The Tower - My first map [update v1.3]

thetower-v1.3.zip - more balance and difficulty settings, it can be fair now in hmp and below :)

thetower-v1.2.1.zip - fixed a bug

thetower-v1.2.zip - some balance and more difficulty settings

thetower-v1.1.zip - added some invulnerabilities in hmp and below

thetower-v1.zip

Hello everyone, this is my first doom map. Took a bit over a couple of months of daily work to get to a decent result. There's a lot of detailing since the visual design is basically the reason I really wanted to make a map, but I tried a lot not to make the gameplay suffer for it. It also contains custom midis which I made of parts of Devil Doll's The Girl who was... Death. Vanilla monsters & textures except sky.

It's small in terms of area but it's a slaughter map jam-packed full of demons. It's pretty linear and the difficulty ramps up a lot in the later fights so be prepared to die as much as you kill :) Generally I play with saves between fights so it's balanced like that. There's quite a few secrets that will make the map way more doable so look for them. Takes me about 15 minutes to uv-max in a medium pace (TAS using saves: https://youtu.be/Dz03PVvhNdY). There's difficulty settings implemented so I suggest you start on HMP or lower.

Needs the Doom 2 iwad, it's map01, tested on pr/glboom+ (complevel 9) and gzdoom. Jump & crouch not needed, freelook encouraged to take in the surroundings :D Infinite height monsters can get annoying in one fight, so I recommend gzdoom and make sure: Compatibility Options > Physics Behavior > Actors are infinitely tall > No (which is the default).

All kinds of feedback are appreciated (balance, bugs, gameplay, nudes, w/e). I plan to improve this one, make more maps in the same theme and eventually make an episode sized wad but that may or may not happen in a reasonable timescale.

A huge thanks to the people in Bridgeburner's Hellforge discord for helping and answering my billions of stupid questions!

4 minutes ago, eirc said:

It also contains custom midis which I made of parts of Devil Doll's The Girl who was... Death

Well this piques my interest! Especially combined with those gory, gothy screenshots 

Those screenshots look fantastic! I'll try to play tomorrow and make a video. Congrats on the map!

Love the detail! 

I love when people do compelling and intricate environments with the vanilla textures.

First of all, congrats on your first map!

Alas I was not able to finish this map. It's too tough for me, might replay once you've enabled HNTR

I enjoyed the first couple of fights, especially the imp crusher trick. 

The first big battle is pretty mean - a cramped space full of medium-tier monsters with no extra health given. I ended up having to retreat back the map and get the pack half down by infighting, half by killing monsters as they advanced through the maze. 

The next battle is easy enough (here you are granted adequate health). But then the next battle is super hard again. Avoiding the arch vile blasts requires pixel perfect placement (and luck). I ended up stuck on the BFG platform as it was entirely surrounded by revenants. I would say turning off infinite height monsters is more of a requirement than a recommendation (I also don't know how to turn it off in PrBoom+)

Hey thanks for the feedback, you're right I'll check those two encounters again, I tipped the scales too much in my last pass trying to spice the first up and ease the second. I've played em so much I just cannot clearly see what's easy or difficult so thanks!

Regarding the viles I think you just didn't find the easy way to deal with them, zero dodging required ;) after that you hurry off the platform and you won't get stuck by revs. I looked it up and couldn't find a way to turn off infinite height on prboom so I'll probably try to have the cacos come in at a different angle to avoid this issue.

For now I added a couple invulnerabilities in easier difficulties but I'll put in some time to disable some monsters too.

this is really neat! the visuals are kind of bizarre but nonetheless very cool and charming, and I really like the gameplay. only made it up to the BFG battle so far - which is admittedly not that far into things I suppose - but really enjoying it all so far :D

I did find the way to deal with the viles, my problem was then I chose to try and get rid of the cacos remaining on the upper platform instead of dropping down to party with the revs. Maybe a one-way teleport might work?

9 hours ago, Horus said:

I did find the way to deal with the viles, my problem was then I chose to try and get rid of the cacos remaining on the upper platform instead of dropping down to party with the revs. Maybe a one-way teleport might work?

I'm not sure about that, I mean you are supposed to get down asap, there's goodies that'll help you a lot and you don't wanna spend all the cells, you absolutely have to keep some for the next fight. That being said I'll definitely try to address that if more people get stuck there.

I also got to the BFG fight in my first run. This map has a really great layout and the overall feel and design of it is great. Absolutely loving the music tracks, as well. I'm going to have to spend a little more time with it, though, because I don't play slaughter maps ever. I started recording a video and then stopped. No one needs to watch me die that often. Ha!

2 hours ago, kknot5889 said:

I also got to the BFG fight in my first run. This map has a really great layout and the overall feel and design of it is great. Absolutely loving the music tracks, as well. I'm going to have to spend a little more time with it, though, because I don't play slaughter maps ever. I started recording a video and then stopped. No one needs to watch me die that often. Ha!

I'd still be interested to see how you went through the first part of the map though, see what secrets you found and if they make sense :) It looks like everyone's getting stuck at the BFG though, maybe I need to tone down the difficulty a tad. Did you try in non UV difficulties? There's an invlunerability nearby that can help immensely and it's not a secret or anything.

6 minutes ago, eirc said:

 

I'd still be interested to see how you went through the first part of the map though, see what secrets you found and if they make sense :) It looks like everyone's getting stuck at the BFG though, maybe I need to tone down the difficulty a tad. Did you try in non UV difficulties? There's an invlunerability nearby that can help immensely and it's not a secret or anything.

I deleted the video, unfortunately. They automatically save to my SSD and then I transfer them to my F drive for space reasons so I just deleted it after I stopped. Didn't have any problems until the BFG part. But again, I don't play slaughter so I can't speak to the overall difficulty of that part. I didn't have any trouble before that. I found two secrets, I think. The one secret hallway that leads to the berserk (didn't get into the little mega armor section, though) and the Soulsphere secret right before the first Cyberdemon. Definitely loving the design and look of it, man. You knocked it out of the park! 

I still have my video. Warning: a lot of dying!

tower.zip

Ok I can see the map can be super hard for blind runs especially since the next fight you guys didn't reach is even harder! I have made a TAS run that can serve as a walkthrough because the secrets contain a ton of health which is important obviously. I have also done the map with zero secrets but I still knew exactly how to tackle each fight.

So yea it seems v1 was super unfair, but by now I think HMP is ok for blind runs and the walkthrough can help with secrets and strats.

Thanks for being my guinea pigs @Tango, @Horus and @kknot5889, if you still have the patience to try the new version (in HMP) let me know :)

I liked the map, but i think i broke it?

here's an fda 

noisy_thetower-1_3.zip

8 hours ago, eirc said:

Ok I can see the map can be super hard for blind runs especially since the next fight you guys didn't reach is even harder! I have made a TAS run that can serve as a walkthrough because the secrets contain a ton of health which is important obviously. I have also done the map with zero secrets but I still knew exactly how to tackle each fight.

 

So yea it seems v1 was super unfair, but by now I think HMP is ok for blind runs and the walkthrough can help with secrets and strats.

 

Thanks for being my guinea pigs @Tango, @Horus and @kknot5889, if you still have the patience to try the new version (in HMP) let me know :)

I’ll give it another shot once I’m done with my playthroughs of Alienated and Alien Vendetta

@eirc I'll definitely give it another shot!

10 hours ago, NoisyVelvet said:

I liked the map, but i think i broke it?

here's an fda 

noisy_thetower-1_3.zip

Hahaha you didn't break it, that was so funny. Here's what you had to hump to move on: https://youtu.be/Dz03PVvhNdY?t=550. That was a great run btw but you stopped right before the difficult part starts!

Part way through the map (BFG platform) - Watched your video to see how to proceed, it seems that second switch does exactly what I thought it would.

That megasphere will definitely be handy though.

Pretty tough so far, hopefully I can beat this section now that I've seen the proper positioning :).

1 minute ago, Magicana said:

Part way through the map (BFG platform) - Watched your video to see how to proceed, it seems that second switch does exactly what I thought it would.

 

 That megasphere will definitely be handy though.

  

Pretty tough so far, hopefully I can beat this section now that I've seen the proper positioning :).

Hey hope you're enjoying it, this and the next fight are waaay harder than the first part of the map tho. Try HMP if you're having trouble, there's an invulnerability for each of these fights there.

37 minutes ago, eirc said:

 

Hey hope you're enjoying it, this and the next fight are waaay harder than the first part of the map tho. Try HMP if you're having trouble, there's an invulnerability for each of these fights there.

I'm playing on UV to get me ready to continue with Sunder - Every bit of slaughter counts!

4 hours ago, eirc said:

 

Hey hope you're enjoying it, this and the next fight are waaay harder than the first part of the map tho. Try HMP if you're having trouble, there's an invulnerability for each of these fights there.

Annnnd done.

Unfortunately I was able to cheese the fights after - Looks like there is a monster blocking line that is to stop the cyberdemon from getting out. It also means you can two shot the cyber and hide behind the switch and the revenants/cacos can't follow you.

From there you can snake the megasphere, teleport, and move your ass to the end teleporter without much trouble.

Enjoyed the map though, even though I couldn't beat that revenant pileup.

6 hours ago, Magicana said:

 

Unfortunately I was able to cheese the fights after - Looks like there is a monster blocking line that is to stop the cyberdemon from getting out. It also means you can two shot the cyber and hide behind the switch and the revenants/cacos can't follow you.

Ok noting this along with the other cheeses people reported, I'll get you in v1.4 you filthy cheesers :)

6 hours ago, Magicana said:

 without much trouble.

Umm there was another big fight with viles, cybers and a ton of imps back upstairs right? Just asking to make sure everything worked ok and didn't bug out.

Again, thanks for the feedback!

1 minute ago, eirc said:

 

Ok noting this along with the other cheeses people reported, I'll get you in v1.4 you filthy cheesers :)

 

 

Umm there was another big fight with viles, cybers and a ton of imps back upstairs right? Just asking to make sure everything worked ok and didn't bug out.

 

Again, thanks for the feedback!

Oh I definitely saw them - Unfortunately there is nothing to keep me in that room, so I hightailed it out of there. Took me a few tries to dodge the cyberdemons out there, but a bit of luck with the rockets and I was able to finish the map.

I won't mention that I finished the map -before- all these fixes mind you, so everyone thinks I'm a better player than I really am!

Wot you managed to skip the whole fight there??? I put in those last two cybers thinking noone will be able to dodge them with all the commotion behind them! That's pretty impressive - and another thing going in my cheese list lol.

11 minutes ago, eirc said:

Wot you managed to skip the whole fight there??? I put in those last two cybers thinking noone will be able to dodge them with all the commotion behind them! That's pretty impressive - and another thing going in my cheese list lol.

Sorry :P.

Yea not firing a shot will not wake up the viles and hell knights that teleport in too you cheesy bastard. Good running tho :D

18 minutes ago, eirc said:

Yea not firing a shot will not wake up the viles and hell knights that teleport in too you cheesy bastard. Good running tho :D

I guess the two options are to have them awake already, and a small platform that lowers when you cross the right linedef (Probably on the teleporter), or have the exit on a timer.

I did replay it. And I forgot what you said about HMP and played it on UV again lol. This time I found the sphere and megaarmor secrets though. I'm sorry I cheesed the last battle like everyone else (I didn't actually watch the videos of others doing it, I just felt like cheesing after finally completing that last battle, didn't particularly fancy an even harder one). I wish I saw the backpack before I did.

00tower.zip