Vow of Vengeance [RC5]

[Bri]

Hello,

 

Vow of Vengeance is a collection of 11 fast-paced, action-packed levels with themes of tech bases, caves, hell and snowscapes. It features midis by Dragonfly, Ax34, Jimmy and Eris Falling. I didn't initially have a narrative for this wad when I began, so it can at times feel a bit dis-jointed between levels and like a collection of maps, but I think that's still ok. I think they're a lot of fun and I hope you enjoy them.

 

Details:

IWad: Doom 2

Build format: Boom

Tested with: DSDA 0.26.2, GZDoom 4.10.0

 

Jump: No

Crouch: No

Free look: Optional

Pistol start each level: Yes

Difficulty Levels: Yes.

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download:

Vow of Vengeance RC5

 

I hope you have fun! 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by Bri
Latest Update RC5

[ReaperAA]

Those screenshots immediately sold me

[Fiendish]

I just finished playing through these maps on UV. Really gorgeous detailing and texture choices. The aesthetics of these maps are just excellent, like your previous work. I especially loved the look of map04 and the sector art (cool idea having the pattern over the exit floor, making it look like stained glass). The combat was engaging, varied, and fast-paced. I loved the vicious traps in map01, and the mid-tier monster arena-type combat in map04 was fun with all its infighting opportunities. I also really liked the archvile fight at the end of map03. If I had to think of any areas that might be improved, it'd be these little things: 

 

Spoiler

- The switches in map01 sometimes took me a little while to find because their textures sometimes blended in with the detailing. It might be helpful to make them visually pop out a bit more against their surroundings, maybe with greater lighting or color contrasts.

- It's not necessary to do so, but using some kind of visual indicator to differentiate doors that open by pressing them versus switch-opened would be helpful. The easiest ways to do this, I think, are to establish your own convention about which door textures are for switch-opened doors versus regular doors and use it consistently, or to use non-door textures for switch-opened doors. 

- I recognized map05 from your earlier Curse of Reverence, though you flipped around the ordering of the various parts of it as well as some of the fights (I think?), so it felt new for the most part. There was a missing texture on the inside of the lift that lowers to the blue key area (I can imagine this is bound to happen when retexturing such a massive map). Although the visuals were beautiful, the outdoor areas felt just a bit too big and open for my taste (gameplay-wise), making monster cleanup feel a bit chore-ish. Glad it was possible to pass through them without killing everything, and I'm also glad you opted not to make those areas pain sectors like they were in the earlier version. I personally would have preferred them to happen in smaller playable spaces, but otherwise this was an enjoyable map.  

 

Really outstanding work again, @Bri -- I can't wait to see more!

[Veinen]

Another set of really fine maps from you. All five look awesome, great texturing and detailing. Combat is indeed pretty fast-paced, definitely partly due to the abundance of rockets and plasma in almost every map. There's a good flow in the maps and there are some nice, fun set piece battles here; map02 finale, map03 beginning & finale and map04 finale to name a few. I kind of agree that map05 outdoor areas are a little big relative to monster count but instead of making the areas smaller maybe just add more monsters? I mean, there's a lot of ammo already in the map for more killing. Big points for the ever majestic Cacoclouds though, a lovely sight seeing them descend from the cliffs.

 

Didn't really notice any bugs, other than that missing texture on map05 that Fiendish already reported. Great work, hoping to see more soon!

 

Attached are my FDAs, played on UV with glboom+ 2.5.1.3.

 

FDA_vov_01-05.zip

[galileo31dos01]

Hello, I just played your maps, on HMP using dsda-doom. I really liked your sense of aesthetics, how each map is different from the other regarding themes, and man those pentagrams and stuff, really nice detailing. I also enjoyed the rocket freedom throughout in particular, when one doesn't need to worry about missing shots because there's plenty to use, though at the same time there was overabundance, e.g. you give BFG + 300 cells for a lone baron at the end of m02, while lacking the UV cyb (did a second rush on UV iddqd to see differences), so I think some ammo balancing on lower skills wouldn't go bad. Adding to what others said, the modest cacoclouds in m05 were cute and a visual highlight of the set. Anyways, all fun maps, keep it up!

 

Couple minor things:

 

- Misaligned tex here in m04.

- Big HOM here in m05.

 

(paging @Bridgeburner56 because he'd like this if he hasn't seen it already)

[Bridgeburner56]

Hello yes this looks sexy

[PeterMoro]

Yeah, sure looks nice. Gunna play it later today.

 

Update: Stunning work. 10 / 10. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of this. Beatifully designed and textured with great gameplay, secrets and music. Inspiring work. 

Edited July 27, 2021 by PeterMoro

[Bri]

Thanks so much for all the feedback! I've noted all of it and I'll be able to make adjustments accordingly. I'm just always thrilled people take the time to play my maps.

 

I was mostly concerned about Map 05 - that one has always been a bit problematic for me to properly streamline. But at the same time I don't want to totally discard it. I think maybe shrinking the outside areas may be a good idea as that would prevent the wad overall from bogging down too much.

[Dragonfly]

Just played through this set, and I am honoured to have my music in this!

 

From start to finish this was a blast to play through. I thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay (for the most part, I'll touch on that further down the post), and the aesthetic beauty of this wad is outstanding.

 

MAP01 served as a good introduction to the wad. With a beautiful take on the familiar techbase theme, it has it's challenging moments but definitely felt easiest in the set.

 

MAP02 has a fantastic interconnected layout that sees you revisiting areas briefly to progress, the gameplay here ups the ante but it's still fair. I did blow a rocket up in my own face but that was my own doing, heh.

 

MAP03 features great use of gothic textures and has an interesting few encounters. highlight was the intro fight for me, with the mad scramble for the rocket launcher while being bombarded left and right. I couldn't solve how to get the BFG, I assume it's a secret, but you get one later - I have to wonder if that later BFG is really needed; would make the secret more rewarding in my opinion.

 

MAP04 was for me the lowest point in the set - not to say it's a bad map, but the symmetrical wide open corridors coupled with the high amount of detail did make finding the one non-key-locked door difficult to find, I think either having that door open initially or doing something else to provide the player with a pointer in this direction would do wonders. The also symmetrical battles for the yellow and blue keys felt uninspired; I'd look to change one of these fights in such a way it plays differently enough from the previous fight. The final room's combat was great however.

 

MAP05 - What a view! I don't agree with others that this needs to be made smaller and/or have more monsters. What I think instead is perhaps some added geometry (rocky areas, ruined structures, whatever really) to fill in the empty space would tackle the "problem" here, as well as provide more surfaces for players to bail revenant rockets into. Beyond this though I had a good time here and the map felt somewhat like a parallell to Scythe II's MAP28, with it's hellish landscapes and imposing structures. I think the only moment I felt any frustration here was with the upper area of the fortification, where I assumed the doors were red and yellow key locked, but they weren't. Perhaps a switch to open these doors, or even having them open initially would help here.

 

I feel this wad would benefit from would be some ammo rebalancing; some difficulty and fun-factor can come from ammo management, so starving the player of ammo in certain situations can be good for the map(s), but once you get about 50% way through any map, even from pistol start, you're armed to the teeth with guns and ammo.

 

All in all though, this is a fantastic set so far, and look forward to seeing more maps soon!

[Biodegradable]

Very pretty and challenging set, Bri. Got a tad frustrated at some points that are hopefully conveyed well enough in my footage, but overall it was a lot of fun. ;^)

 

 

[Bri]

3 hours ago, Dragonfly said:

Just played through this set, and I am honoured to have my music in this!

 

From start to finish this was a blast to play through. I thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay (for the most part, I'll touch on that further down the post), and the aesthetic beauty of this wad is outstanding.

 

MAP01 served as a good introduction to the wad. With a beautiful take on the familiar techbase theme, it has it's challenging moments but definitely felt easiest in the set.

 

MAP02 has a fantastic interconnected layout that sees you revisiting areas briefly to progress, the gameplay here ups the ante but it's still fair. I did blow a rocket up in my own face but that was my own doing, heh.

 

MAP03 features great use of gothic textures and has an interesting few encounters. highlight was the intro fight for me, with the mad scramble for the rocket launcher while being bombarded left and right. I couldn't solve how to get the BFG, I assume it's a secret, but you get one later - I have to wonder if that later BFG is really needed; would make the secret more rewarding in my opinion.

 

MAP04 was for me the lowest point in the set - not to say it's a bad map, but the symmetrical wide open corridors coupled with the high amount of detail did make finding the one non-key-locked door difficult to find, I think either having that door open initially or doing something else to provide the player with a pointer in this direction would do wonders. The also symmetrical battles for the yellow and blue keys felt uninspired; I'd look to change one of these fights in such a way it plays differently enough from the previous fight. The final room's combat was great however.

 

MAP05 - What a view! I don't agree with others that this needs to be made smaller and/or have more monsters. What I think instead is perhaps some added geometry (rocky areas, ruined structures, whatever really) to fill in the empty space would tackle the "problem" here, as well as provide more surfaces for players to bail revenant rockets into. Beyond this though I had a good time here and the map felt somewhat like a parallell to Scythe II's MAP28, with it's hellish landscapes and imposing structures. I think the only moment I felt any frustration here was with the upper area of the fortification, where I assumed the doors were red and yellow key locked, but they weren't. Perhaps a switch to open these doors, or even having them open initially would help here.

 

I feel this wad would benefit from would be some ammo rebalancing; some difficulty and fun-factor can come from ammo management, so starving the player of ammo in certain situations can be good for the map(s), but once you get about 50% way through any map, even from pistol start, you're armed to the teeth with guns and ammo.

 

All in all though, this is a fantastic set so far, and look forward to seeing more maps soon!

 

Thanks for giving it a spin. :) I agree with all the issues you brought up, and I feel like kicking myself not realising  beforehand some of the suggestions you gave. They seem so much more obvious to me now. Map 04 especially - I knew it was too symmetrical when I was building it, but I still stuck with it rather than thinking of a better way to do it. Oh well, I'll get to reworking some stuff. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Biodegradable said:

Very pretty and challenging set, Bri. Got a tad frustrated at some points that are hopefully conveyed well enough in my footage, but overall it was a lot of fun. ;^)

 

 

 

I'm sorry to put you through all that, lol. I feel kinda bad. But I appreciate the video; it gives me some insight and It is really helpful for me to refine stuff. You did bloody good though for a blind run.

 

[Bri]

I've updated the wad. See the original post for details.

 

I'm also putting a call out for someone to make me a M_DOOM "Vow of Vengeance" title graphic for my wad. I would appreciate the help as I'm crap at making graphics.

[Martinoz]

My playthrough with the older version of the map - frankly the hardest one is the first level, the second one is really close because of few small rooms and lack of space to navigate. In overall pretty good WAD with tons of action.

 

[Dragonfly]

1 hour ago, Martinoz said:

frankly the hardest one is the first level

 

This definitely did not feel the case when playing without gameplay mods that drastically change gameplay.

 

 

10 hours ago, Bri said:

 

I'm also putting a call out for someone to make me a M_DOOM "Vow of Vengeance" title graphic for my wad.

 

I took a shot at this. How's this?

 

 

3x upscaled for previewing better:

 

 

This is already in the doom palette.

[Bri]

7 hours ago, Dragonfly said:

I took a shot at this. How's this?

 

 

3x upscaled for previewing better:

 

 

This is already in the doom palette.

 

Man, this is perfect! You're a legend, Dragonfly. Thanks again.

[Dragonfly]

No worries, glad you like it!

[Bri]

Hi, I've updated my wad. See the OP for details. Thanks!

[Egg Boy]

Gonna give this a go later.

[Egg Boy]

sorry for the double post, but it appears there are a few visual errors if playing in the software rendering (my preferred method), notably a gigantic HOM in map01, not a huge deal, I'll just play in opengl, but it wasn't noted anywhere so I brought it up.

[Bri]

20 minutes ago, Egg Boy said:

sorry for the double post, but it appears there are a few visual errors if playing in the software rendering (my preferred method), notably a gigantic HOM in map01, not a huge deal, I'll just play in opengl, but it wasn't noted anywhere so I brought it up.

Thanks. I'll see if I can get that sorted.

[Egg Boy]

Alright, finished my playthrough. Had a lot of fun, nice, short, punchy maps. Nothing felt overly long or drawn out, I did find some of the combat a bit repetitive. As a fan of the rocket launcher, it pains me to say there were a bit too many flat, shoot revenants/hell knights/other stuff with the rocket launcher with little height variation. Other than that I had a blast, visuals were very pleasant generally, and there were some great midis in there.

[Bri]

Thankyou, Egg Boy. I do like my close quarters rocket fights with Rev's and such, heh. I'll try shake things up for future though.

 

Also, I just made a small update in the download to fix all the HOM's I could find for software render mode. Maps 01, 04 and 05 were ones I found. Funny how HOM's can still sneak into a map even when you know how to prevent them...

[Biodegradable]

Man, MAP06 is an absolute cunt on Pistol-Start. 

[Bri]

Haha! Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I can imagine on a blind run it would be brutal. They're sort of built like challenge maps in a way.. Map06 especially forces the player into the thick of it. Might not be to everyone's taste, I'm not sure, but I find them fun. They are easier than they first appear though with the right strategy. 

 

But yeah, if they're not your thing, it's all good. :)

 

I might release some demos to showcase them sometime later.

[Pistoolkip]

I just played through Attack on IO last night and I loved it, so I'm looking forward to this. Any idea what your plans are? When the official release might be? 

[Bri]

10 hours ago, Pistoolkip said:

I just played through Attack on IO last night and I loved it, so I'm looking forward to this. Any idea what your plans are? When the official release might be? 

 

Thanks! I'm hoping middle to end of September. But I don't want to put an exact date on it.

[Bri]

I've updated the wad. See OP for details. Cheers!

[Bri]

I said before that it was final, but I lied. :P I'm having fun with it, so I've updated with a new map in slot 03. I plan to make more to add better cohesion between the levels. I've updated the OP with the download.

 

 

[eharper256]

Just found this set for the first time; and really enjoyed it so far!
I played the new slot 3 map in Walpurgis, here's the video:

You've really got down that nice combo of mostly intuitive flow, fair combat, and nice glamour going on, so kudos for that!

[Bri]

Thanks a lot, eharper256! Glad you liked it. Cool mod too!