24/09/2005 @20:50:58 ^21:29:24

BLOAT

I must have eaten like a week's worth of food today somehow. I don't get it, I've been a lot hungrier than usual these past few days

slight crisis

Here's the main things I've done with prboom

• (Re)implemented the overdetailed map cheat, a modification I made to the RISC OS engine Doom It Yourself in 2000. When you set the map cheat to things mode the things appear in all different colours and shapes (so you can with a fair degree of reliability tell what they are, and to a certain extent play the game entirely on the map - but that's a bit stupid, really. It's incredibly useful when running sandboxes, though)
• Made it easier to switch the map cheat's mode: Instead of typing the cheat code over and over to cycle the mode, the cheat code now simply enables or disables the cheat. When enabled, there's another (configurable) key to cycle the mode. There are four modes: off, show all lines, show all lines and some things, show all lines and all things (the map cheat with all things can get pretty cluttered so I have a mode where it doesn't show decoration and scenery objects)
• Instead of having one colour for secret areas that is optionally not shown before they've been discovered, there is a colour for unvisited secret areas and another one for visited ones. Also I removed the map_secret_after option to show unvisited secret areas and replaced it basically by the statement "is the cheat mode active? if not, don't display unvisited ones." Setting map_secret_after to false so that unvisited secret areas show up on the map is just the same as running the map in cheat mode, in my opinion.
• Then I decided to add all the thing colours as prboom.cfg variables (they were previously hardwired as #defines into the code, as they were in DIY), and then added them to the menus as a third screen under Options->Setup->Automap. This screen has about 40 options on it and is a sight to behold!

Now here's the problem. I realised that I shouldn't be doing this shit in the stable release. It should be a patch against the development version. So I think I'll have to do all the work again! Oh well it should be easier since now I've done it once already...

uac01.wad

"TEI TENGA" is a small map utilising Boom features that was released a few years ago. Somewhat suspiciously it was released mere days before another wad with the same name, a multileveled partial conversion for ZDoom, which at the time was highly anticipated. Whether this is pure coincidence or a clever troll is something that is lost to the mists of time.

The map itself is pretty easy. There are no large monsters, although resources are fairly scarce and I came close to dying especially in the initial parts of the map. It is mainly noteworthy for its visuals. It is full of glowing lights, scrolling walls, and huge gaps in the floor that aren't really gaps, you just walk on thin air instead. That was most disconcerting. There is one secret which you will only find with a lot of luck, or foreknowledge (I needed an editor) However I rather liked the view outdoors; if you look carefully there is a radio mast, with one of those red flashing lights to warn low flying aircraft, on top.

In summary this is a simple map that disguises its simplicity with abundant use, even overuse, of Boom specials and crowded texturing.