I already made my second map!

Woo. So I got way better since the first, and I put together a map that I thought would be a nice, moderate size for a level. I even have a reference to another WAD in there, though what WAD will not be revealed. It's a secret, after all.

Featuring 7 secrets to find! And one being a reference to another WAD. No, I did not make that other WAD.

By the way, can anyone possibly teach me how to throw levels together into a single WAD sometime? I'd like to do more than single-map WADs.

Again, suggestions/criticism/support will be appreciated.

Tested on GZDoom and Zandronum.

Download: (Runs on Doom 2, Map01)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g5qupifdycyddui/AdirSecondLevel.wad?dl=0

Screenshots:

Was pretty smooth, felt a bit too claustrophobic for my tastes. Your secrets were well hidden, i only found one on a quick playthru. I think opening up the map would be a bit more interesting. 

Only thing I really didn't like was killing 2 hell knights with a shotgun with no other enemies around or anything. Just boring to have to do, i wish people would just stop w/that lol.

My favorite part was the end of the map where you think the button is going to be the exit because of the sign and it opened up the two doors on the left and right, caught me off guard, fun idea :)

Just now, unkind said:

Was pretty smooth, felt a bit too claustrophobic for my tastes. Your secrets were well hidden, i only found one on a quick playthru. I think opening up the map would be a bit more interesting. 

 

Only thing I really didn't like was killing 2 hell knights with a shotgun with no other enemies around or anything. Just boring to have to do, i wish people would just stop w/that lol.

 

My favorite part was the end of the map where youthink the button is going to be the exit because of the sign and it opened up the two doors on the left and right, caught me off guard, fun idea :)

There's a rocket launcher hidden away to fight the hell knights, it wasn't thoughtless. Ya just gotta find it.

Just now, AdirBlaz said:

 

There's a rocket launcher hidden away to fight the hell knights, it wasn't thoughtless. Ya just gotta find it.

Rock on, just keep in mind not everybody is going to find your secrets, and hell knights are easy to kill even with a shotgun its just boring when they're by themselves. 1 hell knight and something dangerous like a minigunner or two makes a much more dynamic encounter. imo

1 minute ago, unkind said:

Rock on, just keep in mind not everybody is going to find your secrets, and hell knights are easy to kill even with a shotgun its just boring when they're by themselves. 1 hell knight and something dangerous like a minigunner or two makes a much more dynamic encounter. imo

Alrighty, I'll try that out sometime.

well,that's nice

1 hour ago, AdirBlaz said:

By the way, can anyone possibly teach me how to throw levels together into a single WAD sometime? I'd like to do more than single-map WADs.

Name your next new map to go into the wad, map02 (or 3, 4 etc depending on which slot it occupies). When you go to save the new map, choose: File > Save map into... > and then select the wad you want to add it to. 

1 minute ago, Payload4367 said:

Name your next new map to go into the wad, map02 (or 3, 4 etc depending on which slot it occupies). When you go to save the new map, choose: File > Save map into... > and then select the wad you want to add it to. 

Thanks, now I just gotta throw together a nicely-sized pack of maps in a megawad.

Happy hunting. You're off to a good start.

This is a nice little map you got here! Although I agree it could use a bit more space, it works quite well regardless. I very much liked all of the area openings with the extra monsters-- It's always good when you gotta backtrack and there's new stuff to experience. Your secrets are great as well (still looking for some of them, haha.)

Good Barrel placement in the toxic area, good placement of the (secret) Berserk, and I didn't mind the Hell Knight, as I had found the Chaingun in one of your secrets. I think I did see one Zombieman that has clipped through a line and has been rendered stuck though, you might wanna check that out (it's not really a big deal in the long run, but still!), he was grouped with a few other Zombieman inside the base.

For a second level, it's good! I enjoyed it

Played on: Hurt Me Plenty

Kills: 100% Items: 100% Secrets: 57%

Time: 5:19

1 minute ago, Stripey said:

This is a nice little map you got here! Although I agree it could use a bit more space, it works quite well regardless. I very much liked all of the area openings with the extra monsters-- It's always good when you gotta backtrack and there's new stuff to experience. Your secrets are great as well (still looking for some of them, haha.)

 

Good Barrel placement in the toxic area, good placement of the (secret) Berserk, and I didn't mind the Hell Knight, as I had found the Chaingun in one of your secrets. I think I did see one Zombieman that has clipped through a line and has been rendered stuck though, you might wanna check that out (it's not really a big deal in the long run, but still!), he was grouped with a few other Zombieman inside the base.

 

For a second level, it's good! I enjoyed it

Played on: Hurt Me Plenty

Kills: 100% Items: 100% Secrets: 57%

Time: 5:19

Niiice. I'll check out that stuck zombie when I can. Sooner or later I might be throwing out a megawad, too.

Yes, the zombie behind the red door is indeed stuck. Also the door itself has a problem with pegged lower texture. Thanks to the Megaspehere I found I didn't observe whether there is enough of other medicine available. Secrets are well hidden, since I just spotted some of them.

Enjoy the video:

Hey, I gave this a whirl today—haven't played your first map, but this one wasn't two shabby. The big thing about your map that I liked is that the rooms aren't boxy! Non-square rooms tend to feel more organic, which is better IMO. Here are some things I recommend working on in the future:

- Connect your rooms together and consider level progression. Right now, more than half the map is traveling to the red key, and then going backwards to the red door—this is fairly boring progression. There are at least some enemies to fight but none of the combat is really exciting or unexpected. Speaking of...

- Play around with more enemy variation! Many of us have had our fill of maps overflowing with low-tier units, so it's a lot more fun to be given bigger weapons to fight bigger enemies with. If this map you experimenting around with room construction, that's fine, but try to keep in mind that pistol/shotgun combat can be relatively boring. Also, try not to have all the enemies come from one direction (ie, in front of the door you just opened)

- I could be wrong about this, but it seemed most of the secrets were unmarked? Having no way to tell what walls were secrets or not is poor design—you always want some "tell" to denote to the player that it's a secret wall, and they don't just have to wall-hump around the whole map.

- Also regarding unkind's combat about the boring SG combat against the HKs—I agree. Telling a player "oh you have to find the secret RL to make the combat more exciting" doesn't convey good design if you have to tell the player what to do. A good tip is to play the map through finding 0 secrets, and if it's less fun then you probably need to do some tweaking.

- Play around with room verticality some more! Most of the map is flat outside of the stairway in the canyon, and having to pay attention to foes at different vertical heights adds some variation to the combat.

It might seem like a lot of criticism, but keep at it—soon these tips will feel very natural and obvious to you, as long as you keep at it.

One more comment from my side: These big door with HKs begind opens straight to the sky - this is a major oversight.

7 hours ago, dobu gabu maru said:

Hey, I gave this a whirl today—haven't played your first map, but this one wasn't two shabby. The big thing about your map that I liked is that the rooms aren't boxy! Non-square rooms tend to feel more organic, which is better IMO. Here are some things I recommend working on in the future:

/snip for space

I will make use of this advice within my megawad. I'll try what I can, and try to be more creative with more verticality and enemy variation.

32 minutes ago, AdirBlaz said:

I will make use of this advice within my megawad. I'll try what I can, and try to be more creative with more verticality and enemy variation.

I'm gonna be a wet blanket and advise against aiming for a megawad first, unless you really want to. This is because often when someone sets out to make a megawad, the first few maps will end up being the weakest (due to being the oldest) which makes a pretty terrible first impression on a player, disincentivizing them from continuing onwards. It varies from person to person, but if you had this map slotted as MAP01/02, I probably wouldn't continue on, or I'd just skip to the last map to see how you improved.

My alternative recommendation is to do a single episode—say 7-10 maps. You'll probably learn a lot in that time, and once you get a habit for how fast you can knock out maps (and your particular mapping gimmicks), then you can set off on your megawad adventure. If you feel the set is particularly strong, then I'd recommend turning the episode into a megawad.

1 minute ago, dobu gabu maru said:

I'm gonna be a wet blanket and advise against aiming for a megawad first, unless you really want to. This is because often when someone sets out to make a megawad, the first few maps will end up being the weakest (due to being the oldest) which makes a pretty terrible first impression on a player, disincentivizing them from continuing onwards. It varies from person to person, but if you had this map slotted as MAP01/02, I probably wouldn't continue on, or I'd just skip to the last map to see how you improved.

 

My alternative recommendation is to do a single episode—say 7-10 maps. You'll probably learn a lot in that time, and once you get a habit for how fast you can knock out maps (and your particular mapping gimmicks), then you can set off on your megawad adventure. If you feel the set is particularly strong, then I'd recommend turning the episode into a megawad.

Oh, no, I'm not going to insert my first two maps. I'm gonna do around a "small" megawad. Doing that 10-15 maps and seeing how well it comes out.

This was pretty good. 

Here's what I thought was good:

You seem to have a solid handle on how the builder works - I didn't see anything that was broken or a "mistake," except one door without the lower unpegged sides.

The spaces, as pointed out, are mostly non-rectangular. I don't think "rectangles = bad" is a good rule to follow, but for a second map, it certainly shows promise that you have thought so much about shape.

I did not so much mind the backtracking since you had a number of rooms open upon getting the red key to reveal more enemies to slay. 

Here's what I thought was not as good:

It was rather linear. Not counting secrets (I found 3 of 7 without much serious searching), I think there was only one or two places where you had to make a choice which way to go. This is fine in some of your maps, but I'd hate to see it become the way all of them end up.

I didn't see much, if any, lighting variation. It can be kind of annoying to deal with, but it can make a big difference in a map. 

Although you did a nice job with mixing in some different kind of areas (outdoor, bronze, greywall, cavern), I thought the areas themselves were sometimes a bit monotonous. This can be fine, too, in my opinion, if it's not the common practice. But normally, you might want to think about breaking up some of the areas where you have the same texture continuously for lots of wall space. The nukage room comes to mind.

1 hour ago, HAK3180 said:

This was pretty good. 

 

Here's what I thought was good:

You seem to have a solid handle on how the builder works - I didn't see anything that was broken or a "mistake," except one door without the lower unpegged sides.

The spaces, as pointed out, are mostly non-rectangular. I don't think "rectangles = bad" is a good rule to follow, but for a second map, it certainly shows promise that you have thought so much about shape.

I did not so much mind the backtracking since you had a number of rooms open upon getting the red key to reveal more enemies to slay. 

 

Here's what I thought was not as good:

It was rather linear. Not counting secrets (I found 3 of 7 without much serious searching), I think there was only one or two places where you had to make a choice which way to go. This is fine in some of your maps, but I'd hate to see it become the way all of them end up.

I didn't see much, if any, lighting variation. It can be kind of annoying to deal with, but it can make a big difference in a map. 

Although you did a nice job with mixing in some different kind of areas (outdoor, bronze, greywall, cavern), I thought the areas themselves were sometimes a bit monotonous. This can be fine, too, in my opinion, if it's not the common practice. But normally, you might want to think about breaking up some of the areas where you have the same texture continuously for lots of wall space. The nukage room comes to mind.

I'll be sure to throw in some variety on the walls, being sure rooms look a little different rather than have a repeat of the same texture. I'll be sure to add more exploring space as well. Thank you.