Long Hair in Three Stages | 10 short maps for Boom

[Enterim]

 

Hello, happy 28th Doomiversary. I have made a 10-map standalone episode for Doom II, for Boom-compatible ports, called Long Hair in Three Stages, for solo or cooperative play. The maps are short and use all vanilla textures, as my goal was to gain some skills and get it out quickly. It was created in around 80 hours across 2 months and features an entirely custom soundtrack. The episode's title and map names come from the 1995 album "Long Hair in Three Stages" by U.S. Maple, a choice inspired by BTSX's affection for Guided by Voices.

 

I have tested the maps in PrBoom+ -cl 9, and GZDoom 4.5.0, and made tweaks based on a friend's playtest. Now I am opening it up for public play as a release candidate. The maps are short-ish and on the challenging side, and all 3 difficulties are supported. If you are a novice player I suggest playing on HMP instead of UV. Mouselook is optional but I ask that you do not use mouselook to cheese MAP10. Pistol starts are recommended but not forced except for 1 suicide exit.

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

 

DOWNLOAD: longhair.wad from idgames archive, TSPG or from Mediafire

 

Credits:

Spoiler

All maps by Enterim.

 

MAP01 "Hey King"
MAP02 "Letter to ZZ Top"
MAP03 "Home-Made Stuff"
MAP04 "Magic Job"
MAP05 "State Is Bad"
MAP06 "Aplomado"
MAP07 "You Know What... Will Get You You Know Where"
MAP08 "When a Man Says 'Ow'"
MAP09 "Northward"
MAP10 "Lady to Bing"

 

Music:

Title screen: "Kirkhope Sunshine" by Enterim
Intermission: "Kirkhope Pedal" by Enterim
Text screen: "Kirkhope B" by Enterim
MAP01: "Kirkhope Plumber" by Enterim
MAP02: "Indigent Burial Fund" by Enterim
MAP03: "Commemorative Tote" by Enterim
MAP04: "Pet Shop" by Enterim
MAP05: "Doomguy Wringer" by BLOODY BRAD
MAP06: "Michigan Impossible" and "Cloud Superior" by Enterim
MAP07: "Cover to Cover" by Mr. Alexander
MAP08: "Two Missed Calls" by Enterim
MAP09: "Needle Funk" by Enterim
MAP10: "Kirkhope Monster" by Enterim

 

Changelog:

Spoiler

 

New in RC2 (2021-12-11):

• De-cheesed the final fight of MAP04
• Added music for MAP06
• Added par times

 

New in RC3 (2021-12-16):

• MAP01: adjusted enemies on lower difficulties
• MAP02: replaced metal texture in very back of drop-down vent, and top of crate in warehouse that was wrong color
• MAP03: corrected texture misalignments in computer room, added some pistol guys to lower difficulties
• MAP04: fixed texture misalignment on fakeout plasma rifle platform
• MAP07: final fight anti-cheese
• MAP08 added health leading to the corpse factory and marble circle fight. cleaned up and fixed marble circular fight. removed post-map cleanup ammo.
• MAP09: put health in the opening of the final fight
• MAP10: fixed softlock if you try to telefrag the cyberdemon in the final arena

 

New in final update (2021-12-18):

• MAP01: added EXIT sign
• MAP05: fixed walkover triggers in blue key arena. fixed 2 monsters being stuck due to improper difficulty flags.
• MAP06: fixed cliffside textures
• MAP07: outer ring of monsters in final arena are no longer woken up too early

 

 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Enterim : updated to final version

[MFG38]

I love the title. :P

 

Screenshots look quite decent. Just downloaded, will give this a spin sometime soon. c:

[eharper256]

Immediately snapped this up to play since I love short and sweet maps. So far I've got nothing to complain about, and no kidding, they are super-short! I covered the first three maps in this new video:

 

After map 2's quick homage to Going Down, map 3 kinda reminded me of an extended e1m8 with the gradually falling parts, and I expected to eventually come across a pair of barons (lol). A couple of misalignments can be spotted in the video but otherwise pretty good.

[Enterim]

Thank you for the kind words. I have updated the WAD to Release Candidate 2. Here is what is new:

• De-cheesed the final fight of MAP04
• Added music for MAP06
• Added par times

DOWNLOAD: longhair_rc2.wad on TSPG or from Mediafire.

[Enterim]

Release Candidate 3 is out. This is likely to be the final version, barring discovery of any serious errors.

 

Changelog:

• MAP01: adjusted enemies on lower difficulties
• MAP02: replaced metal texture in very back of drop-down vent, and top of crate in warehouse that was wrong color
• MAP03: corrected texture misalignments in computer room, added some pistol guys to lower difficulties
• MAP04: fixed texture misalignment on fakeout plasma rifle platform
• MAP07: final fight anti-cheese
• MAP08 added health leading to the corpse factory and marble circle fight. cleaned up and fixed marble circular fight. removed post-map cleanup ammo.
• MAP09: put health in the opening of the final fight
• MAP10: fixed softlock if you try to telefrag the cyberdemon in the final arena

DOWNLOAD: longhair_rc3.wad from TSPG or Mediafire

[Enterim]

Final version now out, and on the idgames archive!

DOWNLOAD: longhair.wad from idgames, TSPG or from Mediafire

 

Here's a trailer:

 

Thanks for your time.

[Mr. Alexander]

Happy to have contributed a small bit of music to this! Christmas is busy, but I'm hoping to dig into this WAD soon.

[princetontiger]

I enjoyed playing these maps... thank you for making them!

 

PS - There were some bugs that made a few of the maps impossible to complete.

Edited December 31, 2021 by princetontiger

[Enterim]

Thanks! I'm glad you liked them.

 

2 hours ago, princetontiger said:

PS - There were some bugs that made a few of the maps impossible to complete.

 

Could you be more specific about what bugs you encountered, and on what source port? That's alarming to hear; I was pretty thorough in testing in PrBoom+ complevel 9 to ensure all maps would work fine any Boom-compatible port. I've seen a couple people complete it in GZDoom alright without using strict compatibility settings too, so I'm having trouble guessing what issues you encountered.

[princetontiger]

MAP04 (end... didn't work)

 

and MAP08 (the room where you fight the spawning sergeants/zombieman/commandos) has an issue with the bars closing before you can run out.

[Enterim]

Thanks for the report. I was unable to reproduce any issue on MAP04 -- the lift up to the exit works, the exit itself works, and you are able to run through all the map again to exit if you take the courtesy teleporter. I did this test again in PrBoom+ -cl 9, but I have confirmed it works in GZDoom as well.

 

As for MAP08... you're right!

This linedef that triggers the bars to lower initially spanned the entire entrance, but as I added lighting/teleport destination sectors to that area, I accidentally divided the linedef into 5 pieces. You have to be in a pretty specific spot by the wall to hit the outer 4 triggers, hence why neither I nor my playtesters ever caught this while playing. But the switch that raises the bars activates is a S1, and if you manage to hit those tiny linedefs, you can indeed softlock yourself. Shit!

 

However, I think this is uncommon enough that I don't feel justified in trying to replace the idgames upload. Perhaps I will upload a hotfix to mediafire.

 

Thanks for playing the maps and giving feedback.