Buckley In Hell Part 1

Hi everyone, I've been working on a map for many many months, and its turned into a mega level.

I hold the record of about 20 minutes (Sorry i have no exact time) on Ultra-Violence

If someone can beat this legit on Nightmare and prove it to me somehow, well you may just have $50 bucks comming your way, depends how poor I am. But only the first person to prove it to me will be elegable.

I've posted it on Deviantart in a .RAR, and heres the link, just click download on the left side bar near the top.

Please let me know what you think, everything should be described in the included Readme files to Install and all that jazz.

I'm not new to map/level editing in any ways, though this is my first release I would appriciate some constructive criticism.

Thanks and Enjoy!

http://canadianruskie.deviantart.com/art/Doom-II-Buckley-In-Hell-Part1-146724404

I did a first run up till the Revenants and Mancs which caught me by surprise and killed me. Great first Cyberdemon battle.

So far so good. It's got alot of detail which can get messy in parts but doesn't seem over the top, it's generally well-themed and nice to look at, you've got a good mix of organic areas and man-made areas. Having a peek in Doom Builder the layout seems to get a bit repetitious later on but I'd have to play to properly critique.

I expect a few people around here will be able to record you a UV Max demo without many problems. You can use a port like PrBoom-Plus to record and play demos. Check the demo forum here for more info.

Posting some screenshots will help generate more interest in your map. For others looking, this map's got about 16k sidedefs covering an area about 14k units square. There are a bit over 1300 monsters on UV though I wouldn't call it a slaughter map. It uses IWAD textures with gameplay towards the tough end. I'd say it's worth a look.

First demo attempt until the arch-vile traps after the yellow key door. UV with prboom plus 2.5.0.5
http://wadhost.fathax.com/files/ABbuckleyhell.zip
I was thinking about going back before I activated the arch-viles and died but the annoyingly long dark maze and generally 'stumble along with no clear path of what to do' at 3 am got to me.

Generally it started with simple texturing and some meh architecture, but it got better. Gameplay was ... meh. Music was ... meh. I was ... meh. I'll think on it this afternoon ...

I liked it, although that was also greatly due to the "let's speed this right on the first try!"-attitude, which improves many a map. :P No, I didn't finish it yet, but got pretty close. Here's two failed UV-speeds, the first one isn't exactly a first try since I had tried that route a few times before, but it had some fun cybie-avoiding so I kept it. The second one is my first real try on the dark tunnel route, so you'll see me running around a bit with no idea on where to go next. I got to the ending stretch there (I checked the rest of that route afterwards in DB), and the time wasn't too bad for a "first try", so yay me. :)

fantastic! I never thought watching people play the map without me over their shoulder could be so entertaining!

And Yeah, It's farely bland most of the way threw, I did put more effort in around the base area (Take the left at the bottom of the first elevator)

I am very supprised to see you guys get so far though, I normally don't take the dark sewer area myself anymore because of those Archviles at the last switch, and that part of the map I feel is one of the weakest parts just because it pretty much all looks the same and it's very easy to get lost really quick.

Though you guys did pass a really valuable secret in the first container area that I swore one of you was going to find, but walked right past. I can't remember the total number of secrets in the level but its in the teens I think.

I tried snapping some screen shots with glboom-plus, buuut this is how they all turned out

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/3425/doom00.png

UV-Speed in 14:50 (tunnel route)

I got lucky on the exit as the demons opened the door to the imps and imps opened the door to the zombies, so I got all those rooms cleared without releasing the arch-viles. Then again, I got a bit unlucky with the exit barons so that evens it out...right?

In the outside toxic area I took the longer route to the yellow key this time, since it had a lot more ammo waiting. The other way around is plausible too though, I just wanted to be as safe as possible. You can see me stopping for a few moments towards the end (at yellow key and after killing the last barons) as my mouse hand was shaking too much to keep going without a pause. :P Awesome stuff.

It really does feel like the tunnel route got much less going for it, although for speeding the map it has some juicy evading moments (which the techbase does have, too). Most of all, the lack of blue key: There's a lot of nice side areas towards the end that all available only with the blue key, which you can find only from the techbase route. It would make it much more interesting if you gave the tunnel route a blue key too (or made those side routes not require the key). Or, alternatively, add some side routes unique to the tunnel area. Either way works.


EDIT: Few things that I noticed (that you might want to fix): The switch at line 7747 (door switch to bfg in the demon room, blue key route) should be made repeatable. I was able to pick the bfg, run out and have the door close while I was trying to max kills, effectively making it impossible to kill the demons. You could also make the switch to just open the door and have it close when you pick the bfg (rather than "open wait close").

Second, the mancs by sector 1513 (the huge roundish pit with brown poisonous slime) are impossible to kill without freelook. Either remove them or move them closer to make max kills possible.

The cave area south of the blue key spider mastermind could use some ammo. It's possible thanks to berserk and if you have plenty of extra from the previous parts, but I think it could use some shells and rockets to help.

Sector 480 can be opened only from the sewers. Because of this the only valid max route right now is first do sewer route until you get to the outside toxic area and then, before moving on to the toxic area, go do the tech base area. You could make it more interesting by adding a switch to open sector 480 from the other side too, so tech base -> sewer route could be possible. Similarly, if you could get the blue key on the sewer route (even if only from a secret) the sewer -> tech base route would have two options (sewers -> tech base begin to end OR sewers -> tech base end to begin). Since this map obviously puts a lot effort on replayability (side routes, few different main routes...), those small changes could add a few new options for maxing the map.

The secret door at sector 437 (last arch-vile fight in sewers) requires a blue key, which is impossible to have in the sewers. Either change it to not require the key or add the key to an other secret in the sewers.


Overall I'd say this map has a lot of good ideas and plenty of potential, it's just a little bit rough around the edges. I don't mean rough around the edges from aesthetics point of view (well, that too, but it's not my number one concern), rather, there are quite a few fights that have potential but with a little more thought put into them could be improved. On the other hand, some fights are just great depending on the way you play them. For example, if with the demons on sector 1022 you stay in sector 853 and tyson all the demons, it becomes a really fun fight since there's plenty of space for the demons and the few obstacles (crates, pillars...) make it possible for the dumb AI to get you off your guard. But as an example of a fight that could be easily improved, take the two mancs in sector 1303. If they teleported in to there when you enter that sector, while at the same time bars would fall on the connected tunnels for a short while to prevent you from escaping, the fight would be more interesting. Right now you can just sit and snipe the mancs from the tunnels without getting yourself into danger. Just a relative simple change to force you to fight the mancs where you're not in complete safety, and it's already more interesting. :)

If only there were more keys available in Doom. I did plan that out a bit, you just cant get the blue key unless you go threw the tech base and get the more techie ending, and personally (not for speed runnig) I find it waaaaaaaaay easier. I will give the juiciest of tips for that path, If you collect all the back packs, kill all those enemies at the mouth of the toxic sewer to the base in whatever way, get the plamsa rifle, activate the lowering door to the base but stand in the centremost part of the door, you can of course get the invincibility before the pinkies step over it, once you're godlike you will have just enough ammo for your plasma rifle to kill the cyber demon, where as it takes about 50 direct rocket hits to kill. Once he's down and out it's 100% clear sailing from there, unless you really want that BFG, but there is another secret in the computers of the first part of the base (with the defencive emplacement, turret windows).

I'm just seeing your edits now, Jodwin, I appriciate them and will read and revise after a cigerette :D

Map for boom or zdoom and you can make locked doors specific to a skullkey or keycard.

That was an interesting map to say the least. I played on Ultra Violence and was completely destroyed to say the least. All was well at the start, I was shotgunning things left right and center. As soon as I got into the dark tunnels however... I ran out of ammo (probably due to bad shot placement) and was forced to lead the demons into the random barrels. I eventually got overwhelmed by an atomic F*ckload of lost souls. A challenging map, not for the faint of heart.

Difficulty 7-10
Looks 5-10
Layout 9-10 (lots of different routes)
Fun 8.5-10

My first tech base exit (in 13:34)

Just played it, I'm not good enough to speed through it though.

I love the design and layout of the map, only recommendation is to reduce the level predictability (I knew that around every corner was either a Shotgun Guy, a Zombieman or a Chaingunner. Other then that keep making maps.

Jodwin said:

My first tech base exit (in 13:34)

8:56

Um, have you ever heard of zipping the file and saving it as a wad file? I can't play this map.

IRod54 said:

Um, have you ever heard of zipping the file and saving it as a wad file? I can't play this map.

Download the .RAR and extract it with 7zip, the .WAD file is inside.

Penney said:

I tried snapping some screen shots with glboom-plus, buuut this is how they all turned out

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/3425/doom00.png

Strange resolution.

Fixed.