A WAD (yet to be named)

Right, right. So I've been messing around in Doom Builder and eventually GZDoom Builder for quite a while since my last WAD. (Sacreligion) So I like to think I'm a teeny bit better in terms of level design and visuals. But that's not for me to say, try it out, there's a link down there! (file name is placeholder)

http://www.mediafire.com/download/dbe90sp671m2fin/Likehellgz.wad

Sceenshots:

http://postimg.org/image/hw2kymg5d/

http://postimg.org/image/q6jsspmbl/

http://postimg.org/image/5wr2rbakh/

http://postimg.org/image/nmo5ylyrl/

http://postimg.org/image/ljdqqxyyp/

http://postimg.org/image/qzp9r4x2p/

http://postimg.org/image/xwjg3ntdd/

http://postimg.org/image/r3nol4rxt/

http://postimg.org/image/4xue3cn75/



Credits (Please correct any mistakes)

5th episode: Nightmare

Silver: Nightmare

Useful flats: again, Nightmare

Duke Tex: 3D Realms, converted by Tormentor667

NMN: DRDTeam (correct me if I'm wrong)

Toilet: Decorate: Fuzzyblaze, Sprites by: 3D realms, editted by Las Rojas

Pipepack: Decorate: Fuzzyblaze Sprites: 3Drealms

Colt 45: Decorate: JoeyTD, SuperSonix07 Sprites: 3d Realms, ID software

EDIT:
Also I've only tested this with GZDoom so please don't expect it to work with your favorite source port.

Just played through it and it was good.Could've been a bit longer.

Solid Plissken said:

Just played through it and it was good.Could've been a bit longer.

Thanks, I forgot to mention, I'm looking for feed back, thank you for providing it anyway. This is still a WIP and I plan on adding a few more maps, somewhere between 4 and 6.

I like the screenies, DLing right now !

Rosenrot said:

I like the screenies, DLing right now !

Tell me what you think when you're done, dog!

Alright, just finished it. Nice amount of details in this and a couple of good encounters, namely the bar shotgunners wanting their blue key back and the Hell Knights getting too close for comfort. It's a good start for a longer set of maps (I imagine you're doing more since I got a "no player 1 start" error when I tried to go to map 2).

I've got to agree with Plissken though, this needs to be longer. I'd say you could probably space out your setpiece fights a bit more while adding a couple more encounters. The first thing that springs to mind is the last fight with the chaingunners. Instead of giving us an exit switch which I thought was an elevator switch, how about another room behind then which then has the exit and some enemies, much like the end of E1M1 on UV.

This does have potential though and I'm digging the aesthetics you've got here. Keep at it man!

PseudoGold said:

Alright, just finished it. Nice amount of details in this and a couple of good encounters, namely the bar shotgunners wanting their blue key back and the Hell Knights getting too close for comfort. It's a good start for a longer set of maps (I imagine you're doing more since I got a "no player 1 start" error when I tried to go to map 2).

I've got to agree with Plissken though, this needs to be longer. I'd say you could probably space out your setpiece fights a bit more while adding a couple more encounters. The first thing that springs to mind is the last fight with the chaingunners. Instead of giving us an exit switch which I thought was an elevator switch, how about another room behind then which then has the exit and some enemies, much like the end of E1M1 on UV.

This does have potential though and I'm digging the aesthetics you've got here. Keep at it man!

Thanks, man. I like the Idea of the elevators leading up to a room, or perhaps two different exits? maybe each could lead to a different map. Just spitballing. One of my main ideas in terms of layout was non linearity. When you get that red key, instead of flipping the switch, you can get back to the beginning with the red key door and do that bar part from a different perspective.I think extending the middle might hurt it a bit, I like the tight feeling, but I do agree that an extension in length may benefit it.

Lo_Mein said:

Thanks, man. I like the Idea of the elevators leading up to a room, or perhaps two different exits? maybe each could lead to a different map. Just spitballing.

The idea of two different exits sounds pretty alright actually, perhaps creating two separate paths to go down leading into one final stage? If you've ever played FTL, imagine the paths you could take in which sectors you'd go through. It'd be like that sort of thing.

Will edit this with a diagram to demonstrate what I mean.

EDIT: Said diagram

PseudoGold said:

The idea of two different exits sounds pretty alright actually, perhaps creating two separate paths to go down leading into one final stage? If you've ever played FTL, imagine the paths you could take in which sectors you'd go through. It'd be like that sort of thing.

Will edit this with a diagram to demonstrate what I mean.

EDIT: Said diagram
http://imgur.com/6DsJnY6

Two distinct paths leading to the same conclusion, eh? I like it. Perhaps the second elevator in Map01 goes down, leading to hell. And the first elevator goes upwards to more pristine bases with the surface of mars being included.

Lo_Mein said:

Two distinct paths leading to the same conclusion, eh? I like it. Perhaps the second elevator in Map01 goes down, leading to hell. And the first elevator goes upwards to more pristine bases with the surface of mars being included.

Should be simple enough with a bit of MAPINFO editing. The trouble is, then you have two paths that need to ahve similar levels of difficulty at each stage AND prepare you for the final boss (if there is one). This would be quite ambitious, but if you do one path completely the second should be relatively simple to follow up with.

PseudoGold said:

Should be simple enough with a bit of MAPINFO editing. The trouble is, then you have two paths that need to ahve similar levels of difficulty at each stage AND prepare you for the final boss (if there is one). This would be quite ambitious, but if you do one path completely the second should be relatively simple to follow up with.

Hm... Looks like it's tutorial time, I don't know much about MAPINFO stuff, so I'm going to have to do a bit self enlightenment.

PseudoGold said:

Should be simple enough with a bit of MAPINFO editing. The trouble is, then you have two paths that need to ahve similar levels of difficulty at each stage AND prepare you for the final boss (if there is one). This would be quite ambitious, but if you do one path completely the second should be relatively simple to follow up with.

Ok, so, after a bit of snooping around, I've found out how to change music, the sky, and the secret exit (Which is what I'm using in this case) I still have no idea how to end Map01, so for the moment the switches at the end lead to either map02, or map03, depending on the one the player uses.

I didn't play your wad but I wanted to comment on the two exit idea.

It is bad idea mainly for two reasons.

1. You are doing twice as much work.

2. People probably won't play your map more than once.
2.1 If people are aware of the branching paths that will make some players feel bad if they don't experience everything.

A better idea would be to make a map where the players needs to go from point A to B and then backtrack back to A. Then you either repopulate the route or have multiple routes.

Just replayed the map on Nightmare. Grew some real hair on my chest.

illuknisaa said:

I didn't play your wad but I wanted to comment on the two exit idea.

It is bad idea mainly for two reasons.

1. You are doing twice as much work.

2. People probably won't play your map more than once.
2.1 If people are aware of the branching paths that will make some players feel bad if they don't experience everything.

A better idea would be to make a map where the players needs to go from point A to B and then backtrack back to A. Then you either repopulate the route or have multiple routes.

Although I understand my map wont be played a ton, I really like the idea of branching paths, it's only two extra maps. (the beginning and the end, with six in between, 3 for each path) for me, Doom mapping is a passion type thing, so I'm not really looking to have a famous mapset, I just want something others and I may enjoy. Thanks for the concern, but the branching paths thing is just an idea I really want to try out. Specifically if both paths have different themes.

That's a awesome WAD!

I have to say though, I have a nice multipath diagram where you play all maps in the WAD and no worry. Each stage is a cluster. "Both stages" means the transition is valid for both clusters.

This map pattern could be repeated once for two clusters, or used once with double the maps.

It also only works with 2 pathes. :/


The diagram w/ legend in the bottom

Gustavo6046 said:

That's a awesome WAD!

I have to say though, I have a nice multipath diagram where you play all maps in the WAD and no worry. Each stage is a cluster. "Both stages" means the transition is valid for both clusters.

This map pattern could be repeated once for two clusters, or used once with double the maps.

It also only works with 2 pathes. :/

http://puu.sh/p17ea/62e3a80172.png
The diagram w/ legend in the bottom

That's a bit hard to follow man, but that's probably because I'm a moron. I think I'll make it the way I was planning, but if you had any problems with map 1, please tell me.

Hey! New update, grab the download above.

The new map is map03, which is accessible thru the right elevator on map01. It's unfinished, but I'm looking to make this map more influenced by feedback than the first one, in which I kind of fucked myself by making it very tightly wound with little room for improvement. I don't want to make the same mistake with this one. Get it while it's hot, screenshots are above!

I love this. Branching paths allow a players experience to be unique to their choices. The concept that not everyone will have the same experience is a concept that many of my favorite games own. (Mostly Deus Ex.) It inspires replaying the game- and as a game developer/map maker, you want your players to play your maps more than once. Then they can master your maps- and they'll notice how much work you put into them. Personally, replaying the same map in a linear order can get boring. Luckily Doom had secrets and other goodies that inspired exploration.

SuperSimsam said:

I love this. Branching paths allow a players experience to be unique to their choices. The concept that not everyone will have the same experience is a concept that many of my favorite games own. (Mostly Deus Ex.) It inspires replaying the game- and as a game developer/map maker, you want your players to play your maps more than once. Then they can master your maps- and they'll notice how much work you put into them. Personally, replaying the same map in a linear order can get boring. Luckily Doom had secrets and other goodies that inspired exploration.

Thanks! I'm not sure how in depth I can go with this concept with my current experience, right now only 2 paths are planned, one that goes to hell and another that leads to the surface of mars. Perhaps I could go further, but I'm not sure at the moment, what did you think of the maps themselves? Any tips, particularly on map03?

I'm a nooby mapper, so I can't give you extremely helpful advice, but I like the textures you have going. And, on MAP03, the way you introduce the hellish textures along with the tech-base ones work well. Make it a gradual decent into madness. The deeper you go into hell, the more corpses, fleshy constructs, and candles you'll encounter. Another thing I'd like to see is a indication of what exit leads to what type of area. If it was a more outdoors-man map, then have a window showing the sky near the exit. Or, if its delving into the bowels of hell, have flesh and skulls showing. It gives players a mental/moral choice instead of a random one. Having two identical elevators, the path that the players choose is random. But, if you show one deepens into hell, and another ascends to the surface, the player is faced with a moral choice. "Do I dive into hell to eliminate the threat, and risk facing great danger?... Or do I run like a coward, and escape this god-forsaken tech-base, and run to the surface, and retreat like a wuss on a space ship?" I feel like this would empress choice to a player.

I personally greatly enjoyed MAP01. It felt like an actual BASE, unlike many Doom maps, with Bathrooms, pubs and bars, and other relatable objects. MAP03 was had a nice theme- hell gradually taking over the tech base. Sadly, it is not finished, but I'd love to see the finished map, once it is completed.

SuperSimsam said:

I'm a nooby mapper, so I can't give you extremely helpful advice, but I like the textures you have going. And, on MAP03, the way you introduce the hellish textures along with the tech-base ones work well. Make it a gradual decent into madness. The deeper you go into hell, the more corpses, fleshy constructs, and candles you'll encounter. Another thing I'd like to see is a indication of what exit leads to what type of area. If it was a more outdoors-man map, then have a window showing the sky near the exit. Or, if its delving into the bowels of hell, have flesh and skulls showing. It gives players a mental/moral choice instead of a random one. Having two identical elevators, the path that the players choose is random. But, if you show one deepens into hell, and another ascends to the surface, the player is faced with a moral choice. "Do I dive into hell to eliminate the threat, and risk facing great danger?... Or do I run like a coward, and escape this god-forsaken tech-base, and run to the surface, and retreat like a wuss on a space ship?" I feel like this would empress choice to a player.

I personally greatly enjoyed MAP01. It felt like an actual BASE, unlike many Doom maps, with Bathrooms, pubs and bars, and other relatable objects. MAP03 was had a nice theme- hell gradually taking over the tech base. Sadly, it is not finished, but I'd love to see the finished map, once it is completed.

I'm thinking about ways to make that more obvious. Perhaps a skull shish kebob on the one that leads to hell? or I could go with the obvious and plaster an arrow pointing up and down in the elevators. There are a lot of variables, and I guess it depends on how subtle I want it to be. I understand that it needs to be a conscious choice. But I'm not exactly sure how to make it clear visually.

Basically, make the end of the first path end in the start of the other path after Stage 1, and both make transition to the final stage after Stage 2.

Solid Plissken said:

Just replayed the map on Nightmare. Grew some real hair on my chest.

Glad you like it enough to play it a second time. Currently, I'm making the second map "Haywire" (Name is subject to change) you can try what I have so far with the current DL link. I really want this map to be better than the first.

I just played the wad and it is cute. Lot of the time it felt like you had just clicked random article on zdoom wiki and thought to yourself "that looks cool, I gotta put that shit to my map". waggling floors, polyobject doors, slopes, 3d floor, etc. are only used once and serve no real gameplay purpose.

Gameplay wise the map is fairly predictable. There is a monster ambush after every major event (like picking up a key or opening a door, pressing a button) and lot of times I could safely just retreat to a safe location and bottleneck enemies. I think only once enemies shot from more than one direction. Enemy variety mainly consists of just shotgunners and imps which could be better.

Map also has weird flow regarding redkey. Spoilers regarding this:

Visually map has lots of neat detail without going too overboard with noise. The lighting could have more contrast. Map really doesn't have any dark shadows or bright lights.

I also noticed that you are using hexen format. In udmf you could more easily create natural rock formations using vertex sloping.

Played the first map:

The lift at the start near the blocked-off hallway was a clever use of 3D space. However, it could have been signposted better- I was stuck here for a while before I figured out what to do. Maybe change the elevator's floor texture to STEP2.

I liked most of the detailing- broken windows and vents, exploding toilets etc.

I liked the fight at the end with the Hell Knights. Not spectacular but solid and functional.

Bar area feels rushed and sloppy. Some door tracks weren't unpegged.

Map was a bit short.

The 'thin switches' are easy to miss and don't look great either.

Like the others said, it feels more like an experimental grab-bag of GZdoom features first and a Doom level second. Work on your map layouts and flow. Start with a good level and add detail to it, don't start with detail and add a level around it.
A good exercise might be to create some sparsely detailed vanilla-style maps to round out your skill-set.

illuknisaa said:

I just played the wad and it is cute. Lot of the time it felt like you had just clicked random article on zdoom wiki and thought to yourself "that looks cool, I gotta put that shit to my map". waggling floors, polyobject doors, slopes, 3d floor, etc. are only used once and serve no real gameplay purpose.

Gameplay wise the map is fairly predictable. There is monster after every major event (like picking up a key or opening a door, pressing a button) and lot of times I could safely just retreat to a safe location and bottleneck enemies. I think only once enemies shot from more than one direction. Enemy variety mainly consists of just shotgunners and imps which could be better.

Map also has weird flow regarding redkey. Spoilers regarding this:

Spoiler

After you pick up the redkey, locker ambush triggers and after you have stopped killing one of the monster closets has a button which opens up an alternate route to the bar. Reason why this felt really weird is because to me it was more natural just to continue along this new route rather than backtrack back to red door. This also leads me finding the blue key before the blue door and making red key completely pointless objective.

Visually map has lots of neat detail without going too overboard with noise. The lighting could have more contrast. Map really doesn't have any dark shadows or bright lights.

I also noticed that you are using hexen format. In udmf you could more easily create natural rock formations using vertex sloping.

Haha. It wasn't exactly like that. I knew of the features in gzdoom and was really interested in experimenting with them. I do use slopes multiple times (they are extremely useful.) The waggling floors was something I thought would look cool, the pipes pumping up and down giving that area a sort of generator feel. I know what you mean when you say it's "Cute." I'm certainly no master of design or visuals or anything. I had originally planned on adding a red door in the room with the vent that leads to the blue door, but it felt even more awkward and oddly placed. I wanted the option to backtrack to be there, but the option to explore new territory to also exist. You probably know far more about this stuff than me, but I think I have too much sympathy for the player, I didn't want anyone to get overwhelmed, random difficulty has always been pet-peeve of mine, but I suppose this is the exact opposite which is not too great either. Anyway, it was Map01, so I didn't want it to be too hard. Thank you for the constructive criticism, this is actually pretty helpful.

mafyoos said:

Played the first map:

The lift at the start near the blocked-off hallway was a clever use of 3D space. However, it could have been signposted better- I was stuck here for a while before I figured out what to do. Maybe change the elevator's floor texture to STEP2.

I liked most of the detailing- broken windows and vents, exploding toilets etc.

I liked the fight at the end with the Hell Knights. Not spectacular but solid and functional.

Bar area feels rushed and sloppy. Some door tracks weren't unpegged.

Map was a bit short.

The 'thin switches' are easy to miss and don't look great either.

Like the others said, it feels more like an experimental grab-bag of GZdoom features first and a Doom level second. Work on your map layouts and flow. Start with a good level and add detail to it, don't start with detail and add a level around it.
A good exercise might be to create some sparsely detailed vanilla-style maps to round out your skill-set.

I actually thought the bar fight was kind of cool, but I guess that shows how little I know. I think the vanilla idea is a good one. Though I don't know if I want to give up slopes. I'll feel like shit if I drop this wad, though, I always seem to start shit thinking maybe I can do a thing, when really I can't. Mind you it's been a month or two since my last project but I thought I could handle an 8 map wad at this point.