Deathless - v1.1 out.

[Jimmy]

 

Name: Deathless (v1.1)
Map Format: Vanilla Doom
Ports Tested: Crispy Doom 5.3, Doom Retro 2.7.5, PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, Eternity 3.40.48, GZDoom 3.6.0, Zandronum 3.0, ZDaemon 1.10.06
IWAD: The Ultimate Doom
Map(s): E1M1-M9, E2M1-M9, E3M1-M9, E4M1-M9 (Griefless is included)
Par Time(s): None set
Music: doom.wad and doom2.wad
Gameplay: Single play/co-op
Difficulty Settings: Yes
Multiplayer Placement: Yes!
Build Time: Nov 1st-10th for first RC, rest of month for testing/fixing
Textures: doom2.wad and various other sources (see credits below)
Requirements: No jumping or crouching (enforced). Freelook allowed.

Deathless is hereby officially final and released. And officially sanctioned by Bethesda.

An interview they conducted with me can be read here!

 

v1.1, a version featuring mostly map changes and improvements done for the Bethesda port, is out.

 

Download "Deathless" v1.1:

/idgames Mirror - v1.1 link still to come.

Dropbox Mirror

Powerhouse Mirror

 

Old downloads:

v1.0 (Powerhouse Mirror)

 

Griefless got an expansion.

 

As with that set, I condensed the process of creating it into the slimmest timeframe I possibly could. The 27 layouts for the three new episodes were first blocked out starting midnight 1st Nov. The 27th map was thingplaced and balanced at about midnight 10th Nov, so the total build time for this is nine days.

 

Big thanks to @Ryath for organizing "NaNoWADMo" and giving me an excuse to be a bastard by pulling crap like this out of the ether in substantially less than the month that was allotted.

 

The last nine days have been a weird, weird blur. If I had a social or work life, they'd be in tatters at this point. Do not recommend. <:D

 

Once again, a limit-removing port is recommended. Chocolate Doom may not handle some of these maps, and is completely untested.

Crispy Doom is most highly recommended.

 

There's probably a few problems still - please report them!

 

Credits for resources:

doom2.wad (extra textures)

@Fuzzball (E2 + E4 sky, new graphics and sprites from Griefless)
@Simon666 (E3 sky)
@ItsNatureToDie (MARBCYB*, new SLAD falls)
@Vader (ASH edits, new doors in E1M9)

 

Screenshots (monsterless):

 

Maplist:

"Lifeless"

E1M1: Contagion
E1M2: Laid to Rust
E1M3: Sluice Gate
E1M4: Underflow
E1M5: Outage
E1M6: Burial Ground
E1M7: Mainstay
E1M8: Embolon
E1M9: Gods

 

"Ruthless"

E2M1: Hydroelectrics
E2M2: Snake Alley
E2M3: Greenhouse
E2M4: Virulent
E2M5: Repugnant Gardens
E2M6: The Mad Mistress
E2M7: City of Coal
E2M8: Dukes
E2M9: Slain

 

"Deathless"

E3M1: Open Wound
E3M2: Salted Earth
E3M3: Forlorn Morgue
E3M4: Vestibule
E3M5: Soul Drinker
E3M6: Dire Prayers
E3M7: Wormwood Cathedral
E3M8: Ire
E3M9: The Wastes

 

"Griefless"

E4M1: Inhuman Remains
E4M2: Fetid Site
E4M3: Corroded
E4M4: Incision
E4M5: Serene Shadows
E4M6: Vertigo
E4M7: Sea of Entrails
E4M8: Desecrators
E4M9: Under

Edited May 25, 2020 by Jimmy
v1.1 release!

[Terminus]

You absolute madman.

I'll find time to play this sometime soon. :P

[Fuzzball]

Le gasp!

[SOSU]

>Makes 27 maps in 9 days

>The maps are limit removing

The fuck.

Anyways looks really cool!I will be playing it later :D

[Dragonfly]

You fucking champion Jimmy. Give this man a crown, he's earned it!

 

Well done; the screenshots look great, and it's been great fun (albeit quick and surprisingly short-lived) keeping tabs on your progress on the NaNoWADMo discord server. I'll be sure to play these on stream some time once I'm done with developing Eviternity!

 

Go get some well earned rest. :)
 

[AD_79]

Hey look it's only the ninth (or tenth for you), you have loads of time to make a second one, maybe a Doom 2 megawad even!!

 

Congrats on the release, that's a ridiculously impressive pace.

[VanaheimRanger]

So, I guess Jimmy has won NaNoWADMo...it was a competition, right?

[Loud Silence]

Looks damn impressive. Huge respect and biggest Thank You for making this wad, Jimmy.

[Deadwing]

E1 playthrough (it'll be avaliable in 1 hour):

 

 

As expected, really fun and solid experience. You can't go wrong with this. Textures and details are really well done especially for a speed-megawad haha :D Some levels even have a nice use of gimmicks and concepts.  For the episode itself, I liked how the Doom 2 textures were included, it's refreshing for an Ultimate Doom wad, same for using hell textures and using LS and Caco's before than expected. Lots of rocket usage on later maps, which I love!

Edited November 9, 2018 by Deadwing

[Csonicgo]

Well,I know what I'll be playing this weekend.

[Breezeep]

[MAPPING AT INCREDIBLY HIGH SPEEDS]

[Steve D]

Holy speed-demon, Batman! Takes me days to make a single room, by which time Jimmy does a complete megawad. I bow to the master. :)

 

Now i gotta find time to play it!

 

Btw, that E1 sky looks so damn sexy.

 

 

[Sparktimus]

Jesus. An entire UD wad in just over a week. You're a machine, Jimmy.

[Fonze]

It's astonishing that 27 maps of this quality and with variety in their design can be made in just 9 days; impressive show of mapping chops and creativity!

 

This is a reposting of my thoughts from the discord:

 

Quote

It's impressive how well this turned out with such a small dev time, as well as the variety of ideas used thus far. Can't say the darkness stuff were my favorite parts but I like that they were included even if just for variety's sake, though I found them fun anyway.
While I liked the combat overall for prioritizing fun, I think some places, especially the more climactic ones, could have used just a couple more enemies, both for pressure and for a bit more meat to quickly blast through. More rockets would have been welcome overall for more visceral fun blasting stuff.
I missed m9 on the first run because I totally forgot to even look for it until like 2 maps later when I looked at the m# and was like "I totally passed that," but for my thoughts on that... you sure got me ;D 

 

And a couple playthrough videos:

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2018 by Fonze

[elend]

Amazing, I still can't wrap my head around that whole "a megawad in a month" thing. Fantastic work.

[Mechadon]

Griefless was a ton of fun, but I didn't realize you were turning it into a megawad!  Or a one month one on top of that...or not even a month, wow.  Amazing job!  I'll have to set aside time to play the whole thing now :D

[Danlex]

Megawad in 9 days. Mindblowing!

Good job!

[Crunchynut44]

Far out Jimmy you are a legend. Can't wait to play this!

[FearTheReaper]

Suprisingly, this looks exceptionally fine with

 

[Touchdown]

Wow, what a surprise. I love Griefless and now you made more? Loading it up right now! :)

[Koff3Katt]

I found a bug in E2M6 - The Mad Mistress.

 

You don't actually have to get the red skull to open up the red skull door. In fact, the door isn't even color-coded red in the automap.

[Phobus]

58 minutes ago, Plucky said:

I found a bug in E2M6 - The Mad Mistress.

 

You don't actually have to get the red skull to open up the red skull door. In fact, the door isn't even color-coded red in the automap.

E3M5 has a red skull door with this problem, as does the yellow skull key exit door in E3M6.

 

Otherwise, I've just nipped through all three new episodes in 3 hours or so. I had a blast! The classical game play and old-school style meshed together really well for a good time and still provided a challenge at points. Particularly the starting maps of E2 and E3, but also the secret levels. Great work!

[Hells Kitchen]

Played through E1 and half of E2. I enjoyed it, good wholesome Doom 1 fun. Liked that the final E1M8 encounter gave me a lil bit of "oh shit", so often you see otherwise good E1 wads ending on a very weak note. Nice difficulty increase from E1 to E2. Loved the concept for the secret levels! Looking forward to playing the rest of this, good stuff. 

[Jimmy]

Yep, I knew one or two non-locked key doors were gonna crop up - nearly every door was made during the initial layout-blocking phase with the GZDB "Make Door" function (to speed things up) - which defaults to special 1. I didn't bother tagging the locks while I was making the layouts, so I guess one or two have slipped through the cracks since I didn't dedicate a solid block of time to sorting them out. Please report any more problem doors like this! I don't think I actually know of a reliable way to find them quickly in the editor. :(

 

@Deadwing Thanks for your playthrough! You handled that pretty well. Though you missed E1M3's secret exit by a hairsbreadth! D:

 

@Fonze Thanks for your videos! Sorry about the E1M2 navigational issue and the lack of RL on E1M7, I'll fix these up for sure.

 

 

For the curious, I documented my entire creative process in the NaNoWADMo Discord server and I'm sharing the link here to show you guys how I did it, since it seems to be the burning question. <:D Glad you're all enjoying this!

[Dragonfly]

https://www.dfdoom.com/hosted/jimmy-deathless/

 

Here's a mirror of the above chat log which you can directly view in the browser, so you don't need to download the HTML file yourselves. Enjoy! :)

[ReaperAA]

A megawad in 9 days? What sorcery is this!!!!!!

 

I take longer to play a megawad than it took the author to make one.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

After finishing all 4 episodes + all 4 secret maps, I can conclude that this is a fairly well made Mega wad! Not insanely brutal but not a W+M1 simulator either. Most of the maps are great to blast through (especially the 4 secret maps <3 ) but I do have a complaint with 2-3 maps... the boss levels... Why are they so relentless in difficulty if the rest of the levels are fairly neutral in in difficulty?

 

 

Also side note: Whilst this is vanilla, it wont run in Chocolate DooM. (Doesn't lower it's score though ^_^)

 

9.5/10

[Loud Silence]

6 minutes ago, DynamiteKaitorn said:

Whilst this is vanilla, it wont run in Chocolate DooM. (Doesn't lower it's score though ^_^)

As Jimmy said, maps are in vanilla format, but are too big for vanilla/Choco Doom. So new term is needed here: Vanilimitless.

[AD_79]

That's not how it works. Vanilla and Chocolate Doom can handle some pretty large maps; as long as they don't exceed the vanilla blockmap they can run, and these certainly do not break that limit. It's something else about the wad that is causing issues, and I'm not exactly sure what it is yet.

 

EDIT: load with -merge instead of -file for it to run.

Edited November 10, 2018 by AD_79

[Jimmy]

Yeah, running the set in Chocolate Doom is certainly possible. However, I have confirmed that E2M7 and E4M7 will cause Chocolate Doom to crash due to exceeding the Vanilla limits (both will cause a visplane overflow), so using this port is absolutely not recommended, especially given that zero playtesting was done with it.

 

For an authentic experience I very much recommend Crispy Doom.

Edited November 10, 2018 by Jimmy