Way 2 Many Dead Guys (5 Map Early Beta)

OK, just finished playing through MAP05 on UV from a pistol start. I got 100% kills, secrets and items and played for about 1:15. Overall impressions: Wow I am in love with the style of this, and it's the best take on SKINMET I've played. It’s aesthetically coherent throughout but each area is structurally different enough for the player to know exactly where they are. I liked that each area had a distinct self-contained encounter, and the map as a whole was a gruelling challenge for my skill level (in a good way).

Longwinded spoilery nitpicky thoughts as follows:

I can't download the file, and please stop uploading to filedropper, use mediafire instead.

(Deleted link to Alpha.)

1- The maps are medium-sized and give the player an option to explore a bit.
2- The layout is ok, I like mazey architecture.
3- The difficulty is manageable.
on the other hand:
1- You need to place more props, items to enrich your maps.
2- Try to use traps, vary the textures and so with music.
3- Adjust the brightness, vary the level of light.

Overall review:
They are good,I liked maps 2+5,but I believe you can do better.
6.0/10

FDA for MAP05, recorded in PrBoom-plus -complevel 2. Visually good map, but repetitive. Out of all possible shapes, squares and rectangles are the least interesting ones, because they're utterly overused in unprofessional maps. Orthogonality itself is very unappealing if overdone. Another thing, beware of transparent midtextures used on 1-sided walls - they display improperly in most ports. Better not use them that way.

Gameplay wise, the map was the weakest one from WTMDG, because of the overdone combat in long narrow hallways or walkways, overdone melee combat and reliance on orthogonality. The archvile fight seemed as bullshit to me at first, because I didn't realize that there was only 1 archvile, I thought that they were everywhere and that I'm doomed, and only realized the truth after playing the map again (after the FDA). It was a good setup after all, just unclear.

Your other maps were more appealing to look at, explore and shoot through, IMO. They were distinctly above average, this map was just average. That's all I can say.

Not gameplay feedback, but most corridors are bordered by small trims and sometimes the monsters climb on them, which looks kind of daft. I noticed this in particular in the exit room. Demons, knights and imps all happily hovering above the ground... Maybe making them blocking monsters (when appropriate) would help.

Thank you all for taking the time to play and provide some very detailed feedback for MAP05.

I always worried about this one the most for it's potential to be perceived as unfair bullshit. I was concerned over it's length and weak ending, but completely missed the lack of a sense of progression in the early part of the map.

I'll probably just rebuild this one again from scratch, incorporating and reworking the parts I like. So I don't need any more feedback for MAP05 for now, though if you do feel like trying it, then by all means feel free.

(Deleted link to Alpha.)

Did you make MAP05 unavailable now?

Anyway, here is MAP06 FDA, recorded in PrBoom-plus -complevel 2. After my first couple failures, I thought I was going to hate the map. But on my 3rd attempt, I've somehow succeeded to finish it! I liked the initial Invulnerability run to take a look at the environment and its dangers. At first, I disliked how easy it was to get cornered and killed if I didn't manage to find powerful-enough weapons - but soon after, I figured out that running straight was the best solution, while an intuitive-enough one. So it's OK, I guess. And thumbs up for distributing the weapons to multiple places around the map. You would place them all at the start, but that would be cheap (maybe?), and searching for them was fun, once I figured out how to survive.

The map was aesthetically amazing, relatively intuitive to navigate too (once most of the monsters were dead), and possible to camp through even for a person like me, with not so great skill. I liked it. I'm not sure how much would the true slaughter-players appreciate this map, though. One aspect that put the map down for me was the absolute orthogonality and frequent repetition (not exactly overdone, but definitely noticeable). I've said in another thread that: "Orthogonality tends to be stable, predictable and boring, while non-orthogonality brings the opposite values to the table, values that are more fun in my view. I'm even willing to cut down on 'plausible-ness' in favor of fun and interesting design to a great extent, and I believe it's right, for the sake of keeping the player entertained and encouraged to continue playing, and perhaps stimulate him to think in new ways than the ones he already knows and predicts." And that's what applies here, I think. The structure, while stylish, feels a little underwhelming due to orthogonality and repetition. And also due to the possibilities to camp (now I'm just trying to empathetize with slaughterplayers, which I'm not sure if I can). Personally, I'd welcome much more variation in architecture and wall angles in the map, I believe it should be possible to do while keeping the immersive style, even. But the map is OK as it is, admittedly.

Notice how I had difficulties to grab the blue key, despite straferunning. That's because I was playing in a classic port, unlike ZDoom, which you might be testing with. Actually, the player is faster in ZDoom than in vanilla / classic ports, so that his straferun speed in ZDoom equals to SR50 movement in vanilla. I've only used SR40, I play with the keyboard and I forgot where my strafe keys were, heh, because I always strafe like Alt + arrow key, which is not enough to do a SR50.

Also notice how near the end, right at the moment when the archvile trap was triggered, multiple items jumped up to highest floor they've touched, and I couldn't pick some of them anymore. This is an engine behaviour which seems to happen in most ports when any floor in the entire map moves instantly. Take that into account.

Still, my prevailing feelings are positive. Great work! Keep it up. :D

Opps, edited the MAP05 link back in.

Thank you very much for the FDA Scifista, they're invaluable for seeing a map through the player's eyes.

There were 2 camping spots in the demo that bothered me, and I'll look into altering them to encourage the player to engage further in, without forcing a lock-in.

I'll lower the blue key down a bit. There is a switch to lower it, but allowing the player to jump to it as well doesn't break anything, and feels intuitive.

I didn't realise ZDoom was that much faster, I'll check the other jumps to make sure all the non-secret ones are straight running jumps, and the secret ones are at most SR40. And I'll check the item placement/highest floor glitch.

I'm quite happy with the orthogonality of MAP06, because I want it to feel like an ancient temple complex, but I don't want 2 orthogonal maps one after another, so I'll be breaking the right angles in MAP05 since I'm already committed to rebuilding it for a variety of reasons.

Updated the MAP06 Alpha to fix item height glitches, some jumps, blue key, and bottle-necked the camping position that bothered me the most. I can live with the remaining ones. I don't want to force the player's hand too much.

scifista42 said:

Actually, the player is faster in ZDoom than in vanilla / classic ports

Are you sure / can you prove that? Maybe you're confusing this with Zandronum's air control?

MAP07 was pretty quick. Hopefully it will make a suitable finale for the episode.

Compiled all seven maps into one download: (Deleted link to Alpha.)

review is up, thank you for this!

Since I already played first 4 maps, I started Map05 from pistol start on UV. Well, it went from bad to worse. There was simply too litle ammo to deal with all those monsters. Chainsawing cacos and berserking hellknights is not my idea of fun (especially when there are several of them at once), so I used Zdoom console to give me some. But I guess it wouldn't be a problem if I carried ammo from previous maps. Apart from that, the new maps were as great as the older ones. I really wish this series was longer, but oh well, nothing good can last forever.

I love this. I know it's been many months since the last update, but any hope for a final idgames release, maybe with custom music?

Architecture is amazing. This levels have some old good doomish feeling, I know they are not exactly in id style, bud they have something in lighting, high variations, overall shapes, I don't know... They have something that makes an impression that these maps are the official add-on. Especially the level "Cage". Very good job!

Here are a couple of fixes for things I caught while preparing the wad for hosting: wtmdgea-coopfix1.wad

--- wtmdgea-coopfix1.wad (2015-11-10)

    This wad fixes some coop issues in wtmdgea.wad by Urthar. Load it after
    wtmdgea.wad.

MAP05:
(v1) added missing coop starts

MAP07:
(v1) swapped p2-p4 start indices so that voodoo dolls get spawned at intended
     places instead of the start area

Thanks for the review kmxexi, and everyone's interest.

Well, it's been a while and I'm still stalled on completing the beta version of this wad. I got sick of Doom for a while, but hopefully things will start progressing again as my enthusiasm returns.

In the mean time, Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I'm enjoying the wad.. We have it up on Zandronum

BETA BUMP! (See first post.)

@Urthar Oh! I actually played the previous version of this WAD after reading the review at OneManDoom way back then. It's pretty cool, although I have to say that your mapping skill has greatly increased since then. Checking the map in Slade I see that this beta release has five maps, but I remember earlier version to have seven maps?

Yeah, this is just the maps I've completed the beta pass on. The remaining maps are still being worked on.

Just finished the episode. If you played this before, two of the maps are completely new and haven't been included in the previous release. Honestly, don't remember the previously released alpha that much, so can't tell how the rest of the maps have changed.

While the rest of the episode mostly follows the semi-linear progression where you move through the levels at your own pace, those two new maps drop you into arena-style encounters by putting you under constant fire. In one map, you start by being chased by a Spider Mastermind only to escape from that tech base into a larger canyon area where you are constantly harassed by arachnotrons. Last, and also the smallest, map of the set pits you against the first Cyberdemon of the episode accompanied by mancubuses, revenants and cacodemons in a small, wide open to the enemy fire hellish chapel. That last map is also one hell of a looker, but even though I haven't been doing pistol starts and was playing continuously, I completely ran out of ammo by the end of it.

Bump.

I'm playing with this, it looks like something official, and amazing to look at. However I see more version, the one in the opening post has a map with a Spiderdemon in the start, and a canyon outside with many Arachnotrons, but in the 7 map version reviewed in Onemandoom didn't have it. Also this version has a slightly bigger Descent level with a yellow key etc.

Not sure where this is going, but looks amazing. Cage was like OMG, it made me a headache.

wow, just wow. i've stumbled upon this after playing your dimensions of the boombed pack from 2018's cacowards. which i actually just completed. absolutely fantastic as well.

i'm now at the fourth map i think. i just love the aesthetics. the way you use geometry. it's so perfect. i'm bad at describing this. you managed to make the maps look fantastic and at the same time create interesting and difficult enemy encounters. the look and the design is so advanced but at the same time you managed to keep doom's encounter feel. some encounters are even very playful like in the original doom. a giant outdoor area and a ton of arachnotrons. that's crazy and i loved it. (was even more awesome in your quake pack. almost drove me mad ;) ) i also want to mention your clever use of textures both for this pack as well as dimensions of the boomed. lot's of stuff i like to take inspiration from.

yea, this is absolutely stunning. that's professional level of leveldesign and artistry. do you work in the gaming industry by any chance? i don't know. if you're still regularly building maps, i would recommend creating a patreon. these are the best fan made maps i have ever played.

(i would maybe put some more and better screenshots here)

14 hours ago, zzzornbringer said:

yea, this is absolutely stunning. that's professional level of leveldesign and artistry. do you work in the gaming industry by any chance? i don't know. if you're still regularly building maps, i would recommend creating a patreon. these are the best fan made maps i have ever played.

I did work as a 3D Artist back in the 90s and early 2000s. These days I just do this stuff for a hobby, without any of the obligations or deadlines that receiving money for it would entail.

At the moment I'm working on the ZDoom sequel to Dimension of the Boomed, and learning how to build this kind of stuff cleanly.

2 hours ago, Urthar said:

At the moment I'm working on the ZDoom sequel to Dimension of the Boomed, and learning how to build this kind of stuff cleanly.

 

already love the lightning effects.

what i like to do in my maps sometimes is to add moving sectors to simulate some sort of machinery. that's one of the things i love about doom. it's so easy to use scripts to manipulate sectors to add a little more dynamic elements to the maps. it's just a gimmick but maybe you have more creative ideas what to do with this.

for example, in one of my earliest maps i tried to simulate sort of an organic meat floor that moved like waves. do you know this quake 3 map with those organic tubes that pulsate? i wanted to have something like that but in doom tech which comes with certain limitations of course. someone smarter than me who can write smarter algorithms and loops could make a lot more with this but it was good enough for me.