A blog for the updates, changes, excitements, and frustrations that come from modding the zdoom engine for ponies.
Also, some modding tutorials that may or may not be helpful.
So I've been watching a lot of DooM Let's Plays recently to try and get a better feel of what I'm doing on map designs and enemy placements. I'm a fan of AltimaMantoid's [Doom; Doom II] and BigMacDavis's [Doom; Doom II] playthrough series (but don't bother saying I sent you because neither will know me).
I had one trap room in E4M5 where I had a Fakera and a Bon Bon Barrier. At first it was kindof small, but then after watching I realized it needed to be bigger or you'd get torn apart far too easily. I also added columns to hide behind, to make it easier.
Then I watched a couple levels where four Barons (what Fakeras replace) show up and the player just takes them out like it's nothing. Turns out the rocket launcher is brilliant at taking them out, and people use the BFG a lot more than I am used to.
From this I've learned that for good players, my maps will probably be too easy; for new players, my maps will be crushingly hard. Heck, even I struggle on a couple of them, and I already know where the traps are.
So yeah. tl;dr map making is an art and I'm still working on it.
Anyway, to end this little message, I was playtesting a map today. I use ACS to do a lot of the actions (because that's what the cool doomers are using these days) and I mistagged a sector, so the door locked but the hidden platform with Fakera on it didn't rise. So, being the genius I am, I decided to hop down and kill her myself.
It didn't work, but I did get this image.
That is all.
Unless you want to vote in the new poll. That'd be cool, too.
No, I'm not copypastaing anything. This entry is called that because I copied and pasted a lot (read: three) monster definitions to make room for others... which you can read about after the break.
So if you play Open Beta 1, you'll see that I edited the zdoom.pk3 file so zdoom will play the wad natively. For Open Beta 2, I didn't want to do that; especially since I have since discovered a plethora of other source ports that I want it to run on. After all, every programmer wants his game out there, even if it's somewhat messy and with iffy maps (though I did get another map from a guy named SoulRunner and it's pretty cool, bringing my total to two "fan-made" maps, and the game isn't even released yet!).
Anyway...
Tests and such (shudder) have eaten up my time recently, and I haven't gotten too much done, except for one part in a secret level that I was giggling about the entire time I worked on it; until I realized that probably not many players would find it, so... yeah. Still fun, though.
But anyway... this entry is called PWADs because in a test, I deleted the chex3 textures from rarity.wad and then loaded rarity.wad as a simple pwad for chex3.wad. Long story short, it worked and cut over two thirds of rarity.wad's size. That was pretty cool.
Then I thought, hey, now that rarity.wad has no textures, can I replace them with freedoom textures? Of course, I had to try it. So that took like half an hour, but DoomBuilder II has a "Find and replace" feature, so that wasn't so bad. I replaced all the textures (apparently, they changed the door sizes a lot... every door in Chex Quest is at least 128 by 128; not so in DooM), made sure everything lined up, and hit test map.
It looked pretty sweet. Everything looked darker, much more realistic, and it was all around pretty cool. It looked... well... kindof like this.
Which looked great, until I realized that it didn't load my DECORATE file right (I've coded it to replace the native Chex Quest monsters, but Freedoom keeps the DooM monsters names, so nothing got replaced except the sprites) and the weapons and keys didn't work, as rarity.wad loaded the chex keys definitions, but doom2.wad was looking for doom keys; and then the last switch didn't appear and then it gave me an old ending picture that I'd forgotten was there when I ended the level.
The other thing I wasn't sure I liked was it changed the feel of the game. The textures from Chex Quest have a bit of a more cartoony feel, a bit more in line with the show (in my opinion), but freedoom has a realistic, gritty look; with blood and such (on other textures). I'm not sure I liked it. I'm also not sure if I'd have the drive to replace every single texture in every single level I've made... I'll probably just use it for the next projects I'll do.
One thing I am probably going to do, though, is add a buzzing sound for the flying changelings--you'll be able to hear them before you see them, but you won't know where or which it is. A regular drone? A flying spitter? A bumblebee? A flying Trixieling?Probably not; the last thing I need is to give Trixie a bigger ego... You just won't know.
And maybe sprites for arachnotrons. That might drop small pods of fire mana when you kill them. Yeah. I think I like that idea.
...well, after that NDFS test, I probably should stop modding and just study, but I'm not. Hey, I've never claimed to be good at decision-making.
Anyway... After the break, there's a little update on the mod, the sprites, and a little bit of everything, just to show I'm not dead. And if you haven't voted on the gibs thing yet and you want to, I just extended the poll time.
I'm actually working, and by that I mean I'm adding those decorations from before all throughout the levels, and palette-swapping them so it looks like I have more sprites than I actually do.
Anyway, as I'm doing this, I figure, you know what, in keeping with our strange pony bro traditions of ponifying everything, I should make a changeling pack pwad, so people can load it on top of any other DooM game and thus ponify it.
Then I thought, nah; I've tried it before and it didn't work out so well.
Then I thought, meh, why not.
And so that's what I've been working on today.
But as I'm translating the sprites over, I realized something. Gibs.
No, not this guy. The sprites that appear when you overkill an enemy. Wat do?
There's a poll on the right of your screen. Let me know, eh?
Instead, I'm derping around on the repository on realm667 and I get to thinking. There is plenty of gore in DooM. Plenty of destruction and death. But me, I'm making a nice little pony game, right? No need for dead ponies everywhere.
And then I thought, Nah.
It's not like Rarity is the first to stumble into the hive, after all.
It's a term that refers to when the wind dies and you're at sea. I was in the doldrums. I hadn't worked on this game in over two weeks and I was very, very tempted to just call it a hiatus, release it as 1.9, and call it good, because I just didn't want to work on it.
Then I thought, but no, it can't be true! I could fly if I- wait, that's a song from Toy Story, nvm. No flying in this game, unicorns can't fly.
and I know rarity did in canon shut up
But the thing is, I figured I'd sit down and fix the weapons.
I'm still missing a few frames in the alt-fire of the TwiBlast, but as of right now, this is what the weapons will look like in Open Beta 2.
I'm exhausted as if you couldn't tell from my rambling, missing punctuation and stuff like that so yeah there's no commentary but I did show off all the weapons and randomized pain sounds so watch enjoy suggest new things that sort of thing
There will come a day when I will announce the death of this game, release what assets I have, and give up modding for good.
Today is not that day.
Today is the day I show a couple things I'm currently working on to prove I'm still working on this game and to give myself incentive to actually get off my lazy butt and finish them.
Jump below.
So I decided I would sit down and finish the sprites and thus prepare for the release.
I ended up building another map. I'm not sure how that works, but still. On an unrelated side note, line mirrors are picky, picky little buggers.
At this point, I'm considering just finishing episode 2's maps and then calling that open beta 2. Except I don't have an ETA on that, and it might take a long time so I might not. No idea, really.
...I decided, you know, I have ground spitters and flying spitters, I have berserks and bumblebees, I should make a flying drone, too, because they fly in the show and it will make the players use more ammo, but won't completely overwhelm them.
So I did.
I also made it so the bumblebees don't drop armor shards anymore, but that's not very important right now.
"You know what? Forget it. I'm turning in this assignment"?
That's kindof how I'm feeling with my mod right now. But I won't release it just yet. I still have to do the Trixie sprites and the intermission pictures, but I did finish the levels and find music for all of the levels and changed a basic gameplay thing (the imps/spitters no longer drop armor shards; now the berserks, bumblebees, and captains do. Also, the captains/armored changelings have more health--80 as opposed to 30--and are a bit faster now).
Promised Open Beta 2 sometime this month almost done kindof.
Maps are pretty much done. They just need some new texturing, but for a beta, it's ready.
Monsters need some work. I didn't do the Trixieling sprites, I didn't do the Rarisprites, and the Pain Elemental's sprites are recolors of the fluffy ponies. Yeah. I'm that lazy. But it gets better: I didn't feel like doing the attack sprites for all five rotations, so they have a 0, indicating that they'll always appear like that no matter which way it's actually facing (kindof like the SS in Doom II. Except my game doesn't allow infighting).
Random tangent: As I was thinking about spriting (and how much I dislike it), the idea occurred to me that I could have Colgate as the Revenant. She can bash you with her toothbrush or fling toothpaste at you. That's a fun idea. Too bad it'll prolly not get done for a while... ah well. I'm pretty sure I can recolor and reexport the Fake-ra sprites fairly easily.
Anyway... I promised it this month, and I still have two more days to finish spriting, drawing, and coding the intermissions. I think I can do it.
So as my last post indicated, I lost all my zdoom.pk3 modifications when I downloaded the new version of zdoom. But, since I really enjoyed the altfire (grenade toss) of the rocket launcher and the shorter reload time of the super shotgun, I decided I would try and recreate those modifications, but only using the .wad file. This required a lot of research.
But it was well worth it. I've been feeling inspired. Though I got no spriting or drawing done, I got plenty of other stuff done. Of note:
Levels have been modified, adding a few more decorations (if you're modding, I have found some good stuff on realm667.com)
Strings have been retyped, and I added a few more quit messages (I love these. So much.)
I created Rarity as a new class, so now it will always say Rarity instead of ChexWarrior.
Weapons names have been changed (so now you don't have to remember the Chex Quest names. Instead of "summon phasingzorcher", you can just type in "summon flamethrower").
Level names, episode names, and difficulty level names have been updated. Mainly because I learned that they don't require graphics but can be created through text in mapinfo.
Behemoths (revenants) now have normal flemoid behavior--their attacks do not hurt each other (and thus will not spark infighting. Suckas!). Trixielings (chaingun guys) are now immune to slime damage, as well, but their bullets can still inflict damage (so remember that for E1M7).
The game now bobs ever so slightly when you're standing still.
I've also discovered that you can have different pain sounds depending on how hurt you are.
But the best thing is, it's basically now a pwad for Chex Quest 3. This means that you can play it on any source port that can play Chex Quest, not just zdoom. You want to play on gzdoom? Skulltag? Zandronum? Any other childport of zdoom? Not a problem. Does your port accept DECORATE and ACS? Then you can play.
These are probably little things, but I'm excited about them. And now you know I'm not dead.
There's also something else I found. There's an option for a level difficulty that's like Heaven or Hell from the Devil May Cry series. Everything--including you--dies in one hit. I'm not sure if anyone would play this... but they might. Should I put it in?
Also, I still need ideas on what to use for weapons instead of that long black bar.
So Randy updated zdoom about a week ago, but slowpoke me just now downloaded it.
Good news--everything still works fine.
Bad news--when I unzipped it, I replaced the zdoom.pk3 file. Now that might not mean much to you, but it means that I lost most of the text strings*(addendum: Fixed and tested all text strings) AND the ability to just play straight raridoom (now the engine thinks it's a PWAD for chex3, not an IWAD). This brings up another problem I've foreseen--someone trying to play this wad in something other than zdoom. Some people prefer Zandronum, or even Vavoom for their dooming needs. That's cool, except I dunno if it'll play on those ports automatically. I would like it to, but I don't know if it will. *(addendum: So far, it looks like zdoom will play it straight with the modified pk3, but for other engines you might have to download Chex Quest 3 and play it as a mod)
So the project is a little behind. That's not including the fact that I still need to
1) sprite the pain elementals
2) finish the updated trixieling sprites
3) finish the Rarity sprites
4) draw the intermission pictures
5) code in the intermission pictures
6) make sure that everything I changed in zdoom.pk3 gets modified in rarity.wad
7) update the coverart (so far just a sketch) and other information slides
8) figure out what the heck to do about the weapons because I hate the long black bar thingy
...dang, I'm behind.
But since I hate being the bearer of bad news, here's some good news to balance it out.
I've been making some of the levels look prettier, and I think it really adds to the game. Jadwick made me a map (and it is a real challenge!) and it inspired me to add more little things. I know my mapmaking skills are not on his level yet, but I'm feeling proud of them.
Also! This part I think is really cool. When you're in a FPS, there are a few questions that flow through your mind. 1) Where is more ammo? and 2) What is this thing and how long until it dies?!?
I can't answer number one. But I can answer number two. I've bound the S key (for scanning haha I'm so clever!) to a pointer that brings back what you're looking at, how much health it started with, and how much health it has now.
Also notice the improved mugshots, and the skybox that actually looks somewhat like a skybox now.
Oh gosh looking back open beta 1 embarrasses me...
So I hopped on youtube this morning, wondering if there was anything good on.
There was.
There was this.
xXSoundspeedXx did a let's play of Open Beta 1. He crashed and burned on Map 3, but other than that (actually, including that, as he's quite a funny guy even when he's dying) it was quite amusing.
Also those freaking awful mugshots can't believe I released those what was I thinking
Open Beta 2 will drop sometime this month, with more enemies and (somewhat) less crappily-textured maps!
Also, I feel bad that it's been like a year since I started and we're still on Open Beta 1. I was tempted to just release episode one (like the shareware version of Doom I) but I've been promising a lot and delivering a little, so I dunno.
Not a mother's day post; though I do love her, she doesn't know I like ponies.
So I've received a few offers of help from various people, and I realized I never asked for what I needed (if you know what you're doing, I didn't add any textures to the open beta wad except for a few more posters, so you can use those assets or wait until I finish Open Beta 2 for the updated wad, then just send me the map in a wad just like it's a doomII mod wad, and SLADE lets me just copy-paste it over). But for the majority of people who don't, I decided I should do a walkthrough of how I build a map from scratch paper to finish.
Well, my browser decided to crash as I was writing the blog (complete with screenshots). That's fine, I still have them saved. Then Doom Builder decided to crash. That was not fine, as I hadn't saved my map yet (it takes forever to save and I'm fairly impatient, because the program decides to rewrite the entire file every time you save instead of just rewriting the parts that changed, and the .mp3s in the wad really make it huge).
So map-making insider's look comes... later. When I'm not annoyed with technology.
Not even a break, that's how small this one is. Only a few things to mention.
First off, my latest task is redoing the Trixieling sprites. The 3/4 views looked really bad. Actually, I'd hope you aren't seeing too many Trixielings anyway. They can really sap your health. Also, I noticed that their shots can hurt other changelings. Slime attacks don't affect other changelings, but Trixielings' attacks do. So remember that in E1M7.
And sprint. Do a lot of sprinting.
The second thing is, I could use some help finding music. I really liked the music I chose for the first few levels, but I could really use some more ideas for the other levels (I'm going to have at least 27 levels, after all). Finding new music is great. For example, I had originally decided to write my own parody to "Livin' La Vida Loca" for the Changeling Pie level (you met her in the ending room of Open Beta 1, E2M2), but then I found this song and I think I'm going to try and use it instead. And make the level darker, with more flickering lights.
That's another thing. If you want to help with maps, even if it's just a pencil sketch, I'd take it. That's really what's been holding me back.
Also spriting. But I digress.
Semester ends next week so expect good updates within the month.
Nothing like life to give you a nice, swift kick in the teeth. Semester ending happened much sooner than expected, so I had a bunch of projects for school that I needed to finish because I'm lazy and put them all off. Kindof like what I'm doing with raridoom...
Anyway! Ramblings after the break. Not much going on here, check out the "help out" page if you want. As soon as I get around to making it, that is.
Not much happening here. Really. It's barely worth the page break. But if you like an intro picture and you feel like helping me design a monster, you should click anyway.
Just what it says on the tin. There's some words, some plans, and also some quick concept art that's more than likely going to change. So honestly, there's not much here. But still. It's been over a week without posting, and I gotta have SOME posting standards around here. (and it's totally not because I bombed my chem test today and I want to feel mildly successful today)
This weekend, my computer said to me, "Hey, bt, that's a nice update video you're working on there. New enemy, new weapon, plus you're showing off the updated cheese grater? Looking good! And you're doing a voiceover demo! People might actually think you're competent now, good for you! You know, it would be a real shame if something bad were to happen, like, say, your microphone driver crashing and making that video be full of meaningless, distracting static. Yeah. That'd be a real shame."
Close enough.
These guys replace the revenants. They're pretty tough, but not overwhelmingly so. They are special in that they have both a melee attack and a powerful ranged attack. The ranged attack is special in that it has a one in two chance of being a homing missile. Yeah. So sprint and stay close to the walls so it hits and explodes before it has a chance to loop around again. On the bright side, they have a high pain chance, so the best weapon to use if you want to survive unscathed is probably the rapidfire spark.
(seriously though these things are weird I was playtesting E2M2 and there's a room with one and a room with two and in the room with one I killed it without even taking damage so I walked into the room with two and I got killed without killing either they killed me down from 115% health I don't even).
Let me explain.
No. There is no time.
Let me sum up.
This is a long infodump that I doubt anyone will care about, but all the other game developer blogs have them (or at least the history) and since I just started, I'm a little behind.
Loooong wall of text after the break.
