Lunar Catastrophe - An Ultimate Doom Megawad (RELEASED!)

[Super Mighty G]

Screens are looking very solid. Has a real classic design vibe. Would like to stream it maybe this weekend.

[Roofi]

 

I will play your wad because it's an excellent tribute to the original game , maybe I will stream someday. :)

Edited June 25, 2019 by Roofi

[franckFRAG]

Played the first episode a few days ago, very excellent! 

[Miss Bubbles]

On 6/24/2019 at 10:56 AM, Super Mighty G said:

Screens are looking very solid. Has a real classic design vibe. Would like to stream it maybe this weekend.

 

9 hours ago, Roofi said:

 

I will play your wad because it's an excellent tribute to the original game , maybe I will stream someday. :)

Thanks! I hope you both enjoy it :)
 

8 hours ago, franckFRAG said:

Played the first episode a few days ago, very excellent! 

Thanks so much :D!

[Doctor Nick]

This WAD fuckin rooooooocks. I love how it perfectly replicates the feel of the original DOOM episodes while being original. I've already beat episode 1 and 2, looking forward to episodes 3 and 4.

[Count651]

Awesone, man. Glad you're diggin it.

[spottydog10]

Cant for the life of me get Lunar to run.
I've tried GZ doom latest version and zanundrum, it just goes to the doom 2 start game.
Any ideas?
Thanks

[Not Jabba]

21 minutes ago, spottydog10 said:

Cant for the life of me get Lunar to run.
I've tried GZ doom latest version and zanundrum, it just goes to the doom 2 start game.
Any ideas?
Thanks

It's for Ultimate Doom, not Doom 2.

[spottydog10]

Thanks mate, sorted.

 

[spaztacus]

Great stuff.  Feels like Doom, with some great nods to maps, without feeling like a copy job.  Only on map E1M5, but also played M1 of each other mission to see how you handled the themes.  Love it.  Will be working my way through this for sure

[Miss Bubbles]

10 minutes ago, spaztacus said:

Great stuff.  Feels like Doom, with some great nods to maps, without feeling like a copy job.  Only on map E1M5, but also played M1 of each other mission to see how you handled the themes.  Love it.  Will be working my way through this for sure

Thanks :)

[Demon of the Well]

Hello, I finished playing this not too long ago and took a mind to share some comments. This particular sub-genre of mapping--not just 'classic' in general inspiration but actively making specific reference to the actual IWADs--is generally not my personal cup of tea/bucket of blood, but "Lunar Catastrophe" quite grew on me as I played through.

 

Emphasis "grew" -- most of E1 was struggling to hold my interest, and in hindsight after having finished the whole game I definitely get the impression that it was kept very restrained in some ways, perhaps for the sake of the overall progression curve or whatnot (the first episode is traditionally treated as the "sane" one, of course). A lot of the early maps seemed to go through the general motions of the Phobos style without offering much fresh or unexpected, and rating it purely as a fond imitation of that style (or one loosely aiming for the white whale of 'authenticity') I didn't think it consistently captured what I most like about KDiTD, which is mowing down tons of weak mooks with some intricate side-questing on the side. These maps had a lot of secrets, and several of them wend around/through the layouts through little clandestine tunnels/ducts in nominally clever ways, but there's never really a sense that they represent an ever-deepening rabbit hole of hidden stuff, or that the feel of progression changes by getting them (or not). Also, as a general thing, which IWAD maps were being referenced when/how seemed more direct/less imaginative in this episode to me, though the secret map bearing no real resemblance to any particular IWAD map mitigates this somewhat.

 

That said, there was something of an upturn near the end of the episode--in the last couple of proper maps, the amount of goons bursting out of closets started to reach more of that buku-kills-per-second escape velocity that I like, and I found that E1M8 was a pleasant surprise, very familiar in general concept of course (and again with a very baldfaced IWAD homage), though surprisingly heated a confrontation with the Barons + minions given the unusual and inhospitable layout of the Anomaly itself. E1M6 and E1M8 were my favorites from this episode, whereas most of the rest has already mostly blurred together in memory.

 

E2, however, was where I started to feel more genuinely onboard. Apart from E2M1 (and E2M8 I guess), the allusions to the IWAD maps throughout this episode seemed a lot more subtle, inspired, and sometimes playful to me--E2M3 being renamed "Fuel Station" and taking a quasi-realistic tack, the famously 'creepy' E2M4 slot hosting a spooky "Sickbay" map (the haunted hospital/medical place being something of its own PWAD trope at this point!), E2M6 taking an original and moody spin on a layout based on a decidedly grim/deceptively complex series of "halls", etc. Both of you seem to have a really intuitive grasp on that weirdly quiet, vaguely unsettling atmosphere that is the Deimos theme's hallmark, and over time I started noticing subtle motifs that added to the mood--the evil eye, glowering silently, usually presaging some kind of trap or ambush; the way Barons always seemed to lurk in places where the geometry was especially weird and warped, etc.

 

The sprawling, labyrinthine levels veering between near total abstraction and the more familiar military base style felt like much more of an adventure to me than anything in the first episode, and while there aren't as many secrets in these maps as in E1, what ones there are generally seemed a lot more interesting to find. The overall pacing is very similar to the source material, I'd say (moreso than E1 is to the original KDiTD, to whit), though I was glad to find that there was generally more to kill than one finds in any actual IWAD map, and was also pleased to see that there are some more offbeat Petersen-style pistol-parts at play here. Other than E2M9, which felt like something of a half-baked throwaway/scrap, I enjoyed this entire episode, particularly the stretch from E2M3 - E2M7.

 

I continued to enjoy the Hell episode, and though it didn't quite hit the same sweetspot for me that E2 did (I suspect I'm just getting more and more susceptible to Deimos as time goes on, tbh), it continued to evince the same general strengths--real inspiration instead of just mere homage, etc., though once again E3M1 seems much more of a direct riff on Hell Keep than anything that follows it, ridiculous paperthin keep walls and all. I do appreciate that this episode shows a marked move towards more concerted/choreographed traps, ambushes, and staged fights (far moreso than anything found in the original game), ala the use and later clever reprise of the 'collapsing sinkhole' idea, or the strange E1M8 callback/chaos-shrine fight in E3M7, which is probably the most interesting discrete fight in the game. Also, full credit for a genuinely entertaining spiderdemon showdown in E3M8, historically these are very rare!

 

I reckon the little something-something the episode is missing, for me, is that it lacks any really big sprawling adventure; a few of the levels (E3M5, E3M6, also E3M9 I guess) cover a fairly wide expanse of physical space, but in terms of progression all are pretty short/straightforward, versus the more protracted promenading of much of E2. Many folks will prefer a more concise approach like this, I'm sure, but the absence of a longer/more complicated level ala Unholy Cathedral or an offbeat/change-of-pace level ala Limbo detracts from that staccato progression which is one of the things I most like about the original "Inferno." Some of the scenes and moods are still quite striking/fresh in that abstract/classic way, at least, which helps compensate in this matter to some degree. Favorite maps in this episode were E3M6, E3M7, and E3M9.

 

E4 was maybe the biggest surprise of all, though perhaps it shouldn't have been. As the original "Thy Flesh Consumed" in full fugue is several orders of magnitude more intense than anything in the original trio, the sense of escalation here over the other episodes, which already feel more satisfyingly violent than many "classic" brand projects tend to, is *quite* pronounced. I was literally chuckling in my chair seeing how E4M1 kept piling shit on to a situation going ever farther off the rails--good work! Let the appeals to "fairness" fall on deaf ears, says I, I think you got the 'overclocking' here just right.

 

Much as with the original E4, there are some maps in this episode that didn't do much for me at all (E4M2, E4M3), but it also hosts some of my favorites from the game; the aforementioned E4M1 is a great kick-in-the-teeth opener that captures the "fuck you" spirit of Hell Beneath in a sincere/passionate rather than a pandering way, E4M7 has a genuinely hyperviolent opening which bleeds naturally into a satisfying gauntlet-style map, and E4M4 is a well-placed spacier, more ambling and atmospheric map with some clever and occasionally quite elaborate traps to punctuate its relative placidity, precisely that change-of-pace map that I felt E3 was missing (by the end I had decided that the map is named after the cyberdemon which inhabits it). I recall quite liking the actual look/geometry of E4M6 as well, an interesting tribute to a seldom-tributed map, though the play/progression is a bit scattershot. E4M5 is also quite memorable in its way, I suppose, though I felt it would've been more suitable as a secret level given how different it reads to everything else; I guess my armchair suggestion would've been to have E4M5 be E4M9 instead, feature "Taken" as the E3 secret map (since it kind of riffs on the Warrens angle, in a way), "Gutted" as the E2 secret map, and then, uh....just ditch "Chemical Imbalance", one of the weakest levels in the mapset. My two cents/fwiw/etc. etc. etc.

 

Overall I was quite entertained by all this, more than I had expected to be, for what that's worth. I think the key here, as aforesaid, is that the two of you didn't just rely on a barrage of nostalgic "remember whens" about the original game or try to recapture what it's like to play said game for the first time in a smarmy 1:1 way ala Wonderful Doom or similar genre compeers--instead you used the original game and its progression as a loose template for your own ideas, handily avoiding the pitfall of conflating "traditional/classic experience" with "patronizing/trivial experience", remembering that way back in the primordial darkness of 1993 Doom was meant to kill and bewilder, not just be a vaguely spoooopy safari-stroll. I look forward to seeing what you make of Doom II (and beyond...?) in the future.

 

Edit: Oh, and as a general/relatively minor criticism which I forgot to fit in somewhere else, for my part I would've liked it if you had changed around the soundtrack more (IIRC the track for E3M9 is changed, maybe one or two in E4 as well?). Still using the stock tracks, mind, just in a different/customized configuration, which I feel would've helped to emphasize the personal touch you gave these maps, and fit in naturally enough given that you took the trouble to change the title graphic, map names, par times and ending texts and such.

Edited July 22, 2019 by Demon of the Well

[Miss Bubbles]

 

16 hours ago, Demon of the Well said:

~All dem words~

Wow that was quite the write up! I love when people offer up their opinion and really dissect what we were doing; it's a super rewarding feeling when someone gets it down to the little details and ideas we were going for beyond the surface of just classic inspired levels.

In hindsight I can't help but agree with your criticisms about some of the blandness of Episode 1. Lunar was a huge learning process for us and we stumbled a few times along the way, coming into a more defined style later on with some of the last maps we did and I think it certainly shows. I've been designing levels for a LONG time and 90% of my work has been scrapped or unreleased. Doom mapping is something relatively new to me (I've been dabbling in it for about 3 years now) and a project of this size was a first for us both. As it gathered momentum and began to look like we seriously had something that was not only worth releasing, but was going to be released, we realized that we had to see this thing through to the end, which meant having to cut the cord at some point and release it into the wild. There were plenty of times where I had gone back and altered things in my own levels; for instance, Episode 1 had a lot more health at one point, and I went back multiple times to tone it down, and yet there is still more than enough if you know what you're doing or are good at finding secrets.
 

My point being, I would have loved to iterate and redesign things until I felt it was absolutely perfect, but ignoring the fact that a major part of the wad was capturing that imperfection of the original game, you eventually just have to accept what you've got and call it a day. Could I have reworked things until they were, in my opinion, flawless? Maybe, but going back to what I said earlier, I have been mapping for a looong time, and have very little to show for it, because I become obsessed with chasing that perfection. Lunar was an important milestone for me in that I actually set goals and met them, and released a project. I am very proud of myself for that and Count and I had a blast working together on it. Tangent over! :P
 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading your write up and found myself agreeing with a lot of your points and observations. We are definitely takings notes both from our own thoughts and discussions of what we can improve upon and what people have been saying here in this thread to carry with us as we design levels for the sequel.
 

I like your thought about the placement of the secret levels. At one point we had considered putting Taken into Episode 3, but felt that it served as a nice little bookend to the wad to take you back to the start of it all. However there's definitely a point to be made that it would have felt more at home in Episode 3.
 

Good point about the music changing as well! We're looking into custom music for our sequel, but if it doesn't pan out we'll probably change the placement of songs around for the very reason you mentioned.
 

Again, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I absolutely love reading what people have to say about our work! :)

[Kyka]

Just wanted to post to report a couple of bugs.

 

-On E2M6, if you are playing strict vanilla compatibility mode, you will not be able to open the door to leave the start room. Because Linedef 26 and linedef 21 are only 16 units apart, you cannot open the door through the W1 trigger line that is in front of it. There is a setting in GZDoom for this though. I just mention it for the sake of thoroughness.

 

-On E1M5, it is possible to create a small HOM on linedef 910 by hitting linedef 842 twice. The first time you hit it, it raises the floor of sector 0 up to the floor level of sector 171. If you hit the switch again, it raises the floor level of sector 0 up again to the floor height of sector 186, thereby revealing the back of line 910 above the floor height of sector 171. Soz if this explanation doesn't make sense, it will if you hit the switch at linedef 842 twice.

 

-E2M9 Sector 85 needs the damage tag removed. (At least I assume it needs removing.)

 

Minor bugs aside, this mapset is amazing, I love playing through classic Doom 1 megawads, and was thrilled to discover this megawad just in the last week. Definitely in my top ten favorite wads ever. AND STILL TWO MORE EPISODES TO GO! Yisss!

 

Thanks so much for your work. Much appreciated. 

Edited July 27, 2019 by bLOCKbOYgAMES

[Miss Bubbles]

9 hours ago, bLOCKbOYgAMES said:

Just wanted to post to report a couple of bugs.

 

-On E2M6, if you are playing strict vanilla compatibility mode, you will not be able to open the door to leave the start room. Because Linedef 26 and linedef 21 are only 16 units apart, you cannot open the door through the W1 trigger line that is in front of it. There is a setting in GZDoom for this though. I just mention it for the sake of thoroughness.

 

-On E1M5, it is possible to create a small HOM on linedef 910 by hitting linedef 842 twice. The first time you hit it, it raises the floor of sector 0 up to the floor level of sector 171. If you hit the switch again, it raises the floor level of sector 0 up again to the floor height of sector 186, thereby revealing the back of line 910 above the floor height of sector 171. Soz if this explanation doesn't make sense, it will if you hit the switch at linedef 842 twice.

 

-E2M9 Sector 85 needs the damage tag removed. (At least I assume it needs removing.)

 

Minor bugs aside, this mapset is amazing, I love playing through classic Doom 1 megawads, and was thrilled to discover this megawad just in the last week. Definitely in my top ten favorite wads ever. AND STILL TWO MORE EPISODES TO GO! Yisss!

 

Thanks so much for your work. Much appreciated. 

Thanks for bringing these to my attention. I believe a couple of these had been mentioned before in the past by other users, but unfortunately slipped past me when I was hunting for bugs to fix. I'll have to read back through this thread and see if there's enough issues to warrant a new version. Of course the ones you mentioned are what I would consider to be enough, but also not totally problematic... except for the door issue on E2M6 lol.

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

[Kyka]

13 hours ago, Miss Bubbles said:

Thanks for bringing these to my attention. I believe a couple of these had been mentioned before in the past by other users, but unfortunately slipped past me when I was hunting for bugs to fix. I'll have to read back through this thread and see if there's enough issues to warrant a new version. Of course the ones you mentioned are what I would consider to be enough, but also not totally problematic... except for the door issue on E2M6 lol.

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

Please don't go to any trouble lol. If I find any more I will post. So so so enjoying this wad. 

 

I trust you are aware of just how many Cacoward nominations this little project has generated? Thoroughly deserved too I might add. Wonderful work! Thank you again.

[Miss Bubbles]

4 hours ago, bLOCKbOYgAMES said:

Please don't go to any trouble lol. If I find any more I will post. So so so enjoying this wad. 

 

I trust you are aware of just how many Cacoward nominations this little project has generated? Thoroughly deserved too I might add. Wonderful work! Thank you again.

Thanks! Any more bugs brought to my attention is much appreciated.

I have been keeping an eye on the nominations! :D

I am blown away by the response we've been getting and each time someone has nominated us it feels amazing. Doom has a special place in my heart and it's a fantastic feeling knowing that what we've created; essentially a love letter to the original game, has resonated with so many people for that very reason. :)

[FrancisT218]

I think this wad actually BEATS DTWID.....I sure hope the sequel is no letdown! Maybe a SIGIL tribute too now...? Which already becomes sometimes as tough as E4M5 here in UV pistol start...

Edited July 28, 2019 by FrancisT18

[Miss Bubbles]

1 hour ago, FrancisT18 said:

I think this wad actually BEATS DTWID.....I sure hope the sequel is no letdown! Maybe a SIGIL tribute too now...? Which already becomes sometimes as tough as E4M5 here in UV pistol start...

Haha that's very kind of you to say :D DTWID was a big inspiration and I love what they did - there are a lot of fantastic maps in that wad! I don't know about a SIGIL tribute :P - but I will say that Count and I very much enjoy working together and I highly doubt that our sequel wad will be the final project we collaborate on, but that's getting way ahead of ourselves! For now we're just slowly working on our Doom 2 Maps and seeing how things shape up. :)

[Shanoa]

Classic aesthetic is my jam. Downloading this and will give it a try in the near future!

[Jawohlf]

Since this aims to stick to vanilla aesthetics as much as possible, I felt curious about how it would look with an "updated-vanilla" series of add-ons:

 

 

(please ignore Bolognese)

 

Only Neural Upscale seemed to cause issues, which is why it's not included. At first glance, everything looks consistent enough except the skybox. Should I expect any significant mismatch further in?

Edited September 17, 2019 by Jawohlf
improved writing

[Count651]

The sky textures in our wad are completely unmodified so if you're having any issues with them then it must be something regarding one of the above mods. Can't say I'm familiar with any of the mods you listed so I won't be able to provide much help in the matter.

[Jawohlf]

Oh no, no issues at all: just that the skybox was replaced. The rest of the game looks very similar, just in higher resolution. The mods are as follows:

 

• The AltDHTP vanilla texture pack with its corresponding Brightmaps and Liquidpatch.
• The fullscreen HUD mod.
• An add-on to the Neural Upscale 2X mod with extra frames of animation for the vanilla weapons.
• Updated vanilla music.
• Updated vanilla SFX.
• The bolognese gore mod.

 

Here's an altered/unaltered comparison:

 

Come to think about it, the fullscreen HUD mod is redundant.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Jawohlf

[Angelwitch]

Stopping after E1M6 to write this!

 

Wow, this is old-school and I love it! I haven't had this much fun with a doom1 wad in awhile. Ep1 has been awesome so far, I can't wait to finish this over the weekend. Congrats to both of you!

[Miss Bubbles]

Thanks so much! I'm glad you're enjoying it!

[The_SloVinator]

This megawad is meant to replicate the old-school Doom experience, yet when I play it on Crispy Doom (both 5.1 & 5.6.3), E1M8 sectors can't lower due to barrels preventing them from doing so, being softlocked & E2M7, where you shoot the UAC logo texture with the candle on the floor, the entire level just breaks itself.

Voids, HOMs, glitches... it becomes unbeatable.

 

I checked the text file & you guys tested it only with ZDOOM, so I'm really not surprised these things happen. This "old-school experience" should be tested on source ports that have limitations for the "ultimate classic doom experience" or at the very least, Crispy Doom to avoid potential visplane overflow.

 

Oh & one more thing. Secret exit in map 4 doesn't work because after you beat the secret level, you have to play map 4 for the second time. You don't continue into map 5.

[tmorrow]

Too bad @The_SloVinator that you weren't around for the many months this wad was publicly available for testing. Yeah, a real bummer.

[Not Jabba]

The megawad is intended to be played in ZDoom, and the mappers have always been up front about that. Playing in any other port will also screw up the sequence of maps because of the way vanilla handles secret maps, iirc. "Old-school experience" does not necessarily mean "vanilla-compatible." As with anything else, just play it in the intended port.

Edited December 9, 2019 by Not Jabba

[Count651]

Pretty much what Not Jabba said. This wad's goal was to emulate Id's original mapping style but with our own touches. At no point point was it ever advertised or intended to be a vanilla compatible wad on a technical level.

[Miss Bubbles]

I'd just like to add further on to what Not Jabba and Count have said... unless I am mistaken, it seems the biggest offender for breaking vanilla compatibility was the decision to change the secret level exits from their original map slots. I have no intention of altering this.