Dungeon Master Forum

After more than 5 years, it is finally here: Doom Blade. Download version 1.0

UPDATE: Download version 1.01 here.

Download this dungeon from this Shared OneDrive (in the 'Custom Dungeons' folder)

IMPORTANT NOTE: This thread is meant for general discussion of the dungeon, technical questions and feedback. If you have specific gameplay questions, please use this thread instead.

PLOT:
Fortune… fame… glory… Those are the things you always dreamed of, but were unable to find - yet. For an ancient legend has reached your ear, a legend that spoke of a powerful magical weapon, worth a fortune. The legend says the weapon is hidden somewhere near the remote city of Tarusis, so you set out to that city, hoping to finally find wealth and power.

FEATURES:
- Large dungeon (about as big as DM) that starts with one low-level character.
- Outdoor adventure with different locations (cities, forests, desert) and indoor dungeons (caves, towers, temples, crypts etc.).
- Strong emphasis on plot.
- 10 levels - some huge, some tiny.
- Complete soundtrack. Please try it before you turn off the music, a lot of thought and preparation has been put into the selection.
- Multiple endings.
- Several secret areas.
- Mix of DM1 and DM2 wallsets.
- Some new monsters, items and spells with new graphics.
- Restricted runes.
- Character selection DOES matter.
- DM rules.
- Multiple nods to movies, TV shows, rock music, old games, forum users and other custom dungeons. How many can you find?


WARNING! There is a bug in version 1.0 which is a potential dead-end! If you ever reach a room with the word "Backfire" on the wall, PLEASE SAVE YOUR GAME AND READ ON:

Spoiler

There are three plates here. If you step on any one of them, a lot of pits will open up. These pits should open only once, but I screwed up with the triggers. It is possible to open the pits again and be trapped forever.
Please do the following: Either step on the middle plate or the southern plate (the one closest to the doors). If you ever cross the room again after the pits have closed again, please walk over the northern plate (the one farthest away from the doors) only! That way, the pits will stay closed.

UPDATE: Version 1.01 now available. List of changes:
- Fixed a bug near the end of the game (in the "Backfire" room) that caused a potential dead-end.
- Fixed a bug near the end of the game where hundreds of worms could be generated on the same tile and lead to serious slowdowns.
- Made doors that had to be bashed easier to destroy in order to eliminate potential dead-ends.
- Added an end-game screen for each of the three endings.
- Gave the starting characters additional experience and equipment; Syra and Nabi now have a spellbook and spells from the start, for example.
- Added a (hidden) shortcut from the spider cave to the broken bridge.
- Reduced the Rock Desert and the Spider Cave slightly in size.
- Added alternative solutions to the final test of Gatkin and a passage in the Dragon Cave.
- Fixed a bug where players could accidentally reach the Magic Mushroom without opening all four Emerald doors in the Temple of Aram first.
- Added several small hints to obscure puzzles in the form of wall texts or scrolls.
- Added numerous wall and floor decorations.
- Added some items and monsters so that the dungeon does not feel as empty.
- Added wall fountains in the cities because I couldn't get the DM2 fountains to work with the DM1 flasks and waterskins.
- Added a few monster teleporters in order to hinder monsters from roaming around too freely.


For anyone who wants to take a look at the dungeon in the RTC editor, the corresponding text file can be found here:
http://dmweb.free.fr/Stuff/files/dungeo ... e_Text.zip

Naturally, you will get a lot of errors because of missing graphics and sounds (and a few others as well), but it should be viewable.

Let's (finally) go for it !!!

Woo hoo! Can't wait to try it, but no time at present. Some time soon, I hope. Congrats on getting it done

Excellent, many thanks for uploading!

And congratulations: took longer than you thought eh? I worked out the formula for time taken:

T = 8.4Z x (damage from berzerk on screamer from hardcleave) where T is time in days, and Z was your initial estimate...

I actually had a very quick play just to see how it started. I discovered a problem with music, which I know you're already aware of: if you die and music is playing, it'll continue to play when you restart your save game. This makes the resulting games unplayable, unless you restart RTC which is a huge pain in the arse. (See here: http://dungeon-master.com/forum/viewtop ... =4&t=27877)

It's because of this RTC bug that I decided to remove all looping music and ambience from my works in progress. It's a great shame to have to reduce the game experience in this way, but I think it's better for the player. If George ever fixes the bug, you could then put the music back in...?

EDIT: Of course, I can just turn off the music which I'm afraid that I might have to

Hm. Interesting that you experience this bug, as I haven't encountered it in a while. I just double-checked again and the music works for me. I honestly cannot tell when this bug happens and when it doesn't. Maybe you were just unlucky, whatever that may mean? If the bug is still present, you probably just have to turn the music off.
Anybody else playing this experiencing this bug? I'm really confused since it works for me...

Oh, wow, congratulations, Trantor! I wish I had more time during the school year to play it - but I had to al least look at it briefly (at school ). Well done! Now I know how to spend my Christmas holidays!

@Trantor: The bug is easily reproducible 100% of the time for me: (It does it in all my custom dungeons that have music too).

1) Start the game, wait for music to start playing as you walk around.
2) Save your game.
3) Die (while music is playing)
4) Click "Restart this game" that's shown on "The End" screen (Music is still playing)
5) Game is reloaded, old music continues to play, plus music is started again from the save game so you have both playing...

Just a note on the Doom Blade Hint Book too:

If you're intending to put every question/answer in the first post, that might eventually make a post so large that it makes the page very slow to load (or might even crash!). It'll also make it really, really long. I like the idea you had for it, but for performance it might be better to allow the questions/answers to run across the thread as we do normally (although I appreciate that this makes it hard to find things). No worries for now, just be aware of this as it grows

Actually, I disagree. If the questions run on, it becomes a huge task to eventually create a FAQ, the same questions get asked, and it gets impossible for a browser to know which answers correspeond to new and old versions. Sorry, it's worth the performance hit for the thread to actually have a use. Conflux is a sad lesson in letting a game thread get long. If Trantor can keep up the first post with all the answers, that will help everyone.

If the first post really gets huge - and seriously, how large was the first post of the summary of the silly Christmas threads - then Trant can create a locked hint book with posts for each section, and a hint book question thread that runs on.

Just my thought on it.

It's not really something to agree or disagree on, it's an issue of finite storage capacity in database records.

I don't know what the limit on the size of a database field is, but I imagine there is one and at some point that limit will be reached, at which point Trant won't be able to add any more text to the post anyway.

All web sites work on these trade offs, you can't have unlimited data in a single database record. If the hint book became the size of the Conflux 3 thread for example, I'm pretty sure it would not all fit in one record (each phpBB post is one record).

I agree in principle that one organised post is more useful, and I hope it can indeed be done, but I suspect at some point it will need to be split into a locked thread split into multiple posts as you pointed out.

Gambit, you raise a good point that I hadn't considered, but I don't think it will become a problem. Doom Blade is not Conflux, it is not anywhere near as large, complex or difficult. I am optimistic that all the questions can be asked in one post. If not, I can still split it into several posts and link these posts. But I would suggest to try it out the way it was planned for now.

Congrats Trantor for achieving your goal! I won't be able to try your dungeon for a while, though, but I'm very curious.

I solved few puzzles, found secret and trying finish it but tell me one is there way back from dungeon under cave? Am return to explore surroundings because it tell that is no way back.

Music is perfect sometime too silent, graphic ok when play longer but very simple

btw i wait for this dungeon long because you promised it to relase few months ago, its very fun to play good ideas

I have played the very, very start - enough to see the crossroads and grab a club - but will; have to wait until next week to play it properly. Looking forward to it though

Thanks to everyone for your kind words!
Zed, you can always return everywhere. Sometimes, you will get trapped for a while, but if go on, you can always go back.

Gambit37 wrote:I actually had a very quick play just to see how it started. I discovered a problem with music, which I know you're already aware of: if you die and music is playing, it'll continue to play when you restart your save game.

I died few times and dont have this problem, but i known about something else if you fast quit and enter town where is placed trigger between two music it may cause no music playing until you step on it again.

About dungeon, am probably finished spiders cave (have items from one room) but i dont drawn map so am not sure its something more there. This is problem for me should be possible to buy magic map. And some puzzle, even if you known what to do you dont known how do that, for example i known that need use item in some place but not sure how use that item, i made progress by try everything. What make me wonder right now is how enter second town and black door castle. I have key from somebody who leaved castle and tryed use it there but without results. Hall of champions was puzzle to me and i dont expect to enter it this way, am feel like i found it too late.

I have been quite far in the game, no bug found at the moment. What misses when you have a solo run is a simple bag to store food or various items.

Good to hear you haven't found a bug yet linflas. Hope you are enjoying the dungeon.
While there are several chests and bags, I agree that there are probably not enough for a solo-run - sorry. If you are quite far in the game, I suggest you leave stuff you don't need right now

Spoiler

in Kurast. That city is easily accessible from all of the later parts in the game.

great stuff Trantor, i am excited to see your dungeon. must get to playing it right away

When you look at door buttons as electronic scanner then its logic, but i realized it so late that long time they was very weird to me and i thought its totally wrong. Especialy

Spoiler

use robe to push button

am stuck at this point and first time use hintbook.

Its hard for solo playing, i made huge storage of items on city floor and then was pushed to take second character, at castle i see that four members will be even better.

I'm coping fine with one player.

Congrats on releasing it, Trantor. Only just caught the thread as I am dedicating 95% of my forum time on Beo's little world!

After so much time, and so long, it must be quite exhilarating to release it! Well done.

Nice custom, Trantor.
So far, no bugs, all puzzles come to be logical, fun to play (though monsters quickly disappear in smoke )
Was pleased to listen again to "Theology", a good choice.

I have now a full team and ready to go in the desert!

ian: Yes, it is indeed very relieving to finally have this thing off my desk! It's not as good as I'd like it to be, but good enough to stop working on it.

Sphenx: Great to hear you are having fun with it! And nice that you recognized the music!

My ignorance of rtc is worse than I had imagined.... How do I get it to work?! the rtc file (using the alt downlod) is in the modules directory and it's 0.49 version of the engine...
I have the compile option commented (;) out in the config.

My bad, the file is 30MB and I have only 8MB of it!

I finally had a chance to play a few hours worth. Looking good so far I've crossed the desert to Kurast (?) and am now messing around over there. Seems like a nice little mythology going on here which will be fun finding out.

My only criticism would be the mixing of DM1 and DM2 wallsets, it's a little jarring in places. But I know you said graphics ain't your strong point, so that's fine I'd recommend changing the

Spoiler

16 colour EOB zombie to the better 256 colour one

though -- that one really does look bad, sorry!

Excellent news Trant! I will certainly try it..
Congratulations!!!!!!!

I'm nowhere near finished (I'm assuming), but I'd so far just like to say that I'm loving it. Sometimes people throw together a custom dungeon and it doesn't have the feel of a game that would be created by designers (and that's not a fault in any way) but so far with Doom Blade it has a consistency and fluidity of a stand-alone game, rather than a custom dungeon per se. Not sure if my feelings are coming across too well here lol but anyway, great job Trantor, very refreshing!

Gambit, I was actually waiting for you to say something about the graphics. But I agree with you that the DM1 and DM2 wallsets don't mix very well. This becomes especially obvious at

Spoiler

the Tower of Fastilus, with the DM1 walls mixed with the outdoor DM2 wallset

. And I didn't even notice that the zombie only had 16 colors! This is something I could really change for a future update.

Lee, thank you very much for your kind words, they mean a lot to me!