Skulldash - A Fast-Paced Speedrun Arcade Mod

[Dragonfly]

BUMP!

I am now looking for talented mappers to join in making a community expansion pack for Skulldash! Due to having the most response on Doomworld, the thread is hosted there - View Thread.

If for whatever reason you're reluctant to post on DW, you can respond here in this thread if you're interested!

[agaures]

Posting here because i can't be bothered making a doomworld account.
Put me down as a maybe.

[CloudFlash]

I did make an effort to flatten a lot of the levels, but it seems not enough. I'll see if there's anything I can do to solve this one.

How about using an invisible 3d floor? So, like, you can make the ground as bumpy as you want, and then you just slap a 3d floor on top of them, which makes you see the bumpy road and walk the flat-but-slightly-above-the-bumpy-road road

In case you are staring at your screen and going all like 'wtf are you on, Cloudy': http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Making_an_invisible_floor

[Arctangent]

I did make an effort to flatten a lot of the levels, but it seems not enough. I'll see if there's anything I can do to solve this one.

How about using an invisible 3d floor? So, like, you can make the ground as bumpy as you want, and then you just slap a 3d floor on top of them, which makes you see the bumpy road and walk the flat-but-slightly-above-the-bumpy-road road

In case you are staring at your screen and going all like 'wtf are you on, Cloudy': http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Making_an_invisible_floor

It's probably a lot more intuitive to actually make an invisible 3D floor, which just needs an alpha of 0 and is otherwise set up like a normal 3D floor.

[agaures]

Ooooooor you could just use bridge actors :|

[Dragonfly]

Posting here because i can't be bothered making a doomworld account.
Put me down as a maybe.

Done! I hope to have you on board!

How about using an invisible 3d floor?

It's probably a lot more intuitive to actually make an invisible 3D floor, which just needs an alpha of 0 and is otherwise set up like a normal 3D floor.

...I've done this in several maps in the past (In the same method mentioned by Arctangent). I'm completely unsure why I didn't do this, heh. Well, it's added to my list of stuff to do, thanks for the pointers everyone! :)

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Ooooooor you could just use bridge actors :|

Using 3D floors requires less effort on the mappers' behalf, instead of placing a plethora of things and trying to get their Z-height correct. :)

[agaures]

Using 3D floors requires less effort on the mappers' behalf, instead of placing a plethora of things and trying to get their Z-height correct. :)

To get the z-height correct you need to just lower it by 8 mapunits where it looks like it's lined up in the editor.
Remember you can also have custom bridge actors with whatever radius and height you want.
Also, i think using bridge actors would be less laggy than overuse of 3d floors.

[Samuzero15tlh]

Using 3D floors requires less effort on the mappers' behalf, instead of placing a plethora of things and trying to get their Z-height correct. :)

To get the z-height correct you need to just lower it by 8 mapunits where it looks like it's lined up in the editor.
Remember you can also have custom bridge actors with whatever radius and height you want.
Also, i think using bridge actors would be less laggy than overuse of 3d floors.

Thats true! we should think abot the other people who play's doom in older pc.

[Dragonfly]

Valid arguments. For my notes so they make sense when I come to make the changes, can you list any and all examples you're aware of that could do with being 'bridged up', so to speak?

Thanks guys ^^

[Dragonfly]

So, is anyone from the Zandronum realm willing to join in the community map pack? It's active now, after all!

Also, in other news, there soon will be a dedicated OFFICIAL SKULLDASH SERVER online!

[Combinebobnt]

This has multiplayer now? Maybe ill try it soon

[Dragonfly]

The OFFICIAL SKULLDASH MULTIPLAYER SERVER is now live, 24/7!

To connect, use Doomseeker and ensure you have the correct version of zandronum, Development Version 3.0-alpha-151004-2012

Try to connect to the server and you should download the necessary file(s) to play. The server is European and gave myself and a few EU based testers 10 - 40 ping. I got ~15 for the most part, connecting from UK.

I will be creating a multiplayer patch over the next couple of weeks so I urge any and everyone to comment here your opinions of Skulldash when played online.

Currently, my to-do list consists of:

• Ensure all maps have Multiplayer starts (The water station is an example of a map without...)
• Add a level-select voting system, currently it's first picked = played.
• Adjust time according to in-game players.
• Consider spawning monsters when player count breaches certain values, e.g. when 2+ players are in game, spawn extra imps, when 4+ players are in game, add some revenants etc. Bespoke to each map of course.
• Lock the tutorial map after first completion

If you have any other suggestions or things to add to this list, don't hesitate to say so!

[Gustavo6046]

Am I mistaken or I saw you on Doomworld forums?

[Yellowtail]

That is the same guy that made the Skulldash post on the Doomworld forums, actually.

[Dragonfly]

That is the same guy that made the Skulldash post on the Doomworld forums, actually.

Yep, that's me!

[agaures]

So i played on the server and... it was buggy.
Occasionally when playing a map it required 100% of the tokens to be collected in order for the exit to open instead of the usual 75%. A bad example of this is the tutorial map. Having collected all of the tokens in the first timed area did nothing so we were unable to progress. (at least i think we got all the tokens in that area).
This has happened in a lot of maps. It appears to be random.

Played the first boss map and... there was literally no ammo. (even less with more players)

Time warp isn't broken anymore (yay) but there appears to be an extra token placed beside one of the blood demons on the pillars.

I feel like there were more bugs but i can't remember anything else.

Maybe when there are extra players you could decrease the time on each map per player or something.

Also will there be leaderboards or anything? :o

[Yellowtail]

So i played on the server and... it was buggy.
Occasionally when playing a map it required 100% of the tokens to be collected in order for the exit to open instead of the usual 75%. A bad example of this is the tutorial map. Having collected all of the tokens in the first timed area did nothing so we were unable to progress. (at least i think we got all the tokens in that area).
This has happened in a lot of maps. It appears to be random.

No, no, the tutorial map is purposefully designed so that you cannot complete the map 75%. It's supposed to demonstrate that you can understand that getting 100% isn't exactly necessary, but it will usually provide a nice reward if you do it. (And, if you get enough maps at 100%, you'll unlock a bonus level)

Played the first boss map and... there was literally no ammo. (even less with more players)

That's unusual. There should be ammo in that map. Then again, the maps are a bit lacking in the ammo department in terms of multiplayer.

Time warp isn't broken anymore (yay) but there appears to be an extra token placed beside one of the blood demons on the pillars.

Yeah, I dunno what's causing that map to be so broken. Might be a scripting error or something, because it works fine offline.

Maybe when there are extra players you could decrease the time on each map per player or something.

This would be a better solution than simply adding more monsters to the levels, especially since some levels would get extremely cramped (Ancient Temple comes to mind) if there are too many people in the level. Then again, having sv_unblockplayers 1 helps a lot, too, but it wouldn't fix the cramped feeling if there were loads more monsters added.

Also will there be leaderboards or anything? :o

This has been thought of before, but will take some time to be implemented.

[agaures]

So i played on the server and... it was buggy.
Occasionally when playing a map it required 100% of the tokens to be collected in order for the exit to open instead of the usual 75%. A bad example of this is the tutorial map. Having collected all of the tokens in the first timed area did nothing so we were unable to progress. (at least i think we got all the tokens in that area).
This has happened in a lot of maps. It appears to be random.

No, no, the tutorial map is purposefully designed so that you cannot complete the map 75%. It's supposed to demonstrate that you can understand that getting 100% isn't exactly necessary, but it will usually provide a nice reward if you do it. (And, if you get enough maps at 100%, you'll unlock a bonus level)

Yes, i know how the system works. What I'm saying is, that at times we could not leave maps even if we had 75%. For the tutorial map it's a different story. Because collecting 75% didn't even get us to the next area.

[Yellowtail]

So i played on the server and... it was buggy.
Occasionally when playing a map it required 100% of the tokens to be collected in order for the exit to open instead of the usual 75%. A bad example of this is the tutorial map. Having collected all of the tokens in the first timed area did nothing so we were unable to progress. (at least i think we got all the tokens in that area).
This has happened in a lot of maps. It appears to be random.

No, no, the tutorial map is purposefully designed so that you cannot complete the map 75%. It's supposed to demonstrate that you can understand that getting 100% isn't exactly necessary, but it will usually provide a nice reward if you do it. (And, if you get enough maps at 100%, you'll unlock a bonus level)

Yes, i know how the system works. What I'm saying is, that at times we could not leave maps even if we had 75%. For the tutorial map it's a different story. Because collecting 75% didn't even get us to the next area.

I don't follow what you're saying here. Do you mean 75% of the tokens in the area? Because if so, that's not correct. You're supposed to collect every token in the area to open the doors. (Basically, if you see 14 tokens remaining, you've gotten the main part completed. After you hit 0 tokens you can exit the tutorial level.)

[Hypnotoad]

So i played on the server and... it was buggy.
Occasionally when playing a map it required 100% of the tokens to be collected in order for the exit to open instead of the usual 75%. A bad example of this is the tutorial map. Having collected all of the tokens in the first timed area did nothing so we were unable to progress. (at least i think we got all the tokens in that area).
This has happened in a lot of maps. It appears to be random.

No, no, the tutorial map is purposefully designed so that you cannot complete the map 75%. It's supposed to demonstrate that you can understand that getting 100% isn't exactly necessary, but it will usually provide a nice reward if you do it. (And, if you get enough maps at 100%, you'll unlock a bonus level)

Yes, i know how the system works. What I'm saying is, that at times we could not leave maps even if we had 75%. For the tutorial map it's a different story. Because collecting 75% didn't even get us to the next area.

I don't follow what you're saying here. Do you mean 75% of the tokens in the area? Because if so, that's not correct. You're supposed to collect every token in the area to open the doors. (Basically, if you see 14 tokens remaining, you've gotten the main part completed. After you hit 0 tokens you can exit the tutorial level.)

I was testing with Agaures and the tutorial seemed majorly bugged, I think we got all the tokens we could find but the next area wouldn't open. Additionally, sometimes in other levels, the exit wouldn't open at all until we found 100% of the tokens.

edit: otherwise this mod is damn cool, nice work.