Strife: Low on Ice (GZDoom)

[Thelokk]

Hello there!
Here they are, six maps for Strife: a hub, three shorter maps, a larger piece and a progression stopper finale. Does not require Veteran Edition, but does require the latest GZDoom, which is the sole port this has been tested on. Includes a modified palette, difficulties, coop, DM, and a custom OST made by myself. *Hardware rendering required* or MAP12 will visually break. I reccomend 'veteran' difficulty for players unfamiliar with Strife's combat.

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/strife/sloi


[imgur]https://imgur.com/XVT8FHh[/imgur]


[imgur]https://imgur.com/vCHzDAG[/imgur]

[Jekyll Grim Payne]

Just FYI, imgur tags require the URL that you get by clicking the 3 dots (top right corner of the image on imgur) and clicking "Copy link", not a link to the page. I.e. if you want the thumbnail to be generated, you need this:

Code: Select all

[imgur]https://imgur.com/CAsuXyK[/imgur]

not this:

Code: Select all

[imgur]https://imgur.com/a/qzG8uzJ[/imgur]

[Thelokk]

Thanks for the heads up, to be honest it's been a while since I last had to link from imgur - though I had followed the tag tutorial properly but I guess not. The more you know...

[Jarewill]

Congratulations on the release!
This was quite a blast to play through, thanks for giving Strife some more love.

Now I do have a few gripes with it:

---

1) Please give the player some accuracy upgrades or a method to earn them.
Trying to snipe with the mini missile launcher before getting the assault gun is quite a pain without them and even then they are still very nice to have.

2) Some more gold on the maps would be very nice.
By the end I only had 135 gold on me, not enough to even buy the metal armor, now I did miss quite a few secrets (they are pretty well hidden!) but a bit more non-hidden gold would be very handy.

3) The snow floor texture could use a touch up.
At first I thought I was missing some textures with how white it was, maybe scatter a few gray-ish pixels on it to make it look better?

This is a very minor thing, but 4) Make lines with railings have the "jump over railings" flag.
That's what Strife uses and what I'm personally used to, it makes it so you can't walk through lines with those flags but you can jump over them.

As for positive things:
The maps looked very nice and the balance was well done (even if I'm not a fan of monster closets), although the maps could use a mark showing the recommended order of beating.

Since once you enter a map there's no easy way to get back to the hub, entering a map is a choice you need to stick with until you beat it.
It makes sense, after all the keys are sometimes obtained early in the map, but entering the nest map with nothing and only being given the mauler does make it a tad bit tricky.
Of course the nest has the pile of robot scrap near it which is a pretty understandable sight, but maybe a line that prints the difficulty before the player enters would be nice to have.

Still, even playing on elite I wasn't hurting for health and ammo much, so good job on that part!
Oh and the custom soundtrack was also very nice to listen to!

Originally I wanted to play through the mapset again with Lost Frontier, but after beating it and seeing some of the areas I am a bit unsure if that would be a good idea.
All in all, brilliant work on this!

[Thelokk]

Thanks for the very kind and insightful comments, glad you enjoyed. I agree with all the points you raised, especially the accuracy upgrades and the texture work - working with the original Strife format and only IWAD textures by design was limiting to say the least, but this mapset mostly served as prep work for a much larger, UDMF Strife mapset I have in the works (hopefully ready by early next year), which will include custom actors, music, textures, NPCs and story - I will definitely keep your criticism in mind for that next Strife adventure and will make sure to properly beef up the player.

[Jarewill]

Sounds great, I can't wait for your next one!