Heartland - final version available on idgames

 

Overview

Heartland is an episode developed exclusively for the Eternity Engine (version 4.02.00 and up). Heartland takes place in the nation's decaying industrial heartland. An inscrutable evil lurks somewhere beneath the abandoned factory on the city's outskirts, beckoning you closer with every beat of your heart... 

 

Heartland features seven new levels by me (@skillsaw), an original soundtrack composed by Stuart Rynn (@stewboy) (available at his bandcamp: https://stuartrynn.bandcamp.com/album/doom-heartland-ost) , and new and overhauled weapons by @Xaser.

 

Dew (@dew) returned to his role as my go-to tester, and helped out a ton over the last month to help me polish and get this into a releasable state. And lastly, Altazimuth (@Altazimuth) provided tons of support - helping with bugs both in the maps and in the engine, helping me figure Eternity out, as well as being a constant friend to bounce ideas off of and chat with. There's no way this would have ever gotten done without your help!

 

Trailer (Thanks @Bouncy!)

 

 

Screenshots

MAP01: Subway Sandwich

 

MAP02: Bruce R. & Son Construction Co.

 

MAP05: Titan of Industry

 

Play Info

Heartland extensively utilizes Eternity Engine 4.02.00 mapping and modding features, and so will not run on any other port.

 

Please download the latest stable release here: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/119425-eternity-engine-40200-forseti/

 

 

Alternatively, a dev build can be downloaded from: https://devbuilds.drdteam.org/eternity/

 

Heartland disables jumping completely. Mouselook is optional depending on player preference, however, the wad has primarily been tested without mouselook. Suggested compatibility settings are applied automatically by the OPTIONS lump.

 

All maps have been tested and can be completed from a pistol start.

 

Maps in Heartland are generally longer than in my previous releases; so consider that in your decision whether or not to use saves.

 

Known Bugs

In 4.01.00 and lower, an engine bug with certain PolyObjects will cause the game to crash to desktop. Please use 4.02.00 or newer to avoid this.

 

In 4.02.00 Forseti, an engine bug causes crushing ceilings to stop moving when loading a saved game. This affects MAP05. The map is still completable if the crushers stop, but an optional area will no longer be accessible. If you wish to avoid this bug completely, please use a devbuild as the bug has since been fixed.

 

Fixed in RC1b:

In MAP01, if sergeants on the rooftop are sniped, they will be respawned in an invulnerable state later.

In MAP05, it's possible to spawn some invulnerable monsters if you drop off the ledge in the furnace room twice. This is a map bug - I'll fix it in an update.

 

Fixed in RC1c:

Monsters can no longer be resurrected into an invulnerable state if they are the target of a Thing_Activate action after they've been killed.

 

Map Listing

MAP01 - "Subway Sandwich"
MAP02 - "Bruce R. and Son Construction Co."
MAP03 - "Reservoir Dog"
MAP04 - "Routine Flaring and Flailing"
MAP05 - "Titan of Industry"
MAP06 - "Get Shafted"
MAP07 - "The Beating Heart"

 

Music Listing

All music composed by Stuart "stewboy" Rynn - please check out the soundtrack: https://stuartrynn.bandcamp.com/album/doom-heartland-ost

MAP01 - "Street Surfer"
MAP02 - "The Jazz Machine"
MAP03 - "Dancing Snakes"
MAP04 - "See the Shrews"
MAP05 - "The Towering Colliery"
MAP06 - "Para Bellum"
MAP07 - "Souls Symphony"
Intermission
Title
Text screen

 

Additional Credits

Ola Björling (@ukiro): OTEX

Please see the included credits text file for full credits.

 

Download: 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/g-i/heartland

 

Edited June 5, 2023 by skillsaw

It's been a privilege to help on this project. A small piece of trivia: The 4.01.00 check was concocted up the other day when we needed some way to have folks use 4.02.00 to avoid the nasty crashes that could happen fairly late in the project. I looked through all the changes between 4.01.00 and 4.02.00 and spotted myself fixing SetThingSpecial, the ACS function, which until 4.02.00 set parameters but didn't set special. By abusing this to set a thing's special to execute an ACS function you can set a bool which tracks whether or not the currently running Eternity version is 4.02.00 or higher.

Eternity Engine is finally getting the levels it deserves.

Haven't managed to finish Map01, but I may have found my next playthrough (or at least, another item in my increasingly long backlog). This is great stuff, shows a use of OTEX I couldn't have thought of, and my first impression of the Eternity Engine has been amazing as well. The setting is very convincing and the fights are good so far.

 

To sum up: