I keep telling myself I’m going to make a video or screenshot or something that’s NOT in Map01, but like, it’s got a nice little wall over an open space—what more can you ask for in the case of micro-demonstrations?

If not friend … why friend shaped? In ZDoom Wars 2, you can send adorable Cacodemons to their death rather than killing then yourself. That’s … better?

I always get so doom and gloom when I’ve got a technical problem I can’t fix myself. “This’ll never work, it’s dooooomed”, and then I get help and it works and I’m all “I’M GOING TO LIVE FOREVER”. It’s a rollercoaster.

Holy fuck. All my dev time today spent on implementing Plague. One problem after another. I won’t be able to crack it this week. I’ll need a good long morning on the Discord to pick up where I left off. Sorry. I MIGHT come back and implement the Virus unit aside from its plague effect tonight.

Implementing the Virus unit means implementing the game’s Plague Mechanic. It spreads between allies draining health. I’m imagining good players using Move orders to isolate infected monsters. It shouldn’t be overly devastating unless you get really unlucky. Some talents or abilities remove plague.

I previously made a Queen of Bhutan joke in the manual for Doomvengers, a past mod of mine (Captain Ventris) which never took off. I don’t know why I have a fascination with her, okay?

Super Cyclops are in! They’ll be a very valuable bombardment tool for Chex Quest. Nothing complex, but a really nice addition to a faction that struggles at range. Also slimes air targets pretty severely.

Crusaders are implemented. They’re complex, so let’s talk about e’m! Two weapon Loadouts: Missiles (good vs single targets) and a flamethrower (good against hordes), or a rapid laser (good against hordes) and a zap attack (good against single targets).🧵 #ZDWars2 #GZDoom #Doom #GameDev #Devtober

I know we dev out of order, because I’ve already got a number of QOL features in. The warning when targeted by suppression units is back, as well as when targeted by assassins, snipers, and artillery. Biggest thing is you aren’t charged for an unsuccessful spawn. HUGE for QOL vs the first game.

Topical, AS ALWAYS

T3 is a power spike for sure. I can see early T2’s being common: the early game. But you get nasty shit in T3: that’s the start of the mid-game. T4 isn’t a huge leap, so that closes the mid-game. Then there’s T5, Heroes, which is the late game. Then your T5 abilities unlock after a few minutes!

Aiming at adding Super Cyclops, the Virus, and Crusaders. For the Virus I’ll have to implement the plague mechanic. It infects an initial target and then spreads semi-randomly to neighboring allies, draining their health until it runs out of steam. Vicious, but can’t kill things—it stops at 1 hp.

Alright, Disciples and Bishops both in, and both pretty damn fearsome—and not just because they are strong female characters.

Bruiser Brothers are in, using the venerable Belphegor recolor for you Skulltag Oldheads. Enhanced attacks and 25 extra health (which is a shit ton). Will one-shot a Zombieman at range or in melee, which has an AOE.🧵 #ZDWars2 #GZDoom #Doom #GameDev

Just learned about the most brutal inventory function in GZDoom.

Both of these ladies will be in the game if the Bruiser Brothers don’t take up my whole evening.

That’s better.

Finished coding the Hell Noble and its upgrades and was like, “Ah, all in a day’s work”, and then I realized I still had to do the whole Bruiser Brother mechanic. It’ll be cool when it’s done, but it’ll be a nice block of logic to have it work right.

Monsters in ZDWars are pretty complicated, not in actual behavior, which is predictable, but in QOL and upgrade behaviors. They check LOF before shooting because some units have limited magazines. They try and target abilities at relevant targets. No friendly fire. It’s intended to be seamless.

Realized I completely neglected to code in the menu option for one of the Reaver’s upgrades. C’est la vie, etc.

By way of Jetsun Pema, queen of Bhutan and well-known ZDoom Wars aficionado (she’s a Strife Main), we have acquired alternative funding to continue the development of ZDoom Wars 2 in the wake of the US government shutdown.🧵

Aiming for 6-9 implemented units this weekend. That’s gonna mean the first instance of Plague. Plague is poison damage that spreads between units. The spread is always weaker than the initial infection, and tapers off, but weaker plague durations have better chances of spreading. It’ll be fun.

By way of Jetsun Pema, queen of Bhutan and well-known ZDoom Wars aficionado (she’s a Strife Main), we have acquired alternative funding to continue the development of ZDoom Wars 2 in the wake of the US government shutdown.🧵

Electric attacks. Tanky for their cost. Upgrades to either a long-range homing shot ability or AOE electric breath.

“The girls are fightinggggg”, etc., things of that nature.

There’s not enough Feminine Energy in ZDoom Wars 2, so it is now the Official Opinion of this account that all Disciples and Bishops are very alto-voiced ladies.

One of the best things I came up with in the original ZDoom Wars was portraying flemoids as what they are: extra-dimensional horrors, the endless tide set to sweep away civilization. I mean, canonically they’re immune to conventional weapons! They never need to stop trying to invade! Lovecraftian.🧵

I keep thinking there should be a few player skins in an update after release as just some easy content, but I got no ideas for alternates for Heretic. If anybody ever did a lady Corvus, I’d love that.

Yesterday I saw a time where I’d been lazy which opened up an exploit. A couple abilities, rather than timing themselves, just gave items to units that they’d consume each time they attacked until they ran out. That just means you could stack them up out of combat, which is not desirable. Whoops!

Flipping through my notes: Yes, Bruiser Brothers SHOULD be marked on the auto map! Good job, past me. That’s a feature I’ll be putting in this weekend, in fact, if the government reopens and our funding resumes, of course.

So, with the United States Government shutting down, a brief thread on how that affects ZDoom Wars 2: 🧵

So, with the United States Government shutting down, a brief thread on how that affects ZDoom Wars 2: 🧵

I have almost 7 posts for every follower on this account. AND I’LL NEVER STOP

Me, every time I finish a pass on monsters and have to code the menus (it’s tedious, okay?):

I used to always do an April Fool’s patch for the original ZDoom Wars. I gotta do that again. I’m thinking there should be pop up ads while you’re trying to play.

I already know the prices for tiering up are probably bullshit. There’s no way I got those right. Tier Two is like 40/20. That’s like 40 seconds on one point. Dead easy. BUT is 40 seconds less of spawning units going to make a huge difference? God, can’t wait for an actual gameplay test.

I got contacted in multiple ways by multiple people about this one, so I guess it worked. The Antifa text is fake. The misleading label is because I put in the fake Antifa text. I promise I’m not on a watch list yet. I think.

I created the Flem Mine from its sprites’ humble origins (in CQ3) as a Lost Soul replacement, and I think all of the other factions’ mains haven’t forgiven me for it. ⓘ 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘈𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘢. 𝘗𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘴𝘶𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘳.

Strife will definitely have some extra micro to be efficient. High skill ceiling, I hope. They not only have units that can swap weapons, but they have the Deputize ability. A thread on that ability and how it works.🧵

This is my best post so far, and you’d know that if you played the right mod (ZDoom Wars 1) for the now-defunct Skulltag Source Port in 2008-2011. Trust me.

We’re deving in a weird order: still developing core mechanics while also having a substantial amount of content. Work is divided such that it shakes out. I’m doing content, Ariadne is doing core mechanics. Capture Weight and Orders still to go, on that front. I’ve got the Tier 3 monsters, still.

Got a 4 day weekend coming up. Hoping to get Tier 3, round one done: The Hell Noble, Disciple, Bishop, Crusader, Super Cyclops, and Virus. Hell Noble will take legwork but shouldn’t be hard, just time-consuming. The Virus, on the other hand, has a plague attack, so I have to model viral spread, haha

All Tier 3 Defensive Structures are complete! The most complex was probably Strife’s Recycling Facility. It spawns up to 3 robots who use corpses to make little floating drones with guns. Each robot can maintain up to 8 drones. So you plop it down at a battlefield and let it make you a mini-army!

3 Tier 3 Defensive Structures are finished! If I can get the other 3 done between other things today it will be rad. Otherwise, I can finish those next week and then it’s on to monsters. I honestly only expected to get the Faction Abilities done this weekend, so hey!

All Tier 3 Faction Abilities are complete! This is Virus’ Corrupted Sector, which doesn’t look too impressive against 3 imps, but unleashed on an army it will fatally drain a big radius of monsters. Gotta get creative with Virus visuals because it has so few assets! #ZDWars2 #Doom #GZDoom #GameDev

Chex Quest’s damaging slime floor is done, as is Strife’s Oracle. The Oracle is fun as hell. He stands there, slowly healing allies in a large radius. He slowly spawns adherents. The more adherents are alive, the faster the Oracle heals. So it takes a while to get up to speed, but then it’s superb!

When I was younger I associated ZDoom Wars with heavy metal. Now, not so much. I love how retro it is. I love how absurd it is. It’s not self-serious, it’s got Chex Quest in it. Nowadays I think fun synthy music would fit more than anything. Some guitar, but more in a prog direction.

Tier 2 introduces the first Suppression units: That is to say, units with rapid fire attacks good for lobbing bullets downwind. This is distinct from Artillery units, which explicitly affect multiple targets but usually deal much more damage per hit.🧵

Hoping to get the remaining 3 Tier 3 Faction Abilities done after dinner. Strife gets the Oracle (a slowly ramping up healing aura), Chex Quest gets a damaging slime floor, and Virus gets a randomly expanding 3D damage zone that last for a bit. Useful vs air, since Virus is so air-focused.

Doom’s Fireblu wall ability is finished! It erects a wall straight from your position that cannot be attacked, but can be passed through. Any enemies along the wall get gradual damage, and allies get ice and plague effects removed. Great for gatehouses!