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MFG38

[Now on /idgames!] 3x3: Take Two - 3 flats, 3 textures, 3 monster types speedmaps again!

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I ran through maps 1-15 for testing purposes before I do recordings. What a fun half of set this is! I already have some favorites, but honestly, all of them are distinctive and worth the time. The difficulty balancing is very good for the first half. I'm looking forward to the other half of the set and then doing recordings and commentary for all.

I'll mention it in the videos as well but I think one of the winning elements of how this was organized was the 'expected playtime' rule that was enforced, keeping every level 5-7 minutes was totally the right call because we avoid magnum opus syndrome and also the 3x3x3 limit never wears out its welcome. In a curious way it makes this the more multi-colored and visually varied boom mapset I've played in a while, exactly because every 5 minutes or so you get a refresh of the visual set and also the gameplay rules that go with working within the restriction. 

 

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I made some demos for the final version.

These aren't gameplay demos, instead they are more showcase demos.

 

I noticed in Dieting Hippo's video that the wad, when left on the title screen for a bit, plays the demo of default map 11. That's a terrible showcase of "Sludge Terminal", and it's extremely easy to fix. All it takes is some demos by someone with a bit of free time.

 

Notice that in my demos I die pretty early on, even though they're all in HMP. That's not only because I'm trash at the game, but also beacuse I was purposefully playing carelessly, since boldness is one of the things I like to see in game demos. Also, I tried to die relatively early, so that I didn't have to record 10 min demos.

 

The demos aren't exactly meant for the respective mappers; instead they are meant as just plain small additions to the wad.

 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/npn35q55yyd81fs/3x3two.rar/file

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I just finished this. I had fun for the most part. The only issue I can remember is that I couldn't move from the starting position on map28.

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@Bryan T Map 28 is my favourite. In order to start the map, you have to shoot a couple of targets.

 

You should really give it another try, the level is a treat.

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@MFG38 This might be way too soon to ask, but are you planning on making this a trilogy (a "3x3x3", if you will) at any point? I have a portion of a map I was planning to make for this, but I've been too busy lately to be able to finish it in time.

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15 hours ago, PeceMan said:

I noticed in Dieting Hippo's video that the wad, when left on the title screen for a bit, plays the demo of default map 11. That's a terrible showcase of "Sludge Terminal", and it's extremely easy to fix. All it takes is some demos by someone with a bit of free time.

 

I didn't bother adding demos yet because I was eventually going to ask people to record some for the final release, as I did with the first 3x3. But I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to record demos. I'll give them all a look shortly.

 

11 hours ago, Bryan T said:

The only issue I can remember is that I couldn't move from the starting position on map28.

 

That's intentional. As PeceMan said, you'll need to shoot the three targets at the start of the map to sort of "unlock" yourself.

 

5 hours ago, Xulgonoth said:

This might be way too soon to ask, but are you planning on making this a trilogy (a "3x3x3", if you will) at any point?

 

Not at the moment at least. I feel like two iterations of the 3x3 idea is enough for the time being. Chances are fairly high I'll be hosting more community projects down the line, but the next one I host will very likely be something different. You can only reuse the same idea so many times before it gets old. But you never know - a third 3x3 project may indeed become a thing later. I'm certainly keeping my mind open.

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On 5/11/2021 at 6:41 PM, MFG38 said:

Ladies and gentlemen, RC1 of 3x3: Take Two is out! Go download it from one of the two links below:

Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/js7jtxtw3uq6xwm/3x3ttwo_rc1.zip?dl=0

Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cstEChpnt-hSsFVYExUJwa03Yquo-WJx/view?usp=sharing

 

Once again, I can not thank each and every one of you enough for taking part in this project and making it another success. 30 maps in the final roster... Whoo boy. Anyway, that's enough sentimentality out of me - I hope you enjoy playing the mapset as much as I did running this project! If you come across any bugs, please feel free to report them and I'll fix them to the best of my ability. Should nothing game-breaking occur, the current build will be "re-released" as v1.0 and also be submitted to /idgames within the next week or two.

 

 

Sweet. I'll have to have a crack of this this weekend. Been wanting to see other entries in this series. Shame when the dead line was announced for doing any more changes I wasn't feeling 100%/too busy with other stuff to do some tweaks (mainly texture alignments). They weren't game breaking though.

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alright video coverage of maps 1 to 10 (sadly no devil's gut, I forgot to click record! But I'll get it on my next batch)
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 



I'll keep on with the rest soon! It's been so fun to play through these. I hope the respective map makers get something out of the commentary. 

Edited by Helm

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"I know how good it feels to see people play your stuff, and have something of value to say about them" -Helm                    Amen.

 

Spoiler

The name of the midi composer isn't a notepad mistake, the guy is just from a weird region of the world. The song doesn't have a name, at least as far as I know, since it was meant to be used on a different project which we never finished. Having said that, I did ask for his consent in using the song.

 

In other news, god bless Supercharge.

 

I am a bit more proud of the other level, since I did spend WAY more time working on that one. This one was mostly an afterthought I had when I heard about the deadline creeping up.

 

The pinkies in the weird closet things, and the shotgunners in the lower area are set to "not-ambush" and "ambush" respectively, because otherwise they would either chase from the worst possible angle, or not chase at all. I set their ambush flags as a quickfix, to try and get them to behave sort of appropriately. If I had spent more time working on them and their encounters, I could've probably made them work better.

 

OH GOD I MISSED A DOOR FRAME FUCK   (Its on the blue door by the level end)

 

"This is a mapper's Reasource"   I really like your attitude towards videos

 

Monsters don't like tight corridors either. They open all sorts of doors they're not supposed to, and then the monsters from three rooms over hear your shots.

 

 

I was hoping my map would be fun, since it is the first. Everyone who plays the set is gonna play my level, so I wished I could've given a better first impression. Sadly, gameplay design is not always my strongest suit.

I'm very sorry to any of the other mappers, who may feel like I have let them down.

 

 

 

Man, you HAVE to raise the volume of your videos before uploading them. I had to turn the volume on my speakers all the way up to hear you.

 

 

Thank you so much @Helm for the video! It truly brings joy to ones heart to see one's work being valued for what it is.

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I love seing people's process and thoughts on their creations. I remember from @Worst he joined three distinct secrets to make sure doomguy can pick any of them and still 100% the level, which I think is incredibly creative.

I thought doomguy was on a spaceship, it never occured to me he may have been imprisioned!

I didn't notice the other windows!

 

I like how you refer to the weird metal texture as "Guts". I always thought of them as parts of a machine, but if the machine lives, then the corks and screws are its intestines.

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7 hours ago, PeceMan said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

The name of the midi composer isn't a notepad mistake, the guy is just from a weird region of the world. The song doesn't have a name, at least as far as I know, since it was meant to be used on a different project which we never finished. Having said that, I did ask for his consent in using the song.

 

In other news, god bless Supercharge.

 

I am a bit more proud of the other level, since I did spend WAY more time working on that one. This one was mostly an afterthought I had when I heard about the deadline creeping up.

 

The pinkies in the weird closet things, and the shotgunners in the lower area are set to "not-ambush" and "ambush" respectively, because otherwise they would either chase from the worst possible angle, or not chase at all. I set their ambush flags as a quickfix, to try and get them to behave sort of appropriately. If I had spent more time working on them and their encounters, I could've probably made them work better.

 

OH GOD I MISSED A DOOR FRAME FUCK   (Its on the blue door by the level end)

 

"This is a mapper's Reasource"   I really like your attitude towards videos

 

Monsters don't like tight corridors either. They open all sorts of doors they're not supposed to, and then the monsters from three rooms over hear your shots.

 

 

I was hoping my map would be fun, since it is the first. Everyone who plays the set is gonna play my level, so I wished I could've given a better first impression. Sadly, gameplay design is not always my strongest suit.

I'm very sorry to any of the other mappers, who may feel like I have let them down.e's work being valued for what it is.

Perish the thought your level is fine! I certainly didn't mean to discourage you in any way by giving a little feedback. And another perspective of value is this: when someone chances on a community project like this and the fire it up and go through all the levels and see where the map set starts and what kind of crazyness (waaaay beyond what I could do!) it gets up to, the early levels being more modest is actually good. That's where the player may feel 'hey, I think I can do this too, if this community can make short, simple and sweet, but it can also make this bonkers stuff and all of this material can live in the same package, then it's a welcoming community. I should make some doom maps!".

I hadn't realized there's volume issues with the videos? I'll try to be more mindful in the future, thanks :)

I'm glad the self indulgent rambling about motW is well taken, you're very kind, PeceMan :)

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@Dieting Hippo thanks for the video! Really enjoyable to watch!

@Helm thanks for the video and commentary, I'm glad you liked my map, I didn't expect such a positive feedback! It's motivating :) And yes, you did pronounce my name correctly, which is rare ;)

 

I also watched recordings of other maps in the set that I played already, it's nice to compare impressions. I think the videos are really valuable for the mappers and you can learn from them a lot. Looking forward for more videos from you guys!

 

Also, I'm enjoying playing through the mapset in general, some really nice maps in there and it's impressive what some people can do with just 3 textures.

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Finished playing through the entire wad yesterday and I really loved it! Congratulations to all of the mappers and to MFG38 for organizing. Maps are all good to excellent. The difficulty ramps up pretty smoothly as well. There is a nice variety in map design and game-play style. Each map is also visually distinct with lots of memorable locations. The limitation, using only 3 textures, flats and enemy types really seems to have encouraged creativity.

 

@Helm, I watched all of your videos. They were very interesting to watch. I liked how you commented on the design of the maps in a very detailed way. I feel like I learned a couple of things about mapping from watching your videos.

About my map, Toxic Rumble. You make a good point about my choice of enemy types, the shotgunner and chaingunner are basically the same mechanically (both are hitscanners). Having pinkies or spectres would have allowed me to set up different and more varied monster encounters. I did struggle a bit coming up with interesting encounters towards the end. About the green armor secret. I typically do not look at the automap when playing Doom so my secrets tend to have a visual clue. I realize now that I should have hidden all the linedefs on the automap that are in inaccessible areas because they were clearly misleading you into thinking you could somehow reach this area from outside. I'll keep that in mind for my future maps.

 

@MFG38, I have discovered a mistake in my second map, Metallurgy. I seem to have forgotten to tag a couple of outdoor sectors for the sky transfer in the southwestern portion of the map (the one sector where the chaingun is and several small sectors where the hole is in the ceiling between the green armor and medikit). I probably missed those because when I was testing the map, it was in slot 1 and the default episode 1 sky has a similar color to the custom one. Now that the map is in slot 21, however, the default red sky is obviously very different from the custom sky. Can this still be fixed? I can upload another version of my map with the correct tags.

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7 minutes ago, PinkFlamingo said:

I have discovered a mistake in my second map, Metallurgy. [...] Can this still be fixed? I can upload another version of my map with the correct tags.

 

Yeah, by all means.

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Thanks, jacnowak, PinkFlamingo. Very happy to give back. It's all I could hope for if we're circulating some doom mapping knowledge amongst ourselves and it doesn't just go one way, because god knows I'm learning a lot by taking a closer look at everybody's work.

Here's three more!
 

 

 

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Here's muumi's_house.wad. Uploading the secret levels as well, which I hadn't played beforehand, and.... Oh boy.

As to this one, I love it! I spoke about how much in the thread earlier, so this is a great chance to go through it with Supercharge as well and get all the secrets. Which.... let's just say it takes me a while. I ramble on about adventure games, what I had for breakfast, doomcute eras, literally anything that comes to my mind but eventually I get the secret exit. 
 

 

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@Helm, thanks for the video!  I really enjoy your relaxed commentary style.  You're informative and have good attention to detail.

  • In Boom format, you can use linedef action 260 to get a translucent middle texture.
  • You probably had trouble with the secrets because I didn't do a great job with them.  I couldn't fit in a switch texture, which means that none of the "switches" in the map have the switch sound.  You often activated them without realizing it since there was no sound.  I tried to communicate the secret switches by making them look somewhat similar to the key switches but it didn't work.  Just a poor design choice on my part.  In retrospect, walkover linedef secrets attached to lifts is a much better idea for secrets when you don't have a switch texture, since then you'd get the lift sound queue.
  • Really happy you love moving around the map!  I think it's funny you said you were going to measure my steps and stuff, since when I'm making a long, flowing staircase or something similar, I just open Ancient Aliens and measure the dimensions of how skillsaw does it.  I also spend a lot of time jumping in and out of testing while I'm mapping to make sure the map feels good to move around in.
  • RL area is optional by design.  Originally the yellow key was down there but I thought it was a harder fight t so I didn't want to make it mandatory.  I figured, since the wad is supposed to be speedrun friendly, that (maybe) opens up routing options.
  • Difficulty is hard for me to balance.  I try to make it difficult enough to be engaging without being too irritating but it's definitely a process I'm still learning.

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@Helm thanks! That was quite indepth video! Exit trigger is actually just in the balloon's casket, I should have probably moved the signs closer to it. Secret exit was bit rushed to be honest. 

I kinda dislike when maps have some places hidden from automap, so I have went to other extreme and have nothing to hide.

 

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Salmon thank you for the boom tip! That's going to come in handy!

For what it's worth when I watched the video back I noticed turning on all the secrets, so it could also be the inattentive mind of a commentator versus a player. Players focus more while commentators blab, long story short.

I hear you about the ancient aliens worship, skillsaw is definitely one to study again and again. Then it's fair to say you've internalized some of the dimensionality already!

I don't think the difficulty is off. There's people who play things once, and there's people who play things 2, 3, 4 times to get good at them. Your difficulty is geared towards the latter group, I find, but for them this is good ol' UV. It's not a ball busting insane map at all. The mindset for how to do difficulty for the first group versus the second group is quite different I think.

muumi yeah potentially moving the exit signs closer to the actual exit would have helped me not be dum-dum for half an hour, but also, it's a secret exit, secret exits are supposed to be a bit extra hard, no? 

Speaking of me being a dum-dum for half an hour or more, here come the secret maps. Vid still processing high def but whatever.
 



I learned a lot in the end, but oh my god, severely outclassed by these two for sure. For the tightrope: if I'm playing it correctly in the video, it seems so harsh with the RNG in the second room with the 4  cybers. If I missed something, let me know. How I'd edit this map to make it still ball bustingly hard but a bit more fair would be to make the switches also trigger a crusher above cybers so for every one of the three triggers you get one less cyber on your ass. The last can get crushed when you make exit if you delay the exit a bit by extending a corridor or whatnot. The idea is, if the crusher is fast enough it'll hitstun the cyber so it'll save the player from when they have to turn around and face potentially 4 cybers rocketing their ass with no wiggle room. Of course more wiggle room at the button platforms would also help regardless of crushers, heh.

It leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth to not have a way to 100% the kills on that one, so some nice crushers (including on the first room) would round things off without messing with the fundamental design of the map.

As to BoxY's map, all I can say is, you can see me in the video give up 5 different ways and trip myself over and deny that I can do this, but yet, I did do it even with all the saves, so thanks for pushing me with this map to become a smidge of a better player. The last archvile room actually probably is easier than I make it seem, it just needs a solid strategy. The one with the revenants that I cheesed I am uncertain how I could do it better besides just, you know, by getting gud in slaughter fundamentals. I couldn't find a way to get around the group to herd it and BFG it from a perimeter because of those deadly archie turreted positions. Fiendish, just fiendish. I wonder if those archies are still there in HMP

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@Helm Thanks so much for the video, really well played. I did realise at some point that you can vile jump into the side areas in the rev room but I didn't think much about whether anyone could use it for a real cheese so I didn't bother fixing it back then. I think at one point I was considering putting a stupid secret area up in one of those platforms but it would have made the map longer than the target time and didn't really feel like it suited the pace of the map to have the player detour into side areas to get 100%. In hindsight the cheese is of course really obvious and just making those platforms 8 units higher would have taken 5 seconds. I'll call it an alternate solution, it sounds more polite than cheese :).

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"really well played" I am crying rn lol thank you for being kind :)

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Made an update to Tightrope and figured I'd drop it in here separately, in case anyone wants to give it a spin and provide more feedback before I release v1.0 of the set. A couple quite significant gameplay overhauls here - first off, I scrapped the teleporting Baron/Cyberdemon in the first area. Instead of one of the "final" switches teleporting in said enemy and the other raising the elevator, you now have to press both switches to raise the elevator to the correct level. I also modified the second area so that each of the switches that raise the path up to the exit also blocks off a Cyberdemon (or two).

 

mfg_3x3ttwo_2-v2.zip

 

Speaking of v1.0, chances are I'll release it later this week.

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10 minutes ago, MFG38 said:

Made an update to Tightrope

 

I think this one is much better. The final room feels more rewarding, having the Cyberdemons blocked after hitting all switches.

 

Another idea to maybe kill off the Cyberdemons at the end would be to place a 'walk once' teleporting linedef in front of the exit and let the player telefrag the four Cyberdemons.

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1 minute ago, PinkFlamingo said:

Another idea to maybe kill off the Cyberdemons at the end would be to place a 'walk once' teleporting linedef in front of the exit and let the player telefrag the four Cyberdemons.

 

Hey yeah, that's an idea.

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MFG yo thank you so much for taking the feedback! I'll check out the update on my own time but the changes immediately sound like years added to my life :P

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yes yes yes yes telefrag the cybers yes yes yes reveeeeenge

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2 hours ago, MFG38 said:

Made an update to Tightrope

NGL I feel kinda cheated, since I spent so long trying to get a demo on the semi-hard version, thinking it may be the final version. Now it turns out there's an easier version, which not only means my effort is pointless, but also makes my demos unplayable >:(

 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/hplnsjar9eb38db/3x3Tightrope_%283x3RC1%29.rar/file

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