Zan the Bonebreaker

Hedon's Main Menu Theme

Although the cover pic is not officially done, I have an awesome thing to share. No need to say more , this should speak for itself.

Might of the axe hurl

Managed to line up a bunch of Conscripts and rip through with a hefty axe throw (the one on the right moved from the initial impact). As you can see, I'm working on blood and gibs, and will very soon finish every bit needed for this particular monster.

Also, if you look top right, you'll see a buff, which is actually a time freeze (which greatly helped me take the screenshot). You'll be able to carry time freeze powerup items in your inventory and stop time for few seconds to escape sticky sit...

Conscripts

After a final hard push I've finished the sprite sheet for the Conscript! I only have to draw the giblets and blood sprites, and this monster will be almost complete (still have to implement sounds).

It's coming out pretty damn good, and I'm getting closer and closer to releasing that demo build.

Spriting - Stationary Monster Frames

Hey everyone, since I started working on the sprites for the Conscript monster, I figured out I'd share with you some behind the scene peek, and explain a bit how I draw the whole thing. 

Spriting monsters is probably the most tedious part of making this game, as I have to draw the same thing again and again with just slight modifications. 

These are the "faces" of a standing monster. For those who don't know, each graphic will show on the monster entity depending on...

Forest

Navigating through the Green Wall.

E1M1 design overview

Good news, everyone!

After months or learning and putting that info to good use, the first level of the first episode is finally complete! That means we're getting close to having a demo release. I still have two chunks of things to implement, however: namely two more monsters (one will be a variation of the other, but I expect to take almost as much to fully sprite), Zan's sprites (I'll try to make all of them, including crouch and melee animations) and last but not least, a grey zone for me ...

Re-doing some assets..

So, as I have mentioned earlier, I was making use of voxels (pixel models a.k.a. the stuff Minecraft is made of) to create some in depth decorations such as coats of arms, paintings, furs and so on.

However, I have lately realised that every time I'd put a voxel in a room, fps would drop noticeably. I asked around on the forums and it seems that voxels do indeed strain the GPU quite a lot (a lot more than legit 3D models actually).

Since performance is really important to me (...

Hedon OST - Raw Whisper

New track is up! Go check it out~

Hedon OST - Cold Rock

Great news, guys, the first official track of Hedon is up on youtube! Go check it out!

I think Ahkzul did an outstanding job with it, fits the level's theme real well.

New Banner Images

Hey all, thanks for all the support so far! I'm starting to build up an art budget for the game with your money, so expect to see related commissions in the future!

We've got a long way ahead, but I doubt there's anything we won't overcome. Cheers~

Shrine

Part of a new area I've finished. I still enjoy how this place came out. I'm also hoping to get the first soundtracks for the level from Ahkzul soon and pop them on Youtube. Stay tuned~

Fresh Air

Crawled outta' the cave.. barely.

First part of E1M1 is finished!

Yep. This is it. The final room of the first part of the starting level. 

Took me about 3 hours to make and remake (along with some scripts), but it's yet another step forward.

P.S.: Once the first level is fully finished (including stuff related to OST, menu, HUD,  weapons, monsters, sounds etc.) I will release a first demo build.  Friendly reminder that 5$ or more patrons (from now) will get access to it regardless if they still have the reward unlocked.

Boom! (part two)

 Now with extra sauce. 

Another axe throw execution (you can see the axe's hilt right above the Crawler's top). I'm also realising that screenshots might not be the best way to show off everything, so I might look into some recording software and rev up the Youtube account ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpVqrYHg7-EvneYjonzHEUw )

Blood Work

In case you've been wondering what I've been up to in the past days.

On the background, you can see the default blood splat images of ZDoom, and on top, the blood that I've drawn (used a lot of reference and analysed patterns a lot). 

Well, much like in any other old school shooter, blood plays an important visual role of combat. It gives important feedback on damage and often goes hand in hand with the weapon being used.

Now I'm not aiming for anything crazy Brutal Doom - tie...

Giblets

Currently testing individual giblets blown off from the monster upon overkilling. This should be fun.

Boom!

You can also hurl your axe, best done to finish off a wounded enemy from afar (or kill quickly weaker enemies in one heroic throw).

Hack 'n Slash

Giving my first monster a whack.  (I haven't gotten to changing the crappy particle blood given by the engine, nor the sprite blood from Freedoom).

The axe is blurred because I gave it a motion blur effect (hit animation pretty much lasts 0.5 seconds and has like 7 frames).

New Spike Gun HUD Model

I've updated the Spike Gun's model to show from a side perspective (and also tripled the size/increased its' resolution).  Also worked on its' projectile, fire, reload and ready up animations. Pretty much a complete overhaul.

Crawler Bite

That's a lot of teeth.

Cave Crawlers

Here's a sneak peek at my (very crude) testing room.

And yep, that's an actual monster. The Cave Crawler. They are worm-like creatures found in the rocky areas of Heon's underground. They tunnel through stone, being a pain in the a for Iron Division's mining bases. 

In terms of gameplay, the Crawler is similar to the Pinkie Demon from Doom. It is decently resilient and dangerous in numbers, being able to soak up a bunch of damage. However, it can also shoot out balls of s...

More Inventory Items

 There will also be plenty of potions and other magical artifacts that  will grant buffs. Here, for instance, is the Stoneskin Potion. I  actually had a sprite designed for it for a while, but decided it looked  a bit bland and went for another, more intricate and personalised  design (tried to give it the look of two claws holding the stone bottle  from top and bottom, and also carved a green Earth Magic symbol on it). 

Inventory Items

 Apart from the items required to progress throughout the levels, Zan  will also carry various usable items, such as the Dark Vision Goggles.  With the help of DoomKrakken over at the ZDoom forums, I have managed to  code them to act like the Build Engine styled consumables - making you  able to switch them on/off at any time. They do, of course, deplete over  time, and their buff effect will be shown through an icon in the right  top corner of the screen (apar...

Readable Texts

 I’ve also added Hudmessage scripts. Will aim to use them to give a faint story telling mood to go along with the killing. 

Extensive Option Menus

Can't call your game oldschool until your option menu looks like this. #thankszdoom

The Font

Lately, I have been working more on the skeleton of my game. As you  can see, I have made a proper font for it, and started fiddling around  with the menu.  Boy, making fonts is no easy task. And getting them to work in the game is quite a hassle. But hey, I've pulled it through. I call this font "Hedrat", as it was inspired from Quadrat.

I’m going to aim for something  light and simple, since most Doom mods I’ve played tend to have  background images overlappi...

Swinging Doors and 3D Elevators Coding

I’ve learned how to make swinging doors and 3D floor based elevators. It's quite a work around as Doom didn't have any, but the recent source ports allow all sorts of cool stuff to be implemented.

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but they sure beat the standard lower/raise only Doom doors, and bring Hedon away from the stone age.

Swinging Doors

Yep. Something you didn't see in the original Doom games.  :^)

Level Design

Here's what Hedon's level designing looks like.

I’m glad GZDoom Builder enables users to make sloped meshes (and preview them within the editor), the effort does pay off visually. 

Consumables

Various items like food and drinks will be able to boost Zan's hitpoints above 100. They act similar to the Doom health bonuses.