Alien Bastards! (A limit removing project from Doomer Boards)

[Catpho]

It ain't easy being a former 90's action game hero in the 21st-century gig economy. But when wily alien bastards kidnap Earth's accountants, you might just have a chance to relive your glory days! Ok, ok, maybe it's not the most glamorous mission, but it'll pay the fuel bills this month. So grab your flamethrower, put that old blue helmet on, and get ready to kick some alien ass! ... right after a quick nap.

 

ALIEN BASTARDS! is a partial conversion created by the wild and wacky folks in the Doomer Boards community, featuring 8 maps of (ahem) "alien carnage," 1 credit map, and a MAP30 menagerie showing off the many custom resources featured in the set. Time to kick some alien ass, rescue some number crunchers, and make it home in one piece to celebrate your Independence Day!

 

@Big Ol Billy worked overtime to push this out. Seriously, the dude is out of this world!

 

/idgames

GZDoom fix by ReaperAA

 

Screenshots:

 

MAPLIST
01. "Asleep at the Helm" -- Big Ol' Billy
02. "Galactic Stowaway" -- Big Ol' Billy
03. "Spacial Nursery" -- WalterC
04. "Station2Station" -- Big Ol' Billy
05. "Water on Mars" -- DoomCureDave and Big Ol' Billy
06. "Tubelectric Omegamatic" -- Joe-Ilya
07. "Makai Tensho" -- Thundercunt
08. "Station Desolation" -- Glenzinho
09. "Form 1099" (Credits) -- Big Ol' Billy

 

Previous Projects:

Spoiler

2018

See Vicarious Reality

2019

-The Merry Christmassy Doom Project

-MINDBLOOD GENESIS

-Legend of The Hidden Tech

-Earth Ends

-Lillywhite Lilith

-Into The Storm

Sidequest (?)

-Fall Of Society

 

Previous Downloads:

Spoiler

-RC1

-RC2

 

Edited September 12, 2019 by Catpho

[xvertigox]

Dude, this looks sick, love the sprites and level shots. Doomer Boards are cranking out wads at an insane pace.

 

Edit: I just finished playing through and it was mint. Great maps tied together with a charming resource pack with lots of cool secrets.

 

Edit 2: The flak cannon rules, that sprite is awesome. The new bullet puffs are great too.

Edited July 5, 2019 by xvertigox

[Big Ol Billy]

Just in time for Independence Day! I'm hearing fireworks right now, in fact...

[elend]

You guys....

[Gideon020]

Another one for the backlog...

[Walter confetti]

Hooray for release!

It was a fun theme to work on!

Edited July 5, 2019 by Walter confetti

[xvertigox]

40 minutes ago, Gideon020 said:

Another one for the backlog...

 

Nah, fuck that. It's sweet as, should put it on the top of the pile IMO

[Phobus]

Good map set and great resources. I felt maps 5-7 didn't really have enough armour and health, particularly played continuously where they each led into rough starts, but the first four maps were very enjoyable and MAP08 got back to that feel, although darker and less playful. Special mention to MAP07 for managing to be very dark and brooding, standing out in a generally lighthearted mapset. Keep up the good work!

[Big Ol Billy]

Thanks for the comments, @Phobus! Come to think of it, there are a few tweaks that could make it a little more continuous friendly in the stretch you mention...

[galileo31dos01]

Man, I'm still going through last year's releases, like not even Forest Swords yet, wow.

[Gothic]

Reminds me of those old movie TCs (alien, predator, terminator, etc) you can find on doomwadstation.

[xvertigox]

Here's a playthrough if anyone wants to see the wad but doesn't have the time to play themselves

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Catpho]

Hi. The download has been updated.

Changes:

-- Proper automap names
-- Z-port obituaries
-- Numerous small balance tweaks, especially in the middle stretch
-- Now more continuous-friendly
-- All textures play nicely with Crispy now
-- Random minor visual clean up stuff
-- Mysterious ZDoom 2.8.1-only mega-slime trail fixed
-- MAP06 has gotten a visual overhaul, along with a tweak to the megahealth secret. Now you can blame Big Ol Billy as well as Joe 
-- Proper dbp13.txt

Edited July 8, 2019 by Catpho

[Breezeep]

This looks fantastic! Getting strong 90's Doom TC vibes from this one. Good job!

Edited July 9, 2019 by Breezeep

[DANZA]

Yes! A DPB map pack with Blake stone vibes!

[SOSU]

Doomer Boards stop you are inflating the Wad economy >:OOO!!!
(Cool but i already am supposed to play through them all again :V)

[Walter confetti]

Played last night until the beginning of MAP07, really good mapset! I loved the new edits on my map, thanks for the hard work!

Also MAP07 looks pretty awesome!

[Big Ol Billy]

Glad you liked the edits @Walter confetti. I’ve seen a few people single out your map as a highlight, good job dude! MAP07 is indeed an impressive, imposing piece of work :)

[Catpho]

The final version is out! Please use this moddb link while waiting for the /idgames 

Thanks everyone!

Edit: /idgames up in the OP

Edited July 14, 2019 by Catpho

[CyberDreams]

This looks great! I'll definitely check it. I haven't been playing much Doom lately but this definitely peaks my interest!

[Firedust]

Hai. Just started playing this and gotta say - this tc is simply awesome! Shame it's so short... Feels like a shareware episode because of that. Also, how does one get the megaarmor secret in the second level.

[Big Ol Billy]

Glad you're enjoying it!

 

17 hours ago, Firedust said:

Also, how does one get the megaarmor secret in the second level.

 

Gotta find a secret teleporter, check around the BK doors/flamethrower room ;)

[Lorenz0]

I just finished playing this wad, and I have to say that I like it quite a bit. Initially map01 turned me off with how it starts in an area filled with tight corridors and small rooms behind doors, which didn't make for a fun gameplay at all, but thankfully it got better after that.

 

All of the custom assets look fantastic and combine into an aesthetic I greatly enjoy. The texturework, monsters and weapons are quite fitting. My only complaint would be the ssg replacement. It has a new sprite, but the sound stays the same, which feels very out of place.

 

I played most of the wad on co-op, so I can't really comment accurately on how well the balancing is handled, but it seemed good. The project was mostly a very enjoyable experience, but had some issues as well. The shootswitches in map06 were very unintuitive and it took me forever to figure out what I had to do. The layout of that map felt a bit uninspired as well.

The new textures are mostly rich with detail, which could sometimes make navigating around a map harder, as it was the case in map07. Finding the red key in particular required some thinking.

The beginning of map08 kinda annoyed me with how co-op unfriendly it was. The teleport raises immediately after you go through it, making it impossible for the second player to progress. Same with the door right after that. These were the only moments like that in the entire wad, and could singlehandedly ruin the experience for some co-op players who don't know how to use noclip. It's especially aggravating if you think about how easy it would be to fix, so it's a shame that it wasn't noticed before the idgames release.

 

Many maps in the project were quite small and minimalistic, which made me feel like the potential of the custom assets wasn't utilized to its furthest extent. I think that adding 2 or 3 medium sized maps more would make the overall experience a bit more fulfilling. Even still, the wad was a greatly enjoyable time for me, and even if I think it falls slighly short of its potential, it was designed well enough to deserve a cacoward runner up in my opinion.

 

 

[Marlamir]

Congrats on the rellease guys. Looks really great and fun, digg up the theme as well. Very nice visuals it's fun to run through maps and see those nice sprites and textures in work. Got really excited for it but then i run through the first fight and... well those tight corridors, monsters all around me and zero medkits... not fun at all but it go better from this part so looking forward to finish this. Also the level design especially on first map reminds a lot those spaceship maps from Duke 3d

Edited August 27, 2019 by Marlamir

[grrfield]

currently hosting this on Zandronum

 

[Big Ol Billy]

Cool, thanks for the comments and additional attention y’all! 

 

I think it was a bit over-ambitious to market this as both single-player and co-op intended, since co-op was only spottily tested (resulting in a pretty embarrassing oversight in MAP08). DBPs have an “on to the next one” philosophy, which has its pluses and minuses. It keeps the energy and momentum going, but it also means that the mistakes are generally locked in once we’re past the ~1 month development time. Co-op was really more of a stretch goal here, though I didn’t really think about it very clearly in those terms (one way or another) at the time of release.

 

Regardless, I’m always happy to see that people are getting enjoyment out of these projects! We’re definitely gonna keep ‘em coming. There may even be a time when we can revisit this resource pack, though no promises yet ;)

Edited August 27, 2019 by Big Ol Billy

[Doomkid]

I dunno how great of an idea this is, but maybe you could do a tuneup month at some point? Fix up all the little snags you guys noticed after the fact for every DBP to date and get them all into perfect condition for posterity!

Edited August 28, 2019 by Doomkid

[ReaperAA]

Just started playing it now (at map03 atm). I am really liking it.

 

There is a small issue I noticed which no one else has mentioned yet. I am playing it with GZdoom with dynamic lights on and I noticed that the dynamic lights are not correct as they still use vanilla's colors. For example, the flamethrower (which is a modified vanilla plasma gun) fires yellow flame projectiles but has blue dynamic lights. And those meatball enemies (which are modified lost souls) have dynamic lights around them.

 

This issue could be resolved by implementing a GLDEFS lump. I believe this won't break savegames or demo compatibility. And it is easy to implement. Infact if u want, I could try implementing them.

[ReaperAA]

Well then, I decided to make a patch that contains the GLDEFS lump to fix the dynamic lights. I managed to fix the projectiles of weapons and enemies and also fix the enemy states such as that of lost soul replacement enemy. However, I could not fix the props/decorations as they are many and I don't know what decoration replaced what. I could use some help to fix those.

 

I am providing the file in case if it is useful for someone else.

dbp13_dlights_test.zip

[Big Ol Billy]

Very cool Reaper! GLDEFS is unknown territory for me but this would be a really good starting point if we want to actually go back and fine-tune things as Doomkid suggested. First priority is seeing if we can sustain our monthly release schedule through the rest of the year, though!