Friday Night UDM3 [MBF // RC 2 // new map 11/19/19]

[Tango]

>>>>>>>> DOWNLOAD FRIDAY NIGHT UDM3 <<<<<<<<
^{(last updated: RC2 - 11/19/2019)}

 

Friday Night UDM3 is a 6-map episode of small, challenging singleplayer recreations of some of my favorite deathmatch maps from Unidoom Deathmatch 3. Some of my best Doom memories are playing UDM3 during Skulltag's FNF events, and I've always wished that there were singleplayer versions of the maps. NanoWADMo seemed like a great time to finally tackle the idea, so I created these maps in the first half of October 2019 (and map06 in November). These maps use a slightly-updated version of Minicharge, which includes a number of gameplay changes, detailed below.

 

Skill settings are implemented, but could still use some tweaks. Any feedback, especially regarding gameplay and balance, would be most appreciated :D

 

 

FEATURES:

• 6 small, challenging maps heavily inspired by some of my favorite maps from UDM3, with difficulty settings implemented
• New monsters and tweaked behavior! The Diabolist from Supercharge replaces the Archvile, Cacos fire slower projectiles, Arachnotrons fire in bursts of 4, rockets have reduced splash radius, etc.
• Smooth weapon sprites! Courtesy of @VGA's Black Ops mod, which was used as a base.
• Faster weapon switching!

 

 

REQUIREMENTS:

• MBF-compatible port (most testing was done in PrBoom+ -complevel 11, GZDoom, and Doom Retro)

• Requires a Doom 2 IWAD to play (doom2.wad, tnt.wad, plutonia.wad, etc.)

 

 

HOW TO PLAY:

Spoiler

• Make sure doom2.wad is in the same folder as your favorite Boom compatible port (PrBoom+, GZDoom, etc.)

• Load up t-fnudm3.wad with said source port, either with drag n drop (onto the .exe file) or using your favorite launcher (ZDL, Doom Launcher, etc.)

 

SCREENSHOTS:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GIFS:

Spoiler

 

 

MONSTER INFO:

Spoiler

Most monsters have new sprites in addition to their altered behavior and stats.

 

• Archvile -> Diabolist: Fiery-red cousin of the Archvile. Summons exploding plumes of fire beneath the player’s feet that linger for a few moments for area-denial. Punishes you for not watching your footwork. Base health raised 700 -> 750. Invulnerable to explosion damage.
• Cacodemon: Base health reduced 400 -> 380. Projectile speed reduced 10 -> 6.
• Demon: Speed raised 10 -> 12. Bite animation is a few frames faster.
• Spider Mastermind -> Dark Cardinal: Floating brethren of the Cyberdemon. Fires Arachnotron shots as a pretty fast pace as long as target is in sight. Has exceptionally low pain chance. Is now vulnerable to explosion damage. The fact that it flies means it will slightly "break" existing maps that have Spiderdemons.
• Cyberdemon: Health reduced 4000 -> 2200. Rocket explosion radius reduced 128 -> 96 (this applies to player rockets as well).
• Arachnotron: Fires in bursts of 4 bullets with a small pause in between, rather than a more constant stream.
• Lost Soul: Health reduced 100 -> 30.
• Pain Elemental: Upon death, explodes in a radius of 80 units, damaging players and monsters alike. This is to discourage blocking Lost Soul spawning.

 

WEAPON INFO:

Spoiler

All weapon swap times are halved, and all weapons have smooth animations.

 

• Chainsaw: No changes.
• Fist: No changes.
• Pistol: Fires a bit faster than vanilla.
• Shotgun: Fires much faster than vanilla.
• Super Shotgun: Fires a bit faster than vanilla.
• Chaingun: Fires a bit faster than vanilla.
• Rocket Launcher: Firing startup delay removed. Delay in between shots reduced. Rocket explosion radius reduced 128 -> 96.
• Plasma Rifle: No changes.
• BFG: No changes.

 

 

 

CURRENT TODOS:

Spoiler

• Add multiplayer monsters/items to all maps
• Do more testing and balancing across all skill levels
• Make a text file (which should include notes on which maps from UDM3 I'm ripping off, and who created the originals)

 

Edited January 6, 2020 by Tango

[VGA]

Nice, I am waiting for HMP difficulty and I will test on Doom Retro! Make it just a bit easier than UV but still challenging please!

[DavidN]

Great collection of levels, especially the incredible use of the Diabolists' area attack on the second map! I love your Supercharge monsters - they're so interesting in having unique roles that complement a lot of the standard enemies in unexpected ways. Here is me beating my head against it for a while... although I believe I never resurrected despite many, many restores :)

 

 

 

[Tango]

21 minutes ago, DavidN said:

Great collection of levels, especially the incredible use of the Diabolists' area attack on the second map!

 

mate you are an absolute gem, this was a blast to watch hahah. major props for making it through UV (and with no resurrections, as you note). watching you solve the start of map02 was a definitely highlight for me. many thanks for playing and recording :D likewise excited to check out the rest of your nanowadmo contribution - looks awesome but I'm only a hair of the way in so far

[Doomkid]

I'm a little scattered at the moment so maybe that's why I'm doing terribly but I think these maps are just flat out above my skill level. They're freaking beautiful, I love this, we need more SP maps following the theme of famous-yet-underappreciated DM maps!

 

The dumb pun-loving part of my brain wishes these maps were in UDMF format solely to work in some ill-conceived tie in with the acronym.. UDMFriday Nights, in UDMF! okay this is terrible anyways I like the maps <3

Edited November 6, 2019 by Doomkid

[Tango]

1 minute ago, Doomkid said:

we need more SP maps following the theme of famous-yet-underappreciated DM maps!

 

yes! hard agree. someone please make zdctfmp and stctf in singleplayer flavor!! cheers Doomkid, appreciate it :D UV especially is pretty unkind, but I think I still need to do some tweaking to the other skill levels too. I want to make sure that everyone can find a difficulty setting that suits them among the main 3, so I am very open to balance suggestions to make sure that happens

[Ralphis]

Awesome to see these maps re-imagined like this. I played through these in survival coop with Blair and it was pretty awesome. The only map that was brutally hard was map02, but we still had a ton of laughs. Really cool stuff

[ReaperAA]

Demos of first 3 maps (I just couldn't beat map 4 on UV without savescumming):

demos_map1to3.zip

[Tango]

49 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

Demos of first 3 maps (I just couldn't beat map 4 on UV without savescumming):

 

well played mate - these were a lot of fun to watch :D I will fix those cages in map01 not being impassible (as also highlighted in DavidN's video). I definitely don't blame yall for sniping those viles in map01 before traversing the crushers but I do wonder if there's anything more I can do to encourage players to brave the crushers with fire at their feet ;D and yeah, I found 04 to be probably the toughest in the set for me, though map01 wasn't close behind personally

 

@Voltcom thank you so much :D I am glad you are enjoying it!

 

 

2 hours ago, Ralphis said:

Awesome to see these maps re-imagined like this. I played through these in survival coop with Blair and it was pretty awesome. The only map that was brutally hard was map02, but we still had a ton of laughs. Really cool stuff

 

so glad to hear yall had a good time haha. thank you for having such a hand in the timeless classic that is the original UDM3. how did you find the balance on coop generally? something like a 2-player survival coop is what I imagined I might try to balance things for whenever I get around to adding multiplayer-only items, but currently there's nothing special for multiplayer

Edited November 6, 2019 by Tango

[ReaperAA]

I managed to beat map 4 as well. Will soon try map 5.

t-fnudm3demo_map4.zip

[ReaperAA]

And map 5 is also done. This one was also really hard like map 4.

t-fnudm3demo_map5.zip

 

EDIT: Its time for the review.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed playing through the mapset. The fights are very well designed. They are challenging but once u figure them out, most of them can be beaten without relying too much on luck. The weapons+monster changes were really cool (I haven't played with supercharge/minicharge mods before). My favourite being the Diabolist.

 

Though, I do think there can be a few changes made here and there:

- In map 5: The fight involving the cyberdemon and 5 or 6 diabolists. This fight is not so difficult, but it really takes time to kill all the archviles. My suggestion is to remove 2 or 3 of the diabolists. To compensate this, remove 1 shotgun ammo box from that area as well. Also the red key cyberdemon fight can probably benefit from a few medkits at start (someone entering that fight with around 20 or less health has little to no chance to survive that fight).

- In map 4: The starting could definitely loose a little bit of meat (but not too much otherwise it would become trivial).

- In map 2: The start is brutal, but once u get out of the "Box", its just a matter of using circle strafing to soften the foes and then pressing the switch to get BFG/rockets and finish the diabolists+remaining foes. My suggestion is to give the player a soulsphere/megaarmor at the beginning to make it easier to survive the "Box", but add a few more nasties (or change a bit of layout) to make the rest of level a little bit more challenging.

- In map 1: Pretty much what u said about the diabolists sniping situation.

Edited November 6, 2019 by ReaperAA
typo

[Marcaek]

As someone who played an unhealthy amount of UDM I am fond of this wad.

 

As someone who has dealt with custom monster design I am also fond of those viles.

[Tango]

many thanks @ReaperAA, your demos and feedback are immensely helpful! I've already implemented some of your suggestions for the upcoming version, but still need to make some tweaks. not sure when I'll put out the next RC, but I made a new map today that ought to be in the next version too:

 

[Tango]

 

updated the OP with RC2. rough changelist:

• new map! there's now a new map06, inspired by the original map02 in UDM3, and the outro map has been moved to map07. the new map does have difficulty settings implemented, but only UV has been thoroughly tested, so balance issues on other settings may be present
• made some gameplay tweaks across all maps thanks to all the feedback received so far
• tweaked hud to work in widescreen
• updated to include all the latest Minicharge changes (most notably, even faster weapon switches)

 

the next RC will be focused on adding multiplayer items to all maps, and finishing up any gameplay fixes/polish. many thanks to everyone that's played so far :D

Edited November 19, 2019 by Tango

[Noiser]

[clunky english ahead]

UNIDOOM brings me a lot of memories, when the Skulltag was still kicking. I remember it was the first time I ever saw Doom with a custom palette, and that blew my mind lol

I'm having a lot of fun with these maps. It was also my first experience with the custom monsters since I was not able to play Paradise. They are very cool and the highlight is definitely the Diabolist. I wonder how you managed to make the explosions not lethal, probably some MBF quirks I guess. I also liked how you changed the Arachnotron in a way that makes it more manageable to dodge.

I played on HMP (ZDoom) and at first the difficulty was a bit too much for me, probably due to the Cyberdemon motif on every stage (even with the reduced radius damage). Eventually I started getting better and better. My favorite map so far was the third one, a very small arena where you can run with relative freedom and also with some cool little secrets. Map02 also have this very interesting puzzle with the Diabolists that I really liked. Btw, I think map03 could have been the first map because it was a better introduction to the Diabolist mechanics, at least for me (Map01 was more busy in this regard). That was just a vague impression though.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Noiser

[GarrettChan]

Spoiler

 

Blind Playthrough Part 1

 

It's quite difficult to get used to the new monster/weapon behaviors, but it definitely has some different feelings to it.

Edited November 20, 2019 by GarrettChan

[ReaperAA]

I managed to beat map 6. This map also was really vicious just like map 4 and I almost rage quitted. But I eventually managed to pull through (I skipped the red key though).

t-fnudm3_map6.zip

 

Overall I really liked the level. The highlight for me was the secret fight. I don't think any changes are really required. Probably just add a few more rockets at the starting area and a bit more cell ammo at the end.

[Marcaek]

This seems to hang when hosted via zandronum, not sure why yet but if I find out before you do I'll let you know

[Tango]

@Noiser thanks so much for playing and sharing your feedback :D if you were playing Skulltag at its peak, I've no doubt we must have played on the same server, and maybe even played UDM3 together before :o no need to warn about your english though, it is damn near perfect haha.

 

On 11/19/2019 at 10:11 AM, Noiser said:

I wonder how you managed to make the explosions not lethal, probably some MBF quirks I guess.

 

indeed! MBF has its own action that lets you customize the radius of explosions instead of the default 128 from A_Explode.

 

On 11/19/2019 at 10:11 AM, Noiser said:

Btw, I think map03 could have been the first map because it was a better introduction to the Diabolist mechanics, at least for me (Map01 was more busy in this regard).

 

this is a very good suggestion - I'm going to really consider doing this. on one hand, I want the current map01 to stay map01 because the original is so iconic for me and memorable as a first map, but on the other hand, that's maybe not worth throwing players in too deep immediately. but yeah, I will think about this one. if you think of any specific adjustments that would make HMP feel a little more manageable though, I'd be all ears! I wouldn't doubt that the balance between all 3 skill levels is not quite there yet.

 

@GarrettChan this was so fun to watch, thanks for recording :D from this playthrough as well as Noiser's comments, I can see how map01 is a pretty unkind intro to the diabolist mechanics. I was initially ok with this but now I am not so certain D:

 

@ReaperAA awesome :D thanks a ton for recording another demo, they've been really enjoyable to watch so far. I'll consider adding some more of the ammo you mentioned!

 

@Marcaek that's weird :( thanks for reporting this, definitely eager to hear if you discover anything more about it. I'll start looking into this too though - I want to make sure this wad is coop friendly

 

edit: actually, Marcaek, at what point is it hanging for you? is the server hanging when starting up? or the player hangs when trying to connect? I was able to spin up a server and join it without issue it seems

Edited November 22, 2019 by Tango

[Marcaek]

Quote

edit: actually, Marcaek, at what point is it hanging for you? is the server hanging when starting up? or the player hangs when trying to connect? I was able to spin up a server and join it without issue it seems

 

It doesn't seem to be consistant but it doesn't happen immediately. I THINK it may have something to do with the viles so try the start of map02

[GarrettChan]

Spoiler

 

Blind Playthrough Part 2 (Still processing)

 

It seems the teleporter has a chance to be broken. I guess using a more traditional monster closet is better? I don't know.

 

I have to say, the Diabolist introduction is a little bit tough, especially facing a Cyberdemon in the same time. I guess it's very difficult for player to understand what's going on at first glance. Also, I didn't know they are immune to splash damage when I was recording, which seems a little bit over the top to me because you want to eliminate them quickly but actually it's difficult enough most of the time.

[ReaperAA]

6 hours ago, Tango said:

I can see how map01 is a pretty unkind intro to the diabolist mechanics. I was initially ok with this but now I am not so certain D:

 

I have a suggestion. The idea is to move map 3 to the map 1 slot for the following reasons:

- It is a much more forgiving intro to the diabolist mechanics. They are placed in a way that can allow to players to experiment with how their fire attack works 

- It's by far the easiest map in the set.

 

EDIT: Whoops I didn't realize that Noiser had already suggested this.

Edited November 22, 2019 by ReaperAA

[Tango]

2 hours ago, Marcaek said:

 

It doesn't seem to be consistant but it doesn't happen immediately. I THINK it may have something to do with the viles so try the start of map02

 

weird. ok, I'll try to do some testing too and see if I can find anything reliably. really appreciate the report mate!

 

@GarrettChan really fun to watch as always :D cheers man, thanks so much for recording. I will look into how to fix that teleporter issue. I'm considering also changing the rocket explosion sprites to hopefully mess with your muscle memory a bit less.

 

you (and Noiser and ReaperAA) make a good point about the diabolist introduction too. I think I'll probably either switch map03 to be map01, or if I'm feeling up to it, make a new map to go in the map01 slot, and push everything else down a slot. I think maybe a chaingun + imp-heavy map, with a low-pressure diabolist fight or two, could make a good introduction. but it'll be a few weeks till I'll be able to make a new map if I do, so we'll see what happens.

 

many thanks everyone for all the demos, recordings, and feedback :D

 

 

[VanaheimRanger]

If I play this in PRBoom+ should I use -cl11?

[Tango]

45 minutes ago, guitardz said:

If I play this in PRBoom+ should I use -cl11?

 

yes! apologies for not mentioning this in the OP before this, thanks for asking :D

[VanaheimRanger]

2 minutes ago, Tango said:

 

yes! apologies for not mentioning this in the OP before this, thanks for asking :D

I assumed so, but wanted to be sure :)