What defines a 90's map stylistically?

Hi there!

Thread title says it all, pretty much. I just uploaded a map I made (my second map :o) which is here and I was reading the reviews so far. Both are negative, but that's okay! I'll try harder next time.

Anyway one of the reviews says it looks like something out of the late 90's. I've also noticed a couple of other threads discussing the best wads from the 90's and one for "tuning up" wads from the 90's and so on. I've never really made note of what era the wads I've played have come from (other than ones from newstuff, which are obvious), so I guess I don't have any idea what stylistically defines a wad from the 90's, other than the obvious statement of "this wad came out at some point in the 90's".

If you don't know when a wad was made, what would make you snap your fingers and say "aha! This must be from the 90's!"?

"90s styled" often seems to be a convenient way to say something vague and often negative without having to put words into it.

Most common complaints when asked to expand on : not enough height variation, too square, symetry, yadda yadda.

I guess I'm not being very constructive here, but I really enjoyed your first map (much more than many high-profile, acclaimed releases) so I selfishly hope you're not going to fit into bland standards.

It means the texturing is sloppy; the detail is very simplistic, and the architecture is boring or bad. In addition to those, there may be cyberdemons or spiderdemons thrown about with much thought. THey also often have poor monster placement.

Mostly it refers to the lack of a polished and detailed look to the map, tho. I like 90s maps.

I think it's a term mostly used by people who didn't play Doom in the 1990s.

We're talking about the period 1994-1999 here, during which Doom mapping went through many stages, and reached a level of great maturity and diversity. Some of the maps from this period are viewed by many as among the absolute pinnacles of mapping creation, imagination and complexity.

The first year or so, when Doom was the new gaming phenomenon, was a period of discovery - people were happy that they could create any map of their own, while others tried out all manner of ways to get new experiences out of the Doom engine. This is the period of AliensTC and Trinity. And a great many maps that are rather more forgettable, of course, but still a product of raw human creativity.

During the next year or so, Doom remained a very high-profile game, and mapping generally became more focused on making more consistent map sets with more attention given to logical themes, good architecture and gameplay balance (with truly surreal maps becoming relatively less common). Here we're looking at the MMs, Icarus, Final Doom, etc.

As Doom started to be superseded (at least technologically) by newer games and engines, Doom mapping started to move towards grandiosity, either in terms of level complexity or gameplay challenge (given that some people had by now accumulated hundreds of hours of playing experience and were ready for extreme challenges). There were also attempts to make commercial games that came too late to be viable. Examples: Requiem, Eternal, HR, STRAIN, Hacx, and Wraith's commercial products.

By 1998, Doom was becoming a "speciality" game, with the main crowd having moved on, but the source release gave those who wanted to develop the game further a great new outlet for their creativity. There was a spate of activity in both engine coding and mapping: either making use of Boom's new mapping features, or else its extended limits, allowing mappers finally to realize ideas that Doom's hard coded limits had prevented them from doing. Also, ever-improving knowledge of the Doom engine's capabilities and improved map-making tools allowed greater freedom from the drudgery of basic mapping and allowed authors more time to perfect their creations. Examples: Batman TC, Doom 2000 (which became Daedalus).

So yeah, it just means shit old maps that no one would ever want to play. ;p

I wouldn't say it's a wholly negative term. To me it just means a sort of "pure" style, not influenced by much other than the id episodes. Whereas most contemporary level designers have played vast amounts of wads and incorporate all kinds of design elements from them.

ElFuzzo said:

Anyway one of the reviews says it looks like something out of the late 90's.

Depending on the context, describing a wad as belonging to the late 90's can be complimentary or derogatory. Arguably, some of the finest DooM wads came out in the late 1990s, when the best mapping talent collaborated (or worked individually) to produce them. On the other hand, mediocre maps continued to be churned out by all and sundry.

As for the reviews of your maps, don't necessarily take them at face value. They are, after all, subjective assessments based on individual preferences. If you're new to mapping, the reviews can certainly be used as a guide as to the tastes of the playing public. However, at the end of the day you ought to be creating games that give you satisfaction; if they also appeal to the public at large, consider that a wonderful bonus.

ElFuzzo said:

I was reading the reviews so far. Both are negative, but that's okay! I'll try harder next time.

With an attitude like that you'll go far. Keep it up, and keep practicing.

Phml said:

I guess I'm not being very constructive here, but I really enjoyed your first map (much more than many high-profile, acclaimed releases) so I selfishly hope you're not going to fit into bland standards.

Heh. This kind of bewilders me a bit! See, I thought my first map was just a bunch of big rooms full of monsters. I didn't even really bother with monster placement: it was just one progressively bigger teleport trap with slime. What did I do right?

the gameplay wasn't very interesting but the look of the level was very good. I couldn't be bothered to continue after dying when I got swarmed by imps upon picking up the yellow key.

Heh. This kind of bewilders me a bit! See, I thought my first map was just a bunch of big rooms full of monsters. I didn't even really bother with monster placement: it was just one progressively bigger teleport trap with slime. What did I do right?

I guess you fooled me then. Doom II's cast of monsters work so well you can hardly go wrong with a bunch of stuff and a BFG. :)

I liked that it opened fast and furious with a shotgun, backpack, green armor, imps and shotgun guys swarming you. Then there was that slime room like a reverse labyrinth - as you could see where to go but had to travel a certain path, yet also had the option to wallrun to stuff ; lost souls adding some chaos into all that.

Coming back to the main room and triggering the red key switch, cybies appear from three sides with an opening at the right height on the walls to provide hectic infighting (and eventually rockets to the face). At that point it's a choice between slowly taking out 3 cyberdemons with PG/RL or rushing for the BFG but having to deal with the small matter of archviles TPing in and revenants chasing your ass.

All in all, great Dooming and the only reason I didn't play it too much is noticing at least one of the secrets is broken discouraged me from recording demos on it ; by the way, while you're here I was wondering if you intend to upload a fixed version, and if the invul sphere on the lost soul platform was intended to be reached with an AV jump.

Let's try to narrow it down to the positive things here that I think make for fun maps :

- Fast start, no slowly picking apart a few zombies, one imp or two and maybe a demon with a pistol/shotgun/chaingun for ages. Powerful weapons available early and enough health to play like a maniac.
- Room to move around, with no intrusive detail to get in the way.
- Just enough color contrast and detail to make it easy to identify different areas (more contrast/detail can be worse as it sometimes becomes confusing).
- Choices in the ways you approach fights, no shoehorning into one particular style of play.

Modern standards don't leave much room for creativity or diversity if you follow them too closely, so they definitely should NOT be conformed to like a bible. Map according to what makes you happy, and what feels good to you, whether it makes the "modern standards" police happy or not.

I personally prefer 90's style mapping over this modern era of mapping, granted that I'm comparing the highly acclaimed wads of the 90's to the highly acclaimed wads of this century. It more or less comes down to taste whether 90's style mapping is a good or bad thing.

And I enjoyed your map. :p

Phml said:

All in all, great Dooming and the only reason I didn't play it too much is noticing at least one of the secrets is broken discouraged me from recording demos on it ; by the way, while you're here I was wondering if you intend to upload a fixed version, and if the invul sphere on the lost soul platform was intended to be reached with an AV jump.

Thanks for the comments! It's great to hear what I did wrong and get an idea of what to try differently next time, but it's also great to hear what I did well so I know what to stick with. I didn't think either of the secrets were broken... The invuln sphere can be reached by pulling two switches that are probably way too obscure. The backside of the switch that lowers the red key is the first one, which opens a door in one of the radiation suit alcoves (the one right next to the room with the first switch, so easy to find) with another switch that raises a bridge. The other secret you just have to run along the small ledge in the slime room and open the door. Maybe secrets should be less obscure?

Hellbent, that was pretty much just the beginning of the second map D: And pretty much the only part that dark. So maybe like Phml suggested I should have had a more interesting start to grab the players attention rather than a beginning where you muck about in the dark to get a key.

I liked the red key trap, that was pretty cool. Visually it looked fine, no complaints there. I liked the gameplay through about half of it, then it became a mindless killfest. Never got into the "slaughter" style play, I kind of like the "I have a shotgun and just barely enough ammo to take this hellknight and a couple demons down with before they chew my face off" type gameplay.

Maybe secrets should be less obscure?

Nah, I'm just dumb at finding secrets ; somehow despite looking at it in DB2 I didn't find either, but now that you explain it it all seems so obvious.