Soundless Mound: Demo Version [Update 11]

[Orka]

Wow! This is definitely a good god damn spooky mod... or level? I really enjoyed however I am not a big fan of playing horror games but I am a masochist so never mind. This one gave me chills with the long dark corridors, the silence in certain rooms, the slow moving but fast chewing pinkies, it was a very atmospheric mod/level. If it's really just a demo then I can't wait for the full release. I'm really glad that I've seen something in the doom engine that I could have never dream about. To be honest for some parts I switched to chasecam because I was expecting some jumpscares... And that's a really good touch. Make people expect something ultra scary stuff giving a heart attack, but it actually builds up really slow. No jumpscares, but a great suspenseful atmosphere. Damn. I have no words... Good job!

Before editing my post:
Reading the comments above, I think I should have said something about the gameplay too. I try my best.
I played it on normal. I don't say it was easy because it's really just a normal difficulty level but with all those health pickups I collected I think... I think it should be... less? Maybe? At the end I still had like 15 health drinks and 4 medikits that could recover my full life twice if I hit 1 Hp. I don't say it's not necessary but I consider myself a bad doom gamer so even for me sometimes it felt more like an easier gameplay... I guess that means I have to play it again in hard mode.
The weapons were quite okay. The crowbar was a bit strange tho. Sometimes it dealt huge damage like I have charged it... but I didn't. (One of the bruisers even died in one light hit with the crowbar.) But I guess that's okay.
The transitions were great. It always gave the feeling "something's gonna pop up from the dark and kill me as I enter this room".
I can't think of anything else for now...

Now some bugs (I guess):
- I found a part where you can climb up on a box. I guess you didn't flag it as impassable. I don't remember where I found it so when I play it again I will keep an eye out for that.
-On the end of the level I found this:

Screenshot_Doom_20180419_191305.png

The monster counter went crazy for some reason.

That's it I guess. I loved it!

[Marisa the Magician]

yeah, the counter really screws up there and I have no idea what causes it.

[Samarai1000]

I just played through this demo and absolutely loved it. I'm extremely excited for the full TC! To sing the mod's praises, the atmosphere was absolutely top notch. I've never played a Silent Hill game, but the callbacks to it were absolutely genius and fit like a glove. By that, I mean the fake loading times and the reduced resolution. I was kind of underwhelmed by the knife at first, and expected weapon feedback/feel to take a back seat to the actual horror elements, but I was happily corrected by how dang satisfying the pistol and crowbar are. I'm normally really bad at horror games, but I was able to get through this in one go, and I really loved the whole thing. The complete lack of jumpscares is wonderful, too, as I felt very unnerved with everything else. (in a good way) The only real problems I have with the mod is the knife feeling a bit limp to use (but it's a knife, and the weakest weapon, so I shouldn't be expecting too much), and the monster graphics feeling a bit... too familiar? It's hard to explain, but even though I was terrified the whole way through, ESPECIALLY when the baron (sort of) monster stomped towards me, shaking the screen as he did so, I feel like the familiarity of Doom's monster sprites kind of lessened their impact. Their sound design and behavior made up for it, though, and the blood effects are really cool, without being too overstated or over-the-top!

All in all, this is amazing! Keep up the good work!

[Marisa the Magician]

A small update has been pushed that fixes various cases of texture misalignment. Thanks, Rachael!

I feel like the familiarity of Doom's monster sprites kind of lessened their impact.

I couldn't give them unique sprites due to time constraints, so recolors had to do.

[kadu522]

I do find the normal mobs quite scary already thanks to use,general letality and lack of gear

Original sprites would have bean better but you can only do so much in a month-ish period.

[leodoom85]

pro time - 28:30

Good thing that you added that for players that want to surpass my time, Marisa (even if I did it in 27:35)...

[Marisa the Magician]

Indeed. Though in Easy it can probably be done faster.

[leodoom85]

No doubt of that. I wonder what difficult skill had originally in the first demo....probably medium?

[Marisa the Magician]

Yup, medium is the default.

[Marisa the Magician]

Hey I updated it again (thanks once again to Leo for testing stuff ).

[leodoom85]

:noproblemmarisa:

[Marisa the Magician]

One thing I forgot to mention. The monster counts being inconsistent was due to badly implemented corpse cleanup.

[leodoom85]

Here's my quickest attempt for this map on Hardcore...

[Marisa the Magician]

I put up Update 8 fixing that little thing at 1:48. Just a lil' race condition.

[mentha]

i'm really diggin this!

my only complaint is that there isn't more of it yet, which is fine because even if you weren't working on it a perfect one or two hour experience is infinitely better than a twelve hour slog.

looking forward to anything else you add