(Boom) - Station of the Doomed

[Valhen]

Hey everyone,

This is a Boom compatible tech base themed map for Doom II. Jumping and Crouching aren't allowed. Tested it with PrBoom+ (-Complevel 9) and Zandronum.

I tried to make the gameplay better and more difficult compared to my last map. I would say it's more difficult than Doom II and a bit easier than Plutonia. I'm looking for feedback to see if it's good enough and fair.

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

Download Link:

sotd.zip

Old version:

sotd.zip

 

Credits:

- Extra sprites from Skulltag (skulltag_data.pk3)

- Textures from 32in24-15_tex_v2.wad

- D_RUNNIN from the game "Atomaders", by KraiSoft Entertainment

- D_DM2INT from the game "Alien Sky", also by KraiSoft Entertainment

Edited January 7, 2021 by Valhen : Changed the rar file to a zip file

[Biodegradable]

I love it, mate! Terrific techbase with gnarly but fair combat, nice progression, terrific layout/design and awesome detailing/texture work. The combat is indeed more refined and has some teeth to it. It's tough, but it's not an unfair butt-clencher. You did a great job with the balancing here. Slick, pretty, and a ton of fun to blast through. 10/10 :^)

 

 

[Valhen]

Glad you enjoyed it! I was worried that some parts may have been unfair. Hopefully they were not. 

Spoiler

Also, just noticed dark imps drop clips. Forgot to remove that >.<

 

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by Valhen

[Clippy]

This was a great time, I love the look and feel of this map and the combat was intense and interesting - good times

 

My computer says it should be finished uploading in 20 minutes at the time of this post but I can't stay up that late so click on it later if it's not later

 

 

[BoxY]

Would you mind repacking the rar as a zip? Rar is proprietary and isn't supported by all archive managers.

[whybmonotacrab]

This was fucking fantastic. I enjoyed every second of it. Fast paced, creative encounters, nice detailing that (mostly) doesn't get in the way, though that crate area where you introduce the new enemies had a few crate and lamp placements that made movement awkward. I wasn't expecting a custom enemy, and I'm not sure you used them to their fullest potential. Those are my only complaints though. This was awesome and I'm really looking forward to whatever you make next.

[Valhen]

10 hours ago, Clippy said:

This was a great time, I love the look and feel of this map and the combat was intense and interesting - good times

Thanks for playing! Sorry about that blue key trap, I kinda made it in a way you had little to no room for error.

 

9 hours ago, BoxY said:

Would you mind repacking the rar as a zip? Rar is proprietary and isn't supported by all archive managers.

I will do it later.

 

2 hours ago, whybmonotacrab said:

This was fucking fantastic. I enjoyed every second of it. Fast paced, creative encounters, nice detailing that (mostly) doesn't get in the way, though that crate area where you introduce the new enemies had a few crate and lamp placements that made movement awkward. I wasn't expecting a custom enemy, and I'm not sure you used them to their fullest potential. Those are my only complaints though. This was awesome and I'm really looking forward to whatever you make next.

Thank you for playing! Glad you enjoyed it. 

Edited January 7, 2021 by Valhen

[Valhen]

8 hours ago, BoxY said:

Would you mind repacking the rar as a zip? Rar is proprietary and isn't supported by all archive managers.

Changed the download link. Should be a .zip file now. Might do the same to my previous map.

[Valhen]

(Sorry for posting three times in a row)

A new update was released, hopefully making the blue key trap more fair (I uh... blame Doom crushers for being too fast :|)

[LVENdead]

Here is a video of my playthrough. The initial run is the first ~23 minutes, the latter 12 minutes I reload the map without monsters and flythrough/note additional thoughts:

 

 

What can I say, this is an outstanding map Valhen. It's consistently clever, delivers on your promise of making it harder, and seems to be an all around improvement over anything I might have thought was lacking in the first map. I thought the combat was well balanced and that generally my deaths were my own fault. The only areas I might consider turning an eye toward are the area behind the red key, and the final battle - maybe just a tad underwhelming after what preceded. But again, this is less "these aspects are bad" and more "these are slightly less good than everything else". I'm impressed that you are able to articulate your own particular style, and at the more advanced Boom "scripting" tricks you employ to good use. You're already well past the "beginner mapper" stage.

 

I'm legitimately looking forward to whatever you make next.

[Valhen]

On 1/9/2021 at 6:34 PM, LVENdead said:

Here is a video of my playthrough. The initial run is the first ~23 minutes, the latter 12 minutes I reload the map without monsters and flythrough/note additional thoughts:

 

 

What can I say, this is an outstanding map Valhen. It's consistently clever, delivers on your promise of making it harder, and seems to be an all around improvement over anything I might have thought was lacking in the first map. I thought the combat was well balanced and that generally my deaths were my own fault. The only areas I might consider turning an eye toward are the area behind the red key, and the final battle - maybe just a tad underwhelming after what preceded. But again, this is less "these aspects are bad" and more "these are slightly less good than everything else". I'm impressed that you are able to articulate your own particular style, and at the more advanced Boom "scripting" tricks you employ to good use. You're already well past the "beginner mapper" stage.

 

I'm legitimately looking forward to whatever you make next.

 

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked it. Some notes about the video:

- This map and Infested Base weren't actually the first maps I made, they were the first maps I published (I can see how you would get confused though). I first started making maps in 2018, and I have a bunch of unreleased maps from 2018-2020. I might publish them. There are some decent ones there, but also some terrible ones(I mean, who knows? Maybe some people really want to see my old maps :P )

- I first started this map one day after I finished Infested Base.

- I understand what you mean with the last traps. They were originally going to be more complex. However, they didn't really end up like I wanted to. For example, the Cyberdemon trap was originally going to be a remake of TNT map18's final room. However, I couldn't get it like I wanted, so I kept it pretty simple. Also, the red skull key area was supposed to have Mancubi instead of Dark Imps, but I thought that it was a bit unfair. The reason you get a lot of ammo is because I tried to balance it for the people that wanted 100% kills. 

-For my next map, I will try to experiment around in Vanilla Doom and try to make a nonlinear map. I'm still drawing and planning the layout of the map (outside of DB, in paint). Maybe it will be better, maybe it will be worse.  We'll see how it goes :)

 

Spoiler

Also, you almost saw the dumb easter egg I put in the "Void" room through the teleporters. It's just some dumb faces on the automap, for no reason really :P

 

Edited January 11, 2021 by Valhen

[LVENdead]

1 hour ago, Valhen said:

I first started making maps in 2018, and I have a bunch of unreleased maps from 2018-2020.

 

Ahh, that makes a lot more sense. That 2 years of practice really paid off, you've got a lot of mapping talent!

 

1 hour ago, Valhen said:

I first started this map one day after I finished Infested Base.

 

Very impressive! It would probably take me like, a month or two to make this map. I know you said you were going to try and make something Vanilla compatible next, but are you planning on possibly putting these maps together in a collection? I really like the consistency in styling and could easily see them existing in the same section of a WAD. Plus the Dark Imps are a nice touch, they really fill a niche space that I'd say exists like, a tier below Hell Knights in terms of threat level, and I'd like to see more maps that use them.

[Valhen]

47 minutes ago, LVENdead said:

are you planning on possibly putting these maps together in a collection? I really like the consistency in styling and could easily see them existing in the same section of a WAD.

I might do that, compiling a bunch of my maps and releasing them sounds like a good idea! I could also do the same for my earlier maps, maybe call it "Baby Valhen's Grab Bag" or something, that would be fun :)

 

 

Ah, also, the time it took me to build the map was around 4-5 days, if you were wondering.

Edited January 10, 2021 by Valhen

[BoxY]

Just got around to playing this today, I'll just echo what everyone else already said in terms of compliments. Everything in the map shows a huge amount of care and attention down to small details, and I even surprised myself by liking the dehacked monster. The geometry was really smartly connected without turning into spaghetti, which isn't easy.

 

FDA here: sotd_bx_fda.lmp (14 ish minutes)

 

I'd say I liked all the fights, except that the crusher room maybe doesn't telegraph very well to a first time player that the room is about to become a death trap in like 20 seconds, but I guess that's okay. Also it's insanely loud in there thanks to the crusher being made of a bunch of separate sectors. I think I died more often than I should have for the actual difficulty of the map, particularly I think I had some kind of mini-stroke in the SSG room, but oh well :v. Really great stuff overall.

[Valhen]

10 hours ago, BoxY said:

Just got around to playing this today, I'll just echo what everyone else already said in terms of compliments. Everything in the map shows a huge amount of care and attention down to small details, and I even surprised myself by liking the dehacked monster. The geometry was really smartly connected without turning into spaghetti, which isn't easy.

 

FDA here: sotd_bx_fda.lmp (14 ish minutes)

 

I'd say I liked all the fights, except that the crusher room maybe doesn't telegraph very well to a first time player that the room is about to become a death trap in like 20 seconds, but I guess that's okay. Also it's insanely loud in there thanks to the crusher being made of a bunch of separate sectors. I think I died more often than I should have for the actual difficulty of the map, particularly I think I had some kind of mini-stroke in the SSG room, but oh well :v. Really great stuff overall.

 

Thanks for playing! The ""fun"" thing about that crusher room is that it used to be worse, because originally the crusher would immediately start after grabbing the blue key, giving you little to no time to react.