S T A R W A R S D O O M Informational Document v1.1 by Action Jackson, Star Wars DOOM creator May 20, 1994 TABLE OF CONTENTS [1] ................. About Star Wars DOOM (1.1) ......... A Tale Of A Programmer (1.2) ..................... The Legacy [2] .............. What IS Star Wars DOOM? [2.1] ................. Quick Overview [3] ........ When Will SWDOOM Be Released? [3.1] ................. Expected Dates [3.2] ...... What Still Has To Be Done [4] ................. Who's Making SWDOOM? (4.1) .............. SWDOOM Staff List [4.2] .................... Help Wanted [5] ............. What to expect in SWDOOM (5.1) ....................... Overview *5.2* ........ Video Toaster Graphics! [5.3] ................... New Sprites! (5.4) .................... New Sounds! (5.5) ..................... New Music! [5.6] .................. New Textures! (5.7) ....3 New Episodes! (27 Levels!) (5.8) ................... New Weapons! (5.9) ..................... New Story! (5.10)....... Best Of All - It's FREE! [6] .............................. Closing (6.1) ................. Copyright Info [6.2] .............. How To Contact Us *6.3* ............. Update Information (6.4) .................... Final Words <> <> <> <> <> <> Section [1] <> About Star Wars DOOM <> <> <> <> <> <> <> (1.1) A Tale of a Programmer Well, there I was. I was sitting at home, on my computer, playing DOOM. As I listened to one of the numerous sound patches that I've collected spew sounds at me, I thought: I should make my own sound patch for DOOM! The idea sounded great. I quit my game, got out some of my favorite movies, hooked up a tape recorder to the TV, and started collecting sounds. As I went, I kept getting more and more ideas. I began thinking that I wouldn't put these sounds into a DOOM sound patch, but into a new game that I could make. I would make a 3D game, like DOOM, only better! It would be great! It would be my own story! My own characters! My own game! I would spend all my time coding and debugging, and collecting graphics and sounds, and... then I thought a second... did I really want to make a new game? Did I really want to waste all my time trying to go one-up on the best 3D game ever made? Did I really NEED to? No! I remembered that DOOM is just an engine that uses external files to run, and the idea came to me. So I started messing with DOOM. I mean REALLY messing with the insides of it. I also collected a few great utils for changing sounds, graphics, music, and more. I had a great level editor (DEU) that included the source code. I even had some source that id had released. So now I was ready to go. One thing I needed was a theme..... (1.2) The Legacy Anyone into movies (like myself) knows what the best trilogy ever made is: Star Wars! The best movies ever made would be my theme. I started trying to see if this would REALLY be possible... could I change EVERYTHING in the game to make it a complete Star Wars universe? The answer came very shortly. YES! So, I called up VeeBalls and asked him if he'd like to help. Of course he wanted to! And this text file is to inform you all about Star Wars DOOM, the name we've come to call it, and what's going on with it. I decided I needed to make an announcement to the public, letting them know what was coming, so they could get very excited and anxious, and give us any suggestions/feedback they may want to (and take their minds off of DOOM 1.3! :) <> <> <> <> <> <> Section [2] <> What IS Star Wars DOOM? <> <> <> <> <> <> [2.1] Quick Overview Star Wars DOOM (referred to in this document as SWDOOM for short) is basically an external WAD file for DOOM. Sure, you've seen 'em before. You're on your local BBS, scanning for new files, and find yourself overwhelmed with the amount of external WAD files there are for DOOM. Most of these are just extra levels, though. That's what makes SWDOOM special. Not only is it Star Wars, but it completely changes the entire game. No more monsters. No more Robert Prince music. No more levels based on hell. Nope. SWDOOM changes all of this, and more! Now, you'll be running through the Death Star and other locations from the Star Wars universe, fighting Stormtroopers, Biker Scouts, even the Emperor and Darth Vader! And you'll be doing it all with your light sabre, blaster, and other Star Wars-type weapons. The soundtrack is of course MIDI versions of John Williams' great original score. We're not sure how big the SWDOOM WAD file will be yet, but it's a good guess to say it will be at least a meg or two. The more we continue working on it, the larger the final file size keeps starting to look. We're not sure about the size, but we're pretty sure it'll be at least two megs (unzipped). <> <> <> <> <> Section [3] <> When Will SWDOOM Be Released? <> <> <> <> <> [3.1] Expected Date No one can say for sure, but we're hoping to have SWDOOM completed by some time this summer, hopefully before Commercial DOOM is released. A tentative date is about August. One thing I can assure you of is that we are working very hard to complete Star Wars DOOM as soon as possible, but we don't want to sacrifice anything. We want it all to be perfect. The August date could very much become July or possibly even late June, depending on how well everything goes. Of course, it might become more like September or even October. There's really no way of telling. [3.2] What Still Has To Be Done Since this is the first version of the Star Wars DOOM Informational Document, we've just started. We were working on hand-drawing each sprite of the enemies individually, but then a new idea came to us. (see section 5.2). So, we scrapped what little we had done, and we're now about to start doing sprites and textures. This list will become smaller as we work more and more on it. Here's what's left to be done, in the order that they'll probably be completed: 1) Sprites of all characters 2) Weapons graphics 3) Music 4) Sound effects 5) Levels 6) Text graphics 7) Miscellaneous graphics: End Screen, status bar, screen border, etc. And here's what we've already completed (not too much, huh?): 1) Opening title screen Many of these are very involved processes, so some will take a lot longer than others. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> Section [4] <> Who's Making SWDOOM? <> <> <> <> <> <> (4.1) SWDOOM Staff List Currently working on Star Wars DOOM are: Action Jackson: Head organizer, graphics, sounds, everything ;) VeeBalls: Graphics, music, level concepts, everything. Basically myself and VeeBalls are doing everything. When we get to that point, I'll be making the levels in DEU 5.1 (or if there's a newer version by then, I'll use that). Since DEU 5.1 comes with the source code, I'm planning on editing it a little to change things like the enemies' names, and re-compiling it. It will then become SWDEU 1.0. [4.2] Help Wanted If you think you would like to help us work on Star Wars DOOM, feel free to e-mail VeeBalls on America Online, or Action Jackson on one of the many Grand Rapids BBSes I call. I'm hoping to get an Internet account soon, so that address will be added to this document then. I'll probably have it by June. Also, if you would like to make a better ANSI advertising screen than the one I threw together, let us know. <> <> <> <> <> <> Section [5] <> What To Expect In SWDOOM <> <> <> <> <> (5.1) Overview This section summarizes everything that will be changed from the original game DOOM in Star Wars DOOM. As we come up with new ideas or scrap old ones, it will be changed accordingly. *5.2* Video Toaster Graphics! I guess this deserves an explanation. We were working on learning Video Toaster, and we started realizing how superior the graphics that we could make with it were. We were planning on making a Star Wars-like animation with it anyway, so we decided that while we were at it, we could make the sprites and textures for Star Wars DOOM. So now, the graphics in SWDOOM will most likely be BETTER than those in the original DOOM! The chances of this are extremely good. Just another reason to look forward to SWDOOM! For those of you who don't know what Video Toaster is, I'll tell you. It's an extremely superior computer graphics system based on high-end Amiga computers. They've used it professionally for many TV shows, the most popular of which are SeaQuest and Babylon V. If you've ever seen a ray-tracer on your PC, that could give you an idea of what Toaster effects could be like, only picture it much faster, and with animation. The addition of Video Toaster graphics to Star Wars DOOM will improve it beyond imagination. You won't believe it even WHEN you see it! [5.3] New Sprites! Star Wars DOOM will include new sprites for all of the monsters. They will all be characters from the Star Wars universe. The most common will be Stormtroopers and Biker Scouts and probably some bounty hunters. We also are considering the addition of TIE Fighter pilots. The bosses are probably going to be Grand Moff Tarkin, Darth Vader, and Emperor Palpatine. The two latter are definite, we just can't come up with anyone better to be the boss of Episode 1. The graphics for your character will be changed too, as well as the ones for other Rebels when you're playing Cooperative or DeathMatch. We are currently trying to decide what the main character should be. While the idea of you being Han Solo sounds really cool, the only setback to this is that when playing multi-player games, the other people will just be other Han Solos, only wearing different colors. The other idea was to make the character a generic fighter pilot. This would look better in multi-player games, but we still would rather be Han Solo. We can't decide on this, so it will probably be one of the last things in the game that we change. Right now we're heavily leaning towards making your character Han Solo. I came up with this idea of how we could get around the different colors problem in multi-player games. The parts of Solo's uniform that will be different colors will be the stripes down the sides of his pants. This way he won't look stupid in multi-player games (neon-green Solo against purple Solo?!?!) Any feedback from you would be appreciated. Tell us what you think about this. (5.4) New Sounds! Star Wars DOOM will include an entire set of new sounds, taken directly from the Star Wars movies. The blaster fire will sound real. The other sound effects will be just like they were in the movies. Every sound in DOOM will be changed. (5.5) New Music! Star Wars DOOM will have an entirely new musical score, based on John Williams' original Star Wars soundtrack. For the music, we are doing a combination of new music composed by VeeBalls and possibly some other songs taken from the file SWMUSIC.WAD, an external WAD file that changes the DOOM music to Star Wars music. [5.6] New Textures! The environment you're running through in Star Wars DOOM will be true to the movies. The walls of the Death Star will look like you're inside the Death Star. You'll feel like you're really on Endor in Episode 3. You'll get frostbite when in Episode 2 on Hoth. All textures will be authentic- looking Star Wars textures, and will be rendered with Video Toaster. (5.7) 3 New Episodes! (27 Levels!) Yes, every level in DOOM will be changed for Star Wars DOOM. Here is a list of the planned episodes: Episode 1: A New Hope Episode 2: The Empire Strikes Back Episode 3: Return of the Jedi (5.8) New Weapons! All the weapons in DOOM will also be changed in Star Wars DOOM to weapons from the Star Wars universe. The planned weapons and what they replace are: Weapon: Replaces: Fist Wookiee Fist :) Light saber Chainsaw Blaster Pistol Solo's Blaster Shotgun Rapid-fire Blaster Chaingun Concussion Missiles Rocket Launcher Jedi Lightning Plasma Rifle The Force BFG-9000 (5.9) New Story! Nothing against id, but the story in DOOM sucked. It really did. Don't get me wrong, I love the game. However, you'll be happy to know that the greatest story of all time will be the basis for Star Wars DOOM. It will start in Episode 1, A New Hope, and follow the course of Star Wars. Then, in Episode 2, The Empire Strikes Back, you follow the storyline of The Empire Strikes Back. Finally, in Episode 3, Return of the Jedi, you live out the roles of the characters in Return of the Jedi. We're obviously going to have to change some of the story, since you can't fly around in ships in DOOM (although it would be fun :) We will try and follow the story of the movies as closely as we can. Compare it to Rebel Assault, how it followed the basic plot of the movies, only through the eyes of a different character. (5.10) Best Of All - It's FREE! Yep, you read right! Star Wars DOOM will be absolutely free! This is for a couple of reasons. First, it'd be illegal for us to make money off of some one else's creations. Second, even if it was legal, we wouldn't want to take money for it anyway. We are doing this for our own enjoyment, and we felt that we could share it with the rest of the computer populace. <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> Section [6] <> Closing <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> (6.1) Copyright Info In case you didn't know, neither Star Wars nor the game DOOM is our idea. The good folks at Lucasfilm, under the mighty George Lucas' direction, created the Star Wars trilogy. The cool guys at id Software made the excellent game DOOM. All we did was put the two together. [6.2] How To Contact Us You can reach VeeBalls through America Online. You can reach me at any of the many bulletin boards that I call here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Like I said above, I'm hopefully getting an Internet address very soon, so I'll put that in here as soon as I get it, then you'll be able to contact me through the Internet, too. We are currently looking for a BBS to be a distribution site for Star Wars DOOM. All that the BBS needs is to make all SWDOOM Informational Documents (like this one) available to the public and post messages to the users notifying them of SWDOOM and how it's coming. If you would like to be a SWDOOM Distro-site, contact either VeeBalls or myself in one of the ways mentioned above. Once we get a distro-site, I will put it's number in this Document so you can contact me through there too. (Free advertising for the board, too!) *6.3* Update Information This is the first revision of the Star Wars DOOM Informational Document. I added information about Video Toaster graphics, and made many other slight changes. I've indicated the updated and changed sections like Hank Leukart does in his "Official" DOOM FAQ and Unofficial DOOM Specs. Sections enclosed in () are the same as in the last version. Sections enclosed in [] have been changed or updated since the last version. Sections enclosed in ** have been added new in this version. (6.4) Final Words I'll release this Document every time something significant in the process of developing Star Wars DOOM happens. If we get a distro-site, you will be able to find the newest release there. That's all I have! Hope you're looking forward to SWDOOM as much as I am! In the meantime, go out and get some friends together for a 4-player DOOM DeathMatch showdown! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- M A Y T H E F O R C E B E W I T H Y O U ! --------------------------------------------------------------------------