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yakfak

spidersilk - one adventure map

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hiya!

this project is just a way of pairing together two strange levels which both have substantial secret areas. I'd like help from doomwerld to get the traditional Ultra Violence skill setting to be fun and challenging.

This is MAP 01, "Spidersilk":





check it out in whatever's your port of choice. Then lemme know what you'd do to the gameplay.

Basic ideas so far: lots of shotgun guy and arachnotron; super shotgun & plasma as main weapon; linear in the traditional difficulties (Skill 2 is reserved for my own inane gameplay ideas) with large-ish atmospheric secret areas. the hand drawn props are meant to be goofy >:)

The cacodemon is altered to fire twice as quickly but have much less health. there's also a dumbass version of the arch-vile which does not attack and has miniscule HP, but is pseudo-invisible. they wander around being spooky and resurrecting stuff as normal.

this is a limit removing map tested in pr-boom, not intended for zDoom features - obstacles shouldn't block projectiles.

previous versions: 1
current version

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Your images don't seem to be showing in the post or on the Photobucket pages D:

But this sounds mighty interesting, heh.

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Just gave the map a spin on UV, picked Risen3D for something a bit different.

It's certainly an interesting design, didn't feel linear at all. I did get lost a few times and basically found myself wandering about until I found somewhere I didn't recognize or had enemies. If you showed me a map of the level I couldn't tell you where I had or hadn't visited - whether that's a good thing or not I'm not sure! Perhaps some more light variations (everything seemed either dingy or dark) might make it easier to navigate.

Balancing wise, a few thoughts:

Ammo is crazy tight, especially early on. I regularly ran out of ammo and spent a few minutes plugging away with the pistol, which isn't much fun I'm afraid. You definitely need to be more generous with the ammo!

I'm not sure what to make of the pen of specter-archviles behind you at the beginning. I just spent a few minutes killing them all. Was I meant to be able to do that? The new cacos are a fun change.

Overall I think it's nearly there - the number of enemies seems ok - but just give the player enough ammo to kill them all. The pistol is a super boring weapon to use! The general design of the level is something of an acquired taste - at no point did I really understand the level's overall design, where I was going or where I'd been - but if that was the intention than bravo!

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Bauul said:

Balancing wise, a few thoughts:

Ammo is crazy tight, especially early on. I regularly ran out of ammo and spent a few minutes plugging away with the pistol, which isn't much fun I'm afraid. You definitely need to be more generous with the ammo!

I'm not sure what to make of the pen of specter-archviles behind you at the beginning. I just spent a few minutes killing them all. Was I meant to be able to do that?


I think these points might be related o:) I don't intend the player to have to select the pistol on this map and there's lots of added ammo around corners and in simple to find secrets, plus several boxes of shells on the main path to the finish. which are the parts where you ran out, out of interest?

thanks for playing it through anyway

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Ah I like the fact that you added a new difficult level for masochist players only I guess ;D
I played a bit map 01 on UV (not finished) so this is a 'partial thought': layout is good the visuals also. About gameplay I found that the enemies are a bit scattered: in a large map like that I'd prefer more enemies, more available ammo and more action (this is a personal preference tho). The invisible arch-viles can be killedd at the start you should fix this I guess.
Reagards

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thanks for checking it out

I dunno, I might be stubborn here but I think that if you notice you're shooting at something defenseless or which you can safely run past that should be enough of a message to move on, 'cos you're wasting ammo.

how do you mean more action? I thought the level was fairly stocked with enemies, at least initially - would you want the level to fill back up at certain points?

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yakfak said:

I think these points might be related o:) I don't intend the player to have to select the pistol on this map and there's lots of added ammo around corners and in simple to find secrets, plus several boxes of shells on the main path to the finish. which are the parts where you ran out, out of interest?

thanks for playing it through anyway


First time I played it I spent a while killing all the invisible AVs. Then I guessed you might not have meant me to do that, so restarted and ignored them. But to be honest if you're not meant to be able to kill them, just put a solid wall up there that lowers when you want it to. No player ever wants to wonder "am I meant to be doing this?" when they play a map.

As for the ammo: for example the first room to the right with the mancubus, shotgunners, arachnotrons, and imps and cacos up at the side. There doesn't seem to be enough shells to kill everything. Elsewhere in the map I think I ran out down to the pistol maybe half a dozen times.

I appreciate there may be enough ammo if you hunt down secrets, but I guess I've always been of the opinion secrets should contain bonuses, not anything you actually need for the completion of the map. But I understand that's not to everyone's tastes.

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Will you allow your custom resources to be used in future projects? I really liked those custom sprites you made and I can think of a cool theme I've seen around here that could really benefit from them.

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they're all yours :D a real pixel artist could probably touch them up to be more realistic, these are admittedly rough

edit: incidentally the MID music is also free-to-use, just credit Zan-zan-zawa-veia in the text file

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yakfak said:

they're all yours :D a real pixel artist could probably touch them up to be more realistic, these are admittedly rough

edit: incidentally the MID music is also free-to-use, just credit Zan-zan-zawa-veia in the text file


Thank you. I thought they looked great, they added an artistic touch to the map and you used them in a very creative and sometimes funny way. I also really liked the MIDI track that you used, fits the map like a glove.

I really like the way you do your architecture. While playing, sometimes I was too busy looking around the map, admiring the shapes and areas thus getting myself killed. Plus those little new decorates and the MIDI track really got me into the right mood for the map. I played the "Painful and Stupid" difficulty level because you made a custom font for it so it drew my attention and I wanted to see how it will affect gameplay. It took me quite a few tries but in the end I managed to clear some areas on the map and make them sterile although sometimes a lone Lost Soul would try to catch me off-guard. I overall liked it. At first I thought it was a little too tight but then I started getting the hang of it, memorizing areas for ammo and enemy types and finding some useful ammo/health stashes.

Overall I finished the map with 90% kills and 1/3 secrets. I couldn't figure out how to get the blue key nor the remaining enemies and areas but it's good to leave something to go back to when I'll revisit it later on.

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Here, have a quite long fda (made on PRBoom+ cl 2). Yesterday I accidentaly made one try with the insane difficulty setting and I already saw the first areas when I recorded that. It looks really cool, the rough look of the new textures makes them to feel more warm and reminds me of the custom stuff from the 90's.
At first I killed the invisible arch-viles but I learned that it's better to save the ammo. The new cacodemon was an interesting change, and it's always cool to see the mastermind(s) used well. I didn't find a single secret :(

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thanks for playing, Uni. impressed you got to grips with the Painful and Stupid setting; I based it around a rather specific route around the level!

gaspe: this demo is very helpful! found it particularly interesting that you jumped into the pond with the spiderdemon to face it with limited weaponry, I had again assumed people would proceed past it to grab supplies

working on an update for this map where the red viny room is a little better decorated, plus a little more ammo and some room-refilling traps to look forward to...

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newer version:

-more monstars mostly in the form of map-refilling traps
-more ammo (sometimes in the form of more shotgunners, narf)
-red vine chamber made slightly more pleasing to the eye since so much of the combat happens in or around that room on skill 3&4
-progression past the red vine room now requires either a switch press or a mad dive into the pond with the spider mastermind, your choice
-hidden chamber behind a particular mancubus redesigned and made into an official secret

thinking it has a sort of PL2 feel to it now
but don't take my word for it

you can still kill the spectres through the pillars because it's early enough in the map that you can correct the mistake by restarting

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yakfak said:

found it particularly interesting that you jumped into the pond with the spiderdemon to face it with limited weaponry, I had again assumed people would proceed past it to grab supplies


It's a doable fight in certain situations, though the first time I realized too late that I didn't have enough ammo to kill it :P

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bumpasaurus

The other map I wanted to release is completely unsalvageable, way too zzzv for the general public. I've put Spidersilk onto idgames here, so enjoy, criticize, do max demos, don't max demos, etc :D

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I was super stoked to see this put up on /idgames last week. I had a ton of fun playing it; though admittedly I only played it on "painful and stupid," heh, because how could I resist?

Still, I had a fun time with the level! Always enjoy zan-zan maps :)

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