TENEBRUM (GZDoom+Heretic megawad, released)

[jaeden]

 

Hello.

 

Tenebrum is the first full megawad (or megaPK7?) that I have finished and released.

It is a long Heretic-based campaign (no episodes) for modern GZDoom.

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/heretic/Ports/tenebrum

 

• Name: Tenebrum
• Base IWad: Heretic.wad
• Levels: 35 (including secret/bonus levels), in UDMF format
• Port: GZDoom 4.3 or newer (tested in GZDoom 4.3.2, also tested in LZDoom 3.87)
  • Jumping is permitted (and required), crouching is disabled
  • Needs hardware rendering for glitchless portal display.
• Gameplay: Single player
  • Maps do also have multiplayer placements, and are scripted to be open for deathmatch.
• Difficulty settings: Yes

 

Music is from Heretic and Hexen, the track in last level is my own.

Textures are mostly from Heretic and Hexen, and there are some additional texture recolors.

Monsters are from Heretic, Hexen, Realm667, and there are also some monsters of my design.

 

There are some deviations from standard Heretic:

• Phoenix rod rocket explosion does not throw things away (This is to disable rocket jumping).
• Phoenix rod rockets do reduced damage to bosses.
• Firemace always spawns (still max 1 per map, except for bonus level).
• All Firemace projectiles pierce through centaur shields.
• Iron Lich can fly, and his tornado attack makes player turn around instead of throwing him up.
• Enemies' projectiles can pass through props (trees, pillars, ...), while player's projectiles can't.

 

First few maps are relatively small, but then they become progressively bigger. Difficulty levels are

implemented differently, ammo pickup amount is not increased on easiest mode, enemies' health instead

scales with difficulty. Some enemies (mainly bosses) also have enhanced or additional attacks on higher

difficulty levels. I would like mention that UV difficulty is supposed to be hard here.

 

New items include:

• Bag of requirement - Item that refills 50% of missing ammo for every weapon (e.g. if you have 30/40, you get 5).
• Amulet - Gives you shield that absorbs 300 damage.

 

New game mechanics include:

• Bottomless pits - It does exactly what you think it does :)
• Blood pools - Slows the player and disables jumping. If you stay in blood for about 3 seconds, you instantly die.

 

Then there are 8 unique bosses waiting...

 

 

Here is a trailer made by Matthias:

 

And some screenshots from the game:

 

 

Edited November 20, 2020 by jaeden
Added trailer

[Boomdav]

It looks interesting from the screenshots .This years seems to be a banger for heretic wads

[Korozive]

Screens look good but to be honest I have never played Heretic or Hexen for that matter. Given all the releases of new content lately I may have to get a copy of each and give them a try. :o). Got a pretty good backlog of DOOM 2 stuff waiting to though. Soo many levels and soo little time. lol

Edited November 18, 2020 by Korozive

[Jayextee]

4 hours ago, jaeden said:

Slows the player and disables jumping. If you stay in blood for about 3 seconds, you instantly die.

Hard pass on this. You're gonna slow me down AND punish me for the loss of speed? Nope.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

33 minutes ago, Jayextee said:

Hard pass on this. You're gonna slow me down AND punish me for the loss of speed? Nope.

Really depends on how it is implemented. If it's a constant worry, this is not good. If they are just used intermittently as a rare obstacle or to keep the player inbounds, I don't see an issue with it.

 

But a word of warning to the OP: people often don't like mechanics that slow the player down. The remake of Triton had a mechanic that slowed the player down progressively as their health got depleted, and nobody seemed to be fan of it, including me. What you are describing doesn't sound nearly as bad, though.

 

Not saying you shouldn't use this mechanic, but I'd be cautious about it. You don't want a feature like this deterring people from enjoying your maps, which look pretty excellent.

 

EDIT just now realized that this is actually available now, I missed the link and thought you were just showing WIP screenshots. Sorry, I just woke up. I'll be trying this out later!

Edited November 19, 2020 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[jaeden]

Just now, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Really depends on how it is implemented. If it's a constant worry, this is not good. If they are just used intermittently as a rare obstacle or to keep the player inbounds, I don't see an issue with it.

 

But a word of warning to the OP: people often don't like mechanics that slow the player down. The remake of Triton had mechanic that slowed the player down progressively as their health got depleted, and nobody seemed to be fan of it, including me.

 

Not saying you shouldn't use this mechanic, but I'd be cautious about it. You don't want a feature like this deterring people from enjoying your maps, which look pretty excellent.

 

 

It first appears on one small place in Level 21, and its not much used until Level 26. It is meant to be avoided by the player. The slow is linearly progressive (from full speed to 0) over 3 seconds, so if you accidentally step in one, you can (and should) just easily step back.

[Biodegradable]

Congratulations on your release.

[Murdoch]

Been a while since I played either Heretic or Hexen. Shots look nice, will definitely add to my download list. I would say based on said list I will be playing this in approximately 8 years.

[Endless]

Looks very good from those screenshots! Heretic in Doom 2 WADs always sound good.

 

Quote

Blood pools - Slows the player and disables jumping. If you stay in blood for about 3 seconds, you instantly die.

The only thing I did not like about Eternal, but now in Heretic and hurts you, oh boy. I'll give it a chance.

 

42 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

Been a while since I played either Heretic or Hexen. Shots look nice, will definitely add to my download list. I would say based on said list I will be playing this in approximately 8 years.

You and me both, brother. Too much good stuff! ;)

Edited November 19, 2020 by Endless
Dumb-o

[Rudolph]

I tried the first two levels and I am afraid I did not enjoy it at all. :(

 

Everything feels so cramped and every fight seems to boil down to battling a pack of melee monsters in close quarters with little room to maneuver and only the already weak Elven Wand to defend yourself with. I was also disappointed that the first new enemy introduced in the second level is essentially just Doom's Lost Soul, only with sprites that make it look like their Doom 3 counterpart, and I did not notice any difference in behavior from Heretic's Imp. That is where I decided to give up on the mapset altogether, as I was just not having any fun.

 

I apologize for sounding this harsh, because clearly, you have put a lot of efforts into it.

Edited November 19, 2020 by Rudolph

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Alright, so I gave this a shot. Like @Rudolph said, the maps are too cramped. I constantly bumped into pillars and walls while navigating the first three maps. I warped to the later maps and they mostly seemed the same. Detailing is good enough, but the architecture is a little too modular and symmetrical, it kind of reminds me of playing an OBLIGE map. Another negative point (a big one, for me at least) is the fact that there isn't any new music. Using stock Heretic music is worse than using stock Doom music, because Heretic doesn't have unique music for every map. Combat was mostly opening a door and shooting monsters until the door shut, rinse and repeat.

 

I'm assuming that the new monsters and such make this incompatible with The Wayfarer's Tome, which is another issue because that mod works wonders for making Heretic's combat satisfying. The new enemies didn't seem to add much to the experience either, and the Doom sound effects hurt the immersion factor. Some of them, like the Lost Souls, don't feel like they are a good fit for Heretic.

 

Also, I don't understand why you made it to where enemies can shoot through props, but the player can't. The combat felt awkward with the cramped environments, and the amount of bullet sponge enemies doesn't work well for vanilla Heretic. The progression and layouts of the maps I finished felt cold, and most of the secrets I found require wallhumping. And bottomless pits are rarely enjoyable, especially if you play without saving.

 

The automap shots here reveal the biggest problem. Everything looks cold, mechanical, and symmetrical, as if it was designed by a computer instead of a person. Almost every map I jumped to was like this.

 

 

You also seem to have disabled cheats, which just makes it harder for people who are interested in testing your maps. Maybe this is just something on my end, but I haven't had this problem with any other WAD.

 

I've definitely played worse, but my advice would be to start with a singe map, or maybe even an episode.

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[SOSU]

Did you really have to include centaurs?

[ReaperAA]

3 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Another negative point (a big one, for me at least) is the fact that there isn't any new music. Using stock Heretic music is worse than using stock Doom music, because Heretic doesn't have unique music for every map.

 

Agreed here. I think OP can rectify this by using the recently made Raven MIDI pack.

 

3 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I'm assuming that the new monsters and such make this incompatible with The Wayfarer's Tome, which is another issue because that mod works wonders for making Heretic's combat satisfying. The new enemies didn't seem to add much to the experience either, and the Doom sound effects hurt the immersion factor. Some of them, like the Lost Souls, don't feel like they are a good fit for Heretic.

 

Agreed. Though I think it shouldn't be too hard to make this work by making a patch (like how there are already patches in the WT thread for Elf Gets Pissed and Unbeliever)

 

Also I agree that the Lost Souls and Doom sounds don't seem like good fit for Heretic.

 

3 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Also, I don't understand why you made it to where enemies can shoot through props, but the player can't.

 

Agreed here as well. I think both player and enemy projectiles should be subject to same behavior. Either props should stop both or should stop neither.

 

3 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

You also seem to have disabled cheats, which just makes it harder for people who are interested in testing your maps. Maybe this is just something on my end, but I haven't had this problem with any other WAD.

 

Agreed. I haven't tried this yet, but if this is true then it is bad idea by OP. Enabling cheats makes it easier to playtest maps.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Cheats do indeed seem to be disabled, I don't think it's just on my end.

 

Also, some more suggestions:

 

The doors that open outward look nice, but they hinder movement, which is frustrating since the wad is already cramped.

The phoenix rod doesn't push enemies back, which makes it feel like an even wimpier weapon. Is there no way to just disable it from pushing the player back?

 

 

However, with all of this being said, I smoked a big fat one earlier and now I'm actually having some fun with this wad. It does have its own charms, and it has a bigger variety of enemies than any other Heretic wad I've played.

Edited November 19, 2020 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Murdoch]

@jaeden Ooo boy, OK, I was hoping for a better result for you because you have clearly put in a lot of effort here. If I may ask, did you get any third party input or testing at all? At the end of the day, is this is what you wanted to create and you do not especially care about what others think, then great. Ultimately you have to be emotionally satisfied by what you have created. If, however, you do want to try and improve it, I would suggest the following.

 

- Figure out which are the strongest 8 or 9 maps. Maybe ask some other people. Extract them from the rest and create a single episode.

- Improve the layouts based on the feedback here, particularly in regards to ability to taking away the feeling of being cramped and unable to move.

- Remove the Doom content. Hearing and/or seeing things from stylistically different games is jarring and kills the immersion. Mixing and matching Heretic and Hexen is fine though as they are stylistically similar and technically part of the same fictional universe, albeit on different worlds.

- Try to create smarter, more fun challenge. Having to spam a bunch of enemies with the wand is challenging, but it is not fun. It should be punishment for a player that has been careless with their ammo, and not an integral part of the gameplay design.

- Most critical of all, get gameplay feedback from testers. You as the designer are in a poor position to judge the gameplay, particularly the difficulty. If you tweak things so that you find it hard, most likely everyone else will find it REALLY hard the first time through.

[jaeden]

Thanks all very much for the feedback.

 

8 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I constantly bumped into pillars and walls while navigating the first three maps. I warped to the later maps and they mostly seemed the same. Detailing is good enough, but the architecture is a little too modular and symmetrical, it kind of reminds me of playing an OBLIGE map.

 

I have some problems with not making things symmetrical, unless its a nature/outdoor map. The later maps should be more spatial.

In the future I will try more to make rooms more irregular, and bigger.

 

8 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

I don't understand why you made it to where enemies can shoot through props, but the player can't.

 

This was to balance monster attack AI ignorance of those props, without making melee-only monsters easy targets.

 

8 hours ago, SOSU said:

Did you really have to include centaurs?

 

Well, they are annoying, but I like when they finally die :)

And the firemace kills them effectively.

 

4 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

Also I agree that the Lost Souls and Doom sounds don't seem like good fit for Heretic.

 

I tried to make them look less Doomy by modifying mummy attack sprites for them, did not think that the sounds would be problem.

 

1 hour ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

The phoenix rod doesn't push enemies back, which makes it feel like an even wimpier weapon. Is there no way to just disable it from pushing the player back?

 

I tried to achieve that, but everything resulted in player being still knocked up (just up, not to side) by the explosion.

 

1 hour ago, Murdoch said:

@jaeden If I may ask, did you get any third party input or testing at all?

 

I had it tested by Czech community in an open beta testing (about 7 people tested it).

There were people, who said there is too much ammo, and people who said that they have ammo problems, but only in first few maps.

Anyways I think ammo will not be problem when the player gets more weapons, and when they start getting golden bags.

 

1 hour ago, Murdoch said:

Try to create smarter, more fun challenge.

 

The later boss fights are meant to be fun challenge, but it may be just my subjective.

 

1 hour ago, Murdoch said:

At the end of the day, is this is what you wanted to create and you do not especially care about what others think, then great.

 

I think it is what I wanted to create, but I am grateful for the feedback. I don't want to change this much, but I will think about these things

when I try to create something new.

Edited November 19, 2020 by jaeden

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

2 hours ago, jaeden said:

Thanks all very much for the feedback.

 

 

I have some problems with not making things symmetrical, unless its a nature/outdoor map. The later maps should be more spatial.

In the future I will try more to make rooms more irregular, and bigger.

 

 

This was to balance monster attack AI ignorance of those props, without making melee-only monsters easy targets.

 

 

Well, they are annoying, but I like when they finally die :)

And the firemace kills them effectively.

 

 

I tried to make them look less Doomy by modifying mummy attack sprites for them, did not think that the sounds would be problem.

 

 

I tried to achieve that, but everything resulted in player being still knocked up (just up, not to side) by the explosion.

 

 

I had it tested by Czech community in an open beta testing (about 7 people tested it).

There were people, who said there is too much ammo, and people who said that they have ammo problems, but only in first few maps.

Anyways I think ammo will not be problem when the player gets more weapons, and when they start getting golden bags.

 

 

The later boss fights are meant to be fun challenge, but it may be just my subjective.

 

 

I think it is what I wanted to create, but I am grateful for the feedback. I don't want to change this much, but I will think about these things

when I try to create something new.

My recommendation, if you want to work on it/change it, would be to figure out if there's any way to get this to work with The Wayfarer's Tome. Implementing the Raven midi pack would be simple, but that can be done on the user's end of things. The maps look pretty nice, and there seems to be good variety. It's not "bad" in any way, there are just some minor issues and design choices that get in the way of a more enjoyable experience. There is some serious effort here. I like it enough that I'm going to continue playing it.

Edited November 19, 2020 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Murdoch]

15 hours ago, jaeden said:

There were people, who said there is too much ammo, and people who said that they have ammo problems, but only in first few maps.

 

In my opinion it is better to err on the side of too much ammo than not enough, even if it's something prosasic like in this case crossbow ammo.  Yes, the ammos for the more powerful weapons should not be tossed about carelessly, but you still ultimately want people to have a good time. And mass elven wand spamming is not fun. Ever.

[Rudolph]

I did not think ammo was really a problem in the first two levels so much as the lack of access to better weaponry. I would have not minded the repetitive close quarters fights as much had the Gauntlets of the Necromancer been given right off the start; sure, that would still be lazy level design, but at least, it would have made combat much less tedious.

 

The Elven Wand should be reserved for sniping, as far as I am concerned.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Rudolph

[jaeden]

Well, the gauntlets are in the first level in a secret room.

[Rudolph]

Yes, in a secret room. Assuming you know where it is, you have to suffer through at least two or three elven wand close quarters spamming sessions. :/

[Rince-wind]

I wonder how many people liked this based on the screenshots alone, because I find it hard to believe anyone would actually enjoy the actual maps

[Gez]

The maps often look pretty nice, but combat is very tedious. The centaurs are far from being the worst offenders, here: plenty of new monsters are hit point spongers with near-instant attacks, turning the game into a a series of peek-a-boo around corners combined with rolling retreat until you manage to grind them down. (Worst offenders being trixtress and venom maiden, IMO.) Then there's the bats, ten barely visible gray pixels that arrive from who-knows-where (they fly, after all) to drain your health without you noticing them. They don't deal a lot of damage so it's more an irritation than a threat. And then there's the upgraded bats, the gray widow: it's a ghost so it's immune to your phoenix rod and firemace, and partially immune to your crossbow. Otherwise it behaves like the bat, except it can also charge and teleport.

 

The first ten levels or so are very cramped, with constrained geometry and a lot of obstacles for you to bump into. After that, you start to get some more space to move, but the annoying monsters become used everywhere.

 

But besides the combat slog and the crampedness, the level design has also its good points. There are inventive puzzles (special mention to the secret level, for incorporating the chaos device into the puzzles). It's just it's probably more enjoyable in nomonsters mode.

 

One note about the phoenix rod: somehow, the changes made to it allow its damage to go through walls. This can be cheesed with a lot of ambushes, as you can get rid of the monsters in the closets before they open.

[PhillHS]

What's with the big monster apprentice (based on Maulator) on level 22 that puts up an inpenetrable shield as soon as it's done 2000 points of damage and is therefore un-killable.

Even MDK** won't kill it.

 

Also disabling cheats? It should be the player's choice if cheats are enabled or not, not the mod-makers.

 

**I had to hack the save file to re-enable cheats, it appears that .ZDS files are just zips with .json files in, so easy to hack :)

 

Cheers.

 

Phill.

[Gez]

That fight is pretty clever: in its enraged mode, the beast is invulnerable, but it charges like mad. And you may have noticed there's a wooden wall to the arena. Play it like a corrida: stand in front of the wooden wall, wait for the bull to charge, and dodge. The wall is shattered! There's some meat on the other side, dispose of it. Now lure the flaming bull to the water pool. Its flame shield that made it invulnerable is extinguished, and you can finish it.

 

That said I'm stuck a few levels later with the avatar (heresiarch variant) which seems invulnerable from the start. I'm sure part of the puzzle involves the red switches that hurt (and do nothing else) when you use them but I can't figure it out.

 

Edit: so he sometimes shoots these trident-shaped effects and they trigger the switch for you if they hit them. This takes care of the two red switches in the inner arena. However after the inner arena lowered to join the outer arena, he no longer shoots these tridents and there are four switches to activate. But there are weird orange "nullifying orbs" that  have appeared around the place. Pick them all up and use them (they're inventory items) when the avatar is in your line of sight. Each use strips him of one of the orbiting balls that give him his shield. Once he's no longer invulnerable, shoot him until he starts shooting tridents again. Then, same deal, use them to hit the red switches. This opens the outer arena back to the rest of the castle. There are some extra supplies you can also open if you lure the avatar in the corridor to get him to hit the extra red switches over there. Anyways, open up everything and collect all the orbs to remove his shield again, and then you can finally kill him.

 

A really annoying fight, and his constant summon of gray widows to pester you only add to the aggravation.

 

PROTIP for MAP27: There's a fun secret that you need to be chicken enough to find, so don't kill all the centaurs too soon.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Gez

[Gez]

Okay, the orange key ambush in Bloodwood is bullshit. A tiny cramped one-room cottage, you go to the end of it to pick the key and then the broom closet next to the door opens and reveals a shadow succubus. The shadow succubus is a monster that has essentially a one-hit-kill melee attack. So basically the strategy for this fight is: save before picking up the key, and reload until you can get out of the house before she activates her one-hit-kill attack.

 

Once you're outside, go to the other end of the cottage, by the window, and pepper up with dragon claw and elven wand until she's dead. If you position yourself right she can't attack you because her projectiles will collide with the edge of the window, while you are using hitscan attack.

 

Is that fun combat? No. It's save-scumming until the RNG god smiles upon you, and cheese afterward. This is what happens when the combat philosophy is tiny cramped room and overpowered monsters.

[jaeden]

Thanks for the feedback. :)

 

On 12/3/2020 at 6:07 PM, Gez said:

One note about the phoenix rod: somehow, the changes made to it allow its damage to go through walls. This can be cheesed with a lot of ambushes, as you can get rid of the monsters in the closets before they open.

 

Oh I don't know why but I somehow thought that the default explosion behavior did that as well :(

 

On 12/6/2020 at 9:04 AM, Gez said:

PROTIP for MAP27: There's a fun secret that you need to be chicken enough to find, so don't kill all the centaurs too soon.

 

Nice, I think you are the first one who found that secret. (or at least the first one who said that)

 

 

The cottage in Bloodwood... the intended strategy here is to use a Shadowsphere here (being ghost should make you immune to that one-hit attack).

I see that without having it or using it, it becomes frustrating RNG about running out of there... :(

 

 

But I really like seeing people getting this far in the game.

Edited December 7, 2020 by jaeden

[Gez]

I always try to find all the secrets and items. I even found the super secret level -- man, three cryoladies is excessive! But it takes a while.

Spoiler

 

BTW it was weird to have different starting points for level 20 depending on whether you entered it from MAP19, MAP66, or MAP67. It meant there were a bunch of sabreclaws and skellingtons just chilling around in their little fortress because there's no way to reach the normal starting point when you enter from the secret or the super secret starting point.

 

I reached "the final gate" and I'm stuck on the boss fight. Or rather, the boss is stuck. He charged at me and missed and ended up stuck on the multikey gizmo. Which would be fine with me as I have no scruples against cheesing a hapless dimwit boss who can't move or fight, but he's invulnerable and I suppose there's something to do with him that involves luring him somewhere or something to remove his invulnerability. So I reload and attempt again, and it happens again, but on the other side this time.

 

He's stuck on the right.

 

He's stuck on the left.

I can do this all day, but so can he, as my linetarget queries show his health doesn't budge.

[jaeden]

Ok ok, I have never seen him getting stuck like this... I would say this is unlucky bug, but if you get him stuck twice a row, well I am still confused how

this could "physically" happen...

 

Well when he gets invulnerable, he is supposed to charge to middle of the arena, spawning orbs, which you need to kill to remove his invulnerability,

but if he gets stuck like this, I think he should still charge there, unless he is stuck in some weird internal state...

[Not Jabba]

You might be able to resolve this just by making those particular multikey gizmos destructible. As long as they player is able to see that they're there before they get destroyed, they will do their job.