[SUBMISSION] Void Soul

[INFO]:
Name: Void Soul
Difficulty: Medium
Connection: Lost Soul
Summon: VoidSoul
Melee: Charge Attack
Distance: Projectile
Type: Demon, Undead
Brightmaps: Not yet

[CREDITS]:
Submitted: EffinghamHuffnagel
Decorate: HorrorMovieGuy (original concept), EffinghamHuffnagel
GLDefs: Not yet
Sounds: SigFloyd (Brutal Doom SE), Freesound.org (Creative Commons 0)
Sprites: id, zrrion the insect
Sprite Edit: EffinghamHuffnagel
Idea Base: A new Lost Soul variant

[DESCRIPTION]
A Lost Soul variant that can resurrect like an Arch-Vile at the cost of its life. It has Arch-Vile speed and more health than a normal Lost Soul. It also has a distance weapon: the Void Ball; a small, slow-moving, homing projectile that hurts a lot more than it looks like it should. It uses the missile attack 25% of the time. When it dies, it implodes and is sucked back into the Void, causing damage to all those near it. It also pulls all creatures for a certain distance towards the Void hole it creates.

[PREVIEW]



[DOWNLOAD]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d368s9u3g048daj/VoidSoul.zip?dl=0

Updated - 9/7/15

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I added Info and Credits lumps, converted all the sounds/graphics to ogg/png, added the +NOBLOOD flag and increased health to 150 so one close-up SSG shot will not always kill them. I also added the SMF_PRECISE flag to the VoidBall so it won't crash into the ground anymore.

I'd still like someone with more Decorate experience to look at my code and see if it's okay. These two Souls are the first monsters I've created. I don't know that I used A_FadeOut correctly. Or is that more for use in GZDoom?

I also checked and found that A_Chase now has increased functionality and supersedes A_VileChase, so I'll try to redo the code there. And I still need to learn how to do GLDefs and Brightmaps (although the Void Soul should probably have a negative brightness, if that's possible).

If the void soul and vile soul are so similar, maybe they should be together in a pack.

I saw your response last week and have been thinking about it since. It's a valid point. The Volacubi are a pack because they all fly. But two Souls doesn't feel like a pack. Three is a valid pack. The Vile Soul resurrects the Monster's Body. The Void Soul calls back the Monster's Soul from the Void. I've been trying to come up with a third angle to make a valid pack of 'Resurrection Souls'.

I think I found one. I want to call it a Flesh Soul. It resurrects dead monsters, but not into their original forms. So it may raise an Imp to become a Baron, or raise a Trooper into a Revenant. I'll have to play with Remove and Spawn functions to see how to make it work. The mechanics may be difficult without ACS, and I'm just learning Decorate. These two Souls are the first monsters I've created.

I updated both Souls.

I really liked this monster. When it dies it creates a miniature black hole that pulls and slightly damages everyone in the vicinity.

I can see this being used in puzzle maps. However, I first thought of this monster's resurrecting abilities unfitting since most void-based monsters are more focused into death in most games.

I found 2 problems with this monster that also extend to the Vile Soul:

*It doesn't loop its A_SkullAttack state, so it only performs the attack very briefly before returning to its See state. However, it maintains the velocity from A_SkullAttack, so it basically looks like it's sliding out-of-control. If you only want A_SkullAttack performed for a limited period of time, put A_Stop at the end of the state so it comes to rest properly. Otherwise, use "Goto Missile2 +1" at the end of the attack state to loop it.

*It messes up the kill count when it sacrifices itself to resurrect an enemy. Although it's removed from the game, it doesn't "die", so it doesn't increment the kill counter, and thus you can't get 100%. I don't know offhand how to make it so that it does increment the kill counter in this scenario, but I did find that you can instead go the opposite direction, and change it during its Heal state to NOT count towards the kill count by adding the line
TNT1 A 0 A_ChangeFlag("COUNTKILL", 0)
somewhere in the Heal state. This way, it's effectively "transferring" its kill count eligibility to the monster it's reviving--it stops counting as an eligible kill at the same time the monster it's reviving becomes countable as a kill, and the total monster count remains even. I don't *think* there's any negative side effects to this approach.

I'm a fan of black and red colored content, but I'm slightly concerned about the death behavior of this monster. It seems pretty sudden and strong. I can see where being thrown off a ledge would be kind of annoying. Also, is there a particular reason the projectile moves so slowly? That looked a little off to me.

When it revives another monster, it looks kind of strange that it suddenly disappears. If you look at the Wraith on the repository, it plays an animation of it disappearing in a small cloud when reviving something. Playing some kind of effect when it revives a monster would help make it less jarring.

Well, I agree with adding an animation to the revive or playing some kind of effect but for the behaviour (death and attack) I think we can keep it as it is. Actually it's a designer's choice and if mapper use the monster, they should be aware of giving them the right room.

What's the current status on this?

Closed due to lack of feedback from the author.