[WIP] IDOL - Limit-removing Doom 2 Episode, five maps available

[AD_79]

It's the 26th, you know what time it is!

 

IDOL is a small work-in-progress mapset for Doom 2, designed to be played in limit-removing ports. I employed a somewhat different approach for this one, pulling inspiration from the classic megawads of the past and combining that spirit with more modern design knowledge. At the moment, five maps are fully playable (minus skill settings), though this is likely just the first half of what I want to accomplish. The maps aren't too difficult and should be easily enjoyable by the average player. The music is currently placeholder; in the future I plan on having a fully original, self-composed soundtrack. For the moment though, the music is:

 

Spoiler

All composed by Mark Klem:

 

01: "Midnight Call"
02: "Nothing So Cruel"
03: "Slider"
04: "Disposition"
05: "Organic Gods"

 

I hope you all enjoy these, and look forward to the rest when I'm ready with it! Once the rest is done, the link will be updated.

 

DOWNLOAD

 

SCREENSHOTS:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Catpho]

MM2 textures :)

Happy birthday AD!

[AD_79]

Thank you! Here's hoping you have fun, I'm really curious to see the response to these!

[elend]

That looks classy, I want to play this. Might take a while, though, because my backlog is growing and growing. Why does the DW community release so much great stuff? It's insane.

[DMPhobos]

Alright i've finished the first map, gotta say it was interesting playing the map after seeing it being built on stream.
I must admit i wasn't prepared for that map on my first attempts, since i was trying to play it on a more 'traditional run n gun style', after some deaths, i slowed down and started conserving tons of ammo, and started to rely on the barrels, and on monster infighting to get past the early parts, and then i started enjoying it. I didn't found any issues except for getting some monsters (such as the archviles) stuck on the ledges after shooting them
 

Spoiler

Here's an fda, didn't got very far since i was still figuring out the playstyle of the map dmpidol.zip 

Good stuff, i dig it!

Edited November 27, 2018 by DMPhobos : typos

[pavera]

Looks great! Add it to my list of things to play.

[bioshockfan90]

these look fantastic, happy b-day AD! i still remember playing Violence back in 2015 and wanting to give mapping an honest go after that, hence my submission to DUMP 2, and, well... the rest is history. thanks for all the mapping advice and everything inbetween!

 

 

[eharper256]

Quote

aren't too difficult and should be easily enjoyable by the average player

 

I thought 'great' and then sighed when I was in the first level and got owned; and thought 'right, average for doomworld'. (le sigh)

 

Seriously though... lots of archviles on the platforms... nowhere near enough shotgun ammo to kill everything as it comes, and running just gets you ever further into the mire even on HNTR.

 

Looks pretty cool, but not one for my skill level I guess. Happy birthday nonetheless.

[AD_79]

I do essentially force the berserk pack right at the start of the map for a reason, heh. A change of strategy and mindset throughout the map should be all you need to get through. Additionally, if you're concerned about those viles being too much: 

 

Spoiler

The idea behind the map is to find ways to kill them, be it new weaponry, gathering more resources, getting them out of that central area or whatever. I figured it would be an interesting way to start off a set :)

 

Also, I did mention that skill settings haven't been implemented yet, so please check back once I've done so :P It shouldn't take a massive amount of time, I hope!

[eharper256]

Probably because I ignore berserk packs as anything other than full heals. I can't Tyson to save my life.

[printz]

Is nobody using anything but ZDoom here? The wad suffers from REJECT issues: monsters randomly are unable to see or attack you. There's even an ambush after you pick up the plasma gun, and nearly all of the monsters (including revenants) are perfectly harmless. Even funnier, there's a barrel which is ineffective against them, also because of REJECT.

 

Here's a FDA, run with Doom2+. Should play with any demo-compatible port such as Eternity or PrBoom+. You may want to try PrBoom+, I think it has some fast-forwarding.

IDOL.LMP.zip

 

Besides REJECT, there's another problem too: you can get stuck in a pit. There's that place with dual open/close switches. I thought it's part of the trick, getting up and running quickly on the platform. But once I'm up, as I go forward, I fall in a pit and remain stuck there.

[AD_79]

Ah yeah you're not supposed to get up there, haha. Someone reported it to me yesterday and I think I can fix it easily enough. As for reject, I admittedly didn't test in zdoom, though I did see someone playing in it and it worked fine so I dunno. I might switch nodebuilders.

[GarrettChan]

I hope the happy birthday is not too late. I'll definitely finish this first 5 maps soon.

 

Played through the first map. It's tight in resource, but it's quite manageable. I would say it's rather challenging if you don't have foreknowledge of this map. Took me like 67 minutes to exit and found 5 secret except for the BFG secret shown on printz picture. I noticed 3 pairs of switches, and it seems I'm supposed to cross that slime gap, but I can't find a way to do so. May I have some hints? Thanks.

[AD_79]

Thanks Garrett! And sure, hope this helps without being too obvious.

 

Spoiler

You're not supposed to be able to reach the spot where printz got stuck, but something is meant to get up there! And no, it's not a co-op thing. What can you lure over there?

 

[bioshockfan90]

1 hour ago, AD_79 said:

 

  Hide contents

You're not supposed to be able to reach the spot where printz got stuck, but something is meant to get up there! And no, it's not a co-op thing. What can you lure over there?

 

 

HOLY SHIT THAT'S WHAT IT WAS! I spent like 20 minutes on my run trying to figure that contraption out and I just penned it up to co-op only stuff. Anyway, I'm in the same camp as Garrett so far, only MAP01 complete but god damn it's honestly one of my favorite levels I've played this year, the secrets and nonlinearity are fantastic and it looks great. I assume the MM2 titlepic is placeholder? It's cool to see and reminds me of the WAD, but hopefully in the final release it'll be something entirely original.

[AD_79]

The titlepic, interpic and m_doom are all placeholders, yeah. I'm in the process of looking for someone who could make some new ones. I've got some semi-specific ideas in mind for what they would look like though.

[GarrettChan]

@AD_79Oh god, such a dirty secret, love it ;P   I thought of that but I was skeptical about that because of the difficulty, so I didn't try it out. I guess having a Soulsphere there would be less brutal and probably could act as a subtle hint.

[GarrettChan]

Map02 UV Max in 5:15

Map02-515.zip

 

The route is planned for max safety and doesn't care about time. It's a funny death for the first Arch-vile.

 

Thoughts:

Spoiler

- The Rad Suit is such a nice secret, so the player doesn't have to run around taking damage. I would say probably the Rad Suit saves more health than a Soulsphere. Having a Soulsphere instead of a Rad Suit could probably keep the intensity of the fight.

- The Arch-vile in the Yellow Skull trap is separated from the rest, so it makes that fight pretty trivial. Maybe it's a reward for observant player (like me ;P)?

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by GarrettChan

[printz]

9 hours ago, AD_79 said:

As for reject, I admittedly didn't test in zdoom, though I did see someone playing in it and it worked fine so I dunno. I might switch nodebuilders.

Actually nevermind ZDoom as I'm not sure how it works in that case. But trying in Doom2+ you get the REJECT effect. I guess, you can see with SLADE, do you have a zero-length REJECT lump? It should be finite length, proportional to the square of the sector count.

[AD_79]

Yeah, I see them. I believe I just stuck with the nodebuilder I used because it allows the monsters to see the player in the self-referencing sector fight in MAP03. Any nodebuilder which allows for this to work should therefore be fine, I think. Are there other ports a zero-length reject causes issues in? The maps function in PRBoom+ and Choco without any adverse effects, as far as I can tell.

[printz]

Another feedback: cooperative player starts are missing.

[AD_79]

Fixed, only MAP01 was missing them.

 

Now, what about the actual maps, what are your thoughts on those? That's kinda what I'm most interested in :P

[bioshockfan90]

finished map02 this morning before class. agreed that the radsuit is a bit OP for that ambush, it basically makes it trivial considering how long a radsuit lasts. don't know how i feel about the YK ambush being staggered by most of it opening up before you reach the key so you can deal with it before the AV comes into play but that might be intentional

 

overall fun tight map though, i liked the plutonia map01 vibes with the narrow bridge and revenants. :)

[printz]

1 hour ago, AD_79 said:

Fixed, only MAP01 was missing them.

 

Now, what about the actual maps, what are your thoughts on those? That's kinda what I'm most interested in :P

Well, map01 looks good enough to keep me interesting. Also I like the melee focused combat.

[gaspe]

Fdas: Idol_gaspefdas.zip

 

MAP01: Heh, I read the berserk pack comments so I kinda knew about having to use it, though you got very low ammo for a good while and you meet scattered low tiers so you are also encouraged to punch stuff. I liked the setting of the map hanged on the void on some parts, especially that perilous bit to get the RK. Another neat idea is the non-unique YK for the plasmarifle. I don't know how much the RL can be useful, maybe I had bad luck to got it in the end, but it feels like something you can take truly vantage if you already know the map. Same for other things here. I didn't like so much the crushers, other than potentially lose you bump into them and fall down so you may have to repeat the sequence more times. Combat is full tension but never too overwhelming. I'm not so sure about the usefulness of the one-time invuln. orb near the RL.

I was intrigued by the secrets I missed and the puzzle stuff at the north. At first even with the editor I didn't understand what to do there but then I figured it out. Cute idea and I appreciate the effort but it's something totally not worth the trouble imo :P and you can easily screw it up if the fucker doesn't stay to the right when sector670 goes down.

MAP02: It's a very nice Plutonia-twid level. I liked how you used the MM-bricks. I was doing well here but I got caught by a mancubus at the YK ambush.

MAP03: This is my favourite from the bunch. Interstng use of the darkness and other nice tricks (the BK battle, the "empty" closets). I wasted the green orb, since I didn't not know what was ahead. At the BK I got stuck in the raising nukage pit. Idk, it seems a good alternative to the usual endless lowering bars but with the darkness it's hard to see what going on there plus you may have the pressure of the monsters behind you.

MAP04: Didn't attach my fda for this one, I could only make to the cacodemons trap at the rising pillars a couple of times after many deaths. I wasn't having fun with this map. Low ammo, not so much health. I even tried to ignore the various snipers and rush ahead as much as possible but without results.

MAP05: I was enjoying this map. The RK area with those pit is kinda cool. I was killed by the cyberdemon at the cave with the catwalk. I also missed some secrets but if you get those I guess you would be able to kill him safely :)

 

Pretty nice set to far. I really liked the attention to secrets, though some require to do some leap of faith like the soulsphere one the souther tower on MAP01, or the blue armor on MAP05. It was nice to see the textures of MM2 used and the themes are sufficiently varied so far.

[GarrettChan]

Just finished Map03 and Map04. They're pretty fun IMO. Resources (especially health) are a little tight in these 2 maps, comparing to Map02.

 

Map03: It seems the dark room is a more forgiving version than the one in Infernew. I appreciate this more. Also, the Cyberdemon fight makes good use of the dark room and the player needs to think about the angle of fighting the Cyber. I think the Rad Suit wall could have a little bit more hint (or maybe I missed the hint?), or don't put an enemy inside. It seems weird that this is not a secret but you need to know in order to max the map.

 

Map04: For some reason, this reminds me of Hell Mountain in No Rest for the Living, and from the first glance, this seems to be the most appealing map to me. Is the Yellow Skull just there for no reason? I can't find any yellow door. This map has taken vanilla lift mechanics into gameplay, which is a nice puzzle to me. Also, the Megasphere puzzle will remind you of the teleporter puzzle from the last map, but you need to be a little bit cleverer than that in order to block the bar from closing. Even though it took me almost no time to solve it, it's still quite interesting IMO. The details of the outside area feel a little bit bland to me. It feels the map has some age, but hey, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[taufan99]

0/10 No singing 2D animu gals

 

Just kidding, the architecture looks interesting. Might give this a try anytime soon.