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Clarity

Abandoned Labs - Doom 2 Singleplayer map

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Screenshot_Doom_20201005_101828.png.08118b7b67fde31659a0c87ee8a732b9.png

 

Hi! I'm Clarity, this is my first doom map "Abandoned Labs"

 

As is usual with this sort of thing, i did this in order to test the waters, get a feel for the tools and to begin to understand how to use the textures. The geometry is probably flawed in multiple ways and the balancing is probably all over the place, but i have spent time on the detailing and the combat scenarios enough for them to hopefully at least be ok. As this is a first map, i will give full permission for anyone and everyone to fully tear into this wad if you feel like it deserved it, no holding back criticism

 

port and map stuff:

- Tested with GZDoom (ofc) with freelook and dynamic lights enabled, jumping and crouching disabled. I also used the hardware renderer.

- Medium-ish difficulty (has some spikes along the way)

- no custom assets used.

 

Disclaimer: if you noticed the broken skybox, that's already fixed in the latest version

 

download the map here: cla1_v2.7z

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cla1.7z

Edited by Clarity

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It's an okay-looking techbase map. There's some good use of height variation at points and some fun secrets. Combat's straightforward, not boring but also not much of a challenge. Your texture work is decent, though the misaligned textures revealing the secrets was a little obvious. Speaking of textures, you might want to add a sky texture so it doesn't feel like we're trapped in the Chessboard dimension when you go outside. Oh and some music would also be good too! Overall, not too shabby for your first attempt. I recommend watching this video by Doomkid on how to avoid beginner pitfalls when it comes to mapping.

 

 

Anyways, good luck and happy mapping. Oh, and welcome to Doomworld :^)

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you might want to add a sky texture so it doesn't feel like we're trapped in the Chessboard dimension

 

Huh... that's weird, does it not enable the default sky texture for doom 2? it showed up fine for me when testing, do i have to enable it somewhere? the music worked for me in testing too

 

thanks a lot for playing the map though, :) thought it was a lot worse.

 

Edit: wait shit, it's on my screenshot too, that's really weird

Edited by Clarity

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1 hour ago, Clarity said:

Huh... that's weird, does it not enable the default sky texture for doom 2? it showed up fine for me when testing, do i have to enable it somewhere? the music worked for me in testing too

 

You seem to have two very similar maps in your wad. One for MAP01 slot and one for CLA1. By default you get MAP01 variant, which has no sky. If you open console and do 

 

>map cla1[ENTER]

 

you get the other variant to play with the correct sky. No idea why the MAP01 variant has no sky though

 

Plays pretty nice though on the MAP01 variant. I'll try the other shortly - I suspect that's the one you are releasing...

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OK... I played both variants. It feels like MAP01 is the later version because things like the teleport from the chaingunner room work and jumping is disabled. Not to mention your MAPINFO specifies the custom name for MAP01... But, The map CLA1 has the correct sky...

 

It looks like you need to sort out which map is the version to release and get rid of the other (unless they are supposed to be sequential).

 

It is quite a fun few minutes despite the weirdness with map names. Looks to be inspired by E1M1 to some extent? Definitely keep it up!

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I played the first version of this with GZDoom and the sky worked fine but the music didn't play--I'm too new here to understand why this would be, though.

 

I liked this for a first map.  There's some height variation and you seem to have a handle on the basics of enemy placement.  The only thing I'd say I disliked was the outside area before the exit.  There's so much ammo available inside that I felt like it encouraged doorway shooting by the blue door.  But I also, uh, forgot I had the BFG and didn't use it so maybe that's my fault!

 

Seems like a good start to me.

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I played the first version of this with GZDoom and the sky worked fine but the music didn't play--I'm too new here to understand why this would be, though.

you mean the first version as in the file that's titled cla1.zip right (The newest one is called cla1_v2.zip for reference)

 

that is strange, but hopefully the newest version has everything working

 

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There's so much ammo available inside that I felt like it encouraged doorway shooting by the blue door.  But I also, uh, forgot I had the BFG and didn't use it so maybe that's my fault!

 

That's partly because of the different difficulty modes, i playtested this mostly on UV (probably should've said that) and in that there's a lot more enemies and the ammo is just a bit more sparce, though i've since learned not to put lines of ammo on rooms since i've made this. Also, yeah the BFG is there to wither down the pinkies and the archvile primarily so you can have a little more breathing room.

 

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Seems like a good start to me.

 

y'all are too nice :) i was told that there would be total noob obliteration, i'm not seeing it

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Nice level. I would like to have plasmagun instead of BFG9000, because BFG made last battle too easy on UV. Archviles could be placed far from each other, that would make some challenge, now i killed them both instantly with BFG.

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There's a missing texture here

2119977065_notexture.jpg.0a00d1378e5bb408a27acab447ae3dea.jpg

you can also cheese the last room by picking off the arch-viles through the window. They cant zap you from there, and because all the demons in the room have the ambush flag they won't wake up to help their buddies.

3.7/10

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I might say, good map. It's fast and somewhat fun (except that archvile). The secrets are too obvious most of the time. There are some missing texutures but thats fine. Overall, good job. Keep it up.

 

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Short and not so sweet, didn't expect this to be as easy as it was, something happaned to last room for some reason no one attacked me throught the window. 

 

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Welcome to mapping! Some feedback:

  • Weapon balancing should depend on encounters, the rocket launcher was pretty good for that outside area, a BFG on the other hand was not, it just makes everything too easy, consider removing it maybe?
  • An Archvile usually is enough of a "midboss", two of them in an open area like that is just inviting the player to back behind a door, which is not ideal, maybe a single AV would have played a little better
  • Always be aware of soft blocks that detract from dodging, for instance, on Clippy's Biodegradable's video at 4:37 he tries passing behind a pillar, but it's too close to the edge so he needs to run back. During fast paced combat any small gap looks crossable, it's pretty frustrating when they turn out not to be. Two solutions here, either make more room behind the pillar so the player can go through the gap or close the gap entirely, so the player looks elsewhere for a dodging path.
  • On pickups, I think health was ok, but double blue armor for a short map is overkill, a single green armor would've done the job I think.
  • Don't be afraid of setting traps surrounding objectives, maybe the last fight would've been more fun if not all enemies were visible from the start, they could've raised from the pillars, maybe some fodder imp teleported where the player is dodging? This one's more personal though, you'll have to test around and see what works for you.
  • On setting, that teleporter looks pretty devilish and menacing, it makes you brace for the worse when you cross it, so it feels weird to be sent back to the beggining. Maybe a more tech-looking teleport room? Or you could keep the hellish design and send the player somewhere bad, which then backtracks into the beggining.

That's it for feedback, but you're getting there, there's way less texture misalignment than usual for first mappers and the blue key room looks pretty good compared to the rest, keep practising!

Edited by Juka

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holy shit this got a lot more comments 

 

Thank you all a lot, i never thought this map would get this sort of reception, especially from doomworld of all places. Thank you all very much

 

By the way, thanks again for the people who made the videos! Wasn't expecting so may of them. Especially made of this map. it was very motivating, i've never had this happen in any other community and i really appreciate it. 

 

I have a couple things i want to clear up/ask briefly

 

The first is that i'm not the best doom player, and i didn't really have a gauge for pickup balancing when i made this. Looking back, i think some of the ammo lines for the shotgun were a bit much, especially since you get the SSG right at the start

 

About that outdoor area, The windows and door are marked as silent sectors, this is because during testing i thought that the key room would be to difficult if the final area's enemies could shoot and kill you (although, since everyone mentioned the map being too easy maybe i should've allowed it anyway) I think i should've turned that last battle into a sort of monster closet type thing though, i noticed @CamperLv and some others really just wanted to stay in the doorway, andi think having closets would've fixed that

 

The addition of the BFG and the mancubus secret was something i did thinking there were not enough secrets on the map, i should've probably switched it to something else

 

I noticed some people had trouble with the lifts, i probably should've the other common lift texture that has more contrast.

 

I probably should've cleared this up beforehand: this IS my first doom map, but not my first map map :)

 

Thanks to everyone again, hope you had fun playing it.

 

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