Ashes Afterglow TC - closing the vault

[MgReptile16+]

So i completed Ashes 2063 around 3 years ago and within last month i found about Ashes: Dead Man Walking and Ashes: Afterglow, so i'm freshly after completing them. I was able to find, lets say about 60-70% of the secrets. I know it's been most likely said dozens of times here, but this piece of work ought to be praised endlessly. This is the best GzDoom related project i played and i have finished over 1800 doom maps from around 60 or so Megawads. It's just unfair to classify it as a "Doom mod" considering how far this went on it's own and there's virtually no raw Doom left. In my opinion this deserves way more exposure. The best thing out of all the elements, for me, has to be the level design; it's the one thing that takes it above and beyond. The texture work that presents a whole new world and style is part of it, but whoever worked on maps for this game needs to receive separate awards for it. This is even better than Blood's levels of recreating realistic setting with a "primitive engine". Every other Doom mod can pull off a bunker or a sewer, even with vanilla textures, with bland, dark halls, but here when you go to grocery store, scrapyard, post office, mechanic, shopping mall, gun store, police station, comic book store, motel, gas station, fast food joint, you can always tell and the details are just overwhelming, with my two favourite locations being enormous stadium and botanic garden with that giant breathtaking dome. To be fair though i have some critisisms, mainly the seemingly broken "ending" system with vague and unclear requirements to get good or bad outcome in each storyline (in my opinion it's just something GzDoom isn't meant to pull off). I also have to admit that i did get lost in the plot a bit, i don't remember much from the first game playthrough and i was getting confused within the dialogue and endless logs, but then again, knowing that there is so much story and lore, with each terminal or conversation with key character, i wish there was someplace i can just read the breakdown or explanation of the story, just so i can comprehend it and appreciate the effort put into it. Shame this thing doesn't have a wiki or sth. It's just a rare sight to encounter such an atmospheric and polished game so thanks for the experience. Salutations.

[Grey Rook]

i wish there was someplace i can just read the breakdown or explanation of the story, just so i can comprehend it and appreciate the effort put into it. Shame this thing doesn't have a wiki or sth. It's just a rare sight to encounter such an atmospheric and polished game so thanks for the experience. Salutations.

Ashes is undeniably awesome, that is true, and the absence of a wiki is somewhat regrettable. There is a semi-complete page on https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... /Ashes2063, but I don't know how helpful that one would be.

[AmissaAnima]

The parking garage blockage is linked to a switch puzzle

It's a bug in Sterilized.

I didn't know that when i typed my comment.

[Gez]

Ashes is undeniably awesome, that is true, and the absence of a wiki is somewhat regrettable.

There are Doom Wiki pages for Ashes 2063 and Ashes Afterglow at DoomWiki.org.

[Drowning_witch]

How does one get the full thing working on delta touch? I downloaded the standalone.

I see several pk3's:
Ashes2063Enriched2_23
Ashes2063EnrichedFDPatch
AshesAfterglow1_10
AshesSAMenu
game_support

Not sure what the fd patch, sa menu and game support are.

[Grey Rook]

There are Doom Wiki pages for Ashes 2063 and Ashes Afterglow at DoomWiki.org.

Yes. Which are also incomplete. They list weapons and secrets, but not monsters, items, or walkthroughs.

[Gez]

Yes. Which are also incomplete.

Wikis are only as complete as people write them up to be...

[hexelix]

I've been playing Afterglow for about 2 months now, and I've gotta say, it's brilliant. The level design is really gives you the sense that you're crawling around real locations rather than a contrived Sandy Petersen-esque series of somewhat arbitrary challenges (no disrespect to the great man, that definitely has it's place) and the attention to detail to make everything look appropriately decayed and grimy is really amazing.

What i'd really like to complement Vostyok on, though, is how well-organized, structured, and commented his code is. I've been trying to learn DECORATE and Zscript, and by following his code, using it as example, i've gotten farther in the last 2 months than I have in the prior 2 years. It's been a blast poking around and figuring out what does what.

Anyway, I love the new features in Afterglow (The extensive workbench in particular), is there going to be any effort to back-port them to the Ashes: 2063 & Dead Man walking Campaigns? And for that matter, is there any part of the project that a newbie coder could be of any assistance on? This has to be my favorite Gzdoom mod ever, and I'd love to contribute in some fashion.

[Vostyok]

Hi, I just finished ashes afterglow and absolutely loved it, and I wanted to try my hand at making an addon campaign, and wanted to know where would I start? Is it possible to edit the existing content of afterglow? I've got doombuilder already and would love to try making some new maps

Would love to see what you come up with. If you do, let me know how you get on. And I've said this before, but anyone is free to use my assets in their own projects. You don't even need to ask. Share the love.

Is it just me, or is the flooded district in the sterilized version impossible to complete? In the flooded parking garage, I don't see how you can get past the dirt blocking off the gate that you need to go through.

Am aware of this bug. I believe it is because the switch is linked to the wrong mapscript in sterilized. Am working on a fix as well as several others. Just haven't been able to work on much recently. Sorry.

So i completed Ashes 2063 around 3 years ago ... Shame this thing doesn't have a wiki or sth. It's just a rare sight to encounter such an atmospheric and polished game so thanks for the experience. Salutations...

Thank you for the comments. I will admit, Afterglow was especially quite an experiment for us, and I think I bit off more than I could chew when it came to all the separate story elements and events. Have been considering this for future projects and how best to summarize and present story information to the player. I've got some ideas, though I might have to split the next planned episode in half, considering how much we are wanting to cram into it. Lol. Hopefully I'll figure out a solution.

Really glad you enjoyed it though. Really happy to hear that.

...What i'd really like to complement Vostyok on, though, is how well-organized, structured, and commented his code is. I've been trying to learn DECORATE and Zscript, and by following his code, using it as example, i've gotten farther in the last 2 months than I have in the prior 2 years. It's been a blast poking around and figuring out what does what.
Anyway, I love the new features in Afterglow (The extensive workbench in particular), is there going to be any effort to back-port them to the Ashes: 2063 & Dead Man walking Campaigns? And for that matter, is there any part of the project that a newbie coder could be of any assistance on? This has to be my favorite Gzdoom mod ever, and I'd love to contribute in some fashion...

Phew! Well, to begin with, I would immediately use a riot shield and redirect your kind words towards ReformedJoe. He's the brains behind all the zscript, and his methods for organizing and calling assets really helped me put this together into the cohesive state that it is. I'm really looking forward to seeing what you make with this new knowledge, though.

There are no plans currently to back-port features to previous campaigns. You'll see a lot of new QOL improvements in the next episode as well, but I don't really believe in modifying previous works too heavily. If something does make things better though, I will consider it. Maybe we'll get a "super-enriched" version of 2063, DMW and even Afterglow one day, that doesn't have quite so much jank in it. Lmao.

As for the offer of assistance, I am always looking for anyone who wants to lend a hand. Right now I've deep into a couple of different projects at the moment, so I should be okay. But when the time comes I think I'll make a new thread where we can start officially canvassing for new talent. Watch this space.


Wiki comments:
Am aware of this issue and it's something The Dutch Ghost and I have spoken about before. Unfortunately I've had my plate pretty full for a while now, and I've also felt a little uneasy about doing this all myself. I like to see stuff like this in other games be a community thing really. But since we're still pretty niche we might have to organize this ourselves at some point. We'll see.


Final word:
A quick update on where we are and what we're doing while I'm here. Have recently being dealing with a lot of personal issues so my workflow has evaporated quite severely. Am looking to make the back end of this year a fresh start. Not sure if a combination of work life, personal problems or just straight-up burnout from all the stuff I was doing last year, but it seems to be getting better. Now I do not need this to be a hug-box thread so please, do not worry about me and I really don't need a deluge of support messages. I'll be fine lol. I wasn't sure if I even wanted to write any of this, but there it is. I just wanted to let you know that I'm not dead and I'm still working on stuff, so apologies for the delay. Hopefully I'll put out some more news soon. Keeping busy keeps me sane anyway.

Right... enough moping. I've got a lot of work to do with all these patches I want to add.

Laters,

-V

[Netheritor]

So, sterilized and your monster pack doesn't work?

[Captain J]

You and your crew did a great job providing fixes and updates throughout the years. I understand that Bugfixing plus IRL situations can be challenging, especially the latter. I appreciate your effort but do take it easy and stay strong!

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I recently downloaded Ashes: Stand Alone Version 1.03 and found some weird glitch in Nuclear Wasted, one of the maps in Afterglow. If you die once in arcade minigame, the skybox stays permanently retro. It depends on which stage did you die on though.

Both GZDoom version g4.7.1 and g4.8.2 showed the same result.

[AmissaAnima]

You and your crew did a great job providing fixes and updates throughout the years. I understand that Bugfixing plus IRL situations can be challenging, especially the latter. I appreciate your effort but do take it easy and stay strong!

---

I recently downloaded Ashes: Stand Alone Version 1.03 and found some weird glitch in Nuclear Wasted, one of the maps in Afterglow. If you die once in arcade minigame, the skybox stays permanently retro. It depends on which stage did you die on though.

Both GZDoom version g4.7.1 and g4.8.2 showed the same result.

The exact same thing happens if you complete the minigame itself but the skybox will be the same as the final map of the arcade game,

[DrFrnknsprtr]

Sounds like it may be due to how the sky change is handled, which is probably a script that's ran at the start of the level rather than when you enter a level, just a theory

[Dynamo]

Yes. Which are also incomplete.

Wikis are only as complete as people write them up to be...

Very much so! We put some work into having the articles complete with full map views and secret descriptions, but since interest has been expressed here, anyone who is familiar and well versed with Ashes is more than welcome to contribute full walkthroughs for every map, no better place than the doomwiki for that stuff. Enemy descriptions would also be welcome, of course, but I think walkthroughs are what most people deem most useful.

[Ihavequestions]

I've filled the Enemies section for the 2063 Doom Wiki page. Now, someone please make one for Afterglow.