Non-Violent Free Mods...

[kwinterling]

I guess I sort of always liked the idea of something like Chex Quest (my parents let me play it when I was a kid, but not Doom). I thought a similar cartoonish and non-violent BSD'd mod could broaden Doom's appeal among younger players and people who don't like gore or hell themes.

Any ideas?

[wesleyjohnson]

I think there is a much better market now for less-violent games.
A little hard to have good play using a doom engine, as they are pretty much shooting oriented.
Most attempts to do this require changing the engine.
I have another project that is working along those lines (not public).

From what I know of Legacy capabilities;
- use dehacked mods to change
- - the weapon characteristics
- - the weapon names
- - the text for most of the responses
- make your own pwad
- - new textures
- - change the gory bodies to something oriented to your game
- - can still use most of the flats and textures as they are pretty
much generic
- - change the sprites
- - - but they are somewhat restricted to what the doom engine has
for their weapons and behavior
- make your own iwad
- - can then change all the textures to be specific

[kwinterling]

ZDoom runs the Chex Quest 3 iwad correctly (i.e., correct messages and weapon behavior) without modification and Newmaps runs on Legacy. It may involve a little more work to get low-resource ports like Chocolate Doom to fully support a new iwad, though.

Some authors would probably release cartoonish or psychedelic textures under the BSD if they're asked to (although there's always the problem of ensuring the textures are completely original work).

[phi108]

I guess I'll postt a list of weird "Non Violent" mods I can think of, not all of them with exactly Doom gameplay.

-Chibi Rebellion: Star Wars Hoth (EDIT: I mean, NotHoth) shooter in ZDoom, no gory stuff though. EDIT: Except for...decapitation? Or flying helmets, whatever. EDIT: They're just helmets
-Sonic Robo Blast 2
-Blocks of Doom? Is that the name? Some puzzle thing. Can't quite remember. I'll lump all other puzzle mods into this bullet as well.
-Is that new "Breadmonster Invasion" for ZDoom bloody and violent, or more mild?
-Exterminator weapon mod might qualify, if the lizards didn't bleed so much. They're pretty cartoony. But you still use guns though.
-Isle's in-development "Solitare in Doom", everyone eagerly awaiting it's release....
-Cacodemon asteroids would be, if the cacodemons looked like asteroids.

I can't think of any more. Anything else?

EDIT: I see this is in the Freedoom forum. I guess my post might still be relevant...?

[kwinterling]

The point is that nobody (including higher animals) dies or gets injured. So this would include sending aliens back to their planet, non-sentient robots or holograms, puzzles, etc.

[Malinku]

Monopoly
when its done.

and also that one bowling mod but i forgot the name.

[wesleyjohnson]

Considering what can be done with FreeDoom and an engine like Legacy or ZDoom, then ..

1. Not killing any sentient being or animal.
The shooting (and killing) is built into the engine.
- Change all shooting targets to something not sentient.
a. robots
b. objects
- Change the "dead" graphic to something that is not "dead".
This can be done in a pwad, or iwad.
a. transport somewhere else, last "dead" graphic is left blank.
b. captured into a fixed form (fixed because animation stops)
c. transformed into something like a plant.

2. Change weapons to non-lethal
Change the sprite graphics for weapons to fire something else.
Missiles can become sticky balls, or tazers, or something else.

3. Change the blood splats to something less bloody.
Could be Sparkles, and let the last one be a blank.

[the_lurker]

IIRC, Foreverhood was non violent. But the real question is what kid doesn't want excessive violence in his/her games?

[kwinterling]

True, but how can we convince people to make freedoom ubiquitous on, say, school computers.

(This paragraph is not legal advice and I'm not an attorney) Just so everyone understands, a "free" WAD needs to be redistributable for commercial purposes, so each contributor must agree to allow unlimited commercial distribution. A big problem with non-commercial use clauses is that the WAD cannot be "sold" even if the price only covers the cost of distribution, profits are donated to a tax-exempt charity, etc. Non-commercial clauses allow the author to demand (sometimes pretty high) royalties for commercial distribution, so it may be hard to convince certain sprite or texture authors.

[wesleyjohnson]

I sense an enormous leap in thought between FreeDoom, and having it on school computers, that you will have to be much more explicit about.
I doubt that any of the FreeDoom members consider school computers a possible target for this project. It is very much dependent upon personal tastes and only meant for individuals with a taste for Doom.

I can see were such a game could be useful in school teaching, but it would not be Doom (nor FreeDoom). That is where you need to design a game concept that would work in that environment.

To be useful in school (I have written software for school use) you will
likely have to modify the engine heavily to include some other kind of interactions and a entirely different scoring system. It will have to keep track of individual students, keep them from using other students names, report results to the teachers, and incorporate some way to change the lesson under teacher control.

[wesleyjohnson]

The thought has struck me that this thread does have some relevance to FreeDoom design. I understand the gory nature of the original game but still find some of the casual decoration gore in some of the levels to be excessive. There are a number of twitching decorations that should be reserved for the foulest corner of the level. Some level designs seem to have them scattered everywhere like they were lampposts. Doom is heavy into gore, but the level design should not descend into gore insensitivity. Too much spoils the game because it becomes something like the rudest kid in class doing gross things just for the sense of control he has in making the others feel disgusted.

[kwinterling]

Okay, then, summer camp computers.