

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The negative:
-The music completely overpowers the SFX, even at 50% volume. It becomes difficult to make out enemy sounds which are already kind of muddled. Note I'm not saying the music is bad, just that it crowds out everything else.
-The balance of ammo and health is frustratingly tight, there doesn't seem to be enough ammo to actually deal with every enemy in a level unless you hit 100% of your shots, which leads into the next point...
-The inaccuracy of the guns makes dealing with enemies at further ranges very frustrating, and the relatively low damage makes dealing with them up close frustrating as well, especially since their attacks are quite fast moving and difficult to avoid and they don't seem to have a very high pain chance.
-The small fast moving melee enemies are quite annoying to deal with, especially since their attack has very little cooldown so they can tear you up quite quickly.
-The darkness of the environment makes enemies pretty hard to read, even the glowing parts don't help that much.

The good stuff:
-The overall gloomy decaying industrial vibe is cool, and the level design is basic but still offers up good visuals. The fundamentals are pretty solid.
-The art is good (when you can actually see it). I have mixed feelings about the scan line overlay on the players vision.
-Music is damn good, I get some reznyck vibes from it in certain parts.
-I am always happy to see people making TCs with GZDoom. You know, things that have their own cohesive worlds rather than endless discrete maps and gameplay mods.

Odd things:
-I noticed that the "laser" sight from the one fast firing robot makes blood splashes when it hits the player. You should be able to get around this by making the puff a dummy actor.
-Having the fist and starter smg on the same key is an odd choice.

I hope you continue working on this.

[Enjay]

It's great to see something original like this - and I really like the setting. Loads of potential here.

I have read Captain J and ReformedJoe's comments and I agree with all points made (both pros and cons).

I personally would like a way to switch off the visual overlay. I found it annoying.

I noticed that at least one weapon was not widescreen friendly (fist during its punch frame). I would suggest addressing that because most people have widescreen monitors these days.

Also, GZDoom in bebug mode reports the following warnings on startup:

Code: Select all

Script warning, "DEAD_TECH_DEMO_1.1.pk3:decorate" line 116:
Tried to define class 'MEAT' more than once. Renaming class to 'MEAT@DEAD_TECH_DEMO_1.1.pk3@decorate'
Script warning, "DEAD_TECH_DEMO_1.1.pk3:decorate" line 464:
Tried to define class 'Scanner' more than once. Renaming class to 'Scanner@DEAD_TECH_DEMO_1.1.pk3@decorate'

[Hor1zon Str1der]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll see what I can do about the issues. Should have an updated version sometime in the next few days. Updated Today!

[ReformedJoe]

Great stuff! Thoughts below.

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First found a missing texture in the core map, the room with the pillars where you get the leadsprayer.

Elevator in the back of that room is missing a texture.

Anyhow,

The less oppressive difficulty and greater light level meant that I spent a lot less time peeking corners and was able to aggressively push enemies. Enjoyed it considerably more this time around. Great changes all around, though I think you might have tuned it just a little too far to the easy side now. From a quick examination it doesn't seem you've implemented difficulty levels. Are you planning on doing that?

I don't think I was explicit enough with my praise before, so I'll say that I really like the environments here. It shows the strength of good texture work and lighting. Very strong atmosphere and it shows you don't need crazy line and sector counts to have good looking maps. Excellent work.

Also the track "Cybernetic Rage" is an absolute banger

[Hor1zon Str1der]

Thanks. I am planning on implement difficulty level. I'm also going to continue tweak enemy health a bit.

[Enjay]

player no longer 'bleeds' until I can figure out ho to stop the Hunter's laser sights from causing bleeding

As ReformedJoe mentioned, it should be possible to fix this by defining your own bullet puff in DECORATE. If you give the puff the BLOODLESSIMPACT flag (I think) then tell your railgun attack (which is what I think you are using for their lasers?) to use your new puff, then they shouldn't make the player (or anything) bleed.

I've had a very quick look at the new upload. So far so good and I much prefer the significantly reduced screen overlay effect.

[Hor1zon Str1der]

NEW Update!

[Hor1zon Str1der]

Here's a peak at some of the new stuff coming up!

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Episode 1 is pretty close to finished, just two more maps, implementing difficulty levels, and a few more visual changes.

[ReformedJoe]

Good stuff, I really like the 2nd shot in particular. Glad to see you're still working on this.

[Hor1zon Str1der]

Still working. A lot of stuff(mostly good) happened after the first, so I haven't gotten much done. But I have free time again. The Full Episode one is coming pretty soon

UPDATE: Episode 1 is out!

[nekostuffing]

Just played episode 1 and it was fantastic! the maps were great and i loved the atmosphere, music was really cool, played it on the default difficulty (which i think is called hacker) and it didn't feel too hard or too easy, it was just hard enough to keep it challenging, overall very cool tc.

[Shadow_Wulfe]

God tier design on this. The environments, enemies, and setup really evoke that post-apocalyptic high technology vibe.

My one criticism is that I have no idea what the protagonist is saying. Are there subtitles?

[Hor1zon Str1der]

NEW UPDATE(1.1.3)!

Sorry about the long wait for news.

Just played episode 1 and it was fantastic! the maps were great and i loved the atmosphere, music was really cool, played it on the default difficulty (which i think is called hacker) and it didn't feel too hard or too easy, it was just hard enough to keep it challenging, overall very cool tc.

Thanks.

God tier design on this. The environments, enemies, and setup really evoke that post-apocalyptic high technology vibe.

My one criticism is that I have no idea what the protagonist is saying. Are there subtitles?

Thanks. the new voice is a bit louder and mixed better, so hopefully that's no longer a problem, I can still add subtitles if I need to though.