28/11/2006 @20:26:39 ^22:25:02

Update to Hellcore review

Following the recent /newstuff chronicles thread on Doomworld, in which I posted the original.

Firstly, the gameplay isn't tacked on or whatever I said it was, but is deliberate. The authors prefer a style of gameplay where you run away from the monsters. That's fair enough, not everyone likes the same thing, and I cannot begrudge them. I suppose I go into a map expecting certain things, and in this case I was wrong. The one suggestion I would make is that the FAQ could mention the intended style of gameplay. I did read this before playing and for example found it very helpful to know about the secret keys on map11 in advance.

Secondly, the bugs. Apparently Darkfyre "spent an entire week of nights at work" trying to make Hellcore compatible with the range of Boom-compatible ports. So I can't say he didn't put the effort in.

However I still believe at least half the bugs are more or less trivially fixable. For example, I thought it was fairly well-known that you can't put walk triggers in front of doors or switches, which is the reason why you can't get anywhere in map03. Similarly, it's easy to add a nonzero tag to a line special that requires it, and the same tag to the line's back sector, instead of assuming the ZDoomism that a zero tag acts like a fake manual. Other issues are more involved to fix, like map10's secret - you'd have to get the pillar out of the way, rather than just drop it into the floor, maybe stunt something up with conveyors and teleporters, I don't know - but map07's exploding doors, well, as I said, that one has me stumped.