[complevel-9/Boom] Irkalla - An 11-map WAD for Doom II (/idgames link active!)

[Phobus]

 

/idgames archive link to Irkalla

 

Created by Stormwalker (of Flashback to Hell fame!), with maps by @SuperCupcakeTactics, @Peerdolius and myself, this 11-map set is a pseudo-reimagining of Doom I Episode 3: Inferno, except in Doom II and using Boom features and expanded limits. It should work in anything that can handle the equivalent of complevel-9. Expectations may be subverted, and there should be some surprises along the way! Here's a map list...

 

Map 01: Dark Fortress - Stormwalker
Map 02: Valley of Sorrow - Stormwalker
Map 03: Chaos - Phobus
Map 04: Den of Suffering - SuperCupcakeTactics
Map 05: Temple of Blasphemies - peerdolius
Map 06: Tartarian Depths - Stormwalker
Map 07: Ascension From Acheron - Stormwalker
Map 08: Hypogean Enigma - Stormwalker
Map 09: Fields of Asphodel - peerdolius
Map 10: Agony's Embrace - Stormwalker
Map 11: Sheol - Stormwalker

 

... and some screenshots!

 

Spoiler

 

Enjoy!

Edited May 15, 2022 by Phobus
Final version has been archived!

[Walter confetti]

This looks to be epic!

[Chris Hansen]

I tested some of these levels some time ago and they are indeed epic! The screenshots don't do it justice. Congrats on the beta release!

[grrfield]

Oh, I said, just another wad like many others.

 

I have to take those words back. I only played three maps so far, but man, this is just great in terms of gameplay, exploring and visuals. I has been long ago since I was that excited just to explore another room in these maps and just look at the clever and georgeous visuals. And the music just goes along with the maps too.

 

I just think you should ramp up the difficulty a bit, but still 11/10

 

Edited April 27, 2022 by grrfield

[Kor]

I finished another play through of FTH the other day.  I'll have to give this a try.

[Captain Keen]

Woah, this looks amazing. Will have to check this out (in GZDoom)! Congrats on the release!

[galileo31dos01]

1 hour ago, grrfield said:

I just think you should ramp up the difficulty a bit

 

Ask and you shall receive, if you keep playing (:

 

Cool maps. I'm on map 05 at the moment, though I gotta rest a minute first after, you know, the explosions... Few observations on 04:

Spoiler

 

- This revenant was moving alright then suddenly petrified to my second rocket. Apparently there's a deep pit just where it got stuck. If that's unwanted, the sectors could use brightness transfer instead.

- These steps are set to damaging, intentional?

- A minor texture mismatch on line 10667.

 

 

[Firedust]

Oh, man! Flashback to Hell was awesome! Nice to see SW still making maps!

[kalensar]

Ah man.... Just when I was getting ready to go to bed and have sweet bunny dreams and then I get assaulted and a-peppered by this? I'ma play it ASAP.

[Biodegradable]

Black and red aesthetic, my favourite >:^)

[Captain Keen]

@Phobus Okay, this was super cool! Kinda felt like an Eviternity/Scythe 2/Unholy Realms/Sigil mashup. Felt modern, was challenging, yet didn't need to go full slaughter to do it! Thank you for not making me fight 500 revs in each map. Maps 3, 4 and 10 were all standouts imo, A+ work. I did notice some of the demon skulls had a weird discolored or shadowed stripe in the middle of them, was that on purpose? Also, are you planning on turning this into a full megawad? If not I'd suggest putting a hard stop at the end so it doesn't jump into map 12 The Factory after the text scroll.

 

I think you're gonna get A LOT of positive feedback from this. Definitely feels like a future Caco winner, or at least nominee. The visual style -- dark Hellish landscapes -- is one of my favorite Doom vibes. There's also a ton of variety in these maps, from cramped spaces to big open arenas, and we even get to revisit some areas. Oh, and the few minor changes you made to sprites, like the Arachnotrons, was cool. Well done!!

[Keyboard_Doomer]

This looks like a great reimagining of E3 with added atmosphere and detailing.

Taking the opportunity, we're going to play the wad for Thursday Night Survival today. The session starts less than 8 hours from the time of this reply and you can expect it to be fairly active for 4+ hours.

 

A couple of issues I noticed from a quick look at the wad:

- missing coop starts in MAP05 and MAP09 (not a problem for ZDaemon but it is for demo-compatible source ports)

- if I try to open any map in Eureka it immediately closes with an error about SKY1 not having any patches

[Doomy__Doom]

Based on the first 3 levels (dsda-doom, UV, pistol start).

 

Top notch visuals, if a bit dark here and there - had to play with adjusting gamma correction pretty high. Overall lighting does make well-placed spectres annoying, which is nice. Homages to original layouts recognizable even by my terrible memory of the original episodes' details are well-done.

 

Combat is not my cup of tea so far (no reason to die unless you facerocket is a bit too low-stakes), but it serves well as Doom I-esque combat with sparing usage of Doom II roster. Then again, there are still plenty of levels to go, I stopped at map 4 as it looks to be large by monster count if nothing else.

 

Two things I consider as issues:

Spoiler

In map 01 if you go to the left optional area, run on the crumbling bridge and immediately drop backwards into the pit (maybe you got tempted to get up to where the Rev and armor are), I don't think there's a way to reach the area anymore since the wall with glowing skull eyes opens manually from the other side only.

 

In map 3 BK is mandatory to exit, but the area is effectively a secret. If you miss the different gargoyle, your only other hint requires falling into damaging lava, and then you'll notice there's space, and could still dismiss it as "looks secret-y, I'll just go elsewhere for now". Could really use more obvious hints that there's something really important there, since this is required to beat the level.

 

And a little minor minimap cleanup.

Spoiler

Map 01 - some technical moster teleporter lines

 

Spoiler

Map 02 - a variety of ambushes display as 2-sided thus giving the game away (I'd expect a good chunk of people to use minimap to navigate this map due to its nature), plus a few stray lines.

 

Spoiler

Map 03 - inconsistent walls in this area.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by Doomy__Doom
typo

[TheCyberDruid]

Love the design so far, but map 4 needs some love for less skilled players (aka me ;). I didn't IDDQD through it, but even on ITYTD I really struggle to get through it.

 

Oh and whoever thought it would be a great idea to remake Unholy Cathedral should roast in hell :D

[galileo31dos01]

Some more notes:

 

Spoiler

Map 05

 

- In the fight around circular platforms, I noticed that some of the last cacodemons took a while to be present. Part of it is the torches obstruct their way. Also the destination doesn't need to be too far. And the closet might need some tweaking too - it's long and the teleport lines are staggered in one end, so the latter cacos arrive with unnecessary delay, so reshaping the closet and adding extra tele lines should change that.

- There are a couple places where it is possible to get hanged on decorations, like this torch or this other, because the hitbox is much wider than what the sprite may suggest. While both of these instances are relatively easy to avoid, it's still important to keep this in mind.

- These three revenants can't be killed, they're never released anywhere. Perhaps they exist for ambient noise? 

- Also in this same area, sectors 4454 and 4455 are flagged secret. I'm assuming something went missing here, you can still check them if you slowly walk over them.

- There is a chance to get softlocked in that same area: when I left the area, the door -sector 3607- closed behind me for some reason, so then much later, I used the little orange switch to reopen said door and look for the missing monsters, which where the revenants. That same door closed again and I couldn't get out without noclip. What happens is that the line with action 3 won't close the door while it's temporarily open, it has to be permanently open to do so. The orange switch might have to be an "open stay", or some other alternative.

- This is more subjective, it seemed to me the number of blue armors was a tad overly generous, perhaps for UV. I'm definitely sure I left no less than three vests intact in the whole YK section as I never really needed any. 

 

Map 06

 

- Minor thing, you can see these pinkies ahead of time, even one of them woke up. 

- Even smaller nitpick: when walls like this are lowered to the lowest ground, if the stripe is of a different texture it sometimes clashes with what's adjacent on both sides. I noticed several of these mostly in the maps by Stormwalker. Maybe the floor lower specials could also use change texture properties if that's not too tedious to adjust...

 

Map 08

 

- More of those walls - sector 1569, 1482, 2991.

 

Map 09

 

- You can jump to sector 224 and it won't inflict damage. This is so minor that I would probably ignore it, heh.

- The rock behind the yellow skull is hard to ignore though.

- I think the blue skull bars could be joined together.

- In the hedge maze, it's easily possible to knock off most every turreted enemy and render them stuck. If that's unwanted results, and since there are no fliers there, might just put block lines, although that won't stop anyone from sniping the cyb from afar (seems to be the only viable strat though).

- Noticed this over the bars.

- The obligatory soulsphere afterwards felt like a waste as I was close to max hp by that point. Not a big deal though as I get why it's there...

- Another minor thing: the brown 2-sided lines here made me think there was a secret behind the wooden walls and I stuck there for a while, but it wasn't the case, so maybe they could be flagged 1-sided to avoid confusion.

- The more important stuff: in the BK area, the wall that covers the mancubus didn't lower for some reason, and in the final area these revenants were never released because the walls aren't linked to any trigger.

 

Map 10

 

- One of those walls.

 

With this I'm finnished with the wad. Yeah cool maps overall, really gorgeous architectural design, and of a widely accessible difficulty -- less vicious than I remember FTH being, excepting SuperCupcake's map, though nonetheless plenty of entertainment. Thanks for sharing!

[NightFright]

Oops, I widescreened it again:

irkalla_wide.zip

Edited April 29, 2022 by NightFright

[Phobus]

Thanks for the great response and feedback so far! A lot of it has been taken on board and some early changes have been made for a quick update. There’s probably still more to do, but I’m sure there’s more feedback due yet! Here’s the link: Download Irkalla (Beta 2)

[TheCyberDruid]

Thank you for the new beta. Map 4 is more accessible now, but the end (last two rooms) is still very tough. It's a lot better now though. I will play from map 7 till the end later and post about the whole experience then.

 

Edit: Overall the mapset is pretty good. The design is great and the encounters are fun for the most part. Some remarks:

Spoiler

- I was a bit surprised when map 8 started like map 1 after the cyberdemon. I was even more surprised when it played exactly the same for most of the map. I don't mind that the layout is the same, but maybe add some corpses and new monsters so it doesn't feel a bit boring because it's exactly the same fights as in map 1.

 

- Map 9 is also a tough cookie. For the most part it's doable, but the very last platform before the exit is very punishing. Again would be great if it could be toned down a bit for the easy setting :)

Well done everyone and I hope the ending is a hint at more to come!

Edited April 29, 2022 by TheCyberDruid

[Vile]

An impressive and brilliantly detailed set!  Fortunately it looks like the bulk of the issues I found were already reported by galileo.  I have a few additional ones in the spoiler.

 

Spoiler

On map09, there is this missing texture:

 

It's also possible to either get boosted off this bridge by the archvile that spawns there or you can jump to the ledge and run over, from which point the lava is not damaging and there's no way out:

 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Vile

[Caleb13]

Excellent work as usual, I particularly liked the clever explanation for E3M9-like revisit/trap. I played beta 1 on UV in GZdoom 4.7.1 and I noticed some bugs:

 

MAP04: sectors 1482 to 1484 shouldn't be damaging. The final arena was a big ammo drain, because I opened the BFG doors as one of the last. In the end, I had to skip the final cyberdemon and couldn't attain 100% kills. But even without the ammo shortages, this is definitely the hardest map of the WAD (the lava room is even harder than the final arena, IMO).

 

MAP05: sectors 4454 and 4455 shouldn't be secret. Revenant sector 3760 doesn't work and thus 100% kills is impossible.

 

MAP09: Two monster closets don't work. Sector 438 didn't open when I pressed the switch and there seems to be no way to open revenant sector 2306 near the exit.

 

Maybe these were already fixed in beta 2, but I missed that release.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Caleb13

[tom3kb]

Maps look very nice, played first 3. Fun too play but in few places way to dark, even miss a switch in dark place :) . 4th map 250 monsters, 5th ~400 little to much for me :) Maybe i will finish this wad someday.

[NightFright]

If you are playing on GZDoom, you can use a mod called 10.5x to reduce mob density without breaking the maps.

[eharper256]

Playing Map 02 in Walpurgis:

Map 2, Slough of Despair, is my favourite map in E3, so I had to do a video of the remake of it. XD

Why is Slough my favourite? Well, little kid me playing doom in the 90's obviously giggled at the Automap; but older me feels it encapsulates alot of what I find good in Doom levels; short and punchy, full of little nooks and crannies and secrets, balanced fights, and not too linear, but with a clear flow and obvious progression. And your remake does a good job keeping that whilst making it pretty, so good job!!

Edited May 1, 2022 by eharper256

[Phobus]

Bumping this to let you know that RC1 has been released. This addresses a bug that snuck into beta 2 with MAP06, and has a range of other fixes, gameplay tweaks and visual polish applications! If you've not already checked it out, this is definitely a good time to. If you have already, the changes may be substantial enough to warrant another go. Either way, here's the latest download link.

 

I imagine an /idgames upload won't be too far off now, unless any bugs are found that need a fix.

[Bri]

I loved this. Great atmosphere and really engaging. I like how it feels new but also has sections which are still recognizable. It's exceptionally well-built.

[Pistoolkip]

These are really fun. It's interesting to explore these levels and recognize the similarities, while enjoying the differences. Inferno is the worst of the OG episodes but I'm glad you guys gave it some love!

That start on the first map, is meant to be a Tower of Babel callback?

 

 

[Pistoolkip]

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Wait, a new set by FOUR of my favorite maps (Peedolius actually made possibly the best map in DBP35)? Sign me up...well, when I have the time anyway.

[Pistoolkip]

 

 

 

[Pixel Fiend]

Wonderful wad, thank you for it.