DBP26: The City of Damned Children

[Catpho]

 

Pull into the harbor. Grab a baguette. Fight the armies of hell. Join a worker's uprising. Become a hero to a generation whose society has failed them. All this and more in DBP26: The City of Damned Children...

Loosely inspired by a cult French film, project lead @Big Ol Billy takes us into a crudely photo-digitized alternate Doom universe, standing on the sturdy shoulders of @Doomkid's "bootleg" Doom64-in-vanilla resources. This Doom 2 limit-removing set features 11 regular maps, plus an additional progression-stopping credit map. You'll also get new monsters, a chance to brush up on your French, and more MIDI accordion than you even knew you were ready for!

 

Content warning:

Spoiler

This wad does feature scenes of children in peril and child labor. Although DBPs are often light in tone, we tried to handle that kind of imagery sensitively here (believe it or not). Still, some may find it occasionally disturbing.

 

/idgames
 

Screenshots:

 

Want to take another gander? Here are some bonus shots courtesy of 40oz:

  

Spoiler

 

MAPLIST
1. Arrivée (Big Ol' Billy)
2. La Rue de la Haine (Vertigo & Glenzinho)
3. Sécurité (40oz)
4. Le Bidonville (Scrangus McBrickdad/Jaxxoon R)
5. Phare (Big Ol' Billy)
6. Dans la Machine à Rêves (Big Ol' Billy)
7. À l'Intérieur de la Machine (Zedonk)
8. La Gare et la Maison Impie (Gaspe)
9. La Mort de l'Innocence (Glenzinho)
10. Choisis ton Camp, Camarade ! (Big Ol' Billy)
11. La Tour (Big Ol' Billy)

 

Previous projects:

Spoiler

2020:
-Dungeons and Demons
-Occult Secrets of the Third Reich on Mars
-Biotech is Godzilla
-Evil Egypt
-Spaceballs: The Sequel: The Quest For More DBP Maps

-Dead But Dreaming

 

Sidequests:
-Fall of Society

For every DBP ever, please check the Doom Wiki article!

Previous downloads:

Spoiler

-RC1

-RC2

-RC3

 

Edited November 9, 2020 by Catpho

[GarrettChan]

Come on. I haven't even finished the last one! Congrats on releasing the maps. Man, I need to catch up!

[Endless]

Oh boy.

This looks fantastic, the whole ambience gives me some noir vibes.

I'm still going through all the DBP and you keep pumping more quality sets! Thank you for this.

[elend]

Haha yeah, you guys. Gimme a break. I cannot play so fast.

[TheOrganGrinder]

Is... is that a La cité des enfants perdus reference?

 

God damn I never get more than four or five levels into these because there's always a difficulty spike or gameplay twist that I find aggravating but you've gone and made playing this one compulsory now haven't you?  Cheers, this looks great.  :)

[Gez]

40 minutes ago, Catpho said:

1. Arrivée (Big Ol' Billy)
2. La Rue de La Haine (Vertigo & Glenzinho)
3. Sécurité (40oz)
4. Le Bidonville (Scrangus McBrickdad/Jaxxoon R)
5. Phare (Big Ol' Billy)
6. Dans La Machine de Rêve (Big Ol' Billy)
7. À L'Intérieur de La Machine (Zedonk)
8. La Gare à L'Impie Maison (Gaspe)
9. La Mort de L'Innocence (Glenzinho)
10. De Lequel le Es Tu? (Big Ol' Billy)
11. La Tour (Big Ol' Billy)

 

I'd recommend not capitalizing le or la when it's not at the start of the name. E.g. "La Rue de la Haine" or "À l'Intérieur de la Machine".

 

Also what are the titles for maps 6, 8, and 10 supposed to mean exactly in English?

[Dimon12321]

Is it just me or the color palette is similar to Duke Nukem 3D?

[TheNoob_Gamer]

21 minutes ago, Dimon12321 said:

Is it just me or the color palette is similar to Duke Nukem 3D?

It seems to be in keeping up with Doom 64 sprites.

[ReaperAA]

25 minutes ago, Dimon12321 said:

Is it just me or the color palette is similar to Duke Nukem 3D?

 

The palette looks more like Blood to me.

[dmdr]

it's a desaturated version of Arcadia Demade's custom palette (I know this because I suggested using it, although the actual implementation was 100% Billy)

Edited August 1, 2020 by dmdr

[Lobo]

Looking good folks!

Amazes me you guys can pump these DBPs out on a monthly basis.

[Doomkid]

Love this noir look, as with every DBP it looks very creative and fun to play. Like Lobo said, the rate at which you guys put these out is baffling.

[Rince-wind]

Christmas came early

 

 

I've only finished levels 1-7, but this might be the best DBP out of all of them. The map design captures the aesthetic of the movie perfectly (considering the engine's limitations), the new monsters fit seamlessly, the way you made pickups glow to spot them more easily, how teleport fogs are smoke bursts and other such details... it all makes for an unforgettable experience

[FrancisT218]

This set has been amazing. I think map10

 

translates to 'Which Side are You On?' btw. Reference to old folk song about Kentucky miners and UMW.

[Phobus]

I played this in one 2.5-3 hour sitting last night - it's a hell of an experience, and one I was glad to go into almost-blind. A great episodic length and some awesome visual story telling, mated with some really impressive technical stuff. I've fed back to the team in a couple of places already, but I felt I'd mention that I think there was a part in MAP04 where the faux-3D effect was convincing enough that I briefly wondered if it wasn't a GZDoom effect!

Edited August 1, 2020 by Phobus

[Big Ol Billy]

6 hours ago, Gez said:

 

I'd recommend not capitalizing le or la when it's not at the start of the name. E.g. "La Rue de la Haine" or "À l'Intérieur de la Machine".

 

Also what are the titles for maps 6, 8, and 10 supposed to mean exactly in English?

Ooh thanks for the tip. We had a little consultation with Roofi early on about language stuff, but there were some later titles and such I didn’t get to run by him. Definitely want to polish this up (although, as I interpret it, the story does at least involve Doomguy not knowing French and having to piece certain things together in the meantime).

 

6 was a quickie Google translate job, shamefully—I was going for “Into the Dream Machine”

 

8 is @gaspe’s title, you’ll have to ask him!

 

10 I took from an online French translation of the title of the old union song “Which Side are You On?”, which served as thematic inspiration.

Edited August 1, 2020 by Big Ol Billy

[Biodegradable]

This looks incredible! Adding it to my To-Do list immediately.

[WH-Wilou84]

19 minutes ago, Big Ol Billy said:

6 was a quickie Google translate job, shamefully—I was going for “Into the Dream Machine”

 

8 is @gaspe’s title, you’ll have to ask him!

 

10 I took from an online French translation of the title of the old union song “Which Side are You On?”, which served as thematic inspiration.

For 6, "Dans la Machine à Rêves" sounds more French.

8 doesn't make much sense, I assume the English title was "Station by the Impish House" ?
In that case, a proper translation would be "La Gare près de la Maison Malicieuse".

For 10, you could go with "De Quel Côté Es-tu ?".

I'll make sure to check this wad, "La Cité des Enfants Perdus" is a classic here and I'm curious to see what you guys did based on that material :)
 

[Gez]

1 minute ago, Big Ol Billy said:

6 was a quickie Google translate job, shamefully—I was going for “Into the Dream Machine”

Yeah, that's what I thought. I think you'd want "Dans la machine à rêves" for that meaning. "Machine de rêve" is more like "machine out a dream", a "dreamy machine".

 

4 minutes ago, Big Ol Billy said:

10 I took from an online French translation of the title of the old union song “Which Side are You On?”, which served as thematic inspiration.

It's a really terrible translation, and the one that's really not grammatical in the slightest. A literal translation would be "De quel bord es-tu ?" (note the space before the question mark; French has spaces before and after every double punctuation signs :;!?) but I think the closest match in existing idioms would be "Choisis ton Camp, Camarade !"

[Gez]

27 minutes ago, WH-Wilou84 said:

8 doesn't make much sense, I assume the English title was "Station by the Impish House" ?
In that case, a proper translation would be "La Gare près de la Maison Malicieuse".

"Impious" would become "impie", but it would be after the noun. "La Gare Près de la Maison Impie".

Edited August 1, 2020 by Gez

[gaspe]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

"La Gare Près de la Maison Impie".

 

This sounds more correct, I must be very rusty on my french. Impie is a translation I found for the word unholy, the english title was "The Station by the Unholy House".

[Starduster]

I played maps 1 and 2 last night, they were a lot of fun to explore. I'll post my thought on each map a little later, but so far, I'm loving them! Keep up the great work!

[Roofi]

Félicitations pour la sortie du wad! ;)

[Rednov]

Certainly, I find the XIX century early capitalism aesthetics very interesting and disturbing.

[Jayextee]

GOOD SHIT.

No, really. DOOM hasn't been creepy to me since my teens when first playing the PlayStation version; until this. Loved the atmosphere, you could almost smell the grime. It was an eerie, gloomy joy to explore.

Couple of points didn't sit right with me though;

- D64/PSX Cyberdemon 'sight' noise used for roaming demons took some adjusting to.
- MAP10's MIDI had a held note that seemingly kept getting louder, seems intentional given the tone of the thing in its entirety, but I couldn't bear it for too long and had to IDMUS to something else.

These two niggles aside, I really enjoyed this!

Edited August 5, 2020 by Jayextee

[Big Ol Billy]

Ooh I may tweak that demon noise, something did seem a little off about it to me. I’ve actually only experienced Doom64 secondhand (watching playthroughs and such) so it’s not a total surprise that something got swapped around. Also may investigate that MAP10 midi, doesn’t sound like something that was supposed to happen—I think?

 

Glad you enjoyed it overall though! :)

[Big Ol Billy]

RC2 is out, linked in the OP!

 

Changes:
-- Better French, thanks @Gez and @WH-Wilou84 ;)
-- Fixed some crediting oversights
-- Difficulty settings implemented (to some extent) across all maps
-- Fixed a weird, unsightly bug on MAP01
-- Fixed a monster teleporting issue on MAP09

-- small sound tweaks

[TheOrganGrinder]

So I made it to the end of this; good times were had!  I love the theme and the deliciously, deliberately lo-fi presentation, and I don't know if this is something carried through every level but at least in the first few maps it's nice to have Miette show up at the end of the level as part of the exit room design.

 

I'm curious, is there a complete tracklist for the soundtrack to be had?  I recognise one track each from Duke Nukem 3D and Silent Hill (though I'm not sure how well the sardonic tone and relative brevity of the latter fit one of the map's largest and toughest levels, right before the final boss map) and two or maybe three tracks from American McGee's Alice, but about half of it isn't familiar to me and I'd love to know where it's all sourced from.

Edited August 5, 2020 by TheOrganGrinder
apparently I can't spell

[Big Ol Billy]

There's a CREDITS lump with all the resource credits, here's the soundtrack stuff :)

 

TITLE	D_DM2TTL		"City of Damned Children Theme" (Big Ol' Billy)
INTER	D_DM2INT		"Beginning Sequence" (Alone in the Dark: THe New Nightmare)
TEXT	D_READ_M		"Les Feuilles Mortes" (Yves Montand)

MAP01	D_RUNNIN		"The Sicilian Clan" (Ennio Morricone)
MAP02	D_STALKS		"La Cumparsita" (Gerardo Matos Rodríguez)
MAP03	D_COUNTD		"Radcliff's Fate" (Alice: Madness Returns)
MAP04	D_BETWEE		"Skool Daze" (American McGee's Alice)
MAP05	D_DOOM			"Minor Swing" (Django Reinhardt)
MAP06	D_THE_DA		"Flying on the Wings of Steam" (American McGee's Alice)
MAP07	D_SHAWN			FUTURMIL.MID (Duke Nukem 3D)
MAP08	D_DDTBLU		"Fortress of Doors" (American McGee's Alice)
MAP09	D_IN_CIT		"Libertango" (Astor Piazzolla)
MAP10	D_DEAD			"Silent Hill (Otherside)" (Silent Hill)
MAP11	D_STLKS2		"Menu" (Alice: Madness Returns)
MAP12	D_THEDA2		"City of Damned Children Theme" (Big Ol' Billy)

R.I.P. to Ennio Morricone, had to kick things off with him this month as a little tribute!

Edited August 5, 2020 by Big Ol Billy

[TheOrganGrinder]

I didn't think to go looking for credits within the WAD itself but I probably should've shouldn't I?  Thanks for filling me in.  :)