[New Map] Spatial Anomaly

Hi folks,

Today I present the new map. A DooM map :)

As usual, any feedback, demos or videos are greatly appreciated.

Link: http://chabowski.eu/DOOM_custom_maps/Spatial_Anomaly/Spatial_Anomaly.7z

This time I decided to play with the following features of GZDoom:

• Changing skies (source: Wardust)
• Dynamic lights
• Portals
• Reflections

The latter two seem to be the pretty damn frame-eaters therefore I presume that some powerful PC might be required to play. My average PC struggled to get to ~25FPS in some areas.

So, if you're not afraid of confusing geometry and "unreal" space layout then go ahead. Try to not get hit by your own bullets :)

Info:

• GZDoom only
• Single player
• No difficulty levels implemented
• Custom, royalty free music
• It's 13MB zipped (uses a lot of custom textures, but I didn't manage to remove duplicates and unused ones... Each time I tried it resulted with some broken graphics)
• Candle sprite taken from Hexen
• Some pistol fighting needed at the beginning of the level
• Lot's of opportunities for punching and chainsawing :)

Here are some pictures, some of them you may recognize from the "What are you workin' on" thread... As usual I'll try to beat the level, record and post a video. It may take few days.

The screenies lookvery nice. I especially like the red/yellow sky. The green one too.

Looks pretty cool. I'll make a note of playing this later.

It’s not every day that I get to experience having no ammo, 16% HP, and chainsawing an Arch-Vile to death while using its fiery torso as a shield against a Mancubus, and other waves of fireballs and hitscans – but today was one such day.

Overall, I had a blast playing this map (on UV). From the first moment I loaded into it, I had a smile on my face from the music, which I personally found to be one of the most perfect unions between music and gameplay in a Doom WAD that I’ve experienced in a while.

Initially, I felt quite disorientated from the labyrinth-like portals that infinitely loop back into each other all over the place, but the longer I played and farther into the level I got, I quickly became comfortable with your style of design, and actually really enjoyed it – again, the music kept this constant upbeat atmosphere that managed to massage away the feelings of a claustrophobic maze of horrors, and make it feel intriguing, tense, and more than a great deal of fun (to the point of almost comedic). I found myself lost at several points, and back-tracking a lot (probably needlessly), and if the design was lacking anything, it was a general sense of direction – although this kind of felt like it served the nature of the map, more than an oversight, so it’s hard to tell. At the same time, I found myself laughing and excited at several points, from just the sheer mayhem and mind-trickery that this map can throw at you unexpectedly.

I thought the use of enemies was fairly balanced, and the pacing in which you introduced weapons to the player felt right on point. Some areas of the map felt starved for ammo, but I think it had a lot to do with my poor conservation, as well as my apparent inability to find stuff (I never came across the rocket launcher, for example, which was the only weapon I didn’t find). I did manage to locate 4/7 secrets though!

All in all, a very enjoyable map! Quite memorable design, with a lot of very interesting encounters throughout – the large, square room with the central pad that rotated the outer walls was a highlight (especially once I got the Cybie going in there). The self-destructing Pinky orgy while dodging Revenant fireballs was also quite entertaining!

Hope to see more like this!

@grouchbag @MFG38 and @RonnieJamesDiner

Thanks for feedback!

MFG38, please share a demo if you dare to play ;)

I had great fun making this map, especially the parts with portals. Unfortunately, the monsters AI and sound propagation don't work that well with portals so some of the encounters are broken. For example, I was hoping to threaten the player with the single cyberdemon attacking from both directions at the same time, yet he decides to either attack from one direction or turn around and chase me through the opposite wall :)

And there is no rocket launcher on the map.

On 7/2/2018 at 6:09 PM, RonnieJamesDiner said:

Hope to see more like this!

Well, judging by the scarce feedback I guess this kind of maps are not what people enjoy to play.

Or maybe it's because of the difficulty (I still cannot make it without saves). Once I do I'll post a video...

Or maybe it's because there's no rocket launcher ;-)

OK, guys,

I couldn't make it without dying, so here is the video where I reload once or twice...