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Title : 30 Levels
Filename : 30lvls.wad
Author : Stephen Huff
Email Address :102372.2074@compuserve.com
Misc. Author Info : Retired Staff Sergeant from the Army split career Naval Submarine Service and Army Armor Branch. Killing time while looking for a job.
Description : After destroying the big boss in doom2, you settled down for some r&r, when, suddenly, the cold dead faces of the undead greeted you as you transported in. Realizing the drill, you grabbed your sidearm and wished for some better armament. As you fight your way from station to station you realize that overthrowing the big boss has let different factions in hell struggle for power. You have a bad feeling about who is winning that struggle to rule in hell. Your apprehensions are confirmed as you look up into the sky and realize that you must fight your way through a hell dominated by the damned followers of Corporal Schickelgruber the GodKing. In the middle of this psychopathic hell you may find yourself fighting to save the monuments of mans early ventures into space from demonspawn monsters from hell in the two secret levels. Eventually, you make it through that disgusting hell filled with the dark fantasies of one of history's worst psychopaths and enter a hell dominated by an unfamiliar red volcanic sky. There, you fight your way through a landscape dominated by peculiar cubes rising from the various terrain until you reach the central crossroads of hades where you must fight the current master of hades.
Additional Credits to : id and gang. Mathew Ayres creator of waded, John Williston creator of wadauthor, and Oliver du Montanuy creator of Wintex. The authors of Secrets of the Doom Programming Gurus and 3d Game ALchemy. Walter C. Langer, author of "The Mind of Adolph Hitler, the secret wartime report" Signet Books copyright 1972, which helped shape the graphics displays in the nazi portion of this wad.
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* Play Information *
Game : DOOM II
Episode and Level # : Levels 1-32
Single Player : Yes
Cooperative 2-4 Player : Yes (not tested)
Deathmatch 2-4 Player : Yes (not tested)
Difficulty Settings : Yes.
New Sounds : No
New Graphics : Yes, these are variations on doom2 graphics resized and repasted into new textures to fit the scenery better. Plus all the mission patches from the mercury, gemini, and apollo programs, and 77 shuttle mission patches and other neat nasa stuff if you find the secret levels.
New Music : no.
Demos Replaced : All 3 for version 1.666 from the cd copyright 1994 by gt interactive. Note if running a different version of doom2, start your game quickly. Or it will crash when the demos start.
* Construction *
Base : Some portions of this wadfile are based on other levels that I have written. A common teleport pad, some of the deathmatch starts, etc stay the same for several levels, until you transit to a new segment of the adventure. Essentially though, it is all new levels from scratch. Though the first ten levels were published previously as arbedlam.wad. March 5, 1996 marked the upload of my doom1 wad. This wad represents a fair amount of days since then, today being 23 november 1996 spent 6 to 12 hours a day working on it. A couple of thousand hours of solid painstaking work at least. The two secret levels, 31 and 32 are dedicated to Nasa and early spaceflight and incorporate a large number of Nasa mission patches and graphics. In fact the complete mercury gemini and apollo patches and 77 shuttle mission patches. The nasa patch is not used, because it cannot be used without permission.
Editor(s) used : WadEd, Wadauthor,WIntex, PSP. Levels 1-18 and 21-29 were done entirely on waded with graphics modifications by wintex. levels 19 and 30 were started on waded and finished on wadauthor. Levels 20, 31 and 32 were done entirely on wadauthor. Note, there is some incompatibility between waded and wadauthor. The checkit feature on wadauthor will indicate all kind of faults on wads made in waded, even though the doom engine handles them fine. This is not a criticism of either editor or the doom engine, just a note of caution if you are looking at wad files try to use the editor they were made on. If you modify such a wad made in waded on wadauthor, it is possible that the level will be unplayable. This varies from map to map. It is probably due to eccentricities built into waded for the make sector feature, but who knows.
Known Bugs : There are some minor graphics glitches on two or three levels, and level 30 is so large it overloads the doom savegame buffer, so you cannot save a game after reaching level 30. That is Hells Crossroads, so save before you get there. You have to complete that entire level without saving the game once. Think of it as an added difficulty factor. There is one level where you can get stuck that I found while playtesting, on the level titled Mars Temple Annex. After you pass the door with the crushing ceiling, if you jump into the pits with the chaingunners instead of coming at them from behind, the exit to the pits won't be open. Ahha, there is a way to get them from behind, yeah, but its guarded to.
* Copyright / Permissions *
Do whatever you want with it. However, if you do use portions of this wad for your own creations, give me some credit in the txt file, or on the screen. See how I credited waded, wadauthor, etc. for an example.
FTP sites: None
BBS numbers: My bbs is at 812-421-9556. No one ever calls. So I don't even look at it very often.
Special Notes:
First Ten Levels:Arbedlam
This is the arbedlam.wad for doom2 by me. You may have played my chanesaw.wad six levels for doom, or my wartest 1 wad a ten level deathmatch wad for doom2. I hope so, and if not, try them out. Please. Then email me and tell me what you think. Double Please.
This wad, my third attempt is intended to provide a full ten levels of nightmare fun and blood for diehard doombies. It is respectfully dedicated to Marion Zimmer Bradley, and more or less named after one of her books, The Falcons of Narabedla. It has nothing at all to do with her books, I just needed a name.
Some notes on the design process of this wad. Level one is built around the level ten of my deathmatch wad. It starts the player out with too much ammunition, too many weapons, and lots of monsters. Levels 2,3, and 4 slowly pare away this ammunition until, on ultraviolence unless you are playing a really good soldiers game of ammunition conservation, you will never reach level five. Level five was written before the other four levels as an experimental wad, it will look and feel different than the first four. It was designed for players to start out with little or no ammunition, and take what they can get from the monsters. It fits nicely into this wad as level five. By the end of the level, even on ultra violence, the player again has loads of ammo, and weapons. Level six is very nasty, playing with teleports to give the imps some initiative. It's amazing how often 7 imps were able to kill me even though I had every weapon in the game and a couple of hundred rounds of ammunition for each and had put the imps in place myself. After that, it gets tough. Though on ultraviolence I finished it with 220 rounds pistol ammo, about 12 shotgun shells, and 54 energy cells. Should be lots of fun. Level 7 should just be barrels and barrels of fun, heh heh. I finished level 8 in ultraviolence mode with 212 bullets 80 shotgun shells 0 rockets, and 82 energy cells and 200 health. I guess its a pretty easy level. For some reason, I had absolutely no inspiration while working on Level nine. On Ultraviolence it boasts 3 or 4 barons of hell, lots of imps, demons, spectres, and of course Lost Souls. You could call this entire wad from level 1 on, the Nightmare of Lost Souls. Knowing level ten as well as I do, I found it distressingly easy to play through on ultraviolence managing not only to play through, but to kill all the monsters with about 20 shells, more than a hundred cells, and a couple of hundred rounds of bullets left over. Still, twenty or thirty moments carelessness will get you killed here. Also, mobility is such that it should make a boss deathmatch wad.
Some notes on balancing the game. These wads are written to be played in hurt me plenty. Monsters numbers are cut to between 50 and 60% of hurt me plenty for the lower modes of play, and increased between 50 and 60% for the ultraviolence level. Ammunition and powerups are left the same. I playtest the levels to make sure that if you know the wads as well as the writer, there is enough ammunition, armor, and powerups for the player to make it all the way through on ultraviolence, if he is careful and uses his ammunition wisely. If not, he will be dead meat eventually. Since the ammo and powerups allow me to play through on ultraviolence, where there are roughly 50 or 60% more monsters. You should have twice as much as you need to do the wad in hurt me plenty.
But it's not easy. Hours and hours of playtesting monster placement and monster movement have allowed me to do really nasty things in building these wads. I use small numbers of less powerful monsters, like imps and human sergeants. In most cases in these wads, they would be impossible to play through with larger numbers of monsters, or more powerful monsters. There are places where revenants, mancubi, etc are used to provide incoming artillery to keep the player on his toes. Also, on one level so far, I have used two archviles. Only one below ultraviolence. Watch out for free roaming monsters. Most of these wads feature vertical and horizontal movement options for lost souls and cacodemons. From the time the first shot is fired, until you leave the level you never know when a monster will appear from above, beneath, or behind you. Getting caught between a pack of imps in a room, and a pack of lost souls behind you is sure death. Even with twice the ammo and powerups you need, you are going to get killed. A lot. Enjoy. Level 10, the last level. Revenant artillery is emplaced in elevated positions with interlocking fields of fire, supported by a cyberdemon and a baron of hell, ground support consists of spectres in semidarkness and air support is provided by lost souls. This level can be done, it just requires some effort. I hope you like the architecture. On level ten, all levels of difficulty have the same monsters and ammo and powerups.
Deathmatch mode. These levels support deathmatch mode. The modes are designed for single player and deathmatch is added on. With special areas, special teleports, etc. Because of this, the single player will not be able to get all the items, or monsters on all the levels. Think of it as motivation to give deathmatch play a try.
Coop mode should be lots of fun on these levels. I would definitely give it a try if you have friends you play coop with. Coop starts are usually close to each other. Though on level five, a unique start is provided.
Secrets. Somehow, on a couple of levels, secret areas crept into the building process that I don't even know where they are. I can't get them all on every level and I built the things. Sorry.
Second Ten Levels: The Unspeakable Cult of Corporal Schickelgruber the God King. These levels started out as an exercise in tactical placement of the wolfenstein troopers. Trying to use small monsters instead of big monsters to challenge the player. However, I am part jewish, and enough native american so that Hitler would have put me in a death camp for being racially impure, in addition, some years ago, I had a girlfriend whose mother was in concentration camps in Nazi Germany. I found it impossible to do wads with swastikas and ss troops and pictures of hitler, without having blood drench them as well. For me, the holocaust is part of the picture of that time and place in history, and one should not be portrayed, cannot be portrayed without showing the other. You will notice little or no gore in arbedlam. You will notice little or no gore in the last ten levels, but here, you will walk through forests of tortured humans on pikes, and wade through rivers of blood. I just found it impossible to use these monsters and their graphics without drawing them that way. These levels are designed to provide an emotionally artistically accurate portrayal of Nazi Germany. They are much influenced by the chapter on how Germany saw Hitler in Mr. Langer's book. While doing these levels, I discussed making some semioffical discussion of the holocaust and a wad devoted to images of Nazi sadism and human suffering in the Jewish forum on Compuserve. Most of the response was negative, so, instead, I used these levels as filler for a 30 level wad file.
Technical notes, levels 11 through 17 are basically doom2 graphics. levels 18, 19 and 20 incorporate special graphics made from doom2 graphics but modified with the aid of psp and wintex. Levels 18, 19, and 20 also include fights with the demon generating big boss from level 30 of doom2. Killing him will exit the level. These monsters are placed behind portraits of hitler, or in the center of pictures of hitler, sort of symbolic of hitler as a source of evil. Enough, this is just another set of levels incorporating graphics from the secret levels of doom2.
Levels 21-30
I wrote these levels as an exercise in putting regular gifs into the doom environment. Most of the gifs I used were quite adult in nature. Due to this, and possible copyright infringements if some of the gifs had been scanned and distributed illegally, I have deleted all these custom graphics. The levels remain interesting and completely playable, but the change in architecture mandated by the graphics display makes them different from the previous 20 levels, and gives them a unifying theme. They should be fun to play through.
Levels 31 and 32
These levels are based on Nasa graphics and feature a factual and educational tour of a museum in cyberspace memorializing America's space program. Don't try these levels on ultraviolence unless you are really really good at doom. They are tough. I made it through, but I wrote the levels. I originally used the Nasa meatball patch above the hallways and switches for these levels, but replaced it with an emblem of a rocket blasting into the clouds instead because you cannot use the Nasa meatball patch without permission. This is too bad, because it would have been a good way of giving the visual credits during game play. No official endorsement of this wad or these levels by Nasa is implied or claimed in any manner or fashion.
Some technical notes. The amount of trouble you have translating gifs into doom graphics depends largely on how much you resize them. The patches in the Mercury/Gemini and Apollo halls are close to the original size. Because of the number of shuttle missions, it would have been impractical to use this size for the shuttle patches. What took 1.4 meg would have taken approximately 6 meg to display these patches. So, in about every 6th or 7th patch there are some problems with the doom engine displaying the patch. This does not show up on the graphic itself in wintex, or if you extract the graphic as a bmp. I spent a day reprocessing the troublesome graphics in different ways. In one or two cases I was able to clean up one problem at some sacrifice or other. However, in most cases, for these problem patches, it was not possible to clear the trouble up. Nor was there any obvious pattern to troublesome patches. Not a specific color, or a specific pattern or solid colors or complex patterns of colors. So that it the way it is. Consider the problems to be the result of vandalism by the demons who captures the memorials.
