(FINAL) "The Mystery of Mount Fang" - Four map vanilla-compatible mini WAD

[Quacken]

Hi!

 

This is a vanilla-compatible four map mini WAD titled "The Mystery of Mount Fang". After enjoying your "vacation", you're hired by an anonymous benefactor to go hiking in Mount Fang, a huge mountain located in Hell. Your mission: To gather information and clues about about a long extinct civilisation that apparently worshipped a guardian spirit taking on the appearance of a huge shark. But you have a suspicion that the thing who hired you knows more about this place than they let on...

 

• Complevel: 2
• IWAD: Doom II
• Source ports tested with: Chocolate Doom, Crispy Doom
• Map format: Vanilla (Playable in vanilla, may be some visual bugs)

 

All of the maps are designed with adventure in mind, with a gradual ramp up in difficulty peaking in MAP03 and winding down in MAP04. All of the maps focus on a gimmick, such as MAP02 having puzzle solving elements and MAP03 having big fights. The below ZIP file contains both the WAD and its accompanying DEH file, which gives the maps their names when you bring up the automap.

 

MountFang.zip

 

Have fun! And let me know if something comes up.

Music credits (all from the Plutonia MIDI Pack):

Spoiler

 

MAP01 - Trigger (Mr Freeze, Bucket)
MAP02 - Pluvious (Bucket)

MAP03 - Lost in Place (Lippeth)

MAP04 - Death Mask (Lippeth)

 

 

Final Release Notes:

Spoiler

• Added a custom TITLEPIC, drawn by me (and with a colouring filter applied in Slade)
• Fixed a sotflock in MAP01 (as pointed out by Oxyde)
• Added support for co-op, as well as co-op monsters for each map (untested)
• Last minute tweaks for the combat, as well as visuals

 

Screenshots:

Edited February 10 by Quacken
Upgrading to Final Release (changing the title to mention so)

[fefor]

A very sweet vanilla experience with smooth item and difficulty progression, the midis fit the aesthetic and the overall laid back gameplay, it really does feel like an adventure or expedition as you get deeper into the ruins and explore the abandoned houses full of neatly detailed doom-cute. I think you nailed the visual story telling and atmosphere on these maps. 

[LavaWave]

I liked the maps up until the 3rd one, I mean they're wide open full of exploration and so it's easy to get lost in, I often got confused as to where to go next, searching through the maps for several minutes as I got lost quite often.

 

I liked the second map though, Sandy Riddles.

 

As fefor said the atmosphere with the decayed abandoned buildings is really nice and haunting, I liked it a lot, quite fitting a demonic invasion took place there.

Edited February 4 by LavaWave

[TheCaneOfTheTophat]

Very solid mapset from the first map to the last! The storytelling throughout the course of the maps is quite engaging. Two things stuck out to me in particular: the detailing and gameplay.
 

Your sector decoration and macro architecture abilities are strong. From the small, broken down brick mud huts strewn over the mountain's exterior in MAP01 and MAP04 to the supermassive skeletons and eternally watching shark demon that is everpresent in MAP03, All of the maps are a treat to look at, and MAP01 leaves an excellent first impression! The doomcute is also very welcome, especially the marketplace in MAP04. That entire map was adorable.
 

The gameplay is good, clean fun! The difficulty curve is smooth, there's enough health to get by, though the ammo placement is very tight on MAP02 and MAP03. I played on UV and I ran out of ammo a few times, but with some skillful dodging I managed to scrounge up ammo from other rooms without getting a fistful of demon projectiles, so no complaints there!

MAP02 was especially fun with the small trials in parkour, the task of defusing that one particularly chaotic fight with the Cyberdemon, and the test of working with that lift. Though, my favorite map has to be MAP03. I love the dim lighting of the underground buildings, the dark cavern filled with monsters and concerningly large skeletal remnants, and that huge, toothy demon shark-god-evil spirit. I only got a little confused when I was finding the yellow key, but the rest of the map goes along smoothly. The use of the Icon of Sin is tasteful in my opinion : ). All in all the gimmicks are neat and your persistent Pain Elemental usage throughout is evil indeed! 
 

Overall, I love it! Atmospheric, short, but very sweet. I look forward to seeing what you'll make next, Quacken.

[LadyMistDragon]

Knew I couldn't skip another Quacken set!

 

 

[galileo31dos01]

This was a nice adventure. I'll echo what others said about the storytelling aspect, strong and engaging to follow through the texturing and architecture. My favorite parts included the ever present demon mouth, the decayed houses and vistas of the blood river from multiple areas, oh and starting and ending the journey on the boat was great (this last detail now reminded of a similar case in a wad called Rylayeh). And the gameplay focused on that narrative suits well, with ton of incidental combat and a cool idea for a boss on theme, plus keeping an eye for nooks and crannies that would have precious resources. All neat.

 

Although I don't think I stumbled upon any critical issues, or well, I think in map 02 there is a potential softlock around the first YK door, the first switch linked to the elevator sector 244 is a S1 raise, and there is also a SR nearby to lower it back to your level, which hints that this elevator was meant to stay usable but ultimately isn't. If the main big elevator is still on the same level, you can backtrack and use that to take you to places, albeit at the cost of some time wasted. But if for any reason this big one was raised to some higher level, I think you'd be trapped in that southwestern section. If so, that might be worth checking. 

 

In map 04 there is a teleport pad in the final area that's never accessible because sector 673 has no tag. 

 

Noticed some misaligned textures in all maps but perhaps those are deliberate? e.g. first lift in map 01, or last lift in map 04. I didn't keep track of all of them and well, sorry, I think there were more in map 03, heading to where the backpack is, the hallway of marble bricks had some misalignments... 

 

I did spot and took shots of slime trails and similar: 

 

- Here in m01, YSK room, this place

- HOM in the crushers room in m02

- An inoffensive floating medikit in m03, that's nearby the triple skull-coded bars

- Glitch here, outside of YSK building

 

Hope to see more from you in the future. Thanks for sharing!

[Oxyde]

I played up to midway of Map03 and I enjoyed every minute of it! apologies for the rushed out comment, but I want to point out you can get softlocked if you jump from the top of the blood fall (sector #153) down to the rocks below behind the starting point (Sector #145) - If you run behind the rocks/decor and fall, you'll end up stuck there! (Sectors #801 & #798)

[Ginji23]

For some reason, clicking the download button has given me this error all day:
 

Sorry, there is a problem

We could not locate the item you are trying to view.
Error code: 2S328/1

 

[jmac]

I've only played the first map so far, but it was pretty great. You've done an excellent job of making it feel like I was exploring an actual place. The mine-cart track was an especially cool part of the map. Combat design also felt pretty solid and varied; it never started to feel stale or repetitive even though the map was quite long. I completely missed the rocket launcher at first, which was desperately needed for the red key fight. I ended up running completely out of ammo and dying, then spent about 5 minutes searching the map for the rocket launcher.

 

This is part of what was my only gripe with the map. The layout is sprawling and a bit confusing. There were several moments where I felt at a loss for where I was supposed to go next, and I spent a fair bit of time wandering aimlessly. Granted, I do have a pretty terrible sense of direction on the best of days, so the problem may not be as pronounced as it seemed to me.

[Quacken]

Just now, Ginji23 said:

For some reason, clicking the download button has given me this error all day:
 

Sorry, there is a problem

We could not locate the item you are trying to view.
Error code: 2S328/1

 

Hi! I don't really know why but the real download link to the WAD was moved to below the screenshots. I've updated the post so the real download link is in the place it's meant to be (where you were clicking and getting that error message.