Blocks of Doom II: The Ultimate Challenge mod

Who's behind the project?
Version 0.1, I'm a little embarrassed to say, is all my work. However, when development came to an utter standstill due to me severely buggering up the ACS library system, I was fortunate enough to be rescued by Carlcyber who has since gone and almost rewritten the entire coding system, and made it much neater and more organised. During Version 0.2's development process he also fixed a plethora of bugs within the mod, some of which prevented me from actually continuing the project. Big thumbs up to Carlcyber - I couldn't have got this far without him. =)

How does the gameplay differ from a normal Doom mod?
Basically, the player is placed at a spot on a 16x16 grid of square blocks. The player can switch between a first-person camera and an aerial isometric view of the whole grid. The blocks raise around him in a fashion that creates a small maze or puzzle that he must escape from. Technically, the blocks are called "tiles", and there are several types of tile that you will encounter - more as the game progresses. Some will immediately kill you (lava and slime), some help you reach certain areas (elevators and teleporters), and others you may have to be incredibly careful walking near or over them (item thieves, unstable wooden blocks and slippery ice).

Every level has a different objective that when completed, exposes (or "unlocks") the exit block. Some levels require you to collect all the spheres on the board (these just appear as regular blur spheres but without the invisibility effect), others require you to destroy all the monsters, and others will be just plain mazes that you must seek the way out of. When you complete the objective, the exit block raises up somewhere, which you must then find, and walk over it so you can move on to the next "level".

There are 20 levels per "world", and each twentieth level will have a boss fight. Each world has its own looks and difficulty, and there are four of them: (1) Terra, (2) Egypt, (3) Castle and (4) Hell. Bonus levels (in the fifth secret world, (5) Ice) are also available if the player manages to get every single sphere in an entire world.

Therefore, 20 levels per every one of the 4 worlds, plus 4 bonus levels, equals 84 levels. Yep, high stakes, and I'm not normally a betting person, but hey, the original game Chip's Challenge had 149 levels, so there. :P

Why is it called Blocks of Doom II? What's with this "prequel"?
Long story. About a year ago, Xaser, the mastermind behind TurboCharged ARCADE!, made the project open development. At current the project is sleeping, but during a buzz of activity I contributed a map to the project (amongst a few others which will be included in the eventual release) - a short top-down-gameplay map called "Blocks of Doooom". This map involved the player walking madly around a 7x7 square grid, dodging out the way of imps' fireballs, and avoiding massive blocks of lava called the Blocks of Doom. There were 8 rounds including a ridiculous boss fight at the end, and all this was done in the wacky style and humor of TcA.

However, there are several ways that the gameplay has been expanded from this. The grid is now more than twice larger, more types of block ("tiles") are available, only one health point is given per map (instead of 666 like in the prequel), and there is a LOT more out to kill your ass.

Can I join the project?
You sure can! As of version 0.2's release, the project goes open development, during which time I'll be asking for willing volunteers from the community to create user levels. The levels themselves are generated by two vast arrays in the ACS lump for each map, but luckily you won't have to know too much about ACS in order to make levels and get them to work. Me and Carlcyber have been hard at work trying to get user-editing for this project as easy as 1-2-3. Even creating your own tiles is relatively simple.

Be sure to view the Editing Documentation for detailed notes on how to create user levels!

What is included in version 0.2 that 0.1 doesn't have?
Well, quite a lot actually.

• 15 levels for World 1, 5 levels for World 2, a demo map for Worlds 3 and 4 and a bonus level (World 5).
• The level code has been rewritten so the maps are generated via arrays instead of line-by-line code. X(
• Several new tiles including item thieves, ice, slime, force floors (conveyor belts) and teleporters.
• Some new pickups.
• A new status bar courtesy of SBARINFO.
• More configurable overhead camera system.
• A TITLEMAP.
• A very easy-to-use editing pack for user levels.

What will be included in version 0.3 that 0.2 doesn't have?
Taken from the upcoming features thread on the dev forum:

• An undetermined number of new levels!
• New powerups! The fire suit and slime suit will make you immune to fire and slime walls (but not to walking over them like the boots do) while you have them!
• Skippable helpscreens! Simply hit the use key while at the helpscreen and the level will start immediately.
• Free camera rotation! Hitting a certain keybind will toggle full mouse control over the camera, allowing you to change its yaw and pitch at your own leisure!
• An alias for cheat-warping to other levels in-game.
• A "makeblock" console cheat that creates blocks in-game for testing purposes.
• A Healthsphere powerup that gives the player 100 hit points and blue armor protection. A "Player Health" bar appears onscreen to indicate the player's remaining health.
• Trap buttons that trigger all sorts of interactive obstacles on the grid.
• Tesla coils that aim lightning bolts at the player! They can be activated and deactivated by trap buttons.
• Fire traps that shoot out fire onto their eight adjacent tiles, damaging enemies. Some barrels remain stationary and shoot out fire when damaged or when triggered by a trap button. Some barrels are pushable, but can only be triggered by buttons.
• Stone head traps that behave like the tanks from CC. They roll forward, crushing anything in their path, until they hit a wall. Their direction can be controlled by trap buttons.
• Clone machines that spawn certain objects next to them. They are also triggered by trap buttons.
• An entirely new Action Code Script library system that is still in the works. The new map format was just finished, though. Any new contributions will now have to use this format.

Sounds great! Will this be multiplayer-compatible?
NO! SORRY! Next question.

:(
Sorry, but due to the way the ACS is set up it would take more than a lot of rewriting the code to give it multiplayer compatibility. This is a decision I and Carlcyber made quite early on during version 0.2's development, so sorry... but unless someone else is willing to create a multiplayer-compatible version of this mod (only doing so with my express permission), it won't be a reality, and that's pretty much final. Sorry once again.

So yeah, downloads and feedback would be appreciated!
For future releases, check my new filespace at phenomer.net.

A development forum has also been created so all user contributions are in one place. It's also the place where alpha builds of the next version get posted. Register there and show us your work! =D