The Omega Speedmapping Competition! Now with Discord

Hello!

 

I started a year-round community project for 2019 called the Omega 2019 Project. Since there have been few entries, I've decided to spice things up by making a semi-relaxed speedmapping competition. The rules are as follows:

 

• Make a map before the end of Monday the 23^rd, in any format, using the same rules as stated in the official project. The resource pack is in the official thread.
• Finished speedmaps entered this way will be judged by me and a panel of two other selected judges. Our favorites will be given a "best in show" award. All completed speedmaps will be entered into then official Omega 2019 Project. Maps may still be submitted after the competition is over until Jan 1, 2020.
• Have fun, and remember to credit all new textures and skies! Also remember, no new DECORATE items, except for the ones included in the resource pack. Next year's project will contain more DECORATE stuff to play around with.
• The Discord is here. Thanks to Jark for getting it set up!

 

I hope to see many entries!

 

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by obake

It's a shame for me to miss Omega twice, but time has not spared me this year...
 

Do you mean Monday the 16^th, or the 23^rd?

12 hours ago, RonnieJamesDiner said:

Do you mean Monday the 16^th, or the 23^rd?

I meant the 16^th, but perhaps I should extend it to the 23^rd.

That's up to you. I'm hoping to get a semi-decent map made for this, though. Crunch time! 

When you say speed-mapping do you mean in a sense they need to be submitted by the 23rd but no limits other than that and the rules specifically mentioned in the original thread? Or  were you thinking speedmaps done in a specific time restriction?

1 hour ago, Steve88 said:

When you say speed-mapping do you mean in a sense they need to be submitted by the 23rd but no limits other than that and the rules specifically mentioned in the original thread? Or  were you thinking speedmaps done in a specific time restriction?

I mean that they need to be started anew and submitted by the 23rd, using the specific rules, if that makes sense.

I'm hoping to pop a map out for this! Good bit of speedmapping practise and to help along the project. 

What exactly makes this speedy? You could make a pretty well made joint with a week and change.. unless that's the point.

1 hour ago, Fairweather said:

What exactly makes this speedy? You could make a pretty well made joint with a week and change.. unless that's the point.

I figured since its the holidays, I'd give people a little more time, as they likely won't have as much time Dooming.

1 hour ago, obake said:

I figured since its the holidays, I'd give people a little more time, as they likely won't have as much time Dooming.

 

 

When I said 'Nova" in the chat I actually meant 'Omega' hehe

 

I appreciate the extra time, this is my first 'speed map', I finished the main layout in 8 hours and for me that's unheard of. I will still try to finish it ASAP, my only goal is that the map might be considered for the final megawad.

I shouldn't (time may not permit)... but I'm tempted.

9 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

I shouldn't (time may not permit)... but I'm tempted.

 

I've already picked out one of your beautiful MIDIs for the map I'm working on for this. So, basically you have to. Don't question the logic.

Here's my map:

 

Twisted Reality

Format: UDMF

Jump/crouch: yes

Difficulty settings: yes

Build time: 4 days

Music: "Plasma" from Duke Nukem 3D

twistedr.zip

 

Entryway meets Stardate? Really cool!

Eventually i'm going to finish the map i was working from March of this year...

Edited December 18, 2019 by Walter confetti

 

 

Link to my reply in the original topic, and I'll put the download here as well.

 

Doomworld attachment:

 

---> AZOTH.zip

 

(.zip contains AZOTH.wad, omegav2.wad resources file and .txt file for the map.)

 

<map updated I noticed some misplaced textures>

Edited December 20, 2019 by reflex17

@Danlex Just played "Twisted Reality", and this is such a brilliant little map for 4 days! I loved the idea of taking Entryway and turning it into this strange, ghoulish nightmare of a base being eaten up by the void, and fittingly full of AV's, where nothing really behaves like it's supposed to -- not even the doors. The lighting was beautiful, and I really admired the little details of the busted up tech walls spitting out sparks with ambient sounds. The final corridor past the red key door was quite memorable to look at.

 

I really wish this had been longer, but I suppose that's part of its charm and mystery. I'd love to see you add to this in the future, perhaps taking on the next few levels of Doom 2 or something. I think there's a wealth of opportunity here, with the visual style and gameplay. Awesome little speedmap! 

@reflex17 hey, since you're not in the discord I'll post my map feedback for you here:

 - Loved the opening shot outside of the starting gate, great vista and way to start of this epic map. Also loved all of the impressive visuals and oppressive architecture throughout the rest of the map. The deep, red "cuts" through the back area of the arena were a cool addition to the already great design of the area.
- Speaking of the deep, red "cuts" though, some ground monsters seemed to have trouble getting around back there, particularly from the sides to the center, (which may have actually been monster blocking lines?) I think front to back on the sides there as well, and the revs and stuff up above that area on the sides. I think the red arrows in the floor made it tough for them to group up, which maybe was your goal in retrospect, idk lol, but it also made them very tough to clear during the fray and a bit tedious to clean up after the pressure does down, so I'm not sure how to feel about that.
 - Switches are backwards! You madman ;p
 - Would have liked a bit more health in the large beginning area.
 - Northern side area/path leading to the arena is way harder than the southern one, perhaps frustratingly so, exacerbated by the absolute ease of the southern trap. If the rest of this map is a baseline, the northern path is as much harder than the baseline as the southern path is easier. Needless to say this is a major imbalance between the two routes. I'm not one to feel that every path in a nonlinear setup (no matter how small of scale) should be equal or perfectly balanced with one-another, but at the same time there is a just a massive imbalance between these two with the rest of the map. I would suggest a rework, or maybe as a quick alternative adding in a cheeky ss (or maybe just moving the nearby blue armor, which I didnt notice on my first playthrough and not until far too late on my last one. Actually, where did that come from and why would that appear during the final encounter?) to where the player can see it from before jumping out the window and committing to that path. Not sure if thatd be the perfect move but I think that more health to eat more bullets and rev missiles would make the likely mistakes less devastating.
 - Speaking of these paths, the fact that you can run back through them during the entire arena sequence is a bit of a shame, since they can be used as easy cheese points to ensure that all monsters come from a single direction as a giant, infighting mob of a meat mass.
 - I like the use of the vile in the back of the arena as a sort of immediate priority target. This can be used as a means to be able to predict a players location for the mapper to be able to better set up monsters and such. Not sure if that was your exact intent with this av but it was a good av for that regardless :)
 - I also have no actual idea what the intended strat was for most of the level following entering the arena, heh.
 - Ledge revs on far north/south sides of the arena, above the middle ledge imps and near the entrances to the arena, are unfortunately placed. Would be great if they could teleport down to the ground level at some point, maybe after the initial clearing or even just with the final wave at the end of the map.
 - Ledge revs in northern side path leading to the arena may be too high? I mean they're killable but it's a bit awkward to do so without freeaim.
 - Seriously when did that BA get there?
 - Why is the ceiling so tall in the dark hallway at the back of the arena? Lol
 - Might be cool to level out the floor near the GA and berserk pickup after the RK grab.
 - Can get stuck at very end of map in the small gap near the final switch, fml

 - I forgot to mention it above but I loved the use of differing types of pressure from so many angles throughout this map. The gameplay was aggressive and it was a lot of fun to push for some safety within the arena, then defeatedly give up on that dream in favor of staying mobile, dodging and weaving, while maintaining the aggressive attack. Truthfully I raged a bit at your map a couple days ago, but having gone in with a clear head I was able to complete the map much more reasonably with only enough corpses to fit in a large clown car. Again, I'm still not sure I understood quite what to do beyond "kill the av" and then winging it, but it was a good visceral feeling to fight it out.
All-in-all a great map and tons of fun to decorate with my army of player corpses.

 

 

 

I'd also like to say thanks to all the participants for making these fun maps and well done! It will be very difficult to choose a winner, but I'm happy to have been able to play through these maps.

 

Videos of me being a muppet in each of the 6 maps:

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by Fonze : Added video for RJD's map

4 hours ago, Fonze said:

- Speaking of the deep, red "cuts" though, some ground monsters seemed to have trouble getting around back there, particularly from the sides to the center, (which may have actually been monster blocking lines?) I think front to back on the sides there as well, and the revs and stuff up above that area on the sides. I think the red arrows in the floor made it tough for them to group up, which maybe was your goal in retrospect, idk lol, but it also made them very tough to clear during the fray and a bit tedious to clean up after the pressure does down, so I'm not sure how to feel about that.

 

There's no monster block lines but the symbol in the ground is so deep that monsters won't cross it, they must detect it as a large drop, so I'll have a look at reworking the area to see if there's something that works better.

 

4 hours ago, Fonze said:

Would have liked a bit more health in the large beginning area.

 

The beginning was tough for me to balance for some reason, it started out with less health than that, but adding more is easily doable.

 

4 hours ago, Fonze said:

Northern side area/path leading to the arena is way harder than the southern one

 

There's a rock outcropping you can use for cover in the northern side, but your feedback confirms a thought I had. I wanted them to be different but maybe not this different. I'll take a look at the rev turrets and maybe rework some of the enemy composition there. Maybe a little bit more health in the optional paths as well, but not much. Oh yeah the blue armor rises there by a nearby shoot switch, with infinite height it can sometimes get activated during fighting so it's understandable that you might've missed it. It's not a secret or anything so that can be reworked, maybe repositioning some of the armor pickups would help.

 

4 hours ago, Fonze said:

Speaking of these paths, the fact that you can run back through them during the entire arena sequence is a bit of a shame

 

This is something I went back and forth on, with the two optional sides and the way the cathedral is laid out I had a tough time figuring out a good way to lock the player in. I would like both sides explorable for completionists so that leaves a possibility for choke point camping unless they're both closed off. One possibility that could work is if I move the lines that start the fights a little further in maybe. I'll try some stuff to see if I can work something out here.

 

4 hours ago, Fonze said:

I also have no actual idea what the intended strat was for most of the level following entering the arena, heh.

 

No real intended strat here apart from chipping your way along, I agree though going in to the second half from the optional sides can be reworked for better encounter pacing. I'll take a look at the other ledge revs at the back and see if there's a good way to integrate them more effectively.

 

4 hours ago, Fonze said:

Might be cool to level out the floor near the GA and berserk pickup after the RK grab.

 

Ah yes I know what you mean, there's already pillars and stuff there so dropping the floor would open up better movement, I agree.

 

4 hours ago, Fonze said:

Can get stuck at very end of map in the small gap near the final switch, fml

 

This is the thing that bothers me the most, it's a simple mistake and I should've seen that. Easily fixable so thanks for letting me know about that.

 

4 hours ago, Fonze said:

Why is the ceiling so tall in the dark hallway at the back of the arena? Lol

 

LOL you see I extended the hallway from the main area as part of the same sector, then dropped down the ceilings at the entrances. Since the hallway is relatively dark it never jumped out at me as odd so it just kept the same height as the main cathedral.

 

@Fonze Thanks a lot for playing and giving such detailed feedback. I'm sorry to hear it got frustrating to where you had to come back to it, but I'm glad you did because your thoughts are very helpful. I just got discord a little while ago and I had meant to join up to that so thanks for the reminder. I appreciate that you took the time to record a playthrough, I'll watch your video and see if there's anything else important I might notice.

 

EDIT: some of the first comments on the video really jumped out at me, like when you said you wished more of the wandering cybers were present on HMP, I can probably set it up so they are more centralized and at least one of the two is present on HMP. I'll have a look and see if the skill flags on the cybers can be shuffled around a bit for more consistency. Thanks again for giving your ideas, your experienced opinion means a lot and I'm sure this will result in a better map in the end.

Edited January 7, 2020 by reflex17

26 minutes ago, reflex17 said:

 

There's no monster block lines but the symbol in the ground is so deep that monsters won't cross it, they must detect it as a large drop, so I'll have a look at reworking the area to see if there's something that works better.

 

Huh it seemed like they were also getting blocked on the sides trying to go to the middle but maybe there was a nearby red crack. For the red cracks, boom has action 242 iirc? create fake ceiling/floor which can be used to make visual effects with the floors while also not affecting monster pathing. I realize this map isnt boom format, but since this will be a zdoom mapset you may be able to use some similar zdoom function. It wasn't too big a deal tbh, the most prominent case was just the monsters being able to cross from one side through the middle and to the other in that back area. 

 

26 minutes ago, reflex17 said:

 

This is something I went back and forth on, with the two optional sides and the way the cathedral is laid out I had a tough time figuring out a good way to lock the player in. I would like both sides explorable for completionists so that leaves a possibility for choke point camping unless they're both closed off. One possibility that could work is if I move the lines that start the fights a little further in maybe. I'll try some stuff to see if I can work something out here.

 

Maybe you could open a teleporter near the end of the map or after the RK grab to let players get back to the other side of the inescapable pit separating the arena from the previous area, which would then allow you to make the entrances to the arena dropoffs.

 

26 minutes ago, reflex17 said:

This is the thing that bothers me the most, it's a simple mistake and I should've seen that. Easily fixable so thanks for letting me know about that.

 

Heh. Happens to everybody but really funny that it is in such a prominent location and literally right next to the exit. Thank goodness for saves ;P

 

26 minutes ago, reflex17 said:

LOL you see I extended the hallway from the main area as part of the same sector, then dropped down the ceilings at the entrances. Since the hallway is relatively dark it never jumped out at me as odd so it just kept the same height as the main cathedral.

 

Ah, well it was kinda funny/cute anyway to see the cacos fly unexpectedly high up. It didn't affect the gameplay much.

 

26 minutes ago, reflex17 said:

I'm sorry to hear it got frustrating to where you had to come back to it,

 

Ah it's all good that's the way things go sometimes. I would have served myself better to have stopped after an hour when I noticed myself falling apart, but on this last pass the map played really well, so my frustration was not necessarily a fault of the map. 

 

26 minutes ago, reflex17 said:

EDIT: some of the first comments on the video really jumped out at me, like when you said you wished more of the wandering cybers were present on HMP, I can probably set it up so they are more centralized and at least one of the two is present on HMP. I'll have a look and see if the skill flags on the cybers can be shuffled around a bit for more consistency. Thanks again for giving your ideas, your experienced opinion means a lot and I'm sure this will result in a better map in the end.

 

Np was fun times! Maybe wait to edit HMP til Major Arlene plays through the map though.

 

Cheers!

For sure, I'll give it some time to cool off, that's the trouble when you like making larger maps like I do, testing it yourself many times can be quite a task lol.

 

That's a really good idea about the teleporter to go back to the other optional side later on in the map though, for whatever reason that possibility never crossed my mind. I'll make good use of your feedback if/when I go to update the level.