THE MEAN GREEN - 3 levels for Doom II / Boom

[Chris Hansen]

The Mean Green

3 levels for DOOM 2 - Boom comp./complevel 9

 

 

Sparetime isn't what it used to be for me, but nevertheless I've managed to finish a couple of levels that I'd like to present to you. I'm really happy with the result and excited to release them.

 

The levels are small-medium in size and plays more like Ult. Doom since I only used lower tier monsters and weaponry. They should offer a good 45 minutes of some classic, old school fun! The action is fast paced and the levels feature my usual style of interconnectivity and semi-realistic to abstract visuals. I could probably make something else, but I just love stuff like this too much! UV packs a punch if you are not careful, but all skill settings are available so everyone should be able to beat them. I had a great team of testers, so all the bugs and weird stuff should be gone. There's new midis, sky and titlepic to spice things up further :)

 

I really enjoyed making these levels and I plan to make more of them. I hope you enjoy them as well! If you wanna know more about my previous work, then check out my recently updated website or take a look at my latest creation before this one. Rip'n'tear!

 

>>> DOWNLOAD "THE MEAN GREEN" <<<

 

 

Sequel “The Mean Green 2” here.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Chris Hansen

[Walter confetti]

Looks awesome as usual!

[Mk7_Centipede]

the platforming in map 2 is really cool.  good stuff.

[pcorf]

Always a fan of your maps Christian and it looks pretty nice as always. How does a busy father like you squeeze in the time to make such magnificent maps?

[Chris Hansen]

Thanks guys!

[Peanut]

These are some pretty slick maps. Flow feels phenomenal and paces really well. Had to do multiple takes to get through map03 thanks only to my own impatience, but never kept me from being sucked in. Only gripe is that there aren't any more. Hella good job!

[Doomkid]

I really like this, great gameplay and classic, right-at-home visuals. The new pallet and awesome sky add to the map as well. Great stuff as usual from Chris Hansen!

[Fairweather]

While I like the classic visuals and the new pallet of this map set, the level design is entirely not my thing.

Map 1 feels like it could have done with about half the enemies, monsters feel like they were haphazardly spammed in certain sections to achieve a higher monster count and to pump up the difficulty without the need to smartly design encounters. Infighting was constant, walking into a room and seeing 15+ enemies all readying their attack / charging was completely overwhelming, making me almost always back up and take them out from the doorway.

Map 2 feels pretty much the same, opening doors / going through small chokepoints and being greeted by a million random dudes. The difficulty coming less from successfully dealing with fights in intelligent ways and more just how much tedium I was willing to deal with in plinking them down.

Map 3, while still having the same issues of monster placement as before, feels like the best designed level in the pack. Fights open and fold around the player, highlights being that circular room that opens up into a free-for-all after dealing with the teleporting pinkies and the trap fight after the YK plinths.

[tmorrow]

I love these maps! It took me a few tries to obtain uvmaxes for them. The highlight for me is the excellent use of low tier enemies to produce a challenging experience.

The first map map01 is a challenge due to the hitscanners and limited health and armor. Fortunately you can find positions to snipe back at the buggers. The chaingunners that are introduced in the second half can be quite nasty if you aren't ready for them.

The start to map02 is quite intense. I like the layout here, with low level threats in every direction through open windows, above and below. Ammo and health is tight until you can pick up the green armor and either the berserk or chainsaw. After that the map is a bit easier. You get the rocket launcher just in time for the introduction of the beefier monsters like cacodemons and the hell knight near the end. There is a clever batch of secrets to find on this map.

In map03 I nearly came unstuck with some poor circle strafing when the trap was unleashed in the blue water. The soulsphere secret had me scratching my head for quite a while, very sneaky.

Of the three maps, map02 is probably my favorite.

Thanks for creating these 3 gems Chris. Cheers.

[Chris Hansen]

Thank you for all the comments! I'm glad you enjoyed the maps @Peanut, @Doomkid and @tmorrow. I'm sorry @Fairweather that it wasn't your cup of tea. Luckily, there's a ton of other great content in this community, so finding something better to play shouldn't take long. Thanks for playing and commmenting, much appreciated!

[GarrettChan]

Congrats on the release. I'm glad that I can be your tester before release. I see how you changed some of the things I found out :D

 

In case anybody is interested in my sloppy blind playthrough:

Spoiler

 

 

[nWADDEN]

Great map pack, the only problem is the absurd amount of enemies, usually in a sector that would be fine with much less of them

[boris]

Great maps, as was to be expected. Love the interconnectivity and looping design. Difficulty was good for me on HMP, only died once (classic rocket suicide by monster walking around the corner), but was low on health quite a few times.

 

Secrets were good, found all but two (both in MAP02, for the berserk one I was on the right track, but just couldn't hear the lift; the chainsaw I didn't really look for... it's just not desirable enough to try to find a way to it). My favorite secret is the soulsphere one in MAP02, because it contains the simple puzzle element.

 

Problems I noticed:

• Several lowering sectors have wrong pegging setting
• You can get stuck in the berserk secret in MAP03, when you jump into it from the walkway leading to the yellow key

 

Here's my blind playthrough of the maps:

 

 

[Doom_Dude]

Fun set of maps Chris with nice design elements! I was careless in map01 and ended up with 2 health and no save, so I saved it and took a few tries to pick off a couple chaingunners so I could get some health. I missed at least half the secrets and I died a few times for sure. Good stuff. :D

[Chris Hansen]

Thanks @boris for the video and comments! Glad you liked it. You too @Doom_Dude! It's really nice to see that people are enjoying these maps (for the most part anyway). It's not always easy for me as I tend to stick to certain tried and tested techniques that I know and love while still trying to meet the new standards. Compromise is seldomly a good thing (for me and my skillset at least), so I'm leaning heavily towards the foremost and not so much the latter hoping that I can still be relevant in some way :)

[Mk7_Centipede]

"poor monster placement"?  press x to doubt.

 

this was less moody than monument but map 01 felt similar.  the combat seemed more intense though in this map set.  and the moodiness of the monster closets is something else.  maybe some people miss what you did here, but its rather original afaik and quite enjoyable.

[joepallai]

This was excellent with really engaging combat and visuals.   I liked how you handled the secrets and will definitely go back to try to get 100% secrets (I must have missed 1 secret per map on this first playthrough).   Fun.

[Chris Hansen]

Thanks joe! Glad you liked it. Already hard at work on a sequel!

[Steve D]

Another fun blast by Chris Hansen. This is a great mash-up of oldschool and newschool techniques, mixed with a cool red sky and that diiirrrrttty pallet. Props for the Quake 2 midi as well.

 

These maps are heavy on mood with excellent application of darkness and light. The maps are smaller than usual for Chris, but with very involved layouts and excellent pathing. I didn't always know what to do, but I never got lost.

 

Chris favors a classic resource-management approach, which means you'll always want more health and ammo than you have, but you'll never lack for monsters trying to kill you. ;D Along the way there are some mean-spirited traps, while others pull back a little. For example, I was down to 2% health in Map02 when I sprang a trap loaded with Pinkies and Sergeants, but the Pinkies were in front, which is the only reason I survived.

 

These maps have more ledge snipers than usual for Chris, and they had me very intimidated on Map03, the only map I failed to survive without savescumming. It's really a masterpiece of design, with a way cool Soulsphere secret which, alas, I never figured out while actually playing. :D But trust me, it's good.

 

Since I play keyboard only, I had some difficulty with the platforming sections -- that's right, he didn't leave out anything -- but combat was manageable, if tough. I wasn't able to beat the Big Hell Knight Trap in Map03 while recording an FDA in PrBoom, but when I played again with GZDoom and its slicker keyboard feel, I prevailed on my first try, though I successfully died several times after that. My only real gripe is that I had trouble locating the exit in Map03 owing to darkness and a low exit sign I forgot about once the monsters came after me. A little more health and ammo might be nice at the end of Map03 as well. That said, this is without question one of Chris Hansen's best mapsets. The Axe-Murderer is back!

 

For those who wish to see The Ancient Keyboarder practice the mystic art of Stumbling Drunken Monkey Fu, here are the UV demos I recorded while playtesting these maps. The FDA for Map03 ends after my second go at the Big Hell Knight Trap. Mean Green FDAs

 

 

Edited December 23, 2019 by Steve D

[xvertigox]

I really enjoyed all 3 maps. There was a good ramp up in difficulty and I appreciate the monster and weapon use. I'm surprised that such a mishmash of texture themes could work so well but the maps look fantastic. Very intuitive flow and layout for all 3 maps.

[Demon of the Well]

FDAs, Skill 4

 

Steve said it better than I could. You've clearly mastered this particular idiom of base-busting map these past few years, and I don't reckon you need me to tell you that. The intricacy and depth of the layouts are very strong in all three maps; m03 is a particular treat, the way the geometry shifts and transforms in subtle ways to reveal multiple fronts of monsters and drive the action forwards (literally and figuratively) is superbly done. This level of craft will always be a valuable contribution from which countless others might learn, no matter how traditional or humble the style. :)

 

That being said.....I don't think you give yourself enough credit for the variety of the designs in your back-catalogue. The highly polished run-and-gun action we see in "Mean Green" is all very well and good, but I for my part would still like to see a re-visitation of some of your coldhearted designs of yesteryear -- "Obituary Written", "Odious Grounds", that sort of thing. That kind of experimental/controversial gameplay design, coupled with the skill for layout and pacing seen in your present work, could make for something quite special, I feel.

[Chris Hansen]

Thank you for the kind words @xvertigox and @Demon of the Well!

 

2 hours ago, Demon of the Well said:

That being said.....I don't think you give yourself enough credit for the variety of the designs in your back-catalogue. The highly polished run-and-gun action we see in "Mean Green" is all very well and good, but I for my part would still like to see a re-visitation of some of your coldhearted designs of yesteryear -- "Obituary Written", "Odious Grounds", that sort of thing. That kind of experimental/controversial gameplay design, coupled with the skill for layout and pacing seen in your present work, could make for something quite special, I feel.

I was wondering when you'd show up and remind me of those levels! It's either you or @Steve D that keeps demanding me to return to my more mean spirited days of old! You really are a couple of masochistic lunatics! :D

 

Seriously though, I don't think I'll ever go back down that route. I've spent a long time honing my skill, always trying to better myself. Especially in the gameplay department where I feel those old levels were lacking quite a bit. While my newer levels don't nessecarily look better that the ones I made in 00's, I do feel that they play better today. I don't just make levels that I want to play myself; I also try to make levels that people will enjoy. And that means largely catering a bit to the masses and following trends to a certain degree. That's a dangerous path of course as you can easily fall into a trap where there are too many compromises and too little originality. I try to do what I do best while keeping an eye on what people enjoy - or rather, what they really hate and avoid that. In short, what I do today is to simply make a level based on 3 requirements where the first two are pretty much set in stone and the latter is the one I keep finetuning the most with every release: 1) The visual style 2) The interconnectivity and puzzles and 3) The opposition and arsenal. I'm a pleaser by nature so I have to make levels I'm proud of but where the majority of you out there should find them enjoyable.

[Clippy]

After being interested in the mean green too I thought it's only right to start off at the beginning. I hope you enjoy my videos let's see what happens I hear they get quite mean haha 

 

 

 

[Clippy]

Hey this was released on my birthday

[Chris Hansen]

Thanks for the video, @Clippy! You're officially only one point behind @Biodegradable when it comes to the Olympic discipline of wallhumping of every God damn linedef in sight in search of secrets! ;D

[Clippy]

Your maps are amazing

 

 

[Chris Hansen]

Thanks for the video! My toes cringed all the way back to my ass watching you trying to figure out that SS secret! Amazing stuff! Glad you enjoyed playing the level.

[Clippy]

 

[DiR]

Just played through the whole thing a while ago, MAP03 took me a few tries during the section with draining water but I managed to make it past on my third attempt. Really nice for a three-level experience, lots of action and ambushes to keep things tense, even though not all of the weapons or monsters were even introduced yet. I almost didn't miss having an SSG! (Almost)

 

I actually forgot I had the rocket launcher for a fair bit, so I spammed every rocket I had at the end segment :P

 

Overall I liked it a lot, I'll go play Mean Green II now.

[Chris Hansen]

Thank you for playing and taking your time to leave a comment, @ctlcdn. Glad you liked it and it sounds like you had the experience I intended meaning that these first three levels are more like Ult Doom but on speed! Good luck with the sequel! Prepare to bleed! 😈