Minimalist Challenge

Edit: Challenge/experiment concluded.

Can the maps be Boom compatible?

Hmm... My experience tells me that this concept itself is going to be teared apart by critics before a single map is released, for being "yet another creativity-restricting nonsense". However, your advocation of the gimmick has convinced me, so that I agree with the reasoning of your rules and I'm all for minimalist challenge. We'll see. I might manage to make and finish a small map.

Breezeep said:

Can the maps be Boom compatible?

Vanilla only, for now. Let's stick to being 'minimalist' in all respects, to start.

scifista42 said:

Hmm... My experience tells me that this concept itself is going to be teared apart by critics before a single map is released, for being "yet another creativity-restricting nonsense". However, your advocation of the gimmick has convinced me, so that I agree with the reasoning of your rules and I'm all for minimalist challenge. We'll see. I might manage to make and finish a small map.

We'll see! For science!

Tuxlar said:

All 2-sided lines must touch 1-sided lines (e.g. solid walls).

Can you clarify this? Do you mean that both vertices of a 2-sided line must also belong to at least one 1-sided line, or only one vertex has to, or something else?

plums said:

Can you clarify this? Do you mean that both vertices of a 2-sided line must also belong to at least one 1-sided line, or only one vertex has to, or something else?

At least 1. If I'm not mistaken, you can form unlimited 192x192 square rooms this way.

plums said:

Can you clarify this? Do you mean that both vertices of a 2-sided line must also belong to at least one 1-sided line, or only one vertex has to, or something else?

On a similar note: Are we allowed to split a 96-wise 2-sided linedef into multiple shorter linedefs, just in order to make a good looking 96-units wide door, or a switch?

scifista42 said:

On a similar note: Are we allowed to split a 96-wise 2-sided linedef into multiple shorter linedefs, just in order to make a good looking 96-units wide door, or a switch?

I'd prefer you not, if you can at all find ways to make it work. I'll understand if you don't want to be stuck using cropped textures, 16 x-offset BIGDOOR1 or BIGDOOR5, or SUPPORTX textures, however.

On that note, I'm considering allowing custom TEXTURES, as long as they do not use custom patches. For now, though, focus on the layout and gameplay, and see what you can come up with!

Edit: Custom textures allowed. Go wild!

Edit 2: Retracted. Let's see how far we can go without, first.

Tuxlar said:

On that note, I'm considering allowing custom TEXTURES, as long as they do not use custom patches.

That wouldn't really solve the door issue, however. I'd rather suggest to make a small resource texture pack of 96-wide doors, and let all geometry rules strict as they are.

EDIT: I don't actually like the new decision about textures + no patches, it's getting complicated, as texture creation from stock patches isn't trivial. I can do it, but I assume that some mappers don't even understand the difference between a texture and a patch, and never edited them. Also, if you don't put the no-patch rule in SCREAMING DISCLAIMERS, you're going to get people importing cc4-tex without knowing.

Also, I think you haven't thought out the consequences of wall-touching 2-sided lines. If just 1 vertice was enough, not just unlimited 192-squares, but also unlimited 192-corridors would be allowed this way, even branched corridors. I'd personally change the rule to "both vertices must touch a wall". Only because I see it as better fitting the project premise. I'm sorry for slowly taking over this thread, I don't want it, just wanted to share my opinion and notify you about possible problems.

EDIT: Sorry, I was false, disregard.

scifista42 said:

That wouldn't really solve the door issue, however. I'd rather suggest to make a small resource texture pack of 96-wide doors, and let all geometry rules strict as they are.

EDIT: I don't actually like the new decision about textures + no patches, it's getting complicated, as texture creation from stock patches isn't trivial. I can do it, but I assume that some mappers don't even understand the difference between a texture and a patch, and never edited them. Also, if you don't put the no-patch rule in SCREAMING DISCLAIMERS, you're going to get people importing cc4-tex without knowing.

I didn't think it THAT hard to understand, but I agree it's not in the spirit of minimalism. That said, I also agree there might not be enough iwad choices for functional textures...

I think the correct answer is to retract the rule, for the time being, and simply use SCIENCE to discern what creative options exist with the 96-constraint!

scifista42 said:

Also, I think you haven't thought out the consequences of wall-touching 2-sided lines. If just 1 vertice was enough, not just unlimited 192-squares, but also unlimited 192-corridors would be allowed this way, even branched corridors. I'd personally change the rule to "both vertices must touch a wall". Only because I see it as better fitting the project premise. I'm sorry for slowly taking over this thread, I don't want it, just wanted to share my opinion and notify you about possible problems.

The center 2s line along the corridor would break current constraints, I believe.

From reading the OP I got the impression that the spirit of the rule was basically, "imagine running around the level with a 96-unit wide stick. You should be able to touch parallel walls with that stick in every hallway except for 8 sectors where you would need a 160-unit stick, and 2 sectors that are arbitrarily big."

Which seemed fairly straightforward. But I guess this isn't the rule because you can have 2-sided linedefs running down the middle of every hallway to make it twice as wide? I suggest you update your sample picture to give a better example the variety of structures that are allowed.

I believe this is the largest 'area' using 96-wide rectangles you could accomplish with current rules, if I've figured them right:

Linguica said:

From reading the OP I got the impression that the spirit of the rule was basically, "imagine running around the level with a 96-unit wide stick. You should be able to touch parallel walls with that stick in every hallway except for 8 sectors where you would need at 160-unit stick, and 2 sectors that are arbitrarily big."

Which seemed fairly straightforward. But I guess this isn't the rule because you can have 2-sided linedefs running down the middle of every hallway to make it 192 units wide? I suggest you update your sample picture to give a better example the variety of structures that are allowed.

I shall. I agree the constraints are best understood with illustrations.

This sounds pretty awful, both for players and the mappers :/

40oz said:

This sounds pretty awful, both for players and the mappers :/

Try it! Make a map in 15 minutes, and see what you can come up with.

Alright, a new community project thing! I'm in!

I took an MS Paint drawing of a map:
http://i.imgur.com/6uhZzbX.jpg

and then opened up doom builder and tried creating a blockified version of it:
http://i.imgur.com/VA2fSvn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/22Dgjhw.jpg

I think I followed the first 3 steps correctly, tell me if I'm doing it wrong.

My yesterday's post was misleading, sorry for that. There cannot easily be that large areas as I thought. There still *might* be a possibility to chain those big areas to get a high average amount of free space in a map, more than intended. However, I think I understand better now, and the rules seem good.

NoisyVelvet said:

I took an MS Paint drawing of a map:
http://i.imgur.com/6uhZzbX.jpg

and then opened up doom builder and tried creating a blockified version of it:
http://i.imgur.com/VA2fSvn.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/22Dgjhw.jpg

I think I followed the first 3 steps correctly, tell me if I'm doing it wrong.

Hmm, no you didn't. Edit: Except for the 'orphaned' 2-sided lines not in contact with 1-sided lines, apparently. But it seems I did indeed somehow overlook the 192 corridor effect after all!

I must add a simple rule: 'All 2-sided lines must connect to at least 2 lines at each end.' You will be able to use your 2 free-size rectangles to replace the larger corridors, but the smaller ones must be implemented with either your allotment of 160-wide rectangles, or with a different design. I apologize for the inconvenience.

scifista42 said:

My yesterday's post was misleading, sorry for that. There cannot easily be that large areas as I thought. There still *might* be a possibility to chain those big areas to get a high average amount of free space in a map, more than intended. However, I think I understand better now, and the rules seem good.

You were right, actually. I completely overlooked the simple case shown above, it seems.

Hey, Tuxlar, once again. I know that you didn't support this idea, but would you allow these 10 custom textures to be used? I've just whipped them up in a graphic editor. All are 96 units wide, obviously, and the last one is the original Doom patch itself.

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This sounds like fun! I´ll see with what I can come up with when I get home...

scifista42 said:

Hey, Tuxlar, once again. I know that you didn't support this idea, but would you allow these 10 custom textures to be used? I've just whipped them up in a graphic editor. All are 96 units wide, obviously, and the last one is the original Doom patch itself.

In strictest terms, the rules that are important for this challenge relate to layout, so I'm not against custom textures. True to the idea of minimalism, adding resources to the wad ought not be necessary (and it isn't, strictly speaking), but in the case of door textures in particular, I think the rules themselves could do with some minimalism, especially given the iwads' limited accommodations for 96-wide surfaces.

I'll permit them. Flats as well.

You'll permit... Any custom ones? I was thinking about a unified pack of couple "centrally-accepted" textures. As you wish.

By the way, one more question about the geometry rules: Are we allowed to split 1-sided lines to smaller ones however we want, to make borderline textures and trims etc., correct? You didn't show this in any of your examples.

scifista42 said:

By the way, one more question about the geometry rules: Are we allowed to split 1-sided lines to smaller ones however we want, to make borderline textures and trims etc., correct? You didn't show this in any of your examples.

Yes. As long as it sticks to the grid and the 90-degree rule, you can do this freely.

If anyone wants to grab my 96-wide door textures, here they are in a wad form:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/bgz5nq

There are now 15 textures in total: The ones showed in my post above, plus these 5 new ones:

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The rules are absurdly complex for something called "minimalist challenge". Too many questions to ask, too much of stopping to think "am I allowed to do this?" while mapping. Congestion 1024, Grid 32, Monochrome Project, even 5 Rooms of Doom, were successful probably because you could explain the basic requirements in just a few words. Your "you can't do this, but actually can if blablabla, but still can't more than X times..." is a disaster in comparison.

Memfis said:

The rules are absurdly complex for something called "minimalist challenge". Too many questions to ask, too much of stopping to think "am I allowed to do this?" while mapping. Congestion 1024, Grid 32, Monochrome Project, even 5 Rooms of Doom, were successful probably because you could explain the basic requirements in just a few words. Your "you can't do this, but actually can if blablabla, but still can't more than X times..." is a disaster in comparison.

Agreed- I poked my head into the topic to see but was swamped with a mass of instructions my half asleep brain just derped at.
I was thinking more along of the lines of "No grid smaller thax X and no non 90-degree angles" and that was it. Perhaps no more that X textures too.

I gave it a try. Here's a small map, uses scifista's doors. I don't think you can do much more with this concept.

Tuxlar said:

Try it! Make a map in 15 minutes, and see what you can come up with.

that seems like a short amount of time as its taking me more than 15 minutes to comprehend the rules.

are can doors even work within these rules? Theyre going to have to be 96x96 squares right? :|

I'm pretty sure doors can be 96x32 :)