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ryg

Huge new DOOM 1 map (5spiders.wad) looking for playtesters

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I was curious so I check your map on the builder , and wow it's really amazing. I will play it in few hours. :)

 

unknown.png

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I had to delete ZMAPINFO to be able to play it.

 

But at the very beginning, at this spot

 

ObF4Cg5.png

 

progress came to an abrupt halt.

 

Quote

Description: This is my first and only WAD to date. I worked on it for twenty years.

 

I suspect that Doomguy gained a few pounds during those years and now needs to go on a diet to fit through this passage.

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10 hours ago, ryg said:

What’s your configuration?

 

I just fired it up with Zandronum (3.0). No more, no less.

Capture.GIF

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9 hours ago, Kappes Buur said:

I had to delete ZMAPINFO to be able to play it.

There must be some syntax problem in my ZMAPINFO. I have no real experience in MAPINFO editing but I took my information from this thread. Where did I go wrong with my syntax? 

9 hours ago, Kappes Buur said:

 

But at the very beginning, at this spot

 

ObF4Cg5.png

 

progress came to an abrupt halt.

 

 

I suspect that Doomguy gained a few pounds during those years and now needs to go on a diet to fit through this passage.

Well, he's not the only one. ;-) Anyway, this is on purpose. You can see there are moving parts. You missed the switch to open these two impediments. Backtrack your steps and look for it.

 

I am quoting from the text file:

I discourage beginners to play it. You will probably be killed in the first 25 seconds. If not, you will be hopelessly stuck after 5 minutes.

Here you go!

Now, this is a forum where I would like to receive feedback. Maybe this switch is too far away from the passage and too hard to find. Let me know.

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you have an interesting style :3 i think a lot of players will find this fiddly and hard to navigate, i got stuck in a room with a doomguy voodoo doll sitting at a workstation and guarding a switch. i grabbed the computer map out of the weird swirling pool and found a lot of hidden switches but never got anywhere near any action!

would love to see a demo of how you get to the first fight!

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7 minutes ago, yakfak said:

you have an interesting style :3 i think a lot of players will find this fiddly and hard to navigate, i got stuck in a room with a doomguy voodoo doll sitting at a workstation and guarding a switch. i grabbed the computer map out of the weird swirling pool and found a lot of hidden switches but never got anywhere near any action!

would love to see a demo of how you get to the first fight!

I am astonished that you got that far without any fight. I guess you played on difficulty 1 or 2 but even then you should have met some resistance. This map is optimized for 4 (UV). You should have battled 5 Lost Souls, 5 Imps and 5 Former Humans if you got to the voodoo doll switch!

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30 minutes ago, ryg said:

I am astonished that you got that far without any fight. I guess you played on difficulty 1 or 2 but even then you should have met some resistance. This map is optimized for 4 (UV). You should have battled 5 Lost Souls, 5 Imps and 5 Former Humans if you got to the voodoo doll switch!

 

sorry, yeah, I was on low skill :3 i guess players nowadays distinguish between "fights" and "loose/single enemies"; i did face a few skulls and imps and zombies but they were sort of secondary to exploration and puzzle-solving and didn't strike me as encounters I had to concentrate on at all, so I guess I mean that I'd like to see what the first substantial set-piece fight looks like!

 

edit: played a little further and found the first fight (after pistoling the doll out of the way lol) plus i made my way through a weird wooden trick house and unlocked a chainsaw? i think the amount of gimmicks and puzzles in this map so far is really amazing and my only criticisms are these:

 

a) total lack of wiggle room in terms of moving the player character, which i know you can't fix after having drawn such a giant map

and

b) no music replacement :))

thank for posting such a weird map anyway

Edited by yakfak

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3 hours ago, yakfak said:

 

sorry, yeah, I was on low skill :3 i guess players nowadays distinguish between "fights" and "loose/single enemies"; i did face a few skulls and imps and zombies but they were sort of secondary to exploration and puzzle-solving and didn't strike me as encounters I had to concentrate on at all, so I guess I mean that I'd like to see what the first substantial set-piece fight looks like!

 

edit: played a little further and found the first fight (after pistoling the doll out of the way lol) plus i made my way through a weird wooden trick house and unlocked a chainsaw? i think the amount of gimmicks and puzzles in this map so far is really amazing and my only criticisms are these:

 

a) total lack of wiggle room in terms of moving the player character, which i know you can't fix after having drawn such a giant map

and

b) no music replacement :))

thank for posting such a weird map anyway

Thank you for your feedback. Since my work was never exposed to the public before, it is interesting to read your impressions.

a) The lack of wiggle room is not throughout the whole map so keep on trooping. But it's true, it probably is the result of adding more and more details throughout years of development resulting in a very tight map.

b) Music is really not my thing. I never even considered changing it. After 25 years the original music is so annoying that I almost always play without music at all.

 

All in all, continue playing and sending feedback. This is a long map and you'll meet more and tougher fights down the road.

 

Edited by ryg

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13 hours ago, grrfield said:

 

I just fired it up with Zandronum (3.0). No more, no less.

Capture.GIF

OK, I fixed the problem. I had to remove the line with 'defaultmap' from ZMAPINFO. You can reload the fixed version in the original post.

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I fixed the ZMAPINFO problem and replaced the faulty file with the fixed file. Download it again and you should be good.

You still cannot jump but there is no 'script error' anymore.

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For all those bound to be wondering: Yes, there are five Spider Masterminds in the map; level name checks out.

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Okay I played it for like 2 minutes and I'm stuck in the computer map room. There's no doors, no floors are lowering or anything, I humped all the walls

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I played it and got further than most people here so far. This map is really dumb, if you want to progress anywhere to have to hump every wall, or constantly use your automap. The useless detail gets you stuck on edges, you managed to make something as simple as moving annoying. The map is not even that hard it's just not fun to play. The map is crowded and claustrophobic. Maybe instead of using the 20 years you had to add useless details and linedefs, which make a cacophony of lift noises and teleports, driving anybody who plays this map insane, you could have made the map actually fun. And on the note of you taking 20 years to make this. I have a hard time believing that. The map is only about the size of five E1M1s. The map may have much more stuff in a small space than ID's maps. But as I said, you should of spent the time you had making the map fun, the map does not even look that good anyways, it just looks like you tried to slam as many things as you could into a tight space using stock doom assets. I could go on about the many other reasons that I think it did not take you 20 years to make this map, but I don't feel like typing that out right now. Anyways, ether you worked ridiculously slow on this map and it took you 20 years to finally finish it, or you are flat out lying.

Edited by Sir Hattington

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11 hours ago, Arbys550 said:

Okay I played it for like 2 minutes and I'm stuck in the computer map room. There's no doors, no floors are lowering or anything, I humped all the walls

It's not about humping walls. You are looking in the wrong direction. The solution is behind you.

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10 hours ago, Sir Hattington said:

I played it and got further than most people here so far. This map is really dumb, if you want to progress anywhere to have to hump every wall, or constantly use your automap.

That's some harsh criticism. Again, there are no walls to hump. All walls that require "use" are marked by a change in texture or a switch texture. There is one exception and that is sector 1897 where you can see the other side of the sector functioning as a door with a door texture through a window while approaching. That way you should be able to figure out that this is a disguised door.

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10 hours ago, Sir Hattington said:

 The useless detail gets you stuck on edges, you managed to make something as simple as moving annoying. […] The map is crowded and claustrophobic.

From you it sounds that crowded and claustrophobic is very bad. I have seen other maps lauded with these attributes. You don't have to like it but in DOOM terms it's not something inherently negative.

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10 hours ago, Sir Hattington said:

And on the note of you taking 20 years to make this. I have a hard time believing that. The map is only about the size of five E1M1s. The map may have much more stuff in a small space than ID's maps. But as I said, you should of spent the time you had making the map fun, the map does not even look that good anyways, it just looks like you tried to slam as many things as you could into a tight space using stock doom assets. I could go on about the many other reasons that I think it did not take you 20 years to make this map, but I don't feel like typing that out right now. Anyways, ether you worked ridiculously slow on this map and it took you 20 years to finally finish it, or you are flat out lying.

Why would I lie? I have no reason to. I could have left out build time or written 6 months. I actually have build versions of this map going back to 2007 here on my computer (with 1200 sectors as opposed to 4500 sectors in the current version) and probably older ones on my now defunct PCs' hard-disks.

I think a took a break of sorts between 2012 and 2015 because there is little progress between these dates but so what.

About comparing the size to E1M1:

               E1M1    5 spiders

Vertices     391      31.123
Linedefs    486       37.665
Sidedefs    666       65.530
Sectors       88         4.576

That's a weak argument. You do the math.

All the other reasons that make you think it did not take me 20 years are irrelevant because you are wrong. Again, why would I lie about that? It does not make my map any better.

 

What 20 years of building actually did cause was making this map tight, especially in the sectors between the big areas were I wanted to add some more detail/twists/functionality/puzzles after the bigger parts were already established. That is a valid criticism.

 

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I played this for about an hour and got to those blue pegs that go up and down. I gotta say this is the weirdest thing I've ever played in doom, I can see what you're going for with all the puzzling but it's way overdone imho. My problem is that after each section I wasn't sure if I actually solved a puzzle or if I just broke the map since I didn't really understand how most of these puzzles worked, I was just flicking switches until I got to newer parts of the map.

 

Overall I think a lot of the gimmicks used in here are innovative but they're way too crammed in.

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3 hours ago, eirc said:

I played this for about an hour and got to those blue pegs that go up and down. I gotta say this is the weirdest thing I've ever played in doom, I can see what you're going for with all the puzzling but it's way overdone imho. My problem is that after each section I wasn't sure if I actually solved a puzzle or if I just broke the map since I didn't really understand how most of these puzzles worked, I was just flicking switches until I got to newer parts of the map.

 

Overall I think a lot of the gimmicks used in here are innovative but they're way too crammed in.

Thank you for your feedback. I don't think you can break the map. If you got through it means you solved the puzzle.

I would very much like to see a video clip of you trying to solve puzzles and progress in the map.

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I played further and I got to the switch that teleports you 2 feet back. This is the most confusing map I've ever played. This has to be a joke map because no one in their right mind would add 10 million annoying moving platforms, random damage sectors and abrupt scrolling floors

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19 minutes ago, Arbys550 said:

I played further and I got to the switch that teleports you 2 feet back. This is the most confusing map I've ever played. This has to be a joke map because no one in their right mind would add 10 million annoying moving platforms, random damage sectors and abrupt scrolling floors

This does not sound familiar to me. Please tell me the switch's tag number so I can check what you are talking about.

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12 hours ago, ryg said:

Why would I lie? I have no reason to. I could have left out build time or written 6 months. I actually have build versions of this map going back to 2007 here on my computer (with 1200 sectors as opposed to 4500 sectors in the current version) and probably older ones on my now defunct PCs' hard-disks.

I think a took a break of sorts between 2012 and 2015 because there is little progress between these dates but so what.

About comparing the size to E1M1:

               E1M1    5 spiders

Vertices     391      31.123
Linedefs    486       37.665
Sidedefs    666       65.530
Sectors       88         4.576

That's a weak argument. You do the math.

All the other reasons that make you think it did not take me 20 years are irrelevant because you are wrong. Again, why would I lie about that? It does not make my map any better.

 

What 20 years of building actually did cause was making this map tight, especially in the sectors between the big areas were I wanted to add some more detail/twists/functionality/puzzles after the bigger parts were already established. That is a valid criticism.

 

I'm sorry about my word choice and tone, I was in a really bad mood when I played the map, causing small things that annoyed me to be magnified to a ridiculous amount, making me more angry in the process. Anyways, I still think that the map is too crowded, it still feels very abstract. But I'm not a big fan of puzzle maps anyways, so it wasn't the best idea for me to play this when I was in a bad mood. And about me calling you a liar. I originally thought that it took you 25 years to make the map because of the part of the text file when it says "The same nightmare for the last 25 years!" I was not really reading in between the lines, and I thought you were talking about the map being the same nightmare for 25 years. The "other arguments that I don't feel like typing" made a lot more sense with the 25 year number, but after doing a bit of digging I realized the number was 20 years. The E1M1 thing was an estimate, so it was not really grounded by anything concrete. I edited the post to say 20 years. But 20 years seems very realistic, and there is evidence of the 20 year number. I hope that you don't still see me as a dickhead.

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10 hours ago, Sir Hattington said:

I'm sorry about my word choice and tone, I was in a really bad mood when I played the map, causing small things that annoyed me to be magnified to a ridiculous amount, making me more angry in the process. Anyways, I still think that the map is too crowded, it still feels very abstract. But I'm not a big fan of puzzle maps anyways, so it wasn't the best idea for me to play this when I was in a bad mood. And about me calling you a liar. I originally thought that it took you 25 years to make the map because of the part of the text file when it says "The same nightmare for the last 25 years!" I was not really reading in between the lines, and I thought you were talking about the map being the same nightmare for 25 years. The "other arguments that I don't feel like typing" made a lot more sense with the 25 year number, but after doing a bit of digging I realized the number was 20 years. The E1M1 thing was an estimate, so it was not really grounded by anything concrete. I edited the post to say 20 years. But 20 years seems very realistic, and there is evidence of the 20 year number. I hope that you don't still see me as a dickhead.

Thank you for this post. Don't worry, we're all here to enjoy, have fun and learn from each other.

The 25 years of bad dreams in the TXT file referred to the Space Marine aka Doomguy's existence not to my building the level.

I would still encourage you to continue playing the map and sending me feedback, maybe on days where your mood is on the up swing -:) I would still be happy to hear your critique especially if it is something I can apply and improve the map like ammunition/health/enemies balance., monster placement or even spacing. For example, the minimal width of the corridor at the beginning is currently 56. Would 64 be ok? 80? What would you experience as ideal? Were there switches that were too hard to find? Or switches that you couldn't identify as such? Switches you could not associate an effect with?

 

 

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So I am in progress of playing the level and got to the first Spiderdemon. This is really a cool WAD, I do have some negative things to say. Navigation and ammo is tough in the beginning. Also, fighting lost souls with just a pistol kind of makes that first hallway bleh. Afterwards once everything starts to open up the wad is great. Though I do like some of the claustrophobic sections as well. One other thing that stuck out was the voodoo puzzle. I will show it in my videos, but won't spoil it now. I will say that is an interesting way to open the door.

Speaking of that puzzle, not sure if intentional or not, but there is a bug. The floor to the left of the desk (the voodoo doll's right) is considered a pain sector. Not sure if this is because of slime existing underneath the level. The hazmat suit tells me this is supposed to happen. Also, there is a potential soft-lock here. 

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On 9/26/2019 at 8:11 PM, I_Punch_Demons said:

Also, fighting lost souls with just a pistol kind of makes that first hallway bleh. Afterwards once everything starts to open up the wad is great.

The idea was actually to make you realize that you cannot fight the lost souls with your limited original ammunition only because that will leave you empty handed when you face the explosive barrels down the hall. And then you are in a real jam. At least on UV you have to use your fists to avoid spending all your bullets at the very beginning.

Options for improvement?

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On 9/26/2019 at 8:11 PM, I_Punch_Demons said:

Speaking of that puzzle, not sure if intentional or not, but there is a bug. The floor to the left of the desk (the voodoo doll's right) is considered a pain sector. Not sure if this is because of slime existing underneath the level. The hazmat suit tells me this is supposed to happen. Also, there is a potential soft-lock here. 

It’s a pain sector because of the red rotating thing on the desk, so it is intentional but thinking about it now, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’ll think about improving the setup.

I would like you to elaborate on the soft-lock problem.

 Thank you for your input. I’m glad you like the map. Enjoy the rest of it.

Update October 2:

Upon revisiting the room I found that only the area closest to the red rotating thing is a 5% pain sector. You don't have to stand on a pain sector in order to move the voodoo doll. So I left it as is but replaced the stimpack in the room behind the crew's bed by a medikit.

Edited by ryg

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Okay I did this as the first part of my stream. But I made the highlight and loaded it to Youtube for the express purpose of you seeing the map in action. You will see what I mean by potential soft locks. For me, the Voodoo one was a potential soft lock. The fact you don't have a 25% health after a required pain sector would mean anything under 10% health would not make this section beatable because you need to essentially shoot your self to proceed. However, I think I had some bugs related to GZDoom. But you will see what happened when I tried PRBoom+. 

 

 

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