correllation between map styles and games the author plays

Do you think the types of games mappers play have a pretty big influence on the types of Doom maps they choose to make?

I dont know if this is entirely true but I've observed that some of the mappers more well known for their very challenging maps tend to either have fantasy or horror/RPG style elements to their map designs, based on the pacing of the gameplay, or the darker evil-ish aesthetic themes in their maps, or the music choices. These are mappers like Armouredblood, Ribbiks, Jodwin, or Death Destiny.

On the other hand, mappers who seem to favor more nonstop chaos and lots of explosive fodder and tech base themes seem to be more grounded with an upbringing of more modern shooters and punchy arcadey nintendo-hard type games of the Sega genesis and SNES days. These are mappers like RottKing, Jimmy, Tarnsman, skillsaw, or Tango.

I'm not sure how accurate this assessment is, but I was wondering if some mappers could post some of their favorite games between their childhood and today and maybe there could be some small nuances in these games that gravitated mappers toward the styles of maps they choose to make.

Games like Super Metroid or Metroidvania stuff in general as well as Dark Souls/Bloodborne is definitely a major influence in a lot of my newer maps.

Also Miasma and it's WIP sequel took some inspiration from old Amiga games like the Shadow of the beast series, Agony, Ork etc...

I am super late but it's interesting to hear your observations, and could definitely understand your categorizations. Your assessment of me seems pretty spot on; some of my favorite games are SNES/Genesis games like Megaman X, Shinobi 3, Gunstar Heroes, etc., and whenever I map I'm usually driven by music from games like that.

Makes sense. I love platform games and always try to make at least one map per (short) episode with some platforming in there.

I understand what you're going for, but I'm not sure about the first group... AB, Ribbiks or DD could all easily be fans of danmakus or other challenge oriented genres. True RPG influence shines through in the 90's classics. Eternal Doom is pretty much a dungeon crawler and the entire "secrets required for progression" mindset that gets soundly decried nowadays was perfectly natural in many first person RPGs. You go down a dark, damp hallway and encounter a baron -> RPG. You enter an arena, get a mega, BFG and 600 cells, now dance or die -> not RPG, heh. Though you're probably right about the horror influence, but horror-like visuals can be found in many genres.

Thank you for bumping this thread, Tango. I'm very curious to hear more popular mappers chime in to talk about other games they have played that have some way or another influenced the kind of maps they make.

This is mostly a hypothesis but I'm interested in reviewing some of these games to see how well the pacing in these types of games shine through in their maps

What's funny is that I prefer exploration RPGs to modern shooters and am absolutely horrible at Nintendo Hard platformers.

I struggle with non-linear map design probably because a lot of my favorite shooters are really quite linear. It makes it harder for me to design more complicated map layouts for sure.

I have no idea how much you'd glean from my rather small current output of maps, but a rough past-and-present favorites list of mine would probably include Heretic, Hexen, Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Master of Orion I and II, Disciples: Sacred Lands, Severance: Blade of Darkness, Ninja Gaiden, every NES-era Mega Man, Commander Keen, and Bio Menace.

I grew up playing NES/SNES games a lot. I'm a huge fan of any of the 8-bit or 16-bit Megaman, Mario, Castlevania, and Contra games. I love the bright colors, catchy music, and quick/immediate style of gameplay in these games. That being said...

I also like dark/horror/rpg things too! I spent way too many hours of my youth playing Diablo II, Planescape: Torment, Baldur's Gate, etc. Currently I am addicted to Dark Souls III and am hoping to get through the series (haven't played the first two yet). It's tons of fun and I find the level design enormously impressive.

Some favourite childhood games, roughly in order: SkyRoads, Hexen & Hexen 2, Sokoban++, Bio Menace, Dungeon Keeper

My mapping style is "I like symmetry, gardens, brickwork and non-GL light attenuation". I think someone called my gameplay style "puzzle slaughter" once, and I like that description. I am not notable.