General Chex Quest Mod Concept Thread

[Nomekop]

Hey, I decided to make this thread because a bunch of people have mod concepts all the time, and don't have any work to show for them, and I figured instead of clogging the forum with topics for all of them, we could have a singular thread for all of this chaos. This topic works somewhat similarly to the Project concept thread on the ZDoom forums, so here we go.

Anyway to start out, an idea that has been on my mind for a great deal of time is an IWAD that replaces the doom textures, enemies, and other graphics with chex quest ified versions, for usage with Doom PWADs in a way similar to how Freedoom functions. Infact, why not use freedoom as a basis for this conversion? This might be able to go with a vanilla doom compatabile version of Chex Quest 3, removing all the slopes and splitting the levels in ways to fill out the episodes. The only issue that may arise is the fact that Chex Quest uses textures that don't have equivalents in Doom, and would not be a part of the pack? Then again, considering how Pwads could merely replace our extra textures, that isn't as big of a problem as presented, although it may break those levels when outside of the range of the PWAD.

[Awesomedude249]

Anyway to start out, an idea that has been on my mind for a great deal of time is an IWAD that replaces the doom textures, enemies, and other graphics with chex quest ified versions, for usage with Doom PWADs in a way similar to how Freedoom functions. Infact, why not use freedoom as a basis for this conversion? This might be able to go with a vanilla doom compatabile version of Chex Quest 3, removing all the slopes and splitting the levels in ways to fill out the episodes. The only issue that may arise is the fact that Chex Quest uses textures that don't have equivalents in Doom, and would not be a part of the pack? Then again, considering how Pwads could merely replace our extra textures, that isn't as big of a problem as presented, although it may break those levels when outside of the range of the PWAD.

I'm too lazy to pull up the topic(s), but that concept has been discussed many times on this forum

[Nomekop]

Ehh, fair enough.

Another thought that has been on my mind is trying to figure out a way around the error with the skins in multiplayer from the color changing, which might be potentially changed by using a player class that inherits from playerpawn instead of doomplayer, or perhaps using TEXTURE lumps to make the frames for the player only change the underlaying color, where the slime could be overlayed, but I am unsure as to if TEXTURE lumps could be used to create sprites for player usage, and if you could make an individual piece change instead of the whole.

[75]

You're probably aware of this already but in Chex 3 Chukker got around the "green slime" problem for skins by recoloring the player's pants to blue.

If you're looking to make it so that you can actually use skins in multiplayer (i.e., not skin classes like what I did in Chex Pack), I just want to make sure you've seen this bug report: http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29782&p=565332&hilit=skin+chex#p565332

Excerpt:

The only combinations that [make the skins] work are:

Playing using a Doom IWAD, using the Doom color range, and inheriting from Doom player [i.e., have green pants and run into the slime issue]

or

Playing using heretic.wad, using the Heretic Color range, and inheriting from Hereticplayer

So, the IWAD, color range, and inherited class must all be from the same game.

Every other combination of IWAD, color range, and inheritance will cause the only skin to be "base"

I don't think inheriting from playerpawn or TEXTURES would help you with this, but it might be worth a try. Let me know if I can help, I'm interested to see if there's another way around this bug.


EDIT: Regarding Chexified Doom IWAD:

Here's the attempts I know of:

1. Manny Cav's "The New Chex Quest 2": As far as I know that turned into Slimeinator's IWAD, which you can get here http://ifocserv.net/ftp/Random/TNCQ.wad (I renamed it to TNCQ to avoid naming conflicts with Doom2.wad)

In TNCQ.wad all of the sprites/sounds/etc. are replaced with chex assets, but the maps are all straight from Doom 2 so it looks quite ugly.

2. The Slimeinator's  "The New Chex Quest: Generation 2" : The links are all dead, I can't remember how many maps he had http://www.chexquest.org/index.php?topic=1236.0


A true Doom 2 TC would be awesome, but I strongly suggest that modders start out with one five map episode, sort of the same thing I said in the 20th anniversary mod topic:

http://www.chexquest.org/index.php?topic=5299.msg195351#msg195351



EDIT 2: Also, regarding a "vanilla doom compatible" chex 3, remember that there's some rather unpleasant side effects of not using zDoom for a chex mod, I went through a few here : http://www.chexquest.org/index.php?topic=5299.msg195364#msg195364

Here's the restrictions I know of, in case you don't know what the other formats support.

If you're going for Boom compatibility,

- No ACS, no DECORATE, no high res textures (Chex 3 has one high res flat that I know about)

- You can no longer stop infighting with projectile enemies, you'll have to make sure BWAs (and Super Cyclopti and Quadrumpi if you're doing them) don't ever catch other enemies in their line of sight.

- Don't forget the dehacked patch to change the flemoids from hitscan enemies to melee enemies, and you'll have to do some dehackery to prevent the bipedici from dropping large zorchers and the commoni from dropping minizorch recharges.

- The super cycloptis, maximus, and flem mine won't be hard to do if you're careful with your sprites, but if you want the Quadrumpus you'll have to do some minor DeHacked.

- You might want to check that Boom even recognizes chex.wad / your iwad as an IWAD, if it doesn't you might have to trick it somehow into thinking it's a doom iwad.

- No slopes in maps, no hexen format. The most advanced format you can use is Boom format.

- You're probably going to have to make at least an 8 map episode now because I really doubt that Boom knows to stop and display a screen at the end of E1M5

- No .png images, there's a couple .pngs in chex3.wad

If you're going for Vanilla Chex.exe compatibility:

All of the restrictions above, plus:

- Lots of Dehacked sprite renaming

- You might run into medusa crashes with the Chex 3 textures? Some chex 3 textures aren't power of two and IIRC vanilla doom doesn't like that (**paging Dr. Boingo to the thread**)

- Don't forget to make sure the new midis in Chex 3 still sound good in .mus format

- Convert all chex 3 sounds to doom sound format

hope that helps. I would really like to see a vanilla doom or boom compatible megawad, but zDoom is the easiest engine to work with in Chex.

The Chex 3 (zDoom) monster behavior is already done, if you do it in Boom, or Vanilla Doom, in order to get the Chex 3 monsters in vanilla doom, you'll have to write some custom Dehacked, and even then the result won't be as good as what it would have been if you just used chex3.wad.

[Nomekop]

I threw together a small wad that replaces doom sprites with the duplicates of their same name in chex3.wad, if the version matched the original sprite enough. (Lamp to Slime Flow? no thank you.)

After playing it for a bit, I began to think of what "clone" flemoids should be distributed to, as having multiple replacements for Demons and Imps is rather absurd.

Stridicus - Probably replace the Revenant, considering the high speed of both, as well as its stature, since it is far taller than the original demons.
Cyclopus - Either the Chaingunner or the Aracnotron. Honestly, the Chaingunner fits more on a balancing basis than the other, as it should still be weaker than the Super Cyclopus, so thats that.
Larva - And that leaves the Larva to replace the pinky demon, as there are not any other enemies to replace that it would fit. Plus, it kinda fits considering Freedoom's version of the Pinky.

Quadrumpus - Either the Chaingunner or Mancubus, and considering that the Chaingunner is probably going to be taken by the Cyclopus, as well as its orignal trait to throw slime balls around, it fits over the Mancubus.
Bipedius with Armor - Imp. Obviously thats not changing.
Flembrane - ahahaha no.
Maximus - Obviously the best Baron/Hell Knight replacement. should go with the latter, as an upgraded Maximus may be nice.

Of course, that leaves the remaining enemies to replace.

Baron of Hell - probably a Maximus with Armor.
Arachnotron - I think that a replacement for this has actually already been made, and is used in a few mods... can't remember off the top of my head who made it though. I'm thinking Strife, but I could be wrong.
Arch-vile - Probably enough enemy concepts that could fit this.
Pain Elemental - Same deal as above.
Icon of Sin - Probably should have the textures replaced with some sort of giant Flembrane... with anti zorch shielding, except for the area that would be the brain, which should be the center of some sort of mounted mechanical rig that summons flemoids with inter-dimentional rifts. Whaleware is final boss.

And that's all of them.

Right?

Oh yeah, these guys.

SS Grunts: Probably Brand X employees, or maybe some flemoids using incredibly bizarre weaponry. Supplied by Brand X.
Commander Keen: A giant flemoid egg hanging from the ceiling from a strand of slime. Just zorch it before it hatches.

[TrueDude]

I've made Ann Arachnotron replacement using modified Strife sprites, you may be thinking of that.

[Nomekop]

Ah yes, that would be it, TrueDude.

Mind if I throw them into my patch? They are of rather high quality, after all.

[TrueDude]

Sure thing, anyone can use them for whatever.

[noob1234]

Lost souls? Would you just use Boingo's gyro?

[Nomekop]

Flem Mines just make more sense, especially when you bring Pain Elementals into the question.

[Boingo the Clown]

Lost souls? Would you just use Boingo's gyro?

I know I have said this dozens of times, but I am going to go back and finish the gyro some day.

[TrueDude]

Lost souls? Would you just use Boingo's gyro?

I know I have said this dozens of times, but I am going to go back and finish the gyro some day.

If I remember correctly Chex Pack has its own completed version.

[75]

Lost souls? Would you just use Boingo's gyro?

I know I have said this dozens of times, but I am going to go back and finish the gyro some day.

If I remember correctly Chex Pack has its own completed version.

Yeah, I made a working Gyro. I based on something Boingo made, added in TrueDude's propeller, and added my own "death" sprites.  I forgot if I did the pain sprites too.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acKDdpdFfhU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acKDdpdFfhU</a>

Note: If anybody wants to use my sprite edits you're more than welcome to.

[Nomekop]

Actually, if anyone has any textures and objects that they would like to share, that would be great.

Really though, submitting it to Boingo's Resource would probably be more of a help, as then I might be able to reuse those based upon the permissions provided.

[75]

Anything I made for Chex Pack is free to use in any Chex mod, credit would be nice but if you forget it's not a huge deal.

If you need help finding where my textures/sprites/etc are let me know, unfortunately I don't have time to split it out into texture packs and sprite sheets right now.