8 map Doom II levelset, would appreciate feedback

So this is basically the first map set I have made that I am confident enough in to put out. That being said it is pretty rough, 6 of the maps were made intermittently over the last month-ish, 2 were scavenged from a previous, abandoned effort. Music is original aside from Map04 using melodic content from the jazz standard Caravan and the text screen music taking its harmonic progression from d_in_cit.

Download Link (revision 5 10/21/14):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/66woxs7iov4oezb/T667EEHf.wad?dl=0
Changelog:

Screenies:
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/3s1vuni2u186p34/AAAappnt_Z8aHS2eRaET147Da

Any limit removing port should work for the first 7 levels -- but let me know if you have issues with a certain port -- map08 needs a port that allows monster telefragging for spawn cubes outside of map30. I have playtested it in Zandronum, Zdoom, and Eternity; it has mapinfo lumps for those ports for automap names and 2 dorky self-referential text intermissions.

Either way I am curious to see what people think. Specifically, let me know if there is an issue with unfair ambushes/monster placement, getting snagged on level geometry, the difficulty curve, the music sucking, ammo or health woes (I tend to be stingy with those), etc.

People have addressed most of my initial concerns. Map01 has changed, its suckage or lack thereof has yet to be commented on. My to do list is basically: 1. Make a Boom compatible version of map08. 2. uh...

If you check it out thanks for your interest, I just want to get some feedback and tighten it up a bit before I submit it to /idgames.

This is damn good work, I must say: I just had a quick playthrough, but it looks very well made and I enjoyed the Icon battle a fair bit. One thing to do if you want to avoid telefragging is to have the monster instantly teleport into a hallway outside the map where it can teleport again into the map proper. Using Boom compatibility adds scrolling floors to make things easier. Check out the Icon in this if you want an example.

this is fun! difficulty is a little too fair which leads me to believe it'd be a good WAD to practice as a UV-Speed movie. I noticed that you can leave Grimoire without the yellow key, though - the door ain't tagged.

Thanks for the feedback! I actually noticed that the lifts to escape slime pits in maps 4 and 5 don't work in Eternity (I am a lazy zdoom mapper not used to having to tag lifts) so I will fix the yellow door thing along with those.

Re: difficulty, I am a pretty scrub tier player, so I basically balance from pistol start to where I can beat a given map on UV a little less than half the time, and assume that will be a little low ball for today's standards but good enough. I also don't really like monster closets or offsite teleports so the ambushes are probably a little easier than what people are used to.

I will check out that Icon map too. I actually thought that monster cube monsters spawned alerted, so I was originally gonna have them spawn in inaccessible places surrounded by teleport linedefs and then teleport them into the current spawn points. Then I noticed that they spawn unaroused :(. The 2 comptall textures on the back wall are where that was gonna go down. (e: this was more to avoid monsters getting stuck together than telefragging though, I wanted broad compatibility)

Nice! Lots of fun. I like the music, too. Played with ZDoom on UV.

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MAP01
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This seems like an obvious spot for a teleport to a secret. Players will jump here. It looks too cool not to.

http://i.imgur.com/jLgPCAc.png

Hmm, maybe too obvious. If I was in a dickish mood, I might tag the edges of the central sector as teleport, block monster and also secret, so they don't show up on the automap as teleport linedefs. Then teleport the player to a voodoo doll closet for instant death. OR. Tag the central area as damaging and the edges as block monster and W1 to lower the central sector, so the player keeps taking damage as he's lowered into hell. Make sure the player dies before the sector finishes lowering. Maybe he'll think it's a death exit. If I was in a dickish mood.

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The window grates in the cross room are not tagged impassable. I backed right through one of them.

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I saw the Mancubi on the platform in the final room so I didn't enter right away. There is enough shotgun ammo available plus more from drops so you can snipe them to death and keep ducking behind a wall from outside the room. I didn't take any damage from them. Maybe move the Boxes of Shells and Bullets from outside the cross room to the top of the stairs in the exit room. It would at least force you into the room so the Spectres can wake up. Then when you run around, you'll find the Rockets.

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I was about to exit when I looked at the automap. Eleven secrets? I only found two. Opened the map in an editor. You have nine additional secrets in the first secret room. All the blood cross sectors in the walls inherited the secret property when you drew them.

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MAP02
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Once you go down the stairs and enter the big central room, I might pop up some bars in the doorway blocking a retreat back through and up the stairs. Because that's where I went so I could funnel the Lost Souls and Spectres to me one at a time until I killed the PE. Not a Multiplayer-friendly idea, but there you are.

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Lava under the Blue Key should be damaging.

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Thank you for the Berserk at the beginning. Spectres were so hard to see against the RROCK01 and REDROCK1 floors and walls (nice choice), there were a couple of times I just stood at a corner punching the air until something walked into my punches.

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Lava under the Soul Sphere should be damaging.

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Okay, the blood is not damaging so it doesn't cost anything to explore and find the way up to the Soul Sphere, so the Soul Sphere isn't much of a secret. I know, I know, you can't make the outside blood damaging, because then you'd have to make all the blood damaging, and pretty soon you're playing Plutonia.

How about this? You have four Lost Souls 'guarding' the Soul Sphere which are not very useful, because as soon as they see you come out to the blood area, they'll come towards you. Add a 3x3 sector to the center of each metal column under the Lost Souls with a floor of -1000. Set each Lost Soul in the center of each small sector. They'll be far enough underground where they won't bleed through. Tag the top of the stairs as W1 LowerSectorToHighestAdjacentSector for all four Lost Soul sectors. As soon as the sector moves, the Lost Souls will pop out on top of the columns. Tag them all deaf and face them towards the Soul Sphere. Now it costs something to find the secret. Edit: Tried it. 3x3 is too hard to draw. 5x5 or larger is fast and easy.

Another option might be to eliminate the stairs to the Soul Sphere and hide a switch which builds the stairs. Have something guarding the switch.

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Since the blood isn't damaging, I'm not sure why there are two teleports out of it. I thought one of them might lead somewhere else. Maybe only the west side of the southern teleport. Maybe to a secret behind the blood falls in the south-eastern wall. Nope.

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Lava in front of the exit should be damaging.

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I like the Lost Soul coming out from behind the exit. Didn't expect that. Nice.

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I like it so far. I'll try to finish the rest tonight. Nice work.

i can tell i'm gonna like this guy's mapping already just based on what I hear about the Icon battle.


make some more bro. we need more people like you here.


EDIT: I actually played it and my comments remain.

Things I noticed:

Keys were *usually* not trapped, but there were a couple.
Escape was relatively easy.
Hardest levels were Map08, Map02, and Map05. All levels were played on HMP from Pistol Start with the goal of escape (not 100% kills/secrets).
Liked the icon battle - very unique setting and took a little while to figure out how to kill the damn thing. Easy once you figure it out.

Advice:
Map05 could use more ammo. I was running low on ammo and had to run.
Map08 Invuln sphere possibly make it something else based off difficulty.
Higher monster density?

@Obsidian: The telefragging part is my favorite aspect of the boss! It adds challenge and requires the player to be careful... I'd keep it personally.

EffinghamHuffnagel said:

The window grates in the cross room are not tagged impassable. I backed right through one of them.

I was about to exit when I looked at the automap. Eleven secrets? I only found two. Opened the map in an editor. You have nine additional secrets in the first secret room. All the blood cross sectors in the walls inherited the secret property when you drew them.

Ahahaha god dammit I can't believe I did either of these. I actually set a block monster flag on the window ledge because the hellknights kept clipping through it. It never occurred to me that it was not a rendering error and it was happening because I forgot set the impassible flag. Obviously I would never make that mistake right?

EffinghamHuffnagel said:

Once you go down the stairs and enter the big central room, I might pop up some bars in the doorway blocking a retreat... Not a Multiplayer-friendly idea, but there you are.

Italics is why I didn't do this, I might think about it but make it open-able from the spawn side if a WR Door Close action exists.

EffinghamHuffnagel said:

Thank you for the Berserk at the beginning. Spectres were so hard to see against the RROCK01 and REDROCK1 floors and walls (nice choice), there were a couple of times I just stood at a corner punching the air until something walked into my punches.

TBH I was kind of hoping people would rush through this as quickly as possible. The music was supposed to give that vibe too haha. Berserk at the beginning is deliberate since all the monsters are melee range or spawn other melee range monsters.

Fixing a lot of the other mentioned issues too. Map02 is one of the ones I took from a previous project, and I was of a much more post-modern, let's-subvert-doom-conventions (i.e. annoying) mindset then. I changed a lot of the lava floors I didn't want to be damaging to something else and I added a stairbuilder to the soulsphere secret. It should be a little more obtuse now. Might try to add a secret to the teleporter as well.
I have seen other mapsets use non-damaging blood so I hope that isn't too subversive. I really like the aesthetic effect of lots of blood floors.

Secret ideas are also definitely appreciated as I have no creativity for them.

Also to Pure Hellspawn: Which areas seemed most prone to ammo shortages? The arachnotron part was the only one I was super worried about not having enough ammo so I tried to put a decent amount in there.
Did the invulnerability sphere trivialize map08 too much? I have one in UV and HMP, and 2 in HNTR/ITYTD. HMP also has an extra soulsphere relative to UV and HNTR/ITYTD replaces that with another megasphere. It is really hard for me to gauge the difficulty of the level because I know the more or less optimal path to open everything up. I didn't want people to get overwhelmed before they figured out where to go.

Was the computer wall opening up too inconspicuous? Or the rightmost teleporter to one of the skull switches too hard to see unless you ran up there again? Those are both things I worried about not being obvious enough.

Another wad update coming soon.

Pure Hellspawn said:

@Obsidian: The telefragging part is my favorite aspect of the boss! It adds challenge and requires the player to be careful... I'd keep it personally.

Yes, but unfortunately it only works in ZDoom: in anything else the monsters get stuck together, which looks ugly as heck.

Eternity also allows non-map30 telefragging, which is specifically why I included support for it, for people who prefer a more vanilla play-style.

BEX doesn't let you fuck around with map specials does it?

Hambourgeois said:

Eternity also allows non-map30 telefragging, which is specifically why I included support for it, for people who prefer a more vanilla play-style.

BEX doesn't let you fuck around with map specials does it?

Nope, that stuff's hardcoded in. There's really no way to dodge it unless you have your first map on MAP23.

Haha but then map07 breaks. CURSE YOU LEVEL DESIGN DECISIONS!!!

-e: the irony is not lost on me that, at the time I posted this, map07 was broken anyway!

How do people feel about map07? It's admittedly super derivative and I get the feeling that map07 actually requiring tag 666/667 for level progression isn't really in vogue any more. It's also the other map I scavenged from a previous project.

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MAP03
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Nothing jumped out as an issue.

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MAP04
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I think your intent was for the player to score the second secret by finding the hidden Soul Sphere in the Red Key door area and using the teleport. But if the player finds it from the other direction, by running through the nukage to the hidden area, the secret is just an empty pit with a Lost Soul in it. Suggest moving the secret tag to the sector containing the Soul Sphere and putting something else in the current 'secret' pit; maybe the Rad Suit so the player has to fight quickly to get back to the central area before it runs out.

It also means having another reason to come to the hidden area if the player doesn't find the Soul Sphere teleport. Running through nukage just to find a Rad Suit is silly. A couple of Energy Cells (for future levels since they can't be used in this level)? A Berserk? A Box of Rockets?

The inside of the windows should be tagged upper and lower unpegged to align the textures. No, wait. Got it! Tag one of the windows upper/lower unpegged to align it. The other, tag only upper unpegged. Leave the lower window as it is as a hint. Make that window a lift so you can walk out into the area in front of the windows. Tag that outside area as a secret. That's where you put the Energy Cells, or whatever. You could even put them in a pit with stairs leading out so they can't be seen from the central area. Or behind a rock outcropping.

One minor thing: the switch which raises the pit, linedef tag 6 - you should probably put an impassable tag on the front of the switch alcove. As it is, you can hit the switch and prevent the pit from rising by standing in the alcove. I suppose making it shallower would work, too. Maybe both.

Edit: just saw you moved the secret tag.

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Past the Blue Key door - I'm surprised you didn't tag the small room with the Boxes of Shells as secret. I think it qualifies. Your attention is drawn by the Demon running at you. Boy, counting all the drops, there are a lot of shells in this level. Is that for Multiplayer?

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Probably need an exit sign somewhere near the exit, maybe in the wall behind the exit.

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MAP05
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Nothing jumped out as an issue.

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MAP06
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I think someone already mentioned that the Yellow Key door doesn't need the Yellow Key to open.

Edit: just saw you fixed that.

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Can't get the secret behind the bookcase. You forgot to tag it as a door.

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No exit sign. The exit is obvious, just a consistency issue.

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MAP07
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Can't finish level. All the Mancs are dead but none of the Arachno walls lowered. You forgot to put the line 'map07special' in your MAPINFO. ZDoom doesn't add that line by default.

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No exit sign. Again, obvious exit.

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It's almost 2AM. I'll get to MAP08 tomorrow.

Hi, FDAs if you want them. Uses T667EEHb.wad:
http://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1308543

Most were recorded in Crispy Doom (plays back in PrBoom+ fine), MAP02 FDA2 was done in GLBoom+, ones ending in ZD were done in ZDoom 2.7.1. MAP06 I had to restart because I had company come over.

Often when the map was done I cheated to go look for secrets. Still didn't find all of them though.


Some issues:
* MAP02 those spectres are nearly impossible to see in software mode, even with gamma all the way up so everything is washed out. Maybe increase the light level by 16 in there at least? It's a hard map as it is, and I ended up switching to GLBoom+ just so I could see things.
* MAP04 soulsphere not marked as secret? I think you fixed this according to other posts here.
* MAP07: the secret linedef for the armour teleport is untagged I think, causes all sorts of problems in basic limit-removing ports. Arachs don't appear in ZDoom but I just rocket-jumped into the exit.
* MAP08: would be fine in a normal limit-removing port with some fancy sector system to avoid monsters getting stuck. I think the danger of getting telefragged is quite low.

In general I liked them. They all seem to follow the "hard start, easy ending" progression when played from pistol start. This isn't necessarily a problem, and a lot of id's maps do this too, but it's something you might want to keep in mind when you make more maps later.

I really liked the music, nice job on that.

Just had a quick run through this on UV continuous. Fun short maps, with quirky design. Fairly uncomplicated but does the job ok, nice use of lighting too. Map07 didn't work after i killed all the mancs, looks like others have mentioned that, I couldn't tell you why.

Good stuff.

hihi. have some more demos, if you want: https://www.mediafire.com/?2xnc7amn2wsos50

map01:

hitscanners attacking from one direction = recipe for door-camping. eh. Also the HKs and mancs towards the end were pretty useless. not very threatening, just a lot of meat to cleave through.

map02:

pretty difficult if you choose to try and kill everything, zerking around with a bajillion lost souls it's inevitable you'll take some damage. After dying once I decided to just run to the exit, was surprisingly effective.

map03:

never really felt threatened. opening room was probably the highlight. also fireblu+nukage.. sure why not :p

map04:

so it's pretty clear by now that the MO of the mapset is "shoot mostly non-threatening enemies in front of you", but that spiral at the end was particularly egregious, felt like I was playing killing adventure but without the whimsy -.-

map05:

a bit better. I think the arach fight could be made interesting if you denied the player retreat back up the stairs. enemies around the RK felt kind of pointless. Ooh, also I like the shotgunner-cage / barrel setup, again it would be a lot more tense if you could prevent the player from just camping the hallway.

map06:

much more fun. the atmosphere is a bit more dreadful, dangerous, helped along by the music. PG-centric gameplay is fun. a trap finally makes an appearance :D. I'm not saying you need constant ambushes to make maps interesting, but letting the player know you won't shy away from occasionally doing so increases tension quite a bit, and at least for me makes the playthrough more enjoyable. Also I died in a seemingly inescapable lava pit, ohwell, probably my fault for jumping down there while trying to hit a raised switch from the ground.

map07:

I really like the idea of this setup. I think it could be made even more fast-paced with *gasp* a second cyb? and more plasma ammo. On my playthrough I was desperately low on ammo towards the end. the blockmap seemed to hate my ssg shots so I ended up pistoling down the last few arachs. I think there are some serious zdoomisms in this map, after killing the arachs the final ledge to (presumably) the exit refused to raise all the way. Also when I hit the floor lowering switch to get the blue armor the entire level sunk and caused a bajillion HOMs (guessing some 0-tagged actions?). Either way I guess it doesn't matter, you clearly stated which ports you tested it in so it's my fault for not complying.

Didn't play map08 because I didn't feel like booting up zedDoom.


Some misc thoughts:

pro:
- I liked the compact nature of each map. short concept maps = :))
- you have a good sense for clean detailing, texture alignments, and what-not.
- the music choices were fun, reminded me of HR2 a bit

con:
- aside from a few brief moments, nothing really "unexpected" happened. You could pretty much waltz around with comfort that you're probably not going to die because you'll always be able to retreat, and there never seem to be traps of any sort. Instead some difficulty was achieved by health scarcity, which is fine, but tends to encourage very cautious play.
- fangs, show me more of them :D. map06 and 07 started getting the right idea, but the earlier maps were a bit too easy.


Overall not bad for some early mapping efforts. Also your username is amazing, just saying.

Ribbiks said:

map01:

hitscanners attacking from one direction = recipe for door-camping. eh. Also the HKs and mancs towards the end were pretty useless. not very threatening, just a lot of meat to cleave through.

Map01 is definitely my least favorite of this. Here is what it got tagged with in my progress tracking document: "FUCK IT FINISHED UNTIL I GET FEEDBACK!!!!" Yeah I got tired of fucking with it.

I might start from scratch on it.

Ribbiks said:

...but that spiral at the end was particularly egregious...

...enemies around the RK felt kind of pointless. Ooh, also I like the shotgunner-cage / barrel setup, again it would be a lot more tense if you could prevent the player from just camping the hallway.

Have a few ideas I might try in these areas. Gonna rework the RK area significantly since it is pretty lackluster and also ugly at the moment.

Everyone said:

Map07 has like, a shit ton of bugs.

Yeah this was made back when I exclusively used zdoom and I did most of my playtesting in Eternity after adding mapinfo. Boy does it show. Got some egg on my face here.

Thanks for the rigorous bug reporting and critiquing guys.

A quick hotfix for map07 plus a few minor changes just got posted.

e: Also here is an idea I am kicking around: Once I get a chance to sit down and look at some vanilla-friendly non-map30 IoS designs I might include a second wad file to overwrite map08 for non zdoom/eternity users.

Another thing you could do is just move (or copy) MAP08 to MAP30. It breaks the narrative structure a bit, but you start with such a large stock of supplies that it's not like it makes a difference whether you play it continuously or from pistol start.

That crossed my mind as well.

Great texturing, very clean and classic. Everyone else has left super detailed feedback so I'd just like to say good job!

As far as the IOS goes, my plan for an upcoming release is to start at map20, making it a 10 level episode ending with the boss fight. Maybe that's possible here?

Doomkid said:

Great texturing, very clean and classic. Everyone else has left super detailed feedback so I'd just like to say good job!

As far as the IOS goes, my plan for an upcoming release is to start at map20, making it a 10 level episode ending with the boss fight. Maybe that's possible here?

He's also using the MAP07 special, so unfortunately not. :/

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MAP08
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1. Start the machine (use first switch).
2. Find other switches.
3. Use other switches.
4. Go back to start.
5. Shut down machine (Kill Romero).
Note: Avoid Spawner landing pads.

A standard Icon map with interesting architecture. Felt like it was designed for a 2048x2048 project. The Cybers certainly kept it lively. Map got very busy, very quickly. What really made it hard was that the player's usable area is actually very small (I'm not counting the large nukage floor. Why would you want to go there?). Paths are narrow, rooms fill up quickly, Cybers can hit you almost anywhere. Also, spawned monsters in front of the Icon absorbing Rockets were a pain in the ass, but I persevered. Telefragging was never an issue.

I noticed stairs in front of the Icon. So you can climb up there? Don't know why you'd want to, it's not cost-effective. The time you spend going up there, whether it's to grab a power-up or ammunition, vs. the number of additional monsters spawned during that time, makes completing the level harder. I read the stairs, as well as the Cell Packs and Rockets in the nukage as traps. Best to stick to the path of "hit the switches as fast as you possibly can using whatever ammo you have on you".

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I liked all the maps. They're all well-designed. As the maps progressed, the only thing that really bothered me was somewhat of a lack of consistency in textures. Odd combinations; fireblu and nukage. Tek textures were doors in one level, walls in another. Same with metal textures. Eyes were switches, then they were wall decorations. That tells a player "don't believe anything you see". That means you have to check everything. That can get tedious and frustrating.

Also, as maps progressed, I felt more challenged. Early levels, I never felt in danger of dying. It was just fun noticing the design work.

MAP05 was not directionless. I understood what I had to do, I just wasn't sure why. I didn't notice the exit until I had finished two of the paths. Maybe the entrance to the exit (or just the exit sign) should be brighter or blinking.

I like MAP07. Interesting reversal. Normally you're trying to run away from the Mancs and Arachnos while you're trying to kill them. Here, you're being chased towards them. Different.

Nice mapset.

I played up to map 4 so far and liked it.

There may be a bug on map 4: Sectors 76 and 77 are tagged 1 and can get their height messed up and cover the switch behind it.

---FIRST THING'S FIRST! WAD UPDATED!---
-------------WOW!!!--AMAZING!!-------------

I figured my texturing would be a little too Sandy Petersen for a few people. One of my goals for this project was texture out of my comfort zone, which, for better or for worse, I did (I don't think I have ever used sloppy, sflr, swXskull, tekwall, or zimmer before this). I see what you mean about the switches though, I thought I did better at indicating switches and doors by having them surrounded by support3, metal, woodmet, 16px lite textures, etc. This was not the case on map04 or map06 at any rate.

Also I found the inescapable part of the pit in map06. I thought I had gotten all those :/. There are some narrow parts but you should be able to squeeze through them all now.

RE: map08, the stairs are there so you can run up and shoot the exposed romero head if you have autoaim and there is a horde of shit between you and it (unlike doom 2 the monsters are probably spawning between you and the bossbrain). This is usually how I did it when I did my playtests and I don't think I ever died while doing it, other than to the resulting explosions which I find endlessly hilarious and you still get the win condition anyway.

Does anyone run around in the slime? I hid some goodies in the cyberdemon alcoves but it is definitely a high risk low reward type of situation unless you burn the invulnerability sphere to kill the cybers, in which case you are just letting the map fill up anyway. Maybe if you were going for UV-Max and didn't want to wait for squishier mooks to spawn, I guess.

Bumpin' this. Between adopting a stray cat and work picking up I have been busy but I finally found time to update this. A whole new map01 is the big thing, a few tweaks here or there and one last lift related bugfix of course.

Nice midi on map04, I liked the use of Duke Ellington's "Caravan". :)