Earthless: Prelude - On Doom Classic Unity port and /idgames.

[roadworx]

:O

 

YAY

[Rudolph]

59 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Correct - they'll be selectable from the main menu in ports that allow for episodes to be defined in Doom 2.

Well then, it looks like Earthless might be the Doom II I have been waiting for all along! :D

[Lizardcommando]

Woah, this looks really neat! I can't wait to check this out.

[Phobus]

This should be worth keeping an eye on! 12 maps in is a strong start, so I’ve got faith.

[Chainie]

 I'm hyped 

[Pixel Fiend]

Deatahless was a treat for Doom 1 fans, now comes another expansion that I wish you'll make into the roster of official mods!

[ViolentBeetle]

Is Jimmytex.wad something I can download and borrow a few textures from? I heard rumours it might have specific things I need, but actually googling it gave me nothing.

[Jimmy]

I keep a link to jimmytex at the very top of the Post your textures thread:

 

 

[ViolentBeetle]

2 hours ago, Jimmy said:

I keep a link to jimmytex at the very top of the Post your textures thread:

 

 

Neat. Didn't quite find what I was looking for, but found some neat textures still to add.

[Jimmy]

Download "Earthless: Prelude":

Dropbox Mirror (RC1)

 

After a small delay caused by the hectic nature of my mapping contest, this is out! Massive thanks to my faithful playtesters.

 

The separate music WAD currently contains a selection of stock IWAD tracks. This will eventually be populated with custom tracks by myself and other community composers.

 

There is still more to do, I'm sure. Any feedback you guys can provide will be immensely helpful!

 

Ports tested: Chocolate Doom 3.0.0, Crispy Doom 5.3, Eternity 4.02.00, GZDoom 4.5.0, Doom Classic Unity port.

 

NOTE: MAP05 breaks the vanilla savegame buffer limit if you try to save at all. If you want to play this set with Chocolate Doom, I highly recommend disabling the vanilla limits in the setup.exe. Additionally, maps may not be fully compatible with Vanilla/DOS Doom.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Jimmy

[Tarnsman]

Congratulations.

[Chainie]

Seems like archive is broken. Could you upload the wad itself or try to pack it in different way?

Edited March 30, 2021 by Chainie

[Jimmy]

Link fixed. Sorry!

[dmslr]

4 hours ago, Jimmy said:

maps may not be fully compatible with Vanilla/DOS Doom.

*angry doomkid noises*

 

Congrats, Jimmy!

[Veinen]

Where's the love? This is great old-school classic style doom done just right, really fun "preview". Maybe weird feedback but I really liked the secrets here; plentiful, relatively easy to find but engaging and very rewarding. Overall these aren't very difficult maps but there are a couple of big fights with killing potential (map05 finale, that sneaky guy in map07 etc.) and a couple of maps do a pretty good job of wearing you down with strategically placed minor opposition (a good example is map09). Don't mind the more casual difficulty at all though, it's got that very classic Doom 2 feel to it with some Plutonia architecture sprinkled in there. Reminiscent of a set like Coffee Break perhaps.

 

In map04 you can just bump into the crate and grab the secret soulsphere at sector 232 from below if running towards it from the concrete floor that is slightly more elevated. Nothing else to report really in terms of bugs, noticed a couple of floating items but for the life of me I can't remember which maps they were in. Should be fairly obvious in the demos though.

 

I will be eagerly waiting for the rest of the megawad for sure!

 

I'm dead tired so apologies for the vague feedback, but please accept my offering of FDA's (attached) as compensation. Played with glboom+ 2.5.1.3 on UV.

 

FDA_earthless_pre_01-12.zip

[Rudolph]

Between Doom 2 In Spain Only and 15 Years A Doomer, how did you find the time to produce this? :P

 

Anyway, so far, this is every thing I had hoped a Deathless sequel done in Doom II would be: a considerable improvement over the vanilla game, in the sense that it is much better looking and more challenging without being either overly detailed or unfair.

 

My only gripe (which is more of a personal preference than a design problem) is that some zombiemen are located in unreachable locations - which means that I cannot grab the ammo they drop. Also, and that is not a problem per se either, but Deathless has conditioned me to expect the brown watery surface to be damaging, so I was initially highly hesitant to step on the same floor texture in MAP01. :P

Edited April 1, 2021 by Rudolph

[Rudolph]

In MAP05, was it an intentional choice to give the player two ways of getting to the secret backpack?

 

Spoiler

I found myself able to climb on the platform where it is located from the side with the head on a spike, thanks to the tree trunk:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spoiler

Also, I thought this was because of the blood fixer addon I was using, but no: the Commander Keen replacement featured in this map really does bleed red despite being clearly a machine. Is that on purpose or do you plan on fixing it on subsequent releases?

Edited April 2, 2021 by Rudolph

[Rudolph]

Okay, I ran into my first major issue with Earthless as of yet, and that is the big difficulty spike right after MAP05. 

 

Spoiler

The inventory reset at the beginning of MAP06, while frustrating, at least makes sense given your stated goal of making the mapset episodic. However, I must question the decision to include a second inventory reset at the beginning of MAP08, as the way ammo and weapons are currently placed in the level makes it rather difficult to deal with the enemies that the level throws at the player on Ultra-Violence. As I am writing this, I had to play games with the AI in order to rush past the three mancubi ambush and quickly grab the ammo pickups that they were guarding. The monster placement throughout the level itself and even the ammo provided past the blue-red key gate are fine, but I would suggest either getting rid of that inventory reset at the beginning or placing just a bit more ammo at the beginning of the level.

 

Edited April 2, 2021 by Rudolph

[Jimmy]

@Rudolph Thanks for playing so far! You shouldn't be able to run over solid decorations - that's a thing you can only do in GZDoom - so no, that's not an extra shortcut.

 

MAP08 features a pistol start because you can get virtually all your weapons by standing under the rotating skull cube. Ammo may still be a bit tight in places so I'll see what I can do about the ammo balance towards the start of the map.

 

I will see if I can get the computer core to not bleed. I think it's just a DEHACKED flag.

 

@Veinen Thanks for your feedback! I'll watch your demos tomorrow.

[Rudolph]

44 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

@RudolphMAP08 features a pistol start because you can get virtually all your weapons by standing under the rotating skull cube. Ammo may still be a bit tight in places so I'll see what I can do about the ammo balance towards the start of the map.

I noticed I got a Supershotgun, a Chaingun and a Rocket Launcher from it, but I certainly could have used an early Plasma Rifle as well.

 

At this rate, you might as well just let the inventory from the previous map carry over.

[Omniarch]

I've just finished MAP01, having a good time so far! The Deathless vibes are very strong here, exactly as one would expect. I did notice that the resource balance is a little tight on UV, making some sections a little grindy. I would bump down to HMP, but the shortage doesn't really make the combat difficult, just slow.

 

Visually, the first map is very pleasing, with a similar sense of elegant simplicity to Deathless. The layout is also pleasantly open, giving the base an airy feel.

 

I did find a single bug: line 1252 in MAP01 is missing a lower texture, resulting in a HoM when you lower the sector 200 lift.

[Lizardcommando]

That was really fun. The storyline was pretty engaging. I can't wait to play the rest of the levels when they are done.

 

I was using The Trailblazer mod with this (which was really fun, being able to mow down everyone with that powerful arsenal), but I am gonna play this again with Smooth Doom later.

[Jimmy]

This mapset is as of today officially sanctioned by Bethesda, joining Deathless as part of the official Bethesda Unity port's downloadable Add-ons.

 

Grab it for the Doom Classic Unity port today!

 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Jimmy

[Rudolph]

That is cool, but... is it not a bit too early? I thought Earthless was not finished and Prelude was meant as a demo of some sort.

[Faceman2000]

Nice! Congratulations Jimmy!

[Egg Boy]

congrats!

[esselfortium]

Awesome news, congrats!

[dmslr]

Full 32 maps wad or just the prelude Earthless?

Anyway, congrats, Jimmy!

Edited July 22, 2021 by dmslr

[i suck at nicknames]

On 3/31/2021 at 3:05 AM, Jimmy said:

Download "Earthless: Prelude":

Dropbox Mirror (RC1)

 

After a small delay caused by the hectic nature of my mapping contest, this is out! Massive thanks to my faithful playtesters.

 

The separate music WAD currently contains a selection of stock IWAD tracks. This will eventually be populated with custom tracks by myself and other community composers.

 

There is still more to do, I'm sure. Any feedback you guys can provide will be immensely helpful!

 

Ports tested: Chocolate Doom 3.0.0, Crispy Doom 5.3, Eternity 4.02.00, GZDoom 4.5.0, Doom Classic Unity port.

 

NOTE: MAP05 breaks the vanilla savegame buffer limit if you try to save at all. If you want to play this set with Chocolate Doom, I highly recommend disabling the vanilla limits in the setup.exe. Additionally, maps may not be fully compatible with Vanilla/DOS Doom.

 

Okay so is this link the sample, or is it the full 32-map megawad? 

 

Also massive congrats for getting that recognition :)))

Edited July 22, 2021 by i suck at nicknames

[Dreemurr Deceevurr]

Congrats on another Unity add-on!