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Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

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Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#21

Post by moshR »

endgame wrote: post #4
Mithaldu wrote: post #3

> Doom is about “maneuverability as defense” > ... > There’s nothing quite like it today. There's one game i'm aware of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painkiller_(video_game) By default it also moves fairly slowly, but the player is strongly encouraged and almost forced to use bunny-hopping to gain extreme agility and speed. Most youtube LPs showcase this quite well. "Asylum" and "Snowy Bridge" are imo the highpoint l…

The Serious Sam games fit the DooM tradition, as well.

I wholeheartedly agree. I love Painkiller as well, but it (the original, at least) never quite got "maneuverability as defense" right in my opinion. I think one reason for this is the integration with the Havok physics engine. The character would often become stalled on debris from broken crates, vases, etc. Stairs were also an issue.

If anyone else is into these kinds of shooters, and wants to try more recent titles, I also highly recommend both Hard Reset (2011) and Shadow Warrior (2013) by Flying Wild Hog. I believe some of the developers were part of the original Painkiller team.

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#22

Post by dirktheman »

logicchains wrote: post #20
ahoy wrote: post #8

Entirely off-topic, but that thread title sounds like the best metal album ever.

Not entirely off-topic; Doom had a pretty awesome, reasonably metal-ish soundtrack, by the standards of the day.

On the Smashing Pumpkins track 'where the boys fear to tread' they sampled the rocket launcher sound. I recognized it the minute I heard it first.

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#23

Post by moultano »

lotharbot wrote: post #15
Mithaldu wrote: post #3

> Doom is about “maneuverability as defense” > ... > There’s nothing quite like it today. There's one game i'm aware of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painkiller_(video_game) By default it also moves fairly slowly, but the player is strongly encouraged and almost forced to use bunny-hopping to gain extreme agility and speed. Most youtube LPs showcase this quite well. "Asylum" and "Snowy Bridge" are imo the highpoint l…

> “maneuverability as defense” the Descent series is all about this, even in multiplayer. Here's a video of two of the best players in the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8eCULTB3IQ (with audio commentary from some of the other best players, starting at around 7%.)

I loved the movement in that game. I wish there was something modern like it.

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#24

Post by omarhegazy »

What a great analysis. I'd like to see stuff like this on other games : what about shooters with instant-hit and slow physics where the player is still definitely NOT a tank (2-3 bullets from most guns will kill you), still capturing the same sense of gameplay-over-narrative and experience diversity -- Counter-Strike. In fact, I'd like to see an article like this on every archetypal shooter type. Goldeneye, Halo, System Shock, Counter-Strike... does anyone know of more game analysis like this?

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#25

Post by Maakuth »

I just finished reading David Kushner's Masters of Doom, which tells the story of DOOM development, as well as the id software story around it. It was well-written and thoroughly researched story, should be a good read for many in here.

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#26

Post by egypturnash »

Mithaldu wrote: post #3

> Doom is about “maneuverability as defense” > ... > There’s nothing quite like it today. There's one game i'm aware of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painkiller_(video_game) By default it also moves fairly slowly, but the player is strongly encouraged and almost forced to use bunny-hopping to gain extreme agility and speed. Most youtube LPs showcase this quite well. "Asylum" and "Snowy Bridge" are imo the highpoint l…

There's an entire genre that's about maneuverability as defense: "bullet hell" shootemups. (Also known as "danmaku" or "curtain fire".) You know, the ones about flying a little spaceship through these huge, complicated patterns of slow-moving bright pink bullets.

And my experience of playing Dark Souls was all about "dodging around like a maniac and not being where enemies were putting their weapons".

I mean, if you want to constrain it to FPSs, yeah, there's not much like it. But there are a hell of a lot of games whose primary strategy is "Be Where The Bullets Are Not".

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#27

Post by Gracana »

moultano wrote: post #23
lotharbot wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “maneuverability as defense” the Descent series is all about this, even in multiplayer. Here's a video of two of the best players in the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8eCULTB3IQ (with audio commentary from some of the other best players, starting at around 7%.)

I loved the movement in that game. I wish there was something modern like it.

Check out Miner Wars, maybe? I haven't played it yet, but it looks cool, and an awful lot like Descent.

[edit] Oh, but the reviews are pretty terrible. :|

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#28

Post by antimagic »

bkcooper wrote: post #11
Mithaldu wrote: post #3

> Doom is about “maneuverability as defense” > ... > There’s nothing quite like it today. There's one game i'm aware of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painkiller_(video_game) By default it also moves fairly slowly, but the player is strongly encouraged and almost forced to use bunny-hopping to gain extreme agility and speed. Most youtube LPs showcase this quite well. "Asylum" and "Snowy Bridge" are imo the highpoint l…

Painkiller does feel more like Doom than most other more modern FPSs, but I never felt like the bunny hopping really measured up evasion wise. The game that I felt captured this dynamic really well, at least in multiplayer deathmatches, was Half-Life. You were surprisingly zippy, and the long jump module gave you a lot of ability to get out of where you were in a hurry. I enjoyed this sort of dynamic because it playe…

You should try out the Marathon series then (the precursors to Halo from Bungie, sort of set in the same universe). They are available in open source at:

http://marathon.sourceforge.net/

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#29

Post by GlennS »

Mithaldu wrote: post #3

> Doom is about “maneuverability as defense” > ... > There’s nothing quite like it today. There's one game i'm aware of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painkiller_(video_game) By default it also moves fairly slowly, but the player is strongly encouraged and almost forced to use bunny-hopping to gain extreme agility and speed. Most youtube LPs showcase this quite well. "Asylum" and "Snowy Bridge" are imo the highpoint l…

The Tribes series takes this much further. The most recent of those is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribes:_Ascend

Re: Coelacanth: Lessons from Doom (2010)

#30

Post by yason »

tdicola wrote: post #10

Interesting article. I played with making Doom levels back in the day and it wasn't exactly easy. The tools (DEU, DETH, etc.) were generally clunky DOS apps that resembled very simplified CAD programs. Documentation was non-existent or spotty at best, so you really had to spend a lot of time figuring out how to do simple things. It would easily take you months to ramp up and start building levels that were more compl…

That was part of the point: back then things weren't supposed to be easy nor documented and investing months to really learn how the intricate details of a Doom map worked paid off in giving us years of fun creating our own levels and episodes.
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