Where did the Sailor go?

[watermelon eater gaming]

Why was the Sailor yeeted from Freedoom's maps? Is it because of possible Nazi references since it has the same AI as the SS easter egg from DOOM 2?

 

(it's still in the files along with the wolf3d style textures and is fully working when placed)

[MrFlibble]

IIRC it was a conscious design decision to remove that character because of the art style clash. I think @raymoohawk was suggesting possible replacements that could better fit in for use in regular maps, but this never materialised. I believe the devs wanted an overall better quality of the assets, and the sailor is too cartoonish for that.

 

Edited May 2, 2024 by MrFlibble

[Donowa]

i think that even with a better wolfss replacement, the wolfss shouldn't be used in maps since its doom 2 equivalent clashes so much with the other doom 2 monsters, and custom wads usually either replace them with dehacked monsters or use them as a joke monster. (i'd argue that the same thing applies to keen and the bossbrain)

[Obsidian Plague]

On 5/2/2024 at 9:23 AM, MrFlibble said:

IIRC it was a conscious design decision to remove that character because of the art style clash. I think @raymoohawk was suggesting possible replacements that could better fit in for use in regular maps, but this never materialised. I believe the devs wanted an overall better quality of the assets, and the sailor is too cartoonish for that.

 

This sorta came back up but then the plans dissipated. Something about replacing them with rebels? I dunno, ask blaziken

[watermelon eater gaming]

7 hours ago, Donowa said:

i think that even with a better wolfss replacement, the wolfss shouldn't be used in maps since its doom 2 equivalent clashes so much with the other doom 2 monsters, and custom wads usually either replace them with dehacked monsters or use them as a joke monster. (i'd argue that the same thing applies to keen and the bossbrain)

Yeah, but in one of the Phase 2 maps (at least in 0.12.1) a jar of alien can be found and broken. So an SS replacement could probably be a fourth variant for the zombie, since it uses a hitscan attack and has very similar stats. Might send the wrong message to people who played Freedoom first though

[MrFlibble]

I think it would be neat if the secret character would make a reference to another Doom community project. However, REKKR and Harmony Compatible data are under CC-BY-NC licenses, making them incompatible with Freed∞m's license.

 

There's also a mobile game called Gloomy Dungeons 2, which was crated by a Bulgarian (IIRC) studio Zamedev, which originally used old Freed∞m assets for prototyping, and eventually released their code and assets under the MIT license:

https://blog.zame-dev.org/zamedev-love-opensource/

https://github.com/restorer/gloomy-dungeons-2

 

I think it could be a nice thing to include their work as an Easter Egg in Freed∞m, but the monsters would need some substantial rework because the sprites are very tall and not designed for Doom's screen resolution that will stretch them vertically even further. Also the monsters have less rotations than Doom characters.

 

With that said, I suppose this monster could be a secret character replacement:

[ax34]

Maybe just make these "slaiors" blue armor version of chaingunners?

Edited May 7, 2024 by ax34

[MrFlibble]

22 hours ago, MrFlibble said:

I think it would be neat if the secret character would make a reference to another Doom community project. However, REKKR and Harmony Compatible data are under CC-BY-NC licenses, making them incompatible with Freed∞m's license.

Also there are resources from Hell-Forged that @Amuscaria released under the Creative Commons license -- although I'm not sure which one (CC0 would be the most compatible I guess?). Everything there is of exceptional quality. The player sprites could be used as the secret character, theoretically. There are also some textures which also could probably be used to create secret levels making reference to Hell-Forge (?). Just a bit of brainstorming here.

 

A while go I suggested using a character from Rise/Shadow of the Wool Ball as the SS replacement, along with the Wolf3D-esque textures from that game/mod for the secret level texture set. But apparently that went nowhere. IIRC, Wool Ball characters do not have rotations, but that should not be a very huge problem I guess. @MSPaintR0cks gave permission to use the assets in Freed∞m.

Edited May 8, 2024 by MrFlibble

[MrFlibble]

I was just idly browsing ZDoom forums Spriting Carnival, and stumbled upon a Wolf3D-style redrawn sailor by @SuperDave938:

https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?p=1242858#p1242858

 

It's just one frame, but perhaps @SuperDave938 would make the whole set?

[realjohnmadden]

1 hour ago, MrFlibble said:

I was just idly browsing ZDoom forums Spriting Carnival, and stumbled upon a Wolf3D-style redrawn sailor by @SuperDave938:

https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?p=1242858#p1242858

 

It's just one frame, but perhaps @SuperDave938 would make the whole set?

That could actually work if you made a whole set of sprites for it. If it's worth anything, I already have some original sprites for my own Freewolf project and could edit those into the sailor. (Of course, rotations exist, so it would require a lot of effort..)

[andrewj]

On 5/12/2024 at 7:24 PM, MrFlibble said:

I was just idly browsing ZDoom forums Spriting Carnival, and stumbled upon a Wolf3D-style redrawn sailor by @SuperDave938:

https://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?p=1242858#p1242858

Wow, that is kinda amazing, and kinda hilarious. I think I owe that dude a beer....

[WASFDDDDD]

On 5/12/2024 at 4:08 AM, realjohnmadden said:

That could actually work if you made a whole set of sprites for it. If it's worth anything, I already have some original sprites for my own Freewolf project and could edit those into the sailor. (Of course, rotations exist, so it would require a lot of effort..)

Personally I'd be very thankful if you did that

The Sailor is my favorite Freedoom enemy, he's just so funny :)