Sunlust [on /idgames]

[Ribbiks]

thanks for the coop feedback, memfis! We don't play too much online so when we were testing MP we were thinking "well, shouldn't everyone get a powerup?", guess that was overkill :p We'll fix the bugs you mentioned, maybe tone down number of spheres.

Memfis said:

Just some tedious work suggestions for you guys. :P

not sure if I'll change all of these, but in the very least I agree the map06 lift should make a sound. that can be done easily by adding unseen switch textures as upper/lower or whatever. It is small stuff, but I'm of the opinion that if it's easy to do and will be considered an improvement, why not? I'll keep an eye out for this stuff while tuning up the maps. cheers :D

[darkreaver]

Yo, anyone have the BETA RC1? I wanna watch Memfis' FDAs

[Memfis]

Oh, I forgot to mention that on Map07 there is also a stuck multiplayer cyberdemon on the exit portal. Cyberdemon height is 110 (I wonder how many people know this), while the sector is 104 high.

And can you please share the fixed palette ASAP? Quite a few people want these maps to be brighter.

edit: to darkreaver - http://speedy.sh/Tm72G/sunlust-betaR1.zip
I think only Map02 is different from RC2 (fixed SSG room) but maybe not.

[Rez]

Just so you know, some maps (02, 04 so far) segviol in BOOM in plain DOS.

Gorgeous to look at, a trifle overwhelming to play. ;)

[Ribbiks]

@Rez: indeed! I was made aware. I should really stop using the phrase "boom-compatible" and just say "tested in prb+" :p

@Memfis: I have a corrected wad laying around, it fixes the palette, but not any of the maps we're currently editing for bug-fixes / gameplay/visual improvements, etc.. Maybe I could post that? I feel like it could get messy with so many beta versions. I'll call it... 2b.. or something. I'll run through it soon and make sure I didn't inadvertently fuck something else up while making the fixes...

[Octavarium]

Nothing useful in this post, just felt I had to proclaim Sunlust as quite possibly the funnest damn level set I've played in some time. I think I may have had a small stroke upon seeing the Scrolling Green Soul Mountain of Doom in map 28... just wonderful. Getting my ass kicked pretty hard, but still thanks for making this, both of you guys :D

[Pottus]

This was pretty hardcore playing complex survival today on this WAD thing that stood out though was lighting seems really bland not enough gradient light levels. It seems this is always a problem with a lot of releases these days and it really messes your depth perception when playing not not mention making the environment plain.

[Ribbiks]

Here's betaR3:

- fixed palette: maps should be slightly brighter. automap colors normal again. no more spectre glitch (sorry to those who liked the effect -.-)
- made death-exits more robust. they should work now even with iddqd. hopefully this also solves whatever weird bug AB was encountering...
- coop bug-fixes to 05, 07
- minor balancing and/or bugfixes to 03, 05, 06, 08, 12, 14, 22, 27, 28, 31
- map20 recolored a bit

We didn't hit all the bugs/complaints listed yet, still have a lengthy todo list. But releasing this now primarily so people don't have to play with the borked palette anymore.

DOWNLOAD: Sunlust [Beta R3]

[Tarnsman]

Ribbiks said:

no more spectre glitch (sorry for the those who liked the effect -.-)

YOU'RE DEAD TO ME RIBBIKS! YOU HEAR ME? DEAD. TO. ME.

[esselfortium]

I notice that the brightened colormap in R3 even changes the top row (i.e. the original, fullbright shade of each color), which in some cases (most noticeably with the second purple, which has disappeared completely and been merged with an adjacent purple) leads to fidelity loss. There might be another way to achieve a similar subtle-brightening effect without that kind of problem: Two that possibilities come to mind are that you could create a new colormap with a different, nonlinear gradient, or you could revert the colormap and do a brightness/contrast adjustment on the palette itself.

[DeletedUser]

I think you fucked up MAP17 and MAP24, their isn't any exit defined at all when checking in Doombuilder.

[tourniquet]

Heh dunno about map24 but 17 has a death exit.

I'm still on my way trough this, damn so much enjoyment. I think the hardest thing is to determine which maps i liked the most so far cause they're all bloody fantastic.

[SFoZ911]

It is possible to collect the health bonus in the lava on MAP04?

[j4rio]

"FDAs" for B2, maps 1-10 on UV

I remembered those maps a bit from back then, so some are not exactly FDAs, except those ones that were newly additions.

https://www.mediafire.com/?p42544jbv1tmb4h

[Demonologist]

Ribbiks said:

- map20 recolored a bit

Ha, I was just about to say that it ends the red theme too abruptly without anything following the same aesthetic creed. Nice.

[billbuckner]

The "cage" trap in MAP05 can get spoiled by the player reaching it before he fires a shot. This actually seems somewhat likely since it's like five seconds directly in front of the player start.

[Memfis]

I think maybe that's how you're supposed to start this map. Don't shoot for some time, pick up the SSG, the RL and only then begin fighting. There are other silent strategies in the wad, like on Map08 in the cyberdemon room obviously you need to provoke infightings without firing a shot.

[Ribbiks]

Bloodite Krypto said:

I think you fucked up MAP17 and MAP24, their isn't any exit defined at all when checking in Doombuilder.

they're impossible to miss if you actually play the maps :p

[Touchdown]

dannebubinga said:

Touchdown: What was weak about the maps? The design, theme or gameplay? Just curious if there's anything we could do about it.

Ribbiks asked me about it via PM so I'm sure he'll share my impressions with you (if he hasn't done so already). But overally, I felt they were underdetailed in comparison to other maps. Pretty standard visuals, while the rest of the levels were mindblowing.

[Steve D]

Map02 – Kills – 99, Items – 100, Secret – 66. End Health – 178, Armor 120. Death Count – 5. Bullets – 97, Shells – 39, Rockets – 0, Cells – 160

Okay, so now I have to start counting my deaths. I liked this map way more than Map01, possibly because it's a really sweet-looking environment. The fiery orange trim looked great against all the Medieval brick.

Not too hard, with only 5 deaths in a Ribbiks/danne map. Almost welcoming, really. The hardest part was the first Archie fight, where I died 3 times thanks to getting flanked by Cacos and Sergeants. I lucked out on my 4th try because Archie wandered into a side-passage and got stuck in the curve, so I was able to kill everything before I tracked him down and enjoyed a straightforward SSG exercise.

After this, it was ammo-starvation time as I kept running out of ammo trying to outflank Imps and a Manc, before I decided to open a save and charge ahead up the stairs, somehow finding just enough shells to keep going, before I'm waylaid by Cacos, Lost Souls and a PE after grabbing the blue key. I tried to outflank and fight them with my meager supplies, only to get hit from behind by sniper Imps I wasn't able to kill earlier owing to lack of ammo. I was at only 18 health when I got fireballed. But now I knew how this event played out, so on my next go, I grabbed the RL, rocketed the Imps that killed me before, and ran straight for the Blue Armor secret – which I'd found before but I lost so much health to the hitscanners that I opened a save and continued without it -- then came back down to kill everything else. BTW, I think it was cruel to make the opening to the hitscanners that shoot you when you grab the Blue Armor too narrow to get through. That's ultra-valuable ammo in there, and it's a Romero's Rule Violation to keep it away from us! ;)

The rest of the map was easy because now I had some ammo, at least after the gentle red key trap. But weird things happened. I played on GZDoom, and after I killed everything guarding the Soulsphere my enemy counter showed 120/123. After I pressed the red switch, 2 Revvies and a PE appeared, so I said to myself, “I got this,” then all of a sudden where does that fucking Archie come from, and shit, there's a bunch more Revvies. What is this, monsters from the 4th Dimension? The fight was still easy, just jump off the platform and “Rockets away!” After I finished the map I opened it again, and at the very start, the monster counter clicks from 0/103 to 19/103. I haven't even moved and 19 monsters die? Wazzup with that?

That oddity aside, real nice map. I enjoyed it. I will say that so far I'm not so sure about the music. It's okay, but I'd prefer something more menacing and less like walking your cute dog in the park.

BTW, I reckon there's a secret Plasma Gun I didn't find, owing to that big cell charge pack at the end.

[Keyboard_Doomer]

Concerning the coop (in)compatibility there's a one-time red door in map13 that gets closed after you cross a certain walk-over line. As far as I can tell there is no way to bypass the closed door to get inside the room which means the map gets stuck if all the players inside die before reaching the walk-over line that opens the door again.

[Memfis]

Yeah, we noticed that Map13 issue today. Luckily, Plut was able to survive and open the door for us. :) However, I encountered another problem shortly after, when I jumped down and ended up here: http://i.imgur.com/HTJ2zfp.png With some SR50 squeezing I got out of there but for a few seconds it looked like I was stuck. So yeah, you might want to move one of the vertices there.

edit: Fuck, I hate image auto-embedding.

[stewboy]

I can find only two music tracks by me in this wad. This is unacceptably low! Would you like any more? :P

[Ribbiks]

@memfis/kb_d: good finds! We shall fix.

SteveD said:

at the very start, the monster counter clicks from 0/103 to 19/103. I haven't even moved and 19 monsters die? Wazzup with that?

Indeed! there's a closet that kills a bunch of mobs and then teles them into spots where AVs can rez them. You'll encounter this again (much) later in the set..

stewboy said:

I can find only two music tracks by me in this wad. This is unacceptably low! Would you like any more? :P

ooooh. there are a couple maps that I'm not completely sold on our current midi choice, so I welcome any suggestions for music in maps: 16, 22, 26, 27. Or others if you had anything in mind. Sure :D

[SyntherAugustus]

What's going on in MAP08? The Cybie telefrag portal is available then unavailable. Also, ammo was a bit tight for pistol starting. I can make a video if needed.

[Steve D]

Map03 – Kills – 100, Items – 92, Secret – 40. End Health – 100, Armor 0. Death Count – 16. Bullets – 60, Shells – 70, Rockets – 1, Cells – 0

Ah, so now the merciless bitchslapping begins. I survived the first trap anyway. Arachnotron in front, Chaingunners in back. This is the first of several Chaingunner(s)-behind-you traps which prove that Ribbiks and danne never read “How To Make Friends And Influence People.” And that's a good thing, because Doom is more fun to play when mappers have a real mean jagoff streak inside them. And you have a good idea that the mean jagoff streak belongs to Ribbiks, based on the music choice as much as the overall style. This is the kind of track I associate with Ribbiks maps, a sweet, even beautiful melody that provides a pleasant background as horrendously awful things are done to you.

So shit gets real in this map. I died by hitscanner, by Imp, by Revvie – a lot! – and by generous applications of my own stupidity.

Things were going along fairly well until I grabbed a Soulsphere and teleported into Keyboarder Hell. Dark as fuck, 4 PGs, Hell Nobles doing an in-place cha-cha; me praying they were Hell Knights and not Barons; shadowy figures at the periphery. This is a tough crowd.

A good chunk of my deaths occurred here. This reminded me of something Dobu might do to us. But even as I kept dying, I never got frustrated. First, the room was gorgeous. Second, it eventually occurred to me that the best idea is to go straight after those Revvies in the corners rather than trying to provoke infights by using the HKs as meat shields. Once that strategy penetrated the substrata of my brain, it only took me 3 tries to prevail.

The next really notable battle was the blue switch trap. Most of the rest of my deaths occurred here. Dang, but that was a flood of Imp meat, plus the PE and the HK. And if you weren't careful you'd fall into the boiling lava. This was a really fun battle to view from the standpoint of a corpse on the floor.

I eventually saw how to reach the Rocket Launcher secret after the blue switch/yellow key fight. Damn, that was ass-backwards timing! ;D Of course, I died twice trying to secure my prize as well. The only other secret I found was a couple rockets and stimpacks reached by jumping from a Manc platform.

Of course, we shouldn't forget the dickish spam-in-a-can blue key trap, though spotting the switch as I died helped a lot the next time I tried it.

All in all, this is a map with great height variation, beautifully detailed architecture, and some really nasty traps. I fucking loved it!

@Ribbiks; thanks for the explanation of the Map02 trick. Something tells me that the next time I encounter it will be far more painful. ;)

[Rez]

SteveD said:

Things were going along fairly well until I grabbed a Soulsphere and teleported into Keyboarder Hell. Dark as fuck, 4 PGs, Hell Nobles doing an in-place cha-cha; me praying they were Hell Knights and not Barons; shadowy figures at the periphery. This is a tough crowd.

Ah, the arena with the revenant cornermen? First time I made the mistake of shooting someone... my last mistake as they danced on my corpse. Next time I maintained silence, and got the HKs to piss off everyone else... first all the imps, then the revs one at a time. In the end I was left with one live revenant and very sore feet, but up til then hadn't fired a single shot. Clever little room.

[tourniquet]

Almost forgot a thing. Got stuck whilst hunting for secrets in Map17, wasn't able to reproduce it a second time but apparently it's possible to fall down into this gap. It's pretty close to the BFG secret.

[Steve D]

Rez said:

Ah, the arena with the revenant cornermen? First time I made the mistake of shooting someone... my last mistake as they danced on my corpse. Next time I maintained silence, and got the HKs to piss off everyone else...

Yep, that's the room. I'm too much of a spazz to do it the way you did, so I had to go after the Revvies and kill them as fast as I could. ;D

[tourniquet]

Found a dumb cheese strat for the map20 caco swarm. If you go back into the RK building you've got a harmless shooting gallery, seems like they're not able to get in.
Dunno, perhaps locking this section once you got the key might be a good idea.