who're your favorite mappers

[BeetBeardTheBrave]

Tip-Top is Pavera.  Arrival encapsulates everything about Doom I love, perfected.

 

After that (in no particular  order) EggBoy, Doomkid, Antares031, Myolden, Eternal, RonnieJamesDiner, and Ribbiks. 

Edited November 21, 2023 by BeetBeardTheBrave

[Devalaous]

I have no idea if I previously posted in this thread, and dont care to comb through multiple pages, so I'll potentially repost, as opinions change with more map exposure

 

• Sverre Kvernmo, aka @Soundblock. His publically released Cabal series were amongst the first pwads I ever played; they were on a shovelware disc I was given, and were the best things on the disc that I found. Imagine my surprise when I learned later that not only was there more Cabal out there, but that he was one of the people from the Master Levels (Sadly, I grew up on the PS1 Doom and Final Doom, where none of his levels made the cut). Years later when I got the Master Levels off Steam, and later on the PS3, his levels were the best of the Master Levels. In addition, ive enjoyed ALL of his other work greatly, from his Hexen wad Deadlock, to stuff like Echelon and Plasmaplant (which I got to help test; people say 'never meet your heroes', but im glad I did). Without Sverre's Cabal maps, I likely never would have looked online for more good maps, which eventually led me here. If only the full megawad had surfaced :p
• Jim Flynn. While he's sadly no longer on this earth, hes the other Master Levels designer who ive been a fan of from the very first play of his work. Ive since exhausted all of his other maps, except the Eternal Doom ones (I really do need to finish that), and I loved all of them immensely.
• @NaturalTvventy. We've all heard the Xaserian song and dance about END1, and for me at least, it was no exaggeration. The 'Beginning of the End' series is a thing I downloaded after seeing one too many Xaser posts about it, and I gave it a full play after beating the first episode of No End in Sight, which was authoured by those two and Lutz, after hearing END1 was referenced in it in a later episode. Ended up playing all three episodes of the END series and enjoying every bit of it (I just wish END2 had named levels, its my only criticism!), and going on to play the rest of No End in Sight, and the rest of NT's single level releases. I particularly enjoy the way he makes secrets, getting 100% secrets on his maps is often a very fun challenge. One day I hope for END3 and NEIS2.
• @valkiriforce. While so many today seem to want to redefine what Doom is, Valk's work is often more classic-oriented, with a large amount of vanilla megawads that reference old mapping styles and particular classic megawads and authours. I'm a huge sucker for 90s era Doom stuff, and Valkiriforce's body of work never disappoints me. His smaller work 'Oceanside' in particular was amazing, and even his collection of rejected maps, Pulse, I enjoyed. I'll likely be playing his entire back catalogue in the following years.
• @Lainos and @BeeWen. When I load up a Lainos or BeeWen map, I know im in for a lengthy adventure, lost in some kind of atmospheric world and in for a good time. These two are often together in wads, and I look forward to their maps every time.
• Azamael. His levels in A.L.T. were absolutely amazing, and I wished he had gotten to do all 32 maps for it.
• Eternal. I'm not sure if he comes to this forum, but I always greatly enjoy his work. I was really happy when I heard that Revilution got an Eternal map, and a lot of the artwork in the wad is from him as well.
• Drake O'Brien. With only three very divisive maps to his name, its hard to include him here, but these three maps made a big impact on a younger me and cemented my love of TNT. Back then, I didn't know 'Team TNT' was a thing and assumed Final Doom was id's work (We need to make a custom CREDIT lump for TNT and Plutonia that gives them proper credit!), but these three maps were always my favourites in the 32. Much of my dooming tastes can be traced bake to Drake's maps
• @Kyka. Cant leave him out, without him taking on an untested newbie to help test out early Devilution, I never would have got the job working on Terraria, and all the life experience that brought. Most of his work is tied up in the Devilution/Revilution/Convilution development hell, so its not too fair for the rest of you, but I always enjoyed his work. A lot of it was 'Drake on Steroids', with grand exploratory maps with huge setpieces, massive adventures that left me exhausted but satisfied upon beating them. I'm curious to see how his style has evolved once we *eventually* get the curse of Devilution and its ilk dispelled.
• The Casali bros. While they generally stopped mapping after Plutonia, the small amount of maps they did before that generally had a lot of professionalism and always kicked my ass as if I was playing Plutonia. For some reason. They also did almost all the 'hard' maps in TNT too.
• @pcorf and @Kristian Nebula. Its hard to separate this duo, as they work together very often. Ive played a huge amount of work from both, both ancient and modern, and even the silly jokewads that pcorf probably wants to forget about. Its always a pleasure to play new stuff by them.
• @t.v. and @Scientist. These two bros have made a ton of stuff I enjoy, and it took me *forever* to realise they were related. Did you know that back when Revilution was in the planning stages, TV was one of the people making concept art ideas of the original final boss for us? If the development never shifted hands, his art might have been in the final release.
• John Romero. It may be 'cheating' to list him here, but given how much I liked his four unofficial pwads, im rating him as a modern mapper and not as a co-creator of the game. As he is today, his maps are right up my alley, and im looking forward to Sigil II and anything else he makes.

Also a shoutout to Scott Harper, Tom Mustaine, Chris Klie and John Anderson. If Scott had replaced Tim Willits, I'd have a perfect Master Levels lineup.

 

EDIT: Also a mention to @Mechadon; I havent played too many of his maps, but the few I have, I love the giant exploration theme they have going for them

Edited November 21, 2023 by Devalaous

[BeetBeardTheBrave]

34 minutes ago, Devalaous said:

I have no idea if I previously posted in this thread, and dont care to comb through multiple pages, so I'll potentially repost, as opinions change with more map exposure

 

• Sverre Kvernmo, aka @Soundblock. His publically released Cabal series were amongst the first pwads I ever played; they were on a shovelware disc I was given, and were the best things on the disc that I found. Imagine my surprise when I learned later that not only was there more Cabal out there, but that he was one of the people from the Master Levels (Sadly, I grew up on the PS1 Doom and Final Doom, where none of his levels made the cut). Years later when I got the Master Levels off Steam, and later on the PS3, his levels were the best of the Master Levels. In addition, ive enjoyed ALL of his other work greatly, from his Hexen wad Deadlock, to stuff like Echelon and Plasmaplant (which I got to help test; people say 'never meet your heroes', but im glad I did). Without Sverre's Cabal maps, I likely never would have looked online for more good maps, which eventually led me here. If only the full megawad had surfaced :p
• Jim Flynn. While he's sadly no longer on this earth, hes the other Master Levels designer who ive been a fan of from the very first play of his work. Ive since exhausted all of his other maps, except the Eternal Doom ones (I really do need to finish that), and I loved all of them immensely.
• @NaturalTvventy. We've all heard the Xaserian song and dance about END1, and for me at least, it was no exaggeration. The 'Beginning of the End' series is a thing I downloaded after seeing one too many Xaser posts about it, and I gave it a full play after beating the first episode of No End in Sight, which was authoured by those two and Lutz, after hearing END1 was referenced in it in a later episode. Ended up playing all three episodes of the END series and enjoying every bit of it (I just wish END2 had named levels, its my only criticism!), and going on to play the rest of No End in Sight, and the rest of NT's single level releases. I particularly enjoy the way he makes secrets, getting 100% secrets on his maps is often a very fun challenge. One day I hope for END3 and NEIS2.
• @valkiriforce. While so many today seem to want to redefine what Doom is, Valk's work is often more classic-oriented, with a large amount of vanilla megawads that reference old mapping styles and particular classic megawads and authours. I'm a huge sucker for 90s era Doom stuff, and Valkiriforce's body of work never disappoints me. His smaller work 'Oceanside' in particular was amazing, and even his collection of rejected maps, Pulse, I enjoyed. I'll likely be playing his entire back catalogue in the following years.
• @Lainos and @BeeWen. When I load up a Lainos or BeeWen map, I know im in for a lengthy adventure, lost in some kind of atmospheric world and in for a good time. These two are often together in wads, and I look forward to their maps every time.
• Azamael. His levels in A.L.T. were absolutely amazing, and I wished he had gotten to do all 32 maps for it.
• Eternal. I'm not sure if he comes to this forum, but I always greatly enjoy his work. I was really happy when I heard that Revilution got an Eternal map, and a lot of the artwork in the wad is from him as well.
• Drake O'Brien. With only three very divisive maps to his name, its hard to include him here, but these three maps made a big impact on a younger me and cemented my love of TNT. Back then, I didn't know 'Team TNT' was a thing and assumed Final Doom was id's work (We need to make a custom CREDIT lump for TNT and Plutonia that gives them proper credit!), but these three maps were always my favourites in the 32. Much of my dooming tastes can be traced bake to Drake's maps
• @Kyka. Cant leave him out, without him taking on an untested newbie to help test out early Devilution, I never would have got the job working on Terraria, and all the life experience that brought. Most of his work is tied up in the Devilution/Revilution/Convilution development hell, so its not too fair for the rest of you, but I always enjoyed his work. A lot of it was 'Drake on Steroids', with grand exploratory maps with huge setpieces, massive adventures that left me exhausted but satisfied upon beating them. I'm curious to see how his style has evolved once we *eventually* get the curse of Devilution and its ilk dispelled.
• The Casali bros. While they generally stopped mapping after Plutonia, the small amount of maps they did before that generally had a lot of professionalism and always kicked my ass as if I was playing Plutonia. For some reason. They also did almost all the 'hard' maps in TNT too.
• @pcorf and @Kristian Nebula. Its hard to separate this duo, as they work together very often. Ive played a huge amount of work from both, both ancient and modern, and even the silly jokewads that pcorf probably wants to forget about. Its always a pleasure to play new stuff by them.
• @t.v. and @Scientist. These two bros have made a ton of stuff I enjoy, and it took me *forever* to realise they were related. Did you know that back when Revilution was in the planning stages, TV was one of the people making concept art ideas of the original final boss for us? If the development never shifted hands, his art might have been in the final release.
• John Romero. It may be 'cheating' to list him here, but given how much I liked his four unofficial pwads, im rating him as a modern mapper and not as a co-creator of the game. As he is today, his maps are right up my alley, and im looking forward to Sigil II and anything else he makes.

Also a shoutout to Scott Harper, Tom Mustaine, Chris Klie and John Anderson. If Scott had replaced Tim Willits, I'd have a perfect Master Levels lineup.

Based.  Valkiriforce and Pcorf are underrated and underappreciated, IMO.  Romero is excellent too. 

[The BMFG]

In no particular order, 

@Doomkid : His maps are incredible and i always enjoy the new assets or cool dehacked stuff used in his wads. Rowdy Rudy & The Sinister 7 are great inspirations for something im currently working on

@Clippy : His maps are really fun and the community projects he host are always a blast to map for, and he's just a really cool guy in general.

 

@Arrowhead : I love his deathmatch stuff, really fun to play with friends

[LadyMistDragon]

@Clippy  His maps aren't for everyone I suppose but I love his sector manipulation abilities.

@Cacodemon187

@muumi

@WH-Wilou84

@pavera

@Jaska

@RonnieJamesDiner I would say a possibly top ranked one for how well he crafts surprisingly deep combat encounters without feeling blandly overwhelming

@lunchlunch

@AD_79

 

There's plenty of other people that aren't active but that's best left for other threads. Except for BPRD. He is immortal, if not perfect.

Edited November 23, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[SupremeBioVizier]

Does anyone know if Henk Gierveld is still alive?

[Li'l devil]

Christen Klie and Gene Bird!

[GreenAnime]

Based from the wads I've played, Eggboy and friends are my main inspirations for now. Honorable mentions are Erik Alm and the legends casali bros.

[rehelekretep]

@TimeOfDeath666

@Ribbiks

@Deadwing

@skillsaw

 

@dannebubinga

if i remember any others ill add them

 

lol didnt realise i had posted this before

Edited February 7 by rehelekretep

[TheHambourgeois]

For the IWAD:
American McGee and Sandy. Romero is very competent but his maps don't have the aesthetic ooh-la-la factor of McGees and I am a proud Sandy apologist.

For everyone else:
For Doom content, Erik Alm basically set my mapping style for 6 (admittedly extremely unproductive) years when I first started mapping. A lot of the usual suspects are here as well (Esselfortium, Torn, Skillsaw, etc. not gonna do an exhaustive list)

Amuscaria/Eriance got me excited for extended engines for the first time in a while when I played hellforged

Gotta go with NotJabba and Jimmy putting out a lot of recent Heretic content that really got me excited for it again.

And finally I have to give a huge shoutout to a bunch of the PUSS guys (in particular Egregor, DeathBear, Pecca, LGmaire/Overflowing Mocha, Myolden, among others), they've been a big inspiration for me to get some more stuff out and helped push me out of my comfort zone

[apichatpong]

The question asked is necessarily dilemmesque, you always forget some, get unfair with others, and finally when you’re, like I am, a distant amateur, you end up with the most classical list…

I’ll list the mappers who produced wads I inevitably come back to when, knee (too) deep in the Doom, I lose myself and need a light to follow to remember the genius of this community, not saying that others are not good, FAR FROM IT, but you sometimes need landmarks, so :

 

Ribbiks
Insane Gazebo
French Community (with all it’s variety : common or solo projects)(Go play Flesharmonic, it’s awesome !)
Time of Death
(I like big maps and I cannot lie)(I guess it’s a boomer joke)

 

Man ! What revolutionary choices !

 

 

Speaking of non-originality, the reason I’m here is in fact to do some kind of mea culpa regarding two « superstars ».

I’ll be honest, I primarily wasn’t impressed by Skillsaw’s work (but respectful, of course, because it’s not tomorrow that I’ll be able to even imagine stuff as well constructed as his work).

 

But, two years after a full cheat playthrough of Ancient Aliens which I considered nice but non-memorable, this sneaky masterpiece delivered, sporadically but intensely, its venom.

 

Speaking of narration, i’ll say it’s a Platonic, looking through the clouds, esoteric, counterpart of the Diogenic, down to earth irony of Mouldy’s Going down.
The very beginning and ending coat the full megawad with a reverie touch which entails the whole trip in a smilly feeling even during the hard parts, even considering the annoying bugs (stealth plasma aliens, as far as I’m concerned)(I don’t like fast stuff).

Some maps that, at first, felt repetitive reveal themselves very consistent and some of them ended in my favs list (map 25 for instance), Stuart Rynn’s music is awesomely enchanting (and love to his great secret map) and now that I’m going (slowly) my way through the wad on HMP, I begin to appreciate the skillsaw’s style, non-stop, full of lowering traps, organized chaos.

 

Not sure I’ll count Skillsaw in my intimate list but, at least for this one (and I won’t forget the guest mappers) : kudos !

 

 

The second mappers I wanted to talk about is Tourniquet.

 

Once again, my first impression was ridiculously unfair… even more than my one on Skillsaw.
I read somewhere (don’t remember precisely where) that he was a natural successor of Ribbiks, tried Miasma and, with the unapologetic unfairness of ignorance, settled that it was just a lighter ersatz.

 

During the last six months, I went back to it, played also Altitude, Mutabor, Anaemia*… and completely changed my mind.

 

I’m very close to say that Tourniquet is even better than Ribbiks when forcing the player to return and return exploring already visited areas, disorienting him, changing the architecture, using verticality : high buildings and hidden undergrounds.

He is also quite good considering secrets hiding (still miss 1/3 of them, at least, sometimes got some without knowing how) and, consequence of all of this, non-linearity (but, his non-linearity is very different than Ribbiks big maps’ one, Ribbiks non-linearity is contemplative, low or mid-tempo, abstract and thoughtful, when Tourniquet’s one is fast, more fluid and, maybe, paradoxically, brownian (but, for the mapper, to get that necessarily false « random » feeling you of course got to think a lot !))

(Let say that, at least to me, Ribbiks big boss maps feel like some Riemann’s surfaces (first image) when Tourniquet’s ones are more like some kind of flat torus : from a naïve viewpoint it can look « classical » but when really embedded in space, it reveals layers, high and low, micro-structures and, sometime, you can have the feeling to walk east and ending up west… (second image))

 

In the end, I didn’t escape the comparison with Ribbiks but it’s because it was my way to understand the real and great singularity of Tourniquet mapping talent !

* also tried Occula but : 1) my computer is not powerful enough, it lag a lot. 2) It depresses me a bit since I wanted to try mapping with lot of geometrical stuff but, speaking of geometrical design and from what I saw, this wad is some kind of « point at infinity ».

[T-Rex]

Favourite mappers, so many to name, most of whom are mappers from the 90s.

 

- John Romero

- Tom Hall

- Tim Willits

- John "Dr. Sleep" Anderson

- American McGee

- Ty Halderman

- Gary Gosson

- Tom Mustaine

- Jimmy Sieben

- Jim Lowell

- Brian Kidby

- Christen Klie

- Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv

- Dario and Milo Casali

- Denis and Thomas Moller (TiC)

- Matthias Worch

- Anthony "Adelusion" Czerwonka

- Iikka Keranen

- Adam Windsor

- Bill McClendon

- Sverre Kvernmo

- Adam Landefeld

- Alex Mayberry

- Jim Flynn

- Paul Schmitz

- Bob Evans

- Chris Couleur

- Valkiriforce

- Paul Corfiatis

- Shamus Young

- Kristian Aro

- Rex Claussen

- Chris Hansen

- John Bye

- Malcolm Sailor

- Jan van der Veken

- Nick "Nightmare" Baker

- Ola Bjorling

- Travers Dunne

- Paul Fleschute

- Anders Johnsen

- Kim Andre Malde

- Mike "Cyb" Watson

- Yashar Garibzadeh

- Lee Szymanski

- Anthony Soto

- Brad "Vorpal" Spencer

- Karthik and Varun Abhiram Krishna

- Kurt Kesler

- Erik Alm

- Gusta and Method

- Joshy

- Darkwave0000

- JC Dorne

- franckFRAG

- William Huber

- Jambon

- Oxyde

 

And that's the lot I can think of.

[Logamuffin]

I’ll give a Top 10 list of my personal favs. Why 10? Uh… Because..

 

1. mouldy. He’s just the best, no contest.

2. skillsaw. Obvious choice is obvious

3. Antares031.

4. Jaska.

5. Kim Andre Malde and Brad Spencer. Putting these two together because they don’t really appear outside AV but their work in that wad is so good it qualifies them for this list.

6. Eternal.

7. Ribbiks. Could be higher if the hype is to be believed but I’ve only played Swim With The Whales and a handful of others so I’m basing it only on that

8. Dobu Gabu Maru

9. Xaser Acheron.

10. Doomkid

[alchemilla]

In no particular order :

Chopkinsca 
Eternal
Vader
espi
Pawel Zarczynski
B.P.R.D.
Negatronica
Jaska
Skillsaw
Kaiser

Chopkinsca
Esselfortium
Mechadon
Paul Schmitz
Chris Couleur
Rex Claussen

 

and there are many more brilliant mappers , too many to count , so I better stop there . Also I wish to thank them all for hours and hours of fun they provided for us all throughout the years , so cheers you talented guys and girls . 

[ReaperAA]

My sheer disappointment in not seeing Brian Irving @Bri get a single mention has forced my hand. Of the newer wave of mappers, he is probably my favorite. He has worked on 3 maps in Eviternity 2, but even before that, he has made some fantastic episodic sized mapsets with great visuals, smooth flow and punchy yet accessible combat. Especially recommend to check out Elysium' Curse, Hydrosphere, Fallen Leaves and Scorn.

 

Other than those, my favorite mappers list is pretty typical and based on who was involved in my favorite mapsets. My picks in no particular order:

• Skillsaw
• Dragonfly
• Antares031
• Aurelius
• Esselfortium
• Darkwave
• Joshy
• Jimmy
• Xaser
• AD_79
• Yugiboy
• Deadwing
• Jaska

 

From the older era (pre-2010), I would pick:

• Casali Brothers (obviously) 
• Erik Alm
• Gusta (even though I have only played his Plutonia 2 maps)
• Thomas van der Velden
• Anders Johnson

[apichatpong]

12 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

My sheer disappointment in not seeing Brian Irving @Bri get a single mention has forced my hand.

 

+1 to that !

Didn't put him in my "list" because, in this exercise, you either be too short or too long, but had a great time with Attack on IO and Elysium curse.

[blob1024]

ill name just a few, but there are plenty amazing mappers around.. i havent played much last 2 years

here's some i clearly have in mind and thank for their work in the years

- the green herring (his lvl were absolutely highly detailed and beautiful)

- insane gazebo

- kira

- anders johnsen

[Amaruψ]

Kim André Malde