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Östersund

Östersund

I missed the Flash Forward Jam this year. Last week. The day I came back from this ^ wonderful vacation.

I've missed a bunch of things. I might be missing an awesome opportunity to fix up custom music for an in-game credit sequence - but I will manage the other sequence! May miss one of two. Time's just flying too fast. I've been in Östersund walking through a wonderful snowlit spring though, feeling like that really was time spent better after all, no matter how much I feel I need to do.

And refitting car tires - there's a screw stuck in one of my summer ones, I wonder what I'll do about that. And swapping clothes - they arrange events for that over here occasionally - this time it was in Bålsta. And submitting my tax report for the year. And booking trips for summer. And catching up on comments and conversations. Still feeling like I should have plenty of time to spare, but somehow the days just stream by and summer approaches with worrying speed.

There's so much I still want (and need?) to finish...

I must admit I have been playing a bit of DOOM though. New levels for the old classic. And I did watch through the 2011 Hunter X Hunter anime in its entirety a few weeks back.

I thought it'd spur me onwards; re-ignite my hope in humankind, and my sense of adventure, and make me DO things with my life, and so I did go to Östersund and that was great, but now I'm just back here again and it's the same old shit. Stagnation. No matter how much I push myself. I don't focus on what I should focus on, or I'm too tired to. I notice I yawn. I feel all but strong, so unlike when I'm in writing some prose or some song...

Though why do I EVER waste time on non-essentials? Been listening to Jocko's podcast. I then go mental. So necessary with breaks though when you feel you have spent all. Go take a train or a rental. Whatever you can: cement all. Relations you want to keep, then leap on out the window. Don't be indoors. Get out in the world and kill your limbo!

Regarding that Flash Jam I did get mentioned in a little Flash Forward interview/showcase thing. For the game I made last year. That was nice.

Maybe I will make a new game anyway, jam or no. Later. For now: gotta go.

The New POOM

Something Living On The Edge Here...

Something good just dropped on the Grounds today!

It's just like the one and only one it was based on but a little shorter... and smaller... and more square... and low-res... and hold breath... it's in PICO-8!

Which is awesome! Get over to NG and get nostalgic and possibly a little motion sick too if you're anything like me but never mind that go go go.

The DOOM Lights

A Hallway Of Lights And Weapons

It's a whole new world when you turn that light on.

Plutonia 2 Shots

So I'm done with Plutonia 2, got rid of the game as promised, and last but not least: just gotta share some of these!

Pictures, that is. I took a few. Mainly of the architectural details, because the architecture's impressive, and especially the latter levels are a work of art not just design-wise, but in regards to what they accomplished with the editor. Like the final staircase. Considering DOOM is built in fake-3D - as the early, ahead-of-it's-time-epic game engine in the making that it was, and single layer, I'm really curious how they built those stairs.

If you haven't thought about it before: look carefully next time you play the game, and you'll notice that levels never have multiple levels, anywhere, only platforms of varying height/location. There's never a first floor directly under the second one, but more so beside it. The designers cleverly make levels in such a way that you never really think of this, though it does pose certain limitations on how a level can be made, and how you need to go about making it feel like it's truly dimensional. So those stairs where you actually walk around the center: really cool. Since it should be technically impossible. Could it be a ZDoom thing...?

Most seem to do a masterful job with this too. Maybe it's easier to work with than it sounds like it should be. One-layer multidimensionalism.

Not to mention the invisible bridges - I've seen some of those before though, the Cyberdemons suspended in the air, the gates that open inwards, the teleportation paths and what have you. Not impossible, but illusive, and clever. I love to find little tricks of the trade like that, and even more so actually figuring out how they did it. Invisible textures. Teleports. Custom animation to give the illusion of movement.

Sometimes it's easy to explain.

If you start looking at the game design as you play there's so much to be impressed with. It's on a whole other level compared to the original Plutonia - even if I enjoyed that one too - but still seems to follow a similar vein considering the arena-type levels with multiple Cyberdemons. The epic dual Cyberdemon gates. The hella difficult finale with three Cyberdemons and an icon of sin amidst them...

I actually cheated a bit with that last level. I had to. Just wasn't ready for it. Maybe I'll replay it again in the future and take on the challenge in full, but for now here's a little glimpse of those bits of design that I love.

Wish I'd taken more. Earlier on. Will do next time.

Splat

Read on...

DOOM Phase

I've been a bit stuck in DOOM the last week. Maybe two weeks. I'm not sure how it all started, but it ended with me playing through the fourth episode again, followed by the Eternal DOOM megawads TNT Evolution and Plutonia... and then I somehow found out there was a sequel to the latter, which I'm playing through right now.

It's taking a while, because apparently these episodes are hella long compared to the original episodes, and this particular one seems to be way longer than the ones before it.

In the beginning I was honestly feeling a bit tired of the game and the level designs overall, wondering why I'd picked it up again, but also why I didn't feel as into it as I've been before. The first few levels just didn't have me hooked. I pondered dropping the project, but the further I go the better it gets, and recently I'm awed by the aesthetic of each new level I encounter. From looking forward to finishing the episode I've started hoping I can make it last just a little longer with each level that goes; wanting to see what type of architectural quirks they might come up with next.

It's not just in the structure of the levels themselves, but in the textures, certain additional graphics, most recently a little Commander Keen sprite dropped into a bath of fire, and little bits of trickery like I remember from the old levels. Not just the jumpscares and aggravating teleportation hordes, but the lack thereof. The anticipation. The feeling of hitting a switch and wondering if THIS is when that Cyberdemon you've been staring at for the past fifteen switches will finally come to life and shoot a barrage of rockets at you.

That and the houses of living flesh. The invisible bridges. The little details that make it all so worthwhile, and in the latter levels in particular the demonic hordes, spawned not in unison but strategically, one group of foes at a time, more similar to the open-layout levels of Serious Sam than to DOOM. And I loved that game too. It's an awesome hybrid.

Apart from the design the difficulty level is also an extensively higher one, and I've lost count of the amounts of Cyberdemons that've been on lure in these levels at this point. And the masterminds. With each one I thought it was finna be the final level. The boss fight. But no: it just keeps on going. I'm having a blast. So much so that the recent corrupted save file issue (more on that later) isn't bothering me at all right now.

Though I started this session of DOOM remniscia feeling unexpectedly tired of this particular franchise I don't feel so any longer. I'm having a blast. I want to play more. I'm looking forward to trying out Sigil, too, Romero's newest promise: a full fifth episode, albeit an unofficial one, meant to tie in to the original DOOM saga.

It's got me plotting a whole new marathon, with all the original episodes in order again, and maybe I'll catch it on video too and upload it somewhere. Been feeling like these occasional gaming sessions might feel a wee bit more useful if I do. Extra views too. No extra income because YouTube rates are crap these days, plus third-party content with the music and what-not that'd hinder proper monetization anyway, but at least it'd be out there. At least there'd be something to show for all this spent up time.

Speaking of third-party content this latest segment of my dooming sessions features a pretty fresh, dystopian; true-to-the-original-style original soundtrack too.

I've played a fair share of community WADs at this point, but this might very well be my favorite thus far. It's definitely one of them.

It feels like the series is coming to a close, though. i was thinking I'd run through the levels tonight. All of them. But I think I'll leave the last few for tomorrow instead. Something to look forward to. Something to savor. Plus the bobbing motions in these old FPS games still make me mildly nauseous after extended play. Much less with DOOM than say Wolfenstein 3D, or Duke Nukem, or Marathon, or Chasm, or pretty much any of the other ones from the same time (probably thanks to an appreciatively spacious level design with less bobby ceilings right in your viewpoint).

But anyway, what I was coming to was: after this that's it. I get lost in games all too easily, and I need to take a break from this one at least. So when Plutonia 2 is done I'm clearing out my DOOM directory and starting fresh next time I play. It's a good time as any. And a good time to get the latest versions of the mods and ports I'm using, and put them all in a directory uncluttered by a surplus of other experimental files. You forget which ones really serve a purpose. Which ones really need to be there. Sometimes you just gotta do some drastic things. Start fresh.

I know it'll be a counter-productive move until next time I get to playing the game again, but that'll be a while. I'll make sure of it. After this it's time for a long hiatus from Hell - not until the game beckons again but until I really have the time for it. You can't rush these things. The days aren't over yet. It's still a game to savor. Later.

Procrastination Bastion 2019

So I relapsed.

Earlier this week. I was looking for something to watch and I stumbled upon Black Lightning, a TV show about a black hero who fights gang crime to keep his two daughters safe. Relevant, right? Principal by day, vigilante by night.

The effects were cool, and the relations intriguing - you want to see how they evolve, but the we-made-this-to-last-as-long-as-viewers-and-budget-let-us faux pas shines through, and thus I don't want to waste my time on it. I watched the first episode and that was that.

Then I opened up DOOM and played through almost all of the fourth episode. Classic Doom. With GZ. And Brutal.

I played the rest the next day, and (I assume almost most of) TNT after that, and the rest of that the next day. Plutonia up next?

It's been a while since last time. Even though I consider myself a pretty hardcore Doomer at this point I keep running into new secrets, and committing level routes to memory. For the first time I think I didn't spend hours trying to find the exit in Wormhole - I went into the dungeons by choice, to as Metallica say: Kill 'em All. And I'm remembering that TNT was not my favorite one of the two unofficial extra episodes. It was the one with mazes and enclosed spaces and puzzles I never really figured out.

I'm still having fun with the game, but I'm also disappointed because I'm almost purposefully staying up late again, and eating snacks, and browsing through BBS BS, and posting one of these by effort redeeming posts about it again.

Despite my best intentions it seems that whenever life is going well I turn to time waste to distract myself. Maybe because I'm nervous. Maybe because I'm stressed. Maybe because I'm scared of progress. Maybe because I'm slightly depressed. Maybe because I'm just tired.

Who knows.

I'm taking extra walks, I exercise, I try to be efficient and then I play DOOM for two hours and eat a bar of chocolate. What the hell man.

I swear good things are coming fast though! I've just got to catch some cash flow. Plans supplement out that stomach: I'm gonna defrag and fraction. Life's a kneecap on traction. And like they say about Boyka: good knee, bad knee, no knee - he's still going Oni.

Oh me? Maybe I'll go play the Bungie phony and get a slow meal.

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