My first Doom map.

[Rapp0ng]

I feel like a small boy showing everyone a drawing I made in nursery lol

 

Hello all, I am new to the forums and new to doom wad building!

 

Would love for people to give their opinion on my first attempt at level building :)

 

The map is called BREACH.

 

Took about 3-4 weeks using Doom Builder 2 and SLADE.

 

Average level length 30+ minutes.

 

Game: Doom 2 - MAP01

 

A classic vanilla style Doom map with my own flair added.

 

Designed for Ultra Violence difficulty but Easy and Medium settings are available as well.

Pro Doom players should find this mildly challenging but doable. Roughly around TNT or Plutonia difficulty.

 

Recommended for GZDoom with jumping and crouching disabled.

 

You may recognise a few design choices that are inspired from classic Doom 1 and 2 levels. 

 

Let me know what you think!

 

Thanks :)

 

 

 

 

Breach v1.1.zip

[Doomkid]

I feel like a small boy showing everyone a drawing I made in nursery lol

No need to feel that way - this is an awesome map, especially for a first attempt, but even aside from that. It's really fun overall!

 

I enjoyed how it progressed from different techbase-style areas, to a grand canyon, to a completely hellish ending area. The gameplay was solid, there was (most of the time) more ammo than necessary, but not by too much - it's better to have a bit extra than not enough, after all. The difficulty level was right between Doom 2 and Final Doom, the sweet spot in my opinion. There were a couple of misaligned textures here and there but visually I found it pleasant, somewhere between Doom 2 and NRFTL in terms of visual quality. No complaints there!

 

The only area that felt tedious and broke up the gameplay was in the canyon area, this one extremely tough to make jump that requires a perfectly aimed straferun. In the end I just cheated and flew over it, I think it would make the map a lot better if the jumps were slightly less spaced out in that area. Not a big deal, an easy fix to make it more accessible to most players. The long distances with a lot of revenants in that area were kind of tedious as well, but less so. I kind of wish they could teleport closer when I approach them or something, so I don't need to stand back taking pot shots with the chaingun. I'd rather be able to get in their face and get it over with, but that's up to you of course.

 

Every other area of the map featured gameplay I liked and there was always enough health to make up for unavoidable hitscan damage or goofball mistakes which I appreciate. I still died a couple times, but it was my own dumb playing that got me there, not an issue with item balance or level design.

 

This was super enjoyable, I hope you intend to make more. It took me about 2-3 years of mapping before I was creating stuff comparable to this in terms of quality so I just want to restate how impressive this is to me.

 

I recorded a FDA (first demo attempt) which I will be posting shortly so you can see how I progressed through the map, going in with no prior knowledge.

 

This is just a recommendation for future maps, but if you intend on making more levels in this style - stock textures, stock music and an overall very Classic Doomy vibe - Then I recommend mapping in either Boom format or Doom 2 format. They aren't as robust as UDMF or Doom in Hexen, but they allow your maps to be played on a much wider variety of source ports and platforms. 3/4ths of Doomers are happy to use GZDoom and probably use it as their main port, but a decent number prefer PrBoom or other ports of that nature. The biggest drawback of the older formats is that you can't use wall textures on floors and vice/versa, and line actions are more limited. Of course, this is just info for you to do as you please - If you keep wanting to make Classic Style maps that are aimed at GZDoom only, I understand. It's somewhat easier than working within the restrictions of Doom 2 format and Boom format, after all.

 

Keep it up, keen to see some more of your maps in the future.

[Rapp0ng]

Thanks man! I greatly appreciate your feedback and I am glad you enjoyed it!

 

17 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

The only area that felt tedious and broke up the gameplay was in the canyon area, this one extremely tough to make jump that requires a perfectly aimed straferun. In the end I just cheated and flew over it, I think it would make the map a lot better if the jumps were slightly less spaced out in that area. Not a big deal, an easy fix to make it more accessible to most players. The long distances with a lot of revenants in that area were kind of tedious as well, but less so. I kind of wish they could teleport closer when I approach them or something, so I don't need to stand back taking pot shots with the chaingun. I'd rather be able to get in their face and get it over with, but that's up to you of course.

 

Yeah I agree with your thoughts on the canyon area, my intention was to create a bit of urgency to force the player to keep moving but it is a little tedious on reflection.

 

Same for the strafe running jump, I personally quite enjoy a little strafe running (not too much) but in terms of making it more accessible to everyone I probably should make it a bit more simpler to navigate.

18 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

 

This is just a recommendation for future maps, but if you intend on making more levels in this style - stock textures, stock music and an overall very Classic Doomy vibe - Then I recommend mapping in either Boom format or Doom 2 format. They aren't as robust as UDMF or Doom in Hexen, but they allow your maps to be played on a much wider variety of source ports and platforms. 3/4ths of Doomers are happy to use GZDoom and probably use it as their main port, but a decent number prefer PrBoom or other ports of that nature. The biggest drawback of the older formats is that you can't use wall textures on floors and vice/versa, and line actions are more limited. Of course, this is just info for you to do as you please - If you keep wanting to make Classic Style maps that are aimed at GZDoom only, I understand. It's somewhat easier than working within the restrictions of Doom 2 format and Boom format, after all.

 

I'll be honest, I never really understood the whole 'zdoom in doom format, zdoom in hexen format' e.t.c. I just noticed it gave me more options in the linedefs so I used that. I was not aware it would cause ports and platform issues sorry about that!

 

19 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

 

This was super enjoyable, I hope you intend to make more. It took me about 2-3 years of mapping before I was creating stuff comparable to this in terms of quality so I just want to restate how impressive this is to me.

 

 

Thanks again, mate! It's funny, cause this map started out when I was learning how to build square rooms and doors. I was going to start again once I figured out the basics but decided to just keep going lol

 

Looking forward to seeing your playthrough!

[eirc]

Hey just played your map I gotta say I loved it.

 

I have to admit the beginning was a bit boring especially in my first run where I missed the chaingun and had to shotgun down very sparsely placed zombie. In general I think you can fit a ton more monsters in the map. The scale was awesome but it also felt a bit empty. For example the room after the hellevator where demons teleport in was a ton of fun because of the increased density of monsters comparatively.

 

Also like the other guy said we'd like a way to reach the monsters on the other pillars in the platforming section. You have a teleport for one, add one for each maybe? You can have that option after we first cross so you can keep the gameplay of forcing the player to hurry up.

 

I saw a huge influence from Deus Vult right? I'm also a huge fan and drawing a lot from it too :)

[Rapp0ng]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it :)

 

18 minutes ago, eirc said:

 

I have to admit the beginning was a bit boring especially in my first run where I missed the chaingun and had to shotgun down very sparsely placed zombie. In general I think you can fit a ton more monsters in the map. The scale was awesome but it also felt a bit empty. For example the room after the hellevator where demons teleport in was a ton of fun because of the increased density of monsters comparatively.

 

'Hellevator' Haha love it!

 

That is a good point. May have to ramp up the difficulty!

 

Being new to level building I kinda wanted to make sure it was not annoyingly difficult. I play tested it several times when building to ensure that it felt a bit challenging but not so much that it would put people off.

 

19 minutes ago, eirc said:

 

Also like the other guy said we'd like a way to reach the monsters on the other pillars in the platforming section. You have a teleport for one, add one for each maybe? You can have that option after we first cross so you can keep the gameplay of forcing the player to hurry up.

 

Exactly, more teleports or possibly monster teleports to get them closer to finish them off. 

 

24 minutes ago, eirc said:

I saw a huge influence from Deus Vult right? I'm also a huge fan and drawing a lot from it too :)

 

Haha I am playing through Evilternity right now which influenced the canyon section. Actually, there is also a little influence from duke nukem 3D, I liked the canyon sections when I was younger.

[Doomkid]

 

Here's that playthrough. You can see the bits where I got stuck somewhat, but for the most part I was enjoying myself! looking forward to the next one

[Magicana]

Played through the map - Took me 57 minutes, was pretty pleased to beat it in under the hour because it was quite a sizeable map.

 

It's hard most of the time to remember this is a first map, but every so often it's easy as well. Very big and fairly cohesive map, but then lots of little misalignments. Very big monster count (Which fits the size of the map) but mostly shoot monsters in front of you.

 

I really enjoyed playing through it though, can't wait to see what you've got coming up next!

[Rapp0ng]

18 minutes ago, Magicana said:

 

It's hard most of the time to remember this is a first map, but every so often it's easy as well. Very big and fairly cohesive map, but then lots of little misalignments. Very big monster count (Which fits the size of the map) but mostly shoot monsters in front of you.

 

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it :)

 

I have been watching other peoples maps on the forums. I saw your one Magicana, very impressive!

 

Texture alignments was a bit of a struggle, I think for the next map I will make it much smaller and focus on making the visuals look a lot tighter.

 

Same for the monster placement, need to think of an inventive way to make it interesting. Think we all expect monster closets and teleports these days so it's not much of a surprise.

 

 

[Magicana]

5 minutes ago, Rapp0ng said:

 

Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it :)

 

I have been watching other peoples maps on the forums. I saw your one Magicana, very impressive!

 

Texture alignments was a bit of a struggle, I think for the next map I will make it much smaller and focus on making the visuals look a lot tighter.

 

Same for the monster placement, need to think of an inventive way to make it interesting. Think we all expect monster closets and teleports these days so it's not much of a surprise.

 

 

 

Texture alignment is the nightmare we all face :). In my version of Doombuilder, I can auto-align in visual mode by using the 'a' button, with whatever linedef I have highlighted being what the other linedefs align to - Which can make it very easy. It only gets tricky with things like windows, but you can usually make it a lot easier by doing lower/upper unpegged on them - Then they align themselves the same way that the surrounding walls do.

[baja blast rd.]

I noticed in the largest areas, there is a lot of flood-filling of one material, which tends to look bland unless it is particularly evocative. If that enormous scale appeals to you, I'd suggest looking into the works of Darkwave0000. Some examples: 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Breaking up monolithic expanses with contrasting colors is an important device. ('Sky' and 'views into another area' are valid forms of this.) Important: If you are working with super large areas, you can't jump directly into tiny, flat detailing -- surface chiseling and the like. The features that define the area have to be pretty large too. You can notice that going on in Darkwave's maps. Then you can gradually work your way to small-scale detailing.

 

I'll add that at that scale, much appeal comes from particularly attractive shaping -- not 2D shapes, as in automap appearance, but 3D shapes, as in architecture, floor and ceiling heights, how areas are positioned relative to one another, etc. 

 

In the OP, shots 4-5 are actually 'almost there'. They are begging to be suffused with one or two more macro-features. Shot 3 is alright in terms of composition, but now it's missing lighting variation. Shot 1 is a lot further away. I'd suggest looking into sky horizon techniques to vary the height of the perimeter walls. Also breaking those walls up with large-scale architectural features. Shot 2 is a mid-sized area, so you'd probably want to try more small-scale detail. (I played parts of this map a few days ago, so I'm referring to the areas as much as the screenshots.)

[Rapp0ng]

6 hours ago, rdwpa said:

I noticed in the largest areas, there is a lot of flood-filling of one material, which tends to look bland unless it is particularly evocative. If that enormous scale appeals to you, I'd suggest looking into the works of Darkwave0000. Some examples: 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Cheers for playing!

 

I will look into darkwave0000 stuff. However I think for my next map it will be much smaller. The large areas on reflection was the weakest part of my map. At the time I thought bigger would be better, but since making it and watching more experienced map designers i realise that is not the case.

 

Big maps can be done very well. But for me being new to this I think it would be better to limit the scale for now.

[mewbusi]

Planning on taking a look at this Friday. Mainly just due to the length of the wad. Will likely have a video of my playthough.

[mewbusi]

Wow what a poopy map. Honestly it needs to be better cleaned up so this sequence break isn't so easy. Like what were you thinking?!

 

Play through here:

 

30 minutes is a vast overstatement of length.

 

 

 

 

Lol, JK

Spoiler

Ok, obviously my prior play though isn't following the no crouch or jump rules that you asked of. Real play though is bellow.

 

 

I'll say this first, I like this map. Its sprawling and vast but each room feels unique enough to make me better remember it. Good landmarking too, only really the starting area feels generic with each level feeling connected yet unique in their own way. The levels also feel fairly interconnected which lends the level that as a good upside. The progression of the levels also feel rather natural which is really nice.

 

However, I feel like the main thing that shows the inexperience with this map is the enemy placement. The archvile flesh tower and final boss(es) really being the two battles that felt really memorable to me. While the elevator with the yellow key almost makes me feel the same way the enemy variety and single teleport for the pinkies really hampers the experience. The cliffs were kinda fine but such long distances for engagement when climbing with little close range to prevent players to simply take their time spamming rockets makes the climb feel samey. 

 

Also while I found the idea of Revenants in the boss battle an interesting idea, their height greatly hampers their effectiveness in the battle. As their homing spheres will often simply impact the ground. There is also some textures that are not unpegged for doors and one that has the wrong texture for the door sides as the other has a door trak. There is also a missing texture in the near spawn outdoors secret. If you watch the play though you should notice me kinda pause at these small mistakes. I did use the most recent version (1.1) when I played this so I feel that this is something to try and fix for 1.2 along with anything else you might think needs to be touched on.

 

Anyway, a very large, varied, and interconnected level. With the only real downside for me being that monster fights kinda feel lacking in variety or enough spice for their encounters to really make them interesting, despite the nice arenas they occur in. However for a first time map this is pretty great all things considered. Well done!