Back to Saturn X Episode 3 [WIP]: 5 MAP PREVIEW BUILD ON PAGE 11

[Arclightning]

21 hours ago, esselfortium said:

Happy QuakeCon, everyone! Have a 5-map preview build of Back to Saturn X Episode 3, because it's been way too long since the last BTSX episode came out!

 

A UMAPINFO-supporting port is strongly recommended (Eternity devbuilds, DSDA, and GZDoom should all work), for the correct skies and map-picker menu.

 

Downloab: Preview Build 1

Textfile

 

 

(Sidenote: E2 Final is still on its way, but a number of critical bugs were found while doing "final" testing for it, because it is truly the project that never ends.)

Damn man everyone else is commentin on how cool it all is but what I wanna know is whats the font name? That stuff looks cool

[esselfortium]

It’s a custom font that was designed for BTSX by ptoing, we’ve been using it since episode one :)

[EduardoAndFriends]

Had a wild, wild, thoroughly enjoyable time. Thanks so much for these 5 maps, essel and gang. Really pumped to explore the rest (played map 2 - masterpiece!). :D

 

Video below:

Spoiler

 

 

[nickxcom]

Holy guacamole I know what I'm doing on my lunch break :) Can't wait!

[DreadWanderer]

Delicious announcement, couldn't believe we have new BTSX levels! I've only played 'Space City Kicks' so far and loved it.

My question for @esselfortium is to what extent were the design and aesthetic choices influenced by stuff like vaporwave? I'm getting major Blade Runner vibes so far, but 'Space City Kicks' also instantly reminded me of 2814's 'Birth of a New Day'.

[Gothic]

So, GZDoom doesn't support UMAPINFO?

[esselfortium]

19 minutes ago, DreadWanderer said:

Delicious announcement, couldn't believe we have new BTSX levels! I've only played 'Space City Kicks' so far and loved it.

My question for @esselfortium is to what extent were the design and aesthetic choices influenced by stuff like vaporwave? I'm getting major Blade Runner vibes so far, but 'Space City Kicks' also instantly reminded me of 2814's 'Birth of a New Day'.

Not very much -- Space City Kicks was me challenging myself to do a vanilla recreation of the space-Tokyo setting I did for SpaceDM9 map03 around 2010ish.

 

Glad you enjoyed the map!

[DreadWanderer]

3 hours ago, esselfortium said:

Not very much -- Space City Kicks was me challenging myself to do a vanilla recreation of the space-Tokyo setting I did for SpaceDM9 map03 around 2010ish.

 

Glad you enjoyed the map!

 

Fair enough, thank you. Inadvertently though, I connect it to the vaporwave, nostalgia-laden aesthetic that is contained in both music and visuals, like here:

Edited August 11, 2023 by DreadWanderer

[DreadWanderer]

3 hours ago, Gothic said:

So, GZDoom doesn't support UMAPINFO?

 

According to the Doom Wiki, the UMAPINFO format has had a number of revisions that GZDoom only supports up to a point since 4.6.0 (namely, Rev 1.4). GZDoom has its own, more complex format in ZMAPINFO. The TLDR would be that GZDoom partially or mostly supports UMAPINFO, but other source ports have better support (the dev builds of PrBoom+um, DSDA, Woof!).

[mancubian_candidate]

Hi folks, 

 

just a quick report on my side:

Spoiler

On Map 3, these Monster Closets didn't work for me on 2 separate playthroughs!

I played on UV on dsda-doom v0.25.6 (Complevel 2)

 

Edit: Tested it in GZdoom v4.10.0 and it works fine

 

I could be a big dummy but said I'd report anyway just incase :)

 

 

Edited August 11, 2023 by mancubian_candidate

[DreadWanderer]

14 minutes ago, mancubian_candidate said:

Hi folks, 

 

just a quick report on my side:

  Hide contents

On Map 3, these Monster Closets didn't work for me on 2 separate playthroughs!

I played on UV on dsda-doom v0.25.6 (Complevel 2)

 

I could be a big dummy but said I'd report anyway just incase :)

 

 

 

Great timing, I just finished this map and encountered the same problem. I'm on DSDA 0.26.2 but I don't think it makes any difference.

 

Loved this one too by the way, essel created a Doom meets Rayman meets toxic sludge meets blood and ice castle medley, and it works so well. I also enjoyed the MIDI a lot, there are some really nice modulations there. If anyone knows who the composer is, please let me know.

[esselfortium]

Thanks for the reports!

 

14 minutes ago, DreadWanderer said:

Loved this one too by the way, essel created a Doom meets Rayman meets toxic sludge meets blood and ice castle medley, and it works so well. I also enjoyed the MIDI a lot, there are some really nice modulations there. If anyone knows who the composer is, please let me know.

I composed the music for the first three maps, Xaser did the fourth, and Jimmy did the fifth one. (There are credits in the txt linked in the download post.) Glad you enjoyed!

[Poncho1]

Perhaps I'm being really thick, but I assume that Ep. 3 is still vanilla-compatible, and that the necessity of Eternity and whatnot is just so this 5-map demo works, right? 

 

My tech knowledge is practically non-existent, as you can probably tell.

[Devalaous]

6 hours ago, Gothic said:

So, GZDoom doesn't support UMAPINFO?

 

Try using a dev build of GZDoom, I think it has better UMAPINFO support in those, not 100% sure though. Also good to see BTSX is supporting UMAPINFO now, I had to write UMAPINFO for E1 and E2 myself, saves me some hassle down the line :D

Edited August 11, 2023 by Devalaous

[esselfortium]

5 minutes ago, Poncho1 said:

Perhaps I'm being really thick, but I assume that Ep. 3 is still vanilla-compatible, and that the necessity of Eternity and whatnot is just so this 5-map demo works, right? 

 

My tech knowledge is practically non-existent, as you can probably tell.

Yes, the full E3 release is still targeting vanilla. UMAPINFO was just the only way to offer the map picker and have correct skies in an abbreviated demo.

[nobleflame]

Esselfortium et al, you have outdone yourselves. I've played maps 1 and 2 and this is incredible stuff. 

Quick question: are these maps in order? I.e. are these maps 1-5 in the final release? 

[esselfortium]

11 minutes ago, nobleflame said:

Esselfortium et al, you have outdone yourselves. I've played maps 1 and 2 and this is incredible stuff. 

Quick question: are these maps in order? I.e. are these maps 1-5 in the final release? 

Thanks!

 

These are selected from all over the map list.

[esselfortium]

I've just updated the download post with build 2, which fixes some issues in MAP01 and MAP03, and fixes a bugged flat. Thanks again for all the reports!

[MBison]

That skillsaw map is epic, damn.

[nobleflame]

10 hours ago, esselfortium said:

Thanks!

 

These are selected from all over the map list.

Thanks! Good to know :)

[Flyxolydian]

Just played through the 5 maps, boy does BTSX3 look promising. There's a real variety of maps on display here, well done all!

Just a couple of thoughts about each map:
 

Spoiler

 

Space City - Basically ran around like a dervish and got everything infighting, as I didn't find the BFG until about halfway through. The electric city vibe is great, as well as the callback to BTSX1's ending.

Coast to Coast - Is this the biggest map that Skillsaw's made? I'm not sure, but it feels much more expansive than his usual work. Combat was great, as usual, and kept the map fresh, considering its length. Didn't find the BFG until the map was over, so make what you will of that. 

Crops - I'm noticing a lot more Archviles being used than in the previous two BTSX installments. Revenants seem to act particularly mean in the 2nd half of this one, as they were really aggressive when sniping from quite far away. Love the red trees!

 

Creep Doctor - Killer concept and visuals, and the progression through the level gets pretty chilling, especially house number 4... looks absolutely gross. Has to be said though, the combat kind of misses the mark. It's a Tyson-ish map, so it's going to be slower, but having to SSG Archvile #35 gets old. The ending is an interesting fight though, a cool infighting encounter. I did think that you were going to be super cruel, and have me berserk a Cyber to death at the start of it though... thank god that wasn't the case.

Robot Boy - Jesus Christ Mechadon, what a brutal ending. It's definitely my favourite (and hardest) map of the set, and is absolute chaos from start to finish, but god knows how I survived that triple Cyberdemon whammy. The teleporting enemies makes maxing a bit of a chore though.

 

 

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Flyxolydian

[Julia Nechaevskaya]

Small bug report with «Creep Doctor» - it is possible to soft-lock the map after picking up Berserk pack in the secret. If player is not fast enough to get out, they might be blocked, just like here:

Spoiler

 

 

Also, this linedef (№9043) is marked as one-sided, but in fact player can walk through it and fall into unescapable fireplace:

Spoiler

 

Edit: Arch-Viles, please mercy!!! 😱

Edited August 12, 2023 by Julia Nechaevskaya

[skillsaw]

44 minutes ago, Flyxolydian said:

Coast to Coast - Is this the biggest map that Skillsaw's made? I'm not sure, but it feels much more expansive than his usual work. Combat was great, as usual, and kept the map fresh, considering its length. Didn't find the BFG until the map was over, so make what you will of that.

 

Thanks :) I've done a few larger maps (including my other map in BTSX E3, weirdly enough) but it's definitely up there.

[DreadWanderer]

3 hours ago, Julia Nechaevskaya said:

Small bug report with «Creep Doctor» - it is possible to soft-lock the map after picking up Berserk pack in the secret. If player is not fast enough to get out, they might be blocked, just like here:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Also, this linedef (№9043) is marked as one-sided, but in fact player can walk through it and fall into unescapable fireplace:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Edit: Arch-Viles, please mercy!!! 😱

 

There was a secret berserk pack?!

 

'Creep Doctor' exhausted me. I loved the visuals and the concept but if I have to Tyson another revenant or SSG another archvile with 4 shells left, I'm gonna get PTSD.

[Daytime Waitress]

I can always gauge how much I love a map(set) by how quickly I want to break out of my HNTR shell and try it on HMP immediately: Coast to Coast still feels perfectly balanced, even when I initially had conniptions realising that invulns were an Easy thing only...

[Cammy]

Hats all the way off to essel, skillsaw, Xaser, and Mechadon - BTSX E3 will be an absolute all-timer if the exceptional quality of these maps is anything to go by. Stunning work - all five of these maps kick ass in their own distinct ways, and the music is incredible as always (I was very happy to hear Jimmy still making waves)! Far Out Crops was probably my favorite of the pack, but all five of them are excellent.

 

Not enough people talk about the peerless quality of BTSX's texture set. Crafting this many textures, and at this level of quality, must have been an absolutely mammoth task. It does not go unnoticed, essel. Stupendous craftsmanship.

 

Spoiler

An issue I encountered in map04 which I have not seen mentioned yet: at least in my source port (Zandronum 3.1, software rendering), standing in roughly this area of the fourth house and looking south causes some pretty noticeable graphical weirdness.

 

Sadly, I also experienced the white-pixels bug in Zandronum. Hopefully this is the kind of thing that the Zand developers could fix, judging by essel saying it was only an issue for older ports of DSDA?

 

 

I'm very excited to play the full release. Good luck to the whole team!

Edited August 13, 2023 by Cammy

[esselfortium]

Thank you! It has indeed been an absolute ton of work to make all these textures, haha. The main reason E3 wasn’t released years ago was because circa 2014 I kept promising texture themes for it that I then suddenly had absolutely no energy to create. So lots of textures have been made in just the past year or so, in a sudden burst of inspiration.

 

The palette bug should be fixable in Zandronum, yes. It was fixed in GZDoom shortly after KDiKDiZD’s release, since that had the same problem.

[natashanightmare]

Well this has some of the best doom textures i have ever seen 

[ukiro]

2 hours ago, Cammy said:

peerless quality of BTSX's texture set

challenge accepted :-) but yes, these are stunning and lit a huge fire under my lazy ass. 

[SyntherAugustus]

So I had a lot of fun with this. I did my run with Voxel Doom 2 and Eriguns to keep it simple.

 

I think my favorite thing about it was that I counted four different tilesets (The city, the forest (and the blood variant), the castle, and space!) in these maps alone. The first two episodes mostly comprised of one tileset, so this was a really neat bit of fresh air. The music was also wonderful. I love being reminded that the best game osts these days are in Doom wads in 2023.

 

And now to replay the first two episodes with Voxel Doom 2.