The Age of Hell: FPS game for GZDoom - DEMO OUT

[Bridgeburner56]

A new age is coming ...

            

                                     

 

DEMO IS HERE
https://hellforge-studios.itch.io/the-age-of-hell

The Age of Hell - A new FPS for GZDoom

The Age of Hell is a brand new fps game in the GZDoom engine. What started of as a solo project has become a massive collaborative effort to create with over 20 people bringing serious talent to help bring this to life. The idea is to create a massive set of hell themed maps across 6 episodes, each with their own unique theme and feel. The gameplay will be similar to classic doom, fast paced and action packed while taking advantage of modern coding to spice things up and add variety.

Featuring

• A full remake of the Doom 2 bestiary, all based on the original concepts but with a new spin.
• An all new set of holy themed weapons to blast back the hordes of hell.
• Weapons and monsters are all sprite based to retain the charm of the original aesthetics
• Six massive episodes released in 3 volumes, each with their own episode unique monsters including 2 boss encounters per episode.
• Massive, highly detailed maps made by some of the finest mappers ever to draw a line.
• A variety of themes including icy brutalism, ornate marble crypts, lovecraftian nightmare realms, diabolical tech and infernal gothic palaces.
• An all original, metal themed soundtrack
• Full utilisation of GZDoom's abilities with dynamic lighting, full 3d environments, modeled decorations and complex enemy actions. Blow up a zombie and watch its torso come after you!

 

Guest mappers

@elend
@CyanoBlugron
@Remmirath
@SiMpLeToNiUm

@Insane_Gazebo

@NoReason
@Liberation

@Aurelius

@Ravitex
@Guardsoul

@Bauul
@RonnieJamesDiner
@Danlex

@Guardsoul
@DMPhobos
@Major Arlene
 

Custom music from

@PRIMEVAL (lead composer)

@Eris Falling
@TheMisterCat
@HexenMapper
@azizbaker

 

New monsters and decorations by @TheMisterCat

Weapons by @Amuscaria
 

And my discord is now more of a general doom hub and place for people to gather. There's still project specific stuff there but it changed into something more akin to a pub. Feel free to jump in and keep up with progress on the project or just talk shit with the other denizens of The Hellforge

https://discord.gg/fp2espG

First official trailer

More action

Demo map gameplay

Pretty pictures because pretty

 

[Bridgeburner56]

Old attempts
 

Spoiler

Map 01 - The Beginning of the End of All Things to Come

Spoiler

 

Status - 95% complete. Some landscape tweaks mostly needed. I hate big blank walls.

Inspiration - Despite the map looking nothing like it, the concept was inspired by the beginning of Diablo 1. Wandering through seeming tranquility and finding something ... horrible. Also, XP and loot.

 

 

Map 02 - At the Gates (working title)

Spoiler

 

Status - 60% done? lots of game play to implement. 85% done now I'd say. Final key area/battle getting close to done then it's on to the final sequence where the landscape is largely complete just ... unpopulated. With a good push this level should be done this weekend. DONE (or close enough). This map turned into an absolute behemoth. Quite pleased with the end result. Proper play testing needed to balance ammo/mobs etc.

Inspiration - Nothing specific but the central temple area has become the focal point. The amount of effort in that area was high (1st screen shot). Originally you were going to enter the 'temple' pretty much straight away but I changed it so that end goal of this level was to get inside. That way it could be there, taunting you a bit as you attempted to gain entry.

 

Map 03 - The Twilight Hall

Spoiler

Status - Probably 40% done I'd say. Got off to a slow start on this one but I feel like I'm on a roll now. Pretty much finished to "prologue" section (which is longer than most normal levels) before you enter the titular area. Much like the way a Dream Theater song goes for 5 minutes before it really gets going.

Inspiration - More of a colour scheme than anything in particular. Going for lots of blue/grey textures (was partially inspired by Swim With the Whales) rather than the usual red/black scheme that I usually like to work with. Very pleased with the results so far. It has created quite an eerie atmosphere so far.

 

Map 04 - And Heavens Cried Blood

Spoiler

Status - Flying along after only 2 days of work. 33% complete. Done baby! I haven't fully playtested it the whole way through and I'll probably add in a little bit more eye candy but she is finished. Easiest map to make so far in terms of creative flow and not hitting any mental blocks.

Inspiration - So I have started incorporating some of my original maps now which definitely helps with things progressing fast. The original map idea was a central hub with a bunch of teleporters that took you to different areas until you open up a central teleporter to the end. Nothing terribly imaginative but not a bad starting idea. I've made that into one massive open area that is linked with the aforementioned teleporters but added in a lot of other elements to make the level bigger.

I was also planning trying to use techish textures to get away from my usual red/black/hell/gothic a little bit to mix things up. It was hard. I gave up and the level flowed out like ... blood

 

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Bridgeburner56

[Bridgeburner56]

Old attempts
 

Spoiler

Map 05 - Flesh Made Fire

Spoiler

Status - Just started. 5% Probably70% done at this point. This level has gotten way bigger than I anticipated but hey, it's fun. Hopefully I will get the penultimate area finished this weekend and then it's on to the final battle. Fortunately I'm pretty certain how I want it to go in a general way. Unfortunately it's all rather complicated.

Inspiration - This level will be based massively on one of my earlier levels. While Map 4 was loosely based on an earlier work, this one will essentially be an updated version of something I did 5 years ago. I played through the original and it was actually pretty good. I particularly enjoyed the overall layout and flow of the level. Quite convoluted without being a full on puzzle. I'm going to be posting before and after shots to compare the original work to what I finish up with which should be fun.

 

Map 08 - In the Halls of Awaiting

Spoiler

 

Status - Hard to say. 75%ish. This was the last thing i was working on before I stopped mapping last time and boy is it ... something. Over 110,000 sidedefs. Yeesh

Inspiration - The central building is based on an actual building that I built (I'm a construction site manager). This really helped with creating a cohesive setting. If nothing else I need to finish this map and get it released.

 

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Bridgeburner56

[Bridgeburner56]

Reserved for maps 9 - 12

[Bridgeburner56]

Reserved for maps 13 - 16

Edited March 19, 2018 by Bridgeburner56

[Bridgeburner56]

Reserved for maps 17 - 20

[Bridgeburner56]

Reserved for maps 21 - 24

[Bridgeburner56]

Reserved for maps 25 - 28

[Bridgeburner56]

Reserved for maps 29 - 32

Wow, you think I'll get this far?! HA

[Walter confetti]

Oh, is that amazing hell levels i've seen on post your doom picture thread! Good luck with your project!

[Merry Widow]

I completely agree with Walter.Amazing! Good luck from e as well. :D

[Bridgeburner56]

37 minutes ago, Walter confetti said:

Oh, is that amazing hell levels i've seen on post your doom picture thread! Good luck with your project!

Indeed it is. This is their new home. Tell your friends

4 minutes ago, grouchbag said:

I completely agree with Walter.Amazing! Good luck from e as well. :D

Thanks

[Bridgeburner56]

Tonight's work

[tmorrow]

Best of luck for your mammoth task. Those screenshots look dark and intimidating!

[Big Ol Billy]

Good luck dude, the megawad mountain is an imposing one. Screenshots look great and atmospheric, though you're really gonna have your work cut out for you if your goal is 32 large, highly-detailed maps. Hope you give yourself and the player a break from time to time by punctuating the set with some breather maps. Or follow your muse :)

[Catpho]

Ooooo, so you will be making an entire megawad out of the hell theme?

Hope you'll make it :)

[ReX]

Wow, those are some nice pictures!

 

One suggestion: In your first picture of the canyon-lands, the rock texture appears to be 128 units wide, and repeats itself in a manner that seems unnatural and detracts from the realism of that scene. Consider replacing that 128-wide texture with one that is 1024 or 2048 units wide.

[Pegleg]

I love the way the levels look so far. Keep it up!

 

9 hours ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

Map 01 - The Beginning of the End of All Things to Come

Awesome name for a first level of a Hell megawad.

 

9 hours ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

Map 08 - In the Halls of Awaiting

Inspiration - The central building is based on an actual building that I built (I'm a construction site manager). This really helped with creating a cohesive setting. If nothing else I need to finish this map and get it released.

Hopefully, it was only loosely based on the actual building that you built. Otherwise ... interesting client.

[nervewar]

Man, this is looking so dope. I like your Diablo inspiration. You're doing an excellent job capturing the feeling of HELL that's for sure. Every screen has a sense of evil to it. Can't wait to play this.

[Pure Hellspawn]

honestly, i love your mapping style. keep it up!

 

my one suggestion may be to release it in fragments if that helps (like Jenesis!)

 

very impressive.

[Ponqo]

thats some wicked architecture! good luck! :)

[Bridgeburner56]

15 hours ago, tmorrow said:

Best of luck for your mammoth task. Those screenshots look dark and intimidating!

Cheers. I will be needing a bit of luck to get all the way but I'm feeling pretty focused at the moment. 

12 hours ago, Big Ol Billy said:

Good luck dude, the megawad mountain is an imposing one. Screenshots look great and atmospheric, though you're really gonna have your work cut out for you if your goal is 32 large, highly-detailed maps. Hope you give yourself and the player a break from time to time by punctuating the set with some breather maps. Or follow your muse :)

I will be trying to vary the map game play style and to be honest, I'll need to make some smaller maps just to cut down the production time. 

12 hours ago, Catpho said:

Ooooo, so you will be making an entire megawad out of the hell theme?

Hope you'll make it :)

Gothic/hellscapes will be the general theme as I always enjoy that style to play. I'm going to make an effort to step outside my comfort zone a bit though. Thing large, natural outdoor areas on level 1 are not my usual forte but I'm generally pleased with the overall feel. I really like the scope of the canyon. It FEELS big. Especially with the multilevel play on the pillars (thanks 3d floors)

11 hours ago, ReX said:

Wow, those are some nice pictures!

 

One suggestion: In your first picture of the canyon-lands, the rock texture appears to be 128 units wide, and repeats itself in a manner that seems unnatural and detracts from the realism of that scene. Consider replacing that 128-wide texture with one that is 1024 or 2048 units wide.

Cheers. Those textures are 256 (I'll have to check) but I see your point and agree. I'll try find a longer natural sand stone texture but I don't have anything in my current library (5000 textures at the moment). If you know of any in realm667 or similar let me know.

10 hours ago, Pegleg said:

I love the way the levels look so far. Keep it up!

 

Awesome name for a first level of a Hell megawad.

 

Hopefully, it was only loosely based on the actual building that you built. Otherwise ... interesting client.

Ha. It was a new building for a retirement home so yeah, that's exactly what it looked like ;) The overall layout was kept fairly similar but the big thing I drew on was the indoor/outdoor flow. Historically I have made very linear maps (much less so now) and basing the design on a fairly complex real life structure with lots of different access points was really fun. Then trying to layer the game play over the top was an interesting challenge. Normally I do them in rolling wave fronts. Do architecture for a few rooms/areas and then start laying mobs and creating scripts. Then move on to the next few areas. But with this map I had the majority of the level architecture completed before I started looking at how you would flow through it. 

9 hours ago, nervewar said:

Man, this is looking so dope. I like your Diablo inspiration. You're doing an excellent job capturing the feeling of HELL that's for sure. Every screen has a sense of evil to it. Can't wait to play this.

I'll be drawing a bit more from various games as ideas, either in theme or in pure visuals. I don't have a problem with being slightly derivative (after all is there anything created that is truly unique?) as long as the finished product has it's own flavour. It's OK to be inspired.

 

Also, happy levels are boring

9 hours ago, Pure Hellspawn said:

honestly, i love your mapping style. keep it up!

 

my one suggestion may be to release it in fragments if that helps (like Jenesis!)

 

very impressive.

Thanks. I am planning on doing a staggered release. I'll update the time line projections as i get deeper in and get a sense of progress. Depending on how lon gthings take I'll try do a release very 5 levels. That way even if I get thoroughly side tracked then I'll still get something out for public consumption. Especially level 8. The world needs to see that.

3 hours ago, Ponqo said:

thats some wicked architecture! good luck! :)

Thanks mate.

[Bridgeburner56]

Came home from work and made this ... shrine to blue armour

[Catpho]

5 hours ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

Came home from work and made this ... shrine to blue armour

You gave romero a run for his money (compared to his green armor shrine!)

[ReX]

12 hours ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

Cheers. Those textures are 256 (I'll have to check) but I see your point and agree. I'll try find a longer natural sand stone texture but I don't have anything in my current library (5000 textures at the moment). If you know of any in realm667 or similar let me know.

Here is an example of a 2048 x 2048 sandstone-colored texture.

 

And here is one of a 1024 x 683 (wtf!) texture.

 

Do an image search for "tileable" or "seamless" rock textures.

[SuperArjunaButt]

Saw your screenshots on the WAD screenshot thread and have been really interested ever since.  I'm really looking forward to this!

[Pure Hellspawn]

this reminds me a little of bloodstain map29. which is one of my favorite hell maps by the way. the black marble faces - will you be using those?

["JL" was too short]

 

Regardless of how much or how little you end up releasing, I am going to play the shit out of this.

[General Rainbow Bacon]

This looks amazing!  Making that many hell maps interesting will be challenging.  I can see the Diablo inspiration here.  If you need ideas I've got plenty.

[Bridgeburner56]

Did some gameplay testing tonight. Slaughter ensued