Switcheroom: Official Release (now on /idgames!)

[Magnusblitz]

>>> IDGAMES LINK: Switcheroom <<<

>>> DOWNLOAD HERE: Switcheroom <<<

Upload changelog:

Spoiler

- 10/27: new E1M8 (and E1 intermission text), fixed E1M7, E4M2 tuittis, E3M6 sector size issue, added MAPINFO
- 10/21: fixed E4M2 (VPOs in thumb, secret door error)
- 10/20: Fixed demos, fixed harmless error in E2M5
- 10/19: fixed E3M7 secret, updated authors.txt
- 10/19: fixed E3M4 (old, buggy version included)

Back in late February 2013, Death Egg was playing around with the idea of re-imagining the original Doom levels as if they had originally appeared in different episodes. He kicked it off with a remake of E1M1 as an E3 Hell map, and it soon spun into a full-fledged community project. Death Egg unfortunately had to bow out of running the project, leaving it in the hands of Jaws in Space and myself. The end result: a replacement megawad centered around the idea of taking the IWAD layouts and rebuilding them from scratch as levels in different episodes, tweaking them as needed but still leaving the levels recognizably intact as the original layouts.

Over a year and a half later, we've finally been able to put together the complete set. The previous release had some maps that ran amok of the /idgames archive rules, and those problem maps have been fixed or replaced to meet muster - hat tip to Ty Halderman for working with us to get those up to snuff.

Switcheroom is a full four-episode/36-map replacement for the Ultimate Doom. It is intended for vanilla compatibility and should run with any source port. A DeHacked file is included for minimap titles and intermission text. There's also some demos included (if you want to laugh at what a mouse-user forced to use a keyboard plays like).




MAPLIST:

Spoiler

E1M1: E3M1 - Phobos Spaceport [Traversd]
E1M2: E4M2 - The Reactor [Traversd]
E1M3: E3M3 - Computer Lab [Jaws in Space] (Secret Exit)
E1M4: E4M4 - Sladwall Inc. [Saliva]
E1M5: E2M5 - Headquarters [Fernito]
E1M6: E4M6 - Against Thee Processing [Traversd]
E1M7: E3M7 - Transport Station [gothic]
E1M8: E2M8 - Gomorrah [Traversd]
E1M9: E2M9 - Abandoned Outpost [Traversd]

E2M1: E4M1 - Excavation [Traversd]
E2M2: E1M2 - Supply Overflow [schwerpunk]
E2M3: E1M3 - Bio Processing [Icytux]
E2M4: E3M4 - Mainframe Grid [Magnusblitz]
E2M5: E4M5 - Radiation Zone [SteveD] (Secret Exit)
E2M6: E3M6 - Bunker [Jaws in Space]
E2M7: E4M7 - Hell Is Coming [scifista42]
E2M8: E3M8 - Eridu [Death Egg]
E2M9: E3M9 - Deimos Spaceport [Traversd]

E3M1: E1M1 - The Baleful Fluids [Death Egg]
E3M2: E2M2 - Echo Of Pain [C30N9]
E3M3: E4M3 - Phlegethon [Magnusblitz]
E3M4: E1M4 - Hysteria [Jaws In Space & Tourniquet}
E3M5: E1M5 - Temple Of Demons [ShadesMaster]
E3M6: E1M6 - Mt. Terror [gothic] (Secret Exit)
E3M7: E1M7 - Bloody Premonition [scifista42]
E3M8: E4M8 - Abomination [Magnusblitz]
E3M9: E4M9 - Dread [Magnusblitz]

E4M1: E2M1 - They That Dwell Within [Megalyth]
E4M2: E3M2 - Their Torment Ascendeth [Magnusblitz] (Secret Exit)
E4M3: E2M3 - Instruments Of Cruelty [scifista42]
E4M4: E2M4 - House Of The Wicked [walter confalonieri]
E4M5: E3M5 - Burn Them Thoroughly [Jaws In Space & Magnusblitz]
E4M6: E2M6 - And Death Shall Flee [Death Egg]
E4M7: E2M7 - Evil Is Before You [gothic]
E4M8: E1M8 - Run To Evil [Memfis]
E4M9: E1M9 - Hate [EvilNed]

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the project, either through mapping (even if your map wasn't included in the final product), playtesting, advice/criticism-giving, or simply being a fan and looking forward to this.

[Xegethra]

This looks quite interesting. Should be fun to explore.

[EffinghamHuffnagel]

The download link points to a zip file. It's actually a rar file.

[Xegethra]

Really? I got a zip file.

http://puu.sh/cgN9s/f223679dcd.png

Unless you mean that's the thing, looks zip but isn't.

[xvertigox]

EffinghamHuffnagel said:

The download link points to a zip file. It's actually a rar file.

Thanks. I thought the download might be broken but once I renamed it to a rar file I was able to open it.

[Magnusblitz]

EffinghamHuffnagel said:

The download link points to a zip file. It's actually a rar file.

Yeah, I think I accidently made it as a .rar file first and changed the extension incorrectly. I've re-uploaded it (creating it as a .zip file) and changed the link, hopefully that should work. Sorry about that.

[tourniquet]

Nice it's finally done, congrats.

[scifista42]

The concept is nice, mapping for it was fun too, and the project turns out rather well, okay for a D1 wad.

In short - congrats. :)

[Walter confetti]

finally! I'll download it later...

[Jaws In Space]

Well if you haven't uploaded it yet here are the updated text files with all of the new information. I did find time to at least get this done.

http://www.solidfiles.com/d/c84a1a8d9d/Switche.txt
http://www.solidfiles.com/d/bf0430d27d/Authors.txt

[Suitepee]

At last, Switcheroom is FINALLY ready to play!

Now to decide whether to LP it or livestream it after I finish Going Down...

[Magnusblitz]

Jaws In Space said:

Well if you haven't uploaded it yet here are the updated text files with all of the new information. I did find time to at least get this done.

http://www.solidfiles.com/d/c84a1a8d9d/Switche.txt
http://www.solidfiles.com/d/bf0430d27d/Authors.txt

I updated them myself, but you might have some info/comments I didn't, so I'll take a look and combine them for the final upload.

Suitepee said:

At last, Switcheroom is FINALLY ready to play!

Now to decide whether to LP it or livestream it after I finish Going Down...

Hope you enjoy it! Looking forward to your playthrough.

[Lingyan203]

I can't wait to start a playthrough of this! Except that E3M4 has a HOM effect in the room to the right of the start where in the original E1M4 has a staircase connecting to the circular centre of the room. That has been removed in E3M4 in which there's a HOM effect.

[tourniquet]

What version of E3M4 is this at all?

[scifista42]

Hey, Jaws In Space! A while back, you made some edits to my map E3M7 and it prevented the RL secret area to be accessible, at least seemingly. I've told you about it, I think it was about half a year ago, in the bugfixing thread, while you've still been in the process of making changes. The area still seems inaccessible it this release. Did you fix it in a way that I cannot figure out, or did you not fix it at all?

[Lingyan203]

Uh, the one in this release of the wad in this thread.

[Magnusblitz]

(double post)

[Magnusblitz]

LingtheDoomGuy said:

I can't wait to start a playthrough of this! Except that E3M4 has a HOM effect in the room to the right of the start where in the original E1M4 has a staircase connecting to the circular centre of the room. That has been removed in E3M4 in which there's a HOM effect.

tourniquet said:

What version of E3M4 is this at all?

Egads. Looks like Jaws accidently included a much older version of E3M4 (that still has the entire map rotated 90 degrees, as well as the horrible HOM corridor and such). Tourniquet, I have a version of your map from June 28, I'll add that one in but let me know if you have a more recent version. I've also updated the authors.txt file as well.

scifista42 said:

Hey, Jaws In Space! A while back, you made some edits to my map E3M7 and it prevented the RL secret area to be accessible, at least seemingly. I've told you about it, I think it was about half a year ago, in the bugfixing thread, while you've still been in the process of making changes. The area still seems inaccessible it this release. Did you fix it in a way that I cannot figure out, or did you not fix it at all?

I'll wait and see if Jaws makes a response, but if not, I'll fix it myself and re-upload.

(Okay, looking in DB2... looks like the wall that lowers for the teleporter has a tag that nothing activates. Let me know where you want to have the switch be and I'll fix it)

[tourniquet]

Magnusblitz said:

I have a version of your map from June 28, I'll add that one in but let me know if you have a more recent version.

That version from june is the recent one.

[scifista42]

Magnusblitz said:

(Okay, looking in DB2... looks like the wall that lowers for the teleporter has a tag that nothing activates. Let me know where you want to have the switch be and I'll fix it)

Onto the door itself - but not a switch texture. Perhaps a different sort of marble instead.

[Magnusblitz]

scifista42 said:

Onto the door itself - but not a switch texture. Perhaps a different sort of marble instead.

So just to verify - you want this linedef to be a (secret) door?

[scifista42]

Yes - like it is in the original E1M7.

Spoiler

My map originally had a remotely opened door where the other nearby bloodfall is (near the radsuit pedestal, where the soulsphere is in E1M7). Opening the door caused opening this secret as well. Jaws In Space removed the door and the action controlling it.

Of course, it was an awkward design choice by myself, and not the only one in this map.

[mouldy]

This was a pretty cool concept when I played through an old beta back in January, I'm curious how much it has changed since then..

[Magnusblitz]

Ok, got E3M7 fixed up for ya, scifista.

mouldy said:

This was a pretty cool concept when I played through an old beta back in January, I'm curious how much it has changed since then..

Well, compared to the beta we had from march, some maps have been replaced entirely (E1M1, E1M2, E1M8, E2M5, E2M9, E3M9) and others have gotten facelifts (E2M7, E3M4, E4M5). Might be some other fixes as well, but those are the main ones I can think of.

[mouldy]

Wow, e2m5 yellow key trap..

But yeah this is really cool, good work. Been racing through it having fun spotting the switcheroos, the only one that I didnt get so far is e1m1.

[Magnusblitz]

Yeah, I admittedly am not a fan of E1M1. That mapslot went through a lot of iterations, though, and Jaws ended up replacing it a bit late in the game with one of Traversd's. One of the problems was that E2M9 is a Warrens-style copy of E1M1, so remaking it would require remaking two maps. I pushed for Doomkid92's E1M1 to stay, even though it leaned a bit too much to being a mashup, because I think Traversd's, while it doesn't have the problem of having too many E1M1 homages, also isn't immediately recognizable as E3M1. Ah well. In his defense, E3M1 is a pretty lame base map to work with.

Glad you're enjoying it. And you can thank Steve D for that E2M5 trap.

[Doomkid]

36 maps by 19 authors - It really is quite an achievement. I've seen a lot of bashing of community projects going on lately which leads me to believe people don't realize how hard it is to coordinate so much shit.

I'm glad you guys got this out the door, looking forward to the idgames link. Any word on the reject episode?

[frithiof]

I've only played a little bit of this so far, but I like it. :)

I like how it makes the levels different, while still being familiar.

And the slightly increased difficulty is nice. It's like Ultimate Doom 2.0...

[Magnusblitz]

Doomkid said:

Any word on the reject episode?

People do keep asking for it, so I'll try and gather the ones I can find (hopefully the links are still active in the old thread) and just slap 'em together in a WAD. There's a lot of shared map slots though, so I'll have to probably assign them to other slots they weren't originally in.

[AD_79]

Enjoying this WAD so far, I like the idea behind it.

I also got a kinda crappy E1M1 UV-Speed demo:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/106557511/swtche1m1.lmp