Techblast - blast yourself through 2 new maps

[EANB]

Download here: Techblast.zip

 

Techblast is a 2 map wad for Boom compatible ports (tested in GZDoom, Prboom, DSDA Doom and Doom Retro) featuring classic styled techbases and some difficult encounters. 

 

MAP01 starts things off with a slower paced exploratory level, then MAP02 escalates into harder encounters. Difficulty levels are supported, and I recommend HMP for the first time through unless you're a very confident player. Freelook is fine, jumping is not. It can be played continuously or with pistol starts.

 

This year, I want to try to release more smaller projects like this every couple of months instead of just one big one, and hopefully this starts things off well.

 

Credits

Texture pack is Jimmytex

Music: "Journey through the Unknown" and "The Anthrax Solution", both from the Alien Vendetta midi pack.

 

Screenshots:

 

 

 
 

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by EANB

[Kan3]

I tested it in HMP (how you suggested and thank god I did listened (x )

 

Both maps are really well made, especially the first one.

There are tons of details and I liked the fact that you built up small scenarios outside of the maps, it really helped with the "immersion".

There's a nice use of the default textures, nothing felt out of place (maybe only the total blue rooms, but it could be my "hate" for them) and the same goes for the architecture: it's vary and definitely not boring with all the indented lights.

 

Just 2 things for map 1:

• the scrolling tech textures indented in the pillars in the blue room are misaligned
• In the tiny room where there's the yellow switch, I think you should raise the ceiling of the little stone brick passages: it's not very appealing to see half revenant into the ceiling.

Also Very nice map 2, but it looked a lot more simple (visually speaking).
It felt like a big cube filled with more little cubic rooms/spaces where the grey is possibly a bit too predominant.

 

About the gameplay: I found it well balanced, in every term.

There's enough health, enough ammo, enough armor and enough weapons to deal with the hordes, but you've been able to maintain a quite high level of difficulty thanks to well placed traps (talking again about map 1).

I couldn't find the secret anywhere though.

My favorite part is probably the S shaped blue corridor, where you open up multiple walls multiple times, it was thrilling and well done.

Even if, after that, it comes the part I found a bit "cheesy".

You spawned tons of monsters in a room, but these folks are forced to converge into the blue corridor to get the player, giving him a "thermopylae fight-like" scenario, but if things don't go as planned, he could just flee from there with ease. I could suggest to block the only escape route for the player, so that one cannot just back away in safety. This way the fight won't change too much, it won't become really harder, but it could give some panic vibes knowing that you're trapped if things go bad.

 

With map 2 you kept your word x)

First part it's quite tricky, but it has been fun to find away to let the demons infight and survive (I had 15 hp cause of my really bad archvile management in the previous map) and the same goes for the next part (god blesses cyberdemons).

Not really a fan of the mancubus rain and massive spawn fest later on, but it could just be me again, since I usually despite slaughter maps and that part reminded me one of those.

A question though: Was the cyberdemon supposed to be "asleep" when the monsters start to spawn? cause I was thinking that the goal of that part was to be "helped" by the cyberboy to clean the mess up, but it took him a while to wake up (still dunno why), so I found myself dying pretty badly (quite my fault cause I didn't picked up the BFG thinking I was going into a greater trap).

 

Anyhow, I really liked both of them, I really enjoyed the playthrough, thanks to the 80s-action-movie-like tracks too x)

Great work!    

[ryiron]

Played the first map on UV. Died stupidly in my first attempt, but completed it on the second.

 

Enjoyable map with some good traps that aren't unfair to blind play throughs. I like the interconnected-ness of the map, and how you can see areas before you encounter them. The detailing and texturing is done well. The platforms with chaingunners that teleport in lost souls/cacos when they die is a clever trick. The fight with the archvile at the end is cool, I like the in-fight opportunity with the chaingunners. It's a refreshing twist on the old archvile in the exit room trope.

 

My main critique is that the map gets a bit easy once you get the plasma gun since there are way more than enough cell pickups. For example, the bite is completely taken out of the raising floor fight in the yellow key room, since you can just hang back, spam plasma, and then even fully restock with some to spare.

 

I was expecting the revenants in the blue corridor on the way to the yellow key to teleport behind me, which is why I ran back to the entrance. The ceiling in that room is low enough that the revenant's head is clipping through it. The shape of the corridor also makes it easy to take on the revenants one by one (that said, I did cop a missile to the head). Not sure if that is the intended strategy?

 

I got slightly confused trying to get the yellow key. The stairs blend into the surrounding walls since everything is the same shade of blue. A different lighting/texture on the stairs could help with this. I also couldn't remember where the yellow door was after getting the key (watch me be dumb and fall into the berserk trap twice while looking). Possibly having some monsters spawn in to lead the player in the right direction? I'm not sure what the intended method for finding the secret is. I noticed it on the automap, and then just humped walls until I stumbled into it. I didn't see any other visual indicator of where it was, but might've missed something?

 

I'll try to find some time to play the second map later.

 

FDA

 

Second attempt: UV-Max

 

[ryiron]

Managed to beat the second map. Again I died early in my FDA. A bit annoying, I really should have seen the trap coming. I thought I was ok, but just caught the edge of a caco fireball. Similar to map01, the UV-Max play-through is blind after the point where I died in the FDA.

 

I really like the opening area for this one. I'm a bit fan of figure out what to do in a room of sleeping monsters puzzles. The caco/pain elemental trap is good. With infinite height monsters it can get a bit tough to manoeuvre, but you can circle around the tunnel and ledge. 

 

The fight with the revenants and the cyberdemon at the back was a bit odd. I had no idea the cyberdemon was there until I'd removed most of the revenants, so I couldn't really use him to in-fight. I didn't have enough plasma, and I attempting to sneak past him seemed a bit dicey, so I had to shotgun him down from the pit. The angle makes it tricky to avoid splash damage. Not sure what the intentional method for this fight is?

 

The first outdoor fight isn't too hard if you just drop down to the water. You can then just duck and cover with the rocket launcher. The only worrying moment was getting wedged by the spider, but I should've just had the plasma out and it wouldn't have been a problem.

 

I liked the archvile red switch trap. It's heavily telegraphed, but I expected the archvile (I guessed correctly) to come from the teleporter, not from behind. I think my thought process went: Huh? it's just pinkies. Oh no, I gonna get zapped. 

 

The big outdoor battle with the cyberdemon is a bit too easy to just camp in the corner for. The cyberdemon is easily distracted, and you can just clear some space with the BFG and then rocket everything else. The final fight with the monsters spawning back in the start area is a bit anti-climatic after this since you can just hang back and spam rockets (I had heaps at this point).

 

Overall I liked the map. Texture and lighting is nice. The fights are enjoyable, and like map01 the traps provide enough surprise without feeling trollish. I think it's just a little bit easy to camp in some of the fights. 

 

FDA

 

UV-Max: Blind from the FDA death onwards:

 

[Kor]

Good couple of levels.  Though I didn't find them as difficult as I was expecting (which is fine).  I liked the modified Doom textures (at least I'm pretty sure they're modified from Doom).

[Gibbon]

MAP01 was nice, loved slimetails.  MAP02 was a bit harder than I was expecting.  Overall some nice action packed levels.  Died a lot, played a lot..  good stuff.

 

Oh, and it works in ReBOOM just fine, thumbs up for that!

[Biodegradable]

I found both maps to be great fun. Cool, varied combat that was full of surprises and challenge without being overly sadistic; fun layouts/designs and solid texture work. Short and sweet techbase maps that were a joy to smash through.

 

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by Biodegradable

[Clippy]

@Biodegradable recommended these to me but I didn't get the short experience he did lol - that fight on map 2 after the red key made me start over and WOW it was a fight I felt was impossible but when I figured it out it was a good feeling. These maps are cool and devious - I actually had a blast despite longer gameplay than I like- part 2 is still processing to build suspence

 

 

 

 

[EANB]

Thanks for the detailed write-ups. I've updated the wad with some changes to the first map, mainly adjusting some geometry so revenant heads don't clip as much, aligning the scrolling textures and highlighting the stairs in the blue room.

 

On 1/14/2022 at 8:11 AM, Kan3 said:

 

A question though: Was the cyberdemon supposed to be "asleep" when the monsters start to spawn? cause I was thinking that the goal of that part was to be "helped" by the cyberboy to clean the mess up, but it took him a while to wake up (still dunno why), so I found myself dying pretty badly (quite my fault cause I didn't picked up the BFG thinking I was going into a greater trap).

 

Anyhow, I really liked both of them, I really enjoyed the playthrough, thanks to the 80s-action-movie-like tracks too x)

Great work!    

The Cyberdemon is mainly there to make it harder for you to just camp at the far end of the hallway and lob rockets, though you can make him useful. He should teleport in with the rest of the monsters, so I don't know what happened there, unless the revenant on his perch was still alive.

 

On 1/14/2022 at 10:39 AM, ryiron said:

I'm not sure what the intended method for finding the secret is. I noticed it on the automap, and then just humped walls until I stumbled into it. I didn't see any other visual indicator of where it was, but might've missed something?

 

 

The only indicator is the thin blue pathway leading to it. I guess it becomes harder to see once you lower the floor to the adjoining room.

 

18 hours ago, ryiron said:

The fight with the revenants and the cyberdemon at the back was a bit odd. I had no idea the cyberdemon was there until I'd removed most of the revenants, so I couldn't really use him to in-fight. I didn't have enough plasma, and I attempting to sneak past him seemed a bit dicey, so I had to shotgun him down from the pit. The angle makes it tricky to avoid splash damage. Not sure what the intentional method for this fight is?

 

The big outdoor battle with the cyberdemon is a bit too easy to just camp in the corner for. The cyberdemon is easily distracted, and you can just clear some space with the BFG and then rocket everything else. The final fight with the monsters spawning back in the start area is a bit anti-climatic after this since you can just hang back and spam rockets (I had heaps at this point).

 

The revenant fight is a bit of a trade off with whether you chose to use the plasma to make the revenants or cyberdemon easier. I suppose it's never actually that much fun to have to resort to hitscan weapons on a cyberdemon though, and you can't really see the cyberdemon to make that choice ahead of time...

 

I agree with you that the final fight is a little anticlimactic. I was hesitant to put in something bigger because there was such a big fight beforehand and I thought the map might get a bit too exhausting. 

 

@Clippy 

Hey I'm glad you had a better time here than with Snowfury :p 

 

Unfortunate you missed the rocket launcher in the second map. It might be a good idea to put in another rocket launcher later since you were able to get so far before being soft-locked.

[Clippy]

yah I developed this weird disease that prevents me from finding or picking up rocket launchers in maps

 

You'll see what happens without it in part 2 lol

[BoxY]

Cool maps. Usually I make FDA lmps but I ended up recording a video instead as an experiment so I can just play casually with saves on longer maps. Look at me, I'm the youtuber now. These are recorded on the old version of the maps cuz the update came out basically while I was playing - oh well. These are UV with pistol starts, I was tempted to play map02 again with continuous resources to see how much it changed things but couldn't be bothered in the end.

 

 

map01 notes: Not sure if I would call this one exploratory because I felt like I was being gently pushed through the progression all the time, which is okay by me because it's better than being lost. The soulsphere room seems to be the only genuinely optional area. There's way more than enough resources on UV, especially when you get plasma which I don't mind either. I like the weak popcorn type enemies like the zombiemen in the plasma tunnel that aren't really placed to make the map harder but just because they're fun to kill. If I had one problem with the map overall I guess it's that it mostly follows the E1 texturing style so closely that it doesn't really have its own visual identity, but I know some people just love that look and never get tired of it.

 

map02: I screwed up the opening room a few times because I psyched myself into believing that the rocket launcher was somehow way more dangerous to get than it actually was, or maybe that I wasn't even supposed to get it yet despite being the thing you spawn into the map looking at, so I kinda just blundered down into the sewer part and got squashed. For idiot (me) proofing reasons it might be better to just force the player to pick up the rocket launcher before letting them go down as it's kinda mandatory, but I guess since it's right at the start it's okay to let the player figure it out on their own. Once I got that sorted the rest of the map was pretty fun, only not so favourite part probably being the mancubus ledge because it just felt like a lot of meat I had to get out of the way to progress, because on a blind run it's not easy to tell if it's possible to just push into them or not so I ended up just sniping them awkwardly from below. I agree that it's probably too easy to camp that one corner in the cyberdemon fight because you get so much ammo, maybe if after a while some hell knights or something started spawning back there to kick the player out it would be a bit more dynamic. Despite that the fight was still cool, the cyber placement was just right to not be too annoying. Managed to somehow walk past the whole optional BFG section multiple times going both ways, but I don't think that's the map's fault. I wouldn't have noticed it at all except when I saw I was going to exit without 100% kills. I didn't mind because I think BFG is probably way overkill for this type of map though.

Edited January 15, 2022 by BoxY

[EANB]

On 1/15/2022 at 11:02 PM, BoxY said:

map02: I screwed up the opening room a few times because I psyched myself into believing that the rocket launcher was somehow way more dangerous to get than it actually was, or maybe that I wasn't even supposed to get it yet despite being the thing you spawn into the map looking at, so I kinda just blundered down into the sewer part and got squashed. For idiot (me) proofing reasons it might be better to just force the player to pick up the rocket launcher before letting them go down as it's kinda mandatory, but I guess since it's right at the start it's okay to let the player figure it out on their own. 

You weren't the only one to do this, so I've updated the wad with a second rocket launcher after the first cyberdemon. This way I figure there's still incentive to clear the first room, and if you're able to clear the first cyberdemon without it you won't be let down with a soft lock. 

[princetontiger]

Quick shout out... these two maps were awesome! I loved the experience.

[sandwedge]

Fun maps, I love techbases the most.  Some dastardly traps even on HMP but nothing too crazy.  Favourite part is definitely 

Spoiler

the final battle, so satisfying to have the cyberdemon infight with the hoard, peaking around the corner to blast BFGs and rockets into the crowd.  I didn't even realize you could telefrag the cyberdemon!  It's so easy to pick them off from afar with plasma rifle spam, but makes sense to not require it.

 

[Stabbey]

Very nice. I did both maps from a pistol start on UV. Well okay, I initially carried stuff over from MAP01, but after I died to the Revenant teleport trap I opted to try the pistol start.

 

Map 01

EDIT: The suggestion someone made to lock you into the blue corridor so you can't retreat to safety is a good one. And instead of the switch to open the window, it should be a walkover trigger, to allow the Cacos and PE's to enter the space and actually pose a threat. Right now they're easily picked off through the closed window.  The blue hall should also be temporarily closed off at that time as well so the player can't retreat that way.

 

 

Map 02

 

I first lowered the bars, then ran around to the other side, grabbing armor and backpack, cutting in front of the chaingunners to snag the rocket launcher, then I dipped into the hole and blasted the imps straight ahead with rockets to clear them out, cleard the spectres with the SSG, the fliers with more rockets, and then the Revenants with Rockets so I could save the plasma for the Cyberdemon.

 

 

After that, it was a rocket to the chaingunners to the left of the lift, 2-3 more to kill the Revenant, hop over to grab the armor, double back and hide to let the cacos pass over the walkway, then race back around and open up the BFG to end that horde, finishing the Mancs off with rockets.

 

The red key fight took a few attempts. I eventually settled on rockets on everything until the Revenants closed, then many BFG blasts to open a big enough hole to start rocketing again, finishing off the Cyber with more rockets, and that was about it.

 

The final part at the end wasn't dangerous at all because of the walls for cover. Those last enemies might as well not be there at all. If you want them to be a threat, change how the exit opens (or add a delay) and maybe lock the player into that room at least temporarily so that they're forced to engage that room instead of hiding outside the door in complete safety.

 

EDIT 2: After watching Clippy's playthrough, I'd also consider adding a redundant Rocket Launcher near the SSG so players will have that. He jumped down without getting it and was kinda screwed for the rest of the map. Yes, it was technically his fault, but adding a redundant weapon occasionally isn't going to affect the balance of a map, so there's no downside to doing it.

 

Solid, if tough maps, with enough detail to keep them visually interesting. I didn't find the sole secret on the first map. My only real complaint would be that you could add in some additional secrets.

Edited February 9, 2022 by Stabbey : Map 01 suggestions.

[Vile]

This was a solid couple of maps, good work!

[bobbotron]

Only made it 20 minutes in so far but this is great fun! This map really delivers some solid classic doom goodness.  I like the music a lot too, was worried it would be a little too synth-y but it works well.

[azerty]