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pyrix

Nightmare/Dream inspired levels?

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So I was having a nightmare earlier this morning, where some kind of asshole map maker trapped me in his hard to play maps while having his friends join the server to harass me and get me killed. So all I could do is out run them. What I subconsiously realized, as well as realized upon waking up, is the design of these levels looked like Doom levels, (didn't know in dream) so I sat down with a pen and paper to try and remember what many of the areas looked like. I remember flesh textures and blood and stuff. So what I'm asking you guys is if any of you map makers have had this kind of inspiration, based on a dream you had or worse, a nightmare? Cheers~

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While I can't speak for Insane_Gazebo, the places in Sunder often remind me of places from nightmares. Giant looming structures out of all sense of proper scale that seem to threaten to crash down onto you and smash you into oblivion, or crumble from beneath you at any moment, plunging you into the eternal abyss. Places that bleed evil.

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Quasar said:

While I can't speak for Insane_Gazebo, the places in Sunder often remind me of places from nightmares. Giant looming structures out of all sense of proper scale that seem to threaten to crash down onto you and smash you into oblivion, or crumble from beneath you at any moment, plunging you into the eternal abyss. Places that bleed evil.

Heh,heh.Yeah,Precarious was an awesome map.

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Or you can try a certain Finnish mapper's maps, where you will be faced more than anything with an extreme sense of anxiety due to the over-reliance on ammo stinginess, and a dependence on the RNG god to be able to finish a state with the scarce resources you will be "granted".

Then there are maps like Cyberdreams or Doomguy's pimp ventures that have a dream-like quality to them, although for different reasons.

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I once made a level/minimod that was something like a dream. It included stuff like.. go into a house, and when you come out of the house, you come into a different place.. and then there was a possibility for getting stuck into an endless stairway.

Some other level I made so that it had Doomguy go to sleep, and then in his dream the demons took him to the Limbo (which was also a remake of the Limbo map).. and when he escaped from there, he awoke and then there was a small battle against a little bit modified spidermastermind.

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Pretty much half of my maps are based, in part, on dreams. I still have many more dream scenes I could translate into actual map locations, but the hard part is coming up with the rest of the map so it flows seamlessly with the dream-inspired part. Usually my dreams tend to be more creative that what I could come up with consciously, plus there is that whole subconscious "this has to mean something" aspect to it, which is cool_factor++;

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BurningCadavre said:

I agree, many areas in Sunder bare great resemblance to worlds from a nightmare.

That upside down hanging palace in the middle of the nowhere (MAP05) is definitely a nightmare-inspired building. Unique and... unforgettable.

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Quasar said:

While I can't speak for Insane_Gazebo

I think his name speaks for itself.

I'd also recommend Asylum of the Wretched along those lines. It's an older WAD and may appear dated now, but I can tell you when it first came out, nobody had ever played anything like it. Though I can only describe it using generic Doom cliches like "dark corridors" and "rooms of blood," it truly does feel like one of those giant asylums from classic horror films of the mid-1900's.

And don't cheat-code your way through it, you'll lose so much of the frantic tension. It's one of the few maps where I thought it was worth it to try and retry scenes over the course of a few days in order to get the most out of the atmosphere.

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I just wrote a post about this on my Doom blog not so long ago. It seems many of us have Doom dreams, and there are indeed some levels inspired by dreams, like DreamDM and Dream Duel.

How has anyone not mentioned The Sky May Be as being dreamlike yet? Windows 3.11 messages in the middle of a Doom mod, an imp that cannot be killed...? And the unreleased sequel had demons that belched plasma balls... and each of the plasma balls was a chaingun. If that's not dreamlike/like an acid trip/straight-up deranged, I'd sure like to know what is.

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ArchitectofHell said:

I just wrote a post about this on my Doom blog not so long ago. It seems many of us have Doom dreams, and there are indeed some levels inspired by dreams, like DreamDM and Dream Duel.

How has anyone not mentioned The Sky May Be as being dreamlike yet? Windows 3.11 messages in the middle of a Doom mod, an imp that cannot be killed...? And the unreleased sequel had demons that belched plasma balls... and each of the plasma balls was a chaingun. If that's not dreamlike/like an acid trip/straight-up deranged, I'd sure like to know what is.

Probably because it gets less into the territory of nightmares and more into the territory of drug trips, hallucinations, and/or clinically diagnosable psych symptoms :P Or just zaniness/jokes for the pure sake of them, which is definitely distinct from the OP's topic.

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Darkwave0000 has mentioned that he created a map that he dreamt a level and made it as Map06 in Speed of Doom. He called it 'dreamscape', whcih was pretty cool.

I did have dreams of doom but I can't remember them well enough to map them out, but then again, I don't think they were good enough anyway. :P

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Quasar said:

Probably because it gets less into the territory of nightmares and more into the territory of drug trips, hallucinations, and/or clinically diagnosable psych symptoms :P Or just zaniness/jokes for the pure sake of them, which is definitely distinct from the OP's topic.


True enough! :P

Had you seen that video of the unreleased Doom II Blessed Engine, Quasar? It's strangely addictive.

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Weird is that fuzzy lava texture.

Sometimes I dream with Doom Builder, but there's just the 2D view, so, not much inspiration to me.

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neubejiita said:

Was not Plutonia MAP14 based on a dream as well?

Do you mean HR map14? If so, yes. (Edit: Whoever it was who just followed this link and immediately gave hrinfo a 0/5 is a retard.)

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I need to recommend Eternal's Horror Collection.An awesome wad,one of my favourites.He needs to do more of this!I mean,Epic was great,but,I enjoy his abstract and weird stuff much better.

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I once had a nightmare that is inspired from the real game! E1M9 where at the center of the map, there are caged monsters there, so my nightmare was i woke up in bed and found lots of zombiemen around me shouting: WAAAAAH! As i saw them in that level when i was very young.

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the last levels from spork's ultimate simplicity looked weird to me. not just the typical hellish map, more nightmarish. i have to look into that wad again.

and phobia.

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of course, castle of eternal carrot in the sky. i forgot that crazy name and was searching my archive for a map i knew only what it looks like. skycarrot, lol.

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pyrix said:

So I was having a nightmare earlier this morning, where some kind of asshole map maker trapped me in his hard to play maps while having his friends join the server to harass me and get me killed. So all I could do is out run them. What I subconsiously realized, as well as realized upon waking up, is the design of these levels looked like Doom levels, (didn't know in dream) so I sat down with a pen and paper to try and remember what many of the areas looked like. I remember flesh textures and blood and stuff. So what I'm asking you guys is if any of you map makers have had this kind of inspiration, based on a dream you had or worse, a nightmare? Cheers~


I had various dreams like that, about doom maps that where never released or shown in public. I remember I liked the structure and decoration while dreaming and tried to recreate the next day, but I was lack of some details that I can't retrieve from the dream, so the final map was not at all like the "dream map". Some details are missing from memory so I will not be able to reproduce it and obtain the same feeling I feel when dreaming with it.


On the other hand, I always like to implement new monsters or weapons in EDGE Engine (it's my favourite engine right now), but when I start to code, I find it's impossible to implement due to some lack of functionality. But sometimes, I dream about those weapons/monsters already finished, playing with them and the next morning, I suddenly know how to implement such weapon/monster in an alternative and obscure way.


Another dreams I sometimes have is about how to finish a "puzzle" map i have been playing. I don't know how or why, but i dream about a hidden button or key placement in the map. The next morning, I play the map, move to such place, and "voilá", there is a key/button in the same place i dream.



But i think everything is about "things that you don't realize, but your eyes and mind sees, and then you just put every image together and remember (dream) about the whole situation or idea."

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I wonder if I'm allowed to mention Lost Episode here. I went for a sort of surreal feeling with E5M1 and E5M4, though I suppose to most it amounts to nothing more than skyfloor spam. :P

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Pagan's Run was inspired by a dream I had, where I was running through some kind of map (or place?) and looking at some awesome architecture. Well the map at least had the running part, the architecture was pretty un-awesome :-)

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Xaser said:

I wonder if I'm allowed to mention Lost Episode here. I went for a sort of surreal feeling with E5M1 and E5M4, though I suppose to most it amounts to nothing more than skyfloor spam. :P


You advertise this thing so much :D

Havent had time to play it, but I need see a lot of skyfloor stuff that made me go lolwut, especially in the converted PSX levels

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