NEVER episode replacement / Electronic Music EP

[tei tenga]

NEVER uses mostly vanilla assets to create an atmosphere that I think you'll find unique and oppressive (but in a fun way). There is some old-school DEHACKED nonsense to keep it fresh, which is why this is in the Mod forum, not the Maps forum.

DETAILS
IWAD: Doom2
Intended difficulty: About Doom2-level. Nothing crazy.
Length: Six Maps. My goal is to have something beatable in an afternoon or two.
Freelook: not intended, but whatever
Jumping: no
Pistol Start: Yes, besides maps 5 and 6 (Never Ending 1 & 2) which are meant to be played as one unit.

[Enjay]

I'm only on map02 but so far so good. Some interesting and innovative stuff here. The soundtrack is absolutely bangin'

[Spaceman333]

Are there any map triggers tied to the new 2 guns/monsters?

(If I'd play this with another monster replacer mod or seperate a weapons mod pack, would I get softlocked?)

[tei tenga]

I'll say that you will probably be fine with other mods active, but I cannot say for sure.

[Spaceman333]

I'll say that you will probably be fine with other mods active, but I cannot say for sure.

Some custom levels I've seen in the past have door/platform triggers tied to monsters dying or player picking up an item specifically (not via linedefs - the actual pickup being the trigger).

In those cases a custom weapon/monster mod caused the door or platform to not open at all - leading to a softlock.

Do your maps have any such instances at any point?

[tei tenga]

nope! the changes in here are 100% dehacked, so there are no scripted triggers

[Spaceman333]

Awesome, thank you.

[Spaceman333]

Just finished - pretty great experience!

The caco's were vicious, the soundtrack felt badass and the whole architecture and map layouts felt like I was playing a slice of Blame! manga. Also had some puzzle fun before the final showdown. Quite memorable from start to end, definitely worth a play.



There were a few behind-elevator/door platforms that were see-through, but overall I had no issues. I really like it.

[GoalDude-00]

Dropping by to say I absolutely love this. It's been kicking my ass but it's not often that I found myself stopping and admiring map geometry, especially since I've been reading Blame! again and drawing some inspiration from it for a mod of my own.

I crave more maps like this. It really feels like you're crawling inside a constantly-expanding sprawl of metal, concrete, rock and on occasion flesh or other strange phenomena and its inhabitants don't seem exactly used to their surroundings either.

Needless to say this goes great with Sun Damage Omen, but get ready to get your ass handed to you even more if you choose to play with it.

[Rhiannon]

Finished this today with plain ol' vanilla gameplay and found it to be a really fun and refreshingly challenging experience, set to a thumping soundtrack that I couldn't help but load up on soundcloud afterwards, exactly the type of music I could listen to for hours and hours.

The new weapons were fun to use and the new enemies really shook things up, especially those terrifying cacos that fly out of nowhere at a billion miles per hour and take a big chunk out of you if you let em get too close! Plus, that dark industrial level design and architecture matched with the tunes made for a really sublime feeling of tension throughout. I feel like I could play this over and over without really ever getting overfamiliar with it, it'll definitely find itself in the rotation of wads I come back to often, fantastic work!

[tei tenga]

Wow, those are some really kind words. I feel seen <3

[GoalDude-00]

You're welcome, all I can say is I eagerly wait any future projects from you. I'm still regularly playing it and the music is also amazing, I extracted it from the WAD and it has been quite the companion for me during these days.

Also, as someone who does ambient music, could you tell me what you used to make Never's soundtrack? Nowhere Road is my favorite among an excellent album!

[tei tenga]

Bitwig is my DAW of choice and a slew of hardware to taste. I'd love to hear your music, and hear more about your work in progress mod

[tei tenga]

oh BTW I made it so you can download higher quality versions of the music from soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/borden-jardine/sets/never-ep

[GoalDude-00]

Thank you for the heads up on Bitwig and higher quality OST, I'll check them out asap!

Now, bad news first: I've scrapped that mod a little before I began working on its graphics and long before I began working on the coding for multiple reasons, chief of which being I didn't have the skills and very soon I won't have the time to learn them. I might make an episode from some of the concepts in the medium-far future, but don't hold me to it. What I did get done was most of the weapon and item sounds, though they're all mixed from a slew of games, as well as some basic lore and the soundtrack. I'm more of a sound, lore and gun guy, really.

Good news: by the time I post this message, my newest album is out on YT! All of my previous ambient work is there, down to my first accidental pieces - I mostly just take sounds I record myself and edit them in order to sound more like ambient noise than anything, but as of April 2022 I started using more musical samples I made with free online tools (mostly Online Sequencer and occasionally Beep Box). Since I'm yet to update the tracklist and actually put the album in a rar, you can also download it from my Drive for now.