Feature Creep (Doom2 Map)

[SCF]

This is the first map I've finished and submitted, so sorry in advance if I messed up anything here.

 

Concept
A tech base built into an ancient castle. The screenshots should give you the idea.

 

Screenshots

Spoiler

 

Additional Credits
Textures from OTEX 1.1 by Ola Björling (ukiro)
Music is "Malwrath" by James Paddock (Jimmy)
                    
Difficulty
The map was designed for UV, and is intended to be casually challenging for experienced players, but not particularly hard. Other difficulties are also supported.

 

Length
One level, about 15 minutes long (with 100% kills)

 

Tested with
GZDoom 4.2.4 (Used for development)
PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4 (Playable, but noticed a graphical glitch in the exit room, not sure what causes it)

 

The map shouldn't use any non-Boom features as far as I'm aware.

Note on textures
I did not include the OTEX texture pack in the wad, so it has to be loaded separately. I included the link below for convenience. I tried copying all contents of OTEX into the wad in Slade, but ran into two issues:
- PrBoom+ gave me an unclear error message on load about textures (sorry, didn't save the message)
- The file size gets huge because there's a lot of (unused) textures

I also tried using Slade's "remove unused textures/patches/flats" features, but they seemed to also delete all frames of animated textures except for the first frame (the one assigned to the sidedefs).

 

Is it acceptable to keep the texture pack separate, or should I look into this more?

Any feedback is much appreciated. I tried not to make it confusing where to go, or make fights too punishing if you don't know what to expect, but it's very hard to imagine how someone playing it for the first time would experience it. And of course please report any bugs or broken map features.

 

Feature Creep v2 Download

OTEX 1.1 Download

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2020 by SCF : Uploaded v2

[Higo Doragon]

3 hours ago, SCF said:

Is it acceptable to keep the texture pack separate

yes, but i think you can create a credits lump in the wad, just a text file saying the things you did or other people made! and then merge the textures in our wad!

[Biodegradable]

Hey this is a very solid effort, man. Really great stuff. You well and truly nailed my arse to the wall plenty of times, but your cruelty was fair and measured and I had a great time. Your map's layout, design, progression and enemy placement were excellent. While I did feel overwhelmed at times, it never felt like you were being a complete asshole and I managed to escape by the skin of my teeth from multiple scenarios. The only quibble I have is you were a little stingy with the ammo at times hehe but then again, that might've been my fault. Welcome to Doomworld, man, I'd love to see more maps from you in the future.

 

 

[BoxY]

Very cool debut map with overall great gameplay flow, I think anyone would be proud if this was their first finished map. Boom compatibility is also really appreciated as I don't have much interest in playing zdoom maps any more. I'm not really sure what the texturing theme was supposed to be, it kind of felt like bits of a haunted mansion, gothic castle and techbase stitched together, but I didn't really mind when I was actually playing. However, I was having some serious ammo pains trying to get all kills on UV. Everything felt just a bit too tightly tuned to be comfortable, not sure if that was the intention.

 

On my first run I skipped the berserk secret because I felt lazy, and immediately started running out of shells and rockets. I barely squeaked to the end and at the yellow key room (very cool fight by the way) without shells I plasma'd the first 3 viles, chaingunned two more out of desperation and ran out of ammo completely on the last vile, which happily ran out into the red hall to rez everything in sight, so I exited without all kills and secrets.

 

Second run I made absolutely sure to get the berserk and punched everything possible to save shells, but I still really needed rockets. In the courtyard with the big crate I opted to use my last rockets on the 2 viles, but that meant I had to do the room with the shithead arachnotrons and revenants without any. I cheesed the fight a bit by dipping in and out so I was behind the pinky teleport spot and killed some arachnotrons with the chaingun to grab the precious, precious ammo they were hoarding.

The rest of the map went pretty normally, I killed a bunch of hell knights with berserk and scrooged every cell possible for the last room and ended up with 260. It still wasn't enough to kill all 6 viles but I had enough shells to finish the last ones off this time.

 

tl;dr nice map, cool fights, nice and balanced difficulty, please add a couple rocket boxes here and there, and maybe make the berserk a free pickup instead of a secret.

[SCF]

Thanks for the responses!

 

Biodegradable, I watched the video of your playthrough and it was very interesting to see someone else approach the level. I'm not sure how much the mods you were using affected the difficulty, but overall it looked more or less how I expected it.

 

Boxy: Ammo was definitely not intended to be that scarce. I tested the map myself without using berserk or the secret cell pack, and it seemed doable. Might be because I knew the level too well and didn't use more ammo than needed, and I relied on some infighting in many of the encounters. I can see how doing the red key fight before the (optional) backpack area can lead you to having no rockets left, so it's probably a good idea to add a rocket box to the red key chamber as well.

 

Ammo management for the end of the map was tough, since I didn't want the player to have too many cells for the final room and trivialize it. But I tried to leave plenty of shells in the second half of the level so you'd always have the super shotgun for backup. When you say you used berserk to kill hell knights, were you also short on shells? If so, I could always add some more, as well as some extra rockets in those areas.

[Biodegradable]

3 hours ago, SCF said:

Biodegradable, I watched the video of your playthrough and it was very interesting to see someone else approach the level. I'm not sure how much the mods you were using affected the difficulty, but overall it looked more or less how I expected it.

 

Yeah, Zagemod is a QoL mod that just provides different Doom protagonist weapon classes along with some different sprite work, sound effects, improved animations and has demon variant sprites while also making 'em a tiny bit more aggressive. Nothing dramatic that affects Doom's base gameplay we know and love. 

[SCF]

Based on the feedback, I made some small updates and released a version 2 (link in the top post).

 

- Added extra rockets in a few places (red key chamber, mancubus/hell knight room, path to yellow key room). Hopefully that should alleviate some of the ammo issues.

- A few texture fixes

 

Thanks again everyone for the useful comments.

[Loomis]

Played your map and I liked the visuals/design.

In the room with the yellow key the viles were partly visible through the walls of their boxes although they were still closed and also their sounds could be heard. Maybe this could be improved to make them more of a surprise.

 

[Clippy]

 

[Elendir]

I played your map and I think it's challenging. I had to repeat the battles quite often. For some people that might be the main juce of the gameplay, but to my taste there was too much of a chaotic run-and-avoid battles. On the other hand I suspect your main idea was to create a challenging map, where scarce ammo soon becomes an obvious design concept.  

 

So overall I had to think about how to survive confrontations and that kept me going.

 

What I like:

 

The chamber with 4 Arachnotrons and Revenants behind bars - very nice concept that requires some skill and thinking. On the other hand the Pinkies teleported right behind my back when I wanted to instantly retreat from the arena moving backwards. I died right away not expecting that something's gonna block my movement. Nevertheless it's still a good trap.

 

Arena with a nukage in the middle. Very intense combat with an option to rush for the door. I personally like traps where the designer gives the player a safe spot or a way out, so he/she can think out the plan or grab more ammo. 

 

The last room with hidden Archviles is not giving me much barriers to hide. So in my case it was an intense head-to-head clash. I charged them head on with a rocket launcher and my good-old chaingun ;-)

 

To sum it up: challenging map with scarce ammo. I liked it! Good job!

 

PS.

I tested it with and without Brutal Doom mod. I feel it's easier with Brutal Doom, altough it might be my subjective point of view. 

 

 

 

[SCF]

On 8/24/2020 at 6:16 AM, Clippy said:

 

 

Hey, your video helped me a lot to understand the ammo issues. The way you approached the fights (backing out and fighting enemies one by one) cut down on a lot of the infighting, so you had to expend more ammo. And this compounded throughout the map leaving you constantly low. I'll definitely keep this in mind for next time. There should've also been more health in a couple of places. Thanks a lot for the video and the kind words.

 

It's also been funny seeing multiple people miss a secret that I was worried was too obvious.

[Clippy]

29 minutes ago, SCF said:

 

Hey, your video helped me a lot to understand the ammo issues. The way you approached the fights (backing out and fighting enemies one by one) cut down on a lot of the infighting, so you had to expend more ammo. And this compounded throughout the map leaving you constantly low. I'll definitely keep this in mind for next time. There should've also been more health in a couple of places. Thanks a lot for the video and the kind words.

 

It's also been funny seeing multiple people miss a secret that I was worried was too obvious.

 

Maybe that's my fault for avoiding fights so much haha - I played like a bit of a wuss didn't I :P

[Biodegradable]

9 hours ago, Clippy said:

Maybe that's my fault for avoiding fights so much haha - I played like a bit of a wuss didn't I :P

 

While watching your playthrough, you had me shaking my head several times in disbelief at your cowardice, young man. Tsk tsk