50 Shades of Graytall (now on idgames!)

jesus mek that's a thing and a half i tell you what

I'm glad you guys like how it looks, because I really put waaay too much effort into making it look decent. The sidedef count probably almost tripled after the detailing was done, which seems a bit crazy to me.

Hopefully it plays ok too. I just finished up the gameplay pass tonight so here it is.

Big Dwayne's Orbital Concrete and Propane Emporium
Music from here (more info)

I've done some quick stress testing to make sure everything works in UV. You should be able to get 100% on everything, I think. Most of my heavy playtesting took place in the first half of the map. Once you get past the switches which require both the blue and red skulls, that's where I haven't done nearly as much playtesting. But there should be enough ammo atleast (for UV, COOP might be another story). I haven't tested anything under UV difficulty yet. COOP and difficulties are implemented by the way.

Let me know what needs changing/fixing. Note that there are multiple paths you can take. Balancing out health/ammo for each path can be a pain and I haven't really tried out all of the paths yet. Basically what I'm saying is that I'm kind of sick of working/playing the map and I want some outside feedback to tell me what needs smoothing out :P

*edit*
Updated the map link.

Well it doesn't want to run in ZDoom or GZDoom (using GZDoom 2.1.pre 562 build from January 9, 2015):

Script error, "mek-graydumb-v1.wad:MAPINFO" line 1:
nocrouch: Unknown top level keyword

Same for nojump I suppose. You should put these lines in the map definition. Or omit them entirely, after all you can't disable jumping in other ports.

Just bung "defaultmap" above them in the MAPINFO and it works.

Mechadon said:

I just finished up the gameplay pass tonight so here it is.

Big Dwayne's Orbital Concrete and Propane Emporium
Music from here (more info)

Awesome map, Mechadon! Have an FDA. At around 13 minutes of my last attempt, I've experienced a sound glitch and I couldn't hear anything but a single noise from that point on (no music, no game sounds), I wonder how this will affect demo playback on someone else's computer (it's not the first time this has happened to me).

The map is fantastically structured, detailed and lightened, pace of gameplay is very well done too and I've enjoyed the little nonlinearity there was. On the other hand, sometimes it was unclear which objects were interactive and which weren't, which I consider a bad design, although I know that your possibilities are restricted here. Also, I didn't really like those keydoor trims used as a sky texture to mark locked doors, it didn't look good to me at all - again, I realize that you don't have many other choices, but what about e.g. a sign RED/BLUE/YELLOW on the floor, or multiple coloured torches in an unusual pattern?

That's about it. For what I've seen from the map so far, it's great.

Mechadon said:

Big Dwayne's Orbital Concrete and Propane Emporium
Music from here (more info)

Wow, this is bloody nice. Only had time to play half of it but its great fun. There is a fear that grows as you keep tunneling deeper into it with walls dropping and new areas opening, that at some point you will have to remember where you are in this grey geometric chaos. Only problem i found so far other than the error people have mentioned was a hanging corpse in the middle of a room that is blocking. Its the room where a load of pinkies and revs teleport in if that helps.

I'll have a proper go at it this weekend.

Thank you scifista42 and mouldy for your quick feedback! I'm glad you guys like it. I tried to do some funky things with the lighting and architecture...stuff that I wouldn't normally do.

And thanks for the FDA scifista, I love watching demos and they can be really helpful as well :). Unfortunately the demo did crap out on me right around the time you triggered the blue keycard trap though. I have no idea why that would happen...hopefully its not something to do with the map.

Here's a quick hotfix to the map that fixes the MAPINFO bug and the blocking corpses. I had a feeling something would be bugged, but it was 5am when I finished so...yea :P

http://mekworx.the-powerhouse.net/mekastuff/wads/fiddyshadesofgraydumb/mek-graydumb-v2.wad

I just added 'defaultmap' to the MAPINFO for now, hopefully that fixes the issue. I've only tested the map in the latest official release of ZDoom (2.7.1). Allowing crouching/jumping probably isn't a big deal since Boom compatible usually implies that those things can break a map if you use them. I wasn't sure what the best course of action was so I just disabled them as a default, just in case.

scifista42 said:

Also, I didn't really like those keydoor trims used as a sky texture to mark locked doors, it didn't look good to me at all - again, I realize that you don't have many other choices, but what about e.g. a sign RED/BLUE/YELLOW on the floor, or multiple coloured torches in an unusual pattern?

Heh, yea I agree they are kind of awkward looking. Initially I wanted to use torches, but we lack a yellow torch. The color name plus a transferred color in a sector in front of the door is probably the better way to do it, I guess. Some of the key switches will be a problem though since I won't have room to add those markers.

Oh by the way, I watched your demo in GlBoom+, and it reminded me of a quirk with GlBoom+ that might be an issue with some of these maps. For some reason, GlBoom+ can only display one sky transfer at a time. I kept noticing the sky changing from the normal texture to some of the key markers...and then I remembered why that is :P. I don't know if its a bug with GlBoom+, or if there's some sort of option to fix that behavior, or what. But it could cause some issues with players (particularly for any transferred textures that are being used to help mark important parts of the map).

Anyways, I will hold off on updating the map until more feedback comes in. Thanks again for the help so far guys :)

Mechadon the map is wonderful...but the MIDI file is "broken" in that the drum channels are not set to channel 10 meaning they are playing piano notes instead of the percussion!

https://www.mediafire.com/?qv2fgu9dvvvi8ll

Try this instead- I combined all of the drum tracks so they should play okay now!

Oh awesome, thank you FuzzballFox! I thought something sounded off with the track, but I thought maybe it had something to do with the soundfont I'm using. I picked the track pretty much right before I uploaded it too, so I missed how weird it sounded until after the fact.

I'll be sure to use your fixed version in the next update I post :)

Mechadon said:

I love watching demos and they can be really helpful as well :).

Here you go then
http://www.mediafire.com/download/k8fpbkxfoaamyyf/graydumb-mouldy.lmp

Thats my second run through so you can tell I am ready for some of the traps. Its bloody great though, even though I had already explored half the map yesterday it was totally different today as I just picked random routes, so still felt unfamiliar. Managed to get as far as the arena fight beyond the blue/red skull key door but died stupidly.

Excellent stuff. Those key hint textures are pretty vital for this map I reckon, does feel a bit like a cheaty way of having more textures though.

I feel like there should be a way to reopen the red&blue skull door (sector tag 161). It is possible to get back to the other side if you have found the right secret (lowering sector tags 226/227) so it'd make sense to have a way to open it back.

Likewise, maybe a way to open back sector tags 202/203.

Mechadon said:

Oh awesome, thank you FuzzballFox! I thought something sounded off with the track, but I thought maybe it had something to do with the soundfont I'm using. I picked the track pretty much right before I uploaded it too, so I missed how weird it sounded until after the fact.

I'll be sure to use your fixed version in the next update I post :)

Np, though I may upload another as the drum pitch bends for some reason- guess I missed that D: I can do in a bit after shower

Thank you for the demo mouldy, I really appreciate it! I've already picked up on a few things from it that I'll be tweaking and fixing, so it was definitely helpful.

Gez said:

I feel like there should be a way to reopen the red&blue skull door (sector tag 161). It is possible to get back to the other side if you have found the right secret (lowering sector tags 226/227) so it'd make sense to have a way to open it back.

Likewise, maybe a way to open back sector tags 202/203.

At the moment you can make your way back to the rest of the map after the Blue/Red skull doors. But only after flipping the switch which opens up the exit. The back wall in the small area which houses the Cyberdemons should lower, allowing you to go back into the rest of the map. It may not be very obvious though...

I'll look into the sector tag 202/203 thing though (I can't remember exactly what those do off-hand, heh).

FuzzballFox said:

Np, though I may upload another as the drum pitch bends for some reason- guess I missed that D: I can do in a bit after shower

That would be fantastic, thank you again :).

http://www.mediafire.com/download/m77mhhu533ezfk3/BOT9_Fix2.mid
Okay should be good now!

Taking on several projects was a boneheaded move on my part heh

THAT SAID, I'll be going over the last page in a bit to download anything I missed and address any comments. I haven't forgotten, just been super busy :/ If anyone has maps they're working on but haven't posted or PMed yet, please do so. I'm considering a hard deadline and would like to know where to set it without having to just pick "whenever".

-w- I should really try out some other maps, one of the project I have been lurking about and looking forward to but Mech's map is the only one I've looked at.

Marcaek said:

I'm considering a hard deadline and would like to know where to set it without having to just pick "whenever".

I'm a bit behind in working on this, but for my part, I think if you choose end of February or 1st week of March, I can definitely have a map. I started one in December, but it went in a direction I didn't plan, so I stalled, but now I think the unplanned direction is actually way better than the original and I have some new ideas for it, so once I start, it should go pretty fast.

Ok, now I should finish my map for this.

UPDATE: Deadline set, check the OP. If you need more time PM me and we'll figure it out.

I'll go check the maps I haven't tested yet literally right now. :P

Cool, a deadline for the project at last. If you reach it dead on time you might even get to appear on March's DWMegawad Club! I'd certainly vote for it anyway.

Got a map whipped up for this. A small map; hard-ish but certainly a forgiveable map.

First draft: http://www.mediafire.com/download/pkcs333ct11ju4s/joshy-graytall.wad

I am a little unsure of the ending, feedback would be cool. :)

Didn't really seem hard, the beginning had easy safe spots and the big horde was easy enough to control (just don't stay at bottom, be aggressive). End killed me tho, didn't know about arch-viles. :)

OK FEEDBACK TIME

Mechadon: lord above this map is a behemoth

I could go on and on about what I like about it, but I'd be here forever so I'll just stick to the negatives. I agree that the key marker setup is suboptimal, if you'd like an alternative maybe what you could do is use solid color skies as walls flanking the doors. I like the silly peepholes into the METAL2 SWITCH DIMENSION, and I'd suggest leaving them in but also maybe make them grab attention more, with a light effect or something. The EXIT sky at the end has tutti-frutti as well. Also your regular sky doesn't tile vertically. I think PrBoom+ supports tall skies though? you could prob do something there, at least have it mirrored if nothing else.

Noisyvelvet: Perfect. You need to spend some time getting a foothold but once you do you spend less time running and more time fighting.

Joshymap is gr8, already feedbacked on IRC :P

Joshy said:

Got a map whipped up for this. A small map; hard-ish but certainly a forgiveable map.

First draft: http://www.mediafire.com/download/pkcs333ct11ju4s/joshy-graytall.wad

I am a little unsure of the ending, feedback would be cool. :)

Glorious carnage, great fun. I left a bunch of monsters behind by accident, but thats their problem. Archvile teleporting on the manc pedestal at the start is a nice touch. Looks damn good too.

Thanks for the feedback Marcaek :). I made updates to my map today before I forgot about it.

http://mekworx.the-powerhouse.net/mekastuff/wads/fiddyshadesofgraydumb/mek-graydumb-v3.wad (link updated to fix a couple of minor bugs I missed)

Here's a mental changelog:
- Updated the sky texture; its now 512x240 and comes with a few extra details. I forgot to crop the old texture from 256px tall since it was just a quick test sky, oops.
- Updated the music to use FuzzballFox's fixedx2 version. Thanks again FuzzballFox!
- Attempted to mark the key doors and key locations better. I couldn't do this for all of the key-required objects (due to awkward placements), but I did do it for most of the doors. Also I got lazy and just decided to keep using the key markers textures :P. But if they are still confusing, I'll use some solid color textures or something similar to mark them. Also please suspend your disbelief and pretend that the green torches are yellow instead :P
- Added some Archvile-jumping fail-safes and some COOP teleporters.
- Attempted to make all of the switches contrast better with their surroundings (basically made most of them glow).
- Tweaked the Archvile rave room trap so that its easier to hit the Archvile, but the Archvile also has a better vantage point (also I added an extra window in a blind spot).
- Sector tags 202 and 203 now open up after the player presses the switch which opens up the exit bars.
- Tweaked the final fight so that it takes a bit more effort to open the exit bars. Also that sequence is now a bit more dangerous.
- Actually made a ton of other major and minor changes to the map, but I can't remember most of them since I made them over the span of a couple of weeks.
- *EDIT* Fixed a non-passthru switch, added a bit more health in the exit fight, and fixed a couple of misalignments. Redownload from the link above if you've got the slightly older version.

Let me know if there are any problems or if you guys would like me to change up anything else. I still haven't done proper COOP testing yet either, so some feedback in that department would be helpful.

*edit*

Oh by the way, here's what I was talking about in regards to GlBoom+ and its inability to display more than 1 sky transfer at once.



It's a little problematic in my map, and I have a feeling it might affect some of the other maps that have been submitted so far. I tested this out in 2.5.1.4.test by the way. Just wanted to give everyone a heads-up about it.

Is it ok if I hand over my map to another mapper here to finish it?

http://speedy.sh/svwVR/marc-50s1-v3.wad

Latest version of Marcmap, I'll test the new Mekmap sometime soon. This map may have problems as I've been unable to be as thorough in testing as usual.

Breezeep said:

Is it ok if I hand over my map to another mapper here to finish it?

just stick FranckFRAG's map on the end of yours as an exit room and it'll be the perfect map :) All you probably need is a cool looking exit room IMO, unless other people think it should go on for longer.

I meant that I could upload the current version of the map I have and let other mappers finish it off for me.

i spent the last few hours making this...

Crazy Jimbo's Exit Room Emporium

Exit lines sold separately.