DSC Posted November 9, 2021 (edited) So, I was sinking time on TV Tropes, nothing out of the ordinary. One of the pages I came across was called "Awesome Levels", and as the title suggests its a collection of, well, awesome levels. I went straight to the Doom section out of curiosity... And OH BOY: The page itself:https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Awesome/VideoGameLevelsAToF 4 Share this post Link to post
Pechudin Posted November 9, 2021 I mean ... it's not wrong. Tricks and traps is quintessentially Sandy. Can you imagine Romero making something like that? 16 Share this post Link to post
DSC Posted November 9, 2021 Just now, Pechudin said: I mean ... it's not wrong. Tricks and traps is quintessentially Sandy. Can you imagine Romero making something like that? I don't think its entirely wrong, but its so hilarious considering the general opinions the community has on Sandy. 1 Share this post Link to post
lubba127 Posted November 9, 2021 his levels were creative all right, but not always very clever or well executed. tricks and traps is a pretty awesome level if you embrace the gimmick, and really that can be said for a handful of his maps. his levels aren't always the most beautiful, nor are they always well executed, but if all of his maps were shining examples of proper level design they'd probably be a lot less memorable! 5 Share this post Link to post
SMG_Man Posted November 9, 2021 You kinda have to contextualize it at the time they released Doom and Doom 2. I'm not so studied as to know by heart which specific levels each id guy did, but just glancing at his contributions on the doom Wiki, he certainly made a bunch of creative and standout maps imo. Tricks and Traps, Suburbs, and (from the original Doom) Halls of the Damned are all really unique levels and show off a wide variety of techniques/idea that laid the groundwork for a lot of mappers to come. And I applaud his more experimental design with levels like Fortress of Mystery, The Chasm, and Barrels o' Fun, even if they're considered memes nowadays; it's pretty clear to me that he tried not to make his levels feel same-y. 3 Share this post Link to post
ApprihensivSoul Posted November 9, 2021 I always imagine it as part of the production troubles both games had. I like to imagine that if Romero or American had gone through most of the Sandy levels and polished their aesthetics and tweaked the flow/balance slightly, we would have had a pretty perfect campaign for each. As it is, we didn't get it, though I can honestly say there aren't many Sandy levels I actually dislike. I'm a huge fan of the City episode of D2, for instance, and I've always loved Shores of Hell. 0 Share this post Link to post
KubaloBlackMT Posted November 9, 2021 (edited) Sandy's influence pretty much gives Doom its identity with the content of his maps. If you give Doom 1 to a first timer and they finish the game, they'll probably recall moments from episode 2. This is as long as they aren't just playing the shareware version. 6 Share this post Link to post
Astronomical Posted November 9, 2021 10 minutes ago, KubaloBlackMT said: Sandy's influence pretty much gives Doom its identity with the content of his maps. If you give Doom 1 to a first timer and they finish the game, they'll probably recall moments from episode 2. This is as long as they aren't just playing the shareware version. My first experience with doom was through the 360 release, and episode 2 was far more memorable than episode 1 for a while. Before I bought it again I had played alot of shareware doom, only through repetition have I remembered more than a handful of rooms in the first episode. 2 Share this post Link to post
P41R47 Posted November 9, 2021 I still waiting for someone to take the Sandy's approach and take it even further. Kinda what the Casali did, but adding the subtle sense of place Sandy has. To this date, the only mapset that somehow reach that point of amazing design is Three's a Crowd. 4 Share this post Link to post
Ragu Posted November 9, 2021 The only problem with Sandy's maps is that he had to crank out way too many of them in too short a time, so some of the levels are kind of weak. His best maps are my favorites of Doom 1/2, like The Suburbs, The Spirit World, Mt. Erebus, and of course Tricks and Traps, which might be my most favorite of the original two IWADs. 2 Share this post Link to post
Sergeant_Mark_IV Posted November 9, 2021 (edited) On 11/9/2021 at 5:28 PM, DSC said: but its so hilarious considering the general opinions the community has on Sandy. The hatred for Sandy is exaggerated and unjustified, sometimes purposely just for memes. There wasn't a pool long ago that concluded that the best Vanilla Doom level is E2M2? That's a Tom & Sandy map, not Romero's. Some people forget that Sandy made most of Doom's maps (and during Doom 2 he was often working under abusive conditions and timelines), so it's more likely to find bad maps made by Sandy than anybody else, and this is not his fault. (not only it's logical that if he made more maps that means there are higher chances of making more bad maps and you are more likely to perceive them, but also the added fact that he was the one that worked on the most toxic environment) Edited November 11, 2021 by Sergeant_Mark_IV 17 Share this post Link to post
Endless Posted November 10, 2021 We cannot deny that among all the mappers, Sandy was the most creative and experimental. His execution didn't always nailed the right path, but by the 90s, he was a master of creative design. Let's not forget that he had the pressure of having to do most of the Doom 2 levels in, what? A couple of months? So he probably didn't have that much time to refine his style. On the other hand, he managed to reward this with a key relevance to his design process: creating unique and experimental levels like no other in the team. Many may not like it, but he still manages to create discussion even decades later, I think that alone is testament to the fact that, in one way or another, he left an impact. Personally, Sandy is my least favorite mapper of the id guys, but he's also one of the ones I respect because of his creativity and desire to create a brand of his own. He may not have been as detailed and systematic as Romero, but he contributed to part of the cake, what makes Doom not a ''one-man-megawad'' game, is that there are different levels created by different people, effectively a sort of CP made by the first of its kind. I think this great, because it offers level diversity. 12 Share this post Link to post
TheMagicMushroomMan Posted November 10, 2021 (edited) I only flat-out dislike two or three of Sandy's maps, but I don't think Tricks and Traps on its own is quite enough to label him a "creative god". @Sergeant_Mark_IV You are correct, in any franchise/product that has multiple creative contributors, there will always be one that is designated "that guy", even if he is just 5% less efficient than "the other guys". You see this with music, TV, games, in pretty much every fandom. Then, later generations will overcompensate, and "that guy" is recognized as "underappreciated martyr" before he becomes "literally God" (not saying that this person is implying that about Sandy, but that is what often ends up happening). There is always a preceding "literally God" that declines to "overrated mainstream dude". Most people think Sandy is "that guy" just because someone else said so because someone else said so because someone else said so. Edited November 10, 2021 by TheMagicMushroomMan 8 Share this post Link to post
Rudolph Posted November 10, 2021 I like Tricks and Traps: it is a fun level and it is perfect to test mods. I do wish it featured the Supershotgun and the Chaingun, though. 0 Share this post Link to post
Egg Boy Posted November 10, 2021 I thought the general opinion on Petersen had completely shifted in the past few years. I was under the impression everyone loved him now. I mean, I do. 9 Share this post Link to post
Coopersville Posted November 10, 2021 I love MAP08. Solving as much of the level as possible before the Invulnerability Artifact wears off is fun as hell. All of the Doom 2 maps are kino until the lul in the city episode. Don't necessarily agree that Sandy is a god at level design, but he definitely had his moments, and his YouTube channel is bussin. 1 Share this post Link to post
Captain POLAND Posted November 10, 2021 I'm more surprised by what that page says about the levels in the Descent games... 0 Share this post Link to post
Okej5722 Posted November 10, 2021 Petersen's maps can be over-hated at times: but you can't deny that some of them are questionable in nature despite the 'creative' nature that was intended. But this "hot take" is far from one, it's the truth. Although Tricks And Traps is far from a creative masterpiece, the term "Gimmick Level" would be more appropriate, much in the case of The Crusher. 0 Share this post Link to post
DuckReconMajor Posted November 10, 2021 15 hours ago, Plank_Guy_89 said: My first experience with doom was through the 360 release, and episode 2 was far more memorable than episode 1 for a while. Before I bought it again I had played alot of shareware doom, only through repetition have I remembered more than a handful of rooms in the first episode. That was almost literally my exact experience as well! I'll probably never grow to like any of Sandy's Doom 2's city levels (or barf-dustrial zone), but outside of those I am quite fond of many Sandy maps. SMG_Man mentioned Halls of the Damned, the one time in Doom i was legitimately terrified. MAP28 is a Top 2 Doom 2 map for me. MAP08 is a weird one to pick on, that map is great! The last bit of fun I normally have in Doom 2 before I give up at The Pit lol 1 Share this post Link to post
Shepardus Posted November 10, 2021 Tricks and Traps is a good map. Now, if we were talking about The Factory, or Barrels o' Fun... 3 Share this post Link to post
Stupid Bunny Posted November 10, 2021 Sandy can claim some of the best and worst maps in Doom 1 and 2. This is partly due to his less polished but more experimental and free-flowing style and partly because he had a hand in like 2/3 of the total maps and he's just statistically likely to have entries near the top and bottom. 14 hours ago, Egg Boy said: I thought the general opinion on Petersen had completely shifted in the past few years. I was under the impression everyone loved him now. I mean, I do. Yeah I think appreciation for Sandy's work has grown since the misplaced knee-jerk mockery of yesteryear. It turns out that, yeah, the guy who made most of the maps in Doom actually made some of our favorite levels, and did so on a brutally tight schedule. And honestly even his "stinkers" aren't that bad for the most part. Like MAP12 has an unusually large selection of shitty boring bits for instance but Sandy still never made anything as bad as Habitat or Baron's Den. MAP08 is clever, yeah. I don't think it's as clever as it's sometimes made out to be, and I'm always a bit uneasy about pure gimmick levels that don't try to fit into the narrative flow of the game in some way, and I could really do without the inescapable trap at the very end of the level, but um...yeah, it's not bad. Oh yeah and I still like The Chasm 10 Share this post Link to post
Maximum Matt Posted November 21, 2021 Man the only bad Sandy map is Nirvana. Guy is a Doom Lord. 3 Share this post Link to post
Azure_Horror Posted November 21, 2021 On 11/10/2021 at 5:14 PM, Shepardus said: Tricks and Traps is a good map. Now, if we were talking about The Factory, or Barrels o' Fun... What's wrong with Barrels of Fun? I always thought that it is one of the most fun Doom2 levels, with many novel fight for a Doom2 map. 2 Share this post Link to post
Yumheart Posted November 21, 2021 (edited) I don't like all of his maps, but I really like Sandy for his inventiveness. I choose to believe that most of his bad maps are just bad because of enourmous time constrains. For example, if The Factory hadn't been made in like, presumably, a day, I'm sure it could've ended up as a really interesting and creepy exploration map with decent fights, comparable to smth like E2M2. All the elements are there, it just feels unfinished. Besides, Sandy has prooven that he can do amazing work if he's given the time, just take a look at E2M6 or The Chasm. 1 Share this post Link to post