If you’ve followed the download link in the previous post, you’ll have access to the special 3 level download for Chasm. This was originally put up by the dev team after release along with some patches.
They’re pretty good, with
more varied and ambitious environments, a wide variety of enemies, and
nice open areas and wide corridors. They’ve clearly grown as level
designers but there’s still some niggling flaws.
Some of the
level design is obscure – level 1 requires you to find a secret corridor
entrance hidden behind the trees in the start area. Some of the monster
placement needs work – the designer seems too fond of putting the alien
commander enemy behind doors which causes bullshit unavoidable health
loss. However, level 2 is definitely some of the best level design in
the entire game.
They’re going for a Quake-style Lovecraftian look, but it’s merged with dark industrial technology. Mix that with the eclectic mix of mutants, soldiers and undead found inside, and the mutant wizard boss at the end, I can’t help but think of my Mutant Chronicles campaign. It feels a lot like I’m storming a Dark Legion Citadel to fight Valpurgis.
So that’s cool. It’s worth playing the add-on after you finish the game.
I replayed this today for the first time in easily 18 years.
Chasm
the Rift is an ‘also ran’ from the late 90s. It came out after Quake and
just a few months before Quake 2. It looked dated when it arrived but
the models have a lot of detail (for the time) and the textures are
interesting enough that the graphics have aged surprisingly well. It’s a
good first impression and I like this game a lot but no make mistake,
Chasm is not an unfairly ignored cult classic.
Chasm plays
like a cross between Wolfenstein 3D and Quake. If you’d thought that
would be Doom, you were wrong. It’s Chasm. Polygonal mutants stalk dark
industrial outposts, ancient tombs, and medieval castles… most of which
are flat and maze-like like Wolfenstein 3D. It has a 2.5D engine like
Doom but with 3D models are used for items, enemies, and decoration.
For the most part, Chasm feels good to play.
Enemies take a few shots to kill like in Quake, but they’re not bullet
sponges and they’re decently designed even if few of them actually stand
out.
The guns aren’t original but they feel good to use and the game has a
satisfying dismemberment system that was (at the time) revolutionary.
Popping off a joker’s head with a well-placed laser bolt feels great.
What
doesn’t feel great are at times cheap monster placements (episode 3 is
quite bad for this, with poorly placed ambushes and cramped ‘arena’
fights) and confusing level layouts. While episode 1 and episode 4 have
an OK flow, episodes 2 and 3 can be very confusing, with almost
non-functional platforming thrown in for good measure.
The levels are also really cramped, which limits your
weapon choice and makes some fights very frustrating. In episode 4 the
hallways widen and there are even some open areas, which hugely
improves the gameplay. These sections are great and it’s a shame that as it is, you rarely feel like you
can let loose.
Not only are the levels sometimes confusing,
they’re also unambitious. This is
downright infuriating because the game shows that it’s capable of much
more. The game plays with heights in places but for the most part
everything is flat like in Wolfenstein 3D. Similarly, lighting effects
are used well in some places while other areas stick to a dull default
lighting level.
Chasm is extremely short. It is 16 levels long,
split into 4 episodes with 4 levels each. It feels like the team ran out
of time as some gameplay elements are under utilized. One cutscene
mentions an advanced security network with cameras and gun turrets, but I
only encountered a single gun turret enemy in the entire game. In the
second to last level you’re introduced to an explosive barrel – they’re
sitting by a corridor corner and they are never seen again after that
(note: some barrels are seen in level 1, but I don’t recall them being
destructible). Episode 1 starts with some interesting weather and wind
effects, with a flapping window and paper on a desk – very impressive
for the time. I didn’t see that flapping paper effect anywhere else.
The
ending also leaves a lot to be desired. The final boss is boring,
anticlimatic, and gives no closure to the story. It’s straight out of
the Quake play book, but at least Shub-Niggurath’s Pit was large enough
to walk around.
Chasm does a lot of things right as well. It’s a fun game (mostly). Most enemies are easy to tell apart and are nicely detailed. I’d even say that they look better than the monsters in Quake. The levels are also grouped into distinctive themes, helped by the time travel plot, and the game uses these themes to deliver solid concepts for it’s levels. You feel like you’re making progress. Sound design is also quite decent, the ambient music works well and gives the game a nice creepy atmosphere.
To conclude: I had a blast playing it. I just wish it lasted longer and let itself flex it’s muscles. It’s a shame the devs never made a sequel – with more confidence with their engine and increases in computer power, they could have cut loose a little and made something really awesome. It’s too bad that could never have happened in the post-Quake 2 arms race.
Honestly I had a blast playing Chasm, but it was three hours long and left me feeling like it could have been a lot more.
The
game has never been re-released or remade, which is a shame. The
company has also disbanded, so there’s no moral dilemma in looking for a
download. I recommend the one linked at the bottom, which has all the
patches needed to get it running on modern systems already applied.
Wins: Satisfying combat, varied enemy design, clear themes for each episode, generally good art design, and good ambient sound.
Sins: Poor level design, poor monster placement, very short length, underwhelming puzzle bosses.
Conclusion: Decent but flawed shooter.If you are a retro FPS fan, give it a try. If you’re not that invested in the genre, don’t rush to it.
It’s inevitable in any creative project that things will fail and you’ll have to redo them.
After a long & busy period at work, I found time to load up my WIP megawad and get reacquainted with the levels. I found out that tweaks to gzdoom’s lighting engine have made the experience inconsistent and sometimes unplayable. All of these screenshots are set to the same level of brightness, they’re just using different light rendering modes.
Luckily DECORATE has a function that allows you to force a certain light modes. Sector lighting is now set to dark all the time but I’m not having much luck getting the levels back to their old aesthetic.
A wonderful take on Basilissa as done by my friend Fran. He likes the idea of her having a human form to disguise herself on Earth, alongside her actual demon form.
As always, his art is magnificent in every way. The linework is
crisp, the designs are awesome, and I love the way he did the fire hair!
Thank you very much!
(As originally posted on Tumblr by TerminusEst13) I’m continually blown away by the amazing creativity in fan communities.
“High Noon Drifter is a GZDoom weaponset where you play as a gunslinger that’s stuck around for a little longer than the end of the wild west era. The weapons and overall tone is relatively low-tech, complimenting more natural-style mapsets for roaming around castles, ruins, and other assorted gothic setpieces. You make use of some ordinary guns that any joe could scrounge up, a handful of antiquated pieces, and a couple dark artifacts in a quest to dispense frontier justice to an ethereal threat.
If you’ve been craving a “Weird West” sort of weaponset, or even more of an adventurer-type rather than a soldier using military tech, hopefully this’ll be up your alley.” – TerminusEst13
I finally got round to playing High Noon Drifter for Doom. Cowboys are awesome so it stands to reason that a weird west cowboy mod should kick a lot of ass.
I initially loaded it up with Strange Aeons (hoping to emulate the creator’s very cool gameplay footage) but at first the mod didn’t gel for me. Maybe it was just that some SA weapons like the crossbow and AK47 remained in the game, or maybe it was just the need to get used to the quirks of the new items, but I just didn’t get into it (I’ve since learned that a compatibility patch is needed for Strange Aeons).
I then tried it with JCPC, the Japanese
Community Project, and that time it turned out quite awesomely. I had a
lot of fun and will be going back to it later today. The weapons feel
good to use, but the movement is where it’s at. It’s pretty satisfying
to slide all over the place and let loose with dual SMGs or a quad-coach
gun. I’m already a third of the way through JCPC and I think that High
Noon + JCPC is going to be one of those really memorable playthroughs,
like my D4D + Scythe game.
High Noon Drifter is one of, or maybe
the first, Zscript enabled gameplay mods for Doom. This allows it to do
some extra cool stuff not usually possible in existing modding
languages for Doom. It also makes HND a gzdoom only mod for the
foreseeable future. So what has this incredible scripting potential been
used for? Well, in High Noon Drifter, the power and potential of
Zscript has been used to let you take off and throw your hat at enemies.
Yes. It really has that TerminusEst feel to it.
Of course
there’s other Zscript shennigans going on – you can also throw a
boomerang to pull items to you and use a cursed skull to transform into a
giant fire-breathing demon waifu. Very fitting for JCPC.
Basically, after some initial stumbling, High Noon Drifter turned out to be pretty satisfying to play.
Currently playing Ziggurat. It’s a rogue-like FPS with a fantasy dressing. You control an apprentice sent into the mysterious Ziggurat as their final test to enter an elite wizard’s guild.
There’s
obvious Heretic & Hexen influence in (some of) the gameplay, with
magic wands, spellbooks, magic staves, and alchemical weapons all acting
suspiciously similar to weapons seen in Heretic, Hexen and Hexen II.
There’s no puzzles, no level design, just rooms of arena encounters,
hazards, and randomized upgrades from weapon drops and the occasional
prayer shrine. Unlike, say, Strafe, this is a proud rogue-like with new
unlocks pretty much every time you play.
It runs a little janky
for me, but I assume this is my ancient rig. Is it actually good? I’m
enjoying it, and I’ll probably be replaying it a few more times. The
atmosphere of the levels is good, the music and monster designs are fine
though a bit generic. You can see homages to other games in the
character designs – the burning flying skulls and the gargoyles come to
mind. Overall I’ve been enjoying my time playing it but I couldn’t help
but think “Man, this game makes me REALLY want to play a modern day
Heretic!” and wish it had tried for a true FPS experience instead of a
rogue-like one.
It’s on sale now, and I recommend it while it’s
on sale. Would I recommend it any other time? Probably not, especially
if you already have The Binding of Isaac.
For everyone who’s been following my tumblr over the years, thank you
so much your support. I would not have been able to make it this far
without you. I hope you try the demo and have fun!
The Nephrite Games Blog 