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SIGIL - 5th episode of Doom by John Romero

Bad Sector

Arcane
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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Yeah, that is much better :).

And yeah, Doom can have different monsters, items, etc per difficulty level. Quake has that too (an example which can be seen in the gameplay demos is in E1M3 where you get two fiends at the start and the ogre in the platform above the golden key is replaced with two shamblers) and personally i like those sort of difficulty differences (IIRC in Quake you can even have different geometry depending on the difficulty level so you could, e.g. have a large gap in a hard difficulty mode you can jump over and add a bridge in easy mode) than the more common health/damage multipliers you see nowadays.
 
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Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Good wad, finished it on UV. Apart from being too dark in the later parts, and the segment with the crushing columns everything else worked out well. And due to the eye symbols that are introduced, and you must shoot them, I was locked out from progressing on later map. The traps were really nasty (like for example ending of E1M1, I didn't expect it), and it crucial to methodically wipe out monsters and be prepared for anything. Dancing around the barons and using shotgun took some patience and time. Cacodemons were placed in a tight areas and I really hated them. Telefragging Cyberdemons was cool, with the first one needing more timing to not be teleport just beside him. Cool midi soundtrack, only vanilla textures but the atmosphere was really good. Only the ending level with two bosses in a long corridor was a letdown.

Sigil reminded me of CyberDreams, a 32 lvl campaign, where in each level we need to kill al Cyberdemon(s). I wouldn't be surprised if Romero took some inspiration from it.

 

Jezal_k23

Guest
My opinion on it is this: it's pretty good. Actually fairly devious traps sometimes. Now, the most surprising thing is, it's not nearly as hard as E4, which is weird since I was expecting absolutely insane and unfair difficulty based on that Gman guy's video. First few E4 maps are legendary because Hell Beneath and Perfect Hatred really are fucking hard. Sigil doesn't really get close to that in terms of difficulty. Map1 of this is not nearly as hard as Hell Beneath, not at all. Oh, great music, even the MIDIs.
 
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Finished it today on UV, was a fun experience. Actually brought back a little bit of the feeling of when I first played Doom and was complete fucking garbage. When the traps were scary and you felt tense and hell and the ripping and tearing was at a relative minimum since holding down alt to strafe was fancy shit. I'll have to try it on Hurt Me Plenty (Entirely doing the midi soundtrack for that one I think) and see if that has more of a regular ol' Doom feeling/pace to it like Civvie said, where you can run around blasting demons and aren't juggling weapons to conserve ammo and looking out for traps. Some of the levels do get a little bit esoteric/wonky for where you need to go to advance (Like I said, level 2 or 3 had that bit where the trigger was on the health pack that took me ages to trigger since I was in good health and wasn't immediately jumping on it) but it was a fun experience and I liked it more than Doom 2's levels on the whole.
 

Unkillable Cat

LEST WE FORGET
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Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy
Well, I cheated then by playing Sigil using Brütal Doom. :positive:

It's better than Ep. 4, that's for certain. It has a theme and it sticks with it, even to the point of sillyness. Wading through lava and shooting the eyes to open up things got old really fast.

What I found strangest is that the pacing is different than expected. This is a thinking man's wad, you can't just barge into places and hope superior firepower will see you through.

Speaking of firepower, ammo sure is scarce in this one. It was rare that I had full ammo for any weapon, and I usually had to resort to 'splodering hanging bodies to scrounge up some extra health and ammo.

And it felt good to play Doom again without having to deal with Revenants - I've had enough of those for a lifetime. On the downside Cacodemons got more dangerous because I usually dispose of them with a Super Shottie to the face - but with no such gun around, I have to grind them down with whatever's at hand.

One word of warning to those planning to use Brutal Doom for Sigil: In E5M5 there are a couple of enemies that you can dispose of via telefragging. Doing this will kill you nine times out of ten as they're standing in lava and the splashback will melt you. You can avoid that fate by wearing a radsuit when doing this... but you'll probably have to cheat to get one in this level.

Also, I noticed a tree full of skulls in E5M6 that I don't recall seeing before - unused Doom asset or something new by Romero?

None of the levels really stood out for me as good/excellent, but each of them at least has a memorable element to it, like the 'background' in E5M5, the traps-upon-traps in E5M4 and the Cacodemon pit in E5M7. Only E5M8 felt poor to me, a total letdown compared to the others and felt rushed.

Since it's free I can't see a reason why everyone shouldn't give it a go.
 

Jezal_k23

Guest
Everyone who complaints about the lack of Doom 2 assets completely missed the point of what he wanted to do with Sigil. That said, I'd love to see his take on a few new Doom 2 levels.
 

Israfael

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Joined
Sep 21, 2012
Messages
3,580
Reinstalled jDoom (Doomsday now), did not use it in a while - is there a known way to make it run properly? It's not even loading the GPU more than 10% and I get only 40-80 fps
 

Jezal_k23

Guest
Only E5M8 felt poor to me, a total letdown compared to the others and felt rushed.

I agree about E5M8. A bit of a boner killer there. To be fair there isn't really anything exciting to do anymore with these episode ending maps. E4M8 was already an uninspired letdown back when Ultimate Doom came out, it makes sense that E5M8 would be similarly uninspired. There are no surprises waiting for us anymore in these episode enders.
 

schru

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Feb 27, 2015
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I think interesting finales can be created through inventive arena and encounter design in spite of that. The ‘No Rest for the Living’ episode included with Doom: BFG Edition had a pretty good final map.

My problem with this new episode's finale is that it was simply rather easy. The narrow pathway in which the boss battle takes place doesn't really add to the challenge, but it does make it difficult to stand back and watch the spectacle if you goad the cyberdemon and spider mastermind to fight each other. Nice visual design, though.
 

Gragt

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Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin
It’s challenging like the two maps he had released in the last few years. I like it.

Everyone who complaints about the lack of Doom 2 assets completely missed the point of what he wanted to do with Sigil. That said, I'd love to see his take on a few new Doom 2 levels.

The same could be said of those who rejoice for the lack of Doom 2 assets, for that matter. Good maps for Doom and Doom 2 will provide different flavours of the same type of flavour.

I agree with you: I’d love to see new Doom 2 content from John Romero.
 

Tweed

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I thought he made good usage of Doom 1 limitations and assets, it just gets a bit time consuming to sit and have to hammer away at a baron or caco with a shotgun. I started mixing in the occasional rocket, sort of a rocket-chaser if you will.
 

Jezal_k23

Guest
Whoever hasn't played this yet, careful with your rockets. He never, at any point in the episode, gives away too many of them.
 

LESS T_T

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Oct 5, 2012
Messages
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Codex 2014


v1.2 -> v1.21
============
Changes made by John Romero, dew, Flambeau, Keyboard_Doomer, Ubergewei, Xaser

general:
- All A_BossDeath codepointers restored for SIGIL_v1_2's (dehacked).
- All A_BossDeath codepointers restored for SIGIL_COMPAT_v1_2 except for the Spider Mastermind's which is needed preventing unwanted early end of map8 (see v1.0 -> v1.1, map8).

v1.1 -> v1.2
============
Changes made by John Romero, dew, Flambeau, Keyboard_Doomer, Ubergewei, Xaser

general:
- fixed all eye switches to prevent triggering by zdoom projectiles and a slew of related potential soft-locks
- automap cleanup for consistent secret/hidden linedef flagging and hiding undesirable active linedefs
- added loads of co-op ammo and monsters to every map
- new SIGIL texture
- new TITLEPIC and CREDIT screens
- new demos: DEMO1 E5M2 by Dew, DEMO2 E5M5 by Xaser, DEMO3 E5M7 by Keyboard_Doomer, DEMO4 E5M1 by Ubergewei

map1:
- final room has exit pulled out for easier movement
- escape from lava in tight hallway on both sides
- added co-op berserk in lava (thing 191)

map2:
- added tag 120 to ld 129, 145 so it's harder not to trigger the first elevator
- added trim sector to secret area evil eye for proper texture alignment
- changed RK door track linedefs 479, 914 from upper to lower unpegged
- added METAL as upper backside texture on linedefs 454, 455, 1061 and 1924
- changed textures on linedefs 982, 988 to METAL for consistency
- realigned linedef 1348

map3:
- outstanding cell charge (t. 168) with no cell weapon changed into three clips
- moved berserk (thing 125) east a little
- added extra MP-only radsuit to the blood hallway
- changed linedefs 1412 and 1414 from lower to upper unpegged

map4:
- added shotgun thing 273 to make level start easier, removed co-op shotguns
=== red skull key path ===
- added repeatable floor lower action to ld 86 to avoid softlocked in coop if players inside the section wipe out
- split sector 73 to ensure wall trap still works under the new setup
- reshaped cavern architecture around eye switch for trigger safety
- added a lift to final lava room; made easier to move around in lava
- escape stairs out of lava next to raised bridge
- escape stairs out of lava close to soul sphere
=== yellow skull key path ===
- reworked lava island re-raising to fully repeatable, using control sectors with decorative torches to support the mechanism
- added ambush cave sector with things 260-262 next to yellow skull key door
- distanced lava island raising lines under YSK door to prevent a special hit (spechit) overflow that would trash recorded demos
- added stairs behind YSK door to prevent players from jumping up
- modified center path environment to look more interesting with metal beams
=== blue skull key path ===
- changed hallway behind baron thing 37 to allow him to follow player into crusher area
- made green crusher area easier by combining crushers and removing the separating midgrate
- made ceilings higher in computer crusher maze
- deactivated 3 crushers to make computer maze easier
- moved spectre thing 85 to safe area
- moved shotgunner thing 77 to safe area
- removed deactivation crusher lines from broken teleport pieces and related reactivation lines around sector 272
- changed floor textures on broken teleport pieces to look different
- added backside lower texture (MARBLE3) to linedef 1926
- changed linedefs 2021, 2030, 2042, 2049 to lower unpegged
- changed linedefs 3909, 3911 from lower to upper unpegged
=== final area ===
- added MP-only chaingun to the center of the map
- changed height of all 3 skull key posts to stop speedrunners from cheating (sorry ZM, you cheater, my hands are tied -dew)
- reworked final bridge fight sequence to include lava dipping
- added switch to outdoor lava area in a cave section to lower sector 535
- made bridge monster rooms bigger and added monster things 266-269
- made east lava teleporter monster-blocking
- east lava has stimpacks and hidden green armor
- added box of rockets to west lava side
- removed computer map and added rad suit thing 239
- the outstanding cell charge (t. 240) without a matching cell weapon changed into two rockets on all skills each
- extended exit room and added several monsters
- made spectra into a pinky in end cave
- changed linedefs 3927, 3940 to lower unpegged

map5:
- made imps on the bridge at the start face away from the player
- added shotgun thing 82 at start, removed corresponding co-op items
- added chaingun thing 135 near start for hntr/hmp skills, thing 336 on fireblu ledge leading to lost soul building
- changed shells in the first secret into a shellbox
- cacodemon thing 154 changed only to hmp skill now
- added another monster blocking line in front of switch linedef 2430
- added islands under cybs to avoid lock-in damage when telefragging them
- added another secret to back of biggest building
- changed action on linedef 702 to walkover-repeatable to prevent potential coop softlock in which BSK door never gets revealed
- created progression-blocking ceiling lifted when you complete the hellcrack building
- changed depth of hellcracks in east building to 24 so imps don't get stuck
- moved megaarmor by cyberdemon to be easier to get
- created lift to get out of wooden building lava
- reworked lost soul hallway with separation lifts, less lost souls
- moved exit a little back from final fight
- changed skull texture bridges to be FIREBLU1
- added trim sector to rocket launcher area evil eye for texture alignment
- fixed ceiling of sector 266 to CEIL4_1
- changed linedef 1045 texture to METAL to fit its environment
- changed width of exit door to 128 for SIGIL texture

map6:
- added action 38 with tag 10 to linedefs 3622, 3623, 2624 in the exit area in order to re-access the western section, so players can complete 100% secrets
- added extra MP-only radsuit to red skull blood hallway
- removed unpegged flag from linedefs 1227, 1243, 1257, 1263
- added trim sector to chainsaw room for proper door alignment

map7:
- added chaingun thing 378 to singleplayer on hntr/hmp, t. 517 on uv; removed extraneous shotgun coop things on start
- added evil eye thing 398 to make opening the ruined wall easier
- moved red torch thing 1 to make way for the evil eye
- added UV cyb thing 390 that joins the barons in the red skull key ambush
- added sector 833 as secondary tele-destination for the baron/cyb RSK ambush
- added baron of hell thing 389 to make the player pay for the BFG (hidden in alcove opened by linedef 5540)
- moved W1 floor raise action in trap behind RK door from ld 1156 to ld 5529 to prevent softlock if player's too fast and escapes the area
- changed linedef 1585 to WR lift action
- added a second cell charge by the exit room
- added a super-secret SP chaingun
- final building has 2nd set of stairs fixed so player cannot fall next to them
- little pillars around the fort made consistently passable
- shotgunner cages in the fort walls made impassable
- changed upper and lower sidedefs of linedef 3418 to METAL
- changed linedefs 3414 and 3421 to METAL for door track alignment reasons
- changed linedefs 3008, 3016, 3026, 3029, 3119, 3549 to lower unpegged
- changed linedefs 5461, 5464, 5467, 5470 to upper unpegged
- removed unpegged flags from linedef 3343
- fixed alignment of linedef 54 texture
- fixed missing lower unpegged on linedefs 3421, 3414 near the evil eye

map8:
- added starting shotgun
- added 2 imps and caco outside starting room, shellbox for compensation
- reshaped linedefs that teleport lost souls into start area to prevent the cyberdemon from triggering them as well
- added 2nd baron thing 195
- moved soulsphere so you can't get it through the wall
- added crushing ceiling trigger on linedef 605 to clear the gallery monsters
- added several monsters for more difficulty
- added lips to ledges and a decoration in building area to stop zero master
- shortened the metal barrier in spider mastermind area
- added a horde of monsters after final cyb
- changed invulnerable to evil eye (baphomet's eye)
- moved stimpak t. 112 from 1904, -640 to 1874, -640 to prevent item floating
- door opened by that same stimpak produces HOMs on activation, added FIRELAV2 to backsides of sidedefs: 1522, 1523, 1524

map9:
- added action 2 tag 18 to linedef 947 to force map progression trigger
- switched action 22 tag 17 from l.2525 to l.2530, 2531 to better force a trigger
- moved cell charges t. 228, 229 on the rampart to entice ammo-starved players
- aligned front lower textures of linedefs 588, 589 and 591
- added METAL as lower front texture on linedefs 2261, 2266, 2421 and 2426
- changed starting door to BIGDOOR7 on linedefs 28, 233, 234
- added shotgun shells at thing 239 to entice player to trigger linedef 2439
- changed several lost souls into imps in end room
- added several more enemies in end room
- added specters in the lava behind castle (things 248, 249)
- added imps (things 250, 251)
- added cacodemons (things 252, 253) and carved out a secret alcove for them that triggers on linedefs 588, 589, 591
- added shotgunner thing 254
- added imp thing 255
- added shotgun shells thing 256
- changed sector 210 tag from 14 to 35
- added teleport destinations to sectors tagged 14 (things 257, 258, 259)
- added specters (things 260, 261, 262)
- added shotgun shells thing 263
- added imp thing 264
- changed linedefs 747, 759, 799 to be lower unpegged
- added secret tunnel to the left of thing 161
- added monsters (things 265, 266)
- added stimpack thing 267
- added shotgunners things 268, 269
- added imp thing 270
- added box of ammo in front of switch that lowers platform to red skull door
- made the trap door next to this switch take longer to lower
- changed 2 shotgunners by yellow switches to zombiemen
- added a box of bullets before blue door
- added a medikit before blue door at top of stairs
- added teleporter out of the secret by the castle (in the lava)
- starting spot ceiling is now hellcracks

mapinfo: (SIGIL.wad only)
- added DD_DEFNS lump for Doomsday (props to skyjake)
- added UMAPINFO lump for general future support (props to Shadow Hog)
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,161
I thought he made good usage of Doom 1 limitations and assets, it just gets a bit time consuming to sit and have to hammer away at a baron or caco with a shotgun. I started mixing in the occasional rocket, sort of a rocket-chaser if you will.

I just chainsaw cacos lmao. You need at least two buckshots to soften up then you can just stun them with the chain. You can do it at full health but sometimes they'll manage to brake free so it's best to hurt them first.
 

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
https://rome.ro/news/2019/12/2/sigil-update
SIGIL Update
John Romero
December 2, 2019

69572724_2082592618702860_3341491359516196864_o.jpg


SIGIL has been out for a while now. I uploaded the free version on May 31, 2019. Many YouTube playthrough videos have been uploaded and the response has been good. I had a great team of DOOM technicians helping me make sure all the data was as good as possible. Even though DOOM is 25 years old, every single line segment in a level has a bunch of information on it. Most levels have hundreds if not thousands of line segments in them, so it’s a lot of tech checking.

The awesome team includes dew (Boris Klimes), flambeau, UberGewei, and Keyboard_Doomer – they put up with my work start at about midnight most nights. We have a great Slack channel where we discuss all the tech stuff happening with the latest fixes. SIGIL is up to v1.21 now and it might not see another revision. It’s pretty good now. I toned down the crushers on E5M4, so maybe no more whining. :)

Anyway, the SIGIL experience was really good and I’m excited about what might be next….

If you want to download SIGIL, you can get it here for free:

SIGIL DOWNLOAD

Also, you might not know this, but we are selling some SIGIL merchandise on the Romero Games site. Check out the evil items here:

ROMERO GAMES SHOP
 

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