The Legend of DOOM (v1.1.0)

[detwelve]

This conversion aims to faithfully bring the original NES land of Hyrule to life in the GZDoom engine.

The DOOM and Zelda games have been huge sources of influence and inspiration for me personally. Now adays I find the fandoms and creator communities that have grown up with these franchises equally inspiring. I have long held dreams to see this world realized in 3D and to create a DOOM mod. This is my first project and I had a great time learning ZScript and the basics of how to develop something for the GZDoom engine.

Thank you to everyone who contributes to this community with your code, art, effort, and encouragement.

Download v1.1.0

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TL;DR 1.1.0 Update

This update brings a lot of bug fixes and quality of life improvments. If I had been better at planning, this would be the 1.0.0 release with the previous releases being marked as beta. It really feels so much better this time around. Thanks everyone for feedback and bug reports!

Notable changes (full list in changelog):

- Requires latest GZDoom, 4.7.1. I won't make it habbit to require version updates, but I really wanted to use the DrawPaused method introduced in 4.7.1 and it sets up to improve help screens in the future without requiring a version update.

- Many sprite updates and quality of life improvements migrated from Zelda 1 Redux

- Overworld overhauled! New textures, secrets remembered, and improved geometry really make Hyrule more fun to run around.

- Alt-fire boomerang! Instead of overhauling the weapon system generally (maybe still in the cards for future) I've decided to make the boomerang the alt-fire for all weapons (except Bow). It feels much more natural and reduces number of weapons to scroll through.

- Item display moved from automap to "Pause" screen.

Comparison Screenshots v1.0.3 - v1.1.0

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Special Thanks for the 1.1.0 update

ShadowOne333 - for his Zelda 1 Redux project and permission to use updated sprites.

Exkodius - for Zelda TC. He posted an update which included much better fonts and menu asthetics and encouraged me to adopt what fit.

kalensar - for tons of feedback, encouragement, and a push in the right direction towards fixing Shield issues in the original release.


Notes, Differences, and Known Issues

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- Weapons are single wielded so you can't use the boomerang and sword at the same time for example.

- The "F1" help screen for dungeons will bring up complete dungeon maps provided with permission by nesmaps.com. Unfortunately the overworld map is huge with an super wide aspect ratio and I so far haven't found how to make it fit/scale in a way that makes it legible.

- Heart health display shows in quarter units. The actual values you receive match the original, but now if you have the silver or red ring you will start to see quarter hearts. In the original those hits would register behind the scenes and the heart graphic in the HUD would change on the 2nd hit.

- You can use the bow and arrow immediately upon picking up the Bow. No need to buy arrows separately from the store.

- A couple of sounds are different or not from the NES Zelda.

- The skybox art is an unused asset from Wind Waker.

- Monster art. There are some pretty obvious limitations that come along with using the original assets. While it works surprisingly well to use the front, side, and back views only, having the diagonal views would be ideal. My art skills aren't up to creating those. Voxel models would be another alternative, but is probably outside the scope of what I'm willing to commit to creating.

- Weapon art. Same situation as the monsters. I tried to do a sword and wand that look a bit more like their 8-bit counterparts, but it turned out awful.

Requirements

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The latest version of GZDoom. Currently 4.7.1

Doom 2 iWad is preferred, but it should also work with Doom 1 or the FreeDoom iWads.

Recommended Settings

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Display Options -> Texture Options -> Texture Filter mode: None

With texture filtering on, everything looks super blurry.

Automap Options -> Enable textured display: Yes

The textured automap is pretty cool with this mod, especially in the overworld.

It is unlikely that this will work well with other mods.

Acknowledgements

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Exkodius - for his inspirational work, kindly letting me use the Octorock sprites from Zelda TC, and helpful suggestions on menu improvements.

ShadowOne333 - for permission to incorporate the sprites and quality of life improvements from the Zelda 1 Redux ROM hack.

Zoskiacu - for their work on Legend of Zeldoom. This helped inform decisions surrounding world scale.

Kizoky - for posting and allowing me to use their Eater of Worlds code for Moldorm and Lanmola.

Dude27th - for testing and helpful suggestions.

Amuscaria,XaserAcheron - for the sword and shield assets

Evil Space Tomato - for the wand submitted to Realm667

Gothic - for the bow and arrows submitted to Realm667

HideousDestructor mod for weapons switching technique

Apeirogon - for contributing a solution to getting sector tags on the zdoom forums.

Jarewill - for posting boomerange projectile example on the forums.

Dante Augustus Scarlatti - for editing the trailer.

FalKKonE - for permission to use their music in the trailer.

nesmaps - for permission to use thier maps as the F1 help screens.

GZDoom Discord - thanks to everyone who frequents the scripting channels on Discord. Though I didn't get into too many conversations, it's incredibly helpful starting out just to follow along. If some of you had 'buy me a coffee buttons', I'd buy you two (Jekyll, I'm looking at you).

Change Log

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2021-1-30 v1.1.0:

General

- Many new sprites and textures from Zelda 1 Redux ROM hack

- New fonts by Exkodius

- Some new translations from the Legends of Localization project.

- Item display moved to the Pause screen making the automap more usable. Leverages new DrawPaused method introduced in GZDoom 4.7.1.

- Added the BRIGHT modifer to rupee sprites so they are easier to see in the black dungeon rooms.

- Rupee count increased to 999

- Fairy drops now wander around

- Implement missing loot logic to force specific drops on the 11th and 16th consecutive kill without being hit

- Teleport fog and enemy projectiles are no longer affected by time freeze

- Spawn logic has been improved to eliminate things like occasional Octorocks in the water or a monster stuck to the wall.

- Menu improvements

Weapons

- Boomerang has been changed from a selectable weapon to the alt-fire for all weapons except Bow

- Sword reach extended about 20%

- Sword speed increased

- Sword projectiles will now expire after traveling roughly one "screen" length

- Bomb explosion radius doubled

- Initial bomb limit increased to 10

- Blue boomerang distance extended

- No longer auto switch to Bomb or Bow when new ammo is picked up after reaching 0 (this was a pain particularly when using the bow with near 0 rupees). Leverages the WEAPON.NOAUTOSWITCHTO flag made available in GZDoom 4.7.0.

- Shield is now a spawned actor which should result in a more natural feeling block and decouples it from the HUD.

- Shield no longer works when Bow is equiped

- The Big Shield graphics changed to the Hylian Shield graphics. This provides a better visual distinction between the "small" and "big" shields when viewed from a 1st person perspective.

- Candle fire distance traveled increased by 30%

- Fix blue candle de/select animations not maintaining their no-flame state

Overworld

- Major mapping changes include new geometry to open the world up a bit and hopefully take care of some glitches I've seen reported

- Bomb walls will now only trigger when hit by bombs

- Overworld will now remember bombed walls and burned bushes

- Bomb wall and secret bush textures are now slightly differentiated (thanks to the sprite makeover from Zelda 1 Redux!)

- Ghosts in the graveyard now behave like in the original game where there is a lead ghost and killing them will kill the others

- Add road signs to warp rooms

- Increased brightness of cave exit light

- Price textures have been cleaned up

Dungeons

- Bomb walls will now only trigger when hit by bombs

- Triforce rooms have been redesigned. I hope this isn't too controversial. The triforce rooms that were approached from the side were awkward and I observed players and myself not knowing which direction to turn. The goal here was to make the triforce visible from the moment you can see into the room, which is more consisent to the original's intent, I think.

- Spike Traps now play the sound effect from Ocarina of Time when they move

- Fix bug where Spike Traps would disappear if they hit a Wizzrobe in ghost state

- Balance changes for Wizzrobe. Nerfed by increasing the vulnerable time before and after they fire. Blue wizzrobes got a buff though - previously they were firing the weaker version of the wand projectile by mistake.

- Fix bug where wizzrobe projectile was spawning fire after the player picked up Book.

- Make snake monsters easier to hit

- Increase Lanmola health

- Add brightmaps to many monster's eyes so they show up in dark rooms

- Fix Manhandla floating away when bombed

- Fix Princess Zelda not changing dress color if you picked up the Red Ring

2021-10-18 v1.0.3:
- Improve Blue Candle so that it is easy to tell when it can be used again after firing.

- Fix bug where monster corpse would damage player during time stop.

- Darknut no longer shoots swords projectile.

- Peahat now flashes like other monsters when damaged.

- Replace grunt/oof sound that comes from players falling or use fail.

- Fix various spawners that might have closed a door too soon if approached slowly.

- Fix level 9 room crash (middle sand room with Patra).

- Fix the one spike trap in level 9 that would not move after stairs are revealed.

- Add pickup sound to Lion Key.

- Fix issue where shield disapears and Doomguy would make a weird face if you tried to use a weapon prior to picking up the wooden sword or when affected by Bubble.

2021-10-7 v1.0.2:
- Fix Gleeok sub-boss in Level 6. Gleeok had about a 50/50 chance to spawn outside the map.

- Fix money game doors. The door next to where you start the game worked all of the time but the others would only work if you visited the start one first.

- Stalfos no longer shoots swords. Stalfos only did this in the 2nd quest.

- Fix a broken stair leading to level 6.

- Add Legend of Doom start title.

2021-10-4 v1.0.1:
- Fix Level 4. The initial release had a bugged ladder pickup that wouldn't let you go over water after picking up, making level 4 impossible to complete. If you're in this state, you can still go on to the overworld and later levels, the bug only affects the level 4 dungeon itself.

- Brightness has been increased in treasure rooms, caves, and dungeon areas between rooms. Is it still too dark?

- Lower Aquamentus trigger distance to prevent potentially getting stuck in the door.

- Fix block in level 1 that could be pushed multiple times.

- Add a couple of missing pickup messages

- Fix exit for shop near the SE shore.

2021-10-2 v1.0.0:
- Initial release

[Captain Ventris]

Okay, not every day someone drops a full TC out of nowhere!

[kalensar]

I just tested it and there is some super promising event going on here. I Don't know how much you have completed but its definitely a lot! I too have built a LOZ style mod as more of a homage style rather than a full blown 1:1 TC like this one is.

I have a lot of personal built code and techniques that would help you a lot with turning this into an even closer replica for what you are shooting for! Stuff like reflecting and deflecting shields front facing shields (no graphics needed) that turn off when you attack and turn back on when done swinging, switching weapons without losing the sword and shield, item indicator code so you know what you have selected via the SBARINFO.

Seriously, hit me up on Discord at Dirk Nukem#9362 or even just here at ZDoom.
I'd love to contribute.

[detwelve]

Thanks! I'll take you up on that.

A consequence of doing this without any real preview or seeking input in advance is that I couldn't benefit as much from collaboration. It's actually been quite a bummer but I really wanted to have a more or less complete thing upon release because, given the nature of the project, I'm not sure how long I will be able to continue iterating now that it is public.

Doing such a large first project with a new technology means there are several things in the backend that I would like to improve and it sounds like some of your tools could help out. My whole HUD and inventory system could use work and I think there are some clear improvements that could be made to allow dual wielding and better item switching etc.

[Captain J]

Nicely made, fairly accurate to the NES counterpart. It feels certainly fresh to see the 8bit classics in Doom format and Tloz is the one i always wanted to see. Couldn't beat Ganon because i can hardly remember which puzzles to solve but the gameplay plus style is retro to the core.

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- At the very start of the game it shows me the shield but it's useless. It disappears once you press the fire button but doomguy somewhat greets his teeth when you do that.

Also doomguy's dead face shows up once i restart or load the game for some reason.

- Enemies in this TC are much slower and less of a threat than usual especially when you're at full health and can do the Sword Beam.

- About Sword Beam, you can fire it only once until it hits something. Because of that, it usually takes few minutes to do it again if you miss because the world is much wider now. Limiting its travelling range might be helpful.

- Peahats take kinda long time to spin up and land on the ground when they become vulnerable. Plus they have no pain state animations so i have no idea if they're still invulnerable or not.

- Enemy Projectiles like Octorok's and Moblin's are rather small and blends with the background, making them hard to dodge.

- Not a glitch report but it seems you're having problems with the destructible walls. Kinda old stuff but this might be helpful.

- When i drop the bomb, it disappears without exploding if enemy touches it.

- I often find the old woman and i think she's supposed to say something like pay me or i'll talk? She doesn't say anything and just sits there.

- Keese in dungeon's secret areas are rather unfair to handle with, i.e. in the literal darkness which the original NES counterpart(Hallowed be its name) didn't have.

- Clock's Time Stop works fine in this TC. But for some reason i can't touch enemies defeated otherwise i get damaged. I have to wait until they disappear so i can get the dropped item...


- It turns out that Dungeon doors can make you stuck if you're not fast enough. I once got stuck by the door to Aquamantis. Also the automap HUD is really convenient and inconvenient at the same time because it blocks 40% of the map.

- Important items like Clock and Candle will display "You got the Pickup" message.

- How does the one play money making game? I see the -10 rupee blocks and don't do anything at all.

- The Old men are not counter-aggressive than usual. Bonfires don't do anything after i hit them.

- Is it me or once i leave the Hyrule Overworld, the map resets and i have to scout all over again?

Overall, this TC is fine! It certainly has potential to be extra accurate, especially graphic wise and i'm sure people would like to contribute more to this. Also Combined Arms' Past Linked class definitely might fit this like a glove.

[detwelve]

That was some great feedback. There are definitely some immediately actionable things in there. Thank you!

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- At the very start of the game it shows me the shield but it's useless. It disappears once you press the fire button but doomguy somewhat greets his teeth when you do that.

Good eye. I'm not sure why he does the teeth gritting thing when you fire w/o a weapon. This would also happen when you lose your weapon from touching a Bubble.

- About Sword Beam, you can fire it only once until it hits something. Because of that, it usually takes few minutes to do it again if you miss because the world is much wider now. Limiting its travelling range might be helpful.

I had this thought in development too, but thought that the default leash was short enough. It would be more accurate and address your issue if I shortened it to something closer to the length of a "screen".

- When i drop the bomb, it disappears without exploding if enemy touches it.

I'll look at this one. It does damage the enemy it touches, but doesn't explode and damage any others around. It can be kind of a pain in later levels with multiple Dodongos.

- I often find the old woman and i think she's supposed to say something like pay me or i'll talk? She doesn't say anything and just sits there.

Her current behavior is accurate. In the original she doesn't say anything until you get the blue letter from the Old Man.

- Keese in dungeon's secret areas are rather unfair to handle with, i.e. in the literal darkness which the original NES counterpart(Hallowed be its name) didn't have.

That's good feedback. I think my monitor is brighter than some. I didn't intend for those areas to be quite so dark that it makes the bats difficult.

- Clock's Time Stop works fine in this TC. But for some reason i can't touch enemies defeated otherwise i get damaged

That's a bug that I'll take a look at

- It turns out that Dungeon doors can make you stuck if you're not fast enough. I once got stuck by the door to Aquamantis.

Ooof. I'm really sorry about that one. I thought that I'd caught any cases where that could happen, but I'll double back and check those again

- How does the one play money making game? I see the -10 rupee blocks and don't do anything at all.

I checked and I think that it's working as intended, but I could be doing something different. If you have at least 10 rupees you should only need to walk across the rupee spots in the game. Once you walk over it will reveal the amounts above and award or deduct.

- The Old men are not counter-aggressive than usual. Bonfires don't do anything after i hit them.

I'll double check the original, but I believe it's only the old men in the dungeons who get aggressive if you attack. The overworld old men are more chill.

- Is it me or once i leave the Hyrule Overworld, the map resets and i have to scout all over again?

It's not just you. The bomb walls and doors in the dungeons save their state but the overworld ones do not. An artifact from mapping the overworld first before I really had any scripting experience. This is also partly why I chose to leave the overworld bomb walls with a different texture scale. I'll look at fixing this so that the overworld has a better memory.

I will check out that Past Link class and the destructible wall stuff you linked as well.

[An00bus]

I've been waiting for this TC to be completed! However, could you use more assets from the original Legend of Zelda TC? Or did you both just happen to use sprites from the original NES version hence why it looks so faithful?? I know the creator of the first one wanted it to be completed anyway, maybe you could utilize what he's put out if you haven't already?

[atarumoroboshi18]

This looks incredible! I can't wait to test it out!

[chronoteeth]

not trying to be a deterrant to this project but please put a seizure warning for your video.

[kalensar]

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It's not just you. The bomb walls and doors in the dungeons save their state but the overworld ones do not. An artifact from mapping the overworld first before I really had any scripting experience. This is also partly why I chose to leave the overworld bomb walls with a different texture scale. I'll look at fixing this so that the overworld has a better memory.

https://zdoom.org/wiki/Cluster

This will help you with your Hub problems if you just follow the other hyperlinks. Good luck !

[Lakmir]

Hi! This crossed my Twitter feed today and I have to say it's incredibly neat - I've put in a bunch of time with it already, and have some feedback. As with the earlier poster, I'll drop it in a spoiler tag...

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Biggest issue is that the ladder doesn't seem like it works in dungeons. Consequently I'm stuck in level 4. I've tested it with the west coast heart container and it seems to work fine there.

The door one square north and east of Level 2 doesn't seem to lead anywhere. It makes the stair noise and stops the music, but doesn't do any transition. I think it's supposed to be a 30-rupee secret-to-everybody.

The entrance on southeastern coastline area leads to the correct shop, but when I exit it I end up coming out one of the southern doors. I forget which; I think it was the door-repair guy.

Treasure rooms and caves are a *really* dark, as an earlier poster noted. I've found that changing the sector lighting setting to "Doom Legacy" from "Dark" has helped a lot, but I suspect the visuals aren't really what you were going for.

Outside of dungeons it's really difficult to tell when the blue candle can be used again, and while you've tweaked the texturing on breakable walls, burnable bushes are indistinguishable from regular bushes. I worked around this for the pick-any-one-you-want guy by jumping and seeing the bushes outlining the stairs, but for single stand-alone bushes that isn't really an option.

In level 1, there's a block you activate to open up the room with the "Eastmost peninsula is the key" guy. I managed to activate it twice by accident by mashing the use button, and it created a hole in the floor that I fell into and couldn't get out of.

On the whole I have to say this is a really cool thing you've put together! Outside of my ladder issue I'm having an absolute blast with it, and now I have an enormous rabbit hole of doom mods to start traveling down thanks to you. Thanks

[detwelve]

@Lakimir - Thanks for noting the issues you encountered! It's very helpful and I have some responses on them below.

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- Biggest issue is that the ladder doesn't seem like it works in dungeons. Consequently I'm stuck in level 4. I've tested it with the west coast heart container and it seems to work fine there.

Oh no! The mechanisms for this to work should be there. It's possible that I introduced this regression in testing or something. I'll verify and include this fix in a release as soon as possible (like today hopefully) along with any other game breaking issues.

- The door one square north and east of Level 2 doesn't seem to lead anywhere

I could reproduce this as well. You're correct, it should be a 30 rupee spot

- Treasure rooms and caves are a *really* dark, as an earlier poster noted.

Noted. I've already raised the brightness in the treasure rooms and I'll do it in the caves now as well.

- Outside of dungeons it's really difficult to tell when the blue candle can be used again

Point taken. Without "screens" I'll think of a way to indicate the blue candle status (maybe take the flame away or something). You have to travel roughly the width of a "screen" from your last candle use spot in order to reset.

- In level 1, there's a block you activate to open up the room with the "Eastmost peninsula is the key" guy. I managed to activate it twice by accident by mashing the use button, and it created a hole in the floor that I fell into and couldn't get out of.

Noted. The block switches and that one in particular could be improved to be truly pushable, but at the very least you shouldn't be able to trigger the current behavior twice.

[detwelve]

I've been waiting for this TC to be completed! However, could you use more assets from the original Legend of Zelda TC? Or did you both just happen to use sprites from the original NES version hence why it looks so faithful?? I know the creator of the first one wanted it to be completed anyway, maybe you could utilize what he's put out if you haven't already?

Thanks for the suggestions! That version is by Exkodius - we've emailed back and forth a couple of times and he's made suggestions for other things that might be helpful to pull in. Currently this version uses his Octorock sprites, the fairy mouse cursor, and the exit game questions. Aside from that, similarities are because both versions use the original NES sprites wherever possible.

I haven't extensively looked through the source of the other versions, but I know the others had a better menu experience and I think that Exkodius' has some features like a death animation for Stalfos that was really cool.

[Lakmir]

Oh no! The mechanisms for this to work should be there. It's possible that I introduced this regression in testing or something. I'll verify and include this fix in a release as soon as possible (like today hopefully) along with any other game breaking issues.

Here's a copy of my save, if it helps.
https://file.io/7hU17CBW8qAE

Thanks again!

[detwelve]

Thanks again, I have uploaded a v1.0.1 that has the critical fix for level 4 and smaller quick updates including a brightness bump for many areas.

Unfortunately, I don't think this updated version will be compatible with old saves. I'm very sorry such a bug made it into the 'release' version.

I'll continue updating things as more feedback comes in and I'm able to check out some of the suggestions, but hopefully won't need to turn around a new version with any critical fixes immediately.