Insanity Edged

[Pieruskwurje]

 

Insanity Edged is completed. I have a couple of people I know personally doing some internal testing, but I wanted to reach out to the community to see if I could maybe grab 1 or 2 people to play through it as well. It's been a long time since I've released a project, so I want to make sure it's not as messy as Winter's Fury was on release!

 

If you're interested in doing some testing playthroughs within the next few days, please send me a message, and we can discuss further.

 

Thank you for your patience. I'm going to leave the part in the opening post where I said "~2 months" back in December. How on earth do some of you make stuff so fast!?

[Cardboard Marty]

This is exciting news! Congrats on the completion, can't wait to play it!

[Knor964]

This is absolutely insane the detail is amazing!

 

Congratz on completion!

[Major Cooke]

Count me in. You know I've been dying to try this.

[Pieruskwurje]

Insanity Edged is released.

 

Download in the opening post.

Please note:

• It is recommended that you play using the latest official release of GZDoom (tested on 4.10.0).
• The mod has been designed with use of Light Shadowmaps and Bloom Effect being turned on, but they are not mandatory.
• Insanity Edged is not designed to be played with any other addons.
• The mod contains a very small amount of bright/flashing lights that may be harmful for people who experience photosensitive seizures.
• This mod is in the same universe as Winter's Fury. I think that playing Winter's Fury first is better, but there's no reason why you couldn't play Insanity Edged first either.

I truly hope you enjoy it. I welcome any and all feedback, and would love to hear about your experiences playing.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Pieruskwurje

[Dynamo]

Glad you finally managed to push this one out, and can't wait to play it! I remember when I used to message you about its progress on ZDF, because I knew something as good as this couldn't afford to go unreleased... Thank you so much for the work you put into it! I hope you will be able to revisit S.U.P.E.R. Natural at some point, because that one is also definitely masterclass material.

[Firedust]

Finally! Imma replay WF anniversay edition first to refresh my memory. Screenshots look stunning.

[MarketAnarchy]

Vile's streaming a blind play and it looks amazing.

[Vile]

Yeah this was quite the experience.  I wish my poor laptop (about a decade old) handled gzdoom mods more smoothly but it was still a blast to play through and looked amazing.

 

Spoiler

The vod for the playthrough is here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1914190459

 

I'll be curious to know if others playing on UV ran into the kind of ammo issues I did later in the maps.  Granted, I didn't find many secrets or hunt for a lot of spare ammo but there were some encounters where I was dangerously close to running out and wouldn't be able to go searching for more since they were lock-in fights.

 

I also got majorly lost on map06 and I'm not sure if it was a "me" issue since, even though the maps before then felt like just running from place to place hitting switches and killing monsters without thinking much about the progression, I still felt that I was able to figure out where I was meant to go after doing enough stuff.  In this case, though, I ran across the map multiple times trying to find the exit.  I was tempted to play it again to see if I would have the same issue noticing it.

 

Anyway, regardless of that, I still very much enjoyed this mod and appreciated how much polish was put into the presentation of it!  I hope the above doesn't take away from that.

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Vile

[TJG1289]

Congrats on the release! I really need to cut through the stuff I am playing through now to make room for this. I've been awaiting a new installment in the Winter's Fury universe for a long time. 

[Razza]

Hell yeah! Really excited to play through this one, can't wait to see some mindblowing sights in this

[Muleke_Trairao]

Just finished it. What a ride, my friends! If this doesn't get a Cacoward, I'll never forgive DW. :P

 

Jokes aside, I thoroughly enjoyed 90% of my time playing IE. My only source of frustration was when I got lost a few times, but I always could find the way by myself.

 

Congratulations on the amazing release and positive reception! You really deserve it!

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Muleke_Trairao

[Terminus]

I'm about halfway through (at Map04) and this is beyond stellar. It's everything I love about Doom and more.

The maps just keep getting better, and I'm thrown back to how I was blown away by Winter's Fury, only tenfold.

 

My sole complaint is the weapon damage. It messes with my muscle memory in how either the weapons are too weak, or the monsters are beefier. Or maybe it's both.

Please consider adjusting the weapon damage to match vanilla, that'd make the wad much more enjoyable.

 

Other than that, I'm gonna keep playing this throughout the weekend, since this is my most anticipated wad of 2023. :P

[Scuba Steve]

There's something super secret hiding in all these red key areas and I'm determined to figure it out.

[NovaRain]

Wow, the logs this time are much harder to get, not just simply hidden.

Couldn't figure out how to get even the map01 one before the door closes.

Edited September 3, 2023 by NovaRain

[Terminus]

Found a softlock on Map05.

It's by the edge of an end of the road, a jumpable space into an impassable line with a bit of space inbetween with no way to jump out of.

 

I must say I'm impressed by the way the maps have been unbreakable so far - There's so much jumping and maneuvering to do, it's usually easy to break the map in such cases. This is the only one I've found.

 

Having an amazing time as always, the end of Map05 kinda fucked me up in a good way.

[Pieruskwurje]

On 9/1/2023 at 9:42 PM, Dynamo said:

Glad you finally managed to push this one out, and can't wait to play it! I remember when I used to message you about its progress on ZDF, because I knew something as good as this couldn't afford to go unreleased... Thank you so much for the work you put into it! I hope you will be able to revisit S.U.P.E.R. Natural at some point, because that one is also definitely masterclass material.

 

I still remember as well; I feel ashamed that I have DM conversations with some people where I suggested that the mod would release in 2017. Real accurate on that one.

 

On 9/2/2023 at 2:48 AM, Vile said:

Yeah this was quite the experience.  I wish my poor laptop (about a decade old) handled gzdoom mods more smoothly but it was still a blast to play through and looked amazing.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The vod for the playthrough is here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1914190459

 

I'll be curious to know if others playing on UV ran into the kind of ammo issues I did later in the maps.  Granted, I didn't find many secrets or hunt for a lot of spare ammo but there were some encounters where I was dangerously close to running out and wouldn't be able to go searching for more since they were lock-in fights.

 

I also got majorly lost on map06 and I'm not sure if it was a "me" issue since, even though the maps before then felt like just running from place to place hitting switches and killing monsters without thinking much about the progression, I still felt that I was able to figure out where I was meant to go after doing enough stuff.  In this case, though, I ran across the map multiple times trying to find the exit.  I was tempted to play it again to see if I would have the same issue noticing it.

 

Anyway, regardless of that, I still very much enjoyed this mod and appreciated how much polish was put into the presentation of it!  I hope the above doesn't take away from that.

 

 

Glad you enjoyed it despite the few issues. I'll be paying close attention to other feedback to see if any adjustments for ammo need to be made. I'll be sure to watch the whole VOD this weekend!

 

On 9/3/2023 at 1:09 AM, Muleke_Trairao said:

Jokes aside, I thoroughly enjoyed 90% of my time playing IE. My only source of frustration was when I got lost a few times, but I always could find the way by myself.

 

Congratulations on the amazing release and positive reception! You really deserve it!

 

Thanks for playing through the whole thing, and for your kind words. I'm glad that getting lost wasn't a big problem; it's a really hard thing to test when I've played these maps hundreds of times!

 

On 9/3/2023 at 1:23 PM, Scuba Steve said:

There's something super secret hiding in all these red key areas and I'm determined to figure it out.

 

18 hours ago, NovaRain said:

Wow, the logs this time are much harder to get, not just simply hidden.

Couldn't figure out how to get even the map01 one before the door closes.

 

Spoiler

 

On 9/3/2023 at 2:11 AM, Terminus said:

My sole complaint is the weapon damage. It messes with my muscle memory in how either the weapons are too weak, or the monsters are beefier. Or maybe it's both.

Please consider adjusting the weapon damage to match vanilla, that'd make the wad much more enjoyable.

 

I've been in deep turmoil about the weapons for years, stuck between "The new weapon set offers a unique and challenging gameplay experience that encourages lining up enemies or using combinations of weapons to conserve ammo!" and "nobody likes not killing pinkies in one SSG shot". To confirm, the monsters are identical, the weapons are the only place things have changed. Honesty at this point I'm not really sure what's best, so I might try out re-buffing the weapons once I get them all cleaned up into new and original sprites.

 

I hope the rest of the mod lives up to your expectations, and that you have fun.

[NovaRain]

38 minutes ago, Pieruskwurje said:

I've been in deep turmoil about the weapons for years, stuck between "The new weapon set offers a unique and challenging gameplay experience that encourages lining up enemies or using combinations of weapons to conserve ammo!" and "nobody likes not killing pinkies in one SSG shot". To confirm, the monsters are identical, the weapons are the only place things have changed. Honesty at this point I'm not really sure what's best, so I might try out re-buffing the weapons once I get them all cleaned up into new and original sprites.

If you want people to use weapon combos, IMO it's better to reduce/remove the switching animation like how Supercharge does. For now it feels cumbersome switching between between weapons, especially shotguns, so I've been using my own edits of weapons for WF/IE (mostly just buffing damage a bit).

I do like the shotgun knockback, feels good for crowd control in tight space.

[Cardboard Marty]

Just finished this earlier today, and wow! Definitely tops Winter's Fury in the visuals department (which was no slouch either!), but I think the increased range of colors being used in each map showcased your strength as a designer to a much higher degree. Each map on its own is incredibly impressive, and there were only a few times I got lost despite their size. It was fun trying to overcome what seemed to be highly difficult challenges, a few devious traps that really required me to figure out the best way to handle the situation.

 

My main points of feedback (currently):

• I do agree about the weapon balance, but to narrow down what felt "off" to me was definitely the damage on the pistol/shotgun/super shotgun. The pistol almost instantly becomes obsolete, whereas the touched-up sprites by Scuba Steve give it a sense that it should be more powerful due to the new recoil animation. The shotgun in particular also felt like it became obsolete the moment you get the super shotgun. Because the weapons don't function that much differently from the stock Doom weapons, mentally they feel like they should fit the same roles (i.e. the shotgun trades power of accuracy thanks to its spread, SSG for up-close encounters). I remember you throwing out some suggestions regarding the pistol that I think may help, but an easier fix in the meantime would be buffing the damage values on those three weapons in particular and perhaps making the pistol more accurate to compensate for the power that the machine gun has.
• Regarding weapons, ammo balance because of some of the above felt VERY tight. I did run out of ammo a couple of times throughout my playthrough (are there backpacks in any of the levels? I couldn't find any). It's possible tweaking the above would remedy this.
• There are some portions of the later maps that were a bit TOO dark. The intention definitely seems to make it very hard to see, but I actually had trouble navigating some sections because of it.
• The logs seem very hard to get this time around! I think I only found about half of the secrets on each map in my first playthrough and am looking forward to trying to find more on my next one.
• The storytelling is top-notch. It's not immediately clear what the main plot thread is to me, but the way it's told is absolutely solid. Without talking too much about the ending, I absolutely LOVED the final map. It felt a lot better than the equivalent map in Winter's Fury and it's definitely going to stick with me for a while!
• Speaking of, the final combat encounter felt like it was leading up to something (i.e. a final boss fight) that never came around. It was definitely tough but I feel like it could have a punchier ending. I wouldn't want it to undermine the final map/ending, however!
• I also need to find that damned red keycard!

This is such a fantastic map set and I'm glad to have been a small part of it! I can't wait to play through it again, congratulations on the release!

[Major Cooke]

I've definitely enjoyed myself throughout the mod and think highly of this.

 

My biggest criticisms of the mod are as such:

• The final battle. Spoiler territory here.
  Spoiler

  Personally, I think this should've been a boss battle instead of a slaughterfest. Normally, I am one who supports these hand in hand because I'm a slaughter enthusiast, but... This was calling out for something else. I do hope you'll consider adding in a different boss fight that could, potentially, happen right after the waves? Maybe we get to fight Baphomet again after he recovers his [REDACTED]? (You know what I mean... I'm trying not to shed too much info here for the uber-thirsty to spoil themselves...) He has even more Hellfire so it's the perfect opportunity to add in a few more attacks than last time, just for fun!

   

  If you need help, let me know.

   

• The ending. Again, EXTREMELY spoiler here, for the love of God, please try to get it yourself before opening this spoiler. You will ruin SO MUCH if you open it! CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED, FOLKS.

• Spoiler

  In Winter's Fury, the gargantuan effort towards the ultimate secret, actually made me feel very good, and when I got to the beautiful house and Dark played the song? I teared up a little. It was absolutely beautiful. I was into it 100% and it set Winter's Fury on a pedestal that has yet to be overshadowed, it's that high up in rating for me. I loved EVERY character. You practically invented the wheel of story telling with this mod.

   

  In Insanity's Edge, the effort is doubled on the last map. It's nice that it's from different accounts this time and giving perspective about who all was in the mod, but the hunt is kind of annoying, padded, and can get aggravating. But I could forgive all of that, if the ending was not a light at the end of the tunnel which leaves me more questions than answers. I think it deserves a bit more closure, perhaps a bit of monologue from Jacob, when Dark gives him his freedom from the machine, if that's what even happens.

   

  But then the credits happen... and lets just say I like Dark a lot less now. He made this story?

 

Other than that, I enjoyed it very much. I'm eager for more.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Major Cooke

[Pieruskwurje]

Thanks everyone for all the feedback so far. Updated the download with a hotfix version, including:

 

Spoiler

• Super Shotgun damage has increased from 4 to 5 per pellet, matching the vanilla counterpart. The spread has also been returned to vanilla values as well, so you can't snipe with it like you could before. The amount of bullets shot still remains at 18 rather than the original 20, however. This makes it feel like an unlucky SSG, where some monsters that you would kill in 2 to 3 shots will now always take 3 (Cacodemon, Pain Elemental). You can at least kill Demons in one shot, Revs in two, and Hellknights in 3, so hopefully this helps with muscle memory a bit. Figured I'd increment this a step at a time to see if we can find a place where it's more comfortable without fully reverting to vanilla. Thank you for the feedback on this, I know it's been a big point of contention even all the way back with Winter's Fury at first release, and I want to try to find a good spot for it without taking away from my original intent.
• I've left the Pistol and Shotgun as they are for now. I agree that they become completely obsolete later in the game, but my tiny brain has always assumed that this was true for vanilla gameplay as well. I don't really like the idea of them being completely obsolete, so as the weapons continue to get cleaned up I'll put some more thought into this.
• Fixed text bugs that occurred due to HUD scaling, as seen on Vile's Twitch VOD whenever he opened the automap. Scuba Steve also had this problem in testing, but I decided to try to look into a fix. As a quick solution I've made the text appear at a location that won't get affected by the HUD scaling regardless of scale amount or resolution.
• Added slightly improved Rocket Launcher animations thanks to Scuba Steve.
• Fixed a bug with one of the cameras in the INTROMAP which seemed to sometimes clip into the back of S.R.'s head for an unknown reason.
• Added slightly more ammo to MAP07 (start of the map) and MAP05 (Azmodual arena). Hoping that this in combination with the SSG buff helps move further away from the knife's edge ammo balance.
• Fixed some other small things that weren't relevant enough for me to write down?

 

Hopefully this is able to immediately address some concerns and avoid players running into some of the same troubles you guys did. Thank you all for playing, I'm glad the general consensus is that it's enjoyable!

Edited September 6, 2023 by Pieruskwurje

[LVENdead]

I played through the first map yesterday and recorded a video. I find the whole package to be incredibly impressive, from the intro/cinematics, music, and of course the incredible visual fidelity on display. I see you just updated with some tweaks to things I did find a bit frustrating (SSG damage) - but those sentiments surely come across in my video lol. My gameplay was not amazing, for whatever reason I was just not really on my usual level I felt like, and I missed about half the secrets, but overall really enjoyed what I played so far. 

 

 

[NovaRain]

There are lots of backup map files in the hotfix version, was wondering why the size increased twofold.

[Pieruskwurje]

Nuts, shows I was in a rush to get to work this morning. I'll reupload in a couple hours without the backups. Thanks for the heads up.

 

Edit: Fixed.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Pieruskwurje

[Archi]

Took me a while.

Spoiler

 

Based on what is present on MAP08 I assume next (and probably final) episode would be based around null/void (abyss?) with the scientist (the one depicted in a hologram) as the main protagonist. Assuming supernatural is more of a spin-off, of course.

 

[Pieruskwurje]

22 hours ago, Archi said:

Took me a while.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Based on what is present on MAP08 I assume next (and probably final) episode would be based around null/void (abyss?) with the scientist (the one depicted in a hologram) as the main protagonist. Assuming supernatural is more of a spin-off, of course.

 

 Astute observations!

Spoiler

I will only confirm that I do intend to make another mod in this series, and I will try to make it not take 10+ years this time.

 

On 9/6/2023 at 6:38 AM, LVENdead said:

I played through the first map yesterday and recorded a video.

 

This was amusing to watch! Two things of note from your video:

• At one point you found a secret which you thought was only 1 Health Bonus; it was actually 25 or so on top of each other. Makes me think it might be worthwhile to make some custom items for 25+ or 50+ health or armour pickups? Might make secrets more diverse? Not sure.
• You mentioned that you believed the mod was meant for continuous playthrough; the mod has been setup so that you can play three different ways:
  • Continuous - Keep inventory exactly as it was between levels (unless the plot demands otherwise),
  • Expected - Gives the weapons you'd normally have at this level with a bit of ammo for each, resets health and armour to 100/0 (this is on by default),
  • Pistol Start - 100/0 health and armour, and only the pistol with 20 bullets. It is absolutely possible to win each level like this (even when the SSG was weaker), but you need to be a psychopath about ammo efficiency and redoing Archvile/Pain Elemental fights till you get them right. 

Figured I'd bring this up since I'm only now realising I didn't mention anything in the download notes about this setting being a thing. You can find it in the Insanity Edged options menu if you expand it to show the full set of options. If there's a way to make the mod specific options easier to reach rather than being buried under several menus, I'd love to know!

[LVENdead]

7 hours ago, Pieruskwurje said:

t one point you found a secret which you thought was only 1 Health Bonus; it was actually 25 or so on top of each other. Makes me think it might be worthwhile to make some custom items for 25+ or 50+ health or armour pickups? Might make secrets more diverse? Not sure.

 

You know, normally I picked up on these things but I felt like I was playing a little off when I recorded that video so that's probably why I didn't notice. 

 

Btw, did you have it in mind whether the player should use mouselook or not? I wasn't too sure about it but some of the enemies being placed pretty high above the player at times made me think you did. I think it's worth mentioning in the instructions at least.

[Cardboard Marty]

8 hours ago, Pieruskwurje said:

If there's a way to make the mod specific options easier to reach rather than being buried under several menus, I'd love to know!

Probably the least intrusive way to do so would be redefining the main menu in your MENUDEF:

ListMenu "MainMenu"
{
	Size Clean
	Position 97, 72
	StaticPatch 82, 57, "MENU_MBX"
	TextItem "New Game", "s", "PlayerclassMenu"
	TextItem "Options", "o", "OptionsMenu"
	TextItem "IE Options", "i", "InsanityOptions"
	TextItem "Load Game", "l", "LoadGameMenu"
	TextItem "Save Game", "s", "SaveGameMenu"
	TextItem "Exit Game", "e", "QuitMenu"
	//AnimatedTransition
}

Also caught a minor spelling error in MAPINFO with the word aggressive being spelled as "agressive".

skill Kill
{
   damagefactor = 1.0
   aggressiveness = 0.5
   SpawnFilter = hard
   textcolor = "Red"
   Key = "K"
   name = ""
   mustconfirm = "Be warned, Jacob. Not only will Demons come in greater swarms, but are also more agressive. Think you can handle the insanity?"
}

Hope this helps!

[Duckscout]

Finished this just a moment ago, and wow. I genuinely think this is the prettiest game i've played this year. While I didn't really understand much of the ending, seeing straight up dialogue and cutscenes in a doom mod was something I've wanted to see for quite a while.

[Pieruskwurje]

14 hours ago, LVENdead said:

Btw, did you have it in mind whether the player should use mouselook or not? I wasn't too sure about it but some of the enemies being placed pretty high above the player at times made me think you did. I think it's worth mentioning in the instructions at least.

 

Mouselook is technically not required, but I think it's a far better experience with it on. I'll see about adding something that makes it clear to the player. It's difficult when GZDoom has so, so many options and limits your ability to enable/disable them per mod, but I do understand why they do that for most of them.

 

13 hours ago, Cardboard Marty said:

Probably the least intrusive way to do so would be redefining the main menu in your MENUDEF:

 

I feel really dumb that it was this easy. Hopefully this will draw attention to them; I'll also make a brief comment in the brightness map perhaps? I need to see if it's possible to copy the Bloom and Light Shadowmaps options to this menu as well, to make it really easy for the player to reach all the settings they might want.

 

4 hours ago, Duckscout said:

Finished this just a moment ago, and wow. I genuinely think this is the prettiest game i've played this year. While I didn't really understand much of the ending, seeing straight up dialogue and cutscenes in a doom mod was something I've wanted to see for quite a while.

 

I'm really happy it was a unique experience for you! If you hadn't played it already, Winter's Fury uses all the same dialogue and cutscenes style as this mod, and playing it may alleviate some of your confusion about the ending (or make it worse??? I don't know!)