The West Virginia Anomaly (short vanilla compatible map)

I had a MIDI of "Take Me Home, Country Roads" lying around, so I decided to make a map with it. The "story" is that demons have appeared in an old fort in West Virginia and you need to kill them. It's somewhat difficult, but quite short. A skilled player can UV MAX it in about 10 minutes. I also challenged myself to make the map vanilla compatible, so if you're wondering why it looks relatively underdetailed, that's why.

Screenshots:

Technical Details:

IWAD: DOOM2

Compatibility: Vanilla

Tested With: Chocolate Doom, Crispy Doom, GZDoom

Difficulty settings are implemented

Jumping is not allowed

Download Link: https://www.mediafire.com/file/g7pc9awgwubuwmv/WEST_VIRGINIA_ANOMALY.wad/file

Very fun 90's styled map you have here. Played on UV.

Gameplay

A lot of the map reminds me of Requiem. The gameplay, in this regard, is very 90's styled. Your map seems to have a minor gimmick in the form of that pesky cybie being a near constant threat( and a oddly hilarious way to eliminate hitscnanners). I enjoy maps that have some sort of gimmick, but don't let it control the gameplay too much, or play a minor role in it. Keeps things interesting. The frantic nature of the combat as the map goes on is also a highlight, especially that trap in the library. 

The usage of former humans may need to be discussed. If you intend on putting them in hordes, I'd recommend giving earlier access to the chain-gun. The shotgun may dispatch quite a few of them with each shot, but in the time it takes to pump another round, they've already shot you a few times. I'd also recommend giving the player some more cells to deal with the cybie. I was forced to SSG him due to running out of cells.

Layout

The layout is very similar to some of Alien: Vendetta's maps and a few of Requiem's maps. Simplistic and to the point. I like it.

Texturing and detailing

You mentioned in the post that you tried to make the map vanilla-compatible and you called it "under detailed". Not every map need to have massive amounts of detailing to be enjoyable. These days, there has been a resurgence in mappers attempting to capture that 90's feel. I don't know if this was intentional, but you seem to have that sort of visual aesthetic in your map. Minimalist and competent, would be the right word to describe your map's texture work and detailing.

Bugs

None that I noticed.

Conclusion

A short punchy map that seems to echo of the 90's style of mapmaking, and has a competent layout, gameplay, texture work and detailing. Good work, man.

The West Virginia Anomaly

Ultra-Violence || GZDoom || Vanilla+

Status:

Deaths → 1 (killed by Cyberdemon)

Saves → none

An absurdly hard map, the truth is that this Wad did leave me extremely surprised by the things that came to show me on the screen from the beginning to the end, but first, some detail in everything. The structure and architecture of the map is extremely good, not at a professional level obviously, but it is acceptable, because if it has a certain variety in each place so as not to make it look monotonous of being fixedly in a flat area, there are places where you should climb stands, and lower them, others in which there are several corners with one or another decoration, and finally there are rooms with more space and not only with closed places. Now with regard to the combats, in this the map stands out a lot, there are clashes that are very ugly, maximum because the vast majority of these become Hitscanner attacks... A LOT of hitscanners, oh yes, and then there are the appearances of resistant enemies, but I do not criticize much of it, since it was not much of a problem for me to try to kill them all, but with the Hitscanners, things were raw, really raw... and with respect to the Cyberdemon of the I started, as I ended up killing it only with shotgun bullets, and with the machine gun, since I had not yet found the Plasma gun at that time. In general, it was a good map, entertaining and really difficult to pass, in the end I was quite satisfied when I managed to beat them all without having made any saves, a certain adrenaline that gave me, made me become more skilled in moments of intense panic, allowing me to make ingenious escapes and manage to stay alive until the end, great job with this map, I had a really good time here, with some nerves in places but all good in the end.

This map looks pretty cool! I will give it a try pretty soon

A classic feeling romp that was a fun challenge with an interesting layout. Besides a small gripe I had with the first Berserk pack placement, I thoroughly enjoyed this map.

I didn't feel at any point as though the map was underdetailed; you've made good use of fairly modest linedef and sector counts within a consistent and coherent visual theme, and different areas are distinctive enough for navigation to be easy without any room or area seeming out of place.

Overall I found the gameplay to be a bit "one-trick" and very little beyond about the red door caught me by surprise, differing from what had come before in scale more than in its basic nature.  I think the relatively linear layout of the map contributes to this somewhat; there is a sense that is any given point your choices of direction are limited to "move ahead" and "go back," and the most meaningful decisions I had to make during play were whether to engage or not at the switch in the library and the switch that opens the door to the exit.  In both cases I chose not to engage and in both cases I knew exactly what "blocker" monsters you'd be employing to try and thwart my escape from the incomes hordes.

The basic layout seems like it could accommodate passages from western corners of the library mezzanine to the U-bend (north) and ambush elbow (south) areas, opening up when the big ambush in the library occurs, which would let the monsters released in the library outflank the player; as things stand, if the players know there's an ambush incoming (and everything about the layout forewarns them about what's going to happen when they hit that switch), it's easy enough to rush back to the door and clear out the "blocker" monsters before the bulk of the incoming ambush party can do anything, after which they're bottlenecked at the single door into the library's lower level and can be engaged in a trickle or completely ignored as the player chooses.

Similarly, I feel like there could be a passage or stairway from the U-bend to the red key area that opens up when the closet in the U-bend pops open, to grand easier access to supplies not used in that area of the map and to make the whole exercise feel a bit less essentially linear.

The map is fairly linear in nature with some decent architecture that looks pretty nice. :)

Traps however are either super easy to avoid or are a little on the sadism side of life, and the final "trap" is very easy to avoid by simply whipping out the plasma rifle and going to town on the archvile then running towards the exit and boop the switch. Also, the super shotgun is a pain to get to since you're almost required to grab the nearby secret so you don't get mauled to death by all the low-high tier enemies that spawn.

My main issue though is the cyberdemon. Unless you're meant to never kill it, trying to defeat it when trapped in a tiny corner hallway with barely enough ammo was a slog-fest to say the least, maybe a few extra plasma cells would go a long way.

Hey @E.M., it looks like you got plenty of feedback already, which is awesome! I just wanted to let you know that I'm planning on giving your WAD a try during my live stream this evening at https://twitch.tv/letoseldon. Come join me around 8pm Pacific Time if you want to chat about your map while I'm playing it. 🙂

It was a pleasure playing your WAD. It's well-rounded. I got surprised by demons a couple of times. The ammo balance felt just right. I like the placement of the cyber demon! If you want more details, you can watch the recording of the stream at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/943756129?t=01h04m45s.

Just played your map! It was pretty nice, I loved how much mileage you got out of the small numbers of linedefs / sectors. It's a pretty good-looking map for sure!

I liked the enemy encounters, but I do think you tend to overuse traps a little bit. I think changing things up here and there and finding different ways to create enemy encounters, not just spawing tons of 'em when you start making progress or press a button, would make the map a bit better, in my opinion.

The pacing was also fairly slow because of the enemy layout as well as the limited ammunition often impending your progress forwards, and forcing you to use corners and other rooms to thin up the herd a little bit. I don't think it's something good /or/ bad, and if anything that's a great use of hitscanner enemies / pinkies!

I also REALLY liked that fight in the library. It's hectic, fun, and the area is just big enough to maneuver around while not feeling /too/ expansive. It's like a cool, miniature deathmatch area!

All in all, I'd say it's good! If you could make the encounters more varied and maybe add a little more ammo here and there, I think you would have a great map.

Really enjoyed this map good times 

https://youtu.be/dn-w_2QRkFo

My playthrough starts at 45:05. Alas I had to change the midi due to Twitch DMCA avoidance, but the map was alright.