Neptune, My First Major WAD!

[forgettable pyromaniac]

Not my first WAD, but first posted wad.
THIS ISN'T PERFECT, PLEASE DON'T YELL AT ME!

This wad comes with custom configs for Zandronum, and GZDoom.

Please make sure that if you do NOT use the configs, that Dynamic Lights are on (use lights.pk3 stuff for GZDoom).
Download available below, including an info.txt, with both major and minor info, but the important part can be found below.

This .zip comes with the following:
BLAKGLOV.wad, by Grimm
Neptune.wad, by Me
info.txt
Custom Blue Doom Pallette
Custom Configs for Zandronum and GZDoom
Neptune.wad.bak (Backup .wad incase the first one breaks)

Important Wad Info:

 

Name: Neptune.wad
Map Format: UDMF
Ports Tested: Zandronum (Without any Restrictions), GZDoom (Without Restrictions)
This was is meant for Zandronum, as that is what I mainly tested for, but I made sure GZDoom runs it, too.
IWAD: Doom2.wad
Maps: Map01, Map02, Map03, Map04
Music: James Paddock's music taken from https://doommidis.com/ (See Below for full list)
Gameplay: Singleplayer
Difficulty Settings: Implimented
Multiplayer Placement: No
Build Time: ~A month
Textures: Custom Sky, Custom hud.
Sounds: Pickup Sound from Resident Evil 2, Another Pickup Sound I Don't Remember Where I Got it from, custom falling noise.
Requirements: avoid using jumping, crouching, and freelook, please. Please have dymanic lights on.
Recomended, but not required options: Custom .ini file (Comes in the .zip), BLAKGLOV.wad (Will automatically load if in the same directory as Neptune.wad).
Full Music List - (Written like so - [Map used on], [Name of Track] - [Internal Name] - [Composer], for [Original Game Meant for said Midi]

Intro, Claustrastrophe - D_DM2TTL - James (Jimmy) Paddock, for Claustrophobia-1024
Intermission Screens, Peintures de Rabotik Theme - PEINTURE - James (Jimmy) Paddock, for Youtube
MAP01, Baron's Province - BARON - James (Jimmy) Paddock, for Speed of Doom
MAP02, I Am Jazz - JAZZY - James (Jimmy) Paddock, a SpeedMidi
MAP03, Warsword - WARSWORD - James (Jimmy) Paddock, for Speed of Doom
MAP04, Control - CONTROL - James (Jimmy) Paddock, Original Track

BLAKGLOV.wad is not made by me, but comes with Neptune.wad. BLAKGLOV.wad was made by Grimm (https://www.wad-archive.com/wad/Black-Gloves-for-the-Doomguy)

Special thanks to doomworld.com for being awesome, and also the amazing documentation on the doomwiki
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A wad which uses light to it's advantage! Not super creative, but I thought it would be a good thing to tackle to see if it would be a fun wad to play.
let me know if it is!

This took a lot of work for my first major wad.

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If people like this, I am going to make a new wad (with much more effort, and maybe getting some friends to help out with maps)
with a new wad called nep2n.wad!

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SCREENSHOTS



Download:
neptune.zip

Thank you! :D

[Juza]

Not usually into ZDoom wads but I'll give this a try.

 

Starting with the positives (which I never have much to say about anything): the new pickup sounds are very satisfying to hear, and the black gloves look really cool. The levels, although basic in design, are most importantly fun to play. It is overall very good for a beginner wad.

There's something about this wad that I really like, and it's probably got to do with how it reminds me of myself when I was starting out with Doom editing. I think you have the potential to make great maps in the nearby future.

 

Now with the negatives (which I always have more to talk about):

 

I dislike is how sudden the exists are, there should be some sort of telegraphing for them. That happens in every map. I also noticed there are several misspellings and inconsistencies in the text screens.  The texts that appear during the levels use too deep of a blue, making it hard to read them, and they only stay on the screen for what feels like 2 or 3 seconds, which is not enough time to read them, so I have to pull up the console to do so.

I'm not sure if this is only on my end, but in the first room of MAP04 the sky has a HOM in it, but only around the starting room area.

 

Especially on top of this high wall, it's very easy to see the sky ceiling lowered, uncannily covering whatever's behind them. This is also visible from the area where they stand, but in this spot, it's possible to see pretty much most areas of the map with this same effect. Since this is an UDMF wad, you could've just used 3D floors to avoid this.

 

 

I was pretty disappointed to see not much purple or blue in the levels themselves, but just the usual Doom palette, in a wad called Neptune. Overall very enjoyable for a short wad, and I'm up for seeing what your future projects will be.

 

Spoiler

I EAT SAND!

 

[Misty]

Hey, congrats with first serious release! It was really enjoyable and quick, I finished before I could finish my cup of coffee. Time to main feedback:

This place could have used sort of lift or teleporter, maybe it's here, but I didn't find it:
 

Spoiler

Super shotgun should be introduced earlier than that:
 

Spoiler

Or maybe introduce rocket launcher earlier, I've got it after fight, which somewhat makes it useless...

Spoiler

I don't know if it was your intention, but you can easily jump over here and skip door completely. If it wasn't your intention, I'd suggest include mid texture here and block it...

Spoiler

You can easily fall down here too, in complete darkness without ways to get up. You can simply include mid texture between those pillars and block it or make those pillars thicker without ways making player fall down.
 

Spoiler

Well, i liked jump pads so much, people should use them more:
 

Spoiler

Other things I noticed:
1. Sudden exits - most of exit areas feels like they would offer more, but nah... I'd suggest make indication about exit using "exit" texture or make some sort of different unifying sector or texture. For example, Plutonia uses same starter and ending teleporter, it gives players clear direction where to go and what to expect.
2. It was kind of hard to see double messages without bring up console to read what's been told to me. I'd try to make them clearer to read, because not everyone's vision is really good to discern two messages at the same time.
3. I'd suggest use less tight corridors. If you need use corridors, make them wider to travel and avoid damage if you place some monsters. Better, if corridor is just decoy for bigger room you need to visit.

Overall, it's really decent set as for beginner. Keep it up! Play more sets you like and enjoy, take inspiration from them and try apply those to your new levels. Good luck :)

[forgettable pyromaniac]

5 hours ago, Juza said:

I dislike is how sudden the exists are, there should be some sort of telegraphing for them. That happens in every map. I also noticed there are several misspellings and inconsistencies in the text screens.  The texts that appear during the levels use too deep of a blue, making it hard to read them, and they only stay on the screen for what feels like 2 or 3 seconds, which is not enough time to read them, so I have to pull up the console to do so.

I tried to make it a kind of connected thing, kinda like what half-life did. Probably didn't work too well, I'm guessing. Also, I used the "Print" function, and i couldn't find a way to get them to stay up longer than like 2 seconds, sorry ._ .

 

5 hours ago, Juza said:

I'm not sure if this is only on my end, but in the first room of MAP04 the sky has a HOM in it, but only around the starting room area.

Either I never saw that, or it's just you. I have no clue tbh

 

5 hours ago, Juza said:

Especially on top of this high wall, it's very easy to see the sky ceiling lowered, uncannily covering whatever's behind them. This is also visible from the area where they stand, but in this spot, it's possible to see pretty much most areas of the map with this same effect. Since this is an UDMF wad, you could've just used 3D floors to avoid this.

I did try to see if I could do 3d walls but I honestly have no clue how they work and gave up after a while.

 

5 hours ago, Juza said:

I was pretty disappointed to see not much purple or blue in the levels themselves, but just the usual Doom palette, in a wad called Neptune. Overall very enjoyable for a short wad, and I'm up for seeing what your future projects will be.

 

Well, I wanted to add in more blue or purple, but making custom textures (and custom textures that look good) is out of my league, I draw horribly ._ . 'N thank you for the praise ^^

 

49 minutes ago, Misty said:

This place could have used sort of lift or teleporter, maybe it's here, but I didn't find it:

All of the red walls on the walkway are switches to add lifts, sorry if that didnt make much sense.

 

49 minutes ago, Misty said:

Super shotgun should be introduced earlier than that:

It was, in a secret on the first level.

 

49 minutes ago, Misty said:

Or maybe introduce rocket launcher earlier, I've got it after fight, which somewhat makes it useless...

I was hoping it would be a kind of reward...

 

49 minutes ago, Misty said:

I don't know if it was your intention, but you can easily jump over here and skip door completely. If it wasn't your intention, I'd suggest include mid texture here and block it...

I didnt mean to have it so you can skip the door, but I did mean to make it look kinda like a lunch place thing, so like "vaulting" over the counter would be kinda cool :)

 

49 minutes ago, Misty said:

You can easily fall down here too, in complete darkness without ways to get up. You can simply include mid texture between those pillars and block it or make those pillars thicker without ways making player fall down.

I did add platforms going down and back up there by interacting with the pillar on each side.

 

49 minutes ago, Misty said:

I'd suggest use less tight corridors. If you need use corridors, make them wider to travel and avoid damage if you place some monsters. Better, if corridor is just decoy for bigger room you need to visit.

This one is understandable, I'll keep it in mind :D

 

49 minutes ago, Misty said:

Overall, it's really decent set as for beginner. Keep it up! Play more sets you like and enjoy, take inspiration from them and try apply those to your new levels. Good luck :)

ty :)

[Misty]

Here's one more thing - what's obvious for you as the mapper, not really obvious for playtester, especially if he goes blind as I did here. For example, if you added different colour of torch on pillar in that dark room which is supposed to be lift, I'd totally pressed that because it looks different. Clear visual indication for lift, switch or any other trigger is important, it should say "hey, look at me, you need check me, I'm special one!". It can be showed with blinking lights, brighter sector, different sprite and different texture from main selection... maybe that's why plenty of mappers use metal lifts in red rock environment as it brings attention where to go or tells that you can escape that dangerous lava pit.

[MattFright]

35 minutes ago, forgettablepyromaniac said:

I did try to see if I could do 3d walls but I honestly have no clue how they work and gave up after a while.

 

Admitedly there are no good recent tutorials for making them with the new UDB plug-in, but you should be able to just use it by toggling it either by its button on the left toolbar (the icon is 3 sectors one floating on top of the other), or go to preferences, controls, search for "3D Floor Editing Mode", then set that to something as a keyboard shortcut for toggling it. Just be sure that your area for control sectors (it'll be a huge green box whenever you have this mode enabled) is away from your map, since that's where your 3D floors will be generated and then projected into wherever you want them to be. Just enable the mode, select whatever sectors you want a 3D floor in, right click it, and then add 3D floor. You should be able to figure out the rest from there, it's pretty intuitive.

 

42 minutes ago, forgettablepyromaniac said:

Well, I wanted to add in more blue or purple, but making custom textures (and custom textures that look good) is out of my league, I draw horribly ._ . 'N thank you for the praise ^^

 

 

You should consider using a texture pack someone else has made/compiled, they do have a learning curve but they grant you MUCH more variety and control over theming than vanilla textures. My picks would be 32in24-15_tex_v2 or OTEX, though you can find some other AMAZING texture packs (among other resources) over at realm667 and see what suits you best :)

 

Either way you show a lot of enthusiasm for a beginner and that's great, can't wait to see what you come up with next after having learned and improved from your first released mapset, keep it up!

[forgettable pyromaniac]

22 minutes ago, MattFright said:

You should consider using a texture pack someone else has made/compiled, they do have a learning curve but they grant you MUCH more variety and control over theming than vanilla textures. My picks would be 32in24-15_tex_v2 or OTEX, though you can find some other AMAZING texture packs (among other resources) over at realm667 and see what suits you best :)

How would I add it like a patch though ._ . I know how to do it with lumps but OTEX asks to use it like a patch and not like lumps

[MattFright]

2 minutes ago, forgettablepyromaniac said:

How would I add it like a patch though ._ . I know how to do it with lumps but OTEX asks to use it like a patch and not like lumps

 

I don't know enough about this to give clear instructions (as i have still not released/completed a single map), but Hell's Redemption should serve as a good example if you take a look at it in SLADE or whatever editor you're using.

[Biodegradable]

Not too shabby. There's definitely some imagination going on with some of the layout and combat scenarios, plus your texture work is pretty nice and you make really good use of dynamic lighting, which I very much approve of. The second map is the best and the third one's the lamest in my opinion. Really tight corridors are never fun to Doom in, so try to avoid doing that in the future. Otherwise, not too bad of an experience overall and great work for a beginner. Looking forward to seeing more from you. :^)

 

 

Edited November 15, 2020 by Biodegradable

[forgettable pyromaniac]

1 hour ago, Biodegradable said:

Not too shabby. There's definitely some imagination going on with some of the layout and combat scenarios, plus your texture work is pretty nice and you make really good use of dynamic lighting, which I very much approve of. The second map is the best and the third one's the lamest in my opinion. Really tight corridors are never fun to Doom in, so try to avoid doing that in the future. Otherwise, not too bad of an experience overall and great work for a beginner. Looking forward to seeing more from you. :^)

 

 

Thank you!

Check the comments :)

 

Also two things before I forget:

 

sorry about the invisible bridge fiasco :p

 

and what mod did you use, out of curiousity?

[Biodegradable]

1 minute ago, forgettablepyromaniac said:

what mod did you use, out of curiousity?

 

That'd be Enhanced Vanilla Project. I love it.

[Clippy]

 

[forgettable pyromaniac]

47 minutes ago, Clippy said:

 

I liked it!

You actually had a great idea for most of the secrets.
You were doing that Plasma in MAP04 correct, btw :D

The Health and Armor, not so much ._.

Spoiler

There is a Jump Pad at the very back :)

And although you were not suppoused to strafe-run to that SuperCharge, the red rocks are the platforms that fall and rise, the ones on the walkway.

You were also very close to that SSG in the first level :0

 

Spoiler

A teleporter in the first room :)

If anyone else has a recording, I like watching them :DD

[Salmon]

These are pretty fun maps.  I quite enjoyed the atmosphere--nice use of textures, lighting, and music.  The combat is fairly solid overall.  My favorite fight is probably the final one of map 04.  With the jump pads it almost feels like Quake.  It was tough for me blind (first death there on UV) but lots of fun anyway.

 

I'm in agreement with a lot of things people said above:  the exits can be unituitive, sometimes progression could be signposted better, map 2 is a little too cramped, and there were places where jumping let me access places I wasn't sure I should be yet.  Still, it's good work overall, and most importantly fun to play.

 

Nice job.  I hope we see more from you.

[baja blast rd.]

16 hours ago, forgettablepyromaniac said:

Not my first WAD, but first posted wad.
THIS ISN'T PERFECT, PLEASE DON'T YELL AT ME!

This wad comes with custom configs for Zandronum, and GZDoom.

 

BUT YOU'RE YELLING AT ME! :P

 

W&M is a chill place and you won't get bullied even if you release a pretty bad mapset. (As long as it's not a troll.) So there is no pressure here. 

[forgettable pyromaniac]

Oh yeah!

 

Before I forget, I took this picture of me eating eggs and watching Clippy's playthrough :D

 

I like watching people play my wad, it honestly just makes me feel giddy, because they decided to spend their time on some poor sap's wad.

 

It's really nice :)

 

 

[Wilster_Wonkels]

I tried to load it with the custom ini and everything but it kept crashing so I played it without that. I had dynamic lights turned on though. I don't know how different the experience is with that custom ini, but without it there was something odd to the wad, the fourth level in particular. I could see fine, but enemy's projectiles were really dark and hard to dodge. Lost souls too seemed to come out of nowhere to ambush me. 

 

The first three levels were fine, especially for early map work. There were a few nitpicky issues I had like mistextured door tracks, but that doesn't relate to the gameplay so it's not a dealbreaker. The third level had an interesting contrast between tight hallways and more open rooms, fighting revenants in that environment was tense, and in a good way. The arch-vile encounter on level three was also a lot of fun because of this. The transition after getting the yellow key was odd though. It felt like just playing the whole level again, and it was somewhat jarring.

 

The fourth level was my least favourite. There seemed to be a huge jump in difficulty. Things had been amping up more steadily but then level four went over the deep end for me. The encounter with the multiple pain elementals and the revenants got me a few times, and I think part of this was the hard to see projectiles. Also, the sorta maze puzzle with the torches on those platforms... is there a system to determine the right path? I figured it out with trial and error, and couldn't discern any clue towards what to do. It reminded me of a level from the Japanese community project, but in that level you could tell which colour of platform to jump on next because the level was designed around those colours. You went through a green area first, so you jump on a green platform first, next came the blue area, so go to the blue platform, and so on. I didn't see any hints in this wad, and it was frustrating to just trial and error the ending like that.

 

I liked the semi-emphasis on story, it's nice to see that you put effort into that. The little dialogue captions popping up and every level having an intermission was refreshing to me. I also liked the custom sounds, they're really nice.

 

All in all, keep working at it, you're doing pretty good.

[Clippy]

1 hour ago, forgettablepyromaniac said:

Oh yeah!

 

Before I forget, I took this picture of me eating eggs and watching Clippy's playthrough :D

 

I like watching people play my wad, it honestly just makes me feel giddy, because they decided to spend their time on some poor sap's wad.

 

It's really nice :)

 

 

 

Lol that's awesome I'm glad you enjoyed my video. I like to play random maps and thought I would just record myself and give me a call anytime you make more maps!

[Gez]

20 hours ago, forgettablepyromaniac said:

Well, I wanted to add in more blue or purple, but making custom textures (and custom textures that look good) is out of my league, I draw horribly ._ .

 

You don't need to draw to make custom textures. You can always recolor existing textures. SLADE has tools that make this quite simple.

[Trupiak]

Fuunnn stuff, however, there's a small issue with the second level ( Quarry). There is a switch that makes some pillars rise up so you can run over them into the exit, right ? What happens if a poor soul like me presses the button repeatedly? The pillars rise up to the ceiling and you can no longer run over them, so just imagine my confusion :P
Secrets were nice.. I can imagine that it was frustrating to work with the sky in the fourth level lol... I have the same issue in my maps and it's hard to give up on an idea just because the sky looks funky with it.

[lubba127]

played through just the first level, and dude this is awesome for a first wad. better than what I am working on! 

[princetontiger]

Did this make it to /idgames?

 

Playing now...

[princetontiger]

Okay.. just finished the 4 maps. I really like them. They are short. It almost felt like I was in the 90s, with a lot of old school elements.

 

I played the wad. I didn't load any custom stuff into it. Maybe I missed some of the fun, but the maps were enjoyable without anything color or config changes.

 

Nice work!

[BerserkerNoir]

It seems the wad is no longer in the provided link.

[forgettable pyromaniac]

8 hours ago, BerserkerNoir said:

It seems the wad is no longer in the provided link.

probably because this thing is very old.

I was probably cleaning up my attachments by hand and thought nobody would care if I removed this one.

 

I don't even have it on my PC anymore after an OS change. I'd rather take this thing as a learning experience anyway and ask you play literally anything else by me, they're all probably way better. thank you :)

[FEDEX]

16 hours ago, BerserkerNoir said:

It seems the wad is no longer in the provided link.

Maybe @VVL or @Mad Butcher can help you

[VVL]

neptune.zip

[Rudolph]

Was "Neptunia" already taken? :P

[BerserkerNoir]

On 8/23/2022 at 5:28 PM, VVL said:

neptune.zip

Thank You!