HeXen: Tower of Chaos Special Edition

[ArgonianLord]

Tower of Chaos: Special Edition is a 2-hub long mapset for HeXen: Beyond Heretic, taking place in Cronos many years after HeXen 2 Portal of Praevus. Our three heroes must once again combat the forces of the Abyss to reach and kill Korax once again. What awaits them is canyons, swamps and old fortresses.

Tower of Chaos features new levels, enemies a weapon and some voice overs by yours truly (I'm not proper voice actor, but I do like making it for my mapsets either way). Aside from that it is your average HeXen experience, one thing that is very important going into this is that the lava is instant death if you step/land on it, similar to how it behaves in Serpent Resurrection.

The mapset also features the "notes system" I utilized in my latest project Descent Into the Abyss, an explanation for the system can be read here:

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The base code was based on Alando1's Temple of the Lizardmen III's PDA system. What this means is that sometimes you will find notes across the world (Identified by a scroll item pickup with text scribbled onto it) that you can read a bunch of world building lore in. This can be anything from dead people's last words, to arcane experiment reports and such. The notes in TOC aren't required for progression, they merely add a bit of flavour text to spice up the world somewhat. ANOTHER important thing about this system, you should bind a Drop Item key so you can throw the notes you've read already, otherwise they will begin cluttering your inventory. Alternately you can simply switch weapons and it should lower the "note weapon" from your screen.

ToC: Levelset down here
http://www.mediafire.com/file/qzgkwls6m ... C.zip/file


Various Screenshots

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Compatiblity: Wrath of Cronos isn't fully supported since I don't know my way around it's code to fix it for the current builds of WoC. Other gameplay mods that don't introduce a levelup mechanic through XP points should be good to go. Hexercise from memory worked along with other similar mods.

Now onto the credits, if I've missed anyone do poke over a PM to me and I'll add you to the list.

And here be thy credits:
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Some Custom Enemies, placeables, textures etc belong:
VikingBoyBilly
Alando1 for the PDA system code from his mod, Temple of the Lizardmen 3.
KrazyCommando for the ShieldFix mod that makes the slaughtaurs and centaurs far less frustrating to fight.
Raziel236 (Put together the ending scenes back when the initial version of TOC was released)
ETTiNGRiNDER
Tormentor667
Maelstrom
Ravagefox
CodenniumRed
Evil Space Tomato
ceeb
zrrion the insect
Captain Toenail
Raven Software
Neoworm
(If I missed to list someone's resources here, please send me a message and i'll add your name to the credits right away!)
Music belong to.(I do NOT own ANY of these songs. NOR do I plan on selling them illegaly!)

Michiru Yamane
Konami

Alexander Brandon
Epic Games

Necros

grymmfett

Kai Rozenkranz

Frederic Motte
Kalisto Entertainment

Darren Mitchell
Acclaim and Iguana Entertainment

Kevin Schilder
Raven Software

SidhePriest(Solar Studios)

Main Menu song Title Theme - Gothic 2

Songs used in maps and for bosses:

MAP01 Valley of Mines - Gothic 2

MAP02 Magnus - Unreal BETA

MAP03 SWAMP - Gothic 2 Night of the Raven

MAP04 Bluff Eversmoking - Unreal

MAP05 Library - Gothic 2 Night of the Raven

MAP06 Soledad - Unreal BETA

MAP07 Unreal Suspense - Unreal BETA

MAP08 The Lost Land - Turok Dinosaur Hunter

MAP09 Beginning(aka Richter's Theme) - Castlevania Rondo of Blood

MAP10 The Ice Caverns - HeXen 2 Portal of Praevus

MAP11 Beginning/Underground Garden - Castlevania Nocturne in the Moonlight

MAP12 Thames Tunnel - Nightmare Creatures

MAP13 Requiem of the gods - Castlevania Symphony of the Night

MAP14 Abandoned Pit - Castlevania Symphony of the Night

MAP21 (Or map15 rather) Heavenly Doorway - Castlevania Symphony of the Night
MAP22 (or map16 rather) Toccata into blood soaked Darkness - Castlevania Curse of Darkness

Mini boss Dancing in Phantasmic Hell - Castlevania Rondo of Blood

Boss 1 Snowman - Nightmare Creatures

Boss 2 Jose Manuel The Ripper - Nightmare Creatures

Boss 3 Sewer Snake - Nightmare Creatures

Remix of the HALL and CHESS ending themeS from the original HeXen is by SidhePriest (Solar Studios)

Remix of Heretic's E1M9 (The Graveyard) track is by Xeotroid viewtopic.php?t=48937



Copyright / Permissions.

Authors may NOT use the contents of this file as a base for
modification or reuse. Permissions from authors for the music included
have NOT been contacted, however, their credits are listed. As such, this
WAD may NOT be used for commercial or "for profit" purposes, either by
myself or other parties.

You may NOT redistribute this file without my permission.

[Unholypimpin]

Some of the outdoor areas could use some work but other than that this looks cool. Ill try it out and give you some feedback when you release it.

[ArgonianLord]

Yeah, some of the slopes for the outdoor areas can be pretty shoddy. But it doesn't bother me too much.

And Map08 is a bit too blocky here and there. But luckily enough, not too much.

Either way, I now found a File sharing service which seems to be trust worth. So hence, I will now post the download link!

[wildweasel]

This is probably the best first post ever.

[ArgonianLord]

Wow... thanks wildweasel! I didn't expect to get such a reply on any of my mods

[wildweasel]

Wow... thanks wildweasel! I didn't expect to get such a reply on any of my mods

Well, this is coming from the person whose job it is to approve the first post of every new user who has registered in the last year or so, and there is a lot of crap in that approval queue. So imagine my surprise and amazement to find that a new user actually posts not only a thread that is well structured and readable, but also contains a complete new mod for Hexen. =P

(Full disclosure: I've yet to play the mod in question. =P)

[Blue Shadow]

This seems interesting, though can we have another mirror for the download link; I can't access SpeedyShare. MediaFire would be nice.

[Ichor]

Wow... thanks wildweasel! I didn't expect to get such a reply on any of my mods

Well, this is coming from the person whose job it is to approve the first post of every new user who has registered in the last year or so, and there is a lot of crap in that approval queue. So imagine my surprise and amazement to find that a new user actually posts not only a thread that is well structured and readable, but also contains a complete new mod for Hexen. =P

(Full disclosure: I've yet to play the mod in question. =P)

Now you made me want to look up my first post, which was an bug report regarding an old Heretic map of mine which turned out to be a compatibility issue. Imagine if there was an approval process way back then...

As for this, I'll try it when I get home.

[ArgonianLord]

This seems interesting, though can we have another mirror for the download link; I can't access SpeedyShare. MediaFire would be nice.

I will add a mirror to Media Fire then

EDIT: Media fire link added.

[-Ghost-]

Always nice to have more Hexen maps. It's the game I really want to love, but the regular WAD levels are just so confusing and not fun with all the switch hunts. I've played the first couple maps of this and I'm enjoying it so far.

[Dead Warlord]

Just a minor bug report but at the end of the first level there's a small HOM effect on the left pillar beside the final door. I'll attach a screenshot just to show what I mean

I've only gotten through one map so far, but I like the mod so far, not every day you get a Hexen mod lol. If I catch any other errors that others havent, I'll make sure to mention them.

[Blue Shadow]

@ArgonianLord: You might want to compress or convert the music to OGG or something to save on file size. Most of the project's size (which is 175 MB) is coming from the music tracks - mainly, the WAVs and MP3s. I did a couple of test conversions. I took the the largest WAV and MP3 tracks and converted them to OGG:

• The WAV track: 29.7 MB (original) ---> 2.79 MB (after conversion; 9.4% of its original size)
• The MP3 track: 15.2 MB (original) ---> 6.11 MB (after conversion; 40.2% of its original size)

I think the results speak for themselves. All that without a (noticeable) quality loss.

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

Is this software-renderer safe, or is it GZDoom only?

[ArgonianLord]

Is this software-renderer safe, or is it GZDoom only?

Yes this is software-render safe.

I've tested it with Zdoom every now and then.

[ArgonianLord]

@ArgonianLord: You might want to compress or convert the music to OGG or something to save on file size. Most of the project's size (which is 175 MB) is coming from the music tracks - mainly, the WAVs and MP3s. I did a couple of test conversions. I took the the largest WAV and MP3 tracks and converted them to OGG:

• The WAV track: 29.7 MB (original) ---> 2.79 MB (after conversion; 9.4% of its original size)
• The MP3 track: 15.2 MB (original) ---> 6.11 MB (after conversion; 40.2% of its original size)

I think the results speak for themselves. All that without a (noticeable) quality loss.

Well I would gladly convert the music files had it not been for the fact that my MP3 to OGG converter is complete utter garbage.