[RELEASE] KLOINKS! - A Claymation-like Standalone Game for GZDoom

[TheMIDIMan]

I'm hijacking the top of this post to brag about the little snippet of the opening* FMV I've just posted on YouTube, check it out!
It's my first time doing actual animation (apart from the little animations in the game), so I'd appreciate some feedback on the movement/pacing.
The sound effects and music are temporary and will be given a proper cartoon-y overhaul if/when I manage to get the next chapter-ful of stuff done.
Don't (or do, I'm not your boss) KLOINKS! is still putting along toward being a bigger and better thing, I think.


*it's more of a shitpost, but hey, it's something nice to look at.



Hello!
On my offtime I've been slowly making a little standalone game for GZDoom that features claymation-like animation (not actual clay) and overall cartoony visuals and audio. It has finally reached a stage where I feel comfortable sharing it to the world at large.
It's my first* time doing (and sharing) anything DOOM modding related. So expect the levels' quality to be quite inconsistent.

*I'm not counting that one Reelism 2 mod I did a while back (that didn't even get added to the Reelism 2's websites mod list) as a proper outing.

New Additions (or features)

• 9 levels (8 normal + 1 secret)
• 2 bosses (one is a miniboss, the other is an actual boss)
• 8 monsters (7 normal + 1 miniboss)
• 5 weapons
• all new graphics (painstakingly modeled and rendered in Blender)
• original soundtrack
• an escape sequence
• Hupert (you can kick him)
• new custom made non-8-directional enemy A_Chase behaviour

Can you last all the way to beat the big bad guy at the end? It's like 30 minutes, of course you can! Probably twice as much fun, if you try to find all the secrets!

DOWNLOAD KLOINKS FROM HERE (Google Drive)

(Requires a recent-ish version of GZDoom, tested working on 4.11)


PLEASE READ THIS: KLOINKS! is a whole new game and does not need to be run with doom2.wad (or anything else) please PLACE IT IN THE SAME PLACE WHERE YOU PUT YOUR IWADS, and run it by selecting it from the GZDoom launcher/IWAD selection screen.


Older trailer of gameplay released before actual release:


Release trailer:




Please tell me your opinions on KLOINKS! so I can improve as a modder.

[SanyaWaffles]

This looks neat! I'd be interested in seeing this be worked on more. The music definitely fits the tone and I love the claymation-like graphics, it's definitely unique.

[Redneckerz]

That looks like a game of its own. This should be on Steam

[WojtTheDoomer2K]

Looks really cool, reminds me of Neverhood.

[MartinHowe]

Fascinating and quite cool All we need is Wallace and Grommet as the cyberdemon and the spiderdemon, and Tony Hart as the Icon of Sin

[johnb1]

Looks great !! -reminds me of Skullmonkeys for the PS1 which is a good, but mighty challenging claymation style game… please continue… o

[PresBarackbar]

This is some seriously impressive work!

[Darsycho]

I absolutely love this

[Catsuki Subaru]

i... love it

[TheMIDIMan]

KLOINKS! is now released!
Edited the main post to include a download link and a cobbled together release video/trailer thing.
Enjoy!

[TheMIDIMan]

Updated KLOINKS to version 1.0.1; reworked some areas of maps to be less mean. I won't go into specifics, but it should be a lot more fun now.

[Ferretmanjcdenton]

Hey there. Awesome mod!! I absolutely love the graphics! I wonder how long it took to create these figures..

Here is a short video!

https://youtu.be/ANIKeHUY0T0

[Marrub]

Hey, this is fucking incredible! I missed the release because I hadn't been checking the forums much, but I had been waiting since this was announced to check it out. More than anything I'm glad it got released, since a lot of iwad projects tend to get stuck in development forever. The scale of this is "small" yet feels like such a complete experience.

The weapons are just right. I can't believe I've finally experienced a grenade weapon that feels as satisfying as Blood's dynamite. The shotgun's boom sounds great, the rattler eats through enemies. I find myself still using the revolver and charger constantly; there's a really good balance struck with all of the weapons. The enemy designs are charming, and I love the funny monkey sounds the rat blob guys make. It's a well-rounded arsenal paired with a well-rounded set of enemies.

I'm not very good at video games, so I ended up going through each level multiple times on Hard with just autosaves. I felt like the fast pace of it all didn't justify using manual saves, although I did notice the save/load menu is, like all of the menus, fancy as hell. The game doesn't feel like it's carrying any of the baggage of being on the Doom engine. The maps are extremely well paced, leaving me hungrier for more complexity every time, something the game continues to feed me in spades with each new level.

The key eyes made me laugh, and I even ended up backing away from one before it could visually confirm my key, causing me to need to try it again. I was enamored the entire time I was playing with just how much detail has been put into every aspect of the game. There's something unique about the way this looks and feels that isn't just the excellent claymation lookalike style.

Only two issues I noticed, both of which could honestly be filed as "not even a complaint." The scripted explosions hurt my ears. I'm not sure if I just had my volume up too high (using earbuds, which I don't usually use) or if the lack of a sound limit just made them incredibly horrendously loud. Secondly, the captains ended up screwing me over, as the location they grappled me to slid me right off the train! I actually managed to jump into the foliage and have one of them grapple me back on to the train, which was pretty incredible, and I wish I had recorded it. The auto-save location was very unfortunate, as I ended up needing to try multiple times to not fall off (or, rather, fall off in a recoverable way.)

The first 5 levels took me about 20 minutes to complete, including time spent dying and re-trying. I'm going to finish the rest of it tomorrow. Great stuff!!!

Here's some screenshots I took. The first one shows my untimely demise at the hands of a slippery train.

---

[TheMIDIMan]

Only two issues I noticed, both of which could honestly be filed as "not even a complaint." The scripted explosions hurt my ears. I'm not sure if I just had my volume up too high (using earbuds, which I don't usually use) or if the lack of a sound limit just made them incredibly horrendously loud. Secondly, the captains ended up screwing me over, as the location they grappled me to slid me right off the train! I actually managed to jump into the foliage and have one of them grapple me back on to the train, which was pretty incredible, and I wish I had recorded it. The auto-save location was very unfortunate, as I ended up needing to try multiple times to not fall off (or, rather, fall off in a recoverable way.)

The explosion stacking can be fixed/alleviated by changing (line 440 from SNDINFO) '$limit World/Explode 0' to '$limit World/Explode 8'. This (and some other things) have been fixed, and are now available in the newest version. (still 1.0.1, because most of these changes are very miniscule and don't warrant me increasing the version, in my opinion.)

I ran into the captain grappling issue myself a few times when testing the levels before release, and justified keeping it by telling myself that the adrenaline rush from (maybe) being saved by one of the captains pulling you back up is outweights the pain of getting slinged in to the bushes. I guess I'll have to think about this some more, if this appears to be an annoyance to more people...

The maps are extremely well paced, leaving me hungrier for more complexity every time, something the game continues to feed me in spades with each new level.

Before release I was quite anxious about the quality of the maps, as it was my first time sharing Doom maps. I'm very glad to hear that they turned out great.

[Marrub]

Finished the game. The final boss kicked my ass, I loved it. I didn't find the secret level, but I did find Hupert on every level. I'll definitely end up replaying on a harder difficulty and try to get all the secrets. Total time including deaths was just over an hour, with only autosaves. I also noticed the weapons are still usable in the credits sequence, pretty funny but probably not intended.

A bit of an odd issue in the ending:

Code: Select all

CREDMAP - CREDMAP
Save failed
Attempt to save pointer to unhandled type NativeStruct<wbstartstruct>

Unrelated to this issue, you may want to add NoAutosaveHint to the mapinfo definition of CREDMAP.

I'm overjoyed to see cool weird stuff, and this game knocks it out of the park.

I ran into the captain grappling issue myself a few times when testing the levels before release, and justified keeping it by telling myself that the adrenaline rush from (maybe) being saved by one of the captains pulling you back up is outweights the pain of getting slinged in to the bushes. I guess I'll have to think about this some more, if this appears to be an annoyance to more people...

It wasn't really an annoyance, it was just pretty funny to be honest.