A Techbase level inspired by a dream I had

[Alfwin]

A few weeks ago, I had a dream - the most vivid dream I've had in a while - where I was inside a DOOM level.  When I woke, I realized that it hadn't been one of the official id levels, so I set about recreating it in DOOMbuilder, as best I could remember the level from my dream.  There were only a few rooms in my dream, not enough for a full map, so over the next few days, I slowly built it into a full, playable level.  I had a lot of fun making this; the vibrant techbase aesthetic made a nice change from the drab industrial setting of my other ongoing DOOM project.  I hope you have as much fun playing it!

Update: v1_2

• Renamed file from DREAM.WAD to DREAMTEK.WAD
• Added linedef action 62 to the lift near the Invisibility Sphere so it may be activated directly as well as by the tripwires.
• Modified the Invulnerability secret to allow the secret to be "discovered" without actually picking up the Invulnerability sphere.
• Reduced the amount of Plasma ammo across the map to reduce the power of the BFG and give greater value to secrets which contain Plasma ammo.
• Slightly increased the number of rockets available in the outdoor arena.
• Removed a few Health Bonus items from the outdoor area.

 

Download: Dream Techbase v1_2.7z

 

Compatibility info:

IWAD: DOOM2.WAD

Compatibility level: Vanilla

Tested with: Vanilla, Chocolate Doom

Difficulty settings: Implemented

Advanced movement (e.g. jumping): Not supported, may cause sequence-breaking

Mouselook: Not recommended, but not strictly forbidden.  May cause non-critical sequence-breaking/negatively impact difficulty balance.

 

Screenshots:

 

Changelog:

Spoiler

 V1.1 patch. DREAM_v1_1.7z

- Raised the wooden walls in the outdoor arena to prevent shooting the monsters behind them with rockets; also changed their texture from WOODMET1 to WOOD1.

- Fixed 3 Barons of Hell who previously did not appear on any difficulty.  They now appear on Easy difficulty, as intended.

 

Edited June 19, 2021 by Orcsbreath : WAD updated to version 1.2

[Arrowhead]

Just ripped through this right now! Quite a lot of fun! I'm a major fan of the supercharge secret! Some scary fights in this, but I won't spoil it too much for others. Took me about 13 minutes to complete. I didn't UVMAX this one, (i'm not that good at secret hunting lol) but I really really enjoyed it. I think this is possibly your best map yet. Everything flows together very nicely, and the encounters feel very natural. Interesting choice to leave the SSG out - that, or I didn't find it haha

 

Great work! :)

[Alfwin]

@Arrowhead Thanks for playing; I'm glad you enjoyed it!  I'm always trying to push the limits of my mapping ability - good to hear that seems to be working!  The Supercharge secret was, I think, the second secret I added to this map.  I try to include a variety of secrets, not just hidden doors! (tbh it took me a moment to work out which secret you were referring to; I always forget the term "supercharge," they're "soul spheres" in my mind).  Oh, and there is a Super Shotgun in the map, for those who can find it!

[SuperCupcakeTactics]

Gave this a whirl and wow this really is a great map. A bit too hard for me but that's okay I can resurrect myself to keep the flow going (don't remember what difficulty setting I played it on but wouldn't mind giving it another go). A very inspiring map spurred by a very inspiring dream.

[Alfwin]

5 hours ago, SuperCupcakeTactics said:

A bit too hard for me but that's okay

Well, that's why I implemented difficulty settings!  It is a fair bit harder than some of my other maps, though - at least, that was my intention.  I made sure it was possible on all difficulties, but I did balance UV with the intention that it should be very difficult if the player doesn't find at least some secrets.

[jmac]

I played your level on ultraviolence, using GZdoom. I got 100% kills, found 6 of 9 secrets, and died once.

 

This is my first time playing a map of yours, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but I had fun with this one. For my skill level at least, it was the perfect difficulty for feeling challenging without being frustrating. I'm also a sucker for maps with a lot of secrets, and I'll probably be replaying this to find the ones I missed. It had a very frantic, chaotic feel to it that I enjoy in doom.

 

My only real complain is that visually, the map doesn't really stand out in any way to me. But when a map is fun and competently made like yours is, this is a fairly  minor gripe.

 

It was you mentioning that this map was made based a dream that made me want to play it to begin with. I'm working on my first map right now, and have a lot of others planned after it, and a lot of them are based off of dreams I've had.

[spineapple tea]

Well that's a hot start. A lot of the map is running around frantically trying to survive; a gameplay style that I feel is very underappreciated. I think like the BFG secret is a bit too obvious and early in the level, although I do like how it's obtained. The visuals are very reminiscent of Knee Deep and Scythe 1's first episode, and I'd be down for a whole megawad in its style. Any map that starts off with a berserk gets extra points from me. Also, if you got a good chunk of the layout from a dream then you really need to keep a notebook next to your bed.

[Alfwin]

1 hour ago, jmac said:

For my skill level at least, it was the perfect difficulty for feeling challenging without being frustrating. I'm also a sucker for maps with a lot of secrets, and I'll probably be replaying this to find the ones I missed. It had a very frantic, chaotic feel to it that I enjoy in doom.

 

My only real complain is that visually, the map doesn't really stand out in any way to me. But when a map is fun and competently made like yours is, this is a fairly  minor gripe.

Awesome, "challenging and frantic" was the vibe I was going for; glad to hear I succeeded in that regard!  And I tried to include a good variety of secrets; good luck finding those last 3!

As for the visuals: The aesthetic in this one was very much a result of what the level looked like in my dream - and it wasn't until I woke up that I realized what I had envisioned wasn't a level from The Shores of Hell.  So, "generic techbase" was the result.  But making an aesthetically memorable map is rarely my priority - just so long as each area within the level looks distinct enough that the player can navigate easily, I'll pretty much always just focus on designing gameplay over all else - for better or worse, I guess.

 

20 minutes ago, N1ck said:

I think like the BFG secret is a bit too obvious and early in the level, although I do like how it's obtained ... Any map that starts off with a berserk gets extra points from me.

My intention with the BFG was that even if the player gets it early on, its use will be limited by the amount of ammo available for it.  Of course, if you find some of the other secrets as well, you might have plenty of ammo.  I don't think it effects balance too much - but if other people take issue with it as well, I might remove some of the plasma ammo from around the map.

And yeah, I don't usually do hot starts, but I love a good Berserk brawl.  I think the majority of maps I've published have included a Berserk, actually.

[Reelvonic]

You need to dream more, because that was a fun map.

 

I feel some of the secrets were too easy, but others were clever and made me smile.

The monster closets were nice too and unexpected.

The start was intense and pissed me off at first, but as I played more it became fun, with the berserk, shotgun placement, and BFG(a bit easy to find, but I feel it still works well with the flow of the map). 

The ending was a bit overkill, I was expecting to fight a cyberdemon when surprise crap ton of demons.

 

Overall I had fun and really enjoyed the map

 

[Biodegradable]

Good lord, Orc mate, this is your most brutal map I've experienced so far. It's brilliant and well up to par with your other offerings, but it's also REALLY bloody mean lmao. Enjoy my suffering in this playthrough, lad.

 

 

[Clippy]

Another one to add to the list I can't keep up boys 😅

[Final Verdict]

18 minutes ago, Clippy said:

Another one to add to the list I can't keep up boys 😅

 

Same here, I add them to the list as the crop up but that list is well and truly out of control.

 

I have even attempted to make a criteria for what goes into that folder, but that barely had any impact as I enjoy most Doom maps. It has to be really dismal for me to consider it a bad map.

 

I mean I actually enjoy maps that most consider bad or frustrating. Like the Chasm, Barrels of Fun and Blood Falls. I'm going to try and shave a few off the list over the weekend though. I tend to have far more free time on the weekends. 

 

Problem is, for every one you finish on that list you add another 4 or 5. It's a never ending cycle and normally we would all see the futility in such an endeavour, but this is Doom and many of us play it for years. It's not quite the same thing. 

 

At least that's what I tell myself when the rational part of my brain attempts to interject with logic. And so the list grows, ever expanding into infinity. 

 

[Doomkid]

DKDRM.zip

 

(Played using doom2.exe, demo is about 15 mins and includes a couple deaths early on)

 

Wow, what a blast of a map! This is some great vanilla stuff here! (and you actually included a text file.. My god, it's beautiful! That's so rare with single-map releases these days for some reason..)

 

Edit: Could I please request that you rename the actual wad file to avoid conflicts with the existing dream.wad? That would be awesome..

[Alfwin]

@Biodegradable Thanks for the video, man!  I always appreciate seeing how people play through my maps.  Yeah, this one was a lot meaner than some of my other maps; I wonder if I ought to tone down the computer room.  I think it's okay, but if enough people have trouble with it I'll delete a few zombies or something.

[Alfwin]

4 hours ago, Doomkid said:

DKDRM.zip

 

(Played using doom2.exe, demo is about 15 mins and includes a couple deaths early on)

 

Wow, what a blast of a map! This is some great vanilla stuff here! (and you actually included a text file.. My god, it's beautiful! That's so rare with single-map releases these days for some reason..)

 

Edit: Could I please request that you rename the actual wad file to avoid conflicts with the existing dream.wad? That would be awesome..

Ooh, I love to see a good old-fashioned demo file!  Thanks for playing!  I should've guessed there'd already be a dream.wad, unfortunately I couldn't think of a clever title for this one.  For now, I've renamed it to DREAMTEK.WAD.  I might think of something better in the future, though.

[Dexiaz]

My big respect to mapper! I had a lot of dreams of custom Doom levels, but I never finished any of them.

[ShadesMaster]

Nice map! (HD still processing)

[Hayden49]

I Beat the map with saves. I like this map a lot, especially the final fight at the end, I also like the secrets (I found all secrets!).

[Clippy]

I loved this map! Man, I didn't make out too bad either with those secrets - they were GAME CHANGERS! We must have been mentally connected somehow cause I couldn't walk down the street without tripping over a secret. Feel like I got off easy, what do you think, should I try a no secrets run or is that possible hahaa

 

Legit I'll do it

 

 

[Alfwin]

@Clippy I made sure a no-secrets run is possible, but far from easy on UV.  Could be a fun "challenge run" I suppose!

[Clippy]

On 6/20/2021 at 3:24 PM, Orcsbreath said:

@Clippy I made sure a no-secrets run is possible, but far from easy on UV.  Could be a fun "challenge run" I suppose!

 

I finally accepted the challenge

 

Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be

 

And to my surprise even at the end I had plenty of resources and was still picking up stuff

 

You designed this map very well 

 

I got to see even more clever things than I missed last time such as if you don't kill the mancubus they can shoot you through the window way up there

 

Can't wait to see what you cook up next

 

 

 

I also had a lot of fun playing with the berserk and getting monsters to fight each other

 

Really good times

 

[Alfwin]

2 hours ago, Clippy said:

I got to see even more clever things than I missed last time such as if you don't kill the mancubus they can shoot you through the window way up there

 

Can't wait to see what you cook up next

To be perfectly honest, a lot of the stuff like the Mancubi shooting through the window were unplanned.  I did notice that in testing and thought "yeah, that's cool," but the only reason that window is where it is, is that's how it looked in my dream.  But sometimes I do find things like that accidentally forming in a level and decide to shape the map design around them; The presence of windows like that is what made me decide to use so many cacos, which in turn motivated me to make the level more interconnected so they could fly around more.

 

As always, thanks for playing.  I can't wait to see what I cook up next, either!

[baja blast rd.]

Enjoyed it. The flow of concepts definitely has a very dreamlike quality -- from an unusually early BFG secret, to traps that are kind of unusual (sudden archvile with only a modest amount of cover after...nothing but Doom 1 monsters), to that huge room full of hitscanners, to...a dual-cyb fight with a baron horde (?!), it doesn't really make traditional "sense" in many ways, but not letting norms restrict you also means you could throw in whatever fun things you have in mind... and it turned out well here. 

 

Designing maps that are legitimately surprising is no small feat, and this one has a lot of that (for example the 'pagoda' -- if that's the right word -- that houses the plasma rifle, with the closet trap that springs up behind it). There tend to be more surprises than expected traps. I also like the pastiche style texturing and construction you have going on. Felt a little bit of every episode of Ultimate Doom was present n the design. 

 

The invul secret honestly feels a bit rote (just a standard closet pushwall) for how powerful it is. Would seem better if it were trickier to find, concealed in some clever way. I don't have a problem with being able to use it to make the cyb fight easy, however. 

 

Here is a casual (not-max playthough). (My FDA died fooling around with the first group of barons and cacodemons, but that wasn't unusually tricky or anything -- I was just being dumb.)   

 

 

[Alfwin]

1 hour ago, rd. said:

Designing maps that are legitimately surprising is no small feat, and this one has a lot of that (for example the 'pagoda' -- if that's the right word -- that houses the plasma rifle, with the closet trap that springs up behind it). There tend to be more surprises than expected traps.

With some of my early releases here on Doomworld I set a precedent for my maps having lots of surprises and traps, and I admit, sometimes I struggle with feeling like I have to live up to an expectation of devious ambushes in my maps now, even when I'm not entirely sure how to implement them.  But I do like to keep the player on their toes, and I'm glad to hear you think it worked out well in this one!

 

Thanks for the video; Getting cornered by the cacos in the Plasma Pagoda was a cool moment; I honestly didn't know they could get in there!  As for the Invuln secret: there's enough going on in that fight that I don't think it makes things too much easier - especially if the player hasn't found as many of the other secrets.

[Astro X]

I've had quite an enjoyable experience playing this map!