Hell-Forged - Episode 2 (Restarting Eventually)

[Rudiarius]

Thoroughly enjoying the first one, absolutely love the secret hunting! Hyped for this my bro

[JohnnyTheWolf]

I see. When Episode 2 comes out, I guess I will have to put together a difficulty mod that replaces all vanilla monsters in Episode 1 with Episode 2's additions, then.

The new sprites are so detailed that the vanilla monsters look really out of place in comparison!

[Amuscaria]

New monster sculpt for the Cardinal Malice, a female hybrid between a Archvile and the Doom 2016 summoner. Not sure if I'm actually going to use this for HF2 yet, but made it anyway. More detailed than the usual sculpt I make.

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[GoldenWarden]

I'm currently making my way through the first one and I'm loving it I'm happy to here that episode two is being worked on

[Amuscaria]

I'm currently making my way through the first one and I'm loving it I'm happy to here that episode two is being worked on

Awesome! Lemme know what you think in the poll when you're done.

[Amuscaria]

Made the new Ghoul model. Going with my own design rather than the old Hellstorm once, since this one fits the episodes theme a bit more. Planes for for it to have 125 health, and attacks rapidly by shooting volleys of bone spikes from the skinny-arms, or melee with the spikey-arm. Monster has a change to revive it self after being killed, unless gibbed or melted with a poison weapon.

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This concludes the non-boss monsters. Holding off the modeling of the boss monsters for the time being, since I wont need them for a while yet. Just go to finish up the Ogre (poison Mancubus) sculpt tomorrow and spriting can start over the weekend.

[ActionAlligator]

Hey Amuscaria, HUGE fan of your HF mod and your work in general! Just wanted to say this looks really awesome and I'm looking forward to it! Can't believe I missed this thread's existence until now. I just had a few comments/questions if you don't mind:

1) The only criticisms I have, and maybe you and everyone else totally disagree with these, is that the Vampyr preview sprites on the first page look a little cheesy to me (maybe I misunderstand and it's just placeholder?), and also that you interchange poison/venom with acid for your new weapon theme; is it some combination of both, or is it one or the other? Oh, and also, you accidentally have 'Items & Powerups' under 'Bestiary' instead of its own category =)

2) If someone wanted to make a HF map pack after you finish EP2 and utilize both your new acid weapons and the hellfire weapons simultaneously, do you think they step on each other's toes gameplay wise? As in, did you specifically design their behaviors to be similar since the new acid ones replace the hellfire ones?

3) And final one, sorry! Do you plan on episodes 3 (and beyond?) to also replace previous content, i.e. one weapon set getting replaced by a new one, all monsters getting replaced, etc.? Or will it be more building on what you've already made, i.e. combining ep 1 & 2, mix-and-matching, etc.?

I appreciate your time Amuscaria! And merry (late) Christmas! =D

[Faceman2000]

the Vampyr preview sprites on the first page look a little cheesy to me

I personally think it looks awesome.

[Amuscaria]

@Action Alligator

[Vampir]
The Vampire on the OP, as with most of the sprites, are placeholders and concept sprites. The final vampire won't look exactly like that. It will follow the white/red color theme of that enemy pack. There is a more finalized model of the Vampire a few posts back.

[Poison/Venom/Acid]
I'm not sure what you mean with the acid-venom/poison interchange. If you're referring the different method in which venomous and poisonous toxins are deliver, I don't general make specific scientific technicalities when writing the lore. I went with "Venom" simply because it sounds cooler, also the scientific distinctions aren't as clear cut as people people would like. Poison would have also worked, but in that case I made a distinction to the GZDoom-specific effect of poisondamage that deals damage over time. Unsure what you mean by venom and acid, as plenty of venoms and poisons also dissolve flesh, just not via proton-donation of acids. Again, too technical for non scientific lore-writing. Either way, I've updated the opening post with some corrections.

[Fire/Venom weapons]
The Fire/Venom weapon overlap is mostly in the weapon slot they occupy and the ammo bar in the status bar. The two sets of weapons aren't terribly similar in how they function, although there are some slight overlap. The Immolator is slow and launches high damage attacks, where as the Skull of Blight is a rapid-fire weapons that fires homing projectiles. While both of the weapon have an area-denial alt fire, the Immolator is again, slow and uses a single high-damage large area attack, where as the Skull sprays continuously. The second-their weapons, the Basilisk and Manticore also don't behave the same way. The Basilisk launches clusters of missiles rapidly that deal splash damage with explosions, while the Manticore is a bit slower and fires a single high-speed projectile that deals "splash" damage by splitting into smaller projectiles. One's better for close range, the other for long range. The only problem would be the status bar, since the bar was only set up to display 4 ammo bars at once. But that's just something the map makers will have to figure out for themselves.

[More episodes]
There is a third episode planned, and I've a pretty good idea what I need for it, but that's far off in the future. It's overall smaller scale than Episode 2, with fewer monsters planned. As with episode 2, 1 theme of weapon will be replaced. I'm either going to replace the soul weapons or blood weapons with the Lightning weapons. I have written up some plans for an Episode 4 and 5, with Ice and Bone weapons, respectively, but there's no point pondering about those until Episode 2 is finished.

[ActionAlligator]

Vampire sprite: Ahhh, ok. Yeah, that model looks really good! And I do like the color schemes for your vampire monsters very much.

Poison etc.: Ok, I think that's maybe what threw me off a little. I did not know that venom could dissolve flesh, so I thought maybe you were thinking of acid; I knew it could kill it and cause necrosis etc., but not dissolve. That makes more sense now!

Fire/Venom: Sweet, sounds workable with a UI edit then!

More Episodes: Well, what a tasty and exciting answer! =D You're going to have a lot on your plate for years to come boi, hehe. Not only will we have your awesome TC to play through, but mappers and modders will have so many beautiful assets to work with when it's all done.

Thanks again for taking time to answer! Looking forward to playing this next episode =)

[Amuscaria]

I'd expect the monster spriting to take at least 6-8 months. Afterwhich I can start mapping and making textures. Gonna be a while.

[osjclatchford]

always worth the wait though...
good to hear you've your new rig so you can get stuck into some good old fashioned spriting! Have fun!

[Amuscaria]

Finishing up the male Wight sprite. Basic movement and attack animations:



Will add a bit more splotches of color when the entire sheet is completed.

[osjclatchford]

...and thats the stuff right there!

great looking fodder monster... very well done sir!

[Nmn]

Looks fantastic!