Frostbite Express [cl9] (NOW ON IDGAMES)

[Emperor S P O O N]

A train level inspired by Build Engine vehicle levels (see Blood E1M3) and The Polar Express (movie).

Some Context:
You may recognize this map if you've watched @sandwedge's YouTube streams, or have been watching @LVENdead's YouTube Channel about sometime last year. Yes, this is that same map. No, it was never released until now. Here's how that happened:
 

About more than a year ago, many of us in Civvie 11's public discord server decided to do another wad together after The Civvie 11 Massacre. Suffice to say many of us wanted to get our hands dirty with Doom Builder again, but this time with a holiday theme and a bit more of a challenging map format than UDMF. We set a deadline for release of Christmas 2022 with the target Complevel of 9 (Boom), and got to work. We dubbed the project "Civvie's XMAS Electroshock", although it had gone through some other titles before then that I can't seem to recall. I finished my map up pretty quickly and got some others to playtest it as well (That was where LVENdead and Sandwedge came into the picture). Things were looking up for the project.

Come December of 2022, and the wad was getting pretty close to done with still some hurdles to jump over: We needed a finale map, a custom boss (Mecha-Santa), and a whole lot of playtesting. But this is where many of us lost a lot of steam for the project. Christmas passes by, and not much was accomplished. We set another deadline for the following Christmas, but by this point the project was steadily losing motivation. Even I wasn't immune to it. Months pass by, and the wad is pretty much abandoned. No one was to blame for it falling through. That's just how it goes sometimes.

I may have silently left the project, but it didn't leave me. The thought of my map steadily gathering dust crossed my mind every time I opened up UDB. The growing eyes of judgement passed its gaze upon me every time I opened up my Doom wad projects folder. November of this year hits, and I'm carefully guiding the development and release of my latest horror map, The Parasite of Good Will, and I look through my many Doom wad project folders and I couldn't help but stare at the folder containing the XMAS map. Figuring I'd have the best opportunity to release it now, and with the permission of the original Project Lead, I chose to clean up the map for a release.

Sadly, I am not able to release all of the other maps that were made for the project. Even if I remembered where I had them, I really don't have the motivation to clean up all of the maps made for it. In addition, I wouldn't know who to credit who for the maps and I'd be sorely face-palming myself for just putting them out there without mentioning the map authors.

Thankfully, the map itself isn't all of what you'll be seeing here. With permission from the person who made the Mecha-Santa sprites, @SkeletronMK666, I'll be leaving those Mecha-Santa sprites in a folder within the dropbox link. I'll also include some other unused/unfinished content that didn't make the final cut. These you are free to use so long as you properly give credit to those who made them.

I'm a little sorry that I didn't do much more to help finish the project itself, but at least now I can be happy knowing something survived until the very end and that you all can get to play even a small portion of it.

Screenshots:

Spoiler

Wad Info:

- Singleplayer

- Complevel 9 (Boom)

- IWAD: Doom 2

Tested Source Ports:

- DSDA-Doom 0.26.2 (Recommended)

- PrBoom+ 2.6.2

- Eternity 4.02.00

- ZDoom 2.8.1

- GZDoom 4.10.00

Now available through Idgames Archive!: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/themes/xmas/frstexps

Dropbox Download: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/2c7tbcjsw85wu83lc95o4/h?rlkey=iabz8s0f51gvi4z4dgekhwc8v&dl=0

 

Let me know if there are any issues with the Dropbox link.
Thank you all, and Happy Holidays!

Edited December 25, 2023 by Emperor S P O O N
Idgames

[ProfBloom]

So glad to see this finally released, it's a banger of a map!  Great job on it, Spoon!

[HiMyNameIsChair]

YOOOO~!  this looks amazing~! congrats spoon~!

[LVENdead]

This is a cute and clever map and I recommend people play it.

[Zahid]

it was my dream in doom to be on moving vehicle and kill monster around it....although here its on train but superb execution still....first secret is killing adventure....gameplay is more about sut and open door type which can be better....i reached exit and died but it didnt end level so i am quiting it now

prboom cl9 demo one failed with lot of deaths second is partly successful

failnmax.zip

[SkeletronMK666]

eager to see anyone use the sprite edits i made for Mecha santa!, i might actually try to find if i have the code for the Decorate version of him! - i think i have it around somewhere.

[Emperor S P O O N]

Frostbite Express is now available through Idgames!

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/themes/xmas/frstexps

[LadyMistDragon]

So...I'm trying to limit the amount of wads I'm playing because I don't want to catch up but knew I couldn't skimp on an outtake from another Civvie-related project.