Entrybase.wad (UPDATED)

This looks pretty interesting. I'll test it. 

That's a very interesting reimagination of the original Map01. Cool stuff

Time to playtest :)

OK, Pretty solid map, good texturing, good-ish gameplay, acceptable music. (played on UV)

So let's start off with the positives:
- The lighting is good, really good.
- Your doors have a certain charm to them that works pretty well.
- The use of Imps is pretty good, they are used sparingly, as they should be in a map like this.
- Your attention to detail in general is pretty good, and I'd love to see more large environments made like this.

Things I think could be improved:
- The use of hitscanners is a bit too much, dial down on the hitscanners, at least for a map this short. Having them creep up on you in a map this short and this linear is just a bit mean, save the more mean stuff for anything but a MAP01.
- There are too many pinkies in the final section. Remove one or two, as the pinky section is miles harder than anything else, causing the map to be a bit less consistent.
- Less deaf enemies would help. Maybe a few Zombiemen coming from all the way down the hall upon hearing the gunfire.

Things that aren't good:
- The player start is too far back, either that or the chainsaw hall is too large. Make it smaller so it's a touch less noticeable.
- The rocket launcher secret is too obvious. Either that or it shouldn't be a Rocket launcher there, at least not in a map like this that certainly doesn't need one.
- The Exit switch looks out of place, perhaps make it more rigid-looking.

All in all, the good outnumbers the bad. So I'll give it a 7/10. Way better than MY first map, albeit less consistent.
 

Very, very nice.

4 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

Very, very nice.

 

 

thank you for recording gameplay, always nice to see another perspective in real-time

It's amazing how much a new color palette can help a level out. I think you managed to make your map look more like a base than the original Entryway. However, I don't really see identity in this map aside from adding new visual flair. There doesn't seem to be a gimmick to this remake. Sometimes, like here, that's fine enough, but it also dilutes any uniqueness the mapper would like to imprint on the level.

The level plays fine, but I think the pacing is off. It starts off great. I love how you hid the zombies in a lift in the blue key room as it added tension, and the blue key itself was a good move as it forces the player to explore. The shotgun felt rewarding to get use on the chaingunner, until the door opened to pinkies. This is just a preference of mine, but when I play a map with pistol start, I expect every new weapon I get (that are not secrets of course) to be useful in the section I'm about to enter. The chaingun can take down the pinkies, but it's not really satisfying to do so since they're bullet sponges. I think a good substitute would be a horde of shotgunners (since shells are where the pinkies reside, so I'm assuming you wanted to give the player shells for the next fight) to make mincemeat out of with the gun. Outside of that, the shootable switch gave me Doom 64 vibes, and that's always a good thing.

I think a remake of a map should show us a level in a new way, and your attempt didn't do that here. A good example of a remake would be Go 2 It from Plutonia which turned the easy-as-pie Entryway into a sadomasochistic nightmare. Show us stuff that Entryway didn't. What's outside the chainsaw balcony? What is this place an entryway to? This might not have been your aim, and as a level by itself it's fun and easy on the eyes. As a remake though, it's hard to see your mark on things.

11 minutes ago, CapersOnSalad said:

It's amazing how much a new color palette can help a level out. I think you managed to make your map look more like a base than the original Entryway. However, I don't really see identity in this map aside from adding new visual flair. There doesn't seem to be a gimmick to this remake. Sometimes, like here, that's fine enough, but it also dilutes any uniqueness the mapper would like to imprint on the level.

 

The level plays fine, but I think the pacing is off. It starts off great. I love how you hid the zombies in a lift in the blue key room as it added tension, and the blue key itself was a good move as it forces the player to explore. The shotgun felt rewarding to get use on the chaingunner, until the door opened to pinkies. This is just a preference of mine, but when I play a map with pistol start, I expect every new weapon I get (that are not secrets of course) to be useful in the section I'm about to enter. The chaingun can take down the pinkies, but it's not really satisfying to do so since they're bullet sponges. I think a good substitute would be a horde of shotgunners (since shells are where the pinkies reside, so I'm assuming you wanted to give the player shells for the next fight) to make mincemeat out of with the gun. Outside of that, the shootable switch gave me Doom 64 vibes, and that's always a good thing.

 

I think a remake of a map should show us a level in a new way, and your attempt didn't do that here. A good example of a remake would be Go 2 It from Plutonia which turned the easy-as-pie Entryway into a sadomasochistic nightmare. Show us stuff that Entryway didn't. What's outside the chainsaw balcony? What is this place an entryway to? This might not have been your aim, and as a level by itself it's fun and easy on the eyes. As a remake though, it's hard to see your mark on things.

 

 

thank you, I made this level more as a way to get used to doombuilder. If I had made this 6 months or 1 year later, I would definitely had tried making a more unique map

(edited) as for what this was an "entryway" to, this was originally going to tie directly into a remake of underhalls which would've had an even more drastic layout change, but I got tired of working on it after several restarts and being unable to land on a distinct visual style.

(also I will admit I went a bit overboard on the pinkies :P, I'll definitely tone it down in my next map or try to better incorporate them)

I got most of the gist from Bio's playthrough but decided to try myself. That was cool! Great attention to detail and lighting, it feels exactly like what a more refined interpretation of MAP01 should be. All the features are there but implemented in quite original ways, the rocket launcher for example, that comes together in a way that made this map feel fresh.

Just a shame you dropped your plans to do more, I can see that exit leading perfectly into an equally cool MAP02...sure I'm not the only one who thinks that!

I'll share some of the screenshots from the canned map02.

I unfortunately couldn't get it to look better than map01 did, and it suffered some level design issues caused by developing this one room at a time
 

5 hours ago, XSDK said:

I'll share some of the screenshots from the canned map02.

I unfortunately couldn't get it to look better than map01 did, and it suffered some level design issues caused by developing this one room at a time
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

honestly it looks great.
Also, when it comes to level design issues, those are to be expected, take it from me. It took me three weeks to make a four minute plutonia style map. And it wasn't even remotely as detailed as this, the most detailed things were pipes in a closet.

Booted it up in Crispy Doom, solid recreation of entry way. I like the details you included such as the cool light fixture and ceiling in the starting area, spiral stairs and more detailed outside. I'd be interesting to your recreation of Map02 as well. 

Side note: I understand that this is designed for Crispy Doom, either way, I'm unable to launch it using DSDA-Doom. I get this error: R_TextureNumForName: SKY3 not found. 

 

Doom 2 | MAP01 [Entrybase - XSDK] _ UVMax Speedrun Smooth Varied Mod Pistol Start

Good short map, pretty well designed. I tested it in UV skill on GZDoom, no glitches found.

It was strange at first to meet the Pinkies in MAP01, but OTOH, this made having the chainsaw much more rewarding! You can use the chainsaw in the original MAP01, but it's not remotely as fun as here. I personally like the mix of Pinkies and Hitscanners, and this map was very appropriate for that.

I was about to say I'd like to see a few more booby-traps, but for a MAP01 this would be too much, even in UV. Great job!

Nice map Bud forgive her out of what I was when I played this lol 

The textures don't display correctly in Eternity and won't even play in DSDA Doom for some reason. Nice transcription of "This Love" though.

1 hour ago, LadyMistDragon said:

The textures don't display correctly in Eternity and won't even play in DSDA Doom for some reason. Nice transcription of "This Love" though.

oh I realize I forgot to include the text file, the music comes from doomkid

unsure why it doesn't load properly in eternity or dsda

A pretty good reimagining of Entryway also I tried to figure out why it would crash in PRBoom and DSDA could not figure it out anyway I know you wanted to move on to other projects but I would love to see what other maps you could remake 

I went ahead and updated the map since I had spare time, I switched to the boom format so I can use transparent midtex.
the map works in prboom+ and eternity, it's safe to assume it should work in dsdadoom as well, but I have not tested that out yet.

let me know if there's anything I should fix, I'm not too confident in the enemy layout of the outdoors area of the map

On 10/4/2022 at 8:35 PM, XSDK said:

- custom fence texture sadly removed, as the waterfall was incorrectly displaying the fence frames

 

This has happened to me before  with Boom and I think it was caused by having things in the wrong order in TEXTURE1, should be fairly easy to fix. Did it look like it was randomly cycling through textures? 

4 minutes ago, VisionThing said:

 

This has happened to me before  with Boom and I think it was caused by having things in the wrong order in TEXTURE1, should be fairly easy to fix. Did it look like it was randomly cycling through textures? 

Only textures it was cycling through was WFALL1-4 and FENCED3-4