Lair of the Mantis [Wolf3D mod]

[Wrestlevania]

Chris posted this on Twitter yesterday (follow me back, damn you!):

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Looks like it'll be a fun cross between 3D Realms' Rise of the Triad and Imagexcel's Quarantine.

There's a good overview of the project on its ModDB page:

Lair of the Mantis is a sci-fi action/horror mod with a few rpg and tactical elements as well. You play as an assassin in present day South America. Whether or not you're good or evil is based on your actions, and directly changes the story and your goals. There are over 40 levels and counting, lots of new weapons, ALL new 128x128 graphics that I've made from scratch, and many other features as well. The outdoor environments are way more complex than trench warfare and have tons more detail. The enemy ai is INSANE and just about every enemy behaves differently and is unpredictable each time you play. They all have multiple attacks as well so it is never predictable.

More from the creator's website:

A ton of the graphics are being overhauled. The story, gameplay, and maps have been finalized and are undergoing a final polishing. There are some unique, advanced features under-way that are fairly time consuming to progress however, so an accurate release date can't be predicted. Keep in mind I'm attempting to make the gameplay as open as possible, and account for every action the player may take, and that is a process which takes a while and induces moments of insanity, lol.

I like the scope and ambition of the project, and the graphics have a real charm about them too I think. Looking forward to playing this!

[elmuerte]

I saw it yesterday. Truly amazing. I didn't even know Wolfenstein 3D could do floor and ceiling tiles, or even parallax skies.

[Wrestlevania]

Absolutely. I think there's a fair chunk of additional source code development being done here as well--and not just on the AI either. The whole thing's reputedly able to run natively in Vista - i.e. without DOSBox - for example.

Pretty fucking cool. I haven't checked to see if it'll have multiplayer, but that'd be a nice addition if it did. Doesn't matter if it hasn't though; I'm looking forward to the single-player experience.

[Erkki]

It seems really cool, but shooters that don't let you look up&down give me motion sickness. Never really enjoyed Doom for that reason.

[elmuerte]

Absolutely. I think there's a fair chunk of additional source code development being done here as well--and not just on the AI either. The whole thing's reputedly able to run natively in Vista - i.e. without DOSBox - for example.

I wonder why they didn't went with TED5 (ROTT's engine) right away and save quite some effort.

[Wrestlevania]

I wonder why they didn't went with TED5 (ROTT's engine) right away and save quite some effort.

That's Apogee's 2D platform level editor, no?

ROTT used the Wolf3D engine, but in a heavily modified form so it could handle "floors" (like in a hotel) and very crude up/down perspective changes.

[James]

I played the demo (or was it shareware?) of RotT quite a lot. I had a magazine that had a level editor for it on the cover disc, and I made a bunch of levels that I never got to try. I have no idea whether they would have been any good. Other than that, my prevailing memory is the crazy weapons and the ability to lose more eyes and hands than you actually have in the spinning blade traps, particularly if you had invincibility on.

Anyway, I quite like that this mod exists, even if it doesn't seem like the most sensible way of going about things.

[elmuerte]

That's Apogee's 2D platform level editor, no?

ROTT used the Wolf3D engine, but in a heavily modified form so it could handle "floors" (like in a hotel) and very crude up/down perspective changes.

yes and no, TED5 (or Tile Editor 5) as the same roots as the engine for Commander Keen, and Wolfenstein 3D. It's as the name says, a editor based on placing tiles on a 2D grid. TED5 had a lot of improvements, for example it supported multiple tiles per grid cell. This allowed features like floor over floor, GADs, etc. ROTT introduced a lot of new concepts to the FPS genre. But the engine itself was basically a seriously beefed up 2D engine with a different perspective.