I know this wasn't supposed to happen until phase III, but I figure I may as well put out the call now.

I am good at fixing up and detailing levels, but not so great at building levels from scratch, so ...

... if you would like to create a level or two for possible inclusion in T.U.C.Q., get to work now!

You do not have to worry much about details. I will take care of that. Just make sure the level plays well.

If I feel the level stands on its own, then it could end up being used as is (with touch ups, of course).

If the level does not stand up on its own, don't worry too much. It might still be used as part of a level, or elements from it may be used as inspiration for something in another level.

WARNING!!! The descriptions below will act as spoilers for the game, because they will reveal a lot about the planned storyline.

If you do not want to make levels, and do not want to spoil the game for yourself, READ NO FURTHER!!!


Here are basic themes you have to work with:

E1M9 (Secret level for episode I): Some sort of factory or production centre involved in the making of Chex cereal.

E1M6, E1M7: We have now moved from the Caverns of Bazoik into the Bazoik Nutritional Mines proper, so it is mainly a mining theme. There are many Bazoik colonists trapped down here, and more flemoids too, since the Flembrane plans to use the mines as a place to lay its eggs! Since the hostages are not working at the moment, just stick a DooM skull key where you want a hostage to go so I know what you mean.

E1M8: This is the lair of the Flambrane, and the last level of ep1. I had planned to make this level entirely myself, but I can't seem to think of what I want other than a couple of main areas. What I need is a number of areas to help fill in the level.

We are now out of the mines, and into another cavernous area where the Flembrane is planning to lay its eggs. Lots of flemoids here.

E2M9: No set theme.

E2M6: This picks up where E1M5 left off. We are still in the sewers, but now we are in the main sewage processing station. Lots of snot here. Among the various things the player has to do is find a way to get the sewage processing machinery working again, so that it will clear away the snot, thereby averting an ecological disaster.

E2M7: We are back out of the sewers, but we are now in a seedier sections of town. Perhaps it is the docks or the warehouse district.

E2M8: This is a secret lab used by our evil villain. The lab is abandoned, but there are lots and lots of flemoids around, including a nasty boss monster.

Episode III: As the name (Trail of a Cereal Killer) suggests, the player is now trying to track down the evil villain. He will be travelling to a wide variety of planets and exotic locations. This means that there are no set themes to this episode, which also means more chances to be imaginative.

The only two theme I can suggest are a prison (or insane asylum) for the first level, since our villain was supposed to be loaked up.

E3M8: Surprise! Another secret lab! After all, it is traditional for evil genius villains to have multiple expansive (and expensive) secret labs. Where they get the money to build them, and how they manage to have them built without anybody finding out, nobody knows ...

Episode IV: Our villain has unleashed his final flemoid invasion upon the galaxy! a fair bit of variety here, but mostly cities, and rather tough levels with an apocolyptic theme. The player has to work hard to repulse the flemoid invasion from various planets of the GFOC. GFOC headquarters will have to be represented here somewhere as well.

The final level is the villain's main fortress. This will have to be tough, with the toughest monster of all being the villain himself!


It is best at the moment to just make the levels as DooM levels, and use DooM monsters, because all editors support DooM, but none really support Chex Quest. I can fix things up. :)

Equivalents:

DooM-------------T.U.C.Q.

Trooper (private, former human) = Commonus

Sergeant = Bipedicus

Imp = Bipedicus With Armour

Demon = Cycloptis

Specter (invisible demon) = Larva

Baron of Hell = Flembrane

Hell Knight (Doom 2 monster) = Maximus

Do you want the levels as WAD files by themselves or included in some other WAD?

Individual wad files.


PLEASE NOTE: I want all levels to be original.

I already got a major disappointment in September when, after getting to work on fixing up and adding the CQ3 levels to TUCQ, I discovered that they were actually stolen from a trilogy of existing megawads.

i like the layout of the maps, but i am no good at mapping sept for editing stuf thats allready there. Mabye ill pick up later on in the project....

I cant wait to see the next beta w/fanmade maps! :)

I'm thinking about that bus idea from a long time ago. It could fit somewhere in Episode III. That's original, right?

Have you done anything to E2M2, origionaly Chex Cinema?

I have several ideas for that, and I will see what I can do.


And a suggestion... make the transition fom level to level better. :-P

well im gunna retry on the ticketbooth idea and im not promising any levels but i'll give it a shot

I haven't done anything to replace the cinema yet.

Yes. I do plan to improve the levels transitions. So far, I have only done it E1M1 going to E1M2, but all of the levels will require some decent sort of transition.

well i want to change my vote for the cinema level, we should just improve, and i have been workin on some ticket booths (still too big for a booth i think but it'll end up right)

I have an Idea the evil villan can be the cybredeamon

we try to incooperate as little DooM as possible in the games but at least your giving an idea.

uh, no <_<

with modded sprites, it would make sense. The CyberDemon IS the strongest baddie in the game, after all. ^_^

I like the "uh no" lol :D btw iam just starting 2 figure out the editor so it will take atleast until after christmas to finish

well boingo has worked out all the stroy and stuff, so im pretty sure all he wants is level designs ^_^

Yeah.

Like I said before, take your time and get to know the editor before doing your levels.

:)

i know i know i will just starting 2 understand limits and stairs :rolleyes:

well ya gotta start somewhere, back when ChexBoss32890 was into his cq level making he taught me about everything I know about .wad editing but i dont suggest going to him, check out the doom legacy editing resources (no site just google it) it gives you instructions and a sample level of about anything you need

sounds good I'll try talking 2 him sometime when I rember or ya....

I was just reading Boingos first post on this trend, and Iam comfused woun't the textures from doom such as the walls confuse the editor when we convert it into chexquest?

yea but i just learned to adapt to it, figure out what goes with what, i dont think you can trick the editors with a fake doom.wad (chex.wad renamed)-ive tried and no success, just work with it long enough.

Yes, but what I would do is then apply a set of appropriate textures and such, so as to make it easier for you.

Plus, there is always the chance that I could make up entirely new textures.

<<EDIT: I am also meaning to change the names of all of the textures in the near future, so that they no longer use a confused mass of meaningless DooM names.

When Digital Café did Chex Quest, they just redefined the existing DooM textures, rather than making up a fresh set with new names. Many of the textures were redefined a second time for Chex Quest 2. The result was a bunch of textures without any apparent logic to their names.

SKSPINE1 and SKSPINE2 are good examples.

In DooM, these textures are part of a series of textures of the skins from tortured souls in Hell. SK identifies them as part of the SKIN series of textures, and SPINE is in the names, because both textures show a spine in them.

That makes sense.

In Chex Quest, SKSPINE1 is a stalagmite, and SKSPINE2 is a door from E1M5.

That doesn't make sense.

The textures are not arranged together in series for Chex Quest either, which causes confusion.

So ...

I will probably rename all the textures to fix these problems.

The down side of this is that I will have to go through the levels and switch all the textures, and that any new levels using the old names will basically be scrambled.>>

back from a good vacation. Just wondering wut levels haven't been finished yet?

Only levels E1M1 - E1M5 and levels E2M1 - E2M5 currently exist. They are from the original Chex Quest and Chex Quest 2. They are not finished per sé, as these are the levels I have been puttering around with and fixing up. They remain my domain.

Frades is working on levels for episode 3, and says he wants to make all the levels for that episode.

The others are up for grabs. Check out the descriptions in the first post of this thread for more info.

Aghh, here's the theme information I've been wanting! Now I know what to shoot for.

Since you mention hostages, I'll assume you're going to work in fraggle script?

Also I've got some stuff you may be interested in for the last level. I'll dig it out and re-work it a bit, then send it your way. I think map-wise it would be VERY important to keep things playful and change up the pitch now and then.

The hostages work without scripting. They use simple hack editing.

The hostages are actually going to be absent from the next beta, because they were using the DooM skull keys, and I really want those back now. They will be back, replacing different things than the skull keys.

Ok, I thought perhaps you were going to do something along the lines of "you must find X amount of hostages in order to exit level". Wouldn't be hard...

Found this on DOOM World:

http://www.doomworld.com/images/newstuff/217/mariost.jpg

That's exactly what I had in mind for my next Chex Quest contribution...

...something like this.

What do you think?

That would be kinda nice..... ^_^

Holy Mario Batman!

I believe the corrcet term would be: HOLY CHOCOLATE STARFISH!

To bring this back from the dead, has anyone claimed E1M9? I'd like to try my hand at that level. Can't promise anything good though.

Nope.

I had thought of doing a Chex cereal factory for it my self, but that simply hasn't happened.

I have gone into a little bit of doom mapping myself, and I've noticed something.

In Chex Quest, there are a LOT of textures that are just the same as others and there isn't a whole lot of variety. Are there any examples of textures you are thinking of making and what program will allow you to make textures for Doom if you want to make one yourself?

Seeing 80% of textures copied to replace other textures makes me think there was quite a bit of wasted space for having them all. Any way you can fix that in next beta? (I'm just using chex.wad for mapping, if I include cquestp2b2.wad for additional textures, will I still have this problem? ^_^)

When I first started working on phase I of T.U.C.Q., I noticed just how many textures were clones of each other.

What's more, a vast number of patches were the same.

Patches are the graphics DooM engine games use to build textures. Many textures just use a single patch, but many use several patches layered together to make textures.

When CQ was made, I guess they didn't pay attention to the purpose of patches, which is actually to save space. If you have two door textures, for example, and the only difference between them is a small detail, you can use the same large patch as the base, then use a smaller patch for the different details. Similarly, if you have a texture with a large number of identical elements, you can have a tiny patch of the element, and repeat it as many times as it is needed.

Digital Café didn't seem to get this, and many of the patches were cloned ad nauseum.

One of the main things I did in phase I was to delete as many of these cloned patches as possible, and redefine the texture to use the reduced number of patches. That is one of the main reasons why phase I is so much smaller than the original chex.wad.

I can not finish answering you questions at the moment, because I have to go somewhere and have very little time. I will continue my answer later.

I would like to create E2M6.

I have been working with Doom 2 mapping alot recently, and I've gotten much support and help from the people on Doom Connector. I thank them for all the success.

Currently, I'm finishing up my Doom 2 map practicing my mapping skills and I think I've progressed enough to take up the task. I hope you don't mind not using Doom Legacy's features yet, as I have no idea how the 3D floors work yet. :P

I really fancy making special effects in Doom, and the idea of a slime filled map that can be cleaned up by a machine gives me all sorts of ideas to pull it off.

I'll be making the plans for this map very shortly. I hope to get pictures up of my map for those who haven't seen it yet, but since they are from Doom, I'll try my best to make sure no death scene pics are taken.

Oh we can still post here?!!!!
DOM WANTS TO MAKE A MAP :lol:
Anything you need man. I'll make sure I do everything right.

:veryangry: :veryangry: :veryangry:

For some reason, I cannot pull this effect....

I made a test wad that has an empty "bin" and the floor at first isn't damaging. When I activate a switch, it "starts" up a machine and the ooze starts to rise. Unfortunately, as soon as the bin gets "filled" up by using sector tag "Floor Rise to Next Higher Floor (Change Texture)", the floor DOESN'T want to change to a ooze floor and start damaging the player. I thought I could use a "hidden" sector around the floor that the player can't see and when it reaches that height, that the sector would then "inhibit" the properties of the sector next to it, but that simply isn't happening.

I've seen some wads pull it off. What am I doing wrong?

:veryangry: :veryangry: :veryangry:

Well, sometimes in other wads, the liquid, (in this case slime I guess) Doesn't hurt you.
A lot of times the liquid is just water. I knowwhat you mean though, I've seen it myslef.
Maybe it's a problem changeing the sector effect by switch.

I fixed my example by doing just the opposite. It's filled at first and damages the player. Once lowered, it turns into a floor texture and it no longer damages the player. I'm not able to do this the other way though, as the sector won't damage you, but the texture does change to ooze (but the effect being inhibited by the sector is a feature provided by Doom Legacy and ONLY supported by that engine, which is not what I wanted to do). I suppose that's all that is needed to get this level working.

I'll be forced to use Doom Legacy to pull off the other trick though, but I expect some complicated explanation to get it working in Doom Format. <_<