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Jesric1029

Janitor vs. Zombies (Highly detailed horror map w/ classic Zombie gameplay)

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MAP CODE: KJSPNDRB


Part 2 of this map: https://www.doomworld.com/vb/snapmap/88725-janitor-vs-zombies-2-nirvana-50-hours-work/

Hello everyone! I am proud to present "Janitor Vs Zombies" to you all. This is my 3rd map but the first that I am really proud of.

I wanted to design a map with a more horror themed gameplay. I have always loved CoD zombies so I decided to go in that approach for this map.


Backstory: You are a lowly janitor working in a UAC lab. Your life seems mundane and boring until one day, a day like most others, disaster strikes. Now, with no other survivors to help you must unlock the secret to escaping from the lab. Explore a complex filled with dark hallways and raging fires in an attempt to get the power online so you can escape.

Features:

-Real Zombie Gameplay - Only two types of demons are used in this map. All zombies have much higher health and require around 4 shotgun blasts to get them in glory kill range. Always use glory kills (except on exploding zombies) because bullets, health and armor are precious in this map. In addition, most zombies kill in only two hits. (Assuming you have 100 health).

-Highly Detailed - I put a lot of work into making the map look unique. Most areas have some general "theme" to them that makes you feel as though you are really exploring a vast lab.

-Story Driven - There is a backstory to this map. Though the course of your adventures your questions will be answered: What is the Nirvana project? What happened that caused the disaster? How will you escape the lab? Will you bring the disease with you to the surface?


I should note now that this map due to the large amount of detail, logic and FX uses a LOT of resources. The first room alone used 10%. The map is not near as large as I needed it to be therefore I am going to be forced to break it up into two or even three parts. This is part one. Once I get feedback on whether people enjoy it and care to play part 2 I will add it.

PLEASE give me feedback - Here are screenshots!

Map Code is: KJSPNDRB
Name: Janitor Vs Zombies

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Allright not to leave you hanging.

First of, this is not a style of play I enjoy. With that out of the way here are my thoughts.

The good:
It looked very polished. All the story elements worked well, the missions and POI's worked well and it was clear you spend a lot of time on each room with lights and props. The zombies actually were kind of scary too and there was enough ammo scarcity to make looking for ammo packs a necessity.

The not so good:
I know its a given with maps like this but I did not like looking into pitch black in Doom3, I still do not like it in Doom4. May be a curse of this kind of maps.

Searching the crate and finding a chaingun was great except for the fact that the crate was invisible. I think you moved the crate but did not move the trigger along with it.

The, ooh scary lets be careful, gameplay is not for me. (personal preference but hey)

I did not find the ending satisfying obviously.
1: it did not seem like you maxed out this map requiring a break this sudden.
2: the payoff just is not there. If you want to end with a cliffhanger make it happen on an exciting moment. After just escaping some zombies and safely locking the door behind me or something like that. That would feel like an achievement. Now you end the level on a lull, in a safe area, after having read a log and having picked up a keycard without a zombie in sight for the last few minutes.
3: why mention the limits of snapmap in-game. We all know that. The people playing your map do not need to be reminded they are playing something user created in a so-so editor. It is in no way valuable to the experience of the player to pull them out of an experience they may have actually been enjoying.

With all that said I think its a cool map that you obviously spend a lot of time and effort on and it shows. Not for everybody but if this is your kick (oooh scary zombies) its pretty awesome. :)

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Thanks for the feedback! I'd like to ask a couple questions. First off I feared that some will not like the extreme darkness. I don't know if you noticed but the first half of the map wasn't quite as dark. I did this because the darkness seems to make it harder. Do you think I should change the darkness of the other half of the map (besides the supply tunnel) to be a bit less dark?

Second question regarding the crate missing. The crate was actually supposed to be that very large shipping container. Do you think I need to change the name to something else or should I use something instead of that shipping container?

Third regarding the ending. Originally I wanted to do everything in one map. Past experience has shown me that when you get over 70% networking you start to have problems such as zombies missing and what not. I decided that rather than shorten the map I would create a part two.

Part two will leave off in the exact same place part 1 ended. The player will be given the ability to pick up the weapons they had at the end of part 1 (of course they can cheat but this is on them) this way they can just load part 2 and continue the story. What do you think about this?

On a side note I would like to edit the map maybe just 1 room longer to end with a bit more action. Can I do that and keep the same publish ID?

Lastly, did you find the secret in the meeting room?

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Jesric1029 said:

Thanks for the feedback! I'd like to ask a couple questions. First off I feared that some will not like the extreme darkness. I don't know if you noticed but the first half of the map wasn't quite as dark. I did this because the darkness seems to make it harder. Do you think I should change the darkness of the other half of the map (besides the supply tunnel) to be a bit less dark?


Up to you really. What you have works for atmosphere, just not something I enjoy. The zombies have some self illuminating aspects to the remnants of their suits so you can see them shuffle towards you. Its just not for me. If you really wanna think about it look up stuff like rim lights or backlighting; essentially showing viewers whats happening by having the subject (dark) contrast with the background (which should be lit). Case in point you had a place just after I opened the secret crate where you had some engineers lined up to the right side of a hall. Everything was dark, hugely unsatisfying. All you had to do there was to give some light to the back wall so their profiles would have sticked out. It would have gone from "this is annoying I cant see shit" to "this is pretty spooky, also die!".

For more inspiration you can also look up some techniques used in film for night scenes. You want to show your audience whats happening but you can't turn night into day. So there are interesting solutions to that.

Jesric1029 said:

Second question regarding the crate missing. The crate was actually supposed to be that very large shipping container. Do you think I need to change the name to something else or should I use something instead of that shipping container?


I think what you call a shipping container I would call a barrier? :) I.e. something that does not hold stuff in my expectations and is certainly not equal to a crate.

Jesric1029 said:

Third regarding the ending. Originally I wanted to do everything in one map. Past experience has shown me that when you get over 70% networking you start to have problems such as zombies missing and what not. I decided that rather than shorten the map I would create a part two.


Are you certain this is because of networking? The number one reason of mobs not showing up/dissapearing is if you do not manage the upper limit of having 12 active AI at one time. When I played your map I was kinda surprised it did work because it all seemed very loose in regards to monster placement. Now that could mean that you are a)really good at it b)dont really know what things you have to pay attention to and you just lucked out so far. If its the latter the chance of things bugging out does become bigger as you map grows and more content gets added. With that said I could be wrong of course.

Jesric1029 said:

Part two will leave off in the exact same place part 1 ended. The player will be given the ability to pick up the weapons they had at the end of part 1 (of course they can cheat but this is on them) this way they can just load part 2 and continue the story. What do you think about this?


My feeling is that if you work with multiple parts you have to make each part cool. Part 1 has to be satisfying from start to end and Part 2 has to be fun without the player having played Part 1. Thats just my opinion however. Personally I feel the series stuff is kinda.. meh. If we had actual campaigns or proper playlists that stuff would be cool. Now its just annoying. Especially if Part 2 is not even out yet.

Jesric1029 said:

On a side note I would like to edit the map maybe just 1 room longer to end with a bit more action. Can I do that and keep the same publish ID?

Lastly, did you find the secret in the meeting room?


As far as I know you can just republish as long as you did not save the map under a new name on your system and it will keep the snapmap ID.

No I don't think I found the secret in the meeting room. :)

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I'm pretty sure that the problems are when the networking goes
over 75% because I did some research and that seems to be the consensus. I've also had another map where my big boss wouldn't spawn and I deleted a bunch of pick-ups off the map and then he would spawn again.

I'm glad that you were surprised by the way I had a lot of zombies because that's exactly what I was hoping, people would feel like there were a lot of zombies. The way I did it is by deleting all the past zombies once you reach a certain point (where you would have outran them or killed them anyway). At one point there are exactly 12 on the map but no more than that.

I did try to hide the exploding zombies because I didn't want the player to realize they were the boom ones. The whole concept of the map is death by surprise less than death in combat. For example on my play through the only time I died I actually ran back to grab ammo. I was headed back to where I thought the zombies were but they had moved closer in a dark spot and he hit me as I ran by.

I also agree what you mean about a lot of times multiple parts being bad but in this case they will be significantly different styles. The next chapter is going to take place inside of the lab area which I'm sure you gathered is where the explosion went off. The player will have to do a lot of navigating through fire which means tricky porquor(sp?) puzzles to get through the fire and rubble and make it to the lab. That portion of the map will have a lot zombies on fire and I think a lot more closed spaces.

I also know I want the game to end finally with giving the player a choice between blowing up the entire facility or escaping to the surface. Depending on the choice the player will learn of the reprucussions of their actions.

Regardless you have given me a lot to think about. I may add some more lighting that doesn't give away the zombie locations and perhaps try adding just a little more to make the end more fufilling.

Oh, the back wall of the conference room actually was a secret door with lots of armor and another weapon. I like to hide my secrets well lol.

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A question that is a little unrelated; do you actually have a good idea what the network resource entails? I am currently at 90% network resources with my map and a lot of area's still need quite a bit of work. It seems nodes have no effect on it. However I can't imagine its just props and FX? Im curious to hear your opinion on it since it seems you went for a specific % with this resource.

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Hello.

So I went ahead and took some of your advice. I decided to take your word for it and try extending my map past 75% so the ending could be a bit better. Basically I added a section where you have 3-way split. One door leads to biological, one to genetics and the final door leads to security station B.

The two labs are locked with keycards. Once the player arrives at security station B they will find another path leading to the lobby (where you start the match) totally engulfed in flames. The whole area is covered in smoke. Seeing the lobby will remind the player that is where they started the game and they literally did so much just to get around the fire.

Anyway in the middle of the room is the security "booth" looking thing. There is a laser type of barrier preventing the player from entering. Inside you can see both keycards, armor, health and a sniper rifle.

Outside the booth is a terminal. Activating this terminal will inform the player that there is a lockdown currently in effect. This will also spawn 8 zombies just inside the flames of the lobby with "hunt" mode (all other zombies on map are ambush).

As you can see from the new screenshot I added it's quite a sight to see and they are pretty tough.

Once the player kills all 8 the facility voice will inform them the lockdown is lifted. Once they go inside the booth and pick up either keycard one message will tell them congratulations and they should continue with part 2.

I now used 97% resources. You were right, I must have made a mistake before in my older maps becaus I had no problem with monsters spawning. (Though I have not fully tested so we will see).


As for your question, I have no idea exactly what resources are. I do know that special effects and props use a ton of them. All the fire on my map mainly is the culprit as well as the props.

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Very nice. I personally really like how you extended the map. It feels much more like an ending now. I love how much attention you put into the final barrier, teasing the player with goodies inside, having the forcefield shown as permanent with the red X on the monitor above and then spawning the zombies. I feel it makes your map much better. You just got my upvote.

If there is anything I could be nitpicky about its the smoke leading up to and in the final section. It looks a little regular right now. Perhaps use some different sizes (small, medium and large) and have the occasional opening. Other then that I think its a lovely map with a unique style and story. :)

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Great, maybe I'll look at trying different sizes then. I was really just trying to show the same player that they are getting close to the area of the map where the fire is really raging.

Hopefully you will like part 2 when its done cause it will be even better.


On a side note do you have any idea how to remove the visual damage from when the zombies take fire damage? The red numbers are really annoying to me and take away from the style.

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Jesric1029 said:

On a side note do you have any idea how to remove the visual damage from when the zombies take fire damage? The red numbers are really annoying to me and take away from the style.


Its just a bug that does not respect the setting for not showing damage numbers. Best you can do is file a bugreport for it I think.

For liking part 2; you do know this will never be my favorite play style right? :) Good to hear your making more though. To be honest I am kinda getting burned out on my first. Maybe I should just drop it and create a new one from scratch with the things I've learned since.

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Honestly you may like my 2nd more. The power is on now so the dark spaces aren't going to be as prominent. This next is going to be forced more on combat against larger amounts of zombies in smaller spaces (with bigger guns of course).

For example the player having to jump across multiple crates to make it over a huge fire. They see a gap in the fire and jump into it only to find 3 zombies waiting. That's sort of the style of part 2. I don't really enjoy making the same style for too long but I have some really big ideas with this story that go along with the Disodium and Toxic Slime set pieces that will explain the Nirvana project and at some point make the player become subject to the experiment.

So I want to continue the same story but have different styles so myself and the player doesn't get bored. Think of each part like a new element of play.

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I played this yesterday. I was enjoying it, but I got stuck at the part after the blue door with all the flames. It seemed like the only place to go was through the fire and the flames, but I died and gave up. :(

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That is the final area, you were supposed to turn on the terminal in the corner that had the X on the monitor above it.

Maybe I should add a POI? Needless to say you pretty much made it to the end so when I make part 2 soon give it a try!

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Interesting level. Really annoying how it kicks you out to the menu when you die though as snap maps take a bit to load.

I like the direction your going with here. Would've made the zombies a bit easier to kill in general or even mixed it up with some that take more damage than others.

It's also really dark, which makes it nearly impossible to play while in a room with a window, during the daytime.

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anomalousauthor said:

Interesting level. Really annoying how it kicks you out to the menu when you die though as snap maps take a bit to load.

I like the direction your going with here. Would've have made the zombies a bit easier to kill in general or even mixed it up with some that take more damage than others.

It's also really dark, which makes it nearly impossible to play while in a room with a window during the daytime.


Sorry about it kicking you to the menu. Unfortunaty with scripting of that complexity unless I made a lot of spawn points it would be impossible to have more than one life. I could perhaps try to fix this in the next part to some extent.

As far as the next map goes I promise it will be easier to kill the zombies (though there will be more). Only having access to the weaker weapons in part one means that you really do have to do a lot of glory kills. The next map you will start with the vortex rifle (if you finished part 1 you will see why) so it's possible to kill the zombies in a couple hits without glory kill.


As far as the darkness, your right. A few days after making the map my window was open and I could not see anything on the screen. Rest assured that once the power comes on it stays on. Part 2 is going to feature the same zombie combat but be more focused on larger numbers of zombies and stronger weapons, but in daylight :)

I appreciate your feedback though and I'm using it to make the next part better.

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Jesric1029 said:

Sorry about it kicking you to the menu. Unfortunaty with scripting of that complexity unless I made a lot of spawn points it would be impossible to have more than one life. I could perhaps try to fix this in the next part to some extent.

As far as the next map goes I promise it will be easier to kill the zombies (though there will be more). Only having access to the weaker weapons in part one means that you really do have to do a lot of glory kills. The next map you will start with the vortex rifle (if you finished part 1 you will see why) so it's possible to kill the zombies in a couple hits without glory kill.


As far as the darkness, your right. A few days after making the map my window was open and I could not see anything on the screen. Rest assured that once the power comes on it stays on. Part 2 is going to feature the same zombie combat but be more focused on larger numbers of zombies and stronger weapons, but in daylight :)

I appreciate your feedback though and I'm using it to make the next part better.


You're welcome. Glad I could be of some service. I'm interested to see what you come up with.

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Brad,

Thanks a lot for your feedback and playing my map.

I would like to address some of your critique if that's okay. First off I totally agree about the fact that the Janitor has a shotgun and survival instinct. I really struggled with that because unfortunately you can't start a character without a gun. As the game got going and I realized the player would have to do things like interact with power terminals I realized at times it wouldn't make sense. With that said its still just a game so I hope most players would overlook that one silly fact l.

Second I would say your right about the zombies health. Certainly that was on complaint I got. In the sequel the zombies all have different health, so sometimes it will take 1 shot sometimes more. I also got feedback that many players just ran past the zombies. I attempted to remedy this by adding some scripting that puts other unique circumstances behind the encounters. Finally, the next map has more zombies so it should feel more alive.

On to the empty rooms, I'll agree this was not the best thing. Sadly Snap-Map is extremely limited in what it can handle, that map was like 99% of resources used and the sequel is 97%. For me to use the larger rooms and totally fill them really takes away from the total size the map can be. With that said I've tried to fill the rooms a little more in the sequel and make them seem more alive.

The music issue has also been mentioned. I did not include music because I wanted it to be scary and so the player could hear the sounds of the zombies around them.

I appreciate your very honest feedback though. You are right and I think my map making ability is much better in the sequel l. I used a lot more scripting and coincidentally I did use less of the "holding the players hand".

I don't know if you will have a chance but if you could play the 2nd at any point and give me the same type of feedback I would really appreciate it. I've worked hard to take the feedback from part 1 and apply it to part 2. I think it's a lot more engaging and less "boring". I could try out on of your maps in return if you would like. Honest feedback is hard to come by. Basically i would like to know if it's an improvement, worse or just about the same. If the feedback isn't good for part 2 I may not waste time with a 3rd and final part.

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Jesric1029 said:

Brad,

Thanks a lot for your feedback and playing my map.

I would like to address some of your critique if that's okay. First off I totally agree about the fact that the Janitor has a shotgun and survival instinct. I really struggled with that because unfortunately you can't start a character without a gun. As the game got going and I realized the player would have to do things like interact with power terminals I realized at times it wouldn't make sense. With that said its still just a game so I hope most players would overlook that one silly fact l.

Second I would say your right about the zombies health. Certainly that was on complaint I got. In the sequel the zombies all have different health, so sometimes it will take 1 shot sometimes more. I also got feedback that many players just ran past the zombies. I attempted to remedy this by adding some scripting that puts other unique circumstances behind the encounters. Finally, the next map has more zombies so it should feel more alive.

On to the empty rooms, I'll agree this was not the best thing. Sadly Snap-Map is extremely limited in what it can handle, that map was like 99% of resources used and the sequel is 97%. For me to use the larger rooms and totally fill them really takes away from the total size the map can be. With that said I've tried to fill the rooms a little more in the sequel and make them seem more alive.

The music issue has also been mentioned. I did not include music because I wanted it to be scary and so the player could hear the sounds of the zombies around them.

I appreciate your very honest feedback though. You are right and I think my map making ability is much better in the sequel l. I used a lot more scripting and coincidentally I did use less of the "holding the players hand".

I don't know if you will have a chance but if you could play the 2nd at any point and give me the same type of feedback I would really appreciate it. I've worked hard to take the feedback from part 1 and apply it to part 2. I think it's a lot more engaging and less "boring". I could try out on of your maps in return if you would like. Honest feedback is hard to come by. Basically i would like to know if it's an improvement, worse or just about the same. If the feedback isn't good for part 2 I may not waste time with a 3rd and final part.


I haven't started mapping for Doom 4 yet. I'm still playing the game and I don't feel like I should start mapping till I've completely played the game out. And yes, I would love to play the 2nd one. And I will. I'll make it my next one but FIRST I have to figure out why my screenshot function isn't working. It did when I first installed - now - nothing. But yes, I'll play it. :-)

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Jesric1029 said:

Awesome thanks a lot. I hope your website takes off!



Obviously, you didn't look around much. lol
It's been around for almost 18 years and seems to do ok. :-)

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I played both of them and i like it. But like everyone else told you, remove the darkness or put more lights.
In Doom 3, Darkness did work because you had a Flashlight, in the original edition, you had to make your choice. Use the Flashlight and see the monsters or use the gun and hope for the best.
Here is only use the gun and hope for the best.

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Regarding darkness, I use dark rooms quite often in my maps as well. But I made sure I used demons that fired visible projectiles, such as imps, cacodemons, hell razors, etc. If your map uses only zombies that don't fire anything, I can see it could be a problem.

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Well the idea was to make it creepy. I will say that in most areas there is just enough light to navigate and see the zombies, plus they kind of glow. With that said the "darkness" gimmick was only used in part 1. I felt it was an interesting concept to have the player be forced to creep around in the darkness with the zombies lurking with the goal of getting the power system rebooted.. Overall I think the general consensus among the Doom crowd is that they do not like this style of play, so I won't be doing it again.

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Your right that's why I got rid of the darkness in Part 2 because the community feedback was that the darkness wasn't cool. Are you saying I should go back and change the atmosphere in the really dark areas maybe from night to dark? (The dark atmosphere is like the first area, the night is the long tunnel area much darker).

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Okay according to the feedback I have made two small changes. First of all I changed the remaining rooms with "Night" atmosphere to "Dark". I agree this is a huge improvement and the spotlight effects are much more pronounced.

Also, I added music to the map as suggested by several.

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