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MajorRawne

My Panophobia Maps

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Greetings fellow Doomworlders! I've got some maps in need of playtesting and generally ripping apart. I've done it to your maps, now it's time for you to get your payback! I might never get these finished without a few hints or tips!

"Welcome to Hell" looks alternately good and crude in my opinion - you will probably tell straight away where I was struggling with the map's appearance but I do think it plays pretty well. It reflects various fears: water, agoraphobia, crowds, claustrophobia, death, the dark, madness, blood and flesh.
Link: http://www.mediafire.com/download/y2813c12c7wgxpv/rawnhell_2015a.wad

"Temple of Forgotten Gods" represents the fear of water. I am much happier with how this map looks although there are a couple of visual glitches. The teleporter trap near the end has been fixed. Note: There is a double-use switch in this map, it is not a bug or weird error!
Link: http://www.mediafire.com/download/sc5cbc1vmtlbglc/rawnwatr_2015b.wad

Honest feedback is appreciated! Hope you enjoy them. These are currently set up for single player and should work in PrBoom and ZDoom/GZDoom.

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FDAs for both "rawnhell_2015a.wad" and "rawnwatr_2015b.wad", recorded in PrBoom-plus with -complevel 9. They're not exactly FDAs, the maps seemed familiar to me, as I've briefly checked out Panophobia alpha release many months ago.

Well, your style is unusual due to oversized map scale used as a feature. This leads to problems with frequent skippability of fights and inefficient challenge overally. Item distribution is also always problematique in large spaces ("I don't want to spend so much time running just for a few shells or bonuses." vs. "It's cheap, having all ammo on one heap."). Combat is more about running than anything - usually with enormous space provided to dodge all projectiles safely. The player has only low-tier weapons for most of the time, and when he gets powerful weapons, he lacks ammo for them. I wouldn't even try fighting those hordes without rockets, that's why I tended to just run past all monsters if possible and safe-enough.

The damaging gimmick in the latter map was kinda cool, at least better than repeated lowering pillars + instant raising floors in the first map.

The maps looked okay, not bad at all while not wordly impressive either, you did as much as you could with the stock textures used in large outdoors or nature. Definitely have an oldschool vibe.

I've seen some slime trails and a HOM in the "Rawnhell" map. In the same map, the baron encounter (=where I've died last) seemed unfair to me, I wanted to save rockets and didn't know that the wall closed behind me.

IMO, "Rawnhell" was a map with underaverage gameplay, like a failed concept map, and a bit chaotic one. "Rawnwatr" was average at its best, thanks to the water gimmick, otherwise similar to the former map.

EDIT: "Hell" -> rawnhell_2015a.wad, "Watr" -> rawnwatr_2015b.wad

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I only had time to play one map, so I picked Temple of the Forgotten Gods. Here's my quick FDA, if you'd like to see. I played pretty casually (and without sound, so spectres were a common surprise), while chatting with some friends, so I was torn up a few times, and never hit the exit. I liked what I played so for the most part, but I'm just running out of the house, so better commentary and detailed critique will have to follow later.

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Hi, thanks for the feedback gents.

Watr is short for water, I wish you'd played it to find that out... ;)

So the maps are getting mixed reviews, they aren't terrible but aren't going to win any Cacowards. I think I placed too much importance on visuals over gameplay. That's easily fixable - however I can see why such huge scale maps and open outdoor areas are rare, they are difficult to make into a playable challenge and I definitely took on too much. In future I'll make sure maps are closer and smaller.

It'S possible the start area of Rawnhell in particular can be made smaller, the comment about having too much room is valid and the area is hard to detail with so much empty space.

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Okay, here are more of my impressions on rawnwatr:

First off, for a Boom map based around a "fear of water" theme, I'm surprised you didn't include any underwater sections or effects via boom height transfers Edit: Nevermind, seems Panophobia is a vanilla / limit-removing project.

The spectres roaming in the water were nice for establishing the "water is scary" atmosphere right from the start, particularly in conjunction with the vast openness of the initial view. You've allow a solid sense of progression, too, with several initially inaccessible spots in the map showing off areas that are reached later on.

I loved seeing the edges of the cliff fall into the water as I ran across them, and overall, I think the opening of this level was my favorite aspect. This lone tall rocky cylinder randomly sticking out of the water looks kind of contrived, rather than adding to the map's architecture in an interesting way, IMO.

I didn't look at how the triggers are actually set up (it seems to be an avoidable yet repeatable trigger), but in the multiple times I ran through the starting area, these rock platforms would often exhibit behaviour that looks unintentional. Sometimes they'll just rise up normally to let easily you nab the medikit, sometimes they'll rise multiple times and put it way out of reach, and sometimes they'll fail to rise at all, leaving an odd graphical anomaly in the water. The nearby teleporter can also fail to rise on occasion, leaving it recessed into the water in a goofy looking way. I'd recommend changing the way those rising floors are triggered, so that you can't miss them, but can't repeat them, either.

Where you first encounter the chaingun, the lost souls are rendered laughably harmless by the fact that said chaingun in the middle of the corridor can block their attacks. I'm not sure if this is intentional, but I'd like that hallway more if the chaingun were off to the side in a way that makes you want to grab it to subdue the lost souls, rather it being more useful left on the ground as a shield against them. There was a noticable HOM effect in the small hall that connects from the outside switch area back into the room with the chainsaw. I forgot to snap a screenshot, but thought I should point it out.

In one of my playthoughs, the archviles never teleported into that marble temple area just past the plasma gun; not sure what was up with that, as I didn't peek under the hood to see how that trap works.

It takes a really long while to find any armor, which helps prevent you from feeling too comfortable early on. I was really craving some by the time the green armor showed up. The cyberdemon was a fun addition to that area, though for personal preference, I'd have liked it more if a less-tedious way to kill him were presented (I dodged and ignored him rather than taking him out with rockets or the SSG). Perhaps I missed a BFG or cell ammo secret which would have served this purpose. Not a big deal.

Pacing was pretty solid, for the most part, with gameplay shifting between the interior temple segments and rocky outdoor areas often enough that I didn't get sick of either environment. Nice variety of weapons and enemies. This soulsphere secret seemed to have kind of a weak payoff from my player perspective: since you're teleported onto the sphere itself, you never get to see it, or feel like you're grabbing anything; I didn't even notice it was there until the third time I found that secret, when I finally caught the "supercharge!" text onscreen. I assumed it was an empty room, or that I was missing something. I think moving it so that you can actually see your reward would be an improvement. You can also see the sky tiling vertically from within that secret area, which looks kind of tacky.

I liked the gameplay and sense of grandeur in this area, but the wall with all the monster nooks looks kind of plain and tossed together. The weakest aesthetics in this map mostly come out in the things made of long boring unbroken lines, like this huge flat patch of rock wall, or architecture like this lifelessly boxy wall with the inexplicably tall doorway.

The ending gimmick was fun, with the hell knights blocking the exit teleporter. Speaking of that, teleportation was used a little more often for progression than I typically like in a map, and there are some sections I would personally rework or cut out entirely (like this particular area, which didn't really do anything for me), but as it stands, the level is quite playable (not mindblowing, but engaging), and it has a charming "classic" vibe to it.

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Mithran Denizen said:

Nevermind, seems Panophobia is a vanilla / limit-removing project.

Actually, Panophobia is indeed a Boom-compatable project--the OP for the thread is woefully outdated. It did begin as limit-removing and since Major & I were really new mappers at the time, we simply didn't include any Boom effects when the switch was made. Thanks for the insightful feedback, by the way.

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Okay, I thought that thread seemed outdated, good to know.

So, I just finished a run through rawnhell as well. I don't have quite as much to say about it as I did with rawnwatr. I played through first on UV, then recorded this demo while replaying it on skill 1, if you're interested.

As acknowledged in the OP, the looks of the map range from good to not quite so good. I think the best visuals in rawnwatr beat anything in rawnhell, but the few ugly spots in rawnwatr also look much worse than anything in this map. Even the crude areas in rawnhell look passable enough that I didn't bother to screengrab any to point them out.

Now, the theme of the map is where I struggled a bit. While in retrospect I can pick out elements of the map that represent the fears you mentioned, I didn't feel any of those fears were reflected strongly enough to actually enter my mind during gameplay. Certainly not to the extent that "fear of water" is actively established and reinforced in the other map. This is probably due, in part, to trying to represent so many different phobias at once: none of them come through strongly enough to make me take notice.

Because of this, the thematics and gameplay certainly feel "chaotic" as scifista42 put it. This may be intentional, but I think the concept would be done better justice if only one or two of the fears were showcased as the main focus. Right now it feels less like I'm exploring a chaotic environment ruled by phobia, and more like I'm wandering around a bunch of unrelated map segments that were pulled from different wads and connected together.

Highlights: I loved the initial desolateness of the opening area, and that you have to wander a bit before you meet any resistance; the openness does counteract the inclination to fight the hordes of monsters, though, given how easy it is to avoid them. The rocket launcher throne room looks cool. I also liked the "upside-down sky" area (representing madness?) a lot, though I'd like it more if the tiling clouds weren't so distracting. Speaking of distracting, there is a noticable HOM in a left side wall in of one of the tight twisting caves / tunnels. It's the wall I inexplicably stop and gawk at (around the 4m17s mark) for several moments in the above demo. ;p

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Thank you very much for this treasure trove of information. I'm at work until 12 and plan to spend the rest of today tweaking these maps. Your take on my maps is extremely interesting, raising points i never knew existed. It must be the curse of the author to play his maps they way they are intended, when everyone else will play it in their own way, leading to all sorts of surprises. Now I see why it's so hard to get a Warhammer 40,000 codec right (for example) - it may seem perfect to its creators, but once it is released, flaws become apparent.

I'll reply in more depth when at home.

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I quite enjoy the concept and the look of the water map, I couldn't get the first one to run - something about too many lines.

It really did feel like an oldschool romp through an original DooM map. Had a great feel of openness and foreboding. I will play through again today and give you a more indepth review as i'm going off of memory right now.

Good work

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Right, chaps. I sincerely thank everyone who's offered me their opinions here, my maps rarely receive any feedback except for the tireless Dobu.

I am surprised and happy that people see these as "old-school". That wasn't the intention, it's another of those "happy accidents". I'm guessing these maps hark back to the age of exploration and experimentation in the mapping community. (Or it could just be my lack of skill when I started the maps.)

I agree my use of teleporters, and in Rawnhell's case, thematic changes, can lead to a disjointed experience. This was the point, each location is like a separate nightmare, but I can see how this might be perceived as a problem. These maps are probably too unconventional. I certainly won't be building maps like them again, Doom wasn't made for them and outdoor areas are extremely hard work.

WELCOME TO HELL

The start area has been reduced in size. The pointless eastern section has been compacted and a bottleneck has been created, making it harder to run rings around the monsters.

I've added extra Revenants and redeployed some monsters so they are deaf and/or constrained by "block monster" lines, so certain areas are always guarded.

The fight in the canyon (where you get attacked on both sides) is a lot more intense as the canyon is now shorter and there are a couple of nice traps in the canyon area.

There is now a non-secret chainsaw and some armour bonuses. Ammo balance has been addressed so you don't get overloaded, then run short. You can now return to the start area from the canyon and are no longer permanently cut off.

The Revenant cavern now has more rockets and you can no longer simply stand behind the switch to evade incoming missiles. After that, the claustrophobia section has been revised with missing textures replaced and all steps now lead down, instead of suddenly leading back up then back down again.

The water/heights section now has greatly increased sector heights, but adding anything else would detract from the fear.

TEMPLE OF FORGOTTEN GODS

"Skippable fights" is the perennial problem of an open map. This map will get some work on the weekend. One point: the thin pillar you found is a mistake to be removed.

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I think my feeling of old school came from the water/rock textures, it reminded me of an E2 level. Which is a good thing, I quite enjoyed it. I really like the huge outdoor areas and i'm going to try my hand at it soon.

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Thanks for the screenies, I didn't know about the middle one, all are now fixed. I'm going to be uploading newer versions of the maps this week. In the meantime, are there any suggestions for "enhanced" difficulty? I hate super-hard maps personally but don't want mine to be known as the piss-easy ones of the set.

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MajorRawne said:

In the meantime, are there any suggestions for "enhanced" difficulty?

As I said before, you should let me handle that. I've personally balanced every other map in Panophobia on UV, so I think it would make most sense to do so here as well.

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Fair enough, feel free to add teleporter traps, falling walls etc as appropriate. I'll let you know when the revised maps are ready for your tweaks.

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I've finally finished the water map so that it should now be beatable to 100%. I am aware playtesters have reported errors I cannot replicate (eg for me, the Arch-Viles always teleport in).

TEMPLE OF FORGOTTEN GODS version C
http://www.mediafire.com/download/fkospi7hkf5nk1b/rawnwatr_2015c.wad

There have been numerous tweaks including a small number of new monsters, two extra correctly-tagged secrets, revised visuals in the final area and the long-ranged Cacodemon attacks have been upgraded so they're harder to skip. This is as finished as it's going to be.

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Helloooo? Anyone out there? I could really do with some more input!!

Here is the up to date version of Rawnhell.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/h5v8r6v0psnw1mh/rawnhall_2015b.wad

The start area has been revised so it's harder to avoid the fights and there is now a super shotgun near the beginning, along with more Revenants and deaf enemies lying in ambush. I've removed some ammo to try to prevent constantly having 50 shells/200 bullets but not enough to render the backpack secret pointless (you need the ammo later).

There are multiple phobias represented in this map. I wanted to incorporate other mappers' ideas into this to make certain fears come across more strongly, but could not have done this without stealing their thunder so to speak. I could not dwell on just one or two ideas as this map is supposed to represent the megawad as a whole.

Currently, the only area which I am having problems with is the water area which has some strange HOMs that I don't know how to fix. Other than that it's practically finished - I must have put a hundred or more hours into this.

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Here is a sloppy (but successful) skill 4 FDA of rawnhell_2015b.wad (no specific complevel set, as none was specified). You may recall I've actually looked at the hydrophobia map (and a very unfinished Spiderland map) before, a while back now. This is the only one I've not seen previously.

Thematically, it does have a chunky oldschool look to it (e.g. not much of the curvy 'layer cake' look of outdoor areas in many modern WADs), as others have mentioned, which can turn out just fine, especially if the final WAD will use a new sky or the like to give it extra personality. It's good to see you've paid intention to light contrasts in the inner reaches of the map, and the glowing effect of the skyfloor area (otherwise an extremely bland place, aesthetically) underscores that oldschool feeling--that particular effect hardly ever gets used these days, it seems, and quite a shame it is. The neutral-bright/shadowless lighting outdoors is less interesting but probably acceptable given the setting, although I personally feel it would look better if it were significantly more gloomy, which would perhaps give you the opportunity to highlight points of interest (e.g. visual references to later maps in the set, which are often difficult to notice otherwise) with torches/brighter areas or the like. I also really like the BGM as well, where is it from?

That aside, I feel like the map still needs a loooooooot of polish and spitshine, though. Apart from the presence of a number of visual bugs/ construction errors--the untextured lip of the recession in one of the switch caves in the canyon, tree/candle/other prop sprites clipping into their surroundings, etc.--there are also some straightforward design oversights, ala the glaring sky-tiling issue in the hydrophobia reference area, presumably a result of testing in ZDoom or some other port where short skies are stretched by default.

On the issue of the map's stated conceptual goal of referencing/introducing the phobias/core themes of the later maps, the results are scattershot at best, perhaps because most of the references are too subtle. Having played 'Temple of Forgotten Gods' before, I of course instantly recognized the reference to that map, and I can only assume that the brief glimpse of the huge cromlechs with corpses scattered around them was a reference a later map themed around interment or cemeteries or corpses or the like. In other cases, it's either not easy to tell what I'm looking at is trying to communicate, as in the totally asynchronous but also bland and featureless skyfloor area, or not easy to tell if what I'm looking at is actually a reference to another phobia/map or merely an incidental detail. Are the instapop zombies before the RL area a reference? Is the RL's crumbling throne a reference? Are the dark tunnels later on a reference (e.g. to fear of the dark, etc.)? Is that blood trough where I shoot the first sergeant a reference? I just can't tell. The problem is, so much of this stuff--blood, corpses, darkness, demonic iconography, etc.--is part and parcel for Doom's usual look/setting that it barely registers as anything I should be paying particular attention to, and I would wager that if you showed this map to someone without telling them about the concept behind it, they would probably notice none of these details--only perhaps the strange/unexpected teleportation into the water/cromlech areas. On that point, if you want to really commit to the concept, the map could probably do with more small setpiece bits like this, perhaps activated at unexpected moments (e.g. on an invisible teleport line at a point quieter point in the canyon-run), or perhaps treated as highlight progression points--e.g. instead of having me run around and flip largely nondescript cave-switches in the opening area, put one of those switches in a huge mound of meat and corpses, or have me teleport into a bitesized themed area and hit a switch there to open the way forward back in the main area. Failing any of that, you could probably come up with some kind of relatively unobtrusive convention to mark the main references as they currently are--highlighting them in a generally darker setting as suggested earlier could work, or perhaps you could consistently place evil-eye props or conspicuous congeries of black candles near them.

On the topic of pure combat, it has been noted that in pretty much all of your maps it's possible to run past the majority of the monsters, and until you get to the narrow tunnels in this map that continues to be the case here. The monsters behind blocking lines that you've placed in the opening areas are not helping you at all, to be frank--they are still very easy for a player with any kind of movement competence to evade (although it's probably unwise to ignore the chaingunners on the small ledges, at least), and so all they're really doing now is hampering immersion via the obvious artificiality of their movement constraint. There is no way you're going to be able to work around this aspect of the play without drastically restructuring the map, and so my advice is to come at the matter from a bit of a different angle. Rather than trying to force players who want to run by everything to stop and fight, let them do it-- with altered thing placement/trigger setup you could even encourage it and make it feel 'right' (as opposed to 'I'm breaking the intended gameplay') by making some essentially insurmountable horde appear in the first area, prompting the player to flee into the canyon, where you could set up a nice stockade of weapons and ammo in front of some conveniently-triggered frontal roadblock fight (somewhere around where you have the imp/HK pincer now, for instance) that would allow the horde from the main area to catch up from the rear while the player mitigates it (would probably require widening the canyon's mouth to work well). Given the highly linear structure of the layout, this is also a well you could return to more than once, perhaps giving the map its own sub-theme (e.g. "running", as in the first/largest 'running scared' level) while also adding tension to encounters. For example, at one point, I walked through a tunnel with some candles in the wall, and saw a wall slowly crumbling to my right to reveal what was clearly a monster closet, so I backstepped into the tunnel's mouth and easily defeated the encounter that way....don't let me do that! At the right moment, teleport in something suitably scary behind me (e.g. a lone arch-vile, a couple of mancs, some revs, etc.) to spur me into moving forward--to get out of the hitscan zone I would have to dash forward and drop down to the RL area, waking up everything in there in addition to all of the crap now behind me, hopefully amounting to a nice snowballing encounter.

Whatever you do, do something--I wouldn't say that most of the gameplay as it stands is actively offensive, but it also lacks any real zest--the huge open areas in the starting zone coupled with the player's light early armament make that battle (or series of battles) into a somewhat sedate cleanup operation (perhaps why some players are so eager to ignore it all and run past), and as the player goes further in the monster count tapers off (the RL cavern feels underpopulated) and then eventually becomes a simplistic grind through HP gobs in narrow corridors (the nobles in the berserk area, etc.)--there's even a PCorf Baron at the end, a personal peeve of mine, although presumably not one shared by all. Taking another angle on all of this, you could actually opt to reduce the combat in the map, leaving much of it eerily unpopulated and making the heart of the experience be the references to future maps instead of fighting monsters, but that would require putting more work into the map's mood, aesthetic, and perhaps its progression in order to work--if you take what you have now and just depopulate it, it's just not going to make much sense for the end user.

I imagine all of this criticism probably seems discouraging, but don't be. As a self-avowed newbie mapper, what you are trying to tackle in Panophobia, and in this map in particular, is something that is extremely high-concept in the context of a game that is at heart extremely simple (run around and shoot lots of stuff)--and so prosecuting the marriage is bound to be a tall order indeed. If it takes tons and tons of sweat and blood before it seems right, don't be disheartened--it's only natural.

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Wow. Thank you, Demon. That is EXACTLY what I needed. You raise some excellent points. I agree that these maps are too different from the norm and from what Doom is supposed to be, and my level of knowledge and ability are not sufficient to handle the challenge, so I must make them sufficient.

Your idea of each switch room being a "temple" to a different phobia is brilliant and adds value to the starting area, making each switch room worthwhile rather than a pointless chase.

However I do not feel I can include tributes to other mappers' maps in case I blow their ideas and/or steal their thunder. I await Dobu's opinion about this since he's project leader. EDIT: Sorry, I have started doing this already, there are now small tributes to Whispers, Circulatory, Acid Reign (all from Panophobia) and E3M1 now in the map, potentially with others planned. The map already has dark and liquid sections, so these choices do not create thematic chaos.

I am wary of significant alterations to the map's structure due to the time and effort involved, but since the project's limit has increased it may be worth a go. I'm going to upload Acid Reign soon which is far closer to a traditional Doom map and will probably be judged as my best work in the project.

EDIT: The music is "Everdream" by Nightwish. The original music is amazing, the lyrics are gibberish. Typical!

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Greetings fellow Doomers. I have extensively revised Welcome to Hell (rawnhell.wad) and revised some sections of Temple of Forgotten Gods (rawnwatr.wad)

Welcome to Hell (panophobia)
http://www.mediafire.com/download/m0n4ksrg8s29cv9/rawnhell_2015c.wad

PLEASE NOTE AMMO BALANCE MAY NOT BE PERFECT, THIS WAD UPLOAD IS MAINLY FOR FEEDBACK.

The map now represents, in order:
Open, outdoor spaces; crowds; darkness; flesh/hell; the past; blood/hell; claustrophobia/darkness; water/heights; death; madness; blood/meat.

* I have removed the block monster lines and made very minor changes to monster deployment.
* Added tribute areas to several Panophobia maps.
* Replaced the dual-fork canyon route with a "fear of the past" section (E1M1, E3M1, re-designed to represent Acid Reign and Alien Vendetta's Toxic Touch).
* Removed pointless pop-up zombieman attack.
* Nasty ambush in the cave as suggested by Demon of the Well.
* Claustrophobia section more claustrophobic.

Still to do:
* Tweak opening fight
* Change one of the switch rooms to highlight a phobia
* Tweak canyon area to better represent the megawad's theme
* Finish converting cavern (throne room) into a Hell section
* Fix the tall water section
* Limitless view around graveyard section
* Lower the ceilings in the glowing madness section
* Fix door in exit room so it can be re-opened (doesn't break co-op)
* Some areas still look like shit (curse that blasted ROCK5 texture)

=========================================

Temple of Forgotten Gods (aquaphobia)
To be uploaded soon. There is plenty of plasma for the Cyberdemon if you discover some of the earlier secrets.

* Harder to run past Cacodemon fights.
* More Imps in cave section including secret section.
* Secret section is now tagged as such).
* Moved an Imp in witch cave to make it impossible to simply run past the dormant monsters.
* Moved the teleporting Imp ambush on silver road area so it cannot be bypassed.
* Renovations to final area with monster chambers in the walls.

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Welcome to Hell
-----
I don't remember what port Panophobia was designed for, but I played with ZDoom.

I always liked the opening, the Fear of Open Spaces/Being Alone area. I particularly liked that there's enough room to run away/around at the beginning once you hit the Fear of Crowds. One fear you didn't address was Fear of Drowning. You'd need some deep water sectors in the starting area slime for that. Hmmm. Is it possible to slowly lower a floor in a deep water sector while maintaining the height of the water (slime), like you're sinking in quicksand? Or does somebody else have Fear of Drowning?

Once you find the monsters, there's one additional fear you didn't mention - the Fear of Running Out Of Ammunition. I found myself running back to the start area after each battle to fill up because I was never sure how big the next battle would be. That happened until I found the Backpack. I ran back to fill up one more time, then felt I didn't have to anymore.

Also, with the pop-up Cacos and Knights, you have the Fear of Surprises, although I guess every Doom map covers that. And Fear of Pain.

Things I found:

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Really like that one lonely Helmet off by itself near the start. Easy to miss.

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Should the blood in the trough and the blood pool next to it be damaging, to be consistent with the blood in the blood/flesh room? Sectors 186 and 596.

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Three visual glitches in the blood/flesh room.

http://i.imgur.com/488IXV3.png

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Fear of Not Finding Everything - The sector containing linedef tag 24 is tagged as secret (not sure why) but it's not wide enough to enter to actually score that secret.

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Fear of Not Doing Things in the Right Order - You have to cross the nukage room with the disappearing path before you hit the switch at the entrance of the room (linedef tag 30). That drops the potion wall to ground level. Then you have to go back to the entrance and hit the switch to drop the exit wall to 8 above ground level. If you hit the switch before you cross the nukage room, it drops the exit wall to 8 above the current height of the wall with potions. You're stuck and can't finish the map.

http://i.imgur.com/G9845Fs.png

Not sure if the switch should appear as the potion wall drops, or if the switch should just be SR (would that be a Fear of Repeating Yourself/Deja Vu?).

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Line 670. Wrong texture. At first I thought it was a hidden switch.

http://i.imgur.com/kMpM986.png

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Noticed one more minor visual glitch just before the Rocket Launcher/Blood room. Can only see it if you're heading out of the room back the way you came.

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

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Rooms with the Rocket Launcher and the secret Backpack - should the blood be damaging? Blood should be consistent across the map. I'd say yes with maybe a few more safe islands in the blood (ooh, that's a title to remember). Or no islands with maybe a little more healing for those who don't find the secrets.

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The Claustrophobia area - two Knights and a Baron. In the dark. In a confined space. Where you're limited to SSG and Chaingun. Yeah, that was scary. Not so much the Lost Souls since you can see them in the dark. Except the one that came out behind me from the secret. If they all came out of hidden niches or chimneys, would that be too much?

Found the hidden switch, but couldn't quite hear what it did because I tripped it at a particularly loud point in the music. Kept hitting it and eventually the music quieted and I found the Berserk.

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Fear of Heights area - missing frontside lower textures on the first platform (sector 416) when the sectors drop (sector tag 31).

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

Why is one side of the teleport out of the area not tagged to teleport? Line 1678.

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Fear of Madness area - should this switch be hanging from the ceiling?

http://i.imgur.com/NTlX6xx.png

ZDoom doesn't care about z-heights of switches. Are there other ports that do?

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One more visual glitch in last area. Couldn't resize picture because glitch disappears.

http://i.imgur.com/Plify8g.png

At least the last Baron was an easy kill; he's monster-blocked into the passageway. Finally, an appropriate place to use the Rocket Launcher!
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Yes, you certainly addressed lots of Fears. I think the map works nicely. At the beginning, there's lots of switches with no obvious indicator as to what they do, but that's okay. You can always go back there once you find the blocked-off Armor, the blocked-off Soul Sphere, etc., if you decide not to hit the switches right away. Or you miss one. I did.

I think one area that needs something more is the Fear of Death area, the giant graves. There's nothing to do; it's not very interesting. I realize it's a tribute, but you just walk and leave. How about this - shrink the teleport square around the player to three by three units around the landing spot so as soon as you take a step you teleport out. Into... an exact duplicate of what you just left, except now it's hell-textured and all the bodies are alive. One more step and you teleport out into the Fear of Madness area. Add a crusher line switch right there to get rid of all those monsters. Fear of Hell, Fear of the Undead. If you want real fear, make all the live monsters AVs. A tribute to Obsidian.

Oh, there is a visual glitch in that area, but it's right on the teleport line, so you can't legally see it. I found it when I clipped to see if anything was behind the graves.

http://i.imgur.com/7gqDQzZ.png

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Good map. Fun. Yes, it's very linear, but that didn't bother me. So is Dante's Inferno.

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Thank you for the detailed and very encouraging feedback - this map has been quite demoralising to work on at times.

I haven't entirely worked out the gameplay flow, especially in the acid (E1M1, E3M1, Acid Reign, Toxic Touch) area, and that area is still in need of upgraded visuals. I'll figure out what to do with the switches so that it plays correctly. The blood cavern is not finished yet and is going to be hell-textured.

I will look into all the issues you've raised and provide appropriate fixes.

Looks like the revisions to the map have improved its gameplay quite a bit!

EDIT: If that is actually a comparison so a legendary map from the first days of Doom, I may need to change my underwear :)

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Sorry, no. I was not comparing your map to any of Dr. Sleep's work. I really was referring to the original book, where you and the poet Virgil (another old Doom name!) make a very linear journey down through the nine Circles of Hell. Your map, travelling through different fears, made me think of that.

And speaking of Dr. Sleep, I still want to see the original Doom 2 version of his map, Chiron, which he downgraded to become Ultimate Doom E4M7, and the last map of the series, Lethe, which he supposedly started but never finished. A guaranteed Mordeth award for releasing those two, for sure.

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