Vicarious | 3 map limit-removing episode - NOW ON IDGAMES!

[ZeMystic]

 

Vicarious is a limit-removing wad for Doom 2 set in a medieval city. I started this wad around last October, where I worked on it for a few months off and on.

I haven't had the motivation to make more levels for it, but didn't want to just scrap it all together. So I compiled all the resources and decided to release it to the public.

It's mostly inspired visually by the Elden Ring Trailer that came out some time around last year, as well as Scythe 2 and @Egg Boy's Cold Front.

 

Map List:

 

MAP01: Shedungent

MAP02: Ballista

MAP03: Pax Gehenna

 

Special thanks to @Egg Boy and @Bobby "J for testing.

 

 

Download: vicar.wad - idgames download!

Edited June 24, 2022 by ZeMystic

[Bobby :D]

Holy shit you finally release one of these cursed sets. Congrats!

[Gothic Box]

Very nice short levels! Quite aesthetically pleasing as well

[Egg Boy]

This wad just emanates fall. The palette, the skies, especially the music. This is definitely one for the "Halloween Wad Playlist." 

[Astro X]

I played it on UV. First map, I skipped the rev/Archie ambush by climbing back up the lift because that felt unnecessarily unfair. You kill like eight revs with limited ammo and arsenal just to see them all get resurrected.

 

Second map was cool, challenging in a clever way. The traps were very predictable at this point though.

 

Third map I suddenly got thrown some slaughter right on my face. I didn't die in the last two maps. Even though I liked the last map, I found myself hunting down the secret for minutes, when I finally decided to give up just to learn the secret was the last sector in the map. Didn't feel good about that. But overall, nice little episode.

 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2022 by Astro X

[Lippeth]

This was a lot of fun! The medieval style is great and the challenge felt right for a three map arc. It didn't take too long to finish and there were only a few spots I had to keep quickloading until getting through it, but it all felt justified. I really like how the sky gets darker with each map, and the palette's bold colors are nice. Putting this in the "Halloween vibes" folder. Great job!

[eternalegg]

I very much enjoyed the 3 maps. i would rank them 1,3,2 from best to worst.

 

I might be loving map01 a bit much but I do like punching some skeletons its quite fun lol.

 

Map03 was really good I would only doc it for the ending seemed unnecessary to me but everything up to that I really like, the 2 archvilles was a highlight. also being able to go up the elevator to the upper portion after getting the bfg makes it a bit trivial for the last wave.

 

Map02 overall was fun just nothing really sticks in my mind about it so rated it last, was still a blast.

 

also it should go without saying but the aesthetics of these maps is phenomenal been my favorite play the last week.

[SuperPecanMan]

Played through the maps on UV, they were fun and I really loved the visuals. Would be happy to see more!

 

 

If you're looking for suggestions, I have some for each map that I came up with post-recording:

Spoiler

 

MAP01 - Maybe reverse the order of the pinky/spectre waves and/or make the second wave bigger?
MAP02 - Maybe add a second monster closet that attacks you from behind when the arch-vile at the end gets released?

MAP03 - Everything after the big BFG fight is a little too easy, I'd advise having extra enemies teleport in at the same time as the spider mastermind. And please make the starting sector a secret instead of the last one.

 

 

[ZeMystic]

9 minutes ago, SuperPecanMan said:

Played through the maps on UV, they were fun and I really loved the visuals. Would be happy to see more!

[Video]

 

If you're looking for suggestions, I have some for each map that I came up with post-recording:

  Hide contents

 

MAP01 - Maybe reverse the order of the pinky/spectre waves and/or make the second wave bigger?
MAP02 - Maybe add a second monster closet that attacks you from behind when the arch-vile at the end gets released?

MAP03 - Everything after the big BFG fight is a little too easy, I'd advise having extra enemies teleport in at the same time as the spider mastermind. And please make the starting sector a secret instead of the last one.

 

 

 

Hey SuperPecanMan! Thanks for recording a playthrough, that was really entertaining to watch.

 

As for the suggestions,

Spoiler

MAP01 - That's an idea I haven't thought about, I'll play around with it and see how I like it for RC2

MAP02 - Definitely going to do that, will make it more interesting then Archie Exit No. 54632

MAP03- I'll play around with what I can do for the combat after the BFG fight. Also yeah, definitely switching secret sectors that had to be painful looking around for that secret lol.

 

[TheCyberDruid]

First of all: Thank you for making these maps and for implementing lower skills :) Played this on ITYTD first and except for maybe removing one of the two archviles on map 3 (and a few revenants in the final battle) it was very well balanced. The visuals are great and I really enjoyed how the music matched the atmosphere. Also had a quick go at HMP afterwards and really enjoyed that as well. Great set of maps!

[Biodegradable]

A daring and ambient little WAD with spooky music and spicy combat. You had me on the ropes most of the time, but I still had a lot of fun with it. Great work, fam!

 

 

[Daytime Waitress]

2 hours ago, TheCyberDruid said:

First of all: Thank you for making these maps and for implementing lower skills :)

 

Seconding this appreciation. Just finished HNTR and I'm looking forward to coming back to this sombre little episode.

 

The aesthetic choices commingle really well across these three maps: the drab pallette, the gloomy music and the blocky architecture together create a very cohesive whole, a real sense of place and continuity. You've shown such a talent for worldbuilding here that it's definitely a shame that it sounds like you're not going to continue to hurl the player through these particular Quake portals. Those look grand, by the way.

 

There were certainly some difficulty spikes, but outside of those, I felt that gradually escalating pressure was well spread out throughout the WAD. Some of the traps had really neat little touches, like

 

Spoiler

the pinkies spawning right where the player would be if they made a beeline for the shotgun in Shedungent

 

and 

Spoiler

the whole blue key switch area in Pax Gehenna

 

 

And whilst I bit it quite a few times until I remembered what crowd shaping was, I didn't entirely mind the sudden switch to slaughter there at the end.

 

A delightful slice of melancholia, all told!

 

 

 

EDIT: I think I encountered a bug at the end of Pax Gehenna, but I'm not sure:

Spoiler

The big spider didn't want to come out and play.

 

 

Edited May 22, 2022 by Daytime Waitress
Bug hunting

[RataUnderground]

Really nice three maps! I died two times in each map, but they're just in my range of difficulty to be enjoyable. I smiled when I saw the lantern in the floor scyte 2 secret : )

Thank you!
 

Spoiler

 

[Breezeep]

Cool little set! Really liked the visual theme for these, especially with the first map's sky. I might steal that sometime.

Also, I've noticed some midtextures bleeding through the ceiling here: 

[MFG38]

Cool little maps here. Loved the visual style and the atmosphere, and the music choices complemented each map pretty well here. MAP03 was perhaps my favorite from a gameplay standpoint - packs a punch but isn't excessively unforgiving.

[Maribo]

Agree with Egg Boy and Lippeth's observation, fits very nice in the "around Halloween" time period. Map03 was my favorite, great use of Halo music. Solid use of Archviles in all maps as well.

FDAs: vicarious_fdas.zip

[Arwel]

Enjoyed playing this on UV a lot. Compact but very well polished, also nice music and visuals.

[The_SloVinator]

Good stuff!

Short, challenging, eye-candy...

 

Maybe one day, you'll get the urge to continue mapping for this.

[Wilster_Wonkels]

The first level is maybe a bit too tight on ammo, there are two arch-viles reviving enemies but only so many bullets, other than that this was challenging but overall fair I'd say.  Architecture, texture work, layout, and overall atmosphere was great. Really good maps.

[galileo31dos01]

This is great stuff. Loved the setting and music, in particular the second. I entered the first map knowing ahead of time about the ammo spoilers, then finnished the map with 50 shells lol. Anyways, good seeing you found your style over the time, please keep it up!

[ZeMystic]

Hey all! fixed a few things and uploaded RC2.

[Vile]

Solid mapset, had fun playing it earlier!

[ZeMystic]

6 hours ago, Vile said:

Solid mapset, had fun playing it earlier!

Hey! Thanks for playing! I caught the VOD and I'm glad you had fun.

[LadyMistDragon]

This is RC1, played in complevel 2. Nice short and spicy maps. That BFG slaughter section at the end was completely unexpected! Spider Mastermind gave me so much trouble near the end, RNG probably just fragged.

lmd_vicarious.zip

[baja blast rd.]

Nice little wad. Reminds me of the work of Eggu Alm.

[LadyMistDragon]

25 minutes ago, baja blast rd. said:

Nice little wad. Reminds me of the work of Eggu Alm.

Wait sorry, where does Eggu come from? Is that like eric in another language? It looks like finnish, but i doubt it is.

[Pirx]

12 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

Wait sorry, where does Eggu come from? Is that like eric in another language? It looks like finnish, but i doubt it is.

 

the egg of Grogu.

[Pistoolkip]

Nice maps! Good visuals and texture usage, but the use of lighting could be a little better, and the combat is leaning too much on revenant and AV ambushes. Try diversifying those combat scenario's a little.  That said, these maps were a lot of fun.
 

 

[ZeMystic]

Hey all! RC3 should now be out for testing!

 

Fixes:

- Improved combat in Map03

- Added Ammo in Map03

- Fixed Skyhacks

Edited May 28, 2022 by ZeMystic

[Average]

Can I ask, what are the changes from previous builds?