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Doom Skeletal 1.12c (Bare Bones): Vanilla gameplay infused with skeletal goodness. Version 1.12c
Doom Skeletal 1.07d: Tactical gameplay infused with skeletal goodness. Version 1.07d
Description
Skeletal is a mod compilation to add a few more micromanaging gameplay elements to the base game. I wanted something additionally to do while shooting my way through the maps without making the gameplay too slow and overly complex.
It combines various gameplay ideas and combines added featuresand details in vanilla fashion. Including new characteristics for weapons and small additional game mechanics. This is mostly experimental and more of a private collection of sorts.
This started out as an attempt to compile and modify my own preferred gameplay style for Doom so it's definitely not for everyone and very experimental. To explore new wads and give myself a challenge now and then. The pacing is quite different and the added micro management of items will occupy your mind even more during heated fire fights. If you can find enjoyment in this experimental playstyle like I do, this is for you.
Feel free to post your suggestions and ideas on things to add, remove or change. Since is is based on free community mods, you can also take whatever parts you like to use in your own projects or ideas and modify everything to your liking as far as proper credits included.
Compatible with GZDoom 4.6.1.0+
Compatible with "Corrupution Cards"!
As universal as I could build it and compatible with many other mods.
Features:
- "Impending Doom" feature to escape death
- varied combination of selected community mods
- looting corpses for weapons, ammunition and items
. durability system for weapons
- bleeding and injury system
- encumbrance and stamina system
- custom magazine system for pistol
- reload and secondary fire based on Weapons of Saturn
. enemies and mechanics based on Legion of Bones
- custom minimalistic HUD
- vanilla look and feel where possible, inlcuding adjusted vanilla sounds for weapons
- custom tweaks to graphics and details in vanilla fashion
- score system and highscore table for every map
1.12c Bare Bones
(outdated) Tactical
(outdated) Tactical
Screenshots:
Spoiler:
Eviternity (Skeletal 1.04l) Impending Doom Mode (Skeletal 1.04a) Doom II (Skeletal 1.03h) Ultimate Doom (Skeletal 1.03h) Doom II (Skeletal 1.03h) Back to Saturn X (Skeletal 1.03h)
Wishlist:
Spoiler:
- change player sprite and skin to a skeletal marine during Impending Doom
- change the pale bones of certain skeletal enemies to tan or a desaturated yellow
Changelog:
Spoiler:
1.03h (initial release)
1.03i
- Chaingun stays selected even without ammo
- Corpses should no longer become solid
- Casings will now eject as intended
1.03j
- Newly picked up pistols will correctly show their remaining durability
- Rocket boxes will now add five rockets to the inventory
1.03k
- Grappling hook is now only useable when no weapon (melee) is selected
- Grappling hook cooldown is now longer
- A slight animation of the hand will now indicate the throwing of the hook
- Shotgun shells will no longer eject indefinitely reload is being held
- To disable the precise crosshair go to Options -> Precise Crosshair -> Enabled and select "No"
1.04a
- Maximum carry weight has been increased to 50kg
- Only the corpses of Zombie- and Shotgunguys, Chaingunguys, Mancubus, Revenants and Arachnotrons as well as their skeletal counterparts will be lootable and carry weapons or ammunition
- Corpses of dead marines scattered across maps can now be looted for weapons or ammunition as well
- Velocity and handling of the Doomguy has been tweaked and adjusted for faster and more fluid movement
- Weight values of ammo and weapons has been tweaked to reduce overall load
- The small health and armour bonus as well as certain items (megasphere, invincibility etc.) are now auto pickup
1.04b
- reduced headbob slightly to adjust for new movement speed
- attempted to fix a reported error with some configurations
1.04d
- Rocketlauncher, Plasmarifle and BFG can now be selected without any ammo
- Chaingun altfire now reduces durability as well
- Certain ammo will not be lost anymore between traversal of maps
1.04e
- Changed mechanism for pistol mags: picking up a mag with 7 rounds while you have 10 loaded will add a full clip with 11 rounds to your inventory and load your gun with 6 immediately
1.04f
- grappling hook can no longer be spammed via key
- raised grappling hook cooldown
- enemies give more obols when killed (3-5) or stunned (7) in ID mode
1.04g
- chainsaw now consumes fuel which can be found in fuel cannisters looted from corpses
- super shotgun can now also be properly equipped and loses durability
1.04h
- removed stun shadow
- Impending Doom mode will now work repeatedly after returning to life and being killed again etc.
- obols now give 3s of time
1.04i
- chainsaw now always deselectable
- removed CVAR checks from certain monsters
1.04j
- devil replaced by soul harvester
- removed spectre trails
- reduced weight of several weapons and ammo
- after Impending Doom the hellish sky will change to the current default map sky instead of sky1
1.04k
- changed respawn and ecumbrance mechanics so no performance issues should remain
1.04l
- added new magazine/bullet management
- skies will correctly reset after id mode if a map has a custom sky (it will not interfere with custom sky boxes)
1.05a
- starting with 5 pistol magazines instead of 50
- now using SetLocalMusic instead of SetMusic for ACS music changes
- chaingun bullets now come in packs of 50 per box
- fixed respawn so no more invincible "ghost" enemies appear
1.07
- Rewrite of several modules
- Balancing changes
- Fixed remaining bugs
- All weapons will come with a default ammo load based on the vanilla game
- Dropped pistols, shotguns and super Shotguns can be unloaded to just get their ammunition
- No stamina drain unless 50kg of weight or more (100kg of weight for encumbrance)
- Disabled music change when entering "Skeletal Mode", instead a clock will be ticking
- Most items and ammo will now be picked up automatically
- Larger/harder enemies will spawn more obols, largest creatures will spawn up to 10, bosses up to 20
- Collecting an obol now gives a health bonus of 5
- And more...
1.07c
- Fixed a performance issue where too many dead monsters in a level could cause slowdowns
1.07d
- Fixed the remaining performance issue where performance would deteriorate over time
1.12c
- Bare Bones (redesign)
Known Bugs:
Spoiler:
1.07c
- newer GZDoom versions will currently show several warnings when loading the mod
- reloading the shotgun will sometimes add two shells at the same time
- rare occurrences of skeletal enemies disappearing right after spawning
- the icon of some ammo types stays shown in the inventory even after dropping everything
Design, compilation, custom sprites, weird ideas, additional code by dex909
The following mods and scripts from the Doom community have been incorporated:
Almost all implemented community mods have been modified and are kept in separate archives with their original credit and readme files intact as noted and required for most of the mods.
"Legion of Bones" by SpacemenStrife with modifications viewtopic.php?t=65583
Some graphics and sounds for Legion of Bones have been exchanged (Devil, Infernal, Corpulent, Draugr, Aracknight)
using "Hellforged" by Amuscaria viewtopic.php?t=13397
The skeletal Zombieman sprite now uses the Possessed Skeleton sprite by DoomJedi
The "vanilla" Legion of Bones monsters are now using "SmoothDoom" animations.
Dynamic Mugshot Change script: Player701
Stun projectile script: Jarewill
Bleeding script: Jekyll Grim Payne aka Agent_Ash
Ledge Climbing (Version 2018-01-13): Dodopod
Liquid effects: MObreck
"Use to Pickup" script: argv
Sway code: Boondorl
Universal Enhanced AI: Joshua Hard
Vignette Shader: Nash Muhandes
Coin drop from "Psychic" by Xaser
MememTwo Font: Jimmy, Memento Mori 2 team
MememTwo Monospace Edit: Jimmy
Brightmaps Collection for GZDoom v1.71: NightFright
Deploys "Weapons of Saturn" by Lippeth viewtopic.php?f=19&t=36821&start=15
Includes "Immerse" by Joshua Hard
Utilises "Minimalistic Hud" by Gutawer
Applies "Critical Shots - a mini-mod" by Mikk
Adds "Legendoom" by Yholl
Contains "Metaprops" by Kinsie and the Metadoom crew
Uses "SmoothDoom" by Gifty
Combines "NashDecals", "NashMove" and "NashGore" by Nash Muhandes (optional)
Sports "VanillaEssence" by Pixel Eater viewtopic.php?t=59412
Plays "Then It Hit Me" by James "Jimmy" Paddock
Assorted sounds:
Freesound.org
Thanks:
This mod is a compilation of various mods from the Doom community and would not exist without the tireless efforts, advice and goodwill of its members. I have included the credits for every modification I used in their original form as separate text files in the main .pk3, please let me know if I forgot someone and I will update the list.
Special thanks to the ZDoom Discord and Forums for general help in all circumstances:
Crudux Cruo
Nash Muhandes
Cherno
Agent_Ash (aka Jekyll Grim Payne) especially for the mask code
Gutawer
Matt
Caligari87
ZikShadow
Kinsie
Boondorl
phantombeta
This is a free to use mix, match and remix mod. All content I added or changed can be reused, modified and uploaded as you see fit with proper credit.
2021, dex909
Addons:
Spoiler:
My custom Vanilla Essence version used in the screenshots shown can be downloaded here.
Needs a retail registered Doom.wad, Doom2.wad (any version) and GZDoom 4.6.1.0+
Run "Skeletal.bat" after copying all files to your GZDoom installation to start the mod.
A customised autoexec.cfg with a few recommended settings is included.
Gameplay:
The gameplay involves looting of corpses, managing encumbrance, more micromanagement and environmental awareness.
Several gameplay aspects are different from the original Doom:
Impending Doom:
After losing all health, instead of dying you will turn into a skeletal version of yourself. You have 60 seconds to regain your life or succumb to Hell's impending doom. In this mode enemies will drop obols which can be collected to restore your former self. Each obol will add 5 seconds to the doom clock and a bit of health. 50 obols will return everything to normal. Hint: enemies which have been stunned by the kick melee attack will drop more obols when killed.
Inventory:
Most items such as ammunition or medikits now have to be picked up manually. Some can be stored in the inventory. You need to define a button for "push" to be able to push and thereby search corpses. Pistol clips can be split into the clip and single bullets. Freshly dropped pistols, shotguns and double shotguns can be unloaded to get the ammo and the weapon separately.
Encumbrance:
Items have a certain weight, the maximum weight of additional items the player can carry is 50kg. Some weapons like the Chaingun will weigh more than a pistol or shotgun. You can drop ammunition from the inventory at any time as well as any weapon you carry.
Reloading:
Most weapons will need to be reloaded. While vanilla Doom was not designed to break the flow in such a way, Skeletal Doom adds these mechanics to change the rhythm of the game just enough to give player something more to do while still feeling fun and satisfying. The pistol also has a magazine system. Half empty magazines will be dropped on the floor but can be picked up and added back to the inventory. After each shot with the normal shotgun, the shell needs to be ejected manually with the secondary fire control.
Secondaries:
Based on "Weapons of Saturn" several weapons now have secondary fire, including a kick in addition to your pistol and a grappling hook if you have nothing equipped but your fists.
Overheat:
The plasma rifle can overheat if shot repeatedly but does not need to be reloaded. It feeds directly from cells in your inventory. To "vent" and cooldown the weapon, hit reload.
BFG 9000:
The BFG is still the BFG.
Durability:
All weapons have a certain durability and wear down from use. Used wapons can be dropped at any time. A fresh weapon will have more durability. If the durability reaches zero, you will still be able to fire shots, but the weapon will jam most of the time. Spare parts can be found and used to repair the weapons currently in the inventory. They are quite heavy to carry around.
Bleeding:
Some enemies can cause bleeding wich will reduce your maximum health, indicated by a small yellow number under the mugshot. Only large Medikits can stop the bleeding, otherwise it will contine to hurt you for a certain time.
Medikits:
Medikits and stimpacks can be collected and put into the inventory for later use. Healing via stimpacks will take some time. Healing via a large Medikit will also bandage wounds and stop any bleeding.
Stamina:
When not packing too many items, stamina will not drain. Running when overburdened will drain stamina which will restore when walking or standing still. In any case you cannot run when your health is below 20. Carrying too much and forcing yourself to the absolute limit will also reduce your stamina to zero and you will not be able to run at all. An icon as well as visual cues will indicate if you are overburdened.
Corpses:
By searching corpses will you be able to acquire new equipment, weapons and items. Not every creature will drop items such as ammunition or weapons. If a creature is lootable, a hint will be shown when the corpse is in the player's focus.
Deathwatch:
With "Deathwatch", based on "Legion of Bones", there is a chance for every corpse to rise again. The original monster will respawn and get at you with a vengeance. Corpses of resurrected monsters can be searched for items again. Exploded or crushed corpses will not rise, try to put doors, barrels and explosives to good use. Since there are more enemies to shoot, there will be more ammo at your disposal. Every corpse has a chance of finding ammunition and useful items, including enemies that have risen and been killed a second time.
Headshots:
Headshots do additional damage and can also cause enemies to explode which will prevent their corpse from potentially raising. HINT: To compensate for the higher difficulty overall, there is also a chance for instant headshot kills.
Grappling:
To compensate for the slower movement speed, a grappling hook has been placed in the inventory and can be utilised at any point in the game. Jumping and crouching is possible but the mod is designed to work without jumping, solely focussing on the use of the grappling hook utility. Playing and completing any vanilla-style map should be possible without jumping and just using the grappling hook if necessary. Certain obstacles and level features may also be skipped if utilising the grappling hook skillfully.
Legendaries:
Based on "Legendary Doom", there is a chance for enemies to become legendary. They will rise once more if killed, spawning with 150% of their original health.
AI (outdated, not included anymore):
Due to the previously included "Universal Enhanced AI" enemies were able to inform each other of potential threats and search for the player on their own. You could also try to sneak up on them, using the darkness of environments to a certain degree. The mod can still be downloaded and used with Skeletal Doom but alters the difficulty and progression too much to still provide a nice enough flow when used with Skeletal Doom.
Hiscores:
Killing enemies in quick succession will net you a score. You will set a hiscore for each completed level that is shown beneath the current score. Bind any button to the "Show Hiscores" option to view the top scores for the current map at any time.
Have fun and kind regards,
2021, 2024 dex909
Last edited by dex909 on Wed Apr 09, 2025 3:59 pm, edited 189 times in total.
To kill the corpse blocking you put A_NoBlocking on the death state. Should be usable for the corpse searching function too. Never done, used or made that feature as I just use random spawners for item drops on enemies.
Actually happens with zombiemen and imps too, my GZDOOM is updated to the latest version, i get the same error, my only guess would be something to do with headshots, as it crashes when i go for those, shooting them in the chest or legs are fine.
Ah interesting, thanks for the reports! Haven't had this happening to me so far, maybe a fix I made in 1.03i is causing this. I will try to fix this as soon as possible
Edit: alright I can't reproduce it so far with GZDoom g4.7.0 - did any of you try it on a fresh install without any previous .ini settings or other mods? Based on the error report you sent, the
(which is a cvar) to 6 (which should be out of bounds and probably produce the same error you had), the headshots will still work without any error. I summoned about a hundred of shotgunguys several times and tried headshots only and used the beretta as you did previous to the error, it did not crash for me so far. However, the error has indeed something to do with the crits. Probably at the exact moment the headshot effect (slightly more bloodsplatter) should set in. But I have not idea on how to reproduce that exact situtation
I ran into the same problem recently when running another wad with Mikk's Crits. It's almost as if the enemy isn't configured for headshots or something. I usually ran into it when it was a non standard doom enemy. For example, I believe I caused it to crash by headshotting a Terminator on DRLA. I'm not a coder, but that's my theory.
The concept is really interesting and the graphics are cool and all the plugins but I have some major issues right now.
Spoiler:
1.) The speed.
I played hideous destructor for years so before people start saying it's just how tough games are, it's super isn't. You see, there are game nuance reasons for hideous destructor to be slow. There's absolutely no reason for this mod to be so slow.
2.) The tediousness versus fun Factor.
Once again, there's a reason to do all the stuff you do in hideous destructor. Picking up health bonuses and armor bonuses individually is literally a waste of time. There's no fun tactical gameplay benefit to doing that action.
3.) The originality of the thing.
I have no problem with you saying hey I like this mod and that mod and trying to do something with it. Some of the best mods I've ever played are brutal doom mods. But what exactly is this doing that is so different aside from the stamina and the health system and the pickups?
I'm not trying to be a jerk here I'm just really having a hard time understanding what that idea is playing this is a practical gameplay mod. I mean I like where this is going but weapons of Saturn and legion of bones are meant for fast-paced gameplay. Why would I want to play all that with the movement and health system of hideous destructor with none of the other tactical interesting benefits of said mod?
Thanks for taking the time to offer some in-depth feedback, Crudux Cruo! Those are very good questions and I will try to explain my point of view as insightful as I can.
Spoiler:
As to your first and second questions: I started out wanting a bit more options and (indeed tedious) gameplay elements that would require manually clicking/pressing/pushing things, searching corpses and reducing the pace I speed through maps in general. The speed was originally the vanilla Doom velocity but the constant checking of things on the ground and the floaty feeling which makes the original fun would get in the way of rummaging through the corpses and items on the ground. To compensate for certain situations I added the grappling hook. I also played a lot of Hideous Destructor and I really liked the way the gameplay was altered to add more depth and complexity without being pointlessly tedious. This mod is not that, however. There is indeed far less complexity and tactical depth. I wanted to make a mod that could be played even with a controller and add a very basic inventory and magazine management system that would be playable without much use of keyboard shortcuts. In the end a lot of things were not possible and could not be added, but the gameplay is not meant to reach the stratetic high grounds of something like HDest (which would lose its core appeal if one was to try and simplify).
As to the third question, I did not really find anything to suit my own tastes and after trying a lot of combinations and different mods, I thought why not post the result. It's more of a middle ground between a complex modification and the original game. As I already mentioned in the starting post, it's also more of a compilation of various customisations to existing mods. The originality is the unique blend of selected mods and the way it comes together as a package.
One aspect of releasing this mod was to finally share something and see if this can work for other people as well. Also to finally put an end to my endless tinkering with various mods, scripts and settings by making it final and public in a way I appreciate your review and honest opinion of "yet another" modification, including advice on what to improve. The concept was and is to compile and tweak an alternative Doom experience to my own liking. Since Doom is designed (and best at) fast gameplay, unless you go all in with something like HDest, a mod like this is bound to create confusion and probably not many people's cup of tea
I hope my explanation makes some sense and could shed some light into the darkness of the why and how of this mod. I would also like to assure you that I absolutely do not see your comment as a jerk commentary, quite the contrary actually. Over the years I grew fond of this forum as a place of constructive advice and creativity with many great contributers to the development of ZDoom and its mods. Even if I did a _lot_ more reading than actually participating (aside from Discord)
If you have further ideas on how to improve the tactical or any other aspects of this mod, feel free to post your suggestions. I have a few ideas on where to go with this from here, as long as it stays a bit on the minimalistic side, I'm open for any contributions
Last edited by dex909 on Mon Oct 04, 2021 6:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
From what I've played so far, I like the idea behind what is essentially a modpack with custom tweaks, but it's highly unstable right now. The grappling hook can be spammed indefinitely, completely negating the slow movement speed. Also, the shotgun has a very interesting bug, where you can eject spent shells indefinitely as well. Current hud options are a bit buggy as well. You can have your Crosshair disabled option turned on, but it only works if you also have your default crosshair set to none.
The respawning monsters are manageable as long as they only respawn once. Not trying to play Nightmare anytime soon. Also, I acquired a shotgun off a fallen Devil enemy. Are monster drops supposed to be handled like that?
This mod is pretty unbalanced in its current state.
Thanks for the feedback, Doomguy914: I originally wanted the crosshair to be always on but left the option to disable it or choose others. It is basically how the original precise crosshair worked. I will look into this. Rest of the HUD should work as intended.
The grappling hook is indeed not optimal. Added it as a means to compensate for the speed in certain jumping situations. I might add more time to its current cooldown, still taking suggestions for this elementy, too Have to check the shotgun shell eject again.
And yes, any monster can currently drop any weapon. Weapon supply should not be the issue, only deciding which and what to carry. But as for making more sense in regards to each creature, I may limit certain items to certain creatures. So that a pinkie won't drop a pistol for example.
The grappling hook will now be less spammy and only available as an alt fire when selecting melee. The shotgun will not endlessly eject empty shells anymore, thanks Doomguy914!
@Doomguy914: Concerning the crosshair: to disable the precise crosshair go to Options -> Precise Crosshair -> Enabled and select "No", the original mod does not interfere with the ZDoom crosshairs so it is possible to have both (disabled by default) which could be irritating
Last edited by dex909 on Thu Oct 07, 2021 10:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
I set that state when creating the corpse but have to check the search function in the corpse script again 
Updated to version 1.03j as well, enjoy 
I appreciate your review and honest opinion of "yet another" modification, including advice on what to improve. The concept was and is to compile and tweak an alternative Doom experience to my own liking. Since Doom is designed (and best at) fast gameplay, unless you go all in with something like HDest, a mod like this is bound to create confusion and probably not many people's cup of tea 
Have to check the shotgun shell eject again.