Map settings/themes you can't get enough of

I have serious love for a couple of niche themes and while I'm not fully sure why, they definitely seem to be the themes that I am most comfortable working with, and continue to dabble in.

• Swamps, jungles, gardens, vine bases
• Old/abandoned/ruined towns
• Underground mines
• Brick/stone/blood settings (like Inmost Dens/Neurosphere)
• Caves with colorful/bright liquids and/or crystals
• Anything with rain as a weather effect
• Anything remotely Plutonia

Who else has themes they either love playing, or love mapping for?

One thing I'd love to see more of: Cities floating in the sky. lupinx-Kassman's Ancient Aliens map is pretty awesome looking. Gradient voids in general are quite cool.

Whilst I've built nearly everything at this point my strongest affinity and enjoyment is where the land meets water. This was strengthened greatly in my current project where moving liquids are well represented, you can see it in Sand Wedges.

My favourite materials are sand, sandstone, bricks, steel, water and wood.

You will find that docks, factories and castles hold the strong majority in my collection, with offices, warehouses and shops as secondary structures.

The sandstone temples of Epic 2, pseudo realistic industry of Bloody Steel and the various machinery woven into tech and hell structures is where I'll be found the most.

Plutonia and natural landscapes.  (tech + green is pretty awesome too)

I seem to have a soft spot for techbases and space bases.

Not enough Blood style maps. Also not enough Lovecraftian style maps.

3 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Anything remotely Plutonia

WELP. THERE'S MY COMPLETE LIST.

I'm kidding. Although I'd love to see more experimentation with Tron-esque cyberspacey environments that aren't just a grid pattern. The neons of Ancient Aliens were a good start, but let's go deeper.

4 hours ago, rdwpa said:

One thing I'd love to see more of: Cities floating in the sky. lupinx-Kassman's Ancient Aliens map is pretty awesome looking. Gradient voids in general are quite cool.

I have also voted for this in another recent thread where somebody proposed a pack of maps in this style.  It has something unique, surreal and dream-like. 

Also, something in the style of the more otherworldly maps in valiant or ancient aliens, like skillsaw's hell theme or acerola-orion.

This, if you want maps that look happier and more colorful. For dark, oppressive worlds I'd stick with quake's theme or h.r. giger-ish biomechanical. 

Also Egyptian style maps are fantastic. I love Exhumed/Powerslave and Serious Sam 1 for these maps.

I really favor color consistency, so maps that are entirely gray brown green or blackish with little accents of high contrast are beautiful to me.

most people tend to go with techbases for this type of style (myself included) so more variety of map themes like castles, cities, dungeons, etc. with color consistency in mind is always good.

Those custom PSX Doom styled maps, and Aztec styled maps.

21 minutes ago, SavageCorona said:

Also Egyptian style maps are fantastic. I love Exhumed/Powerslave and Serious Sam 1 for these maps.

Same here! That Scythe 2 was awesome!

I like books.

I'm also fond of the Plutonia setting. But mostly books.

insane/abstract geometry - similar to Lovecraftian i guess, (edit) or HR Giger, Escher. Sunlust m30 is the perfect example of this. wish there was more of it.

1 hour ago, 40oz said:

 so more variety of map themes like castles, cities, dungeons, etc. with color consistency in mind is always good.

summoning @YukiRaven. his/her quake-y stuff suits your preference on that. 

As for me, anything that has no Spectre in the dark corner is great for me. :D

It's tough to say, since my favorite maps are always my favorite because they're so unique (any Kassman map, Jenesis map 15, JPCP map 29, etc). So if there were lots more maps with any one of those themes, it might dilute part of what makes them so great.

But I'd still love to see any of the original authors of those one-off maps take that same theme and run with it to make a small mapset that explores the theme in greater detail. Water Spirit is a nice example of how that could be done.

Hell -- Lotsa red, lotsa lava, lotsa monsters. My favorite "sub-themes" for hell maps would be either gothic architecture (think Scythe 2 map 27), or else "natural" hellscapes/caves (think Resurgence maps 3 and 11).

Urban stuff. Cities, neighborhoods, schools, hospitals. I would like to play mappacks dedicated solely to this. I just don't have the patience to play through 25 maps in a megawad to see a pile of bricks.

Also vast outdoors area. And not that shit with having a 1024x1024 playable area and infinite horizon effect, or any mountain/hill shit. Massive plains, actual hills instead of "caves inside hills". Tight outdoor areas feels like a self-defeating concept to me.

I had grown myself to hate Egyptian and rainforest themes and settings. And not in Doom only. Any other game with Egyptian/rainforest setting or combo pisses me off for no real reason - I guess it feels like a very cheap alternative to "experience places you hadn't seen before oooh mystery".

...

I am a picky Doomer.

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I like night cities with calm music.

For Doom, it's hell/caves type maps. Also Blood textured maps are good. Just as long as they aren't crammed to capacity with monsters.

For Hexen, it's more of a dungeon/cave type. Also swamps.

It's not really a theme or setting (but kind of is) but give me a double serving of that PS-XXX Doom any day of the week. 

2 hours ago, rehelekretep said:

insane/abstract geometry

this. alien/surreal/intimidating shapes are highly attractive to me. notable examples include danne's cuboid thingies in sl25, xaser towers (neis e4m7 comes to mind), anything in sunder really...

I noticed that there are not many underwater tech-based maps. 

Just now, leodoom85 said:

I noticed that there are not many underwater tech-based maps. 

Sounds like chalenge. Ill try to make something when ill stop beating meat for 2 days.

6 minutes ago, leodoom85 said:

I noticed that there are not many underwater tech-based maps. 

True. Have you played Object 34 by Lainos?

13 minutes ago, Not Jabba said:

True. Have you played Object 34 by Lainos?

I did one for Dump 3...if it's similar to that theme ;)

I love very organic areas, mixed with a bit of technology. So jungle maps and such are amazing, also Hell maps.

I always have a love for E2 theme maps or just Tech/hell mixed maps in general...plus I love maps that has an excessive amount of crates ;)

Also repeating from a similar thread...

Quote

Egyptian & underwater themes.

57 minutes ago, leodoom85 said:

I noticed that there are not many underwater tech-based maps. 

Mutiny MAP01: Surface is a submarine techbase, its got some parts where you can look out the window and see underwater sections.