[Now on /idgames!] 3x3: Take Two - 3 flats, 3 textures, 3 monster types speedmaps again!

[MFG38]

2 minutes ago, PeceMan said:

NGL I feel kinda cheated, since I spent so long trying to get a demo on the semi-hard version, thinking it may be the final version. Now it turns out there's an easier version, which not only means my effort is pointless, but also makes my demos unplayable >:(

 

Haha, sorry. :P

[PeceMan]

Also while we're at it, @MFG38 can you please make this thing (https://imgur.com/3FUtO0Z) raise faster? Having to wait for it every time gets on my nerves

[MFG38]

1 minute ago, PeceMan said:

Also while we're at it, @MFG38 can you please make this thing (https://imgur.com/3FUtO0Z) raise faster? Having to wait for it every time gets on my nerves

 

Noted. Might as well make all of the things rise up faster, actually, for consistency's sake more than anything else.

[PeceMan]

https://www.mediafire.com/file/cyp0u5us0kmsown/3x3Tightrope_%28standalone%292.rar/file

 

Notice that these aren't like my other demos, where I was just trying to die quickly, and in a cool way. Here I'm actually trying to beat the level.

 

 

Also, just because I hate the level (I play it mainly because of Stockholm syndrome) , doesn't mean I don't want to know the process behind it, like Helm did with Maudlin of the Wall, or Worst in his comment about the Forkress of Doom. If anything, because of how different it is, I'd love to hear about the decisions that went into it.

[MFG38]

3 minutes ago, PeceMan said:

I'd love to hear about the decisions that went into it.

 

Ask and you shall receive. c:

 

I feel I should preface this by saying that I'm a very experimental type of person. I get a kick out of trying new things, and that sense of experimentation also extends to my mapping in no small part. That is, of course, to say that Tightrope is one such experiment. My original idea in regards to the map's gameplay was largely what you see in the final product but with the added element of punishment by instant death if you accidentally fired your weapon. When it came time to lay down the first lines, I realized that forcing a pacifistic playstyle on the player to such an extent wouldn't be very fun, so I scrapped that aspect of it but kept the rest of what I had in mind - primarily the platforming with rising paths and rocket dodging.

 

The visual style was also something I'd envisioned long before I even announced this project. As far as the layout is concerned, I knew that I wanted to keep the map compact. "Tight", if you will (pun not intended). With that in mind, I gave myself an initial extra restriction of making the whole map into a 1024x1024 space. But it quickly turned out that a single area of that size wasn't enough for what I wanted to do - thus, I made a second 1024x1024 area. Other than that, the layout was one of those things that were born out of me simply going with the flow.

 

Ultimately, all I really have to say about the thought process behind Tightrope is that it was all an experiment. One that I never expected most people to be on board with, but it was worth it either way.

[Helm]

Two more! BTW I am missing a secret on the one by 7Soul, a little hint would be appreciated!

As to Tightrope, memorability of maps is way more important than whether I like it myself, because even if I don't, if it's good, somebody else will. And Tightrope is certainly memorable!

 

[rouge_means_red]

@Helm 

Spoiler

At 32:00 I did forget to hide that line, but uhm... shame you didn't manage to jump down there a second time... just saying

 

The mod you're using also seems to mess things a little, the last secret you found (the bookcase that raises to reveal a little nook) is easier to notice with default lighting (might be due to the ambient occlusion you're using). At 31:24 that texture is at 0 brightness, but the light from the firestick next to it is coloring it

 

I think the missing kills is due to what I did to spawn corpses near the first archvile. Either that or some teleport closet mishap

Ty for the video and commentary

[Helm]

christ don't tell me the final secret is in the space where on the map it says secret I am going to jump off the fucking balcony

 

[SCF]

@Helm: Bit of a late reply, but thanks for the video, it was interesting to watch. I'll second the comment about your voice being very quiet, I had to turn up my volume dangerously high to hear it. It was funny to see your struggle with the secret, because I was worried I made it too obvious. I didn't even consider you might be led to believe it's in that other room. Kinda made me laugh when you said I was clearly experienced because I only started Doom mapping less than a year ago, but I'll take it as a compliment! Finally, I'm afraid there's nothing interesting behind my name, it's just my initials.

 

 

[Helm]

Getting voice levels normalized would involve post-production effort on my part. sigh. but I hear ya (no pun intended), I'll try to work on it for the future. It just makes me happy if the map makers get something out of it, technical hurdles aside. 

Good on you for having a confident style one year in! Looking forward to more work from you :)

[SCF]

2 hours ago, Helm said:

Getting voice levels normalized would involve post-production effort on my part. sigh. but I hear ya (no pun intended), I'll try to work on it for the future. It just makes me happy if the map makers get something out of it, technical hurdles aside. 

Good on you for having a confident style one year in! Looking forward to more work from you :)

 

Just to be clear, it's all audio that's quiet, not just the voice (it's just that your voice was the part I wanted to hear).

[Helm]

yeah gotcha the issue is that unprocessed headset gear voice fluctuates a lot and if I yelp or whatever it's going to be ear destroying, so what I'd have to ideally do is run some sort of limiter/maximizer on capture and then also master a bit on the way out and all these steps are steppppsss and all I want to do is talk to nice folks about their mapppsss not become a youtube person. But I shall try to split the difference somewhere. 

[Worst]

On 5/11/2021 at 8:41 PM, MFG38 said:

If you come across any bugs, please feel free to report them and I'll fix them to the best of my ability. Should nothing game-breaking occur, the current build will be "re-released" as v1.0 and also be submitted to /idgames within the next week or two.

Not a bug, but I have a little note with regards to the texture source credits, the sky texture for my map should probably be credited to OBLIGE or its author, as I just did a quick recolor on it which took no effort or time, so I don't really feel right taking the credit for it. For example:

Custom sky for MAP14 by OBLIGE (Andrew Apted)

 

@Helm Thanks for the video, it was fun to watch! Also thank you for all the positive feedback, I really wasn't expecting for anyone to consider my map to be anywhere near their top 3 in the whole set!

Comments on the video (link):

Spoiler

01:45 - "I love the flat, the marble flat, and this is clearly the superior castle brick wall texture"
While choosing the textures, I did briefly consider making a flat version of the brick texture, but ended up choosing the
marble after all, as I think it looks better as it's smoother, and tiles less repeatedly. The brick wall texture is also based on one of my favourite wall textures, the BRICK7 texture.

05:16 - "Oh we can climb this obviously, and teleport out"
Heh interesting how it never passed my mind that someone could see the floor push buttons as teleporters, since as the author their purpose was always very clear to me. But seeing it from the perspective of someone else, makes me realize that their purpose only becomes clear once you interact with them. Easy to sometimes overlook things like these, when you are the only one testing your own maps.

07:58 - "Perfectly placed jump for running"
Thanks, I did try to make it so that you'd be unlikely to bump your head in there.

14:48 - "Missed a couple of enemies, perhaps it's an issue of the forkiness? something didn't crush?"
Actually it looks like you missed a couple imps in the 2nd fork path area you went into, they are briefly visible in the video at 6:20 and 7:50, but to your defense, they were both easy to miss in those dark sectors.

15:01 - "this gimmick should be a whole megawad, well done Worst."
Thanks I appreciate it. I would also love to see a whole megawad with this concept (or just an episode), but it's a lot more work than I can realistically dedicate to a wad at the moment. Perhaps someone else want's to tackle that, or maybe a community project could work, if there would be enough interest in it.

Anyways, thanks a lot for playing!

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by Worst : Fix formatting

[Helm]

Here's captain toenail's map18! Also this time you can probably hear me. Let me know if audio mix is good now.

Included in this video is mediocre gameplay of a great map, and then after 10 minutes of searching for a secret a personal realization that actually helps me find the secret, lol. So thank you for being playful with your secrets, captain!
 

Worst: you know that eternal doom brick texture everybody uses? the blurry, shitty one? I wish everybody used your variation on brick7 there instead!

buttons, teleporters: it's totally fine for assumptions a player makes to be dispelled when it's this quick. This looks like a teleporter? Oh, it's a button. Now I know. But as to the feeling of being your only playtester... that's why I do all this :) 

 Thanks again for making such a cool map!

[MFG38]

16 hours ago, Worst said:

Not a bug, but I have a little note with regards to the texture source credits, the sky texture for my map should probably be credited to OBLIGE or its author, as I just did a quick recolor on it which took no effort or time, so I don't really feel right taking the credit for it.

 

Noted and corrected.

[mmww]

Just finished the RC1 on UV. A lot of fun maps, and I enjoyed it very much! Good work everyone involved!

 

[Captain Toenail]

@Helm Cool thanks for playing. If you want to make floating items you use the fake ceiling and floor action. One of my favourite Boom actions. You can use it to make blocking glass walls and other tricks.

 

I've made some updates to the map

- changed how some lines appear in automap

- changed how the blue key blocking bar works

- changed how the outside secret area is triggered

 

The file contains just the map data so you can just paste that into the main wad.

CT_Iron_and_Stone_v3_MapOnly.zip

[Helm]

Here's maps 19-22 all in one video because it's easier to post-process that stuff like that!
 

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Helm

[myolden]

@Helm Thanks for the video play though! Always fun to watch someone play my maps. I'm glad you enjoyed the visuals, that's something I've been trying to put more time and effort into improving. From playing your map "Maudlin of the Wall" (and watching your play though video of it) I can tell you have quite an eye for detail both in terms of design and visuals, so your kind words carry a lot of weight.

As far as the last fight goes, my strategy was to spam rockets at the revenants, then every once in a while spam a rocket or two into the imps in an attempt to create space to hide from the archviles. That fight doesn't work quite the way I intended since sometimes the archviles will manage to get in front of the revenanats when they're supposed to be in the back.

 

The wall texture for that final secret is different than the other walls behind the other teleporters, but because of the lighting it's hard to make out. Probably should have just cut that one tbh.

Also, my name is taken from this song: 

 

[Helm]

Warms my heart to get you talented folk talk about your stuff more. It's so illuminating to connect the map experience to the intentions of the map maker sometimes. The visuals were great! If you're only now improving on that, I can only wonder what you're going to do later on!

If you need the monsters to funnel to the player in a specific way in such a scenario, wouldn't some conveyor belts pushing monsters to teleport in in a strict, specific arrangement work? Or is the issue more that once they teleport they might or might not pathfind to the player's location in the right order?

I enjoyed the post-hardcore. It reminded me of Burst, the best of those kinds of bands back in the day from my limited recollection. More into heavy metal so what do I know, heh

 

[marco.nadal.75]

16 hours ago, mmww said:

Just finished the RC1 on UV. A lot of fun maps, and I enjoyed it very much! Good work everyone involved!

 

 

Great job! Which source port did you use? I'm softlocked on MAP10 - The Maudlin Wall.
I'm using GZDooM 4.5.0 and Embers Of Armageddon mod.

Is GZDooM 4.5.0 100% Boom compatible?

Description of softlock:
Near the staircase to the Q toilet*, there is

- the edge of the alcove with 5 chaingunners and 2 skellys:
Linedef #1055/1056, special 17176: Boom Generalized Switched Special, tag 26

- the button that -presumably- would rise to be pressed to progress:
tag 26, sector #390, Linedef #2474/2475, special 24924: Boom Generalized Switched Special, tag 24

- the L-shaped catwalk that continues north:
tag 24, sector #391

 

Well I cross Linedef 1055 but I can't get the button to raise, so i can't continue on this map.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k2c2nhjfnh6dytt/3x3 map10 the maudlin wall bug report.png?dl=0

 

Proposed solution:
Replace those instances with standard Linedef types, I don't see what the Boom specials do that cannot 
be accomplished with vanilla. But, I'm not a mapper, so idk.s

Anyway, map01 - map09 were really enjoyable so far,
so would be great if this little bug could be fixed for the next release.

*(is that a comment on "sit on your ass and trust the plan" - Qtardism?)

[Helm]

It's a generalized action because it makes the 1 trigger lower 24 map pixels which as far as I know isn't something vanilla does. You may have just skipped the linedef due to acceleration? 

No reference to Qanon was intended, I don't believe in dangerous, toxic nonsense.

EDIT: for what it's worth here's an updated version with that puzzle simplified so that action can be removed. Check if it works fine for you:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/t2v1cg9d7qrt1q2/maudlin_of_the_Wall_v.1.2.zip/file

Edited May 22, 2021 by Helm

[mmww]

8 hours ago, marco.nadal.75 said:

Great job! Which source port did you use? I'm softlocked on MAP10 - The Maudlin Wall.

 

Thanks! It was a challange :) I'm running with dsda, and had no trouble with locking in that map.

[Captain Toenail]

@Helm Again, thanks for taking the time to play and record. Glad you enjoyed my map!

 

@MFG38 There is a small bug with RC1 - the Otex nukage flats ONUKEA01-08 do not animate.

[myolden]

18 hours ago, Helm said:

If you need the monsters to funnel to the player in a specific way in such a scenario, wouldn't some conveyor belts pushing monsters to teleport in in a strict, specific arrangement work? Or is the issue more that once they teleport they might or might not pathfind to the player's location in the right order?

 

Definitely a pathfinding issue.

 

18 hours ago, Helm said:

I enjoyed the post-hardcore. It reminded me of Burst, the best of those kinds of bands back in the day from my limited recollection. More into heavy metal so what do I know, heh

 

I'm all over the place in terms of music, but I enjoy most forms of metal. Not so surprising running into another metalhead on the doomworld forums, I imagine there are an overabundance of us here lol.

[marco.nadal.75]

7 hours ago, Helm said:

It's a generalized action because it makes the 1 trigger lower 24 map pixels which as far as I know isn't something vanilla does. You may have just skipped the linedef due to acceleration? 

No reference to Qanon was intended, I don't believe in dangerous, toxic nonsense.

EDIT: for what it's worth here's an updated version with that puzzle simplified so that action can be removed. Check if it works fine for you:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/t2v1cg9d7qrt1q2/maudlin_of_the_Wall_v.1.2.zip/file

 

Yes, Thank You, that one works fine... I see you moved the switch that raises the catwalk to the top of the stairs.
The rest of the map was completed without incident... a very unusual map, to be sure. I have not seen its like before.
Climbing towards that dot of light I spied through the porthole in the beginning was kinda suspenseful. @_@

I will continue with the rest of the megawad using GZDooM 4.5.0, since its listed in the .txt as a supported port.

[MFG38]

1 hour ago, Captain Toenail said:

There is a small bug with RC1 - the Otex nukage flats ONUKEA01-08 do not animate.

 

Thanks for reporting, I'll look into it as soon as I get my tools set up. Just finished doing a clean reinstall of Windows on my computer and it may take a while before all the Doom stuff is back the way it was. :P

[NeilForshaw]

7 hours ago, myolden said:

imagine there are an overabundance of us here lol.

Another one here. As you might guess from playing my map :D

[Helm]

Video hasn't finished uploading in HD but in the interest of saving time if anyone wants to touch up their maps due to playtesting, here's the raw shit!
 

I missed recording a couple of maps sadly, but at least that's the brunt of it! I loved playesting these, hope everyone is as excited as I am for release.

[Death Bear]

3 hours ago, Helm said:

Video hasn't finished uploading in HD but in the interest of saving time if anyone wants to touch up their maps due to playtesting, here's the raw shit!
 

I missed recording a couple of maps sadly, but at least that's the brunt of it! I loved playesting these, hope everyone is as excited as I am for release.

Wow! Thank you so much! ("MFKN Death Bear doesn't f**k around!) That got me. I really appreciate your commentary and feedback for this one (I haven't watched your pt of Grayskull yet). Needless to say, there's a few oversights in textures and damaging floors. (I completely retextured the map between Peceman's pt and this one, per MFG's suggestion, and the original textures were harder to tell on misalignments, I think. I'm still working on my efficiency AND accuracy/ precision). It's this kind of stuff that really helps me improve. Rocket Tears from 3x3 was my second ever public map, and my second speedmap (and foray into Boom mapping). I'd like to think RT2 was an improvement on the concept, despite a few of the flaws. Seems like I might of have gotten a little more sadistic with it, too. Thanks again!