Dots

Haven’t done one of these in a while… I’m still waiting for Zandronum’s first stable release. But I decided to whip this up last night, and it turned out pretty good. Right now it’ll run with the final version of Skulltag, so Zandronum compatibility shouldn’t be a problem.

About: A simple new game mode with one level. Run around the square room collecting dot orbs. For each orb you collect, a new projectile will randomly spawn and continually bounce around the room, along with the next dot orb. Get five orbs to refill your health, and then six more, then seven more from that amount, and so on. There is no end to the game, simply play until you die, and compete with high scores. (There is nothing stopping you from playing in deathmatch or coop, I suppose. But this is intended for single player.)

Protip: This was inspired by the flash game also titled DOTS. You can play it on both Not Doppler and Newgrounds.

Compatibility: Skulltag(/Zandronum). It also seems to work in ZDoom. Doom II.

Download!

Skulltag Update: Zandronum

Doomworld posted this article yesterday… I’ll write about it when I have more time. Just spreading the word for now.

EDIT: Okay, now a week has passed, and I’ve looked more into this… So basically, Skulltag is being forked into a new project, called Zandronum. Although technically, it’s not really a fork because Skulltag itself is dead… Due to community drama that I won’t pretend I entirely understand, the former Skulltag team has decided to cut off all ties to Carnevil, including dropping the Skulltag name. So they’re leaving Skulltag with Carnevil, and creating a “new” project. Basically just renaming Skulltag and trying to move away from all of the drama. Other than that the project is really not too different than the latest Skulltag beta. In fact, it’s just about the exact same thing, except with all mentions of Skulltag replaced with Zandronum, and all stock resources removed. (Temporarily or for good, I’m not sure.) As far as where this leaves the players who just want to play Doom, well, Zandronum will let you do everything you were able to do in Skulltag, except that any mod that used Skulltag stock resources must now be loaded with skulltag_data.pk3 in addition to the wad/pk3.

There’s really nothing wrong with the port. I mean, I don’t really like the name Zandronum, but it seems most people don’t, and this has been argued to death on the forums. It doesn’t seem like it’s gonna change though, especially because it’d be a lot of work buying a new domain, getting a new logo, and even changing all of the internal mentions of the name. So I don’t really blame them, or care about that.

As for me, I guess I’ll just have to “upgrade” to this new port as soon as the first stable version is released. I wish I could stay behind with Skulltag, but I’ve already kept countless mods from being released because I was waiting on Skulltag to support a feature that’s been in ZDoom for months. And now without anyone developing Skulltag or keeping it up to date, it’ll be left behind entirely, it seems. Carnevil is the only one who has the authority or ability to continue with it, but he’s busy with other projects. It’s a real shame to see Skulltag “die” like this, but maybe one day Carnevil will return, or hire someone new to pick up Skulltag and restore it to its glory days.

That’s about all there is to say in terms of how it affects regular players who don’t care about drama. Let’s hope Zandronum will stay more up to date than Skulltag did.

UPDATE: Still on Hiatus!

In case anyone still reads this, (implying anyone read it before,) I’d like to explain why I haven’t made any posts since January. Well it’s not that I haven’t been working on projects, I have. Although nothing special like some ultra giant mega project thing. Just the usual, a bunch of small projects and slight modifiers. The reason I haven’t released any of them is because half of them don’t work right now. You see, the last official Skulltag update was November 7th, 2010. (I don’t know why, I’m not very active in Skulltag’s community, despite the extent to which I use the port.) So… many of the functions I’ve been using recently aren’t in Skulltag, because they haven’t been inherited from ZDoom yet. You might be wondering why I don’t just release the ZDoom working version… Well, I would, but most of them are specifically for multiplayer. Basically what we have is a bunch of multiplayer projects (for Skulltag) using modification functionality only present in a primarily single player Doom port (ZDoom).

So just to reassure any readers that might end up here, I’m not dead, nor did I tire of Doom or the community. Just waiting for the people above me. And as soon as the next stable version of Skulltag is released, I’ll return to be pumping out mods once again. Until then, I’m learning some other programming languages and crap.

KOTH (Framework)

About: King of the Hill is one of my favorite game modes for first person shooters. Since Skulltag doesn’t have an officially supported version of it, I decided to make my own. One problem: I hate (and am bad at) mapping, and that’s generally a huge part of King of the Hill game modes, since it’s almost always sector based. So I created an object based version, playable on any map, with none included. You summon the king object in any map (actor name “KingPoint”), or simply edit the map to have it spawn automatically (editor thing 22001). Oh yeah and it’s played through the deathmatch game mode.

Protip: If you’re editing a map to include the object, setting the tag of it will choose the king time limit (in seconds.)

Compatibility: Doom I or II, any map, Skulltag.

Download!

Extermination

About: Inspired by the abandoned Skulltag game mode of the same name. The goal is to kill all the monsters in the level in order to exit, rather than just rushing through the level and flipping the switch.

Protip: Pain Elementals are even more annoying than usual!

Compatibility: Skulltag, most likely ZDoom and others. Does NOT work with new monsters unless you modify it yourself. (Pretty trivial to do if you are the slightest bit familiar with DECORATE.)

Download!

Scope

About: Adds a new menu key in the customize controls menu for zooming. Just hold down your bind and use your mousewheel for instant sniping!

Protip: Really this is just a few aliases, which means it’ll work on any server! (Provided they don’t disable FOV changes.)

Compatibility: Skulltag, and for once, ZDoom. Doom or Doom II.

Download!

Supershotgun Mod

About: Clever name, right? Nah. Anyway, first shot shoots one barrel, second shot shoots the other, then reloads. Lather rinse repeat. Each shot only uses one ammo instead of two now. Alt fire will fire old style.

Protip: Great for conservative ammo users.

Compatibility: Skulltag, other stuff. Doom II.

Download!

Supershotgun (For Ultimate Doom)

About: The Doom II supershotgun sprites and sounds with just a snippet of DECORATE, and voilĂ ! Double barreled Ultimate Doom. Might seem a little out of place for just fighting imps and zombiemans though.

Protip: Good for any Doom I deathmatches.

Compatibility: Skulltag, probably everything else. Uhhhh, Doom I.

Download!