Crimson Temple, my first Doom map - again!

[FrankieSmileShow]

DOWNLOAD THE MAP HERE!

Hello! I made this map back in 2015! It was on an old website thats now offline, so I put it back up, and took the opportunity to fix it up and add a little polish to help get some of the rust off, preparing to make something new. Really useful to touch up something old to get yourself back in the game I think, puts you in the right mindspace and all that.

Its a vanilla Doom 2 single map, hell temple style, atmospheric start leading to some bigger battles, and I probably went way overboard with secrets. Listen. I was young and naive, mad with power. You could not tell me not to have more than half the map be secret areas, I would hear none of it

Difficulty is probably somewhere between Vanilla Doom 2 and Plutonia. Custom item and enemy placements for difficulty levels too.
I tested it in GZDoom. Back then I tested it with Zdoom, so I presume this would also still work.
You shouldn't need freelook, jumping or crouching to complete this.
Its got also got two custom spooky atmosphere BGMs I made by messing around with a microphone and Audacity for a few hours. One for the main level, and one for the extra spooky blood cavern secret area. Also, a single floor texture added, I was trying out Slade...

Was fun to see this old map with new eyes, and see some of what was awkward with it - Some tedious battles, too many dark areas, not enough healing pickups or ammo, and a few kinda uninteresting rooms that could use a feature or two!
I think it should be quite a bit better now, though it probably still suffers from many typical "first map" pitfalls. I'll get on my second map soon.

Edited February 28, 2021 by FrankieSmileShow

[Silhouette 03]

Hello, I've been trying to playtest your map but I am a bit stuck. I'm in the area with the scrolling fire wall texture. where do I go next?

[ZuRTr]

Holy shit this map is really good for a first time wad 

[Clippy]

Where is the download button ??????

[Biodegradable]

45 minutes ago, Clippy said:

Where is the download button ??????

 

It's right there, ya chowderhead.

 

[Silhouette 03]

7 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

It's right there, ya chowderhead.

He didn't see it in the original post, below the  first screenshot. Same thing happened to me, though I eventually found it. Usually I'm the one that would make a mistake like that ha ha.

[Clippy]

8 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

 

It's right there, ya chowderhead.

 

 

haha yeah not so obvious on my end, @Silhou3tte has to point it out to me, it was randomly between 2 screenshots ...

 

[FrankieSmileShow]

4 hours ago, Silhou3tte said:

Hello, I've been trying to playtest your map but I am a bit stuck. I'm in the area with the scrolling fire wall texture. where do I go next?

Thanks for playing! The scrolling fire wall texture is next to the secret entrance, which is a secret wall you can open in that room. The main entrance is the more obvious big gateway you are looking at when the level begins.

 

Also, I made the download link more obvious, sorry about that! It really was kinda lost between screenshots huh.

[Silhouette 03]

Ok, as you mentioned in your original post, this has some beginner map problems, but is an enjoyable experience due to the combat and atmosphere. Played on UV.

 

Gameplay

The gameplay is definitely the most solid part of the map, overall. The slaughter-lite elements of the map and the traps come together very nicely, and there is a natural build up to these encounters. Ammo balancing may need to be addressed. In the bloody caves( I cannot remember what awesome edgy doom 64 name you gave them) there is a serious lack of ammo, mot enough to deal with the medium tom high-tier enemies in the cave. Speaking of the caves, the two pathways that lead to the supercharge and megasphere, respectively is a bit pointless in retrospect. A megasphere gives you both 200 health and armor, so picking up either( and wasting what little ammo there is in the cave on the enemies) after one another is kind of a waste. This is your call, but you may also want to untag some secrets as they are related to progression( I know you mentioned this in your post, but I thought I'd just address it rather than ignore it).90's wads did this a lot, and I have no idea why. Having less secrets is fine, since some of these secrets do not contribute to increasing the players arsenal or resource count.   

 

Layout

Your layout, for the most part flows naturally, and doesn't confuse the player. Not too flat and the non-linearity is an added plus. Not much else to say.

 

Texturing and detailing 

Texturing is probably the roughest part of the map, with some textures( mostly doors) being cut off suddenly or not being angled correctly and one t. I'll leave a few examples here:

 

https://imgur.com/a/6Uja6Y9

https://imgur.com/a/q4SRtVr

https://imgur.com/a/iz8AmVO

 

The detailing is minimalist but doesn't make the map feel empty or forlorn. The atmosphere is also really menacing, with the music playing a bog role. I like that.

 

Bugs

There are quite a few visplane overflows, some textures that are not lower unpegged( I can never tell if a mapper intends did this on purpose or not in some cases, so do let me know), one pinkie stuck on a corner and one sector that you forget to lower:

https://imgur.com/a/hrTVb4h

https://imgur.com/a/9K5k4yJhttps://imgur.com/a/6DiUzP2

https://imgur.com/a/imNcBWj

https://imgur.com/a/2Cs7AFI

 

Conclusion

A really solid map that falls into some beginner trappings and just needs a bit more polish. enjoyable from start to finish. Keep it up!

 

(Sorry that this playtest review took so long, I unfortunately got lost and finally got around to opening up an Imgur account, and had to work out how to insert links.)  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Clippy]

I found this map quite interesting - with all the extra stuff to discover -good times

 

here is video

 

IT should be read to view in a few mins

 

 

[Dubbag]

Recorded my own commentated playthough. It's not incredible framerate but it's not bad either. I'm uploading it to youtube rn and when it's done processing, I'll link it here. It was a bigger map than I thought before I started recording and I had to cut it early and record the rest either tomorrow or Tuesday. I will finish it though. I'm 20 minutes in and I love it so far.

[Fiendish]

Hey! I'm totally new to giving feedback on maps, and also new to making maps myself, so take all of this for whatever it's worth with that in mind, and I hope it's helpful to you in some way. 

 

Overall, I thought the map was really outstanding and enjoyable. Its greatest strength, to me, was its dark, eerie atmosphere. The music is excellent and pairs well with the map to create a foreboding feeling, which reminds me a bit of Doom 64 and Shrine 2 (a great thing, in my opinion). I'm a big fan of the idea for the environment -- this massive, sprawling hell temple -- as well as your execution of it. My favorite room was the great courtyard. I also liked how you end up looping back to the cliff behind the starting zone.

 

The architecture and detailing was for the most part excellent. The texture work was mostly good too, though there were a few things that looked a bit off (some examples: the doors -- borders on some of them would help, I think, as well as not having them go all the way up to the ceiling; the texture choice for the edges of the brick ceilings that opened to the sky didn't match the brick ceiling texture; found a handful of misaligned brick textures; the tracks of some of the doors were not marked lower unpegged, which looked weird and not intentional), but these were outweighed by the good, in my opinion. I found the visual aspect of the map great overall, and it successfully helped make for a dark, distinctive-feeling atmosphere.   

 

I found the combat to be a bit on the easy side (though not necessarily easy in comparison to other beginner maps), with some more tense fights toward the end. A lot of the battles seemed like they involved fighting enemies that emerged just from straight ahead or one direction. it might be nice to spice it up by having enemies flank more often, or having more balconies with enemies attacking at different levels. That said, there were some cool ambushes that caught me a bit by surprise, such as a wall stealthily opening behind me to reveal a horde of imps. I also liked fighting the cyberdemon duo, and I thought the ambush in the crimson room, with enemies both inside and outside, was a really interesting idea. The enemies seemed very prone to infighting in some of the arenas, which diminished their threat (I'm not sure if that's what you were intending). But the combat was still enjoyable, and in any case, anything lacking in that department is more than made up for by the amazing atmosphere this map has to offer.

 

The secrets were nice, and I liked the high number of them. It definitely encouraged me to explore the temple and see if there were any interesting rooms that I missed.

 

Overall, I loved the map, and I hope you make more -- I would definitely look forward to playing them!

Edited March 1, 2021 by Fiendish

[Dubbag]

 

[Karl515]

The best map that I've played for a long time. The atmosphere is great, the architecture is great, and the battles are great. Finding secrets has always been my favourite thing to do so when I opened the automap and I saw that there were 14 secrets, I instantly got a huge grin. The battles aren't easy nor tough, It doesn't feel unfair because of the abundant ammunition nor does it feel like a walk in the park. The places that the battles take place, however, is a masterpiece. The scale of the arenas are insane, considering that they're inside a temple. Even though I only found 11 out of the 14 secrets, I still enjoyed finding them. They are surprisingly not that hard to find, but the size of the map might discourage some people to find all of them. Overall a 10/10. I don't know why the secret exit has a rad suit though.

 

He's just standing there, menacingly.

 

The whole automap when I finished the map.

Spoiler

 

A graphical glitch.

[Biodegradable]

 

[FrankieSmileShow]

Thanks for playing everyone, the reviews are great, and I love those videos! Watching several people play through has been really informative.

 

Been noticing that a few secrets are not well signaled enough, for one. The difficulty seems right overall, but I'm considering changing the hidden blood cave area; I still like the general idea of a spooky area hidden next to where you begin that you only visit much later, I think I also like how confusing the layout feels and its general atmosphere, but the combat in it feels tedious after the two other big battles in the courtyard and outside. It makes for weird pacing where the levels' big moments have already come and gone, so all those monsters in the hidden cave feel like you're just mopping up. 

 

(on another note, I love the mod youre using Biodegradable, it seems like it places directional atmospheric sounds and room tones in the level? Is it based on the sector ground textures or something? I noticed there was extra wind while you were standing outside, and a machine-like whirring sound was coming from the rocket launcher room, that's really cool.)

[Biodegradable]

17 minutes ago, FrankieSmileShow said:

on another note, I love the mod youre using Biodegradable, it seems like it places directional atmospheric sounds and room tones in the level? Is it based on the sector ground textures or something? I noticed there was extra wind while you were standing outside, and a machine-like whirring sound was coming from the rocket launcher room, that's really cool.

 

Yeah, it's one of the more subtle features of the mod.