Impending Doom (beta, Boom compatible) - Feedback appreciated

Impending Doom is my upcoming six map Boom compatible WAD. It uses textures taken from Community Chest 4.

I started working on this whenever I ran out of inspiration for my other projects, or when I simply wanted to put my mind off of things. I hope to make this into an entertaining set of maps that (hopefully) play similar to the first Doom's episodes in terms of scope and gameplay.

The first map is completed and tested by myself and a friend, and is available for feedback and further testing.
Download it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bsmy4txbwyva7wo/impending.wad?dl=0

Please excuse the rather hefty size of the WAD. When I have all six maps completed, I intend to take out all the textures that are left unused.

The other maps are at around 20 to 50% completed. I tested it with PRBoom-Plus and ZDoom.

I'll be honest: I'm not the best at item placement, though I managed to play through the first map fairly easily. Difficulties are not implemented yet, so bear that in mind. I also intend to use custom MIDIs in the final product.

I would love to get some honest feedback from you guys!

Screenshots:

Did anyone give it a shot already?

played though and found it easy for me. It looked good and finding the secrets was challenging.

First playthrough was a max in ~11:30 or so. I skipped HKs and stuff until I found the SSG but spent a few minutes collectively looking for secrets and backtracking. There is a lot of silent backtracking, and the map might be better served by introducing some new monsters whenever the player has to cross the length of the map after hitting a switch, for example with the exit bridge. It would have been cool if it were possible to jump out of the window with the soulsphere secret. The stairs lead you right to it. Seemed somewhat odd that it was impassable.

Ed_Deth said:

played though and found it easy for me. It looked good and finding the secrets was challenging.

You found all secrets? :D Good to know the secrets aren't impossible to find or anything.

First playthrough was a max in ~11:30 or so. I skipped HKs and stuff until I found the SSG but spent a few minutes collectively looking for secrets and backtracking. There is a lot of silent backtracking, and the map might be better served by introducing some new monsters whenever the player has to cross the length of the map after hitting a switch, for example with the exit bridge. It would have been cool if it were possible to jump out of the window with the soulsphere secret. The stairs lead you right to it. Seemed somewhat odd that it was impassable.

Hmm that's not a bad idea. I could try moving the stairs and platform leading up to the soulsphere so you could exit through the window.

I tried to introduce a few monster-closets after the player has to backtrack, but the line would unfortunately trigger from both sides. I tried multiple line-actions and at this point I'm not sure if it's a Boom limitation of some sort.

I could of course put a sector tag to the green switch, so that it activates a monster closet somewhere along the length of the map. Just thought of this... Derp.

Some initial observations:

• Linedefs 73 and 77: are these intended to be textured with STONE6? They're in the middle of sections of wall textured with STARDRK2; if it's an intentional texture choice, it's visually a bit odd and seems inconsistent with the way you've textured and detailed the rest of the map.
  
• Linedefs 2510 and 2516: again, the texture you've used here, STEP4VK1, is this intentional? It's the only place in the level you've used this as an upper texture for a computer panel insert detail and it looks inconsistent; until I popped it open in an editor I didn't realise it was a different texture rather than just the surrounding STN_GY14 that hadn't been upper unpegged.
  
• Linedef 2472: this is a matter of personal taste but I feel this could use a more obvious 'tell' as to its secret status.
  
• Linedef 4267: again, I don't think the 'tell' here is sufficiently obvious as you've used a small number of dead marines elsewhere in the map as inconsequential decorations. I'd also suggest not upper unpegging this line (it looks a little odd) and putting a proper door texture on the back/inside of this secret door (linedef 4265) since there's no reason the "way out" should be as obfuscated as the front.
  
• Linedefs 4236 through 4239: these are action type 103 (Switch once, Door Open Stay) when it looks like the intended behaviour is action type 2 (Walk once, Door Open Stay) since they form a line that bisects the room and has nothing to indicate that the player ought to be pressing the empty air. Also, the closet that's revealed when these lines are activated has nothing inside it, has odd ceiling and floor textures, and lacks a door texture on the inside face of the secret door; in general it looks unfinished.
  
• Linedef 4060: this uses TEKGRE15 as its upper texture when the surrounding walls are BRICKZD6. Elsewhere in this room you've used a trim texture to mark the transition from one material to another, so I feel like either this upper texture should also be BRICKZD6, or there should be a trim texture to the sides of it.

Overall I feel like the clean techbase atmosphere and style is at odds with the backtracking-heavy gameplay; I kept expecting more to happen after I was asked to trek back to an area I'd previously cleared to check on a door I'd previously been unable to open. The bright, almost sterile environment undercuts the general air of menace and I quickly developed a feeling that nothing was going to happen and I was quite safe, which made the backtracking less of an exercise in cautious, eager anticipation, and more of a chore.

TheOrganGrinder said:

Some initial observations:

Linedefs 73 and 77: are these intended to be textured with STONE6? They're in the middle of sections of wall textured with STARDRK2; if it's an intentional texture choice, it's visually a bit odd and seems inconsistent with the way you've textured and detailed the rest of the map.

I tried to make that secret room "blend" into the stone textures, by making it look as if it's some sort of small grotto. But yeah, those small edges I could texture with something else, but it's one of those locations where I couldn't think of anything else to put there so I was like "okay let's just put rock there to match the rest".

TheOrganGrinder said:

Linedefs 2510 and 2516: again, the texture you've used here, STEP4VK1, is this intentional? It's the only place in the level you've used this as an upper texture for a computer panel insert detail and it looks inconsistent; until I popped it open in an editor I didn't realise it was a different texture rather than just the surrounding STN_GY14 that hadn't been upper unpegged.

Whoops. This is actually just an oversight of me. Good call. :)

TheOrganGrinder said:

Linedef 2472: this is a matter of personal taste but I feel this could use a more obvious 'tell' as to its secret status.

I pondered about that, but I think if I am to put another hint there it would be a bit too obvious, especially considering that the secret is a pretty big reward. Maybe I could put a different texture on the wall leading to the switch, but I still feel it would be a bit too obvious. I'm kind of torn on this one, honestly!

TheOrganGrinder said:

Linedef 4267: again, I don't think the 'tell' here is sufficiently obvious as you've used a small number of dead marines elsewhere in the map as inconsequential decorations. I'd also suggest not upper unpegging this line (it looks a little odd) and putting a proper door texture on the back/inside of this secret door (linedef 4265) since there's no reason the "way out" should be as obfuscated as the front.

I should remove the upper unpeg flag from that wall, yes. I was going to do that, and my friend who helped me test it actually pointed this out as well, but I just forgot about it.

I could also change the sprite of the dead marine to something else. Maybe some sort of gore sprite?

TheOrganGrinder said:

Linedefs 4236 through 4239: these are action type 103 (Switch once, Door Open Stay) when it looks like the intended behaviour is action type 2 (Walk once, Door Open Stay) since they form a line that bisects the room and has nothing to indicate that the player ought to be pressing the empty air. Also, the closet that's revealed when these lines are activated has nothing inside it, has odd ceiling and floor textures, and lacks a door texture on the inside face of the secret door; in general it looks unfinished.

Yeah, this was a small monster-closet that I didn't finish. That was pretty sloppy of me, sorry! Thanks for pointing it out though; I almost forgot about it. I'll fix it for the next update.

TheOrganGrinder said:

Linedef 4060: this uses TEKGRE15 as its upper texture when the surrounding walls are BRICKZD6. Elsewhere in this room you've used a trim texture to mark the transition from one material to another, so I feel like either this upper texture should also be BRICKZD6, or there should be a trim texture to the sides of it.

Oh, wow. That's a pretty obvious mistake of me. I'll fix that as well!

TheOrganGrinder said:

Overall I feel like the clean techbase atmosphere and style is at odds with the backtracking-heavy gameplay; I kept expecting more to happen after I was asked to trek back to an area I'd previously cleared to check on a door I'd previously been unable to open. The bright, almost sterile environment undercuts the general air of menace and I quickly developed a feeling that nothing was going to happen and I was quite safe, which made the backtracking less of an exercise in cautious, eager anticipation, and more of a chore.

I definitely agree that the backtracking should be more exciting, so I'm going to look into that as well so that the map flow should feel a bit more natural.

Thanks for your detailed criticism!

Agentbromsnor said:

I tried to introduce a few monster-closets after the player has to backtrack, but the line would unfortunately trigger from both sides. I tried multiple line-actions and at this point I'm not sure if it's a Boom limitation of some sort.

The simplest way to make a trap that activates only when "armed" is to use the action WR Floor Lower to Highest Floor (or the Boom generalized equivalent). The idea is that at first, the trap floor will have a control floor at the same height right next to it, which will prevent the trigger from lowering the trap floor at all. Later on in the level, there will be a trigger that will lower this control floor to ground level, allowing the WR Floor Lower action to move the trap floor.

Here is a simple Boom-format wad I made a couple of months ago to demonstrate it.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mhh7dftz8q1ugvc/dep.wad

rdwpa said:

The simplest way to make a trap that activates only when "armed" is to use the action WR Floor Lower to Highest Floor (or the Boom generalized equivalent). The idea is that at first, the trap floor will have a control floor at the same height right next to it, which will prevent the trigger from lowering the trap floor at all. Later on in the level, there will be a trigger that will lower this control floor to ground level, allowing the WR Floor Lower action to move the trap floor.

Here is a simple Boom-format wad I made a couple of months ago to demonstrate it.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/mhh7dftz8q1ugvc/dep.wad

Thanks! I should have a look at that.

I already made a couple of changes, and fixed a couple of mistakes that I overlooked (including the ones that TheOrganGrinder pointed out). I personally think this already makes the map more enjoyable.

I will probably upload the new version later in the evening, so you guys can enjoy it. I'll post a notification here when I've edited the description with the new download link.

As promised, I uploaded the latest version of the WAD to Dropbox and you can download it using the link in the first post. Enjoy!

Yesterday I quickly whipped together a TITLEPIC in Paint.net to use for this WAD. I edited the first post to include it.

I always thought it was a shame that no official Doom game got to use that rocky looking logo, so I used that.