Heyo, Cube again. Helmefield Keep Map01

[Cubefleet]

This single map is done. Or rather I am super sick of playtesting it, so up it goes for you guys to enjoy and/or tear apart.

Map is boom compatible, playtested in PrBoom 2.5.1.5. Map made in Eureka 1.27. Map is not designed for crouching, jumping or freelook. (though freelook may make fighting the cacos in later parts easier) With this map, I've learned how to do monster teleporters! Also this map is difficult for me to complete. I've gotten pretty good at playing the earlier fights, but the wooden arena kicks my butt most of the time on HMP.

Difficulty settings are enabled. Map was pretty cakewalky on ITYTD, and I have no idea how it will measure up on UV.

 

How does it play on your difficulty of choice?

Any feedback, love letters or hate mail is appreciated. Once I've heard back from enough people, I'd like to give this another editing pass to polish and tune it a bit, then move on to the next experiment.

(forgot to take screenshots during earlier runs, breezed through map on ITYTD to snag a couple.)

I'm particularly happy with how the dark room feels to run through, lighting wise. Surely there's nothing dangerous in there. ;)

 

 

The wooden arena. My first attempt at something large that has multiple waves of enemies.

 

 

The download:

 

helmefield01.wad.zip

helmefield01-v2.wad.zip

Edited March 4, 2020 by Cubefleet : formatting

[DynamiteKaitorn]

Pretty fun map! Nice level designs and some real challenge that gets you to think a little. The wood section you mentioned is actually quite easy to cheese. Walk forward a little and grab either box of shells (if you need the ammo) then just whip out your fist/chainsaw and fire once. Then, step back into the marble area and watch as all the enemies slowly come for you as you pelt them with rockets and shotgun shell pellets.

 

Funnily enough the only thing that gave me a problem was the cyberdemon. XD

[Cubefleet]

@DynamiteKaitorn Oh, you right. That would solve the initial enemies in that room. Thanks for the find!

I'll bear it in mind for my next construction. Or maybe try and wall them in somehow with some monster blocking lines. xD

[Horus]

Played on UV, good map, definite step up in difficulty from your first maps. Teleporter traps were well used, and some of the trap fights like the caco and demon one at the YK area were well done. A few things:

- You can collect the BK without activating the BK trap

- Map could have done with an SSG a bit earlier than it was given...RK battle was kinda grindy without it

- Wooden area had some switches that didn't animate when pressed (texture didn't change from SW1 to SW2)

- Some minor texture misalignments throughout the map

- A wider variety of colours would improve the map visually. You are generally pairing green marble floor with green marble wall, wood floor with wood wall etc, without (much) use of other colours to break it up a bit

- Next thing to work on I would say is the music. D_RUNNIN, aside from being the default map 01 track, doesn't really suit this style of map imo

[Cubefleet]

@Horus Fair points all around. I noticed the blue key trick in my runs as well. Left it in because if you choose not to open those monster closets you miss out on some pickups. I figure it offers a choice between "sneakily" grabbing the key or opening up the fight if you want the ammo and stuff behind the monster closet doors. It was an unintentional thing on my part that became a feature though.

Point on the red key battle is fair. Think sticking an SSG in the same room as the red key would work?

 

I'm still trying to figure out color. I try things like red carpet/green marble walls and just go "ugh. I don't know if that looks good." So defaulted here to what felt safe, but I agree it is bland. I suppose it won't be the end of the world if I experiment a bit more with flats and textures.

 

Happy I've graduated from major misalignment on textures to minor! Woo.

 

I have no idea yet how to change music tracks, or add in custom music. Eureka has an Edit Text Lump feature in it's tools which I suspect can do exactly that, among other things, but the pdf documentation doesn't cover how it's used. After bashing my head against the problem for about an hour, I give up for tonight.

The good news is that during the face-to-brick-wall process I learned how to rip wads apart with Deutex and stick them back together, so now custom splash screens are within my power. And theoretically much more, once I learn more things.

[Horus]

@Cubefleet SLADE is your friend for music tracks. It has tutorials on the site too

 

http://slade.mancubus.net/

 

On the textures, I know what you mean, I find using only the stock textures in maps leads to limited combinations that work, that's why I downloaded custom texture packs like jimmytex, cc4tex, GothicDM, etc

[Cubefleet]

I saw Slade. It looks like feature rich heaven. I'm having trouble getting it to compile/run on Debian Linux though. Might be worth digging up my old windows 7 disc for. Or finding a linux distro that's more compatible.

I've just edited the opening post to contain the latest map with a few minor changes. An SSG has been added to the red key room, and I've tried to introduce some sound/monster blocking lines to prevent the horde in the wooden arena from wandering down the convenient hallway of death bottleneck.