Metroid: Dreadnought v1 - Tech Demo Release

[TerminusEst13]

Metroid: Dreadnought - Gameplay Trailer

Metroid: Dreadnought is a work-in-progress love letter to one of the greatest video game franchises throughout the years, a partial conversion that brings Samus Aran, her weapons, and levels to the first-person format to wreak some havoc. Designed primarily with the Zandronum engine and aiming to combine the speed of Super Metroid with the hectic gunplay of Metroid Prime, it boasts incredibly fast gameplay and wide compatibility with other levelsets people have made for the engine.
Fans will be using familiar weapons such as the Boost Ball, Power Bomb, Spazer Beam, and Super Missile, executing spectacular moves in the blink of an eye--and there's a few interesting new weapons and techniques as well, just begging for someone to learn and master them. Go online and bring a friend, trekking through vast labyrinths begging to be explored or mowing down hordes of enemies coming after you again and again. Or perhaps you want something a bit more...competitive? This is also compatible with different gamemodes for unique PvP action--this works in Deathmatch, team Deathmatch, CTF, Last Man Standing, team LMS, and much more. Swiftly wipe out your foes with a stream of plasma and then quietly roll away to make your escape, or grab the enemy base's Metroid and deftly leap and dive through all counterattacks to capture the baby.

Whether you play in co-op and tear through endless hordes of monsters or play in deathmatch and tear through whatever friends or enemies challenge you, one thing's for sure--Samus Aran is about to have a very, very bad day.

https://github.com/TerminusEst13/ducking-avenger - The code-bank is hosted here online, if you would like to see how things are coming along.
https://github.com/TerminusEst13/ducking-avenger/wiki - All of the console variables, for adjusting your playstyle as you want.
http://www.best-ever.org/download?file=metroiddreadnought-v1.pk3 - Metroid: Dreadnought .pk3 download. (16.41 megs)
http://www.best-ever.org/download?file=metroiddreadnought-levels-v1.pk3 - Metroid: Dreadnought levelpack .pk3, one test PvE level and three DM levels. (9.26 megs)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/agw9mspjv7lydyh/Zandronum%2BFreedom%2BDreadnought.zip - Don't have Zandronum or Doom? Here's a compilation featuring Zandronum, Dreadnought, and Freedoom 0.8, so you can just jump in and start playing. Just unzip the file, drag MetroidDreadnought-v1.pk3 on top of Zandronum.exe, select Hardware (OpenGL) renderer, and hit Play!

[spoiler=CREDITS]SPECIAL THANKS TO:
=========
- Nintendo (For creating the Metroid series in the first place)
- id Software (For creating Doom and the idtech1 engine)
- Graf Zahl, Randy Heit (For the ZDoom/GZDoom engine)
- Torr Samaho and the Zandronum team (For picking up where Skulltag left off)
- /vr/ (For their help, guidance, and enthusiasm for both Doom and Metroid)
- ijon tichy (As usual, an incredible code guru. Responsible for:
^- : The Space Jump code (taken from Parkmore)
^- : The Long Beam code (taken from Lelweps)
^- : The Power Bomb's explosion (taken from Redeemer)
^- : The Chroma Storm
^- : Reworking the Metroid pickup system
^- : The gunship system
^- : Redoing the chasecam system
^- : Making this compatible with ZDoom
^- : A whole lot, really...

GRAPHICS:
=========
- Zrrion the Insect (Drew the base arm cannon sprite)
- Scripten (Drew the Space Pirate sprites)
- Voltlock (Ripped the graphics for the Power Beam's blasts)
- Rogue Entertainment (The base of the Missile's sprites, from Strife)
- Ijon Tichy (For the smoke trails for the Missile, the numbers and some punctuation of the smallfont)
- Aeons of Death (For the Missile explosion graphics)
- FixedSys/Terminal/JACKIE (Spliced and pieced together to form the Smallfont)
- SF Square Head (A modified version for the BigFont)
- Blue Shadow (Converting the BigFont to a lump file)
- Cyberkill (Spanish Enye, slade, and tilde for smallfont)
- Enterbrain (Plasma Beam/Ice Beam particles)
- Bearborg/Mike12 (Ripping and polishing the Metroid Prime HUD)
- Rundas45 (The basis of the fullscreen HUD, the health pickups)
- Eriance (Spazer Beam particles)
- Id Software (Bomb explode animation, from Doom 3)
- PillowBlaster (Space Pirate shots, Power Bomb explosion sprites)
- People Can Fly (The Flamebolter's fire effect used for the Super Missile explosion)
- Yoshio Sakamoto (His likeness used for the Icon of Sin)
- VincentPrice (Making the model the Morph Ball was based off)
- TheMisterCat (The lingering fire for the Plasma Beam Charge Combo)
- PresidentPeople (The dynamic lights for the Morph Ball)
- Revae/Mike12 (Chainsaw attack sprites)
- Xaser (Chainsaw projectile sprites)
- Sgt. Shivers (For the Arm Cannon/Chainsaw conversion sprites)
- Mr. Giga (Base sprites for the Chroma Storm pickup)
- Sgt. Shivers (Player skin)
- Scalliano (The facing-down scientists)
- Enjay (The lying-upwards scientist)
- Scuba Steve (The lying-sideways scientist)
- WildWeasel (The CONFONT, taken from Agent Diaz: Last Hours of Purity. Thanks a lot!)

SOUNDS:
=========
- Audacity (Incredible amounts of sound editing thanks to this tool)
- Hollywood Edge/AudioJungle (Numerous stock sound effects)
- The General Series 6000 (Numerous stock sound effects)
- Yoshio Sakamoto (His voice reversed and warped for the Icon of Sin)
- Waqas Hafiz (Titlescreen music)
- BouncyTEM (Editing the Zero Suit Samus sounds to be more reminiscent of Samus in-suit)
- For info from what specific sound came from where, open up the pk3 and read through sndinfo.txt!

CODE:
=========
- Repo Man (The basis of the Wave Beam projectile code)
- TheMisterCat (The lingering fire for the Plasma Beam Charge Combo)
[/spoiler]

[Smiley]

Hello, I am another guy on the internet and I'd like to know what this is supposed to be. According to the Youtube description this is "penis", but that only caused further confusion.

[TerminusEst13]

Sorry.

This is a fan-game I've been working on for the past few months, a 2.5D FPS game inspired by both Prime and Super.
It's still quite early in development, but the alpha testers seem to like it so far, so I decided to post it here and see if people seem interested.

EDIT: Expanded on the OP.

[Vismund Cygnus]

I said this over at #Metroid and I'm gonna say it here too:

<Vismund> I'm looking forward to when you release this
<Vismund> And that's saying a lot, I'm not normally in to Doom mods


Seriously, this looks very cool. I have already been giving my suggestions as you drop links to videos, but I think that I'll say it here too: a choice of player skins would be cool for the multiplayer mode. Being able to run around blasting bounty hunters as a space pirate would be the ultimate revenge.

Keep up the good work!

[Black Falcon]

<Vismund> I'm looking forward to when you release this
<Vismund> And that's saying a lot, I'm not normally in to Doom mods
Keep up the good work!

^ What he said.

The beams look really awesome and gunsounds are powerful!
Good job!  :^_^:

[FPzero]

I'm really impressed by this.  The weapons look varied and interesting.  Wave beam looks powerful with that variation on its charged shot.  I was a bit consider what you were doing with the Space Jump demonstration but I think you were walljumping around.

Definitely keep us informed about this!

[personitis]

I've never sat down and played any kind of Doom unfortunately... This gets my attention however. I'd like to take what FP said about the weapons and reiterate it here; specifically how turning Spazer 90 degrees makes it fit reeeeeally well in 3D perspective. Long Beam looks and seems to function like the Imperialist from Prime Hunters (minus zoom) and is especially interesting from my view in that regard. As for Wave Beam, I like how you've put your own spin on it, even if it seems to be inspired from the Havoc Beam from the Halo mod that was big(?) years ago.

All in all, looks solid so far. I look forward to more candy. :razz:

Edit: Just fixing some spelling mistakes. Nothing new here... :>_>:

[Lunaria]

The HUD is a bit intrusive, I'd recommend making it partially transparent if possible in the engine, if not then look into some other way to make it the helmet overlay take up less viewing field.

Furthermore, the walking speed on samus and morphball (when not boosting) needs to be slowed down quite a bit. The focus of a metroid FPS is not to have super fast phased combat a la old games like Doom. As such movement speed needs to reflect that.

[Quietus]

I like what I see.  It'll also be interesting to see how level design works out, since the Doom engine doesn't really have any floating platforms.

[Quote58]

holy fucking fuck get that multiplayer out naow.
Seriously this looks really good so far, and I can't wait for it to available.
Also I agree about the spazer, that's a great interpretation of it. My main gripe is there's too much flare on the beams. For example plasma imo should look more like the long beam in there.

[Quietus]

Also, if there's nought chance of Metroid Dread, then we may as well take a chance on Metroid Dreadnought. :^_^:

[TerminusEst13]

Thank you all for the feedback! I'm very eager to get back to work on this now.

a choice of player skins would be cool for the multiplayer mode. Being able to run around blasting bounty hunters as a space pirate would be the ultimate revenge.

That is a nice idea, and there's certainly a lot of other interesting characters that could be fun to play as! Once Samus is completely finished and fleshed out, I'll check and see how hard it would be to start tweaking with other characters.

I was a bit consider what you were doing with the Space Jump demonstration but I think you were walljumping around.

That's correct. Upon picking up the Space Jump, you gain the ability to do mid-air jumps (the server admin or player can customize exactly how many, though it defaults to 2) and wall-jumping.

As for Wave Beam, I like how you've put your own spin on it, even if it seems to be inspired from the Havoc Beam from the Halo mod that was big(?) years ago.

Thank you. Unfortunately, I'm not a big Halo player, so it's more a happy coincidence. I originally tried to make it like the Super Metroid version, wiggling back and forth and going through walls...but unfortunately making it go through walls A: Was less useful in a first-person plane since you can't see beyond it, and B: made it go through enemies as well. So I experimented with bounce instead, and it turned out pretty fun.

The HUD is a bit intrusive, I'd recommend making it partially transparent if possible in the engine, if not then look into some other way to make it the helmet overlay take up less viewing field.

I'll experiment with some transparency and see what I can do. I was under the impression transparency was impossible, but a friend just showed me how to do it, so I'm eager to try it out.



In the meantime, though, how about this Super Metroid-style HUD? Is that less intrusive?

I like what I see.  It'll also be interesting to see how level design works out, since the Doom engine doesn't really have any floating platforms.

This is a very modified version of the Doom engine.




I'm a bit worried about level design, since I'm a pretty terrible mapper, but floating platforms are definitely not a concern. :razz:

My main gripe is there's too much flare on the beams. For example plasma imo should look more like the long beam in there.

Noted, thank you. I'll work on a setting that will allows players to reduce the graphic effects, particles, and intensity of the beams. So they can go from full effects to minimal effects to no effects at will.

[Lunaria]

t
I'll experiment with some transparency and see what I can do. I was under the impression transparency was impossible, but a friend just showed me how to do it, so I'm eager to try it out.

-[img]-

In the meantime, though, how about this Super Metroid-style HUD? Is that less intrusive?

Yeah it's certainly less so, though I do suggest going forward with trying that transparency thing as I'd think that'd be cool; Plus, it would feel more like a FPS metroid game due to the prime games doing it.

[Quote58]

Honestly I like them both. I don't see the issue with the full helmet one, but I think the best option would be to allow the player to choose which hud they want to use. The helmet one feels more like prime, but the super metroid one is much sleeker so I'd say should be up to the player.

[Vismund Cygnus]

Honestly I like them both. I don't see the issue with the full helmet one, but I think the best option would be to allow the player to choose which hud they want to use. The helmet one feels more like prime, but the super metroid one is much sleeker so I'd say should be up to the player.

I agree with Quote here. The full helmet HUD, while a little intrusive, works fine because it replicated Prime. I think that the option to switch between the HUDs would be a pretty good idea, as it makes it a little bit more user friendly depending on what you're looking for.

[Parabox]

Alright, so I had a run with this, and it's good fun! However, I do have some criticisms. The way item replacement choices are now, most *tanks and weapons feel lackluster the way they combine with Doom. I'd much rather find ammo expansions, e-tanks and other item upgrades more often than I find beams I already have. I don't have a great deal of knowledge how Doom pickups work, but a dynamic replacement system could make this work. Of course, Doom integration could be done through a plug-in. I mean, it's already cool we can shoot imps as Samus, so let's make this really awesome!
A second criticism I have is that although the beam effects are quite cool, they do screw too much with the visibility. Especially charged long beam is an offender in this. I've noticed this little offense in a few other Doom mods too (Brutal Doom, looking at you). I understand that a lot of the stuff in there is placeholder as of yet, but as far as the actual replacing will go once you got the core down, I say you take some inspiration from the other Prime games and Zero Mission, and maybe make the coloring a little more traditional.

In short, so far, so good! Looking forward to what fruit this project will bear in the future for sure.

EDIT: I wanted to give you some kudos on making the mod IWAD-agnostic. I know you also did this for Samsara, and it really rocks.

EDIT2: Beam combos, visors when? Also, a little further criticism/bug reporting: oftentimes the beams don't seem to go where they should. This is most likely primarily because of the perspective given by the beam cannon vs. the centered guns of Doom. I think it would be wise if we all went on Vent and co-oped and dmed some with this, for fun and debugging purposes.

[Zhs2]

That is, if you got the usual crew together to care enough about playing Doom. *ahem* Hi Terminus! You have my vote for a fully-fledged Metroid mod, and I think it would be nothing short of amazing if graphical resources got borrowed with permission from their owners for this project. Hint hint wink wink. Also if I must say it's probably not really difficult to make a map, but is to texture it; I know it's not finished at all in the least, but I think a bit of variation works wonders over "everything is blue rocks" even if it comes in the form of stalactites/stalagmites for caves and metal intrusions for tech facilities. Just my thoughts.

[TerminusEst13]

I think the best option would be to allow the player to choose which hud they want to use. [...] I'd say should be up to the player.

I think that the option to switch between the HUDs would be a pretty good idea, as it makes it a little bit more user friendly depending on what you're looking for.

Done, thank you. People are now able to swap between the Prime visor and the Super bar at will.

I'd much rather find ammo expansions, e-tanks and other item upgrades more often than I find beams I already have. I don't have a great deal of knowledge how Doom pickups work, but a dynamic replacement system could make this work.
A second criticism I have is that although the beam effects are quite cool, they do screw too much with the visibility. Especially charged long beam is an offender in this. I've noticed this little offense in a few other Doom mods too (Brutal Doom, looking at you). I understand that a lot of the stuff in there is placeholder as of yet, but as far as the actual replacing will go once you got the core down, I say you take some inspiration from the other Prime games and Zero Mission, and maybe make the coloring a little more traditional.

EDIT 2: Beam combos, visors when?

I'll be straight with you: That's a wonderful idea, but I don't know where to begin with coding it. A dynamic replacement system being able to replace pickups with tanks of various kinds depending on your inventory would make compatibility with different mapsets much easier, but I'll need to figure out how the system would work and how to do it--especially in cooperative gameplay, where people probably will have different inventories. I won't be able to do it soon, but I'll put it on the "to-do" list once this is out of alpha. Thank you!

As for the particles, yeah, I'll definitely do some cleaning up with the "less effects" clientside option, but the Long Beam is pretty particles-y even for full effects. I'll trim it down some, thank you.

Beam combos are currently planned and what I'm going to be working on next after mapping. Visors...I don't entirely know!

That is, if you got the usual crew together to care enough about playing Doom. *ahem* Hi Terminus! You have my vote for a fully-fledged Metroid mod, and I think it would be nothing short of amazing if graphical resources got borrowed with permission from their owners for this project. Hint hint wink wink.

I would love to hop on Vent or TeamSpeak or Skype or whatever with you guys and start shooting things. It'd be great for on-the-fly input, though I'm a pretty terrible player. I just hopped on the #doom channel in Espernet, so hopefully we can figure out a time.

And I would love to have extra graphical resources--especially since some of the items look quite terrible! I have a few people who offered to do some art, but unfortunately they've never gotten back. If I can find something very interesting here, though, I'll definitely be sure to shamelessly nick ask permission to borrow with full credit~

[TerminusEst13]

Metroid: Dreadnought - C-C-C-C-Combo Maker

Metroid Prime-style Charge Combos are in and implemented.

Again, apologies for the terrible placeholder map.

[Quietus]

Looking good.  I know it's going to be a while, since you'll need to get the core stuff down first, but I'm also looking forward to seeing some cool texture designs for the levels. :^_^:

[TerminusEst13]

Oh geeze, I posted this on Metroid Database and never posted it here. Man, I'm forgetful.

Metroid: Dreadnought - Samus is actually part hedgehog

I should be doing sprites but instead I decided to do what people asked and include Speed Booster. Man I'm terrible at resisting peer pressure.
I suppose the next step is shinesparking, though I'm really not sure how to go about that.

Progress is still going very steady, though. There's not much else new graphically I can post in a video or screenshots, but there's been tons of under-the-hood fixes and polish and everything runs smooth as can be. I'd say the tech demo has gone from 75% done to 90% done. There's only three major issues left I'm looking at, and then after that everything can be either polished later or would like feedback on first.
For those that have been following and already know about these developments, very sorry I can't provide anything new visually to drool over. Currently working on the player sprites for Samus, and once those are done I'll be sure to post them up so as to make up for it.

PS: All you people who found this topic from the many news articles, thank you for your interest! Unfortunately, the articles tend to take my "75% done" comment and think it applied to the full mod, not the core system. This is very, very, very far from being finished. Please do not expect much when the tech demo is released, I'm a simple man and this is a simple little thing.

[Zhs2]

So, I'm not going to lie. I've been slightly (veeeery slightly because motivation is a thing made of ass) interested in borrowing graphical resources from a few places here (looking at you, Massive GFX Collection) and then sequencing together textures for what I would hope would be an interesting little test map that may just very well balloon into an adventure of its own if I pluck up the hard work required to make it.

I said I wasn't going to lie: now that I've posted, I feel 0% like doing it :D

[passarbye]

speed-booster looks good Terminus, just make sure the maps are nice and big so there's lots of room to KILL  :rocket:

[TerminusEst13]

So, I'm not going to lie. I've been slightly (veeeery slightly because motivation is a thing made of ass) interested in borrowing graphical resources from a few places here (looking at you, Massive GFX Collection) and then sequencing together textures for what I would hope would be an interesting little test map that may just very well balloon into an adventure of its own if I pluck up the hard work required to make it.

I said I wasn't going to lie: now that I've posted, I feel 0% like doing it :D

Hey if that 0% ever goes up a few notches, let me know. I'd be fine even with just a simple test map. :p

speed-booster looks good Terminus, just make sure the maps are nice and big so there's lots of room to KILL  :rocket:

I'll try, thank you!

[TerminusEst13]

Player skin still isn't done yet, sorry. At this point it's taking me over a bloody month just to do the damn thing.
Still, news of this is spreading farther and farther. Dreadnought got featured on a recent Sunday Shenanigans, a weekly community event, and the community decided to give it a whirl with Capture the Flag--and with their help, I managed to not only get a TON of latency fixes, but numerous updates and tweaks to multiplayer competitive gamemodes.
Before, the limit for multiple people playing was about 16--anything more would cause errors and problems. Now, up to 32 and possibly 64 people can play together at once!

Metroid: Dreadnought - Capture the Baby

In addition, I've recently met a friendly lad named Runsaber who is a huge fan of Metroid Prime: Hunters, and another lad by the name of Guardsoul. They want to try and work with Dreadnought to try and provide maps for the competitive gameplay--and so far, we've already got a port of Combat Hall from Hunters.



Anyone interested in providing additional mapping assistance would still be greatly welcome--everyone has their own idea as to what truly feels "Metroid", and it would be wonderful to help provide more options to people interested in playing.