Spoiler:
The Story So Far
Start Of It All
You're a space marine, one of Earth's toughest fighters, hardened in combat and trained for action across the Solar System. About nine years ago, you were just about done with your tour of duty across Australia when you were suddenly ordered to Sydney. The food shortages had gotten worse and worse, and with them the riots. Your orders were to keep the crowds back from Parliament House, but that's where things went wrong. Your usual commanding officer was re stationed elsewhere in the city, leaving you under another CO, a twitchy, super-psycho with a hair-trigger temper and the bite to match. While manning your post, your radio crackled as he called out orders firing on the protesters- Who hadn't even approached the barricades. While screams erupted as your comrades did as ordered, you tracked the bastard down. After demanding you return to your post, he attempted to wrench the rifle from your hands. You left him little more than a twitching blob. He, and his body cast, were shipped off to Pearl Harbor, while you were punitively transferred to the Mars colonies, home of the Union Aerospace Corporation. The UAC is a multi-planetary conglomerate with radioactive waste facilities on Mars and its two moons, Phobos and Deimos. With no action for fifty million miles, your day consisted of sucking dust and watching restricted flicks in the rec room.
Playing With Fire
For the last four years the United Aerospace Armed Forces, the UAC's biggest supplier, has used the remote facilities on Phobos and Deimos to conduct various secret projects, including research on inter-dimensional space travel. So far they have been able to open "Gateways" between Phobos and Deimos, throwing a few gadgets into one and watching them come out the other. Recently however, the Gateways have grown dangerously unstable. Military "volunteers" entering them have been stricken with a strange form of insanity- babbling vulgarities, bludgeoning anything that breathes, and finally suffering and untimely death of full body explosion. And that's if they even manage to come back through at all. Matching heads with torsos to send home to the folks became a full-time job. The Latest military reports state that the research is suffering a "small set-back", but everything is under control.
All Hell Breaks Loose
One day, Mars received a garbled message from Phobos. "We require immediate military support! Something's coming out of the Gateways! These things are not human, repeat! Origin unknown! Computer systems have gone berserk!" The rest was incoherent. Soon afterwards, Deimos simply vanished from the sky. Since then, attempts to establish contact with either moon have been unsuccessful.
You and your buddies, the only combat troop for millions of miles were promptly dispatched to Phobos. You were ordered to secure the perimeter of the base while the rest of the team went inside. For several hours, your radio picked up the sounds of combat: guns firing, men yelling orders, screams, bones cracking, then finally, silence. You finally realized you were alone.
Last Man Standing
You could never navigate off the moon on your own. And with all the heavier ordnance with your fallen comrades, your chances were slimmer than ever. But the only way out was through. So you left the lander and made your way through the base, only to encounter a bloodbath: The entire facility was slaughtered by a horde of hideous alien creatures, having emerged from the gateway. With no other route to take, you take the plunge through, and end up in the lost Deimos base, itself similarly ravaged by the monsters. After trekking across its surface for what felt like days, you finally reach the other side of the moon, and discover to your horror just where its been taken.
Dark Secrets
Deimos floated above a nightmarish hellscape, a twisted wasteland teeming with hideous beasts, dotted with frightful edifices and choked with great fires. You could only imagine this was Hell itself- But you had no choice but to commandeer an automated shuttle and clumsily pilot it down to the surface. As you made your way through this blasted nightmarescape, you witnessed sights you could never describe: Arcane forces twisting the world around you, beasts more hideous than your worst nightmares, and eldritch entities who seek only to consume everything in existence. Your mind was assaulted at every step, the surrounding horrors meld into a fetid miasma until you couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't.
Return To "Safety"
Eventually, through some miracle, you found your way back to Earth. You didn't, and don't, believe in a higher power but could only imagine your escape the cruel mercy of a twisted God who wished you to live the rest of your life with these memories. Eventually the UAAF found you. You were extensively questioned regarding your experience and involvement with the incident, but your pleas to stop Gateway research was dismissed as crazed rantings. The military doctors, with their tests and treatments, were of no help: day after day, night after night, you fought sleep. For dreams brought memories of the Hell you had survived, and the abominations that inhabited it. Memories, dreams- You couldn't tell the difference anymore.
The Cover-Up
In the end, your fears were irrelevant. After Deimos suddenly returned, with more demonic passengers onboard, the UAAF enacted a quarantine of both moons: bombardment of the sites with apocalyptic levels of radiation, followed by the remote deactivation of both bases. Nothing was to ever leave the facilities. Your silence on the issue was guaranteed by penalty of death. To ensure your total silence, you were committed to a mental hospital. For the next six years you remained there, unable to sleep, barely functional. Still, the nightmares continued.
History Repeats
You were eventually released and reassigned to a new security posting at a Union Aerospace Corporation facility on the tidally-locked Proxima Centauri b, formerly LV-104. Figuring you unfit for more hands-on security duties, the UAAF Directorate Council made sure it was an administrative duty, far from any actual arms and ordnance. The facility is located on the dark side of LV-104, alongside a newer, much larger base on the light side. The two facilities were contructed primarily to research a strange powdery mineral originally discovered by early miners called "fire-dust", so named due to its thermite-like pyrotechnic properties. Amongst an attempt to determine its source, they're attempting to figure out practical uses for it, ranging from weapons to manufacturing.
Return To Danger
One late night, while playing poker with a few guards, a sudden shock wave echoed throughout the base, nearly knocking all four of you over. A short while later, the alarms came on, and gunfire sounded beyond the hangar control room's door. The door suddenly burst open, and into the room shambled a sight you hoped to never again see. A hideous beast with brown spine-studded skin stepped forth, regarding you coldly with eyes like glowing embers. After a swift exchange of gunfire and white-hot plasma, all lie dead except for you. With no choice, you take your dead comrade's equipment and set out for the research labs. There, you hope, will be answers for your questions.
What initially started as me poking around with Sodaholic's ancient Doom Bible demo eventually turned into a veritable game in and of itself. I've been working at this thing at various rates and with greatly differing levels of enthusiasm since around 2017. Its gone through many different iterations, various reworks, and even a time I considered giving up on it. But now, although its still very much a work-in-progress, I finally feel comfortable showing just what I've come up with.
As I initially mentioned, this is all heavily based off the Doom Bible, with additionally inspiration from Doom 3, Lovecraftian horror, the Aliens series, and 90s era futurism (cassette futurism was it?). However, while undoubtedly drawing off the Alphas as its source material, this shouldn't be taken as a Doom Bible project. Rather, that's its primary source of inspiration. Its based in a neo-90s era future vision of Doom, a sort of AU. You won't find Doomguy here, and things aren't very "rip and tear". You're not a macho man-and-a-half.
But enough rambling, let's get into the actual description!
(I'll expand each section further as I'm able to develop them!)
This is made for GZDoom 4.5.0 and runs with Doom 2. It takes advantage of a few key GZDoom features (namely 3d floors and dynamic lighting, along with a few others) for both its atmosphere and aesthetic.
Maps
Spoiler:Monsters and Weapons
The first episode is to consist of 12 interconnected maps, along with 1 secret level. I have plans for additional episodes, but their development is considered irrelevant until I get the first done.
Spoiler:Story
Enemies and weapons have been bolstered with new additions. Most come from Amuscaria's full Ep1 weapons overhaul along with a couple extras. As for enemies, most DE/HF enemies have been added, with the remaining to be added upon completion of Episode 1.
Spoiler:Screenshots
While not entirely integral to figuring out what to do, sprinkled both between episodes and throughout levels as notes is a gradual story involving both what's been happening and has happened throughout the game. Additionally, numerous computer screens bear messages and emails from between workers throughout the game, so make sure you check them for anything they might say. My own scripting skills don't really allow for anything more complex, but who knows, you might find something useful...
The Year is 2119...
You are Sergeant Ernest Willits, a UAAF Space Marine recently re-stationed to Earth. After a massive famine hits several countries across the world, you were sent to Australia to help keep the peace. But when your new CO ordered you to fire on civilians, your assault on him landed you a one-way ticket to Jefferson Aerospace Base on Mars. You drug yourself along for three long years until a frenzied distress signal came from the UAC research facility on Phobos.
You were sent along with a squad of fellow Marines to investigate, but when you arrived you were met with an utter bloodbath: The entire facility had been overrun by a band of slavering monsters. Everyone in your squad apart from you was slaughtered, leaving you marooned on Phobos. Seeing no other way out, you entered the experimental "slipgate" the aliens had come through, landing you right within the invaders' homeworld. There you encountered things you could never hope to explain- Let alone forget: Arcane forces twisting the world around you, beasts more hideous than your worst nightmares, and eldritch entities who seek only to consume everything in existence. Your mind was assaulted at every step, the surrounding horrors melding into a fetid miasma until you couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't.
Eventually you managed to somehow escape. You pleaded with the military to stop the gateway research, of the unutterable danger the slipgates posed to the world. But the authorities didn't believe anything you told them, and they simply locked you away in an asylum to rot outside their sight. Their treatments and therapies had no affect however; the things you had witnessed had scarred you for life. Day after day, night after night, you fought sleep. For dreams brought memories of the Hell you had survived, and the abominations that inhabited it. Memories, dreams- You couldn't tell the difference anymore.
Now, in 2129...
Eventually, you managed to mask your agonies. The doctors seemed convinced enough, and you were released. You had been discharged from the Marines when you were admitted, and so the UAAF reassigned you to elsewhere as a security consultant, more than likely to keep you out of anyone's way. You were shipped off to a joint UAC-UAAF research facility on the tidally-locked Proxima Centauri b, formerly LV-104. There were two bases: A shitty run-down one on the dark side which was built to assist in early surveying operations, and a newer much larger one built to defend the colony and terraforming operations. And guess which one you were sent to.
Both facilities had been repurposed towards researching some sort of phenomena that early miners discovered deep below the surface. Huge deposits of this red powdery mineral- "Firedust" they called it, because of how it'd flash like gunpowder. Every time the supply ship would arrive they'd load huge containers of the shit onboard and ship it off to god-knows-where. You know you've seen something similar before, and it gives you very bad vibes.
One late night in the disused secondary hangar, while playing poker with a few guards, the power began flickering before the alarms fired up. Before long, a pair of hideous monsters shambled through the door and a firefight ensued. You were the sole survivor. With no choice, you salvage what little equipment the guards had and set out for the research labs. There, you hope, will be answers for your questions.
And of course, the main draw!
Spoiler:And as usual:
E1M1: Hangar 2
E1M2: Supply Depot 2
E1M3: Waste Processing Facility
E1M4: Refinery
E1M5: Communication Tower
Credits
Spoiler:
Due to the amount of resources I'm using in this project (and due to how long I've been working on it), I'm not entirely sure where a lot of stuff comes from. I tend to collect neat assets like a snowball
So, I'll do my best to list whoever I know for sure I'm using resources from. Assume nothing aside from a few very few assets were made by me.
Id Software
Midway
Valve Software
3D Realms
Blizzard North (I believe?)
Aubrey Hodges
osjclatchford
Eriance/Amuscaria
zrrion the insect
Nash
Indecom (For RetroFx with Dither)
XLightningStormL (For both textures/sprites and inspiration, seriously you're awesome!)
ItsNatureToDie
Nick Baker (NiGHTMARE)
Björn Ostmann (Vader)
Stephen Browning (Scuba Steve)
Mechadon (I think he has one or two sprites here?)
Cage (For his lovely texture work, which this project wouldn't have existed without)
Roger Ritenour
Cacodemon187
Jimmy (I think I used a couple of his textures? Maybe? Idk better safe than sorry)
Marcos Abenante (Sergeant Mark IV)
