Doom 2 : DK Shrine : Remastered
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Story
You may have defeated the biggest demon you’ve ever seen and laid waste to hell, but there are still demons crawling the Earth
You are ready to begin to retake and reconstruct your homeland, but you can’t do it alone. News of your victory has not yet reached the orbiting ships. The rest of humanity orbits unaware that the source of the invasion has been destroyed. They need to be notified somehow, so that they may return and begin the reconstruction. Somewhere amongst this haunted place you find yourself in, is a facility capable of sending a transmission.
Background
This WAD was based on a 20 level WAD I released in 1996 called DK Shrine. DK Shrine was actually version 2 of the wad, with the first version being an 11 level WAD which saw limited release on a couple of bulletin boards in 1995. I changed the 11 levels of the first release and added another 9 to make DK Shrine 2, which was released simply as DK Shrine, or The Shrine.
I stumbled across Big Mac Davis’s Wolfenstein and Doom walkthroughs. They were well narrated, and after browsing through them I decided to play the iD 3D games over again in order of release, not having played Wolf3D all the way through since the 90’s. After finishing Doom, I decided to play DK Shrine and I was reminded of the visual and gameplay bugs which I had thought previously about fixing. DK Shrine was built when I had a PC that barely ran Doom and I was studying, so time and resources weren’t really available. Having played it again, I saw the need to fix bugs and polish the levels. It has been over 18 years since I last did any mapping, with my previous release being Orbital Fortitude, a single player level for Quake 2 released in the year 2000.
The scope of the project increased dramatically once I started. The minor fix-ups became huge overhauls, and one level was dropped completely and replaced with a new one (MAP08). The end result took longer than originally planned and involved far more work than what I initially thought, but it was necessary to get levels of a standard that I was happy with.
The end result are levels which don’t look like fix-ups of the originals, but seem more like new levels which were inspired by the originals. There is no need to have played the original DK Shrine to enjoy these levels.
This project is one more spin at mapping for old times’ sake, and may either be the start of a new period of mapping, or a one off. Time will tell…
Hints
This is a WAD where you need to explore a little to find the ammo and health you need.
Switches which affect something out of earshot or off the screen, often have a a clue next to them which indicates what it might do.
The start of level 7 involves a short puzzle with barrels. There is a reason the enemies are facing away so they don’t see you. Getting out of here alive isn’t about speed or violence, but caution and care…
Commentary on levels
Some thoughts on how the levels where changed.
Level 1
The original level was quite boxy and plain. Enter a square room, shoot monsters, go to the next room. It was after all, early in my Doom level editing days. This level has been modified quite a bit, with some new rooms, a lot of detail added and gameplay adjustments.
Level 2
This level has some quite plain sewers which felt at times a little plain. This level got made over by making it darker, grittier, adding some more side rooms and making it feel more like a real place. The “outdoors” area you can see through the windows while in the sewers was added. I’m quite happy with how this level turned out.
Level 3
In the original DK Shrine, if my memory serves me correctly, I made this after I had made several of the other levels. It wasn’t a bad level. The outdoor section around the river was added to give the level depth, as well as new details. In the original, there was one section where we had one room of Revenants, one of Mancubi which you would tear through with an invulnerability sphere. I replaced this section with a puzzle. You still need to rely on infighting, but the set piece is far more interesting.
Level 4
In the first version of DK Shrine, this level was pretty decent, but when making version 2 of DK Shrine, I made this larger by copying and pasting another level I made and stitching it together. Why? Ask my 17 year old self back in the 90s. Something that seemed like a good idea at the time to make the level bigger (bigger is better, right?) but made the level disjointed and introduced a gameflow bug where you could get stuck of you traversed it a particular way. This bug really bothered me, in fact, a lot about this level bothered me so it was good to be able to finally fix it up.
A lot of the level was simply removed, and the outdoors section made nicer. Some more details, a few new room and the end lava rooms were revamped into something more worthy of a demon hunting smite-meister.
Level 5
The tunnels have added details, and cavernous areas run through this level, making this level appear to take place in a subterranean area. This really improves the atmosphere and the level feels more like it takes place in a natural place. A few new passages, areas.
Level 6
This was my favourite of the original DK Shrine release. This level has new details, some added rooms. The final fight, which takes place in a large room with demon fire flying everywhere was reworked to be more of a challenge, more awesome, more everything. This is still a favourite of mine.
Level 7
This level started with a barrel puzzle. You were surrounded by barrels, and can’t move. The solution was to use the pistol to shoot two barrels in front of you, ONCE! You see, when you shoot a barrel, it moves. Just a little. By shooting the two barrels once or twice, you could move them apart and escape, grab the invulnerability and set the barrels off on a gorgeous chain reaction of concussion inducing toxic waste bursting chaos.
There were two problems with this puzzle. Firstly, it relied on placing the barrels really close together, almost on top of each other. Most source ports I’ve used will simply drop some of the barrels because of overlap. As a result, many of the barrels if you’re playing with a source port just don’t appear, leaving the player free to roam. Secondly, the solution is too obscure. Seriously, how many people were going to figure this out? Great idea as a puzzle, but I didn’t want to frustrate the player. Doom isn’t about being frustrated and trying for ages to solve a silly puzzle, its about flow and movement and violence and fun.
I still have a barrel puzzle, but its different now. It relies on stealth. Ooops, I’ve said enough.
Anyway, I added some areas to this and enhanced the outdoors area.
Level 8
This was one I liked in DK Shrine, but sadly when looking at in the editor, I struggled to see how I could make it better. I could have just enhanced it a little, but then it would have looked out of place, to plain compared to others.
I made a hard decision. This level wouldn’t be edited, I’ll build a new one, one which borrows ideas from it. The end result is perhaps the largest level in this level set. A large fortified wall separate the inner and outer areas, with many varied areas to explore.
Level 9
This was a crude “city style” level, which really was rather plain boxy buildings. Heavily modified, this level is now darker, with larger, better buildings, forts, fences, bridges and a surprise halfway through. Look for the signs (hint hint) that something big is on its way to you.
This level barely resembles the original and I’m really pleased with how it came out.
Level 10
A dark, industrial, claustrophobic area. It still is. Machinery moves around this place. I wanted to enhance that sense of isolation in a dark foreboding place, add many visual advancements. A lot of this level was redone to make it more interesting to play. Natural formations are more natural, and there is a mix of metal clad industrial areas with rocky pits.