Hell's Ruins: A Vanilla Episode WAD (First Maps)

[T.Will]

What was initially a megawad, turned into an 11 map episode wad. It's pretty chaotic, and with probably a lot of rookie design choices. Even still, I like what I made, and it was rewarding to even create them. Thanks for checking it out.

 

 

**ORIGINAL POST**

This is my first time making Doom maps, and my first attempt at a megawad. It's only seven levels so far, but I plan on updating and bringing new maps and traps for this project. Hell's Ruins is a vanilla-compatible wad for Doom 2. The maps feature chaotic fights in tight and large areas with limited resources. It's not easy, but it's not Plutonia. Ultra-Violence is recommended for the intended experience.

 

This is a work in progress; all critiques and feedback will be helpful.

 

I hope you enjoy!

Story: After Doomguy blasts the Icon of Sin's brain in Doom II, he returns to Earth to help rebuild. Even with Hell decimated and the portals closed, there are still monsters  lurking about the world. Before Earth can heal, you must put these pests down! 

 

Hopefully this will be the final time you have to deal with demons...

 

Title                 : Hell's Ruins
Filename          : HELLS_RUINS.wad

Release Date    : 11/04/2020
Author             : T.Will

Tested with                : Crispy Doom, Chocolate Doom, PrBoom+ (-complevel 2), GZDoom with Doom (Strict) compatibility
Primary Purpose         : Single player

* Play Information *

Game                            : Doom II
Map #                           : MAP01-MAP11
Single Player                  : Designed for
Cooperative 2-4 Player    : None
Deathmatch 2-4 Player   : None
Other game styles          : None
Difficulty Settings           : Yes

Editor(s) used                : Ultimate Doom Builder, SLADE
 

Known Bugs

None so far...
 

 

Spoiler

 

 

HELLS_RUINS.zip

Edited January 3, 2021 by T.Will

[DynamiteKaitorn]

So I gave this a quick playthrough and noticed a few errors:

1 - MAP01 has a mis-tagged linedef which causes a "sector collapse" (AKA Every sector tagged 0 tries to act like one big door) and thus you get stuck in the backpack room where the lost souls appear.

 

MAP05 Contains a 2 missing wall textures.  One is on one of the slime walls whilst the other is near the ledge you enter the slime room against the brown-gray wall.

 

In MAP06, the "door closes behind you" trap is not very well implemented and can easily cause a softlock.

 

In MAP07, The marble room with arachonotrons and mancubuses, there's a tutti-frutti error on the stairs before the lowest step raises up.

 

 

Overall a fairly average set of DooM levels.

[T.Will]

On 11/14/2020 at 4:59 AM, DynamiteKaitorn said:

So I gave this a quick playthrough and noticed a few errors:

1 - MAP01 has a mis-tagged linedef which causes a "sector collapse" (AKA Every sector tagged 0 tries to act like one big door) and thus you get stuck in the backpack room where the lost souls appear.

 

MAP05 Contains a 2 missing wall textures.  One is on one of the slime walls whilst the other is near the ledge you enter the slime room against the brown-gray wall.

 

In MAP06, the "door closes behind you" trap is not very well implemented and can easily cause a softlock.

 

In MAP07, The marble room with arachonotrons and mancubuses, there's a tutti-frutti error on the stairs before the lowest step raises up.

 

 

Overall a fairly average set of DooM levels.

Thanks for playing the levels. Early on, I often got confused by how to properly set up tags and sectors, and that most likely caused the MAP01 sector collapse. I fixed the other problems you brought up and managed to get rid of the MAP06 crashing (might've been a tag issue lol). I'll be updating the wad when I finish up MAP08 and 09. Again thank your trying it out.

[T.Will]

Just updated with errors fixed and MAP08 & MAP09. If anyone wants to try it out, please let me know how to improve.

[T.Will]

Completed the wad. It's not a full megawad as intended, but I think 11 maps is suitable. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

[DavidN]

I gave it a play - thanks for being so patient after your message!

 

This is a nice set of beginner maps - you definitely experiment as you go through, with different encounter setups. I think the first few maps are the strongest - a couple of the later ones tend to be quite familiar after a while in having large piles of monsters where you're given an Invulnerability sphere and just have to go through and take care of them.

 

I found one softlock where you can fall behind a console, and it's quite easy to get stuck on MAP07 if you've left a Mancubus or Arachnotron behind at any point in the map - you can't get back through the door once you're in the red key room.

 

Nevertheless, it's great that you put this together :)

 

 

[T.Will]

6 minutes ago, DavidN said:

I gave it a play - thanks for being so patient after your message!

 

This is a nice set of beginner maps - you definitely experiment as you go through, with different encounter setups. I think the first few maps are the strongest - a couple of the later ones tend to be quite familiar after a while in having large piles of monsters where you're given an Invulnerability sphere and just have to go through and take care of them.

 

I found one softlock where you can fall behind a console, and it's quite easy to get stuck on MAP07 if you've left a Mancubus or Arachnotron behind at any point in the map - you can't get back through the door once you're in the red key room.

 

Nevertheless, it's great that you put this together :)

 

 

I really do appreciate you playing through my maps. The monotony issue is something I realized, but it was near the end so I felt an obligation to at least complete it. I'll think outside the box next time.

[Nootsy-Nootsy]

Hey I've played up to and including level 8 thus far and I really enjoyed it. Your experimentation with the maps was fun and made each feel very different. I liked levels 4 and 5 the most.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about level 7, it was a large difficulty spike from the previous one. Though perhaps I shouldn't have tried to fight all the monsters and just ran through instead. Actually though I think the middle area with the pinkies, hell knights, cacodemons, shotgunners was pretty fun to dance around trying skirt by on the edges. That could be a really cool arena if even just one of the enemy types was taken away. Actually a lot of the arena's had lots of different enemies which I think could be distilled if you just took one type away. Sorry, tangent.

 

I also went through the levels from pistol start but in hindsight that may not have been a good idea. Ammo was very scarce which made things more tricky than they maybe should have been. Fun though :)

Ironically between levels 6 and 7 where you kill the player to force a pistol start, I accidentally used an Invul sphere to bypass it. That was the only bug I found.