A Micro WAD made by a God(?)

My first sort of map pack, don't expect this to be great, it's my first WAD ever released to the public.

I'd like to see your feedback to see if I'm actually good, be honest, if you think it's good, I make more maps, if you think it's trash, I make maps anyway because I really don't care.

Some old maps down below

http://www.mediafire.com/file/uyyqxt7ivb5rvb0/GUDMAPPACK.wad These are obsolete and horrible, do not download at all costs

School is really getting in the way of this so don't expect your maps for a while now.

Thanks for NOT downloading those maps

Here is my first demo attempt:

What I liked: Some decent visual design elements: little bits of detailing here and there as well as a lot of non-rectangular room shapes

What I did not like:

Lots of texture alignment issues

The secrets: two secret keys and no necessary key? Also, I prefer when secrets have some sort of hint. Yours had none at all, except that players often wall hump the start room

Combat was meh throughout. No traps. No really meaningful encounters. I only got down to 1% health because I didn't take the obvious easy route of waiting back and shooting. 

I'm pretty sure all doors close automatically and all need their sides to be lower unpegged. Having so many doors that close is just annoying. It can break flow and make maps really easy.

Doors lack "frames"

Texture misalignments everywhere

Texture issues on doors in Map 02

Red door in Map 02 does not actually require red key.

Poison texture in Map 02 but no damaging floor

Also, members of this forum tend to prefer more information than "here are two maps." Tell us what they're like. Better yet, show us some screenshots. Also, tell us what source ports are appropriate/intended/preferable?

My suggestions: stick with short maps, test frequently, and focus more on gameplay/enemy encounters. In my opinion, this skill does not develop as naturally/organically as level design/detailing, so you really need to work at it deliberately, whereas you just will get better at design and detailing as you make more maps.

1 minute ago, HAK3180 said:

Also, members of this forum tend to prefer more information than "here are two maps." Tell us what they're like. Better yet, show us some screenshots. Also, tell us what source ports are appropriate/intended/preferable?

 

Would also add, if you are a new member with that type of avatar who posts things like "HOLY CRAP THE DOWNLOAD IS JUST ABOVE THIS REPLY!!!!!" in addition to omitting all that, people will be very hesitant to download your wad, because that pattern-matches with "drive-by troll" very well. You got pretty lucky HAK3180 came along, tbh. :) 

STOP YELLING AT ME

Troll definitely did cross my mind, but the maps did seem like legitimate efforts at least.

I'm new to this whole thing, I'll try to fix what I can in the next maps, also, I was not aware of texture alignment issues, I run through just about every texture to check their alignment, must have missed a few textures here and there. I really like that people are already playing this WAD and giving me constructive criticism about it, I'll try my hardest the next few maps.

These maps are now obsolete, I will keep the download to them, but I will make new and improved maps which I hope you like much better

7 minutes ago, A person said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

These maps are now obsolete, I will keep the download to them, but I will make new and improved maps which I hope you like much better

First off, welcome to Doom mapping and keep it up!

These comments may be obsolete (since you responded about three-quarters of the way through what I was typing), but here goes...

I agree with @HAK3180 regarding the general design of the rooms. I liked the design of the rooms, minus the texture alignment issues.

As for other issues with the maps (that HAK3180 didn't already touch on):

I think the issue with misaligned doors on Map 01 probably came from the doors being slightly over 128 units wide (although I didn't pull it up in an editor to check), which is natural with the doors being at an angle. That's easy enough if you simply inset the door with a short linedef, so that the door itself is 128 units wide.

I generally don't like keys being in secrets. In this case, however, the keys in the secrets only allowed you to access secret areas. So, no harm, no foul, I guess? I didn't see a use for the blue key, which is just sloppy design to have a key and nowhere to use it. It makes the player think that there are unexplored areas of the map. And if the exit door was supposed to be locked with the blue key (and you were supposed to understand that from the blue textures and the lamps on either side of the door), then it would be really nice for you to have some way to know that the blue key was there in the secret, such as a window or something else (see next comment).

The two walls in the opening room that use the grate midtexture show up as black (which does look cool), but only in higher ports. In vanilla or Chocolate Doom, you'd get the tutti frutti effect. You can still use them, provided the texture is in the middle (not the upper or lower texture). Opening it is a different story. Perhaps you're planning to target one of the more advanced ports, in which case you may disregard this warning, but it's worthwhile knowing.

I didn't understand the purpose by having the little poison signs in front of the exits. At first, I thought it was a nice touch in Map 01, sort of saying, "There's poison coming up in the next map." But then you didn't really have any (except for the one insta-death pit at the beginning).

The height was uniformly (or almost uniformly) 128 units throughout the map. Variation in height would add to the maps and would be essential for you to take advantage of the vertical nature of the pseudo-3D space.

@Pegleg 

The blue key actually unlocks a secret area, I meant for it to be some sort of chain secret, one secret leads to the next then the next and so on which eventually lead to some sort of armory, also, I put that poison sign there because there are no signs saying DO NOT GO HERE, OH GOD!!!!!!, It was the next best thing, I may have also accidentally added a stealth chaingunner in there, it doesn't matter anymore now, I guess.

22 hours ago, A person said:

My first sort of map pack, don't expect this to be great, it's my first WAD ever released to the public.

I'd like to see your feedback to see if I'm actually good, be honest, if you think it's good, I make more maps, if you think it's trash, I make maps anyway because I really don't care.

Some old maps down below

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/uyyqxt7ivb5rvb0/GUDMAPPACK.wad These are obsolete and horrible, do not download at all costs

 

School is really getting in the way of this so don't expect your maps for a while now.

Thanks for NOT downloading those maps

 

 

 

 

 

"This sucks butt at the moment"

2 hours ago, A person said:

@Pegleg 

The blue key actually unlocks a secret area, I meant for it to be some sort of chain secret, one secret leads to the next then the next and so on which eventually lead to some sort of armory, also, I put that poison sign there because there are no signs saying DO NOT GO HERE, OH GOD!!!!!!, It was the next best thing, I may have also accidentally added a stealth chaingunner in there, it doesn't matter anymore now, I guess.

You just have to keep at it. Don't get discouraged. The key is that you're actually interested in getting feedback and learning from what others have to say.

Overall, don't get too complicated too quickly, especially when you're just starting out. Get good at small things and then expand; as your bag of tricks grows you'll find yourself doing more and more. By the way, I like your ideas; having a vision is always a nice thing, but sometimes it can be difficult to fulfill.

2 hours ago, A person said:

"This sucks butt at the moment"

We've all been there.

Everyone on this forum gets busy. When you get a free moment, you can work on Doom maps or something else that makes you happy.