Port Mortar (And Beyond) - Single Boom Level

A single Boom map that was planned to be part of a now scrapped 12 level wad that I was working on. Of the 6 maps I made for the wad, this one was probably my favorite, so I'm sharing it here.

Map was made in GZDoombuilder (Bugfix) and tested in GZ/ZDoom and PrBoom+.

Utilizes the cc4tex pack, as well as a sky texture from Mechadon's Box O' Skies.

Midi used is "Coal" by James Paddock.

There are also difficulty levels for those interested. No multiplayer coop though.

[Some Screenshots]

DOWNLOAD LINK

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hkz82333kx425lw/PMAB.wad?dl=0

I played until the red key, at which point I couldn't figure out where to use it and quit.

The good news -- aside from the disconnected blue-key run having a ton of visual errors (the skyboxes stretch badly as used here -- probably a bad sky-transfer -- and there's a very ugly visual glitch in the Mancubus room when the  wall blocking the switch lowers, where a piece of another skybox shows through the ceiling), visually this is very impressive from a new mapper.  Textures are used tastefully, shapes aren't bad, and some of the representational details like the gallows in the town square are neat.

The bad news -- it plays terribly.

Ammo here is really misjudged.  Way too many bullets and way too few shells.  Making the early chaingun a secret doesn't make anything harder; it just slows the pacing to an absolute crawl.  Likewise, when my only options for killing a Cyberdemon are fire at it with rockets for half-damage or plink at it with the chaingun that I have 400 ammo for despite using in every remotely applicable situation... something has gone very wrong.  Much of the encounter design here strikes me as very naive -- like the thought process was "bigger monsters = harder encounters", but that doesn't work in Doom.  In Doom, bigger monsters = grindy and dull encounters, unless you manage your pressure vectors carefully, which hasn't been done here.  Many fights here can be nullified by either just backing through a door, circle-strafing, U-streaming, or, in the case of that early double-Vile encounter, performing a simple body-block between the closest two pillars.  Layout has some real "rooms with stuff connected by doors" issues -- there's no flow here.

I'd strongly recommend studying Vanguard in regards to layout and Deus Vult II in regards to encounter design (and reading the extended text file for the latter).  Also, DavidM's gameplay tutorials (read them here, here, and here) should be considered absolutely mandatory reading for any aspiring mapper -- they were originally written for Unreal Tournament deathmatch, but deathmatch and Doom single-player overlap more than you might think.

Interesting map. I died at the yellow key arch-vile. Maybe some areas were a bit overflooded with enemies. Like there is a room where you fight some demons and weaklings, then jump down and get more demons, then some imps, then revenants and like 5 goats (very boring to kill with SSG), and to top it off 2 viles enter the area to resurrect everything. And I'm just like "can we please get to the next area already? this has been going on forever". So yeah, the pace could have been better. The visuals are nice enough, that Community Chest 4 aesthetic is almost nostalgic by now and the sky is nice. Rooms without sky look worse perhaps (not enough color?).

What's going to happen to the other maps?

2 hours ago, Memfis said:

What's going to happen to the other maps?

Might as well post them here.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dxc38r7ba7ymx67/Scrapped.wad?dl=0

They take up maps 01, 02, 03, and 06. Tested in the same engines as stated in the OP, though the skies in PrBoom are probably messed up. 

sorry for bumping this dormant thread, but all the maps here have apparently been deleted from dropbox....at least thats the message Im getting. 

Any way I can play these maps? The Port Mortar map and the other maps which were posted below that. 

Been on a binge on your stuff lately and its good so was curious 

Bruh I yeeted that shit from my Dropbox years ago. If by chance I didn't permanently delete them from my computer, I'll privately dm them to you.

1 minute ago, A2Rob said:

Bruh I yeeted that shit from my Dropbox years ago. If by chance I didn't permanently delete them from my computer, I'll privately dm them to you.

whatever the case, appreciate you responding so quickly and being straight up with telling me 🙏