Any way to make the player start with nothing?

[Egg Boy]

By this I mean, is there some sort of hacky way to make the player defenseless upon starting a level, I'm looking to do something like this in crispy doom. Maybe some dehacked shenanigans? I'm sorry if this seems like a dumb question, but I'm making a wad where I'd prefer if you did not start with a gun or weapon at all.

[Grazza]

You could have a mechanism that makes the player a zombie (partially crush a couple of voodoo dolls, for instance, or explode a barrel near two of them, at a suitable distance so it doesn't kill either of them outright) as soon as the level starts. Then the player will need to pick up some health before he can use a weapon.

 

You can also set starting pistol ammo to zero with dehacked, though the player will still have a pistol, and be able to use his fists.

 

[NiGHTMARE]

If you don't mind the player never having a pistol (not a big loss!), you could go with Grazza's second suggestion and also replace the pistol sprites with blank images. Of course you would also need to stop the pistol from being able to fire, for when you pick up bullets (long time since I did any deh work, but I think this is possible).

Edited July 22, 2020 by NiGHTMARE

[JadingTsunami]

On 7/20/2020 at 5:27 PM, Egg Boy said:

a gun or weapon at all.

 

Is your idea to have the player defenseless for the entire map, similar to games like Amnesia: The Dark Descent?

 

If so, if you simply zero out the select/deselect frames of the pistol, I think you would get this effect (although it may mess with the player's face HUD frames; you'd have to test that if that's important for you).

 

If not, then I would go with the suggestions from @NiGHTMARE or @Grazza based on what you'd like to achieve.

[Doom-X-Machina]

If using UDMF you can do it via script...

 

#include "zcommon.acs"

script 1 enter             //FIST ONLY START

{
    ClearInventory();
    GiveInventory("Fist", 1);   
}

This will force you to a fist start with no pistol in your inventory.

[NiGHTMARE]

That script could also be used in Hexen-format maps (and possibly even Doom-format maps via a LOADACS lump). Also, I would point out ACS scripts aren't part of the UDMF standard and there are some ports which support UDMF but not ACS - 3DGE and Doom BFA for example.

 

Anway, the OP said they're using Crispy Doom which supports neither UDMF or ACS :)

[Doom-X-Machina]

43 minutes ago, NiGHTMARE said:

That script could also be used in Hexen-format maps (and possibly even Doom-format maps via a LOADACS lump). Also, I would point out ACS scripts aren't part of the UDMF standard and there are some ports which support UDMF but not ACS - 3DGE and Doom BFA for example.

 

Anway, the OP said they're using Crispy Doom which supports neither UDMF or ACS :)

Ahhhh... I see...

[Scypek2]

An easy thing to do in Dehacked is to just set the player's initial bullet count (in miscellaneous options) to 0. Then you'll start with a pistol, but be forced to switch to the fist as soon as you try to attack.

 

Then if you don't want a melee attack either, you can just change the fist states to not call any attack functions. For example, you could edit the first attack frame to use the same sprite as the idle frame, and immediately point right back to the idle loop. (You still gotta keep the Ready function present so you can switch to a new weapon once you do acquire one)

 

Hopefully the pistol being visible at the start doesn't mess with your intended aesthetic or anything. Otherwise you could just replace the pistol with another fist or something.

Edited July 26, 2020 by Scypek2