Chex Quest: Doomsday (Rerelease!)

[mob720]

Chex Quest: Doomsday

Version 1.1 Released!

Changelog

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After several years on hiatus, I am proud to release a brand new, almost from scratch Chex Quest project. Some of you may recall my previous project, released under the same name, but understand that this is not an update, but a refresh. It doesn't follow the same plot (plot isn't too important anyway, right?) and it doesn't follow the same mapping paradigm. This was created with the goal of returning to the basics of map making: no more mazes, no more scripts, no more gimmicks; just a classic run and gun style. Effort instead went into things like map geometry, monster placement, and testing to ensure proper pickup amounts. I hope that this amounts to a steady stream of fun for you!

Another hot topic is the use of new, Doom-y textures found throughout the maps. When experimenting with new layouts and geometry for maps, I quickly found out that the default CQ textures do not take well to tiling in any direction. If you didn't make walls with heights divisible by 128 and lengths divisible by 64, the resulting look was just.. not perfect. I wanted to find new textures I could use while also creating a new feel for Chex Quest. Why not have it feel dark and ambient, like Doom? After all, lighting was one of Doom's creative points, and something that wasn't used much at all in the original CQ levels. I played through several megawads for Doom since then, all with their own distinct flavors that I wanted to emulate in Chex Quest. When I saw the texture set for UAC Ultra was available for use, I was inclined to try it based on how well all the textures meshed together, especially with the lighting. These textures were also great at tiling and bordering, so I gave them a shot. After creating a new Chex-labeled door using Ultratex, I challenged myself to make the new texture set work. Combined with new Chex Quest 3 textures and several of my own addition and/or creation, I finally created a levelset that I think portrays a new, darker, atmospheric Chex Quest.

Story

Several years after the events of Chex Quest 3, it has seemed like the flemoids have finally given up in their attacks on our nutrition-rich universe, leaving you some much deserved R and R. Small pockets of flemoid resistance were found from time to time and easily quelled, previously believed to be a part of the meteor invasion. However, a new, coordinated attack by these seemingly benign flemoids has forced the evacuation of several cities. IFC High Command, concerned about the sudden increase and cohesiveness in flemoid activity, has ordered you to once again equip your zorcher and investigate a federal outpost located in one of the now abandoned cities.

Features

-Shoot flemoids in an IFC facility spanning 5 maps, each with radically different designs
-Tweaked some higher tier flemoid behavior to provide a (balanced) challenge
-New supershotgun replacement, complete with reload animations!
-New statusbar! Now you can see your ammo count!
-New awesome music! Handpicked after listening to hundreds of available MIDIs
-Miscellaneous graphics tooling (brightmaps, anims, textures)

Screenshots

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Download

Version 1.1: http://www.mediafire.com/file/m790kwmjb5aqapv/cqdd1.1.zip

Notes

This wad uses chukker's chex3.wad as it's iwad. As a result, this wad can only be played on source ports that are compatible with Chex Quest 3. This means up-to-date installations of zDoom, gzDoom, and Zandronum should work okay.

Fun fact, my method of testing was that if I could play through the whole map without dying, then it should be fair. E1M5 has not met this requirement, but you guys shouldn't have too much of a problem with it! Please treat this mod like you would one for Doom--save often and jump into the fray. Due to lack to hitscan enemies, I had to find other ways to ensure difficulty (since hitscanners guarantee large fluctuations in player health). These ways include monster placement, amount of enemies, ammo conservation, and health conservation. I tried to limit health and ammo to what exactly the player would need, and all maps were balanced for a pistol start (no extra health, ammo, or weapons) and presumably no secrets found. For added challenge, try each map from a pistol start!

Helpful hints: don't ever let yourself get cornered; try to find alternate routes; sometimes you need to push through a horde of enemies; if you're out of ammo, you probably missed a pickup; save before important looking switches and doors; switches usually have a way of indicating what they affect (window to target, lights corresponding to target).

Please let me know of any issues you have. There was a nasty bug on E1M3 that would prevent the player from progressing, but I haven't encountered it in a while so I hope it's fixed.

Also, Doomsday.. like Doom. Because it's supposed to play like Doom. Get it? Heh

[mob720]

Map commentary (spoilers ahead!)

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[Awesomedude249]

Wow....
I was looking through some of your posts on the old forums and it seemed like your old mods were very good, so I'm excited to play this one! It seems like the whole CQ community is becoming CQ oriented again, we're getting quite a few new mods.

[Tifosi 92]

When I started reading your opening post for this, from your design philosophy to your comments on all your maps, my first thought was, "This sounds a lot like what I did..." Which is by no means a bad thing: it piqued my curiosity. Either way, though, I'm wrong, because this is far superior to what I did, lol.

Downloaded it and immediately fell in love with it. I've only gotten through the first map so far but I'll definitely be playing through it some more when I have the time; I'm certainly going to share it with my brother. If I didn't have to grade a bunch of things today I'd probably get sucked into playing through all of it.

Your attention to detail is insane. I love the feel of the levels–they remind me a lot of 'that other Chex Quest 3', which I actually like because thematically there were some aspects of that game which were enjoyable. Part of me almost wants to run a PWAD with most of the sound effects from that in conjunction with your WAD. This is much, much better than that one though; the sense of atmosphere is incredible and the level design is really, really tight. It feels like classic Chex, but with a darker twist–sort of like some of the darker levels from Super Mario 64 or Crash Bandicoot; a less-friendly corner of a generally friendly universe. My favorite bit so far is the circular staircase around the fenced-in Armored Bipeds in E1M2, which felt a lot like a moment from SM64.

In short, you've done an outstanding job with this. I had a smile on my face the whole time I was playing it. Hands-down some of the best levels I've played in any Doom mod so far. Keep up the awesome work, and I hope to see those next two episodes done some day! I'll let you know what I think about the rest of the levels as I get a chance to play through them (which will hopefully be very soon, lol).

[mob720]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! And I hope you understand I didn't mean to sound like I was pointing fingers at your maps. I was referring to my older projects, which had small, uninspired maps (I mean they were okay but nowhere near the scale of these) and a lot of fragglescript, which is what we used in the Doom Legacy days. So instead of trying to create story through messages on the screen, I'm letting the gameplay create the story.

And I'm very glad you like it so far! I look forward to your thoughts on the rest of it as well as other people's thoughts I'm glad to have the respect of a big contributor to the game.

[Tifosi 92]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! And I hope you understand I didn't mean to sound like I was pointing fingers at your maps. I was referring to my older projects, which had small, uninspired maps (I mean they were okay but nowhere near the scale of these) and a lot of fragglescript, which is what we used in the Doom Legacy days. So instead of trying to create story through messages on the screen, I'm letting the gameplay create the story.

And I'm very glad you like it so far! I look forward to your thoughts on the rest of it as well as other people's thoughts I'm glad to have the respect of a big contributor to the game.

Oh, I didn't think you were pointing fingers at my maps at all. I just thought that it sounded like our design philosophies are similar (your design philosophy for this wad, I mean), which is really cool and a lot of the reason I was drawn to download this. And big contributor to the game? Ha, even though I played Chex Quest at the same time pretty much everyone here probably did, I didn't start building anything for it until four years ago. Most of you have probably been at this far longer than I have, lol.

Finished the second level today, won't have time to play another for a while probably, but definitely want to. The sense of atmosphere in this wad is incredible. Some parts felt very much like Jedi Outcast (particularly the Kejim Base level at the beginning of the game) and Portal, which is awesome because these are two of my favorite games. Your attention to detail on things like ceiling structures and the chairs that actually rotate based on your perspective is awesome, and I love things like the door stuck open with a crate placed under it. I spent a lot of time working with the Chex Quest 3 textures and the number of different ways you've found to use textures which I thought were fairly boring is unbelievable. One of the things that you've done well so far that I wish I could have learned to do better is integrate different parts of your maps together–but then again my only exposure to Doom mapping was the original three CQ episodes and these levels are a few strata above those in terms of complexity, lol. I found all of the secrets except the one with the Supercharge Breakfast behind the fence; I no-clipped into it because I had already been playing for about an hour by the time I gave up searching, but that didn't help me at all. Any tips?

Still loving it. Can't wait to play the third map and will check back in here when I do. 

[mob720]

Awesome, some more feedback! Again I'm glad you're enjoying it so far, I hope others who have gotten the chance to play are as well.

Some parts felt very much like Jedi Outcast (particularly the Kejim Base level at the beginning of the game) and Portal, which is awesome because these are two of my favorite games.

Looks like they stole my level design Actually, that link you posted is surprisingly similar, you're right! I actually based that part of the map on an old anniversary map someone made several years ago, based on the supposed interior of one of the Chex space ships. Anytime I use the white hydroram textures, it definitely gives off that clean, Portal vibe too. And then juxtapose that with the dark, dirty textures and you have Portal 2! Hahah

I found all of the secrets except the one with the Supercharge Breakfast behind the fence; I no-clipped into it because I had already been playing for about an hour by the time I gave up searching, but that didn't help me at all. Any tips?

I guess I need to make the secrets harder to find, hahah! Honestly I'm surprised you got as far as you did with them, I thought they'd be kinda hard to find. Especially the phasing zorcher secret, it's just so out of the way even if you find the switch to open it you'd have to search to find it was open. As for a hint, it has to do with the IFC logo in the main room.. honestly I left this one in because it's easy to stumble on it by accident. But you should be able to figure it out Can't wait for more feedback!

[Tifosi 92]

Okay, checking back in because I finally finished playing the .wad today. The short version is this: this is one of the best CQ mods ever made in terms of level quality. Apart from the first level, the entire set felt as if they were something out of a classic triple-A Star Wars title from back in the day. So, about the remaining three levels:

E1M3 was lots of fun. I'll start with a bug report which might have to do with my version of GZDoom (I'm playing on a Mac, just fyi): at different points of the watery areas here, the floor was completely missing, offering a view of the sky texture. This happened in the big room with the waterfalls, the very first room with water, and anywhere that Flemoids would spontaneously spawn in. This carried over to any levels with spontaneously-appearing Flemoids as well. If you want pictures I can take screenshots and post them; figuring it might be a GZDoom for MacOS issue, though. Anyway, enough about that–the design of this level was outstanding. I haven't the slightest idea how you can generate such a huge, interconnected environment that actually plays so well. Every room feels like it has a purpose, which just feels unbelievable in terms of bringing the CQ universe to life. This level reminded me of the 'Imperial Sewers' level from Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, but without the underwater parts. The atmosphere and just general feel on this one was incredible. The only thing I didn't like about it was that the jump off the central platform in the big room was really difficult to get right unless you strafe-ran off of it; if that's not the way you're supposed to get through the level, I guess I found a glitch, lol. Awesome to play through, though.

E1M4 was also reminiscent of Shadows of the Empire, but this time the cave-base parts of the Gall Spaceport level. I'd take it as a huge compliment that your level design is so similar to something like this, because games like that one are remembered for their outstanding level design–and this one lived up to that standard. You definitely gave the Chex Quest universe an old-school sci-fi feel, which I think is totally awesome because your mod 'feels' like the era in which Chex Quest was released. The switches and lifts on this level are what I think reminded me most of SotE. I liked how you managed to reuse a lot of the real estate here with a new twist by turning out the lights for the latter part of the level. If I'm not mistaken, this is also the first level to feature the Quadrumpus; repurposing this guy as a Mancubus replacement was a really neat idea, I think, and it also makes a lot of sense.

E1M5 was my favorite level here. Probably my favorite level from any Doom mod I've ever played, quite honestly. The sense of scale here is outrageous–it's as if someone took Thunderpeak (Cacoward winner) and used it as one of their maps in a .wad, which to me is just unbelievable given how massive that map was. I can't imagine how long it must've taken to make this map, given it took me a full two hours to play through it with retries and saves (played through all the maps on Extreme Ooze; Super Slimey! on this one must be next to impossible). This is where your attention to detail shines the most, to be honest with you; it's as if someone took 'Terminal' from Modern Warfare 2, shot it 50 years into the future, and then landed it in a world full of cereal. Just awesome. I love how the 'above-ground' part of the spaceport is so clean, while the bowels of the thing are grimier and darker. Also like a lot of the lighting techniques and computer scenery. I thought everything about this level just flowed brilliantly; the way you set up the 'mainframe' of the landing pads and the terminal early on, and then basically guide the player to the underside of the spaceport to brute-force their way to the top of the landing pad. Another level where you managed to re-use certain parts of it without making it feel boring; the back-tracking here felt much more natural and necessary (or maybe there wasn't any backtracking necessary; it was a huge level so there were probably some shortcuts I missed). I read your commentary, and think it's better that you kept it to only two main zones; if you had made it into four, this map would've been too big. I typically don't like levels that take longer than a half-hour to complete with retries and whatnot–most of yours were right up against that time most of the time–but since this was the last map on the set and you needed a grand finale, I thought it was completely fitting. Loved the glowing lights on the starpad, and the final battle was just epic; great setup to it and just short of impossible enough to still be challenging. Best map in the set by far in an episode full of truly outstanding maps.

The only thing I didn't really like in this mod was the fact that the Propulsor caused self-damage again; it makes little sense in the context of the LAZ Device and when Chukker removed the self-damaging property of the weapon I thought it was a good call as it made CQ gameplay more unique from Doom. I think it's fine without self-damage, but I feel if you wanted to keep it consistent with Doom weapon balance it would've made more sense to lower the fire rate and/or slow the projectiles and/or lower the damage. The self-damaging Propulsor is my only gripe about an otherwise absolutely stellar work. (Well, it would've also been nice to have an option to use the old status bar for all the retro feels, but, you know... lol)

So to sum it all up, this is an extremely well-put-together wad. My favorite gameplay changes were the red particles for Zorch energy puffs and the use of the Quadrumpus as a Mancubus replacement. Nominated this thing for a Cacoward over on Doomworld but they complained they couldn't see the pictures in this thread; you ought to go post some screens advertising the best parts of this wad, 'cause E1M5 alone definitely deserves an award or at least recognition of some sort, let alone the rest of the amazing maps (honestly E1M5 is in the same tier of some of those 'legendary' single-map wads that have been lauded by the community in the past; it deserves to be recognized). Your effort is unbelievable and the finished product is probably the best Doom mod I've ever played. Congratulations on getting such an amazing wad released, and I eagerly await the levels that will close out the story. Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

[75]

Nice work on this project, I got a chance to play E1M1 and E1M2 today, here's my thoughts on it so far

I was playing this on UV / Extreme Ooze

General:

- I am a huge fan of both UAC Ultra and Chex Quest, but I have to say mixing the two together was kind of an odd decision and I don't think I like the idea, I think ultratex looks best when it's used in a 100% grimy, oily environment and mixing in the clean Chex textures with Ultratex kind of makes this wad look really bizarre at times and ugly in my honest opinion.

- You did a lot of good work with the ultratex textures and the detailing / custom texture edits are really creative and interesting to look at, so good work on that, I just think the chex and ultratex tones clash badly sometimes, I can get you screenshots if you want me to go into more detail on this.

- I don't really enjoy the combat of these two maps so far, from what I remember Tifosi's maps had a neat gimmick that kept me interested, and it didn't really get tedious for me. In this I sort of feel like I'm spending most of my time fighting clumps of high health, slow monsters (cyclopti, bipedicus with armor) with weak weapons, and the monsters have very little chance of actually doing any harm; there's not enough stress in the fights and I kind of lose interest after a while.

- I think UAC Ultra did a little better with its combat at times, but on the other hand Doom 2 has a more diverse monster set.

- With that said the maps are really well made and I'd be happy to host them, my tastes in SP / Coop maps are kind of weird.

- BTSX, UAC Ultra (sometimes), Speed of Doom, and other map packs do more or less exactly what I complained about above and they did really well, whereas I love Scientist 2 and Swift Death and The Journey seems pretty good but they didn't really take off as well as those other map packs did. I may very well be in the minority with my opinion above, and I'd understand completely if you don't want to mess with the monster placement, I hope this feedback helps you, regardless of what you decide to do.

E1M1:

- I can tell right away that you took inspiration from UAC Ultra in the gameplay aspects, which is cool, the layout is nice and I enjoyed playing through this one
- IMO you really need exit signs, I hit the exit switch at the end of the map, not being sure if it was really an exit or some kind of surprise, and I wasn't able to go back and get the rapid zorcher

E1M2:

- This one I had to quit in the middle off, I kept on running out of ammo and I got tired of fighting 3 or 4 cyclopti one after another in a group with a spoon, minizorcher, or large zorcher; for me this isn't particularly fun, it just gets kind of tedious and repetitive after a while.

- I was OK with the minizorcher / cyclopti fights in E1M1 but at this point it got tiring and I had to take a break.

- I might revisit this again but on the other hand maybe it's better if you get feedback from people who enjoy this sort of combat in coop maps. Note: I rarely stay playing past MAP02 on most megawads.

- You should probably post this on doomworld, there are a lot of guys there who would probably really enjoy this.

[mob720]

Hahahah I love the comments, guys!

I'll address 75's comments first. You're always so critical of my work but it keeps me on my toes and I really like the feedback!

- For the clashing textures, I tried to address this towards the end of the production time by going back through the levels and refurnishing areas that didn't have any reason of using the ultratex set. So if you didn't really like it now, it was a lot worse before! But it's not perfect by any means. I tried to purposefully clash the textures in some areas to give a feel of "this is the clean looking IFC facility that most people see" on the outside then "this is the real, grittier IFC that no one sees," kinda reminiscent of the UAC in the new Doom. And if you have specific examples go ahead and share them. I feel like I did a good job on E1M2 limiting the ultratex use, so if you do get around to booting it up again I hope you'll see that.

- Unfortunately combat in my opinion has to take a slow approach starting out. If I handed the player a large zorcher/rapid zorcher too early, they'll make mincemeat of the low and mid-tier enemies. I tried to provide combat in areas that would make the player vulnerable to ranged attacks (bwas) while dealing with immediate threats (melee enemies). Or areas where if you're not quick with your decisions you can get swarmed. It just kinda stinks that the commonus and bepidicus are just bullet sponges, but I didn't want to give up using them.

- I will definitely check out those map packs you linked, I've been wanting to find more good ones to play!

- On E1M1, honestly I thought I did have an exit sign there, I put them on literally every other map, hahahh guess I just got too used to knowing where the exit was.

- On E1M2, I think I know what's happening for you, you're trying to coax all the enemies from the big room into the hallway while you only have your mini zorcher. If you take the door adjacent to the big room and go down that path, you'll find a large zorcher and a better route to take out the enemies in that room. Strong arming your way through the big room with your dinky zorcher isn't the way I planned for players to go about the map.

- If E1M2 is still too slow for you, definitely just warp to the other ones and check them out, they start off much faster since I give the large zorcher at spawn.


@Tifosi

- I'm surprised that you had issues with the floors on E1M3, I was using an engine trick to simulate deep water by lowering the floor in the middle of the water and leaving the textures missing. What the doom engine is supposed to do is render the higher floor "across" the lower floor. But the actual depth is there, so to the player they end up standing knee deep in water. Several other map packs do this so maybe it's a gzdoom on mac thing, since it's working fine on my gzdoom. Especially the monster pop-up trick, it's done the same way and that's why you're seeing it there too.

- Also you should be able to just sprint straight forward off the ledge onto the lower area with the blue door, maybe you didn't get a fast enough running start? Hahah either way yeah that's where you're supposed to go, I wish I could've made it more clear somehow. But the reason for needing the speed to get across is so that you have enough momentum to sort of crash into the flemoid pop-up trap.

- Glad you liked the quadrumpus adjustments! Discount mancubus is what I consider him.

- E1M5 is my favorite level too, I think it's a great combination of what I was going for. My main issue with it is how am I supposed to make a better map than that? I guess it's a good problem to have.

- I opted to add the self-damage to the propulsor because I felt like it could basically be a panic button for getting swarmed, and with that it renders the super large zorcher obsolete. So it'll keep players honest by making it only used as a mid to long range group-thinner or high monster tier neutralizer. Unfortunately it's easy for accidents to happen with it, and I know it's caught me by surprise a couple times, so maybe I'll try to adjust the damage model or something.

- If you really like the old status bar, I've been thinking about whipping up a replacement for it based on the original look but with the arms and ammo count. I know there's one out there but it didn't quite nail it for my tastes.

- Nominated for a cacoward? Wow I never even considered that possibility, thank you! I need to clean up a few textures if I'm going to release it to the general doom community (some textures were taken from BTSX and I believe they don't want modders using their resources) so I'll have to get that worked out. Either heavy editing or replacement, we'll see.

As always thank y'all for the feedback and tips, I definitely want to keep working on this as time goes on (it'll be a while before any meaningful progress, aside from the resource cleanup). I'm all ears for more feedback and discussion!

[75]

Glad I could help,

And if you have specific examples go ahead and share them. I feel like I did a good job on E1M2 limiting the ultratex use, so if you do get around to booting it up again I hope you'll see that.

Sure, http://imgur.com/a/TyjS8

Looking back through it most of my complaints turned out to be about E1M1, so good call on that.

I think what I might recommend for E1M1 is pick one texture set per building, that might help (the player would go from cheerful to ominous locations rather than having a weird mix in the same building).

Or, to take it a step further, the atmosphere in the wad might benefit from having a whole "industrial district" where several buildings in a row are grimy.

For example, I think this area would look a lot nicer if when I looked out from the building I saw more grimy buildings or maybe a harbor instead of clean museum marble buildings: http://imgur.com/Ipve2ut

It's also more realistic to have industrial districts, it's actually really rare to see factories in the middle of a city (the real estate is too valuable)

"this is the clean looking IFC facility that most people see" on the outside then "this is the real, grittier IFC that no one sees," kinda reminiscent of the UAC in the new Doom.

I think this is a cool idea, but in E1M1 I'm not sure you quite achieved that; I guess when I read that idea I was sort of imagining secret underground labs with slime dripping.

What you have now in E1M1 almost looks more like they got halfway through converting a grimy old steel mill into an office building. When I was walking through the buildings in E1M1 it wasn't so much "this is the gritty side of the facility", as much as "wow, they only redid half of this building, half of it is nice and the other half looks like it got hit by a tornado".


I'll have to play through E1M2 again this weekend real quick to give more detailed feedback on E1M2

EDIT: Oh, also; I made a dingy sort of map using the sewer bricks and put it in Chex Pack if you're interested -- it's E5M20; though it's more like Plutonia instead of UAC Ultra

[mob720]

Yeah looking through your screenshots I see what you're saying. I wasn't a big fan of the windowsills that you pointed out, but I guess I got used to them as time went on and never made an effort to fix them. The IFC logo was just me using a texture that already existed, and I attempted to make logo-on-different-background texture but I found I wasn't skilled enough in gimp to pull it off, so I'll check out the texture you suggested. The exterior/interior stuff I can think of ways to clean up, but seeing it from your point of view with a way higher contrast/brightness than what I use the colors (especially the browns) stick out way more than I intended them to. So I'll play around with different looks and try to limit the idea of "random ugly building in the middle of a clean city."

Funnily enough, your idea of an industrial district is actually what I have planned for episode 2. Basically an excuse for me to use more ultratex! But I'll definitely see what I can do with your suggestions and take a look at the map you made.

[75]

The exterior/interior stuff I can think of ways to clean up, but seeing it from your point of view with a way higher contrast/brightness than what I use the colors (especially the browns) stick out way more than I intended them to.

That's a good point, when I set it to Gamma 1.0 a couple areas (especially the opening area) look a lot nicer, sorry about that, I forgot I bumped up the gamma. I updated the imgur album with some text saying which areas look better with the right gamma setting.

So I'll play around with different looks and try to limit the idea of "random ugly building in the middle of a clean city."

Sounds like a good idea,

Funnily enough, your idea of an industrial district is actually what I have planned for episode 2. Basically an excuse for me to use more ultratex!

Sounds cool, I'm looking forward to seeing that

[darkstone]

"Please let me know of any issues you have. There was a nasty bug on E1M3 that would prevent the player from progressing, but I haven't encountered it in a while so I hope it's fixed."
I believe I may have a problem. I'd love to wait until I've played through the entire wad to give my comments on the levels themselves, but I am currently stuck on E1M3 and fear I may have encountered that bug. I'm trying again to play through the level in hopes that if it is that bug, it won't trigger the second time. But if it is that bug, how would I tell, perhaps?
Thanks.

[mob720]

After you hit the light-blue switch and go into the dark tunnel with the panel detached from the wall, and walk all the way to the end, it should wait a second then open up to the main waterfall room. If you get there and nothing happens, that's the bug. Man I was sure it was gone...