OBLIGE Level Maker

by Andrew Apted.   January 2007

INTRODUCTION

OBLIGE is a random level maker for the following games: DOOM 1, DOOM 2, Heretic 1 and Hexen 1. These games all share the same basic level structure.

OBLIGE will have the following features which set it apart from existing programs (like SLIGE by David Chess)

STATUS

OBLIGE 0.81 was the very first public release. The core level-making algorithm exists and works quite well, and the GUI is mostly usable (still missing some bells and whistles). The battle simulator seems to produce reasonable ammo/health for the monsters in the map.

There is no support yet for the special levels, such as E1M8 (end of episode) of DOOM 1 and MAP30 (end of game) of DOOM 2.

Nearly every decision in OBLIGE, such as what monsters to make and what themes to use for rooms, is just roll-of-the-die random. There is still so much potential for using much better algorithms (and hence creating much nicer levels). Send me an email if you are interested in helping out, you certainly don't need to be a programmer!

SCREENSHOT

(Created with SEED = 1234)

Picture

USAGE GUIDE

The graphical interface that OBLIGE is quite easy to use. The first control is the "SEED" number. Each SEED number produces a unique, distinctive level. Using the same SEED number always produces the exact same level (as long as the other settings are the same).

Other settings include:

After you've chosen the desired settings, press the "Build..." button, which will open a Save-File dialog asking you what the output file should be. Enter something appropriate, e.g. TEST, and after that OBLIGE will starting building the levels.

The levels created by OBLIGE are ready to play. There is no need to run the output WAD file through a node-builder program, since OBLIGE does this automatically.

You should use a Source Port to play the levels, because the original DOOM.EXE, DOOM2.EXE (etc..) may not cope with the architecture which OBLIGE creates. For example, you might get the dreaded "Visplane Overflow" error, which is fatal.

STATUS OF EACH GAME

DOOM 2: by far the most well tested and stable game target, and contains the most number of different themes.

DOOM 1: has been tested and works pretty well, although it's possible that a invalid texture might be used by mistake. Some extra themes would be nice to have (e.g. for hell levels that DOOM 1 does so well).

HERETIC: poorly tested and very lacking in different themes, and it's possible that some keyed doors might not work properly (requiring the wrong key) or other similar problems.

HEXEN: basically borked, can create levels but they won't work properly, e.g. none of the linedefs have the correct line-types (for doors and lifts etc). Also very lacking in themes. Plus none of the HEXEN specialities, such as the hub system, player classes, and three-part weapons, are supported yet.

DOWNLOAD

Win32 Package: oblige_081_win.zip (XXX KB)

Linux Package: oblige_081_linux.zip (XXX KB)

Source Code: oblige_081_src.zip (XXX KB)

COPYRIGHT and LICENSE

OBLIGE Level Maker   Copyright (C) 2006-2007 Andrew Apted

OBLIGE is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

OBLIGE is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

CONTACT DETAILS

Email: <ajapted@users.sf.net>

Website: http://oblige.sourceforge.net/

Project page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/oblige/