Doom: Evil Unleashed -- Status Update Thread

[hfc2x]

Hello, everyone

 

It's been a long while since anyone even talked about this, but it's about time we make an official announcement. What better time than on Doom's 30th anniversary, right?

 

This is the official thread for Doom: Evil Unleashed, the many-times-attempted, and never completed effort to make a playable game out of Tom Hall's Doom Bible from 1992. You might remember there was something happening a couple years ago, but then it all went silent. We were just a bunch of extremely naïve 20 somethings who wanted to make a simple mapset for our favorite game. You know, something quick and easy you make in your spare time. How hard can it really be, right? Just throw together some vanilla-looking maps, some ACS scripting, and you're done.

 

Oh, how wrong we were. This was 12 years ago, and at that time we didn't have any sort of plan or outline on how to make a project such as this reach completion. We only had vague ideas of what we thought sounded cool, but were never realistic. Of course, you just know we had no idea what we were doing, and eventually all of us drifted apart and the project faded into obscurity like all the other attempts.

 

However, in 2019 we decided to band together again, this time with a much clearer vision for what we wanted to accomplish, along with much more life (and professional) experience, and we decided to give this project another go in secret, this time having a detailed outline and a clear vision of what we wanted this project to be. Since then, we have been slowly working towards the completion of the usually-ill-fated "Doom Bible Game", whenever possible, as free time and real life allows.

 

Truth be told, we wanted to grind away in secrecy and spring the finished product on everybody as a surprise, but seeing it's the 30th anniversary of Doom, we figured we ought to do our part to contribute to the festivities.

 

So, without further ado, I present to you Doom: Evil Unleashed. Please excuse the placeholder programmer art lol.

 

Screenshots:

 

 

Features:

• Implementation of Doom Bible features, such as multiple player classes with different attributes
• New powerups from the Doom Bible, such as the Infrared Scanner (see enemies through walls), Sonar (points out secrets and exits), and Chaos Field (cause enemies around you to start infighting)
• Interactive objects found on levels, such as readable logs, computer consoles, and interactive elevator panels
• Vast System Shock-like interconnected world both on foot and via monorail tunnels.
• Levels with multiple floors, accessible through elevators or stairs.
• Interactive exits in some cases, where you can select the next level you want to go to.
• Optional features, like colored monster blood, Doom Alpha style weapon (and view) bobbing

 

Credits:

• Original idea: Tom Hall
• Director: @hfc2x
• Producer, story: @⇛Marnetmar⇛
• Programming, scripting: ZyeByte, @hfc2x
• Level design: @demo_the_man, ZyeByte, @⇛Marnetmar⇛

 

ETA: Early-to-mid 2024

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by hfc2x
Added estimated time for release

[nrofl]

I’ve been waiting a loooong time for this 

[DannyMan]

Goddamn...

[hfc2x]

21 minutes ago, nue said:

I’ve been waiting a loooong time for this 

30 years in the making, am I right? lol.

[DrPyspy]

LETS GOOOO!!!!! I'm really happy to see this still kickin'! Those preview videos back in the day helped inspire me to get more into Doom modding. I look forward to seeing more 👀

[hfc2x]

Woah, dude, thank you. Your stuff was one of the main motivators to kick development back into gear. Seeing your stuff made me go "wait, you can do that with ZScript now?" lol.

[Captain Keen]

Looks great! Hope to play it soon!

[jazzmaster9]

Ayyy, Great to finally see this return.
This was one of the mod that inspired me to start with Doom modding :D

 

I'm guessing the introduction of ZScript really pushed this forward, since you can now recreate many of the Doom Bible features.

[LateNightPerson]

This looks impressive as hell

[Devalaous]

Lets hope the curse can get broken this time.

[CacoDoomer]

Still looking forward to it.

[hfc2x]

On 12/19/2023 at 9:06 AM, jazzmaster9 said:

I'm guessing the introduction of ZScript really pushed this forward, since you can now recreate many of the Doom Bible features.

Yeah. It pretty was going to be completely impossible to do with ACS and Decorate only. We're still relying a lot on ACS, but ZScript has made a bunch of work super straightforward.

 

Fun fact: I had been doing some preliminary work with Chocolate Doom to create a version of Doom EU that's more "true" to what it was originally supposed to be, but the amount of work required to do that is just absolutely massive. I may give it another go in the future, but only after we get this version finished.

[Altered]

This is the kind of mod I've been looking for, and I'm gonna love it no matter what. Doom Delta was already on eof my favourites, and my obsession with alpha style Doom mods only grows each time I look more into it. Can't wait, but take as much time as you need and don't burn yourself out.

[taufan99]

Wait a minute...

Are you... serious!?

That Evil Unleashed by hfc2x et al.!?

Awwww yiss!!!! *ahem* Pardon the overreaction.

 

Still, how can I ever forget my early days DOOMing while spending time checking this mod's development on ZDoom Forums and Wiki.

 

A very unexpected comeback, but a very pleasant one. Considering this is how KDiKDiZD finally materialized after a very long time, I have quite some expectation for this.

[taufan99]

On 12/11/2023 at 3:58 AM, hfc2x said:

ETA: Early-to-mid 2024

Excuse me for bumping this thread, but I'd like to know how far the progress has been since this thread was posted. Hopefully not too far from release. ;)

[hfc2x]

Well, we're trying to get this ready for "release" ASAP, but certainly very soon. Fine-tuning certain maps so they actually work together (because a lot of connections are currently broken.. consider for example that Supply Depot 2 alone has exits to at least 4 other maps), adding or removing story elements, having a functional pause menu, and so on and so forth. The main problem is that we all are currently extremely busy to consistently grind away at the project. @⇛Marnetmar⇛ is starting a new job, and I have a ton of work IRL as of late, for reasons I can't really go into.

 

The reason "release" is in quotes is because this will be a mostly-completed, mostly-playable preview. Because we don't have an artist, things are gonna be a little bit rough-looking. Some maps will likely not be in their finished state either, but playable enough for everyone to see.

[taufan99]

8 minutes ago, hfc2x said:

Well, we're trying to get this ready for "release" ASAP, but certainly very soon. Fine-tuning certain maps so they actually work together (because a lot of connections are currently broken.. consider for example that Supply Depot 2 alone has exits to at least 4 other maps), adding or removing story elements, having a functional pause menu, and so on and so forth. The main problem is that we all are currently extremely busy to consistently grind away at the project. @⇛Marnetmar⇛ is starting a new job, and I have a ton of work IRL as of late, for reasons I can't really go into.

 

The reason "release" is in quotes is because this will be a mostly-completed, mostly-playable preview. Because we don't have an artist, things are gonna be a little bit rough-looking. Some maps will likely not be in their finished state either, but playable enough for everyone to see.

I wouldn't mind getting an early access version of this, as long as it's playable and looks passable enough. We all can wait much later for a more completed version, given the real-life business of the authors. After all, the likes of Supplice and Selaco have been released under the early access moniker, and even people have been wowed by them (I know the comparison is a bit steep, but you get what I mean).