Vulkan - Episode 1

[DavidN]

Vulkan!

A bit over a year ago, I suddenly remembered about Doom WADding, went to look up what the community was like these days and started a map as an experiment. Things got a bit out of hand, and now I find myself with an entire episode of seven maps, including some custom monsters, a new weapon, some added gameplay concepts, and whatever else I felt like trying out at the time. It's not quite a total conversion, but I ended up replacing about half the game through various mods.

Optimistically subtitled "Episode 1", this episode has you venturing into the Vulkan power plant - a UAC side project that seemed like a promising source of geothermal energy until, as usual for them, they accidentally drilled into hell and released an army of darkness. Have fun!

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Even more screens: http://imgur.com/a/aPprV

Thanks to all in the ZDoom and Realm667 communities for their answers to my questions over the course of making this, and for providing great resources!

Effects and weapons from Brutal Doom by Sgt Mark et al, through a cut-down library that I'm calling "BDLite"
Music from the Doom Metal V4 pack
Monsters and code from resources by
DEVLOEK
ERIANCE
JOEYTD
OZYMANDIAS81
SCALLIANO
XIM
YURAOFTHEHAIRFAN
Z86
ZRRION THE INSECT

DOWNLOAD (for GZDoom 2.3.2 and above)

[Ed the Bat]

Is this a continuation of the previous iteration, or all-new from the ground up? I enjoyed playing that one. Hopefully I can expect such quality again this time.

[DavidN]

Yes, a continuation - the first two levels of this one are rearranged and reworked versions of the maps from that thread, with the great advice I got from the community (Glad someone remembers it!)

[Ed the Bat]

Sounds good to me! Also, if I can ask a small favor... Can we move the playerclass declaration from KEYCONF into the GameInfo block in MAPINFO, and the weapon slots from KEYCONF to DECORATE? That would allow me to play with another mod attached, if I chose. I understand how playing with mods was a significant inspiration of this project, so I'd vote for keeping that spirit alive.

If any of this would be trouble, I'd be happy to do it for you.

[DavidN]

I'll give it a try, thanks for suggesting! Looking at the weapon slot articles on the wiki, I hadn't realized how deprecated KEYCONF was for setting up weapons - part of what this project became was trying to re-work the Brutal stuff into a more palatable, reusable package, so I've made those changes. I've also got a couple of sprite edits I realized I meant to do, so I'll replace the PK3 in the next couple of days.

[Ed the Bat]

Wonderful! Thanks so much for taking my suggestions so well. Some people prove to be... bizarrely antagonistic about it.

[DavidN]

It's all good, glad to get any advice on how to make my first release better/easier to play

The new version is up now in the same place, http://teamouse.net/games/vulkan/vulkan.zip - with the configuration changes and a couple of redrawn weapons for the zombie scientists that I'd left placeholders in for.

[_mental_]

Is it intentional that monsters on Tourist difficulty (skill 0) mostly don't inflict any damage?
Zombiemen, shotgunners, imps seem to have no ability to hurt player at all.

[PillowBlaster]

I like the design of that flak gun, but it looks like it could have a bit of a rework.



I guess I'll leave the rest to you, if you'll want to work from there.

[DavidN]

That looks astonishing Thanks for taking the time for that - I'm definitely going to go back and do some animations based on it!

Tourist difficulty: Yes, damage is reduced to a puny amount on this difficulty. I mostly implemented it for my mum, who wanted to explore the maps but is not adept at demon-smashing

[DavidN]

Okay, one more bump for the new-look flak cannon from the Guncaster I'll also release this as a weapon separately!

[Samarai1000]

I love the maps, the new enemies, and the new weapon. The use of brutal doom as a base is alright, but it feels weird that the standard enemies have all the fancy gore and dismemberment, while the scientists, helmeted enemies, and etcetera have a single death state and a single x-death state. I understand why this is, but maybe in future versions, the extra fancy dismemberment and locational damage should be removed from the regular brutal doom enemies. This would be a lot easier than, say, adding locational damage and gore to the new enemies.

[Shawver]

This is so cool David, can't wait for Episode 2!

[∞Phantasm]

You should fix this for Zandronum so people can play it co-op with their friends.

Script error, "vulkan.pk3:mapinfo.vulkan" line 26:
Unknown property 'NoInfighting' found in skill definition

Script error, "vulkan.pk3:decorate/monsters/haedex.txt" line 38:
Invalid state parameter a_setpainthreshold

[DavidN]

Hi Phantasm, flattering that someone attempted it I kind of completely ignored multiplayer while scripting all the new items so it wouldn't work very well anyway, but if/when I continue this I'll give it a look!