Akeldama - Now on Idgames!

[Seybsnilksz]

Here's the final version of This Might Burn.

[valkiriforce]

Thanks man, sounds great. I'm going to update with the new tracks, and I've decided to place some of Viscra's tracks on maps. If anyone has a problem with the music choice on their map, let me know. I'm going to use Parting Souls on MAP06 since it sounds like a good finisher for the first half of episode 1, however I do have a small request. @Viscra Maelstrom Do you think you could change up the ending of the song Parting Souls? I felt like the solo at the end was a bit much and didn't transition as well to looping the track.

 

I also played MAP18 by @wolfmcbeard and @Khorus recently and got a kick out of it. Died early on because I got careless with wandering enemies but I managed a second attempt. I don't know that there's anything I'd change in the map, however I did spot a few small errors which I fixed recently (linedefs 1917 and 3604 were untextured, an extra secret sector near the cell charge and the incorrect comp blue switch texture near the red key). I think Delusional is a really great track that would fit this map nicely, since like the map it builds up to the more action-packed sequences. Overall I felt it had creative manipulation of the textures and managed within vanilla's limits just fine, really enjoyed it.

 

I'm pretty much finished with MAP23, I just need to fix up the enemy placement since it feels a little overkill in some areas. I'll post it when I'm feeling it's ready for review.

[Breezeep]

I just stopping by to say that I will be away from my PC for the rest of the week and I won't have time to finish my map by the deadline. I am sorry for disappointing you, but I'd rather not put myself through crunch time again. If anyone likes to have a look, Here is what I have.

[valkiriforce]

If you need more time to finish your map I don't mind waiting longer - the deadline is really for outside submissions in terms of people who stop by the thread to join the project; after that it's back to the old system of working directly to get those slots filled if anyone dropped out within that time frame or is no longer actively working on a map. It's to ensure the project doesn't get delayed from people disappearing altogether. Let me know if you're still interested in finishing it.

[Breezeep]

Gotcha. I'll keep working on it as soon as I get home.

[Varis Alpha]

@valkiriforce, i've edited the ending to Parting Souls, you can find it here. let me know if that's good or if you want me to change it some more.

[valkiriforce]

Thanks, I'd say it's a pretty solid MIDI and it loops much better now. Sounds great.

 

I've decided to go ahead and post MAP23 as it is now: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vgggaqi5v1ott83/ak23chimera.wad?dl=0 It's likely I'll come back to this map and make more changes, since I seem to waver between it being rather annoyingly difficult or too easy. Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction for this map entry, as I'd like it to be more fun than frustrating, but not without challenges. Also more screens:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think I may have finally settled for an idea for MAP30, but I'll save that for next time.

[DFF]

Map 23 looks interesting, i'll try to give it a run whenever I have the spare time.

[joepallai]

@valkiriforce So far Map23 is killing me repeatedly, but I'm enjoying it as it's mostly bad luck or a misplaced rocket that's doing me in.   I love what I've seen so far (eastern areas, SE corner and southern route plus wherever I was when I found the computer map).   I really like the SE corner visually with it's long north/south running sectors and the platforming secret (?)--it's just a really cool space.

 

I do think the starting room needs a green armor on HMP and lower, it'll last about halfway through one wing and maybe prevent a health shortage on the return.   Ammo and health amounts are really well done.   This is the kind of map that I like, so I have no real complaints other than starting armor.    I'll continue the map and see if anything stands out.

[valkiriforce]

It's July the 8th now, which means we've reached our last deadline for any outside contributions being made. At this time I'm focusing on getting the remaining maps finished with maps 31 and 32, and working out the concept for MAP30 still, but it shouldn't be long before the idea gets rolling. I trust @Breezeep and @Khorus are working on their submissions, @gaspe is working on his side of the collaborated MAP31, and I've yet to hear back again from @Pegleg about MAP20. Also I know @waverider wanted to work out a solution for MAP11 so there wouldn't be a need for a patch. Once the remaining maps are finished I'll have them all compiled together for a first beta, and lots of playtesting will be taking place around this time while waiting for the soundtrack to be completed. Basically this project has shifted back to focusing on those currently involved with this last deadline, so updates will be posted here from time to time while we work on getting this project completed.

 

At this time MAP32 is close to finished, I've been working out the thing placement and managed to get the HOMs mostly under control. Shouldn't be long before it gets posted here for others to playtest. Hopefully it proves to be a challenging secret level.

 

There are still other graphics to be done, including the map names and authors, a proper intermission screen, a title screen and a BOSSBACK image. I'll get the credits graphic up when we've wrapped up all of our contributions collectively. We could also use a DeHackEd patch with all the map names and possibly intermission screen texts.

 

All in all, I look forward to giving this megawad a proper playthrough on every difficulty for a fair and balanced experience. I would also like to thank every mapper, musician, playtester and everyone who gave their feedback in this thread or elsewhere for helping to make this project happen. The idea for a community project such as this goes back to my work on Reverie, and I'm happy to finally see it coming to pass. I hope as this project continues to wrap itself up we'll get more outside input for a better idea on how we can make this a fun and replayable megawad.

 

[EDIT] I've also updated the episode 1 link with the new map changes and music tracks. You can check that out here.

Edited July 8, 2019 by valkiriforce

[joepallai]

So I've been playing Map23-Chimera a lot (roughly 16 hours total and counting) and this map really is pure genius IMO--right up there with Hellrun and Castevil with the interconnectivity and fights.   I've managed to get almost 80% beat in a single playthrough before dieing and with each playthrough I find new things that make me want to give the map one more try.   The map really is that good, and I can only think of two changes right now that I would do.

 

There's two computer maps available--not sure if this really matters, but it might screw up the item % completed counter.   

 

I would add the previously mentioned green armor to the start room for skills 1&2 only, HMP doesn't need it.   

 

Hands down one of the best vanilla Doom levels I have ever played.   

[DJVCardMaster]

I feel like MAP24 is going to be pretty obscured by how amazing MAP23 turned out to be, haha

[DFF]

@valkiriforce Finally Ran through map23. It a pretty decent map, fun at times and challenging. I did have quite a few gripes/comments though. 

 

Main Points:

Spoiler

• The non-linear nature feels good and I do like, however the 3 paths do not feel all that balanced, which is worse than a linear map because its a fake form of non-linearity; a bit of a lie. What I refer to specifically is in my run, I started with the southern side first (yellow key). There was many monsters and hitscanners but not ammo for the shotgun and chaingun. I was filling up on rockets or plasma but found no gun. It wasn't until I retreated and fought through the other 2 paths that I found the 2 weapons I needed (I had 80 rockets before I found the launcher). Originally I thought the weapons needed to be closer to the start but honestly the southern path just needs to be better balanced. Each path should be well qeuiped for the player to start on, because bu nature of a non-linear map, a player can start any way and everyone will probably play it different. You don't want one choice to be the wrong one and the player to be punished for it. For this I'd recommend adding more shells and ammo in the southern path.
  • on this topic, I has very low ammo and had to really reserve in my start, but once I explored a third or half of the map, I was flooded with ammo and had way more shells than I needed. Lots of maps I feel struggle with the "no early ammo but too much later". See the pictures below but maybe less shells later on and add a box or some spared earlier/in the southern path
• I liked the varied combat and having open spaces with monsters means you got to be careful for where they are attacking. I like this, however I feel this map suffers a little bit from "plutonia-itis" or hitscan hell. The number of sniper revenants and especially the long range chaingunners felt a bit spammy  and frusturating to deal with. Personally the revenants felt plenty, but were mostly fine. But i do think there should be a lot less chaingunners or substitutes (there were 76 chaingunners making them approximately 1/5 of the total monsters present. maybe not bad but I felt the hitscan fatigue in this map).
• This was a big map and did have a lot of good detail and use, but some areas did feel a bit bare for how big they were (Sector 737-742 comes to mind). Maybe adding a pinkie horde trap there around the green armor could give it life. but other then that no other area spring to mind honestly.
• Linedef 1035 is missing a lower texture and needs one

 

Pictures:

Spoiler

Not sure If I saw any other examples, but having 2 very close looking brown textures next to eachother (but not the same) looks kinda odd, Something that contrasts better would make the area look better, minor point.

 

Found some sort of HOM near that same pillar in section 252. This may be a sidedef issue but I forget, I'm sure you'll understand

 

Make these ledges and any others with monsters on them blocking monsters. A trick I learned bacause if thrusted over the edge monsters can get stuck easily

 

One section that came to mind when I was talking about too much ammo. In this area there was 66 shells and I had 100 saved already.

Again with the path balancing, I had 80 rockets saved up by the time I found the RL (given about 25 were with the RL but that left 55 that i couldn't use)

 

Cell and Rockets depleted, but chock full of shells and bullets. I feel ammo balancing would help. some people like to try and make community megawads where ach map should roughly start and end with low ammo. You may think differently and thats fine, but I do think that the player should not have more than half of their reserves full when leaving from a pistol start (unless they specifically saved like cells or rockets and they grabbed all the ones in the map, but even then). Maybe a reduction and moving them around would benefit the feel of the gameplay.

 

 

 

Overall: nice big non-linear map, good detail. Felt a bit spammy on the chaingunners and the paths need to be a bit better balanced in my opinion. a good map for the WADset, fits in well. Not my favorite out of the set or all time, but well rounded.

[Doomkid]

Fuck yes dude, This Might Burn fits with Operation Pump & Dump perfectly! Nicely done!

[pcorf]

1 hour ago, DerFurer'sFace said:

@valkiriforce Finally Ran through map23. It a pretty decent map, fun at times and challenging. I did have quite a few gripes/comments though. 

 

Main Points:

  Reveal hidden contents

• The non-linear nature feels good and I do like, however the 3 paths do not feel all that balanced, which is worse than a linear map because its a fake form of non-linearity; a bit of a lie. What I refer to specifically is in my run, I started with the southern side first (yellow key). There was many monsters and hitscanners but not ammo for the shotgun and chaingun. I was filling up on rockets or plasma but found no gun. It wasn't until I retreated and fought through the other 2 paths that I found the 2 weapons I needed (I had 80 rockets before I found the launcher). Originally I thought the weapons needed to be closer to the start but honestly the southern path just needs to be better balanced. Each path should be well qeuiped for the player to start on, because bu nature of a non-linear map, a player can start any way and everyone will probably play it different. You don't want one choice to be the wrong one and the player to be punished for it. For this I'd recommend adding more shells and ammo in the southern path.
  • on this topic, I has very low ammo and had to really reserve in my start, but once I explored a third or half of the map, I was flooded with ammo and had way more shells than I needed. Lots of maps I feel struggle with the "no early ammo but too much later". See the pictures below but maybe less shells later on and add a box or some spared earlier/in the southern path
• I liked the varied combat and having open spaces with monsters means you got to be careful for where they are attacking. I like this, however I feel this map suffers a little bit from "plutonia-itis" or hitscan hell. The number of sniper revenants and especially the long range chaingunners felt a bit spammy  and frusturating to deal with. Personally the revenants felt plenty, but were mostly fine. But i do think there should be a lot less chaingunners or substitutes (there were 76 chaingunners making them approximately 1/5 of the total monsters present. maybe not bad but I felt the hitscan fatigue in this map).
• This was a big map and did have a lot of good detail and use, but some areas did feel a bit bare for how big they were (Sector 737-742 comes to mind). Maybe adding a pinkie horde trap there around the green armor could give it life. but other then that no other area spring to mind honestly.
• Linedef 1035 is missing a lower texture and needs one

 

Pictures:

  Reveal hidden contents

Not sure If I saw any other examples, but having 2 very close looking brown textures next to eachother (but not the same) looks kinda odd, Something that contrasts better would make the area look better, minor point.

 

Found some sort of HOM near that same pillar in section 252. This may be a sidedef issue but I forget, I'm sure you'll understand

 

Make these ledges and any others with monsters on them blocking monsters. A trick I learned bacause if thrusted over the edge monsters can get stuck easily

 

One section that came to mind when I was talking about too much ammo. In this area there was 66 shells and I had 100 saved already.

Again with the path balancing, I had 80 rockets saved up by the time I found the RL (given about 25 were with the RL but that left 55 that i couldn't use)

 

Cell and Rockets depleted, but chock full of shells and bullets. I feel ammo balancing would help. some people like to try and make community megawads where ach map should roughly start and end with low ammo. You may think differently and thats fine, but I do think that the player should not have more than half of their reserves full when leaving from a pistol start (unless they specifically saved like cells or rockets and they grabbed all the ones in the map, but even then). Maybe a reduction and moving them around would benefit the feel of the gameplay.

 

 

 

Overall: nice big non-linear map, good detail. Felt a bit spammy on the chaingunners and the paths need to be a bit better balanced in my opinion. a good map for the WADset, fits in well. Not my favorite out of the set or all time, but well rounded.

 

That slime trail on the angled wall could be fixed by using a different nodes builder or moving the vertexes a bit, or perhaps adding a secret door or something.

[Pegleg]

On 7/8/2019 at 11:22 AM, valkiriforce said:

I've yet to hear back again from @Pegleg about MAP20

 

I should've been better about keeping you in the loop, but work on the map has been going slowly for a variety of reasons. That being said, I have it about finished, so I expect to have it submitted within the next week.

 

To update the OP, the title of the map is "Blood March." If you want to change it to something else, since there's already a "Blood Covenant," let me know.

[valkiriforce]

@DerFurer'sFace I'm not sure what your playstyle is, but I did play the map going in each of the three directions and didn't have much problem with it. However I did kind of have a problem with the placement of the rocket launcher, so I'll probably make some adjustments including some ammo distribution to make it a little more broad. I'm thinking I'll include another RL in the southern area on the lift pillar near the revenants, since originally I wanted to place one there with rockets. I fixed some visual errors and made sure to include a green armor in the start area and change out the duplicate computer powerup which was an oversight.

 

I've just about finished MAP32 structurally, although there's at least one small area where it's possible to encounter another HOM but I may just ignore it or find some other solution. It's pretty difficult as it is now and I've been making a lot of adjustments for each difficulty so it doesn't become too much of a drag. Unfortunately I did have to get rid of the windows because it was too difficult to manage with them, so I added some lift towers and made other changes. I've also added some all-new areas to include another key and some more encounters, but it's possible in vanilla ports to encounter too many sprites and disappearing enemies. I'll share some screens before I'm feeling confident enough to post it here.

 

 

 

 

 

[EDIT] Decided to swap out MAP09's track to break up the music around maps 08-10 since they might sound too similar in style to each other, so I'm thinking Derived From Unconscious Mind could find another good spot somewhere in this mapset if anyone wants to use it for their map.

Edited July 10, 2019 by valkiriforce

[DFF]

@valkiriforce hm well if you think all 3 are fine then that’s ok. I went south and immediately found the switch and explored the water areas. The only thing about my playstyle that may affect my issues is I sometimes use the ssg when I could manage with the shotgun, maybe wasting a few shells.

 

maybe I had just bad early resource management. But I don’t think there was much ammo around the water areas other than the pinkie rocket box. But maybe I just gave myself a bad start. Just wanted to give proper feedback.

[valkiriforce]

Yeah no problem man, I just wondered since it can be hard to space things out enough, and with 50 shells at the start it didn't seem that bad to me when heading directly south. I actually am making sure to include some ammo down in the water areas more recently, so thanks for the heads up on that since I have trouble seeing things in my own maps.

[Khorus]

Really sorry for taking longer than the due date. :( Been a pretty shite year. The good news is I'm working on Map28's final area now, there is some gameplay and testing to do but not too far from finishing the map now. Here's an area I made yesterday:

 

[valkiriforce]

Been a while since my last post - I've got a few updates to include here:

 

First of all the resource texture wad is updated so be sure to grab that before playtesting these new entries.

 

MAP32: Operation Pump And Dump is up for testing now. I've playtested this map so many times, I'm really hoping I've got the appropriate difficulty balance for it. There's likely a surplus of ammo in some areas but I'm not that concerned about it since it's the super secret map and it's supposed to be very difficult. I would definitely like to warn against playing on Ultra-Violence because there are plenty of brutal spots in this map and the start is tricky. I hope I've done this map justice having given it an overhaul for a more slaughtery playstyle. Despite being a vanilla map it's also got a lot of enemies namely in the outdoor area, so the monsters can sometimes disappear for there being too many sprites at once. Just a heads up.

 

After some time looking over the maps I decided I wanted to expand on MAP10: Hangar Facility, so I worked to include an additional key since it only used two previously. I also did some re-texturing and a little bit of restructuring for MAP16: Aqueduct Fortress. Also updated MAP23: Chimera with some changes.

 

@Pegleg I was thinking for MAP20 how does, "Death March" sound? I realize we not only have Blood Covenant but we'll also be getting Climbing Blood Mountain from Khorus. I kind of like the sound of it personally.

 

I also changed MAP08's title to Arctic Compound since it's a bit close to MAP11 with The Glacier Base. Still considering a change for the Carnage Facility/Hangar Facility titles.

 

Once again, focus has been on working on the last maps and I've got something in the works for MAP30. After that I hope to finish up with graphics/title cards and playtesting while waiting for the soundtrack to be completed. Shouldn't be too far off considering we've got about 27 completed maps and we're waiting on these last few entries.

[Breezeep]

 

Apologies for the delay. My map's slowly chugging along. Still got quite a bit to do before I call this map "Done".

[Pegleg]

7 minutes ago, valkiriforce said:

@Pegleg I was thinking for MAP20 how does, "Death March" sound? I realize we not only have Blood Covenant but we'll also be getting Climbing Blood Mountain from Khorus. I kind of like the sound of it personally.

 

Death March? I like the sound of that. OK, I'll change the title. It doesn't end with a death exit, though, and I hadn't planned on there being one. Did you want me to add one to reflect the title and to work within any narrative you were developing?

 

As for the map, I'm finishing it now. Everything is drawn and things are placed. I'm now in the final (tedious) stages of balancing, tweaking, and catching random misalignments and missing textures. I expect to have it finished and posted in the next few days.

[valkiriforce]

No death exits; there's no need to follow a narrative with one so I wouldn't worry about it.

[Pegleg]

I said I would post the map in the next few days and this falls into that time frame. Here is my map.

 

Title: Death March

Map: 20

Music: "In Sandy's City" by Bobby Prince (feel free to change this track if you have something you think is more suited)

Difficulties implemented: Yes

Co-op: Starts only

DM Support: Starts with a few extra weapons and armor

Running time: 15-25 minutes, depending on the difficulty level

Tested with: Chocolate Doom 3.0, Chocorenderlimits 1.5, PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4, GZDoom 4.1.3

 

Notes: The maximum visplanes that I was ever able to register is 120. There is a slight chance that the 128 sprite limit will be exceeded during the final battle. The map can't be saved in Chocolate Doom as it exceeds the save game buffer limit.

 

Edited July 18, 2019 by Pegleg : Added test programs and notes.

[DFF]

@valkiriforce Ran through map32 on UV. I honnestly for some reason didn't realize it was the operation pump and dump that was originally map 07 until i saw a couple rooms and thought "huh this seems familiar". I liked this map a lot and I think feels a lot better as a classic map32 slaughter map then its original form. I died a lot but for what it was I actually enjoyed it quite a bit and took me 40 minutes to beat.

 

Main Points:

Spoiler

• I really liked most of the map and the fights generally were good. sometimes there were sections that reduced to corner peeking/camping and "shoot until dead to proceed" hallways. but there's only 1 area that I felt dragged the pace down too much and that was the red key cyber area. If you see in the pictures because of the setup I had to spend quite a while just zipping out and shotgunning one of the side cybaers to beath to even have a chance ant moving and killing the others. the arena feels too cramped to deal with the cybers since they cover all the open area. I feel like reducing these to 2 (l & R) and maybe moving them farther away like in the poison waterfalls could make this fight a bit easier.
• You talked about a surplus of ammo for the map which is fine, but honest to god I was completely dry by the end of the map XD. I don't waste a lot of ammo but I tend to play a bit more loosely with ammo consumption, with that said I'd say I maybe used ammo 95 - 90% efficiency. take that as you will but my suggestion may be more shells/rockets/bullets/ect in the area past the yellow door. Most of the areas connected to sector 263 (water courtyard) seem to have no ammo at all except for the rocket row and sector 291. Maybe add some bullets and shells around 318, 351/358 and/or 327. I was able to scrounge for every other low ammo scenario up until those rooms.
• The 2 secrets while unnecessary in my case since there was plenty of health, look very tricky to find. I only know them since I looked in doombuilder. Maybe not an issue but for how well hidden they are they don't offer anything much. Megaspheres can be great but since the player has acces to 3/4 naturally in the map plus lots of spare health. they aren't really that useful. I think changing one to an invulnerability, and maybe removing the megaphere on sector 164 (lift) would make these more valuable and worth the players time ( I do think you should remove the 164 megaphere since I was able to save it for later and be supercharged for most of the latter fourth of the map. I think its excessive and is very risk free).

 

Pictures:

Spoiler

 

 

I was able to push the cyberdemon off his perch by the blue key (sector 33). I've said it for quite a few maps but I do feel like a lot of areas would be better with monster blocking lines so they aren't shoved off and make relatively irrelevant. You can decide but in this one area there's only 1 caco so making those ledges monster impassable I feel would not hinder gameplay much at all.

 

as stated earlier. I had to peek this tiny corner for the better part of 5 minutes just to kill the cyber and make tackling the other 2 manageable. I think moving them farther out would make it a better encounter since the player would be forced to fight out in the arena to get better shots, and having 2 instead of 3 could make it still tricky but not a complete gridlock. but not certain. this was the only slow widdle them down area that stuck out to me negatively.

 

another angle, you could hide them in the side falls or even in those grated areas, could look cool.

 

Ended the map with 44 bullets. I could have been more conservative with ammo but slaughtermaps are hard to save ammo on. The real ammo suckers for me were all the cybers and the 4-archvile ledges that required a lot of SSG blasts to take care of. Just a little more ammo in the end area I think would be enough as it gets pretty bare.

 

Overall: I really liked this map, and I like both the added details and the slaughter feel. The map layout makes it a lot more memorable and feels more like a classic go 2 it slaughter rather than a mostly open arena that most map32's like to use. The secrets are somewhat hard to find and I doubt i'd find them without seeing them in doombuilder just because of their locations. Overall great secret map.

[valkiriforce]

It's funny, I thought the opposite was going to be the problem concerning the ammo, but I'm glad to hear that wasn't the case. I'll be sure to make adjustments. Thanks for the feedback!

[DFF]

@Pegleg Ran through your map 20. This was a tough one, sometimes the good kind of tough, sometimes not so good. The architecture is pretty good in most areas, and the level looks nice. I did have quite a few issues with this map. Tested with prboom+

 

Main Points:

Spoiler

• I really liked how thought out a lot of the monster traps were, and most of them made me try and engage the fight from many angles until I survived. however this map felt like for every good trap/encounter there was a bad one that felt way too tough and unfair. There are 5 that come to mind. Many of these usually involve arch-vile placement which I feel is way too brutal for how ammo is spread out and how little health is around.
  • The first shotgun encounter was good, except I ran out of ammo easily and tried it from the start about 3 times, with the last successful attempt landing me with only 5 spare shells. The only thing I would suggest is adding 4-8 shells or an ammo box sector 47 or 32. I also wouldn't consider that much of a secret as The player is most likely going to engage the monsters there and easily pickup the health and armor.
  • The plasma gun in sector 299 presents either a extremely aggravating battle or a pointless one. I liked the hell knights outside the yellow door, but having the archvile behind a massive wall of caco's with little cover and a manc behind you was way to difficult. However the player could bypass it entirely by grabbing the plasma gun and locking the monsters behind the yellow door since there's nothing stopping the player from leaving. I think you should either remove the mancubus or possibly have him teleport in front of the yellow door forcing the player to fight him to get past. I also Think removing 4 of the caco's in sector 308 could make the fight more manageable. Currently its a really hard encounter to deal with and encourages the player to lock them away and forget about it, which isn't great.
  • The sector 328/391 in my opinion is by far the worst and most unfair encounter. The room is so small (especially with the pillar) that there is no room to move, little way to escape, and then you got giant cacos blocking one way and another arch vile reviving revenants and hell knights constantly, soaking up your ammo and forcing the player to either suicide charge the arch or run away and let him revive a lot of monsters. The only fair way I feel of balancing this area is to remove either the floaters in sector 636 or the archville or revenants in sector 391. I would also get rid of sector 392 entirely since the pinkies just make it even worse and unfair.  I had to use IDDQD to deal with this trap.
  • Another nasty encounter that I had to use IDDQD after 15 attempts was the red key area (sector 210). the problem is once again you have to take out 2 arch viles ASAP but at the same time monsters are firing behind them and teleporting into the main room with the player. Honestly I think this fight would be great if you removed the arch-viles or maybe moved 1 up on the ridge, and then had the monsters in a lowered sector that raised once the player entered the area. One of the main issues with this one was I was empty on all ammo and the ammo I needed was in the room I couldn't enter due to the huge wave of monsters and the arch viles keeping me behind cover.
  • The final arena has the player trying to leave a bottleneck into an open arena filled with monsters that then opens up with little cover and more arch viles behind massive monster walls. Additionally like the yellow key plasma gun, there isn't anything stopping the player from just sprinting to the exit teleporter making the fight pointless (and considering how hard the setup is I'd rather just run to the exit). Personally to make it a better encounter, I'd remove all the monsters outside of the boxes that open up (578-581), make it so the player drops down into the arena from a hole so the player cannot hide in the hole and letting them assess the arena before proceeding, and finally i'd add very tall bars around the exit portal that lower once the boxes open, making it so the player has to fight in the arena for a certain amount of time before leaving.
• At first I thought ammo was too scare in this map, but after playing a bit I realized a lot of the issue was all the ammo was in areas behind walls of demons. the ammo balance was actually pretty spot on, however I think giving the player access to this before the fights would be better so they have the ammo to fight, rather than running out/barely surviving and then given the ammo they needed earlier. This goes into the encounters above but a good example of this is the red key arena, where i couldn't access the ammo in there since it was suicidal with the monsters and the arch-viles. hidden enemies would make that fight a lot better (opening monsters up once the player collects some ammo and moves into the arena.
• Health felt a tad too scarce, probably part of the reason this map felt very hard since usually I was stuck at less than 30 health most of the time. I think adding some more stims throughout would help a lot.
• The last third of the map after the red exit door felt a lot easier and fairer of a map compared to the first 2/3rds. generally I liked the gameplay a lot more from that point on, the traps were tricky but not painfully cruel.

 

 

Pictures:

Spoiler

 

 

I think this texture needs to be fixed, doesn't match the rest.

Proof of the very low ammo. 5 shells is still decent but I do think there should be a little more leeway.

I'm pretty sure you meant for these to be brick like above, not sure but doesn't look great.

This chaingunner was stuck, he needs a wider platform I believe. It looks big enough but he's stuck. He was also stuck in choc.

 

This imp was also stuck.

This lift is not good, as there is almost no good indication to the player it is a lift. I found it after pressing everything else. It needs something else to identify it. the medal sidebar isn't enough since its used a lot as detail in the map and is indistinguishable from the rest of the detail lines. sector 648 also seemed like a strange inclusion since it didn't seem to offer anything other than a health storage room. its probably fine but seemed out of place and out of the way. also the blood fall is seeping into the ground, you can fix this by making the inner circle brighter by a miniscule amount (1 point even).  A nice trick I learned, something to do with having the sectors being different in either light or height.

 

Being able to climb up the slanted walls feels odd, not sure if intended. I'd just make the lowest step impassable so you keep the nice look without having this weird staircase.

 

 

 

Overall: I found this map harder than Doomkid's and Valkiriforce's map32 slaughtermap, and not necessarily in a good way. Architecture is consistent enough that the map is unique and looks very nice. Ammo balance is statistically very good but the combat makes it imbalanced. Too many arch-viles behind demon flesh walls. I think the map could use a bit more health and some of the traps need to be toned down/edited. Otherwise I could see it being a good map. I like the many secrets and the non-linearity of the yellow and blue key. As it currently stands it wasn't my favorite, but I do think with tweaking it has potential to be a really fun one with many great and thoughtful monster traps.

 

[AD_79]

Hi, here's a track for you. Admittedly this wasn't written with this project in mind, it was kinda written on a whim and I haven't looked through any of the maps recently to see if it would fit. Maybe there's a space for it though, I'd love to see if it could be slotted in somewhere!

 

Empire Built Upon Lies (8:32)

[valkiriforce]

Good lengthy track - could probably fit somewhere in E2 or E3. I wonder if either @Breezeep or @Khorus would like to use it for either map 26 or 28. Any takers?