Malevolence Episode 1 (9 maps Boom Compatible)

[Cheesewheel]

Can you shut down Malevolence before its too late?

download<=== Make sure you have UMAPINFO support in your port of choice (recommend PrBoom+).

 

What is Malevolence: Episode 1?

Malevolence is a 9 map single player Boom Compatible episode tested in PrBoom+. It features extensive dehacked changes to enemies and weapons. It pits you against an evil SuperAI and its cyborg army as you try to shut down Malevolence before Earth gets converted into cyborg central.

Screenshots

Spoiler

 

 

Monsters

Spoiler

Cacobot (400hp) These guys are back, flinging mancubus fire and revenant rockets whilst moving fast.

CyberKnight (500hp) Fire a single micromissle, moves slightly faster than a normal hellknight.

 

Cyborg Troopers (Assorted) Two new troopers have been added - the burst fire trooper which shoots bullets in threes and the plasma trooper. The rest are reskins with slight speed boosts.

Rocket Imp (100hp) Fires micromissles in twos, moves quick.

Robo-Soul (50hp) Same as standard lost soul with a hp nerf.

Spider Mastermind (3000hp) Now equipped with a BFG!

Holo-vile (700hp) Holographic reskin of the standard archvile.

Cyberimp (60hp) Moves faster and fires plasma.

Iron Demon (140hp) The only thing worse than a pinky is a pinky with a shotgun for a face. If these get close they WILL get you.

 

Reskinned

 

Reskinned

 

Reskinned

Reskinned

Reskinned

Weapons

Spoiler

Assault Pistol - Fires in bursts of threes.

Combat Shotgun - Fire much faster than the standard shotgun.

 

 

Chaingun - Sped up fire rate - max ammo increased to 600.

Napalm Launcher - fast firing rocket launcher replacement - uses fuel as ammo.

Blaster - Fires slower than plasma but does far more damage with no cooldown - max ammo reduced to 400.

The Inferno Device - Super BFG than shoots twice as many tracers and fires faster. Uses 5 fuel per shot.

 

 

 

 

Don't worry you can keep your SSG :)

 

Known Bugs

 

This is my first attempt to get into mapping in the BOOM format so my implementation of common BOOM features may be slipshod or inefficent. In particular, MAP07 is a house of cards and your mileage may vary on anything that is not PrBoom+.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by Cheesewheel
new stuff

[Norb]

About to play this now. Will give you feedback when I finish!

[Doomy__Doom]

Played 1-5 for today (UV, pistol start).

 

General:
- pistol sprite is way too big. It takes twice the vertical space of the shotgun, can barely see where I shoot (no mouselook)
- I've managed to make pistol go 1 -> -2 bullets, idk if that's intentional
- maps 2-5 feel very HP-starved and encouraging conservative/cover gameplay. Maybe it's a feature in some places, but others are really just ??? - e.g. the fleshy outdoors southern section of map 05 having a grand total of 6 stimpacks for all the stuff you have to fight there, and the only nearby armor is a secret as far as I could find. Or that episode on map04 when you get dropped into YK pit and surrounded by a ton of things with no recovery after a major fight.

 

Map02 bug: 2 revs bound for BK fight are ambush-flagged and don't wake up to teleport in.

 

 

Otherwise, so far I've enjoyed projectile monsters (plasma and mm imps are both improvements from Uprising imo), a much better flamethrower (Ray Mohawk II's self-blinding flamethrower brought me pain for much of this month lol), did not enjoy abundance of hitscan due to aforementioned recovery issues. Stellar visual theme, recognizably Uprising-like for better or for worse :)

 

 

EDIT:

Played map 06 as well to end the day, that one has the kind of health economy I was expecting all along.

Map 06 bug: of the two yellow doors leading to exit, the left one (if you're outside the exit area) doesn't function at all

Edited August 27, 2022 by Doomy__Doom

[danidf96]

Oh those screenshots look clean, can't wait to check this out.

[NaliSeed]

6 hours ago, danidf96 said:

Oh those screenshots look clean, can't wait to check this out.

Dude, your avatar is creepy as shit 😬

[John Rain]

Played through four levels, I'm not sure if it was your intention or not, but this wad kinda feels to me like a spiritual successor to Hell to pay, but better. Like your enemies are either robots or half-robots, levels while aesthetically different also gave me some H2P vibe. Sprites are way better than H2P though, and it's cool to have enemies and weapons that not just look, but also work slightly different. Also reminds me of Doomkid stuff.

 

Overall, really cool so far

[Vile]

This was a sweet episode.  I was happy to see more Cheesewheel stuff.  There's a vod in Twitch, though here's some notes:

 

Spoiler

To preface, this was played in DSDA-Doom.

• MAP02 - as mentioned above, two revenants in teleporters don't wake up
• MAP04 - when I approached one of the red doors from the lift leading up to it, the door seems to be impossible to open from that side.  Also, if the lift raises up, then I get stuck inside it since you can't go back down and the door won't open.
• MAP05 - the end door consisting of three key-locked doors could technically be one door requiring all three keys now that you're using Boom.
• MAP06 - the leftmost yellow door couldn't be opened.
• MAP09 - the fight after the red door can be broken if you hit the switch and then quickly leave before the barrier appears to block the exit.  Also, the sky in that same area looked a bit messed up, like two skies were blending together.  There are also two blue keycards in the map and I'm not sure why.. maybe one of them can be made the blue skull key?

Overall I liked the new monsters and retooled weapons, though I had some thoughts about those as well:

• The supercharge replacement was transparent.  This wasn't an issue at first once I knew what it was, but in the big fight at the end of map09, it did make it hard to see them or easy to potentially run over them without meaning to do so.
• The sway of the flamethrower seemed a bit more jerky than the other weapons, which I wonder if that can be fixed.
• The reload animation for the SSG seems weird to me.  I know that overall, the reload needs to be longer than the normal shotgun, but if you fire the two back-to-back, it makes the SSG reload seem much slower, like the marine is struggling to hoist the weapon up to reload it.  I wonder if this reload animation can be made to flow better.

 

[Cheesewheel]

15 hours ago, Vile said:

 

 

  Hide contents

 

• The supercharge replacement was transparent.  This wasn't an issue at first once I knew what it was, but in the big fight at the end of map09, it did make it hard to see them or easy to potentially run over them without meaning to do so.
• The sway of the flamethrower seemed a bit more jerky than the other weapons, which I wonder if that can be fixed.
• The reload animation for the SSG seems weird to me.  I know that overall, the reload needs to be longer than the normal shotgun, but if you fire the two back-to-back, it makes the SSG reload seem much slower, like the marine is struggling to hoist the weapon up to reload it.  I wonder if this reload animation can be made to flow better.

 

Thanks, I've released a hotfix and changed the download link - MAP09 was really busted.

Flamethrower actually functions a bit like the chainsaw as it alternates between two frames causing the movement to slow - don't know how it can be fixed.

SSG never really bothered me. I can take a look if it's a dealbreaker for some people.

Supermedkit is transparent due to settings in PrBoom might change it anyway.

[Vile]

3 hours ago, Cheesewheel said:

SSG never really bothered me. I can take a look if it's a dealbreaker for some people.

Yeah that's fair, I wouldn't call it a deal breaker for me and I'm not sure if anyone really felt the same way.

[Chopper]

I enjoyed playing this mod, if anything, this seems ripe to be a megawad, I really enjoyed the tech theme. I do have a fair share of criticisms for the mod though:

Spoiler

//Weapons: The pistol's sprite and muzzle flash takes up a ton of space, sometimes it was difficult to hit potshots because the gun took too much space.

The super shotgun's reload doesn't feel that much faster compared to vanilla, I get it if it's for balancing, but the reload looks kinda sluggish, and the sound is offset from the animation.

The chaingun still feels relatively weak, I suggest reducing the spread and/or increasing the fire rate, and maybe getting rid of the spool-down mechanic.

The napalm launcher's explosion feedback isn't visible, it feels like it should have a smaller radius, but if anything, it feels bigger.

//Enemies: Bring back the blue blood for the caco-tron ;P

There isn't much visual distinction between the plasma soldier and the burst gunner.

The rocket-imps are too powerful, their attack is hard to see during big fights and they're hard to see sometimes because their surroundings are typically grey.

A lot of the enemies are grey and they blend in to their environments, I do play in OpenGL and the contrast and gamma is all screwed up, but I think adding in some black hints or red hints or whatnot would make them more distinct from their environments.

//Maps: I think the maps are really well done and their detail is done very nicely, especially the terraformer and cyber-hell stuff. But in Map 9, there is a point of no return right by the end in the BFG arena, I think you should add in a texture in the lift before the arena saying "point of no return" so that you can let the 100 percenters know that they can't leave the arena when they take the lift.

 

Otherwise, this was a great play, it all felt very satisfying, and it's got an intriguing story made all the more intriguing from the implications in the maps, I'll be waiting patiently for episode 2.

 

Edited August 29, 2022 by Chopper

[Napsalm]

Played through the first few maps earlier. Good stuff! Glad to see more Cheesewheel stuff.

Spoiler

The fence in the first secret in Map 02 isn't player blocking which completely negates the need for the red key at all

 

 

[Napsalm]

Finished playing this now, VOD will be on my twitch for a while. A few points:

Spoiler

I feel like the micro-missile enemies need their missiles to be more visible, not sure how I personally feel about the imp being more of a threat dps wise than the cyberknight too.

 

Could update the status bar to say Fuel instead of Rckt

 

On the train map there were a few slow teleporting enemies after the blue switch

 

In Map04, the bars around the red key are too wide on the left side and you can just walk through and take the key without starting the fight.

 

Loved the terraforming switch that changed the area it was in

Loved the train map in general

 

More please!

 

[holaareola]

Played up a bit into the third map, enjoying this so far. I love the style -- I really hate Doom2's textures in general, and this has that wonderful, colourful and techy Doom 1 feel. Enjoying the fairly tight health and ammo balance

 

Great dehacked work too, the double-rocket launching imp is fantastic. A real threat at any range, but not a slog to take down. The pinkie alteration too is clever one, I stumbled on a similar setup in an as yet unreleased map. The vanilla pinkies are such air-chomping non-threats - unless deployed in massive hordes or tiny hallways.  It makes them difficult to use anywhere else except as filler or the old archie behind a wall of pink setup. Now you really do have to mind your distance!

 

I'll record some video for the rest since I always end up writing a while afterwards when it isn't fresh.

[Cheesewheel]

Thanks for playing everyone.

 

I have implemented changes based on feedback.

 

-Pistol sprite lowered.

-SSG reverted to normal.

-Rocket Imps and Cyberbarons have larger projectile sprites.

-Various map fixes.

-New status bar (tried my best!)

 

You can get the download from the original post link.

[scwiba]

I've gotta thank @finnks13 for making me aware of this wad. I'm loving it so far. One thing that seemed odd was how much more powerful the pistol sounded compared to the shotgun. Once you get the chaingun though it starts to make more sense. I've found two minor visual glitches.

 

Map02:

Spoiler

 

Map04:

Spoiler

 

[Pistoolkip]

Fun stuff! That Cyber Caco scared the hell out of me!

 

 

 

 

[Azure_Horror]

Awesome mapset!

Feels like a crazy blend of Roudy Rudy, Valiant, Uprising and Struggle! The slow projectiles of cyberdemons are unexpectadly fun, BTW.

 

Two minor suggestions

- Inferno Device outclasses the flamecanon by too much right now. IMHO, Inferno Device should use at least 10 fuel per shot, maybe even more.

- Blaster sound feels wrong. Standard Doom shotgun sound or Uprising shotgun sound would both fit much better, IMHO. Or maybe something hexen/heretic inspired would also work? Like Struggle and Eviternity energy bolts?

- EDIT: Final fight at map 09 feels like it needs a pile of medkits around the rocket. Megaspheres provide good refill options, but lack of lesser healing items is still felt. 10-15 medkits should remedy this issue. Given that the fight is very Valiant-esque, additional healing items would not break it.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Azure_Horror

[Bozzy]

Just finished this really enjoyed it :) is a sequel planned? as the ending seems to be big sequel bait :p

[Firedust]

Sequel/Prequel to Uprising?

[Cheesewheel]

5 hours ago, Bozzy said:

Just finished this really enjoyed it :) is a sequel planned? as the ending seems to be big sequel bait :p

Never say never, but the answer is probably no. I am enjoying these shorter experiences and have just started another small project.

 

3 hours ago, Firedust said:

Sequel/Prequel to Uprising?

 

Alternate reality spinoff tv special? No connection to my other works sorry :) (Although the ending of Uprising means any wad could be its sequel...)

[Firedust]

1 minute ago, Cheesewheel said:

Alternate reality spinoff tv special? No connection to my other works sorry :) (Although the ending of Uprising means any wad could be its sequel...)

But the cacobots...

[Arwel]

Started playing this and was like "Hmmm is this by any chance by the same person who made Uprising?"

And it's a great thing, means you have a really recognizable and memorable signature style!

Good job!

[i suck at nicknames]

Finished this one just now and I gotta say- I enjoyed this one. Some customizations may have made facing off against a few enemies needlessly frustrating, but all in all, the maps were all engaging and the final map especially was fantastic. Kinda wish it was harder tho ngl- the final few fights on UV couldve been made more challenging js

[holaareola]

Finished this last week. Great set, I really enjoyed it.

Ultra-fun levels which always kept the pace up, greatly helped by the focus on danger over kill duration in the new roster. Even the really highly populated levels never felt like a slog to tear through.

One thing I noticed was it had a handmade feel that really gave it a classic charm for me. No major and obvious usage of repetitions / symmetries as have become much more common since UDB offered so many awesome sector tools. It had a sort of analogue wonkiness -- line segments not placed with obvious mathematical precision, weird room shapes.

 

Other fragmentary thoughts since I didn't write stuff down at the time:

 

- Map04 SSG (I think?) ambush in the square area was my favourite in the wad, Really enjoyed it, not sure exactly why. The surprise enclosed->exposed transition maybe?
- Outdoor area in Map06 was so cool with the towers of white noise TV screens. The use of the TVs everywhere in general was an effective trope of the wad.
- Train level was ridiculously fun. It's a rare setting in Doom,

Spoiler

and the jumps across the trains were a great mechanic especially when enemies closed the distance so fast you had no time to prepare

.
- Loved the determination of the final map. You will press a switch, you will know what happens next, and you know it will happen even more than the last one you pressed! No deviation.
- Finest use of the electrical column I've seen in any wad I can remember. Two examples that stand out. Inspiring.

Spoiler

 

beautiful.

 

 

Please don't leave it at just the one episode, I want more!

[Cheesewheel]

17 hours ago, holaareola said:

Finished this last week. Great set, I really enjoyed it.

Ultra-fun levels which always kept the pace up, greatly helped by the focus on danger over kill duration in the new roster. Even the really highly populated levels never felt like a slog to tear through.

One thing I noticed was it had a handmade feel that really gave it a classic charm for me. No major and obvious usage of repetitions / symmetries as have become much more common since UDB offered so many awesome sector tools. It had a sort of analogue wonkiness -- line segments not placed with obvious mathematical precision, weird room shapes.

 

Other fragmentary thoughts since I didn't write stuff down at the time:

 

- Map04 SSG (I think?) ambush in the square area was my favourite in the wad, Really enjoyed it, not sure exactly why. The surprise enclosed->exposed transition maybe?
- Outdoor area in Map06 was so cool with the towers of white noise TV screens. The use of the TVs everywhere in general was an effective trope of the wad.
- Train level was ridiculously fun. It's a rare setting in Doom,

  Reveal hidden contents

and the jumps across the trains were a great mechanic especially when enemies closed the distance so fast you had no time to prepare

.
- Loved the determination of the final map. You will press a switch, you will know what happens next, and you know it will happen even more than the last one you pressed! No deviation.
- Finest use of the electrical column I've seen in any wad I can remember. Two examples that stand out. Inspiring.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

beautiful.

 

 

Please don't leave it at just the one episode, I want more!

 

Thanks for playing, make sure to check out Malevolence: Shutdown whilst you wait :)

[Augusto]

The weapons in this wad are really good, would it be possible to upload a weapons only version of it?

[nobleflame]

This looks hot. Will play this weekend :)