Bury My Heart Knee Deep (FINAL version, 12/15/19)

[SleepyVelvet]

I took a stab at the map but died at the 17 minute mark.  I stumbled into some red stuff and got hugged to death.

fda: noisy_kd_rc3.zip

g'nite for now.

[MrDeAD1313]

Damn, looks like I'm gonna have to take a break from red dead 2 tonight and dig into this map. Looks fantastic! Exactly something I'd want to play :)

[scwiba]

Hey folks! Super huge apology: If you tried to play RC3 in vanilla or Chocolate and had a weird, random crash problem, that was totally my fault. I forgot to run that last version through zokumbsp to get the BLOCKMAP under 64kb, so it was breaking vanilla limits. I've uploaded a quick fix and updated the link in the OP.

 

On 12/13/2018 at 11:00 PM, NoisyVelvet said:

I took a stab at the map but died at the 17 minute mark.  I stumbled into some red stuff and got hugged to death.

fda: noisy_kd_rc3.zip

g'nite for now.

Thanks for the demo! If you give it another try, let me know.

 

20 hours ago, MrDeAD1313 said:

Damn, looks like I'm gonna have to take a break from red dead 2 tonight and dig into this map. Looks fantastic! Exactly something I'd want to play :)

Heh... hope it lives up to RDR2!

[scwiba]

BMHKD is done!

[TheOrganGrinder]

Still working may way through this absolute mammoth of a map, but I'm having a great time doing so.  If you hadn't described its gameplay as inspired by the Metroidvania genre, I think my own point of reference would instead have been Soulsborne gameplay, that same sense of a vast and interconnected world to explore.

[Salt-Man Z]

Played this today on HMP. Took me 2:18 and one death to get to the exit, but I've spent an additional 20 minutes or so putzing around looking for the other 30-odd secrets. (The super-secret four-key door has me reeeally curious, since one of the switches was only available after/during the final fight, so I'm wondering what could possibly be behind those 4 doors...) About my only complaint was that the final fight itself was fairly anticlimactic; lots of baddies, yes, but mostly I just put my back against the arachnotron platforms while everyone else spawned on the other side of the room and infought. Other than that, what a fantastic map, with some really cool concepts going on. Thanks!

[ShadesMaster]

 

Ryath, your work here is awesome! I've played through this in one sitting - almost two hours! Yet it had this way of sucking you in. The 'rocket releases' were clever and a great nod to Metroid, I hope more WADS use them in general in the future.

[scwiba]

On 12/29/2018 at 8:54 PM, TheOrganGrinder said:

Still working may way through this absolute mammoth of a map, but I'm having a great time doing so.  If you hadn't described its gameplay as inspired by the Metroidvania genre, I think my own point of reference would instead have been Soulsborne gameplay, that same sense of a vast and interconnected world to explore.

Thank you! I definitely thought of the Souls games while making it, but I've never actually played any of those games so I couldn't be sure about the comparison.

 

On 12/31/2018 at 5:44 PM, Salt-Man Z said:

About my only complaint was that the final fight itself was fairly anticlimactic; lots of baddies, yes, but mostly I just put my back against the arachnotron platforms while everyone else spawned on the other side of the room and infought.

That's a legitimate complaint, and possibly enough of an issue that I'll need to do a fixed version. I'll do more testing.

 

On 1/1/2019 at 5:48 PM, ShadesMaster said:

Ryath, your work here is awesome! I've played through this in one sitting - almost two hours! Yet it had this way of sucking you in. The 'rocket releases' were clever and a great nod to Metroid, I hope more WADS use them in general in the future.

Wow! You hung in there by the skin of your teeth for so much of the map. Even so, you were on track to beat it in record time as far as playthroughs I've seen. If only you hadn't got lost in the Depot. Thanks for the video!

[scwiba]

Okay, I'm really annoyed with myself for not noticing before uploading to /idgames, but there's definitely a serious problem with the final battle. (I guess this is why so many WADs sit at v0.99 for so dang long.) I'm going to reupload eventually, but here's a beta of the fixed version if anyone's interested in giving it a look (@Salt-Man Z?). Nothing outside the final arena has been touched, and the only thing there that's been changed is the addition of a little strip of damaging floor in front of the arachnotron platforms, and a few sector height changes to make everything look natural with the expanded lava pit. This should discourage camping right against the platforms.

[mArt1And00m3r11339]

I beat your level.

 

[AschTheConjurer]

A Metroidvania-Style doom map

You have my attention aimed squarely at this WAD, now, and as a complete buttlord for Metroidvania-style progression I may end up doing some ethically questionable things to it when I'm alone with the lights out.

Is there anything I need to know before I start about the scripting around light amp/rad suit/etc that would make it incompatible with gameplay- or monster-altering mods?

[Salt-Man Z]

@AschTheConjurer It's a vanilla map, so there's no scripting or anything that would get busted by something else. The way it works is, for example, by all the nukage pools there's a selection of radsuits in cubby holes, but the cubbies are all locked until you reach a certain point; then all of the radsuits in the map get "unlocked" at once.

[AschTheConjurer]

That's an.... iiiiiiiiiinteresting way of doing it. But, cool.

[AschTheConjurer]

Well I finally got round to finishing Bury My Heart Knee Deep after getting carried away playing A Robot Named Fight recently.

 

'S pretty fucking good. It could do with some more texture variance and area theming, depending on how much you're willing to move away from the Techbase look. Could probably also use more of those cool rocket-locked forcefields too, but for the other weapons, and also some more reasons to backtrack - since it's really only for those forcefields right now, which can mostly be got in one sweep once the rocket launcher is available. Maybe a couple more boss-like encounters just before major weapon or item unlocks.

 

The map is a very good proof of concept, and while it would be unrealistic to want it to play just the same as any full metroidvania game, it could still probably use a few elements to encourage players to explore more and to dramatically set up some of the big encounters.

[Mr. Meanor]

just played this map this morning. Every single enemy killed, and 63 of 64 secrets found. Good shit, @Ryath. Good progression, and unique use of gaining secrets. It's my type of speed. MORE OF THIS!!!

[PeterMoro]

Just stumbled across this post. Oh boy am i going to enjoy this wad. I love vanilla - style Doom wads. Going to start playing it soon. 

[Terminus]

It took me a while to get around to playing this but I've finally done it and boy I wish I'd have gotten to this sooner. Found the exit and about 42 secrets on the 1hr 15mins mark. I didn't exit and I'm now trying to find the remaining secrets.

 

I'm having so much fun playing this! You've made an incredible exploration map with a lot of moments that make you think and consider your step. I've yet to unlock the radsuits, still trying to work my way around that haha.

 

Please make more of this kind of maps! We rarely get to see maps like this nowadays if at all.

[NiGHTMARE]

Awesome .wad. Here's hoping for a Shores of Hell-inspired sequel some day :)

[scwiba]

Hey all! Surprised folks are still discovering this old thread, but I'm always happy to see new feedback and reactions! All these new posts are making me realize I really need to get around to finishing the 1.1 release.

 

3 hours ago, Terminus said:

I'm having so much fun playing this! You've made an incredible exploration map with a lot of moments that make you think and consider your step. I've yet to unlock the radsuits, still trying to work my way around that haha.

Ha -- the radsuit unlock is one of the things I'm going to try to make a little more obvious in 1.1. I've seen players walk right by the switch without seeing it, which is a big problem.

 

19 hours ago, Mr. Meanor said:

just played this map this morning. Every single enemy killed, and 63 of 64 secrets found. Good shit, @Ryath. Good progression, and unique use of gaining secrets. It's my type of speed. MORE OF THIS!!!

Whoa! That's amazing. I often only make it to 61-63 secrets on my test runs because I forget which ones I've already found.

 

2 hours ago, NiGHTMARE said:

Awesome .wad. Here's hoping for a Shores of Hell-inspired sequel some day :)

If I make a sequel, it'll probably be for ZDoom so I can do more with the permanent upgrade concept. But I'm also thinking about messing around with Heretic or Hexen.

[scwiba]

Didn't expect it to take me this long to be back with a new version, but here it is! The new version fixes a lot of small issues in the /idgames upload, including highlighting some of the switches I noticed players were missing, and removing the exploit that @Salt-Man Z discovered. But the biggest change is to the super secret arena, which now involves an Icon of Sin fight. Check the OP for a complete list of everything that was changed, and let me know what you think!

[Salt-Man Z]

Someday soon I'll have to give this a replay on UV, and finally crack that super-secret area.

[Worm]

I love Doom maps that have a dungeon-crawling feeling with resource management, and this one delivered in spades. This is one of those maps that makes me wish I had made it myself. The concept is so well-executed. I loved the rocket caches and the lettering/symbols on the floors, walls, and automap. The layout felt encouraging and fun to explore rather than confusing. The different areas are not only distinct and easy to remember, but it was cool how each area had different kinds of challenges, with some being more mazy, some more vertical, etc. The difficulty on HMP was about right for me, with me doing my best not to savescum and roll with any mistakes. Finished with 706 kills, 38 secrets. It took me a little over 2 hours, with a good chunk of that spent searching for secrets after finding the exit. Definitely going to replay this on UV.
 
 I managed to unlock the light amps before the rad suits because:

Spoiler

When I picked up the red key, I immediately ran off to far-away parts of the map, trying to remember any red doors I had passed early on. Of course in doing so I completely forgot about the red door in the nearby area and didn't notice it until later, after I had already trawled the slime pits in desperation.

 

[scwiba]

On 8/22/2019 at 8:04 PM, Worm said:

I love Doom maps that have a dungeon-crawling feeling with resource management, and this one delivered in spades. This is one of those maps that makes me wish I had made it myself. The concept is so well-executed. [...] Definitely going to replay this on UV.

Thank you! I never considered it a dungeon-crawl map exactly, but now that I think about it that would be a good description. Let me know how the UV run goes!

 

On 8/22/2019 at 8:04 PM, Worm said:

 I managed to unlock the light amps before the rad suits because:

You can get the light amps super early if you know what you're doing. Before the blue key, even, which is part of the no-key route.

Spoiler

You can find the rocket launcher by going south into the nukage area from the courtyard. The RL then lets you take the secret path into Maintenance without the blue key, and from there you can go back north toward Labs and get the light amps. Once you have those, the secret entrance to Depot is available, and then the secret way from Depot to the final arena.

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by Ryath

[Worm]

On 8/26/2019 at 6:39 PM, Ryath said:

UV

It took me 1:18 with 90% kills, 43% secrets. I focused on survival and didn't spend much time looking for more hidden stuff. I also didn't attempt any sequence breaks other than going for the berserk as early as possible so I could save ammo against demons. I thought the ammo + health balance was quite good. I was often tempted by the rocket caches, but resisted most of them and only grabbed a couple when I really needed it. Something I noticed on HMP but appreciated more on UV was how often you're under attack from fairly distant enemies. And not just your typical snipers up on ledges, either. I really like the walkways in the SE corner of the map, with the imps and cacos shooting across, that then become alleys for the mancubi to shoot down. Moments like these are fun spatial awareness tests, and there's always room to dodge, so I always felt like it was my fault for not paying attention when I got hit. I noticed it more on UV because I was more concerned about ammo, so I was always more tempted to leave distant enemies alive until later, and sometimes paid for it. I admit that I ran away from the red key battle though!

Edited August 29, 2019 by Worm

[Degree23]

I came to this WAD, but not from this thread, so I didn't realise you needed to use Rockets to open the extra ammo sections! As a result, I found ammo to be quite tight throughout virtually all the map, but it was beatable (on UV). The only part I thought was slightly questionable was the red key battle, as due to the non-linear nature of the map, it is possible to arrive there entirely understocked on the ammo front, and there's not really enough in that area to deal with the battle, so like Worm I also skipped that battle.

 

Otherwise, the map was ludicrously fun! Would love to see another one like this in future.

[scwiba]

50 minutes ago, Degree23 said:

I came to this WAD, but not from this thread, so I didn't realise you needed to use Rockets to open the extra ammo sections! As a result, I found ammo to be quite tight throughout virtually all the map, but it was beatable (on UV). The only part I thought was slightly questionable was the red key battle, as due to the non-linear nature of the map, it is possible to arrive there entirely understocked on the ammo front, and there's not really enough in that area to deal with the battle, so like Worm I also skipped that battle.

 

Otherwise, the map was ludicrously fun! Would love to see another one like this in future.

I've done a number of no-secret runs of the map to make sure it's playable that way, but it's definitely tight. I'm not surprised you had a little trouble. No shame in running from the red key fight either. All the key fights are designed so that you can hoof it out of there as soon as you have the key. But, to wit, there's 280 cells in the red key area, which is plenty of ammo to mop up the remaining enemies after the infighting is over.

[scwiba]

Well, it's back again! One more release candidate before the official rerelease to /idgames. If you've got any pressing feedback, get it in now or forever hold your peace!

 

Download right here, or check the OP for a list of changes since the last version.

[spineapple tea]

I recently learned how to make a door in Doombuilder. Jesus Christ man, good work.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Spineapple tea

[scwiba]

Here we are, folks. One year after the original /idgames release, I've uploaded what I really hope is now the definitive version of BMHKD! Thank you to everyone who's taken an interest in this map and played it through the various iterations. I think this is the best map I've ever made and it wouldn't be half as good without your help!

[Thiago Nunes]

Oh my god!!!!

 

This was a lot, lot, lot, lot of work! Mainly because I done it UV-Fast.

 

So much time spend traveling across the map, back and fourth, back and fourth... Also a lot of time researching with iddt and idclip, but every time saving before and loading after, no idclip to access an area without discover the true mechanism or the true way.

 

At final the I lost and only found the yellow totem with your hint here that all totems are in boss zones. Now it makes total sense and I'm feeling a dumbass... At least all other secrets I found purely myself.

 

Great map, but take so much work, may I play it one more time next year or two.

 

Best regards.