My first WAD - Spoiled waters

Hi guys.

I just signed up here after lurking for a few weeks. This is my first WAD (or at least the first one I deemed good enough to make it publically available). I'm looking for some criticism, possible improvements or simply your opinion on it.

Name: Spoiled Waters

Difficulty settings: Yes, but not extensively tested. It's playable on UV without knowing any secrets. (But they'll help a lot.)

Map: Doom 2, Map01

Multiplayer: No

Port: ZDoom (haven't tested with anything else)

Format: ZDoom - Doom in Doom

No freelook, crouching or jumping needed

Link: spoiled.zip (archives.gamers.org)

Time to build: Don't know. I just do this for recreational reasons every now and then. Took me several evenings.

Screenshots:

Excited to hear what you think about it. Thanks in advance. :-)

HEY That's a good first map! I enjoyed it a lot. Very Doomy. With a weird kind of golden eye 007 feel at that giant gap area. 5/5.

15 minutes ago, DemonusDefunctus said:

HEY That's a good first map! I enjoyed it a lot. Very Doomy. With a weird kind of golden eye 007 feel at that giant gap area. 5/5.

 

Thanks a lot. Glad you enjoyed it. I tried to keep it close to the original Doom. (So, nothing of that fancy stuff ZDoom offers.) Doom is one of my fond teenage gaming memories. So I tried stick to this.

I've never played Golden Eye. Do you have anything in particular (level name, etc) it reminded you of? I'd like to google for some screenshots.

I think it was a dam. I am unsure why it reminded me of it though..it want bad thing. Like I said I really enjoyed the map. 

I am going to get around to classic maps with vanilla/boom compatible maps on my next project. But I just wanted to "redo" hell map types for myself because I always found them cheesy in doom. 

Keep up the good work man. Looking to see more maps from yiu.

Welcome to the forums. :-)

A pretty nice debut to mapping with some slick details here and there (I like fireblu). You made some nice ambushes which put immediate pressure on the player and that's always a huge plus in my book.

The only things that rubbed me the wrong way on a first glance would be:

-The abundance of hitscans. Especially getting chipped down by faraway chaingunners (or hitscans in general) in the open is something I am extremely biased against, because in many cases it encourages camping of some sorts (which I don't like doing). But this is really just my personal bias here (Some people just LOVE to camp all the things).

-Moving around in the indoor section felt a bit uncomfortable due to how small the scale of some of the rooms were, which, coupled with some of the wall detailing makes it quite likely to get stuck on something while trying to move around. A little more generosity with real estate in these early areas might be worth trying.

These two points aside, my first impression is that this is a quite polished map.

Please make sure to add the format in which you made the map (which I'm guessing would be "ZDoom doom in doom" in this case) to the OP, so that people know exactly which of their preferred source-ports may or may not work.

I have to second nine inch heels about the space. It did feel cramped. I didn't have any trouble with it at all. But I did get a claustrophobic feeling. I didn't think it was worth mentioning. 

About the hit scanners and camping, I like the pressure it put on you. Its one of the reasons i like brutal doom...the zombie man and shotgun guy are much improved and feel less like cannon fodder. This map begged for camping vs strafe and fire play...but it doesn't make it bad. Its just a play style. 

Thanks or the feedback Nine Inch Heels.

The claustrophobic feeling, as DemonusDefunctus called it, is intended. I wanted to have a contrast between the darker, cramped start and the later bright and open parts of the map. But maybe I can smoothe out some edges and make passages a little bit wider. I'll see what I can do there.

Regarding the hitscans: I was asking myself if it was a little bit too much. There are some I would replace. For example the chaingunners on the far side of the nukage lake. Those already struck me as a little bit unfair.

Hey guys.

I've updated the map. Some of the rooms should not be as cramped anymore and I also replaced  some hitscans.

I've uploaded the level to archives.gamers.org (see OP for link).

Whaaaat? 

Is this your first WAD? Because it's great. It really seems to me a great debut in the Map Making community, this wad goes beyond decent. Being your first published publication I have to give you enough credit, it's just pretty cool.

The atmosphere in the map seems pretty good, the beginning has a special touch and attractive, with the progress everything flows quite well and the positioning of enemies and items is very well.

I really enjoy it, very entertaining, getting to the 2 open areas is great, although I have to admit that I do not really like the idea of enemies being able to shoot from so far away. But with good architecture, creativity and good management of the creation tools, I can say that I, a player with enough experience in wads, this wad is an incredible debut.

Congratulations on the good work! The fight against the Mastermind was great and all the atmosphere towards the end, the enemies and the rooms, wow! What a good wad to be your first time.

Tested on GZDoom with Brutal Doom on Ultra Violence. 8/10

PS: I suck at secrets.

Not really the first one, but as I said, the first one published. This was the first one I thought "hey it came out pretty good. What the hell... Why not make it publically available."

All other maps so far I build just 'for me myself and I'.

Thanks for the commendation. Happy you enjoyed it.

Hi,

I'm not much of a mapper, but I got inspired to write som MIDI while I was playing through your wad.

Sure, d_runnin is a great track, but if you want to mix it up, you can use this ;).

Thanks for the wad, keep ut the good work!

Edit: The MIDI does not work properly with Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth. All other options for MIDI playback in GZDoom 3.1.0 works properly on my system.

Wintertowns - Spoiled Waters.zip

Was trying some of the recent additions on idgames and from the 4-5 wads I tried, your "my first wad" turned out to be the best of the bunch.

Nice map.

Judging by the screenshots it seems to be a very nice map! One hell of a big first step. Looking forward to play it as soon as i can.

On 25.9.2017 at 2:53 PM, wintertowns said:

I'm not much of a mapper, but I got inspired to write som MIDI while I was playing through your wad.

 

Sure, d_runnin is a great track, but if you want to mix it up, you can use this ;).

Hi, thanks a lot. That's a great track. Not the typical "doom sound" but indeed very fitting for the mood of the level.

As soon as I get to actually replacing sources in WADs I'll surely embed it in this one. (haven't done that yet.)

And here is my blind run:

Some remarks:

1. Drop some more health, please, please... ;-) Especially because of these hitscanners

2. Moderate difficulty - just the way I like it

3. I found 50% secrets even without any excessive exploration (good!)

4. I liked the theme of this map, especially the final area and the area with broken bridge

I haven't even finished this yet but I had to drop a comment. So far, it's a great map with excellent attention to detail. I like the overall theme and atmosphere. I haven't played the earlier revisions but the latest one doesn't feel cramped at all and I do like the contrast with the later outdoor areas. Seeing the dam area for the first time was awesome. I found myself admiring a bunch of the details as I went through with even little things such as a leak in a pipe. I could definitely learn quite a bit from your work and I'd say it's very polished for the first map that you've released.

Thanks to you all. That means a lot to me. I'm really glad you enjoy the map. 

You are helping me a lot to see what I should change and what to keep in my maps.

My next project will be a set of four to maybe five maps. Encompassing a city-, space station- and hell level (green marble). I'll keep you updated. :-)

Very solid map. Can't believe this is your 1st attempt at mapping. Tried to find bugs/mistakes but found none :)

I'd like to see custom textures and new monsters (but doom-ish ones) in your next projects.

Thanks a lot. On my current project I've actually started modifying textures. I just needed a completely black one. But I've already given thought about going a bit further and creating some from scratch.

Regarding new monsters: Thats always a delicate thing to tamper with. It is directly related to game balancing. But given some time I might even try that.