Down the Drain - 32 vanilla maps - Final

[Benjogami]

 

 

Down the Drain is 32 vanilla maps for Doom 2 and is my take on a Hell on Earth replacement with no added assets except midis that I like and bad menu gfx. Difficulty settings, coop, and deathmatch are implemented.
                          
DRN_MUS.wad contains new midis; you can choose not to load it if you prefer Doom 2's soundtrack.
                          
The included .deh contains story and automap names, only necessary for ports without embedded DEHACKED support (Chocolate Doom, doom2.exe, etc).

 

Download: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/drn

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Benjogami

[Teo Slayer]

Looks good. I'll try it on WAD Commander

[Walter confetti]

Looks really neat indeed!

[Jayextee]

These tutti-frutti doors tho. :/

 

[Noiser]

Oh yeah, that's my jam! 32 maps is an impressive feat, will give it a try asap

[MidnightMage]

I love the screenshots for this! Looks great!

[msx2plus]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

edit: yo wtf a fucking polygon prompt midi?!?!?!???! i like you even more now

 

double edit: played the first few maps on HMP. fucking awesome stuff so far. map03 and map05 really doin' it for me. ammo seemed a little tight in map06 HMP until i made the entire town furious with me prior to actually engaging with them.

 

triple edit: played through a good chunk of what's here (as my following posts will make obvious) and really love most of it. doors of opportunity is fucking incredible, it got more than a few laughs out of me. some clever and befuddling work here, as per usual from you. really enjoy the smaller scale of these and the accessibility difficulty-wise is a treat for others looking to get into what you do. i dig how your messy aesthetics work in such a limited environment, it plays well to the low geometry detail.

Edited August 29, 2021 by msx2plus

[P41R47]

Quite abstract maps.
Been really long since i saw something like this.
Glad you make it, as abstract galore with good gameplay is always a joy.
;)

PD: I love the Compblu as waterfalls.
Absolutely sophisticate touch!
did you know that you can make them vertical scroll?

[msx2plus]

map09 has a small sector tagged as a secret beside the actual secret sector

 

[edit] in map10 (which is a banger for sure) there's a part where you lower a slime platform and then flick a switch that seems to raise another thing - said thing reverted to its other position and i can't use the switch again, is there something i'm missing or am i barking up the wrong tree totally?

 

map21 has HOMs on the inside of these shapes, maybe intentional but wanted to double check:

Edited August 29, 2021 by msx2plus

[RevenantFTS97]

The maps were tested in CHOCOLATE DOOM? That's fuckin great! (Chocolate DOOM is my favourite source port, so it is really exciting to read that)

EDIT: Right now I can't record stuff, but as soon as I got all my tools to play 'n' record, I'll share my experience.

BTW: What does RC1 mean?

[msx2plus]

7 minutes ago, RevenantFTS97 said:

BTW: What does RC1 mean?

release candidate. basically "this is potentially done barring any fixes we missed"

[RevenantFTS97]

4 hours ago, msx2plus said:

release candidate. basically "this is potentially done barring any fixes we missed"

Ahhhhhh, that is something I didn't know about. Thanks for answering my question

[kalensar]

I gotta ask. What does the RC1 mean? I've been seeing this pop more often over here but I've not a clue what it means.

[msx2plus]

2 minutes ago, kalensar said:

I gotta ask. What does the RC1 mean? I've been seeing this pop more often over here but I've not a clue what it means.

 

1 hour ago, msx2plus said:

release candidate. basically "this is potentially done barring any fixes we missed"

 

[kalensar]

Played and died to Map 02. Really generous and pretty fun. Holy Rocket Launcher love. Definitely took a page out of Plutonia for this one. lmao

[Jacek Bourne]

Looks interesting. I will probably take a closer look soon.

[OpenRift]

On 8/29/2021 at 3:08 PM, Jayextee said:

These tutti-frutti doors tho. :/

 

This is actually a really easy fix, @Benjogami. If you go into Slade and find the texture in the TEXTURES list, double the height, then manually tile it, then the tutti-frutti will go away.

[THEBaratusII]

A couple of bugs I've noticed. Played using DOOM32 (DOSBox-Staging)

 

In MAP01 at the acid area, it doesn't seem to hurt me when in there and I can't escape that area either.

 

And after completing MAP01, entering MAP02 gave me an error

Quote

Z_CheckHeap: block size does not touch the next block.

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by THEBaratusII : Happened when entering MAP02, not MAP03

[OpenRift]

35 minutes ago, THEBaratusII said:

A couple of bugs I've noticed. Played using DOOM32 (DOSBox-Staging)

  

In MAP01 at the acid area, it doesn't seem to hurt me when in there and I can't escape that area either.

  

And after completing MAP02, entering MAP03 gave me an error

 

I got it after completing MAP01, entering MAP03

[Benjogami]

On 8/29/2021 at 1:58 PM, msx2plus said:

map09 has a small sector tagged as a secret beside the actual secret sector

 

[edit] in map10 (which is a banger for sure) there's a part where you lower a slime platform and then flick a switch that seems to raise another thing - said thing reverted to its other position and i can't use the switch again, is there something i'm missing or am i barking up the wrong tree totally?

 

map21 has HOMs on the inside of these shapes, maybe intentional but wanted to double check:

 

MAP09 and MAP21 definitely bugs, thanks. MAP10 issue: the yellow key gets closed up if you walk through the slime lift, but you should be able to lower the lift and shoot the switch behind it again to re-open it. I think I made it that way because I thought people would open the yellow key while shooting the imps, not knowing what they did, so I made it close again so they'd have to figure it out. :P

 

49 minutes ago, THEBaratusII said:

A couple of bugs I've noticed. Played using DOOM32 (DOSBox-Staging)

 

In MAP01 at the acid area, it doesn't seem to hurt me when in there and I can't escape that area either.

 

And after completing MAP02, entering MAP03 gave me an error

 

 

14 minutes ago, OpenRift said:

I got it after completing MAP01, entering MAP03

MAP01 pit definitely a bug.

 

I haven't yet tested in DOSBox, I'll be sure to look into that Z_CheckHeap error, hopefully not too troublesome to fix.

 

Thanks for the reports!

[Benjogami]

On 8/29/2021 at 12:35 PM, msx2plus said:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

edit: yo wtf a fucking polygon prompt midi?!?!?!???! i like you even more now

 

double edit: played the first few maps on HMP. fucking awesome stuff so far. map03 and map05 really doin' it for me. ammo seemed a little tight in map06 HMP until i made the entire town furious with me prior to actually engaging with them.

I actually found that midi in a big zip of dance midis and had to do some searching to find out who they were and listen to their music proper, and I really dig it. Always fun to discover new music via midis. :D

 

Also, glad you're enjoying. :D

[Doomkid]

On 8/30/2021 at 5:08 AM, Jayextee said:

These tutti-frutti doors tho. :/

extreme 1995 authenticity, made me download the wad the nanosecond I clicked this thread! This wad looks awesome..

[msx2plus]

3 hours ago, Benjogami said:

MAP09 and MAP21 definitely bugs, thanks. MAP10 issue: the yellow key gets closed up if you walk through the slime lift, but you should be able to lower the lift and shoot the switch behind it again to re-open it. I think I made it that way because I thought people would open the yellow key while shooting the imps, not knowing what they did, so I made it close again so they'd have to figure it out. :P

oh shit it's a shootable switch! i didn't even realize since all the other uses of that switch texture in the map are push switches. i know your design choices tend to be very hostile (which i really like, not knowing what the fuck to do is half the fun in more abstract maps), so i won't recommend changing it ;)

 

4 hours ago, OpenRift said:

This is actually a really easy fix, @Benjogami

it's intentional (see readme - and also look at some of benjo's other maps, such as The Egg Of Human Endeavors)

[OpenRift]

13 hours ago, msx2plus said:

it's intentional (see readme - and also look at some of benjo's other maps, such as The Egg Of Human Endeavors)

Aha, so it's going for the sort of shovelware look? I had that feeling from the first level.

[GarrettChan]

In my mind... Benjo and vanilla maps don't go together...

[Nikku4211]

In general not a big fan of the slaughtermap gameplay I've seen in the maps so far, but I have been unable to beat MAP08 because I'm stuck at the bottom right area, where I cannot figure out if there even is a puzzle or something.

 

I have used up all of the available radiation suits not knowing what to do or where to go, and when I discovered there was a lift, it was too late, because even with over 150% health, the lift has a damaging floor like the rest of the area, so by the time the lift goes up to where I came from, I'm already dead.

[P41R47]

Worst slaughtermap player reporting here!

Hey, Benjo, for the first time i'm enjoying slaughtermaps!!!
i can't believe it!
But this is seriously fun for sure.
OK, i'm the worst of the worstest, so i play on HNTR continuous, and for sure, great experience.
But i pistol start from where i die, so its a semi continuous maybe.
And i already made it up to map23 right now.
Loving it so far.

:D

I wonder if this also has the vanilla sprite limit into account.
I suspect not, but well, great mapset :)

This is great entrypoint for begginer slaughterplayers for sure.
So this is an amazing achievement community wise.

And you even prove wrong the old saying that goes something like that slaughter maps are nigh impossible to make on vanilla setting.

Grat Job!
;) 

[BoxY]

Really great stuff, I played through to map13 so far in chocolate and had a blast. It's the kind of mapping where I could never put into words that I want something like this, but when someone finally makes it, I immediately know that it's what I needed. I had no real issues so far except for one VPO, where in map04 if you stand in the berserk secret area and use the switch to drop the sector if front of you then look towards it, the game will consistently crash (approximately this view): 

 

 

Not sure why it crashes here because this scene doesn't exactly look like it's pushing the limits of sector detail but I guess the engine just wants to be like that sometimes.

[msx2plus]

9 hours ago, OpenRift said:

Aha, so it's going for the sort of shovelware look? I had that feeling from the first level.

not so much shovelware as just being a bit abrasive - the map layouts are actually stellar for the most part and have great flow, they're just a little off-kilter.

 

7 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

In my mind... Benjo and vanilla maps don't go together...

i was surprised to see it too!

 

also surprised to see this described as slaughter-adjacent. the maps can definitely get busy and are harder than average sets (HMP is my tapping out point, especially later in the set) but it doesn't feel particularly extreme. it's very welcoming stuff!

[Benjogami]

20 hours ago, Nikku4211 said:

[...] I have been unable to beat MAP08 because I'm stuck at the bottom right area, where I cannot figure out if there even is a puzzle or something. [...]

That fight is meant to be a bit of a trap, either challenging extra content for completionists, or a regrettable find for unsuspecting explorers.

 

But I think I will make it so the lift doesn't damage, or something like that, cause it is pretty rough that you can be stuck down there after "winning" the fight. Sorry about that. :D

19 hours ago, P41R47 said:

[...] Hey, Benjo, for the first time i'm enjoying slaughtermaps!!!
i can't believe it!

I wonder if this also has the vanilla sprite limit into account.
I suspect not, but well, great mapset :)

I'm also a bit surprised that these are called slaughtermaps! But there are certainly a few (maybe several?): 26 and 29 come to mind. There will be some sprite flickering on a few maps, but I tried to keep it pretty chill. Glad you're enjoying. :)

18 hours ago, BoxY said:

I had no real issues so far except for one VPO, where in map04 if you stand in the berserk secret area and use the switch to drop the sector if front of you then look towards it, the game will consistently crash (approximately this view): 

[...]

D'oh. That's an area I've struggled with, reworked that corner a couple times. I thought I fixed it but didn't try it with the lift down! Good catch.