Any opinions on my idea for a project?

Hey people, ive never made a proper level before, this is the first one im actually gonna complete.... and i need opinions.

Im planning on making a few small highly detailed maps with lots of action, as i never finish large maps, so im aiming for maps that are small but still interesting.

The "story" is that you and a small group of marines have been sent to an underground hellish cave, where there are UAC labs. The marines were mining and expirementing, and always had to deal with hellish creatures... but now they've explored too far and came across a gateway to another Realm (which contains hexen/heretic monters).

So far, ive planned to have most of the action in the caves and labs, with a few outdoor areas, and im THINKING of making a voidy-type realm where the Hexen/Heretic creatures came from. Im planning on having a few fights with marines helping, including being caught in a crossfire between hell creatures and Hexen/Heretic creatures tearing each other apart, as i doubt a Dark Bishop would be friends with an Imp or Baron.

So i came on this to firstly ask: does that sound alright? Or does the idea of mixing Hexen/Heretic and Doom creatures and making them fight just sound stupid? (they will also attack you, the fights wont be biased) Any idea's to make it better?

Secondly, heres a few screenshots of the first few area's i made, it took a few hours to make it right. Do they look good, or horribly wrong? Any way to make it better? Opinions and idea's are apreciated, creating natural area's is kinda difficult.
Also, these area arent completely finished: still have to put in enemies, decorations etc.

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/4315/hellcave1.png
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/4507/hellcave2.png
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/6646/hellcave3.png
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/9452/hellcave4.png
http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/599/hellcave5.png
http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/2583/hellcave6.png

looks cool - I'd suggest aligning those gstone ruins better, and trying to make the cave part look more 'natural.' The stalagmites you made look cool, but the corners of the room are just 90 degree angles. The ceiling looks really flat.

As for the idea, it sounds cool, but I hope despite never releasing a level you have plenty of experience, because that's a lot more work than just making a map or two :D

Thanks for the quick reply:

everything you meantioned is being worked on, im hoping it will look more natural the more i work on it, although ill see what i can do about the ceiling, might be harder than the floor to get right.

ive created a few impressive structures and know about Gzdoom features pretty well, just hope i know how to use them in the right way.

Thanks for feedback man. ill be adding to this thread as i progress, make sure im doing everything right

just because your stalagmites are in 3d doesn't make them look better than the stalagmite sprites.

never said they did, i just prefer 3D over sprites, just means i can adjust the size to whatever i need.

This is a pretty interesting idea. The story really is the only thing thats a little wierd. Why would just marines mine through the caves? Wouldn't thay have a team of scientists, engineers, or miners with them? But any way thats really nit picking what really matters is the game play. Actually the story kind of reminds me a bit of the intro to Resurection of Evil (The DooM 3 expansion pack). Besides what I said though, that is a really interesting idea. Would you be playing as multiple different marines? Or will you be playing as just the one marine?

Thanks for feedback Mike

Im starting to doubt the whole expirementing idea: be better just sticking to the idea that there were ruins underground or somthing that have an artifact or unknown energy source.... and that energy source could maybe be the other portal? ill think of something, the origonal 'story' was a 5 second idea, need to revise it completly.

There will be plenty of scientist and marine corpses, and the 'xim's marines wad' will come in handy for the marines that will help you, and maybe i could find scientists like the one's Tormentor used in Stronghold.

And you will be playing as just the one marine, the levels will take you from the caves and labs deeper through to the ruins.

You know, I could always do testing for you if you'd like.

Thamuzzz said:

but now they've explored too far and came across a gateway to another Realm (which contains hexen/heretic monters).

Putting Heretic and Hexen monsters into Doom is copyright violation.

That's not to say anyone is likely to care, but I don't know if the /Idgames maintainer will tolerate your WAD if it contains copyrighted material.

ive seen it done a few times, and also hexen textures and stuff was used in doom

Thamuzzz said:

ive seen it done a few times

Doesn't matter, its still copyright violation. But like I said, most people probably won't care, but that still doesn't make it ok from a legal point of view.