[Mark]

Thanks for the compliments. When you say maps does that mean you were able to complete them all? The reason I ask is because I have not had much in the way of feedback from players and I would like to know if anything might need an explanation or tweaking in the maps.

[Helixhorned]

I wanted to play the mod, but saw this:

Quote

Please use the included older version of eduke32 from March of 2014. Versions after this one made changes to the water walking behavior of enemies and will cause some AI

problems.

This presumably refers to 4378. Since then, there was also r4575 which amended the first not very fortunate attempt, but left some open questions IIRC. Do the problems that affect Graveyard since r4378 go away with r4575?

[Mark]

I'll load it up shortly and find out.

Still problems with 4575. One enemy, a replacement for the Newbeast will sink down properly and come back out as it should only the first time. After that it walks on top of the water. Other custom zombies sink way down up to their heads and do not come back out. Not sure what conclusions can be drawn from this since there is custom con code that might be the cause of some of this with newer versions. All I know is they work with 4378 and I'm not smart enough to code things to work with newer versions.

[Helixhorned]

Played the first level of Graveyard. It's pretty funny at times, indeed. Thanks for

Spoiler

the prominent position.

And I always wanted to die by being "Horned" .

So the newbeast is replaced by the skeleton, hhm. I made a test map with one on a TROR water sector. With the newest revision, it will eventually submerge and (as far as I can see) never rise to the surface again, which seems to be the same behavior as with pre-r4378. Dunno whether that observation is relevant here.

[Mark]

I found as work progressed on the levels that it wasn't becoming quite as spooky and scary as I wanted. So I decided to inject some humor here and there to make it a little scary but fun.

[Tea Monster]

That worked nicely for Army of Darkness so you are in good company there.

Again, nice to see that you can use Polymer effectively in a level that is actually playable!

[Mark]

I have injected a little bit of humor into Decay in some places ( especially a poke at Micky C again ) but for the most part that project is more serious.

You know, I hope I'm not condemning Decay by having it in Polymer. Judging from the limited amount of people that tried out Graveyard, I don't want Decay to suffer the same fate since other people are involved with it.

[Tea Monster]

What renderer you use shouldn't determine whether it gets played or not. You have designed your maps to be readily playable to anyone who is able to play the regular game with polymer.

It's a great set of maps and it tries to do something different and cool. Something with a sense of adventure, fear and a dash of humour. That should be all you need to know.

[Micky C]

Mark., on 08 February 2015 - 03:38 AM, said:

I have injected a little bit of humor into Decay in some places ( especially a poke at Micky C again ) but for the most part that project is more serious.

Again?

[Mark]

Did you happen to see the two "pokes" at you in Graveyard?

[Micky C]

I never got back to finishing it, maybe I should do that

[zykov eddy]

It's fun and has a lot of cool action, but I have to say, I was kinda dissapointed. Maybe the problem is that I was expecting a scary mod, not funny-scary. At times, I felt like it lacked atmosphere and actual scares. The environments are awesome (even though they're a little too dark), but jokes and repetitive action ruined a potentially good atmosphere for me. Also, some sound effects are weird, or just missing.

[zykov eddy]

I really, really hope Decay TC will be scarier.

[Mark]

The darkness was something I worried about. In my rush at the very end to get the project released I forgot to make a small test screen / map to have the player adjust their monitor for how it is meant to be played.

And as I mentioned earlier, I was going for completely scary but it wasn't coming together for me. So I took a chance and injected some humor. Some will like it and some won't. Adding the player dialog was one of the last things I thought of and implemented towards the end. Was that more of a distraction or did it seem OK?

EDIT: BTW feel free to send any suggestions or bugs found in a PM to me. I'm willing to do a little tweaking if needed and release an update patch.

[Micky C]

Well I finished the thing. On the balance of things I didn't like it that much, although it did get better as it progressed.

Like others have said, it really wasn't that scary. Although the jokes were ok (liked the polymost one), only found one of the two mentions of me.

A big problem is that the gunplay is simply below average. Very little weapon variety, most of the enemies are pretty similar and simply move towards you for melee attacks. They also tend to move sideways randomly which was annoying since it caused me to waste ammo. I was pretty low on ammo most of the time, and a lot of the pickups seemed to trigger enemies, which ended up leaving me with less health and/or ammo than when before I got the pickups, which IMO is a bad mechanic/balancing. Found the spiders to be annoying too, especially since they (and sometimes the other enemies) seemed to come out of nowhere and you'll first know it when you start taking damage.

As for the visuals, they were ok. The problem is that without the models the architecture is pretty damn basic. Luckily there are models most of the time but I especially remember some corridors in the 2nd map that were incredibly boxy and simple. So yeah a bit of over-relianace on models and polymer lighting in a lot of places. This pic is a great example of what I'm talking about. I mean yeah it looks kinda good, but I'm not sure if it's because I'm a mapper but to me it just looks like an incredibly simple room with some lights and a (very nice) normal mapped texture everywhere. To be fair terrain like underground tunnels are very tricky to do in Duke.
Also for the most part the maps weren't that conceptually grand: the graveyard was a big flat square for the most part. A little bit of height variation here and there but nothing major. Most of the rest of the maps were just corridors. That big chamber near the end of the third map was ok. The graveyard and some of the other areas looked good and relatively modern for a build engine game from a technical viewpoint, but my earlier points still stand. Plus other TCs have done the modern look better like Duke Nukem Eternity and Slender's Woods. DNE is a good example of how models and polymer lighting can be used to enhance already-good level design rather than be the main attraction. Slender's woods; the same deal except only with models, and of course creates a really tense atmosphere. Then again those guys are pros so of course those projects are awesome.

As for progression, that could have flown better too. It was pretty confusing where to go most of the time. A lot of dead ends. This problem was massively exacerbated by the player's reduced movement speed. Those two things do not go well together at all I'm afraid. It was also a bit annoying that some of these dead ends seemed to have nothing in them but enemies, so it's like why go in there at all if all you're doing is reducing your health and ammo?
The third map was a lot better in that it really started to introduce a bit of story as opposed to "oh I'm just randomly walking around here". So some more story early on would be better. I did like that "choice" near the end of the third map. You can probably guess which one I picked first
The player's movement and the movement of the enemies somehow made everything feel a bit sluggish.

As for sound design, a few more ambiant sounds wouldn't hurt. IMO it was a very bad idea to reuse the standard duke enemy sounds for the new enemies. Would have helped quite a bit if you'd chosen some new sounds at least vaguely related to the enemy types. Perhaps and original lightning sound as well.

Also experienced some game-breaking bugs. E.g that nun didn't disappear when the door was opened, and I had to dnclip my way through. Plus the level didn't end when it was supposed to at the end of the 4th level.

It's not as bad as it could have been, given it's your first project, but there are definitely big areas for improvement. It's definitely too late to fix the vast majority of these since the issues are pretty deeply ingrained from the start. Hopefully the TC will be treated as a learning experience and these issues can be avoided in your future projects. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but that's just how I view the TC. Others seemed to have liked it better so maybe it's a preference thing.

[Mark]

Hey, don't worry about anything negative you said. I wanted feedback good or bad to learn from.

Player speed was purposely slowed down to be more realistic and so you can't so easily just run around and avoid all enemies. The first map especially is not linear because exploration is encouraged.

Weapon choice was limited because this is not a futuristic space game. The pistol and shotgun is what the player would normally find in this style of game.

Those annoying spiders are supposed to keep you alert and monsters sneaking up out of nowhere is supposed to be part of the scare. Maybe it didn't work?

The health / weapon / ammo balance was a concern of mine. I don't play a lot of maps and this is my first time at placing these things in a map. I was afraid of making it too easy for the more experienced players. I don't know if you found all the secrets. Some of them contained a weapon or ammo.

The dead ends with monsters is a challenge for those great players who not only want to finish the maps but wipe out all enemies.

THAT DAMN NUN. Two other people that tested the maps mentioned that too. I tweaked that effect many times and finally got it to the point that I could not get it to malfunction after many test plays. Its a simple effect and I'm completely baffled at the problem. The end of the 4th level I noticed takes a couple of seconds to take effect but it worked for me. I'll have to look into both of those things again.

Thanks for the detailed feedback. As you can tell from some previous posts in this thread I have been begging for some.

[Micky C]

Quote

Those annoying spiders are supposed to keep you alert and monsters sneaking up out of nowhere is supposed to be part of the scare. Maybe it didn't work?

Not so much for me anyway. Like you said it's not as scary as you hoped it to be. Maybe some of the enemies can emit a more constant noise so that you know they're there more and that you don't just seemingly take damage from nowhere.

Quote

The health / weapon / ammo balance was a concern of mine. I don't play a lot of maps and this is my first time at placing these things in a map. I was afraid of making it too easy for the more experienced players. I don't know if you found all the secrets. Some of them contained a weapon or ammo.

I'm fairly sure I found a lot of the secrets, or at least out-of-the-way stashes. As I said, a lot of the time I picked those up, enemies would spawn which would leave me with less than I started, which is a problem. After the baptism of fire thing, I actually ran out of ammo completely and just had to run past the enemies, which wasn't particularly hard. A little less of the skeletons randomly moving around would help too; IMO it's the wrong kind of challenge. Others might disagree since it may add to the horror factor. Also it would help if the spiders had the correct hitbox w.r.t kicking

Quote

The dead ends with monsters is a challenge for those great players who not only want to finish the maps but wipe out all enemies.

That's all well and good, but if the player doesn't know where to go, he'll be going into these dead end areas looking for a way out, not realizing that it's a dead end and only meant to be there for the challenge.

Btw what's up with the baptism of fire thing? It's such a weird progression. Speaking to the nun unlocks the baptism thing? Why is that? And what's the significance of it all?

[Mark]

Just a wierd and different puzzle to figure out.

[Mark]

After reading MickyC's review I will have to fix one of the bugs he found concerning the nun not disappearing to let you through the gate to the second map. So in the mean time, do as he did and "noclip" your way past her if she doesn't disappear on her own after completing the "baptism of fire".

[Robman]

Certainly going to try this next time I'm around an internet connection that doesn't cost me an arm and leg per megabyte.

[Mark]

Dig in to your GF's purse and download it, Dammit.

[Robman]

This mod is about 200mb right?

[Mark]

Yes.

[LeoD]

I'm finally back at my home PC to play this and give the thread a well-deserved bump to the top of the list. An impressive achievement, Mark., indeed. This deserves far more attention than it seems to have gotten so far. I'm currently stuck at the nun, but just read above I should DNCLIP past her for the time being.
Three nitpicks: You forgot the broken chair model, the skin of the park bench doesn't fit (both colour and brightness), and I wasted lots of ammo on enemies behind transparent tree/shrub model parts.

[Mark]

Thankyou very much. I have been waiting a long time for others to chime in with these little issues so I can fix anything that needs fixing and release a patch of some kind.

As I said before, that nun is a real bitch. While testing she would disappear 9 out of 10 times. Other peolpe seem to have less luck than that. Its a standard remotely triggered C9 explosion set to go off right next to her. There is no reason I can think of as to why she doesn't always kill off every time.

Anyway, glad you like it so far and keep the reports coming if you spot anything else. I'm keeping a list.

EDIT: I "aged" the wood texture for the bench. I darkened it and added some blotches and scratches. It looks a little more like an outside bench now. ( I know, it should be a metal bench )

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

[Mark]

For all of you that had trouble with the nun not disappearing after the "baptism of fire" puzzle was completed, did you play straight through to that point or did you load a saved game from some earlier point? When testing all the maps I never tried saving a game and loading it back up. Maybe thats why I couldn't get it to glitch.

[Micky C]

I loaded a savegame.

[Mark]

Thanks.

[Micky C]

If the nun is any kind of actor chances are it becomes inactive after a while hence wouldn't be affected by the explosion. You'd be far better off doing it directly from code IMO. Even it not working 1 time out of 10 would suggest a need for an alternate method assuming they hadn't all been explored already.

[Tea Monster]

Nice job on the texture.

As to the Nun: Both. Same result.

It IS the Penguin!!!!