[WIP] Virus - Episode 1 "Shareware Release"

[Phobus]

So it'd remove a 2-tic delay? Is that necessary, given that the current weapon display in the top right corner changes as soon as the new weapon is up?

[Cutmanmike]

I dunno I just think it'd be better if it switched immediately. It's like I can "feel" the doomguy changing weapons even though he isn't there.

[Phobus]

Obviously me having visible weapon sprites would help this, but I'm no good at drawing them and being happy with the result (plus the spore has its eyes over and in front of it's gun)... I'll just leave it I think - its more a matter of taste, and the delay seems reasonable to me.

[Cutmanmike]

Mmmkay. Wait you're no good at drawing sprites? This is virus we're talking about isn't it?

[Phobus]

I'm not much of a sprite artist really, and most of these sprites are quite basic and not exactly high quality artwork - and the main problem with weapon sprites is perspective... which I appear to be hopeless at

[Remmirath]

I've tested the whole demo, and i must say that i'm impressed...good use of special features and a very good mapping style. Gameplay was pretty good, not so hard nor too much easy...
My eyes = after i finished playing it...

Ah, tested in GZDoom...

[Cutmanmike]

I'm not much of a sprite artist really, and most of these sprites are quite basic and not exactly high quality artwork - and the main problem with weapon sprites is perspective... which I appear to be hopeless at

The style you used for the sword in that one wad I played quit suit this sort of thing, trust me brah.

[.+:icytux:+.]

very intresting.

the lack of monster types was abit dissapointing. but i enjoyed playing it!

[Phobus]

There's another two frequently occuring monsters yet to appear in that episode, and a boss monster. Also, I've finished making the Greater Prism, which doesn't do multiplying, but does have more health and a second attack, plus when it dies it splits into three prisms, with more fragments. I've also reduced the chance of multiplication on Prisms from 1 in 128 to 1 in 256, because Prisms can take over entire maps quite easily if they're left to their own devices. This should slow them down a little. This should help balance it for ZDoom Wars.

[Phobus]

As a double post, I'm quite proud to say that I've managed to sprite, get/edit sounds for, decorate and test two new monsters today: The Greater Prism (mentioned above), and the Drone, which is the smallest monster in Virus, at a mere 16x16 pixels. It's also as weak as it looks, and uses a weak attack. Like the Virus, when it dies a bit drops off and bounces about making noise for a little. Likewise, the Greater Prism dies in a shower of PrismShards and three PainDie propelled Prisms. So yeah, only 6 monsters left to do for ZDoom wars now. These are:

*Meshflier: Looks a bit like a bird, but in the style of the Meshwalker. Uses smaller, weaker missiles as its attack and flies about with flapping wings - probably the most complex sprites left to do.
*Mill: Akin to the Spore, just better, it uses a laserbeam (I have an idea for how that'll work) - in Virus it'll drop this laser for you to pick up, in ZDoom Wars it obviously won't.
*TreadMill: Tank in a similar style to the Mill, so it'll be rounded and not all that big. I intend for it to fire the WallofDeath, but in a "broken" fashion, so it'll fire the 8 shots at various vertical angles, along a line.
*AirCarrier: A large foe which carries 4 Drones and one FloorTurret. It'll use the FloorTurret as a burst-fire weapon until it drops it, and can also release the Drones (I'll use inventory like I did on the MeshWalker to handle only dropping one Turret and four Drones, and change the sprites appropriately).
*Boss for Episode 2: I'm thinking LandCarrier, and I'm thinking its going to be like the Corneria boss in StarWing, with a load of Drones at its disposal.
*Boss for Episode 3: Something big and powerful... dunno what yet.

[Unknown_Assassin]

I'm not sure if this should count as a bug, but here goes.

When you press "Jump," it enables you to fly up, right? If you then press the "Stop Flying" key, the "Jump" would no longer let you fly. It would only allow you to jump regularly. The mouse still enables you to fly with mouselook, but since I'm more of a keyboarder, I find this frustrating.

I could disable my configuration for "Stop Flying" to solve this problem, but I want to check first to see if you decide whether to fix this problem or not.

BTW, the reason why I even have "Stop Flying" is so I can land on the ground, making fighting a lot more convenient for me.

[Phobus]

I can't imagine how I'm meant to fix a "problem" with a user's configuration. In theory it would be perfectly possible to use a keyboard for looking up and down as well as movement (num pad looks like the obvious choice for looking buttons, probably with a centre view button too), but in practice using the mouse probably is the best way to do it due to the more analogue movement style. My advice would be just to turn off the "stop flying" thing, or configure fly up and fly down keys (in the configuration) and see if that works. I myself generally just use the mouse and run forwads or backwards to fly up or down.

[Risen]

Have you done something that would disable "fly/swim down"? It seems to not work for me, which is rather inconvenient. (For that matter, I don't know if "fly/swim up" works, but "jump" works in that case. "Crouch", however, does not double for moving downward.)

[Cutmanmike]

I think that crouch thing was requested a while back.

[Phobus]

@Risen: My guess is "fly up/swim up" and "fly down/swim down" are only applicable to being on the wings of wrath and underwater... and as the player here simply has no gravity (but not +FLOAT or whatever it was that made it so that you couldn't go lower or higher than your current target) I suppose it doesn't work because of that. However, to constantly give the wings of wrath would just be a hack... so I'm not sure what to do. And it'd be nice if crouch worked like that, but you can crouch in the air or in the water, so I had to turn crouching off in the mapinfo.