minor complaints about level geometry traps

[Violetnred]

trap pits in various maps: for example, Phase 2 map10 Deadly Oulands (see screenshot) - player can get stuck if they fall down the space between a pillar in front of the arrow and a wall. Phase 1 had a lot of poison pits with no elevators out of them, Phase 2 only had this thing so far. would've been nice if getting stuck like that was not possible.

 

there was also that one Phase 1 map with a crusher labyrinth - i've no idea how one is supposed to cross it TWICE without dying once. 

 

oh, also, some levels have holes in floor that serves as an exit. that's... weird. there is nothing below! are we falling thorough like kilometers of air from some sort of floating islands and onto land or another floating island? i guess it's fine since player's character can't take fall damage? it's just that episode endings imply that the places we visit aren't that alien or crazy until like the last 2 episodes or so? and there are some holes before that IIRC.

[Jewellds]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm the one who worked on the current version of Map 10: Deadly Outlands, and I never noticed that mapping error! It probably happened when it was made vanilla compatible. I'll fix it when I get some time.

As for the "hole in the floor" exits, that's a common feature in later Doom 2 maps. Some thought should probably taken on how they're used in Freedoom, though.

[Violetnred]

"vanilla compatible" - what does it mean? there could've been extra objects blocking that hole?

[Jewellds]

It means the level works with the original MS-DOS version of Doom. Unlike modern ports, such as Boom and GZdoom, the original DOS version (known in the community as Vanilla) had strict limits on how much detail you could put in the map. The game will crash if there is too many lines or surfaces in a scene.

When the Freedoom developers decided that the project should be able to run on Vanilla Doom, I redid the map to remove detail. When I did that, I had to remove lines, and move others around. In this case, when moving some lines I accidentally introduced that inescapable pit.