Cancroid [Single SP Map]

Hello, this is a medium sized nukage/base themed map built in and around a few days late April. It's a short map (plays in about 10 minutes) with mild challenge and mostly built as mapping practice.

Anyways, any feedback would be appreciated, and I hope you enjoy the map.




MAP01, Boom, tested with ZDoom 2.7.1 and Zandronum
No new graphics, music, textures, etc.
Download (May 5th): https://www.sendspace.com/file/s3gmg2

May 5th:
-fixed zero tag lifts, some texture mishaps and added some ammo

looks nice, downloaded!

Impressive shots! I want to play it ASAP.

FDA. Did not finish due to a broken zero tagged lift. :\

From what I've seen it looks like a fine map, although it indeed has that "mapping practice" feel to it. What I mean is that nothing really stands out or surprises the player. I think if you at least added new music, a cool sky texture and maybe a unique looking structure or two, then the map would have a bit more character. But nice work anyway.

Does the map have difficulty settings? Because I played it on UV and died once I had to drop into the toxic waste pit because by that point I had no ammo whatsoever. For most encounters before that I only had 50 chaingun bullets and 20 shotgun shells tops.

That said, the geometry is pretty good as far as Doom E1 inspired levels go.

kuchitsu said:

FDA. Did not finish due to a broken zero tagged lift. :\

From what I've seen it looks like a fine map, although it indeed has that "mapping practice" feel to it. What I mean is that nothing really stands out or surprises the player. I think if you at least added new music, a cool sky texture and maybe a unique looking structure or two, then the map would have a bit more character. But nice work anyway.

Thanks for the demo! I completely forgot to test my map in Prboom first; bad mapping habit of 0-tag SR lifts similar to the D1/DR action for doors. Depending on how you play the map, you could either always be very, very dry on ammo, or like you did with the smart infighting, have lots of ammo leftover.

I considered adding some more textures or music, but I figured that I'd just place my efforts into a different project since I built this map towards practice anyways.

MrSkeltal said:

Does the map have difficulty settings? Because I played it on UV and died once I had to drop into the toxic waste pit because by that point I had no ammo whatsoever. For most encounters before that I only had 50 chaingun bullets and 20 shotgun shells tops.

That said, the geometry is pretty good as far as Doom E1 inspired levels go.

Unfortunately no, I didn't implement any other difficulties apart from UV. by toxic waste I assume you're talking about the blue key pit. On my playthroughs, I either had no ammo, or over abundant amounts of it, so I added a little extra to be safe, but I'll tune up the ammo count a bit more.

Haha, I only pictured the sewer parts in my head, and didn't even realize the similarities between my map and E1 until you pointed it out :)

Nice map BloodyAcid!

In most cases, giving the player extra ammo is better than making him scavenge for it. I finished with 4 shells and 2 rockets (but no rocket launcher from what I could find,) it was a pretty tough call! Also those shotgun shells in the nukage below (just out of sight in your second screenshot) are kinda mean. Thats a minimum 10 damage for 12 shells.

Personally, I really don't like starts where you are already under attack. At the very least I'd recommend putting doors in front of all the monsters and having them open after the player makes a move.

The map reminded me of the birthday maps I used to make. I do think it was a little heavy on the monsters, sometimes. Not in a hard way, but because I felt like I kept getting stopped every corner I turned, which made it annoying when I just wanted to look around. I think it extended the gameplay in uncomfortable areas like nukage pits and hallways when it could probably be better extended elsewhere.

The traps however were very nicely staged and pretty fun. the textures were cleanly aligned and the theme and color scheme was consistent. Nice work!

Too much forced nukage walk, don't be inspired by lost maps 1.

40oz said:

Nice map BloodyAcid!

In most cases, giving the player extra ammo is better than making him scavenge for it. I finished with 4 shells and 2 rockets (but no rocket launcher from what I could find,) it was a pretty tough call! Also those shotgun shells in the nukage below (just out of sight in your second screenshot) are kinda mean. Thats a minimum 10 damage for 12 shells.

Personally, I really don't like starts where you are already under attack. At the very least I'd recommend putting doors in front of all the monsters and having them open after the player makes a move.

The map reminded me of the birthday maps I used to make. I do think it was a little heavy on the monsters, sometimes. Not in a hard way, but because I felt like I kept getting stopped every corner I turned, which made it annoying when I just wanted to look around. I think it extended the gameplay in uncomfortable areas like nukage pits and hallways when it could probably be better extended elsewhere.

The traps however were very nicely staged and pretty fun. the textures were cleanly aligned and the theme and color scheme was consistent. Nice work!

this is my opinion basically, except I like scavaging for ammo, it was very "faministic".

40oz said:

Nice map BloodyAcid!

In most cases, giving the player extra ammo is better than making him scavenge for it. I finished with 4 shells and 2 rockets (but no rocket launcher from what I could find,) it was a pretty tough call! Also those shotgun shells in the nukage below (just out of sight in your second screenshot) are kinda mean. Thats a minimum 10 damage for 12 shells.

Thanks for the kind words :) I think it's a difference in play style; I prefer UV difficulties to have the player manage their ammunition so that they can't easily swat away enemies even after missing shot after shot. The rocket launcher is one of the two secrets in the map - the rocket ammo was a little hint or bait as to where the rocket launcher itself would be kept.

40oz said:

Personally, I really don't like starts where you are already under attack. At the very least I'd recommend putting doors in front of all the monsters and having them open after the player makes a move.

I was hesitant about this. I thought of making all the monsters face away from the player so that none of them immediately aggro the player, but I figured that it shouldn't make too much of a difference (as they were zombiemen anyways)

40oz said:

The map reminded me of the birthday maps I used to make. I do think it was a little heavy on the monsters, sometimes. Not in a hard way, but because I felt like I kept getting stopped every corner I turned, which made it annoying when I just wanted to look around. I think it extended the gameplay in uncomfortable areas like nukage pits and hallways when it could probably be better extended elsewhere.

The traps however were very nicely staged and pretty fun. the textures were cleanly aligned and the theme and color scheme was consistent. Nice work!

You bring up a good point about too many monsters. I think I'm just not used to having "empty" (I use that term sparingly) without too many monsters, and I also got lazy with monster teleports, which probably added to the static encounters. It's something that I'm working on, and hope to improve on for my next release.

joe-ilya said:

Too much forced nukage walk, don't be inspired by lost maps 1.

What are "lost maps 1"? Sorry, I don't really get the reference. I figured that the nukage walks weren't that painful since you're given 4 rad suits in addition to a lot of non-nukage areas where the suit might expire.

MrGlide said:

this is my opinion basically, except I like scavaging for ammo, it was very "faministic".

Thanks! I prefer the ammo scavenging style too.

BloodyAcid said:

I was hesitant about this. I thought of making all the monsters face away from the player so that none of them immediately aggro the player, but I figured that it shouldn't make too much of a difference (as they were zombiemen anyways)

I very much agree with 40 on this one, you could have doors cover them and have them pop up once the player leaves the light, I like the pressure in the begining of the map but monsters shooting at you as soon as you spawn is quite annoying, first time I just let myself die to restart because I lost health.

You bring up a good point about too many monsters. I think I'm just not used to having "empty" (I use that term sparingly) without too many monsters, and I also got lazy with monster teleports, which probably added to the static encounters. It's something that I'm working on, and hope to improve on for my next release.

I thought the amount of monsters was fine, it added alot of pressure.

What are "lost maps 1"? Sorry, I don't really get the reference. I figured that the nukage walks weren't that painful since you're given 4 rad suits in addition to a lot of non-nukage areas where the suit might expire.

Meh I wouldn't worry about it, I thought the nukage was fine, it gave us space to look around but restricted us in combat a bit.

BloodyAcid said:

I was hesitant about this. I thought of making all the monsters face away from the player so that none of them immediately aggro the player, but I figured that it shouldn't make too much of a difference (as they were zombiemen anyways)

Zombiemen are one of the most deadliest enemies in the game. Player can dodge cyberdemons all day long but 1 zombieman will eventually kill the player.

I played through this map with brutal doom and after killing all the zombies I was at like 30 health.

It was a pretty fun map and I don't spawn ambush was that big of a deal mainly because it was right at the beginnig so if you died you could try instantly again.