Never Stop Never Stopping - My First Level

[whybmonotacrab]

 

Update 1: Now works in PRBoom and GLBoom. Also balanced difficulty modes so HNTR is actually easy now, and HMP has more resources. Last encounter has been made a bit less grindy on all difficulties.
Update 2: Visual polishing, changed how a secret works, fixed it so a door doesn't lock you out of backtracking.

 

Never Stop Never Stopping is a Boom Compatible level where the idea is to keep moving at all time. It's a relatively short adrenaline rush designed to keep you on your feet. It also uses @Tango's excellent minicharge mod as a base. It took too dang long to make and I hope you enjoy it.

 

Info Dump:

 

-Difficulty-wise I think it's around Valiant's ballpark, give or take. 

-No Jumping or Crouching. Freelook is optional, but I'd prefer you didn't.

-Archviles have no line of sight attacks. They just attack where you were last standing. You don't need to hide. Just keep moving and you'll be fine. They're also immune to splash damage.

-Weapon Switching is faster.

-Difficulty options are included.

 

Download here!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qQEfvlcO7k0rMQNPiWxHKv835_OaVJOq/view?usp=sharing

 More Screenshots: 

Spoiler

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by whybmonotacrab : Updated the level.

[Biodegradable]

Posting my playthrough to help with traction. This is an excellent first release folks.

 

 

[whybmonotacrab]

3 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

Posting my playthrough to help with traction. This is an excellent first release folks.

Thanks man! A lot's changed since your first playthrough - mainly the addition of lower difficulties, some retexturing and detail, and the last fight is quite different now. Hopefully not quite as frustrating haha.

[Terminus]

Screenshots look great, but I think you forgot to add the Download link. :P

[whybmonotacrab]

11 minutes ago, Terminus said:

Screenshots look great, but I think you forgot to add the Download link. :P

Oh damn I'm an idiot. Thanks for pointing that out, it's fixed now.

[Peccatum Mihzamiz]

2 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

Spoiler

Posting my playthrough to help with traction. This is an excellent first release folks.

 

 

 

Before today I couldn't have imagined it, but hearing Biodegradable say "Isn't this shit enough?!" was the perfect start to my Christmas morning.

The map looks amazing, thank you for sharing! I tried my hand at the first room on UV and got my ass kicked. I'll return to it later to give it a good Christmas wooping!

[MattFright]

MAN this was a lot of fun. Seeing Bio's playthrough of it make me really excited to play it and i didn't regret it. I will just say, there were a few too many Diabolists, which didn't increase difficulty as much as they just made fights drag on for far too long. I feel like cutting them in half would've kept these fights just as hard while much less tedious when you get past the halfway point. Also i feel like the map is a bit too gray, or at least lacking in some contrast (you've got some greens, reds and blues, you could always expand on those and use them more on the map itself than just the backgrounds, however much would be up to you of course). Otherwise this is one of the best first maps i've played, you're really talented!

[LVENdead]

Holy shit this is incredible for a first level. I mean, I would never have guessed if you didn't say so explicitly.

 

Out of curiosity, have created levels or mods for other games? You seem to already have a solid understanding of what you're doing.

 

And by the way, this absolutely does feel like a Skillsaw map. Maybe the level itself would have had some transformation, but for sure in the encounter design and the overall pace/feel.

 

 

[whybmonotacrab]

9 hours ago, MattFright said:

 I will just say, there were a few too many Diabolists, which didn't increase difficulty as much as they just made fights drag on for far too long. I feel like cutting them in half would've kept these fights just as hard while much less tedious when you get past the halfway point.

Firstly, thanks for the compliments, they mean a lot. I agree with you, I toned the Diabolists down for lower difficulties and the fight is much less of a grind. The only reason I have so many in UV is because some playtesters killed all of them before the platforms lowered and I didn't know how to counteract that.

 

9 hours ago, MattFright said:

 Also i feel like the map is a bit too gray, or at least lacking in some contrast (you've got some greens, reds and blues, you could always expand on those and use them more on the map itself than just the backgrounds, however much would be up to you of course). Otherwise this is one of the best first maps i've played, you're really talented!

Some of that is my lack of skill, some of that is down to the colour palette I chose. I used the one from Resurgence which makes my Red Sky really pop - but at the expense of some of the other textures looking a bit washed out. Also thanks for the follow. If people are going to be looking at my profile I should maybe fill it out a bit haha.

 

5 hours ago, LVENdead said:

Holy shit this is incredible for a first level. I mean, I would never have guessed if you didn't say so explicitly.

 

Out of curiosity, have created levels or mods for other games? You seem to already have a solid understanding of what you're doing.

 

 

Thanks for the praise! It means a lot. I started using Trenchboom last year but didn't really do much with that and then I started learning Ultimate Doom Builder earlier this year and made a few maps to practice in, but didn't complete anything. This is my first finished project.

[plums]

19 hours ago, whybmonotacrab said:

Despite being designed in Boom Format, it doesn't run on PRBoom or GLBoom. If you can get it to work that's great, but I don't know how.

You kind of messed your PNAMES/TEXTURE1 lumps up when deleting textures, and PrB doesn't seem to like it. Here's hacky but functional fix where I just added some extra patches for the missing patch names. (and had to have two named SKY1 for some reason???)

 

https://user.fm/files/v2-cae70c858c6be1444e29986a7451da24/NSNS_fixed.wad.zip

[whybmonotacrab]

5 hours ago, plums said:

You kind of messed your PNAMES/TEXTURE1 lumps up when deleting textures, and PrB doesn't seem to like it. Here's hacky but functional fix where I just added some extra patches for the missing patch names. (and had to have two named SKY1 for some reason???)

You're an absolutely lifesaver. I updated the level with your fixes, plus a few fixes to the level itself. The reason it's all messed up is that I put all of CC4tex in my wad because using it as a resource file meant I couldn't change the sky. I didn't know what I was doing really so the wad was a mess. Thanks a bunch for cleaning it up.

 

 Also to everyone else, level has been updated. It works on all Boom sourceports that I'm aware of now (PR/GLBoom+, Woof!, Doom Retro), and I've balanced the lower difficulties better. Last encounter is less grindy in across the board too. There are less Diabolists than in the @Biodegradable video below me!

Edited December 26, 2020 by whybmonotacrab

[Biodegradable]

Decided to have a second playthrough and try and kill everything, but that last room's still a doozy for me.

 

 

[SpaceTrash]

This is super slick, looks good, plays great - I'm green with envy! This is fantastic for any map, let alone you first!

[whybmonotacrab]

Alright, final update is up. I fixed a few things issues that were pointed out, polished it up a little bit, and hopefully made it a bit more friendly for UV maxers. I'll stop bumping this post from here on out.

 

 Thanks for the kind and thoughtful feedback everyone. It meant the world to me to see people playing and enjoying my level, and I look forward to taking your criticisms and using them to sharpen my craft.

[Mr. LBN]

Here's an FDA (First Demo Attempt) on UV in Prboom-Plus (Complevel 9)

5 deaths I believe

2/4 Secrets

261/265 Kills

 

I didn't exactly read the description for the enemies so I simply assumed this would play exactly like vanilla DOOM so I kinda had to get used to the slightly different feel of things. (You can tell I had no idea that the Diabolist doesn't behave like an Archvile because I'm really trying my best to avoid their line of sight when they "summon", and I was thrown off by the weak ass rockets with no splash damage)

 

Pretty fun map, with the gunner/runner style I really like.

 

Detailing is pretty good for a first map although I could see how other players would want a bit more layers of detail/texture choices, but I personally don't give a damn since I'm a bit more dominant in the gameplay aspect and I don't have the best eye for pointing out detailing issues, or texture choices unless it's really just that bad.

 

There are obvious "issues" when you get to the Outdoor area where the Cyberdemon is because some of the enemies (Revenants, Arachnotrons, and even the Cyberdemon himself) would get stuck and rendered useless, and there's a whole bunch of Pinkies that get stuck in each other towards the end of the demo (should be obvious since I'm shooting 'em).

 

The difficulty actually is normal to medium, but my overly aggressive playstyle causes premature deaths making UV seem harder than it really is.  Unfortunately the Cyberdemon is hardly imposing/threatening since he has the exact same rockets you do, but that's just apart of the TANGO JANGO minicharge mod.

 

Keep at it because this was solid.

NSNS-FDA.zip