Atomic [Limit Removing] - Development thread

[loveless]

the opening of 8 is definitely thin on resources in general.  the soulsphere secret was mandatory to survive red key fight.  everything after that was very smooth, even without the blue armor. 

 

could've made my feedback into a single, much tidier post but oh well.  i wanted to get this all down and out as i was playing it, in the best detail that i could. 

 

good maps, thanks!

[galileo31dos01]

Just finnished this using crispy in one sitting. Excellent stuff as usual from yours. The layouts, the visuals, the relentless nonstop action, the secrets, the music choices (tnt, ksutra, valiant!!, sunlust!!, btsx!!!1!!1), chef kiss quality overall.

 

I personally thought the resource balance was finely executed not to be wasteful nor to take things for granted, good for intensity and pushing players forwards. On UV at least this pressure with generally -a bit more than- enough ammo felt fairly judged to me, the only map where I really struggled was the last one, logically faithful to your intentions. Occasional infight also contributed, like at the start of m04 I stood between the mancs on the exit mount and they got hit pretty soon. Or the many times I weaponized arachnotrons. These little incidental moments worked well for my own amusement, which coupled with the set's direction are some of the things I like the most from doom. Also, when I had chainsaw or berserk I used them here and there, without ever feeling the pace affected or trivialized, because otherwise why would you hand me a melee option if to actually make use of it :P 

 

I don't mind a necessary secret every now and then. I think for highest skills it's justified when players are demanded to "disassemble" the map in a way, if they really want to stand a better chance. I do get that given the tone of the set -very fast pace- it might "clash" with needing to find a crucial secret during the heat of a battle where stopping for a brief second to spot a suspicious wall can get you annihilated, but that's also the charm (or the cost) of getting through the "hardest" mode, assuming that's the direction you intended things to go. That said I'm curious how HMP and HNTR will play like in the future, if there're plans on making them. On another hand, I do agree with roadworx that "early Plutonia/AV difficulty" isn't quite the most accurate comparison to the more brutal violent stuff in here, particularly once I reached m06 and subsequent. That could be adjusted in the OP imo.

 

Anyways, here's a short list of possible bugs/issues that I noticed, probably others reported them already but whatever.

Spoiler

 

M02:

- Some damaging sector inconsistencies, this didn't hurt me, but this did. Also here, and this, and exit floor were harmless.

 

M03: 

- Is the secret backpack functional? I noticed a suspicious tiny sector in these computers looking at the automap, but nothing that triggered anything...

 

M04:

- Minor thing, that imp (and the spectre that was behind it) could never hear me from this room.

- The HOM others mentioned :p

 

M05:

- Technically nothing wrong, just that it surprised me to have a large amount of radsuits when lava was of 5% damage. The hitscanners and spectres were far more pressuring tbh. On the other hand I never saw any armor so that might have been on purpose to counterbalance the generosity of suits, I suppose. IIRC I left like one or two suits untouched in the end, despite accidentally grabbing two in sequence early on. Nothing against this, though I think just the four in the centre would still be more than enough for the map (on UV).

 

M06:

- Actually wanted to add bonus points for the brief wormhole transition at the exit, interesting idea that took me by surprise (also loved it in m07).

 

M08:

- I somehow didn't kill the archvile during the telefrag chain the first time, so it may be worth to limit his freedom to make the frag consistent.

 

 

Edited June 21, 2021 by galileo31dos01

[Biodegradable]

Fucking hell, MAP02 is a ball-buster. ^_^;

[Rex705]

This was fun. Here is my video of the first map.

 

[cannonball]

Bumping this thread with an update;

Episode 1 is now in a semi-finished state with 11 fully playable maps with difficulty settings implemented*

Download

https://www.mediafire.com/file/j22c4eubu6mlubt/atomicE1.zip/file

 

New Maps

Map09 - This one is somewhat inspired by the waste episode of Scythe 2 - Outdoor and cavernous with brown/blood red dominating.

 

Map10 - A mostly subterranean Brick structure, a sewer type map that I guess has some "Toxic touch" influences.

Map11 - Not really going to say much here, but I wanted something different to close the episode - My playthrough of Interception 2 gave me a lot of inspiration for this map (It isn't hard to guess which one and it uses the same midi). 

 

I have made varying degrees of edits to the other 8 maps, including an overhaul of the music that is now entirely sourced from this wonderful community.

 

I am not sure of what will happen next, but at least this feels somewhat complete in terms of progression. I hope this is an enjoyable experience and please report any bugs or complete and utter screw ups I may have committed whilst finishing this off. Map/Midi listings are on the OP.

*Whilst difficulty settings have been implemented in terms of Monster usage/placement, it may still need some tweaking.

 

P.S - I hope the exit in Map11 works properly, it did during testing.

Edited March 11, 2022 by cannonball

[Biodegradable]

I'd been meaning to revisit Atomic for a while now and the update helped remind me. MAP02 on UV was just such a ball-buster, I had to step away from it from a good long while, but now I'm back taking a punt at it on HMP.

 

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by Biodegradable

[Shepardus]

Thanks for bumping this thread @Biodegradable, I've been looking forward to progress on this wad but missed the update here!

[Biodegradable]

 

 

Edited March 27, 2022 by Biodegradable

[cannonball]

@Biodegradable cheers for playing through these levels, I will take a deeper look later to see if any adjustments need to be made. 

[Biodegradable]

On 3/27/2022 at 11:22 PM, cannonball said:

Biodegradable cheers for playing through these levels, I will take a deeper look later to see if any adjustments need to be made. 

 

Happy to help, man. I've enjoyed my HMP playthrough. I just finished the last two maps and am rendering my footage now. I noticed MAP11 doesn't technically have an exit. I'm guessing there's more to come eh? Hehe

 

Edited March 28, 2022 by Biodegradable

[Rudolph]

Great news! I am currently playing through ConC.E.R.N.ed, so I am glad to see a continuation of the "Hadronverse".

 

I do not know if you are still looking for better titles, but if you do, how about Beyond Hadron?

[cannonball]

On 3/27/2022 at 2:18 PM, Biodegradable said:

 

Happy to help, man. I've enjoyed my HMP playthrough. I just finished the last two maps and am rendering my footage now. I noticed MAP11 doesn't technically have an exit. I'm guessing there's more to come eh? Hehe

 

There is a death exit portal (Unless I did something stupid on lower difficulties). Not that it matters once you have beaten the final fight with the newly revealed hellish area.

 

On 3/27/2022 at 3:46 PM, Rudolph said:

Great news! I am currently playing through ConC.E.R.N.ed, so I am glad to see a continuation of the "Hadronverse".

 

I do not know if you are still looking for better titles, but if you do, how about Beyond Hadron?

 

I actually quite liked the simplicity of the name “Atomic”, as well as it being a vague reference to earlier stuff of my and the Plutonia like gameplay (especially early on in the wad.

Edited March 28, 2022 by cannonball

[Rudolph]

Fair enough. I would go with "Atomia" to make it more unique and closer to Plutonia, though.

[Biodegradable]

6 hours ago, cannonball said:

There is a death exit portal (Unless I did something stupid on lower difficulties).

 

I accidentally reuploaded Part 3 the other day, so here's Part 4 where I found that the death exit doesn't really end the WAD and it just reloads.

 

 

Atomic is great. Hope more people play it :^)

[cannonball]

I feared that might happen (Player gets stuck instead of being thrown forwards by the barrels across the exit linedef). That serves me right for trying to be smart I guess. At least that is an easy fix as I can do this the old fashion way. Map11 is supposed to be a little easier than the previous couple (I went for something longer and more cinematic as an episode closer). 

Glad you enjoyed this, I will probably make a few fixes here and there and update the file on here. I am not sure when I will put a more significant update up on here (Debating whether to complete maps 12-20 or to get to a "Fully complete" state). Fully complete being open to interpretation of course.

Edited March 29, 2022 by cannonball

[cannonball]

Here is an update - Consider this to be the complete first episode, bar any other issues that might be sufficient to fix now.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pzcj6pnfpc7na6f/atomicE1.2.zip?dl=0

 

Changes -

A few fights on HMP/HNTR have been buffed up a little as they appear to have been over compensated based on @Biodegradable's playthrough. 

Death exit works on all ports for Map11, I also fixed a couple of glitches on this map that were superficial.  

Co-op starts added for all maps (No other items though)

A few tweaks on some of the maps (Eg - Exit sequence for map07 so running for the exit should be harder, the yellow key area on Map10 should have more access points once the blood pool rises).

Edited April 2, 2022 by cannonball

[Rudolph]

When you say "episode", do you mean the final release will feature an episode selection or is it just a way to refer to this specific batch of levels?

 

EDIT: So how do you get the Soulsphere in MAP02?

Edited April 3, 2022 by Rudolph

[cannonball]

7 hours ago, Rudolph said:

When you say "episode", do you mean the final release will feature an episode selection or is it just a way to refer to this specific batch of levels?

 

EDIT: So how do you get the Soulsphere in MAP02?

 

The final release will have an episode selection thanks to the wonders of UMAPINFO, well in the event that a full megawad is reached of course. A case of see what happens on that one. Episodes will essentially be constructed around the text screens so E1 is maps 01-11, E2 will be 12-20 and E3 will be 21-30. There will be an overarching narrative, though the actual environments might change around a bit from time to time.

As for the secret, it is probably one of the more obscure ones in the mapset.

Spoiler

lowering the lift in the nukage (Sector 115) also lowers a floor along a nearby staircase near to the exit portal (Sector 116). If you rush to this spot there is shootable switch behind this lift. Shoot it and it will raise a platform that grants access to the soulsphere. This is probably one of the more obscure secrets in the wad.

 

Edited April 3, 2022 by cannonball

[Rudolph]

@cannonball Cool! I am of the belief that vanilla Doom II definitely should have been designed around an episode selection, so this is great news.

 

As for the secret, I have seen much more obscure ones, all right. Still, thanks for the solution! :D

[boom_compatible]

This was a great journey! Run and gun with several paths is definitely the real pleasure!

 

MAP05 is the truly cruel and MAP07 is my fav for remembering the "wormhole".

 

Almost flawless experience, but the MAP10 may have an issue in SP:

Spoiler

 Player will get stuck in yellow skull place if fall into sector 773.
 This occurs if the player strafe jump from sector 876 to sector 768 and
 not using the normal route that crosses the line 5440 to raise the                                                          
 sector 773.

 

About coop:

Spoiler

MAP04: Crossing the lines 1319/351/350/349/348/1320 closes the initial area
            with the sectors 18/22/141/19/20 (tag 29) and players can't progress.

 

MAP07: Near yellow card area, the lines 4073/4072/465/4075/4074/467 are W1
            and players in previous area can't progress. (tag 7)
            Also, the lines 3010/3028/3031/3026/3024/3003/3021 are W1 (tag 8)

 

MAP10: Crossing the lines 6407/6406 closes yellow skull area with sector 887
            (tag 34) and players in previous area can't progress.
 

 

Congrats for the release and I waiting for the sequels! o/

 

[cannonball]

On 4/4/2022 at 12:17 AM, boom_compatible said:

This was a great journey! Run and gun with several paths is definitely the real pleasure!

 

MAP05 is the truly cruel and MAP07 is my fav for remembering the "wormhole".

 

Almost flawless experience, but the MAP10 may have an issue in SP:

  Reveal hidden contents

 Player will get stuck in yellow skull place if fall into sector 773.
 This occurs if the player strafe jump from sector 876 to sector 768 and
 not using the normal route that crosses the line 5440 to raise the                                                          
 sector 773.

 

About coop:

  Reveal hidden contents

MAP04: Crossing the lines 1319/351/350/349/348/1320 closes the initial area
            with the sectors 18/22/141/19/20 (tag 29) and players can't progress.

 

MAP07: Near yellow card area, the lines 4073/4072/465/4075/4074/467 are W1
            and players in previous area can't progress. (tag 7)
            Also, the lines 3010/3028/3031/3026/3024/3003/3021 are W1 (tag 8)

 

MAP10: Crossing the lines 6407/6406 closes yellow skull area with sector 887
            (tag 34) and players in previous area can't progress.
 

 

Congrats for the release and I waiting for the sequels! o/

 

 

Cheers for picking those issues up, I have fixed all of these. I also discovered that maps 09 (I had moved the two demons near the start onto the lowering floors at some point and as such the floors wouldn't lower) and 10 (The floor that raises in the Yellow key room to prevent escape didn't lower when the metal switch is pressed to allow exit from this area) are unplayable in complevel 2, so I fixed those as well. I quickly played through every map to finish and pick up every secret. They all work fine in this version, this should be the last update for now unless I have managed to break something else.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b1qcik9qxwyhhb4/atomicE1.3.zip?dl=0

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by cannonball

[cannonball]

Just an update to show that things are still progressing slowly. I do have general ideas for most of Episode 2, so hopefully the steady output should continue.

Some screenshots from Map12/13, neither of these maps are overly ambitious. Again I thought fairly short and punchy would be the way forward.

   

 

   

 

 

Edited January 28, 2024 by cannonball
Removed pictures of map that isn't in this mapset

[cannonball]

I thought I would give a brief update into this;

 

Not a lot has gone on in the mapping department (As such there are 12 maps in total). The reasons for this are mostly being distracted by other projects and general confidence in the direction of this project and what I wanted to achieve. In the end the aim was for something that bridged the more classic stuff of Plutonia/AV and more modern design ideas. As such a bit of fiddling has gone on in the background to try and give this wad a bit of personality before ploughing on with a Hell episode that will focus more on traversing a hellish city before the latter sections descend into some kind of abstract nonsense.

 

So I thought I would leave the latest version here with a changelog mostly consisting on background features. Essentially this is a proof of concept before hopefully moving forward with this, wherever the end destination will be.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pc7x01y6d80tedr7y4ub3/atomic28124.wad?rlkey=awqhla8tdp2jluunlmzj49wku&dl=0

 

Changes;

 

Lost soul - health dropped to 50hp

Cacodemon - Uses the toxic cacodemon sprites, is faster and more dangerous than your garden variety cacodemon. As a trade off the health has been lowered a touched to make this a guaranteed kill with 2 rockets/SSG shots.

Hellknight - Replaced by dark imp (As in Almistice, or Uprising or any others that make this trade). Essentially faster but has lower health.

Baron Of Hell - Uses some redundant SS Nazi frames to deliver a double attack.

Arachnorb - Replaces the commander keen (Essentially uses the same frames as the iteration in Hardfest 2).

The cyberdemon and chaingunners have green colourations but are unchanged in all other factors.

 

As a placeholder there is a recoloured version of the Speed of Doom status bar, I will whip up something original at some point that doesn’t suck like the effort I made for Concerned/Return to hadron.

 

The maps themselves have been tweaked here and there based on feedback and general personal feelings, not to mention the later incorporation of the arachnorb into the maps.

 

Edited January 28, 2024 by cannonball

[DreadWanderer]

Love the screens, gonna follow this. Sadly I haven't played Return to Hadron but hopefully I'll be up to date by the time it's finished!

[cannonball]

A quick update, in short I have managed to make two more complete maps, just a quick image of both for now.

 

Map13 - The Wall

 

 

Map14 - Crimson Mass

 

 

Luckily both were fairly short maps (despite the scale of the areas shown). Map15 is planning to be bigger though and at this point the secret maps are essentially ideas in my head at the moment. But fingers crossed that I can continue to make progress with this.