a cute little map (doom 2, boom)

[yakfak]

 

just having fun making "striking" zones which don't use many lines. this has less than a thousand but there's plenty to do

there's enough ammo to kill everything, kinda. loosely. giggle

map isn't titled yet, im working on a bigger pack with concepts just like this, just wanna know what people think!

ITYTD/UV only

a zzzv midi included, tell me if it's too quiet

 

v2: https://www.doomworld.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=86581

download old version: z1000_2.zip

Edited May 17, 2020 by yakfak

[DynamiteKaitorn]

I like that you want to make a small arena/island map be the focus of your gameplay here but I've noticed one problem: "Where on earth do I go?"

I've been thinking this question all the way through my attempts at this map. Firstly, you're pretty much thrown into a mini slaughtermap filled with a lot of enemies from every angle and secondary some traps seem to punish you more than the worth of the reward.

 

I do like you tried to go with a tech-hell style but the problem is, a good chunk of the map is just a miss mash of random textures and a good chunk of the walls is this slimed wall (not the slimefalls, like a brown wall with slime at the bottom of the texture that is then repeated upwards) that really looks ugly.

 

Finally, since I'm trying to dodge attacks from left, right and centre, getting access to guns is a pest since you're constantly under fire from gunners, imps, hell knights, revenants and 2 arachnotrons.

 

I did give this a honest go but sadly I feel like it needs more tweaking.

[yakfak]

thanks for playing! the map is actually logical and textured deliberately. try not to spring all the encounters at the same time!

[Cheesewheel]

Interesting puzzle like map, it took me about 5 deaths to make any progress in it. I managed to get the yellow, the SSG and the lava in the central area to appear but could not make any progress after that. I got the teleport to the upper area but couldn't make the jumps to the rockets or the shotgun.

 

Ammo is really really tight, by the end I was left beserk punching demons on 3 health without any idea where to go. I think the constant pressure of being attacked made it very difficult to see which platforms are lowering/changing at the same time because I was so focused on not getting hit.

 

I did enjoy planning a strategy to this map and having it develop other several playthroughs. I would grab the shotgun behind the blue pillar, and then activate the chaingun secret and try to get as much infighting as possible going on. There is definitely something interesting with this map but I think the player needs to be steered towards their goals a little more and needs a little bit more leeway with the ammo.

[yakfak]

hey thanks for playing! you're right that a few hints might be welcome, i'm trying to think of a way to redesign that trap gate you can go to straight away - crossing it is mandatory to beat the level but i've seen some demos where people step onto it, take the ammo, then walk back the way they came x3

 

i've thought of a few more places to add a little ammo so it eventually becomes accessible, doing that too

 

generally I think the strat is to berserk fight all the hell knights and barons that aren't on raised platforms? the cacodemons and arachnotrons are deliberately tough to fight with the fist, especially in cl -9 so that's what you'd be firing the rockets at; the arch-viles are pretty good at dodging the rockets and they tend to be placed in a way that prohibits melee. this might all be a bit hell revealed-ish but i like that sort of thing giggle

[Catpho]

Not so cute little demos for this lil cutie. I did a FDA on UV but got shredded by crossfire so i dialed it all the way down to enjoy the map (warning: itytd demo took like half an hour of wandering around) : catz1000.zip

 

Neat map. My only grievance was getting lost quite often, sometimes for reasons that aren't that fun imo like the path to the red key (the 2 cybs were supposed to be a hint?), but other times it's just due to rusty 90s navigation skills. The hot start was the most exciting part of the map combat wise, because later the map might gone a mite too quiet. Neat AV ambushes tho. I won't judge ammo because i played on skill 1 to avoid having to worry about it :) Visuals were the map's strongest point. I love your crazy sensibility with applying idtech1 vertical madness, and the view makes hopping between high places all the more satisfying. Midi is a funky banger as well. Gets better every time it loops.

 

Btw is this for your NaNo project thingy?

[yakfak]

hey thank you for the demo!! it seems like everyone has trouble reaching the red key so maybe i should make the path one step simpler, have the raised hell knight platform begin at a position where it's a step instead of a pillar! im rethinking some of the teleporter ambushes so they do a better job of filling the room back up; thinking that the structure you begin by would be a great place for a second wave of imps, with more arachnotrons wandering around beneath?

 

glad the music landed :3 i'm really pleased with it.

i wouldn't say this was for any particular project because as soon as I think with my forbrain about a project that project is immediately doomed lol

[SleepyVelvet]

i like city-style sandbox maps... a lot.  also, this map is definitely more fun on itytd too for anyone passing by this comment.

fda: noisy_z1000_2.zip about 50 minutes of demo

also...

is there... just no rocket launcher on the map?  funny troll gimmick if true.

[Nine Inch Heels]

z1000_2_NIH.zip

(PrB+ Demo)

 

So, this demo isn't really an FDA... The first 5 minutes of the map I had a vague idea what I was meant to do, and even for these 5 minutes I had to have a look at the builder yesterday to find out what is a switch and what isn't. In reality, the demo would have taken well over half an hour of running around, not knowing where to go, what to do, how to move anything geometry such that I could make progress. Getting to the red key, after finding and killing just about everything else in the map took the longest time by far, I simply cut that from the demo because nobody really likes watching that sort of stuff (the cut happens before shooting an object to lower it, if you wanna know), but imagine running around in the map for 13-14 minutes trying to "use" just about any texture that may or may not have been useable. Less than 1 minute of time spent in the builder, and I noticed that in order to access the red key I had to shoot a certain texture instead of using it, which feels so backwards to me, given how the player can just walk up to that thing they need to operate.

 

Gameplay isn't my comfort zone, because it's a lot of stuff flying around and about in the map more or less at random, which can cause damage from projectiles that travelled towards the player for what feels like a minute and a half, only to make an unlikely and unexpected connection. I guess it does a good job of slowly chipping players to death while they wander around aimlessly in search for a clue as to how to make any progress, but for people like me, who favour "having a clue and dying to something in a direct fight", it's somewhat annoying to get poked every so often. It's not like the combat isn't fun, it switches from "okay, now here's something I need to pay attention to" to "okay I'm actually just chipping away at this to prevent the eventuality of an annoying tap on the back", and I prefer the former kind of combat over the latter personally.

 

I think I can consider myself fortunate, because I didn't get killed in the vile ambush at the upper "plateau" where the partial invisibility is, I still took what I think is an almost mandatory blast, and it wouldn't surprise me if somebody else reached that plateau with so little health that tanking a blast is entirely out of the question. The fight is fine if you know what to expect and don't take too much damage prior, but it's "iffy" otherwise, especially if the imps don't cooperate and distract the vile. I don't mind that sort of stuff a great deal, and lots of fights I made come across more dickish than that particular ambush, but I'm somewhat certain that getting killed there will frustrate players with less patience than I have, doubly so if they have been wandering around for like 10-15 minutes, trying to make moves.

 

Ammo wise I think I ended up with a surplus especially of rockets, many of which I would have liked to have much earlier in the map, to be able to grind down for example the arachnotrons in the lava area in a shorter period of time. With that much area to move around in, they're not really a threat in my opinion, so dealing with them felt a bit laborious. Likewise, the cyberdemons felt more like work than anything else. I would have kept them around if the monster count at the time wasn't so low that they wouldn't do me any good as infighters, but in the end I opted into SSGing them down once I found a convenient area to do so.

 

I think the map's strongest aspect is the use of geometry which encourages jumping around and trying to reach pillars or "windows" with goodies, followed by putting players under mild, but constant threat. What I would have preferred is having a few more clues as to what's supposed to be done next (having to look at the builder once is something I don't mind, having to do it more than once bothers me a little), and perhaps a little bit more firepower earlier, to make the "preventive clean-up" a bit less of an effort.

 

I give this map a "funky MIDI out of ten"

[yakfak]

many thanks for all the playthroughs and comments!

here's a version 2 of teh thing which:
- adds a second rocket launcher (the first one is up on the jagged structure giggle) which can be accessed pseudo-immediately, depending on how you use yr ammo
- path to the red key is no longer hidden behind a seemingly unrelated action lol
- the big teleport refills are more meaningful, i think!
- there's a central structure near the arch-vile that wrecks you at the highest point

- misc additions, stuff to climb on, ammo + stimpacks, added a joke Lite Amp in that already-nonsensical secret
- i guess the two optional cybies at the end are just always gonna be too easy for some players but i like them lol

- the initial chaos has not been reduced giggle

 

z1000_2v2.zip