Announcing: Resident Doom

I'm taking the liberty of announcing my next project, a horror-themed mod titled: Resident Doom.

Base off of both Doom and the first 3 Resident Evil games, the game will be just as, if not more ambitious than my last project (Guns and Glory 0.5: The Story Retold).

As I've never done a horror-themed mod before, this will both be a new challenge for myself as well as new territory for me to tread.

Here's a brief summary of the story:
Two well-meaning but ultimately failed companies, the Umbrella Corporation and the Union Aerospace Corporation have numerous times posed a threat to humanity with their products. The governments of the world have taken action against the two companies and have banned their practices on Earth and all of its territories. But, in secret, the two companies decide to join together (thus creating the Umbrella Aerospace Corporation, or UAC for short) and have set up a secret instillation on an uncharted island, which is disguised from satellites and radar for which they can perform their experiments freely. Knowing that their projects have seen failures again and again, this time the two companies, now joined as one, are instead trying to cite a failure: they seek to utilize Umbrella's virus research as a means of fighting and perhaps overtaking the Demons that are constantly provoked with the UAC's teleportation experiments.

If the Umbrella Aerospace Corporation can succeed in proving that their new products and weapons are effective against the Demon threat, then the teleportation experiments would open an entirely new method for mankind to explore the cosmos. With this goal in mind, both companies have poured all of their remaining funds into a 3-day testing period in which they will gather a massive amount of workers and security forces (many of which are ill-informed of what is to transpire), create an army of Biological weapons, and finally open two seperate portals to the demon's dimensions. Once these goals have been achieved, the two companies will initiate a massive battle on the grounds of the island instillation in which they will infect their entire staff with the brand new "D-Virus" a pathogen capable of infecting even the Demons, releasing the entirety of their biological weapons and pitting their forces against the oncoming demons, all the while recording the fray with their extensive surveylance network. After their weapons have been proven successful, a goal estimated to be met by the end of the third day, the companies will launch a nuclear warhead to erradicate the island and all upon it.

This is where our heroes come in, as they arrive at the island, blissfully unaware of what is about to transpire. Worse still, they arrive and are stranded on the island at the very end of the 2nd day. Unbeknownst to them, they have only 24 hours to escape the island before the missile hits, and the only way off the island, is barricaded beyond countless zombies, biological monsters, and demons...

The game will feature most, if not all of the following coding features:
- 4 Playable characters, each with their own unique playing style.
- 8 keys, some of which are always in specific character's possession.
- 13 weapons, 5 of which are shared amongst the different characters and 8 of which (2 per character) are solely unique to each character.
- 30+ new enemies and bosses, ranging from demons, to zombies, to countless other horrors.
- Hi-resolution sprites, and a new height-differential system, so that certain levels look like the original wolfenstein feel, and other levels that give the game a new large-scale or cavernous feel.
- A new inventory system, with each character having a different amount of certain items that they can carry.
- Treasure, Secret and Kill ratios will be eliminated, as there will be no more intermission screens between levels (barring intermission texts).
- A new money system where if the going gets tough, you can purchase weapons or ammo, provided you have the funds to do so.
- Destructable walls and other startling effects where the enemies will smash through the level itself, just to hunt you down!
- 6 episodes, each with 10 heart-pounding levels, in which there are 4 different ways to play through as each character will have their own starting position and challenges.
- New puzzle challenges, each requiring the use of the new Pushwall system, in which pushwalls only move 1 space, as to allow precise positioning within map locations.
- A limited number of saves, which can only be increased by collecting Ink Ribbons (a la Resident Evil).
- And much, much more!

Progress has not been started on this mod yet, but once the contest for Guns and Glory 0.5 is over, I'll begin working on the project in full swing.

Are the maps going to be much much bigger? Gotta show off all the new features in somehow.

The maps will be 64x64. They'll actually be mostly of medium size. The features will slowly amass through each of the 6 episodes, starting softly but really picking up as the game goes on. In some episodes, the player will visit the same map layout several times (i.e. for map 1, 3, 5, etc.) but the map will change each time. Old threats will be gone and new threats will emerge. The larger-scale maps will also be 64x64, but with the size of the player and enemies halved so that there's more room to move around in, even though the map itself is actually the size of all the other maps. It's a psuedo-enlarging technique.

Alrighty then. Good luck with all that!

Thanks. Though work hasn't really started on the project yet, I do intend to at least get some of the graphics ready while I'm waiting for contest entries for my other mod.

Interesting note:

I did a planned headcount today and it seems that the enemy count will be more like 60-ish (not counting the doubles of enemies I'll have to program in).

Hi Marvin!

Capitalize on failures. It's what they're doing.

60 different enemies huh. I haven't played a mod with that many enemies since The Lost Relic.

Actually, Guns and Glory 0.5 technically has 60 enemies in it (that's if you include all of the shootable objects, invincible enemies, and the POW). If memory serves, Guns and Glory 1 had somewhere around 40~50 enemies. Actually at one point in its development, Guns and Glory 0.5 had 75 enemies and was going to have more, but then I revamped the game and the amount of enemies was severely decreased.

Just thought I'd titilate those interested with a preview of the status bar I've come up with for my next Mod: Resident Doom.

The status bar is very similar to the one in Guns and Glory, but with some noticeable differences.



Anyways, the status bar is not coded-in yet and progress on the mod is minimal at best (it hasn't technically started yet), but I'm posting this as both a way to give some insight and so that I can return to it later as I'll be using it as a template.

The bar will feature the following features: (within the graphically different colored areas from left to right)
1. A minimap feature which will be 24x24 pixels in size, which makes it 1.5x larger than the one in Guns and Glory.
2. A level display
3. A timer (the timer will work differently in Resident Doom than in previous mods because the game time will be carried over from level to level. Instead of being graded on score, players will be graded on the time it took for them to finish the episode).
4. A cash display. The player will earn cash by killing enemies or picking up weapons that they already have and they can use the cash to buy weapons, upgrades or other items.
5. 8 Keys (much like in Guns and Glory, only some characters will have a specific key available to them all the time and some of the keys are not color-coded).
6. A visual display which changes depending on the character that the player is currently playing as.
7. A status and health display which will tell the player what their condition is and whether they have a status ailment or not (such as Poison).
8. A weapon, ammo and clip display which shows which weapon the player is currently using, what ammo type they need/use for that weapon, how much ammunition they have and how much ammo is in their clip (for reloading weapons).
9. An inventory slot-set. There will be 8 different items that the player can carry multiples of, and if they player does not have that item, the corresponding slot will be empty. Each character can hold a certain amount of each item, and how much of each item is uniform throughout each character (one character can hold 2 of every item, another can hold up to 6 of each item).
10. A powerup display. Here the upgrades that the player has purchased are visually displayed for clarity (the powerups range from speed to health increases).

As you may of noticed, I did not mention a Lives indicator, this is because there will be no extra lives given to the player. Once the player dies, the game will end, so saving will be necessary. Also, there will be a limited number of available saves for the player (though the player can increase this amount by collecting one of the inventory items which allows 1 save per use).

Again, none of this is hard-coded yet, but this will most likely be similar to what the final product looks like.

I mentioned earlier that Resident Doom will have Hi-Resolution sprites and will utilize them in a new and unique way unseen in any prior Wolfenstein Mod.

Below is a size depiction and comparison for how the sprites will look in an editor.


The sprite on the left is reminiscent of how the original Wolfenstein sprites would be scaled. The left side sprites will be used in areas scaled so that they are indistinguishable from the original game scaling.

The sprite on the right will be used in levels where the size and height of the player is scaled down to half to allow a more cavernous and open feel to the game's levels. All enemies will be scaled to this size. Some enemies cannot be scaled to the other size, due to either appearing out of relative scale or being too distorted or large in the other scale.

Depending upon the overall coding and level-making process, I may end up just using the second scale for all enemies.

CRUD!

http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=22024

Seems someone's got the same idea, only they're much farther along than I am. Ah well, I'll still make my version eventually.

Does it mean you'll cancel your project?

I was wondering if this eventuality would ever arise for one of my mods. I still plan to make my mod, but I would want people to understand that I came up with the idea on my own and had already set out to make such a game before I knew that this mod idea was already in development elsewhere. Besides there's no way our two projects will be the same, so they can have my interpretation, and I can have mine (from what I gather, mine is attempting to be more original with the idea, as theirs is just a Resident Evil remake of the original Doom. Mine takes place after both do, and combines them rather than merely using the gameplay method of one for another).

I am not detered! I shall make mine and it will be glorious!

Metalor wrote:I was wondering if this eventuality would ever arise for one of my mods. I still plan to make my mod, but I would want people to understand that I came up with the idea on my own and had already set out to make such a game before I knew that this mod idea was already in development elsewhere. Besides there's no way our two projects will be the same, so they can have my interpretation, and I can have mine (from what I gather, mine is attempting to be more original with the idea, as theirs is just a Resident Evil remake of the original Doom. Mine takes place after both do, and combines them rather than merely using the gameplay method of one for another).

I am not detered! I shall make mine and it will be glorious!

Now, that is the correct way to deal with things.

As of yesterday evening, progress on Resident Doom has officially begun. I've lovingly decided to use the files from another of my mods: "Schabb's, an Evil Lunatic" for the base files, and I will be modeling the mod after Spear of Destiny rather than Wolfenstein 3D, as originally planned.

The game will have 21 levels total, with 18 regular and 3 secret levels, split up into three "acts" and each level will be set up so that they play out differently for each of the game's characters. That means: there will be 5 different ways to play out the exact same level, as there will be 5 playable characters (4 normal and 1 secret). Thus the need for more than one, single continuing episode is not necessary.

I've already completed the game's palette and a few basic changes from the base Wolf4SDL code. insurrectionman has already offered to help with coding, so I may contact him soon in regards to what I'd like, but here is a new list of the changes and features I plan to have in the game: (to wet your whistles)

- 5 playable characters (4 normal, 1 secret) each with their own health and speed values
- An inventory system that allows players to carry around goods.
- Each character can only hold certain amounts of each amount (each character holds the same amount for each item, so one character can hold up to 6 of any item and another only 1 of each item).
- Each character will have 2 unique weapons to themselves and have 4 "ordinary" weapons that each character can use (if they can acquire them)
- 4 Keys.
- Weapons and items that have to be manually picked up by pressing the Spacebar key (it cuts down on the action a bit, yes, but this is a horror-themed mod).
- Limited saving, players are now limited to the amount of saves they can use, and even then, they only have 1 life. Damage can carry over in the worst of ways if the player isn't careful.
- Interactive objects that the player can inspect with the Spacebar key.
- Pushwalls that only move 1 space. There will be no more secrets, Pushwalls are now strictly for puzzles.
- No more intermission screens, the amount of enemies killed, treasure obtained, and secrets found is no longer important. There will still be points, but they will be used for obtaining additional saves on top of those that are found.
- Destructable Walls.
- Status ailments.

There of course will be many more features, but these are some of the more juicy ones.

Stay tuned, more updates to follow!

Well, after months and months of repetitive toiling it seems that I've yet to make any progress on Resident Doom as I'm currently still in the process of working out a suitable palette. In my pursuit of a "perfect palette" I've remade the palette countless times never coming to a conclusion, so I've decided to announce that I'd like to start up a discussion group somewhere in the Wolf community were those interested can discuss with me features and changes they'd like to see in my upcoming mod and how those changes can be incorporated.

Of course, the first topic of interest would be developing a palette that would suit the project's mood and style. Therefore I'd appreciate if anyone interested would volunteer for the discussion and be willing to give their own insight and exmaples of what they think would look good in the color range and their personal interpretations of how a horror mod should look and feel.

Needless to say, this is a discussion that would perhaps best be left to a private sector, so the first matter would be to find a suitable locale for this dicussion (perhaps the Team Raycast forums with Doomjedi's permission), and finding those interested to add to the discussion group.

I await your feedback and judgment on this crucial issue, lest I be left in Palette-making purgatory.

I don't know anything about this. Would it help if I give you my opinion of different screenshots?

The game is in such early stages with so little progress that there are no screenshots to showcase yet. I don't even have a single enemy or wall texture finished. Heck, the mod's coder insurrectionman, is way ahead of me in actual progress. So aside from showing off what the game looks like with the Spear of Destiny Palette and graphics (as it currently stands), I couldn't show you much else.

Sorry to hear you're not making much progress.

It's the palette, It's been keeping me from making any real progress for months. I need some feedback on whether or not the palettes I'm making are any good.

Here's my current palette:



As you can see, most of the game's colors meld quite nicely into the reds, but I'm still not happy with how it turned out. This is why I wished to establish a dialogue and find out otehr people's opinions on what kinds of colors should appear in a horror-themed mod.

Thanks to DoomJedi, there is now a discussion thread for Resident Doom over at the Team Raycast forums. Anyone interested in participating need only to contact him and request to be allowed to take part in the forum discussion. The current topic as of now is the Game's Palette and this will change periodically once each topics dilemma/issue has been solved.

For those that need a link, please visit here: http://raycast.teamforum.ru/index.php

-EDIT-

For those that would rather volunteer here, just tell me that you want to be a part of the discussion and I'll have DoomJedi add you there. Any takers?

Interesting palette Metalor. Did you try to reproduce your version of the Doom palettes?

Indeed, several times. This is just the latest attempt. But I'm not satisfied with this one because it's "too confusing" mostly because alot of the colors split around the palette alot in the way they "fade" into each other. The browns (the regular ones) are split into 4 seperate places. I want it so that there are no duplicates in the palette and that they each fade evenly.