The Backyard - now on Idgames!

This is a pretty small map I made for Boom. I tried to make something with an Eternal Doom vibe in it. There's only UV (for now), but it isn't very difficult.
Credits: CC4 textures, Deus Vult II for the trees, Plum's sky extravaganza, Rich Nagel for the music track "Death Assured".



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Sounds cool and I like the screenshot, I'll give this a go when I get the chance.

I just had a go with it. Good stuff as usual. The map reminds me of the kinds of wads SuperCupcakeTactics makes because of the unusual texture theme with techbase elements in a medieval castle.

Also, Finish your 'Legacy of Heroes' wad already!

Here's my FDA for this map. I didn't notice that it was UV only, so I played on HMP as I always do.

I beat the map relatively easy. And I do not considder myself a good Doom player in any stretch of the imagination :) So, yeah, maybe the opposition could be a little stronger. The only part where I'm in sort of trouble for real, is when a Revenant teleports in and punches the player straight in the face! That was a douchy move, but still a fun fight. I'm perfectly fine with this sort of punishment as long as it's not repeated too many times or unmanageable.

The level looks great! You did a great job on the visuals. You definitely got those Eternal Doom vibes right. Also, because there's quite a bit of switch hunting in this level, which confused me at times, but since the level is relatively small, it never takes too long to figure out what the switch did. The overall progression and pace of the level is perfectly fine. Adding more meat might make the pace a bit faster, pushing the player on and into more trouble. Or just keep it as it is, because there's nothing wrong with it per se :)

Thumbs up from me!

Quite an interesting map, but I do believe I have found a hiccup: there's a Cyberdemon that doesn't seem to teleport in! I'm guessing it's supposed to be introduced at the exit.

Ahh, so that's why the ending felt so anti-climactic! I was quite surprised to just be able to stroll right through such an intimidating area.

FDA. Nice-looking, atmospheric map. Good nonlinear layout. Difficulty could have been higher (IMO), but it was fine. Good secrets. Cyberdemon didn't appear.

Obsidian said:

Quite an interesting map, but I do believe I have found a hiccup: there's a Cyberdemon that doesn't seem to teleport in! I'm guessing it's supposed to be introduced at the exit.

No, the Cyber teleports in as a trap in the center right area. After you've raised the three pillars and you jump off one of them to get to the two Energy Cells in the raised tree oval, one of the PLANET2 textures is the bright orange moon. It's a hidden switch which teleports in two Cell Packs and a Cyber.

Although maybe you're right. If a player doesn't find that switch, maybe the Cyber should teleport in at the end room as a default. Finding the switch early gets you the bonus of the Cell Packs. Hmmm. You'd need a y-shaped closet with a faster scrolling floor and walls/doors that would open/close to steer the Cyber along the scrolling floor in the proper direction, like a pinball machine flipper or a railroad-track switch. In the first instance one leg of the Y is open and the scrolling floor pushes the Cyber that way onto another scrolling floor to one teleport. At the end, that path is closed and the other leg is open so the Cyber is pushed that way onto a different scrolling floor to a different teleport. Simpler would be if Boom could change the direction of the scrolling floor and just have a second teleport behind the Cyber to the end room. Can Boom do that? Can "raise floor txt/type" change scrolling floor direction?

Anyway, I was going to compliment Gaspe on the subtlety of that trap. The fact that I instinctively used the orange face because it was brighter is a testament to good design. And yes, I noticed the theme of using the orange face by the Invulnerability secret. More subtle design. The only thing I thought was too subtle was the Green Armor. I saw the lift to it and knew it led somewhere, but didn't know to where. I thought it was a door. The only place you can see the Armor from is the first Revenant platform area and the ground under it. I knew there was something special about the waterfall area, but didn't find the switch until I was done and searching for the last secret. Maybe raising the light level on the Armor would be enough. Or also making it flicker like the torch indicator for the Plasma Gun.

Anyway2, please don't add more monsters. You've created a mood/rhythm to this level (helped a lot by that great music!) which would be ruined by non-stop action. It's like one action notch above an exploratory/dungeon crawl type adventure. I really liked it. I like maps where I can breathe and think. I could see this as a MAP04-08 in a larger mapset. The Cyber is not an issue for a low map. I ran like a baby because I didn't have ammo, but found the hidden Invulnerability, went back for the Cell Packs and that was that. If you don't find the Invulnerability, you could run north up the stairs to the yellow switch. His rockets will hit the stairs and you can Plasma Gun him safely from there.

It also felt weird that there was no Shotgun or SSG. But I think that was good. I didn't have my fall back weapons and had to think differently.

Very nice work!

Edit: Venus. Finally read the orange moon texture. It's labelled Venus. You can still learn things about Doom after 20 years. 'Sigh'

Edit2: Realized if the Cyber does end up teleporting into the exit room, you can still ignore him on a low map because you can run around to the starting room and enter the exit gate from the back side. Also nicely designed.

Edit3: Thought about it some more. Since you only need to change the Cyber's direction once, the closet could look more like a straight hallway with a 45-degree jog hallway and a single door that closes to push the Cyber to the second teleport to the exit room. Hmmm. If you had a scrolling hallway leading into an octagonal donut-shaped closet with scrolling floors around the outer ring and all the center ring lines as teleports to different locations, you could have a Cyber teleport to 8 different locations depending on which teleport line you closed an angled door in front of to steer the Cyber to it. There's a map idea.

Many thanks to all of you guys for playing the map and giving some feedback :) I'm really glad you liked it.
And thanks again to Scifista42 and Chris Hansen for your demos!

I don't plan to put more monsters. My intention was also to create a more "relaxed" gameplay that could fit well with the exploration of the place.

About the cyberdemon EffinghamHuffnagel has got it :) and many thanks for your long post, I feel honored.
I wanted to make a secret battle with a small hint. And also possibly make the invulnerability useful both for the cyberdemon or for the ending section like Scifista42 did in his demo.

@EffinghamHuffnagel: it seems a nice idea to make the cyberdemon teleport to the final area if the player doesnt fight him before. I will try to play a bit with the scrolling floors. I never used them so much (I just made a basic thing here) but you already wrote some nice guidelines for the closet; it will be an interesting new thing to experiment with.
Also I will make the green armor more visible somehow.

Breezeep said:

Also, Finish your 'Legacy of Heroes' wad already!

Don't worry for that. I took a break from it one month ago to work for another project, but I'm already resuming it these days.

Nice nice! Cool eternal themed map, with pretty easygoing gameplay. Didn't take too long to find what the switches did. Also the teleporting revenant didn't bother me at all since I knocked him out before he ever had a chance :P

Awesome job gaspe!

This map was just a joy to run through. Very atmospheric and well designed. I absolutely loved the detailing in this map. Enough to play through it a few times. The music reminded me of "They're Going to Get You" from Doom 1 a bit, lol, though it was a bit of a different scale/mode used. *shrug* I liked the music.

The secrets eluded me the first time completely through. They were tough. Yeah, I found the cyberdemon, prolly would have found him anyway without reading the posts here, but I did have some recollection that a certain planet was somehow special. Still, it was a surprise when it happened, haha, more-so than the rev, which wasn't bad at all because I wasn't running in the center of the hall. Prolly a good practice right there, heh.

The difficulty was not bad. My very first run I died on the chaingunner in the teleport room by the cyber because I didn't want to run back and get health yet and I thought it was clear, lol. Also, I thought from what I had read that there would be an ammo problem, so health was traded for ammo conservation.

My second run I ran straight down and skipped the first part, punched my way around the map, getting the plasma gun, then up to the guy who killed me, told him to never do that again, and then went for the planets, hoping to find my first secret... Nope, just some cells and a cyber. Also, that f*cking ledge by the cyber; very frustrating, very well done, lol. I cheated and played in zDoom instead of Boom because I just like zDoom, so I had it a bit easier with being able to aim. Still, he took me down to 6%, 2 lucky shots when he teleported in and I was still hitting planets, and a few minor splash damages. After him I cleared the first part out, looked for secrets, still didn't find any, then went for the exit. The exit was a nice, small fight, but could have been much better. Even replacing the HK's with barons would have been better. Such a let-down. But it looked nice, and the ease let me pay more attention to how cool it looked.

It was interesting to not have a shotgun, SSG, or RL, but I thought it was very well done and given the amount of ammo, which was plentiful, I had fun with what I had. That's also without secrets. I knew where two secrets were, the invul and the ss (cause theyre right in front of your face, lol), but I couldn't find the way in to save my life. All of the secrets were unlocked in the most random ways that I wasn't ready for, lol. It took a lot of searching to find them all, some leaving me with a "wow wtf" kind of thought. Still, I must admit after finding them that it was well done and pretty cool.

The switches were really confusing on the very first run, even thought there's apparently only 4 or 5 of them.



I really liked this map gaspe! Definitely a 9/10 from me!

Thanks SuperCupcakeTactics!
And thanks Fonze for the high score :) the detailed report on your runs was very nice to read!

I made a very small update with a dehacked pacth just with the level name because yes, and the green armor should be more easy to spot now.

My pleasure man, it was fun. Let us know when this hits /idgames; I'll definitely give it a good rating over there. Gonna be tough to decide 4/5 or 5/5 given the last fight, but maybe I'll skip the cyber and see what happens when you put it up there.

Uploaded on Idgames! The cyberdemon-battle still remains as a "secret", the thing with the conveyors it was a bit too much complicated to do... Next time maybe :P

Nice, glad to see this go up to /idgames!

Looking forward to the next one :)

I loved it too. Very nice architecture and gameplay flows nice. Ammo was short in the beginning, but that was good since it estimulated me to explore the map and avoid camping.

I've found some secrets but not the cyberdemon D:

This would be a great start level for a larger wad.