Redtek [MAP02 now up]

This started out as a design concept and ended up being some levels with the aim of having tight ammo and tricky gameplay that kills me sometimes even though I made the maps, whilst sticking to the IWAD textures for design challenge. You'll need doom2.wad and a Boom-compatible port.

I have used Scythe-style death exits to force a Pistol-start at the end of each level. Do not press anything when you die in the exit teleporter, the level will end a second or two after.

I don't really have any plans for how many maps I'm making, though it'll probably be 4 or 5, certainly not a 32-map megawad. I'll host them myself for a bit then release on idgames when they're all done. Thanks to Jodwin and Kyka for playtesting, edits and ideas, 40oz for the Contra 3 sky which I recolored, and Vader for the Pistol sound from The Rebirth.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

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MAP01 - Complete
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MAP02 - Complete
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MAP03 - In progress, < 25% complete

I liked map 1. door above cross or whatever re-closed on the trek back thus sealing some hell knights back there preventing max kills.
edit: (oh yeah (reply to below)) You could probably purposely close it on a hell knights head so it'd reopen though. Which might be fun anyway.

gggmork said:

I liked map 1. door above cross or whatever re-closed on the trek back thus sealing some hell knights back there preventing max kills.

Cool ta. You should be able to re-open that door with the switch that opened it the first time.

Good stuff. The Mancubus ambush was a little harsh but doable after a reload. The Caco ambush was lots of fun (played on UV).

I was able to shoot the sleeping Arch-Vile in the back; is it intended to wake up and start resurrecting the baddies? The Baron escort chased me into the Mancubus room and I went forward into the pillar area with the door locking behind me.

The map looks pretty good.

How strange that the Archie doesn't wake up for you, it has every time for me, what port were you playing in? Did you intentionally slip past it or did it just sit there?

The door closes to stop the Baron and Hell Knights getting resurrected by the Archvile as there's not enough ammo for that. You can re-open the door to that area with the original switch that opens it.

gggmork did the same, perhaps after the player has the red key I should build stairs up to the switch from the central cross/pillar area and require that switch to be flicked to get to the exit passage.

Thankyou for playing.

I am playing on Zdoom. Firing from the Mancubus room doesn't alert it, and it remains asleep and facing the barred fake door.

In prboom if you've shot in a room and an idle non-deaf monster teleports in, it will awaken automatically. ZDoom is different, and the monster will stay idle until you shoot again after it has teleported.

Ah I have no time to play it now but I will later today.

Great map man! It's like E3M1 meets The Gantlet. I like it because it's hard right from the beginning.

I think you playtest your maps the same way I playtest mine. I found that I often like to keep 'just enough' ammo for the player to use. Upon letting others playtest it, even though I placed plenty ammo and health for me, other people said there was definitely not nearly enough ammo and health for them. (I guess this is because the traps catch them off guard, and when health is low, ammo usage goes up) which is what happened to me on my first couple playthroughs.

Particularly with the part with the two hell knights, I always seem to have 16 shells at that point and it's exactly enough if I make sure every shot is a direct hit. I suggest putting 4-8 shotgun shells in the starting room so it's okay to miss a shot or two. Maybe an extra 4 shells after the berserk pack. Ammo was enough from there though.

Almost all the traps so far are guaranteed deaths unless I know what's going to happen ahead of time. Even knowing about the Mancubi + sniping revenants, that part is still really difficult. I'm pretty sure an extra medikit in each room with a trap in it should do.

Also the attention to aligning textures is an important mapping trait and I'm glad you took the time to do that, even though the map wasn't all that detailed, it still 'looked' very good.

I really like this map, I think your idea of good gameplay is almost identical to mine. I think we should make a mapset together some time :D

Rad, thanks :) I do playtest my maps that way, actually your PWB series were in my mind a bit as I was making MAP01.

Another few shells is a good idea, though I'm kinda glad health is sparse and you're finding the traps a challenge :) Even in some of my own playthroughs I have <10 health after the Manc/Revenant room, which was kinda what I set out to do.

Thanks for the compliments and I agree, we do have similar mapping styles. I would definitely be up for a combined effort :D

Cool man. I've had a good bit of free time lately, and we are both pretty good with texture editing, maybe we can get some kinda texture pack done and make maps with it. Do you use IRC at all?

I liked it, but it was pretty far above my skill to beat without cheating, I hate to admit. Aesthetically, it's pretty awesome. I really like the theme you've got going.

I'll PM you 40oz.

Nomad said:

I liked it, but it was pretty far above my skill to beat without cheating, I hate to admit. Aesthetically, it's pretty awesome. I really like the theme you've got going.

Cool thanks :) Keep practicing! I couldn't have finished a map like this 12 months ago, but playtime in wads like AV and small-scale partial-slaughter maps (if that makes sense) has helped me improve.

Have some rather bad UV tyson attempts. Only possible cause there's a berserk, otherwise the hell knights would take forever, and forget the mancubi ... infighting helps a lot. Recorded with prboom 2.5.0.3
http://www.sendspace.com/file/c8tmg1

I like the map played normally, although I was down to 14 shells when facing the hell knights vs. you and 40oz. 16 -.- I just ran through and let infighting take care of em all though, saved a bit of ammo. Other than the mancubus fight (only got down to 52% ;P)and the beginning revenant it was pretty nice.

Now that I think about it going pacifist in the beginning won't take off so much health before you get to the berserk, although then you miss out on 100% kills on the 2 sergeants.

Anyway nice job, it looked great, really looking forward to the rest of these maps.

I thought it was a good map. Didn't die but some of the traps certainly had made me work harder than average, if there is such thing as work in doom, heh. I didn't like the hell knights and baron at the end of the map, it was a wasted opportunity IMO, it could've been something else (better and harder), along with the archy, but that's just me.

Good stuff. :-)

Beat it tyson, used hud at end to verify max kills (straggling caco). Even though the map might change, all well.

http://www.speedyshare.com/473618680.html

protip to armored blood: if you set the key 'y' to quit, then you can just tap y twice to quit. Thus (if you're using windows) you can just press 'y,y,(windows key),r,enter' to quickly re-record over any failed run if desired (from the run box).

Nice one ggg. I did them that way cause I was experimenting, I got my y key set already. I might not've bothered posting it, but then I wouldn't have baited you into doing it instead :P

Hahaha, that is totally awesome, it's hard enough for me with weapons! I actually fixed a trigger in MAP02 the other night, with the expectation that one or both you guys would Archvile jump up a ledge instead of taking a lift, keep an eye out for it ;)

Thanks Joshy. I had thought of expanding the end battle, though I didn't want to upset the ammo balance too much.

I tried it in skulltag and beat it with much more ease than before. Prboom's hit detection isn't very good, and a lot of shots manage to zip right through targets. Especially with berserk which is near useless against anything that consumes more space than a demon.

I enjoyed it very much and may play it once again.

ZDoom-based ports have different melee range than Boom-based ports, which makes fist/chainsaw action alot easier.

Whenever I play a multi-level WAD I usually play in ZDoom for that reason, and for the better savegame/autosave handling.

Super Jamie said:

ZDoom-based ports have different melee range than Boom-based ports, which makes fist/chainsaw action alot easier.

The range is the same but the collision points are different. Doom originally uses a cross-section of the target for testing hitscan attacks because that only requires 2 checks instead of 4. Of course it completely screws up consistency for melee attacks because your success depends on the position you hit the target.

A very interesting level, with a good music choice!!!!

Thanks CodenniumRed!


MAP02 is up! Download link's in the first post. You'll need to -warp 2 to reach it.

This one's a little longer, and I find it a bit harder than MAP01. Once again many thanks to Jodwin and Kyka for all their help.


Progress on MAP03 is slow but steady. I guess it'll take me a month or so.

I haven't played any of the levels yet, but looking at the screens it seems that some more floor variation would be good.

40oz said:

Prboom's hit detection isn't very good, and a lot of shots manage to zip right through targets. Especially with berserk which is near useless against anything that consumes more space than a demon.

That's just how doom plays.

I played map02, found it to be very enjoyable (I also gave map01 a shot when it was released, and thought it was good). Great layout, smooth pacing, varied looks that never look repetitive despite the limits you've set for yourself. This level really feels like something out of a commercial product.

A note about the difficulty : I found map02 a great deal easier than map01. While the opposition is slightly stronger on map02, the difference is much bigger between the player's armament. Having the SSG (and so early it's basically for the whole map) makes a world of difference, and even the dual archviles fight felt easier than the single archvile on map01, thanks to the plasma gun and lots of cover. The architecture is also much more open, making it easy to maneuver as compared to map01 which was some cramped spots (arachnos/chaingunner/cacodemon room for example).

All these things actually made the map more enjoyable than not for me, but as you mentioned you found it harder I thought I'd talk about it. I got through on my first playthrough in about eight minutes and left a good third if not more of the health packs unused.

Khorus said:

I haven't played any of the levels yet, but looking at the screens it seems that some more floor variation would be good.

You are right. MAP02's got a bit of height variation in layout, but height variation in battles is something I'm trying to concentrate on for MAP03. Thinking about this, I already need to redesign some areas.

Phml said:

stuff

Very good point about the difficulty, playing MAP02 myself I felt it relied a bit too heavily on shells, tho I think it would have been a bit of a boring grind with just the single shotty. It makes me about 8 minutes too, though I usually end up using most of the health, depending on how lucky I am around the Mancs and Barons.

Just for the sake of my two cents worth, Super Jamie these levels fully deserve the good comments they are getting here, and I enjoyed them heaps. Strong design themes combined with gameplay that is simple, direct and occasionally pretty brutal. Good dooming to be had here.

Neat work dude, look forward to more like these.


[edit] heh, I seem to recall mentioning that map02 felt easier than map01. :P Oh wait, that is like four cents worth now. [/edit]

Good map :D

Heh, no berserk this map :P and that arch-vile jump wouldn't really cut down time much, much less lead anywhere you're not supposed to go. I really liked the feel of the map, taking solid gameplay with blocky but well-placed architecture, it feels very doomish vs. more recent overdetailed maps. Plus it's a hellish map, always a plus for me ;) Like others have said, with the SSG only the very beginning room and SSG corridor was more than moderately difficult, and that cause I hadn't been warmed up for doom today. That's fine, but I was kinda meh on not having a chaingun for the sergeants that warped in, using shotty on them isn't as nice as the chaingun.

Overall a fun map, looking forward to MAP03 now.

This was a pretty cool run of 02 but I died (was attempting to beat uv using only punch and pistol (but not try to get max). Needed every last bullet for the arachnotron, heh heh. Killed by fat hell knights.
http://www.speedyshare.com/832668185.html