[WIP] Doom: Another World

[Snarboo]

I've also got a completely scripted jump control which tries to somewhat mimic the original behavior of a short forward leap. Player mobility is down; hopefully there will be some interesting environments at some point with platformy bits and beautiful landscapes. I'm debating writing music for this or just scrapping together ambient noises.

IIRC, the player could sprint in Another World, so I'd consider turning the run button into a sprint button.

[Josh771]

I wouldn't really call it a "sprint"; I mostly just left the run/walk mechanism of Doom in place, since it accomplishes pretty much what Another World did. I may need to tweak the speeds a little bit, but the truth is that you could only clear fairly small gaps with a running jump, as the game did not give you superhuman running speed or jump height.

Anyway, I'm feeling some burnout and not sure what to work on next. I'm considering just making a series of maps in true Doom fashion, only using Another World inspired textures and scenery.

[Josh771]

I redrew the laser gun from scratch to make it more faithful to the depiction in the game (it's no longer as smooth-looking) and changed the way the gun behaves. Currently, it is held to the side by default, but it will become centered upon firing and rest there until you go a couple of seconds without firing. You may also use altfire to toggle centered aiming regardless of whether you are currently firing.

Ideally, to keep things faithful to the game, the angled stance would actually be upright. If I had a ROTT-style hand for a pistol held skyward (as seen in my current profile pic / avatar / whatever) I would make that the idle state for the gun.

Hopefully, if I eventually have player sprites, I can show players in the shooting position with an arm extended anytime they're aiming on their screen and, otherwise, show them at rest with the gun pointed upwards.

[Josh771]

Got some rather nice sound effects in place for jumping and landing and added a little demo map with some platforming and custom ambient soundtrack (it currently replaces Map01 entirely). The music really captures some of the more wondrous and adventurous feel I'd like to give this TC; I'm honestly looking to make it slightly slower paced than Another World and give it a little more of an exploration theme, like Unreal. I'm open to criticisms, suggestions, and thoughts (as usual).

[Hetdegon]

It's so viewtiful.
The test maps ends where the gun pickup is, or am I missing something?

[Josh771]

The test map ends if you go through the energy gate on that mesa standing in front of the outcropping. It's a tricky jump from the ledge in front of the cave outpost.

[Gez]

Is the music from the US/console version?

After the demo map, getting into Underhalls is kind of a shock. And man, underhalls is a pretty hard map when the zombies create shields, can instakill you, and it turns out you actually have limited ammo (and no backup weapon) after all.

[Josh771]

I actually produced that music myself in FL Studio. Mostly just playing around and realized it would fit this very well. And, yes, the transition is jarring. I never really wanted this to play in Doom, but it's certainly playable. It involves a lot of trial and error and dying (sound familiar?) but I've made it through several maps.

Also, if you time shots right, you can strafe around corners and shoot down enemies just before they place shields. I intentionally designed this to be difficult on a Dark Souls level; if I produce a full mapset someday, you can expect autosave checkpoints before the most gruelingly hard parts.

I'm currently trying to make up for limited ammo with random ammo drops from zombies (which I hadn't wanted to do) and ammo drops replacing all major pickups. You need to use charged shots sparingly if you want to conserve ammo; they will drain your gun rapidly. Your gun should start out with about 300+ shots, depending on how many shields you place. I wish I knew what the specifics of ammo consumption in the original were; I know that a charged shot, IIRC, would drain your pistol completely when you first acquire it.

[Gez]

As far as I remember, shields and normal shots were unlimited, but charged shots weren't. It's been years since I last played it though.

[Hetdegon]

Oh you made that music, SidDoyle? I was sure I didn't recognize it, but since there are a couple of versions of the game I never played, I wondered if it was some sound bit from one of the oddball ports (or even the infamous uh.."sequel"). It's pretty fitting actually, simple but fairly solemn, although it seems to get a bit loud at points.
Anyway, I did like the concept of the demo map. The skybox looks beautiful in gzdoom, too. A bigger map with this ambiance could be pretty fun overall.
The jump didn't look possible at first, and I've been having issues with some events not firing in some mods/TCs with the latest gzdoom git build, so I was wondering if it was just me jumping wrong or an event not triggering.

Now that Gez mentions it, I guess it could be the case that regular shots and shields didn't reduce pistol charge. I remember never running out of it even if I was spamming shields and regular shots constantly, but charge stations were kinda close to places where you needed charged shots to proceed. I was never sure if it was a massive energy pool that barely discharged after a few hundred normal shots, but would struggle after a few charged ones (which is what this mod does now) or regular shots and shields not depleting the charge at all.

[Enjay]

This looks great and is really Another Worldy. It was a great game "back in the day". An absolute classic that I played the hell out of on the Amiga. This looks to be shaping up to be a really good mod and tribute.

Unfortunately, I suck at almost anything involving jumping so I can't make much progress in the map at all without cheating.

[Josh771]

Sorry to hear about jumping troubles; I tested the map all the way through without any cheats of course, so it's really a matter of approach and timing. Anyway, I've just uploaded a new release that expands the demo map; it now ends in what is my rendition of the charging chamber (non-functional, behaves as a map end). I've also added particles to the charged shot impact.

The music was not originally written for this TC, as I was just goofing off. It could probably use some adjusting. Anyway, I'm considering taking the infinite-ammo-except-for-charged-shots approach here since the jury is out (and it would make the game feel more like the original, I think).

My experience with mapping is lacking, though not exactly noobish. If anyone has any suggestions or tips for the environments, I'm all ears. I want to make this a more open-ended game, perhaps even using hubs, but the original game was quite linear. As I stated before, I'm kind of interested in giving this an Unreal vibe, with some minimal capacity for backtracking and lots of optional areas to explore. I'm thinking I'll design the maps with considerably different enemy counts for the different skill settings, as well. I want Casual to play with barely any opposition, just the occasional fight, and I want Suicidal to be Another World: Doom Edition, heheheh. I might be able to appeal to a wider audience that way.

And with that, I think I'm going to put up a little poll.

[Enjay]

so it's really a matter of approach and timing.

Which, to be fair, is very much in the spirit of the original game. It's just, like I said, I suck at jumping.

[Josh771]

Alright, so I just did something really, really cool. I broke out Cheat Engine and DOSBox and found out the precise ammo mechanics of Another World. They have now been added to this mod and uploaded.

Apparently, max ammo was 1000. Normal shots actually deplete this by 1, so it was technically possible to run out of ammo. In fact, I've given you too much ammo. Charged shots, however, cost an additional 50 (that's 51 total) ammo, so I was overshooting the original by more than twice the cost. I actually pretty much guessed the shield mechanic. It uses 10 additional ammo (11 total). This was derived from the original DOS version of Another World, so I'm quite happy with the numbers and more than willing to comply with them.

[Hetdegon]

Interesting! Those sound like fair numbers then, and explains why overusing it is possible as long as you don't use many charged shots. I was indeed overusing it, but not enough, then.

Yeah, with the occasional ammo drop that should work well enough.