Nuclear Bunker, 15 years late

[Dr. Zin]

Hey everyone, long time no see!

 

Decided to finally get off my ass and release something after over ten years of inactivity. This map has completed and sitting on my hard drive since early 2007 (15 years!), so I uploaded it to IDgames: Nuclear Bunker. It's Boom compatible, but needs a "strong" limit removing port since it has over 32k segs. Originally this map was supposed be the first of a mini-episode of five interconnected megamaps that would have started with this techbase, proceeded through a cavern system (MAP02), then emerged above ground into a colony/city (MAP03) before moving into an outdoor industrial complex (MAP04) and finished in a more hellish brick citadel (MAP05). MAP01 was the only map that was completed, though MAP02-05 were all at least started even if each only got 5-33% finished. The project was way overambitious for my skillset and patience at the time, and within a couple years I was off to grad school so didn't have the time to work on such projects anymore.

 

As for MAP01 itself, it's a mostly indoor techbase 'dungeon crawl' with some nonlinear sections and relatively low intensity combat with a few set piece battles. It is very much a product of its era, and there are certainly game play and architectural sins that don't fly today. Since this is kind of a time capsule of my mapping during the period I haven't altered anything, so you're getting the unfiltered 2007 experience. At a couple points progression will probably be difficult to figure out, spoilers at the end of this post for solving those issues. Although the map is definitely flawed based on modern expectations I was extremely proud of it at the time. It is certainly better than any of the other maps that I've released, and certainly more representative of my personal style than the widely panned MAP20 and MAP26 from Community Chest 3 (the only maps of mine anyone is likely to still remember). There's a whole discussion to be had dissecting what went wrong with my CC3 maps; I'd like to go back at some point and revise MAP20, since there are some good ideas there that got bogged down by inexperience and an inability to recognize sections that didn't work, but that's a post for another time.

 

Anyway, I'd love to hear your guy's thoughts and criticisms on the map. I have a thick skin (and there are many aspects that I would change if I were making the map today), so don't worry about hurting my feelings! I'm thinking about getting back into mapping, and could use the feedback.

 

Spoiler

Hints. After reentering the tech part of the base following the claustrophobic black cave section you need to find an open room with three fenced off pools of water and a large pumping machine. Activate the switch by the pump to open the doors behind the pools. The leftmost door (looking from the pump area) has a switch that will raise the water in its pool. Hitting that switch will cause a waterfall blocking a hallway on the other side of the map to open, from which you can enter a processing area with more machinery and four vats of nukage. There is a switch flanked by blue lights in an annex of this area reached by an elevator on the opposite end of the chamber from the nukage pools. Hitting this switch opens a door with blue lights on it at the end of a long hallway near the first water pumping room leading into the last portion of the map.

 

[RED77]

That was a biiiig map. Not to hard. but a lot of fun to explore. Only got 7 secrets.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

Oh man, CC3. Fascinating time capsule. Despite the sins of yesteryear mapping, I'm quite excited to play this. I'll give a bit of a review when I do. 

 

If it means anything, I'd love to see some new maps from you as I quite enjoy the entire Community Chest series, warts and all :)

[Dusty_Rhodes]

I beat it on UV in PrBoom+. Great level. It's very 2000s, the sprawling tech base fad was definitely in full swing but I love that stuff so it's alright. You can tell there was a lot of work put into this map; the layout is very developed, the weapon placements are deliberate and the enemies rarely feel arbitrary. I didn't enjoy the beginning very much as the low ammo and dark areas make picking off the imps with the pistol a bit annoying. Once we get past the warehouse and into the caves is where the worst part of the level is. It's all one light level and is very mono - textured (with the beautiful ASHWALL too heh). This section winds and winds until you suddenly get to the end of it. However, that is where the map really gets good. The atmosphere has been building the whole time and the tense crawl through the detailed tech base just builds the anticipation for the bigger fights. Also with minimal texture usage, the visuals are surprisingly developed and the rooms all look quite distinct and detailed. I did get lost a little bit, but I think that's more because of the size and complexity of the layout, not because of samey - ness. The action is kept to a minimum for the most parts but there are some solid ambushes. I only found five of the seventeen secrets but they helped out a lot, especially the backpack and berserk. The final fight in the ending room was what the map really needed, a big finish with a shot of adrenaline to end it off with.

 

Overall, I really liked it. The layout was always satisfying to figure out, the architecture and natural vistas looked great, the combat wasn't the most exciting but was enjoyable, and the popup Baron in the corridor with the translucent WFALLs was startling in a memorable way. My biggest complaints are with the start of the map and the fact I missed like 30 monsters and at least the Plasma Rifle secret because I went into the exit first. If you like old school 2000s mapping and have a decent attention span, this is totally worth playing. Good job mate! I know you said you had thick skin for criticism but I give a lot of this stuff a pass since it's from 2007. I wish my maps were this detailed and well made to be honest.

 

 

edit

 

sorry for the horrific crime that is double - posting ;)

[Not Jabba]

I was always a fan of "Geist Halls," so it's really cool to see you releasing what looks like a spiritual sequel to it.

[Kor]

Pretty good level.  Seemed about as a detailed as a lot of levels today are.  I enjoyed it.

[RichardDS90]

21 hours ago, Dr. Zin said:

It is certainly better than any of the other maps that I've released, and certainly more representative of my personal style than the widely panned MAP20 and MAP26 from Community Chest 3 (the only maps of mine anyone is likely to still remember). There's a whole discussion to be had dissecting what went wrong with my CC3 maps; I'd like to go back at some point and revise MAP20, since there are some good ideas there that got bogged down by inexperience and an inability to recognize sections that didn't work, but that's a post for another time.

Those two maps got panned?! That's a surprise, I absolutely loved MAP20 and I do have a soft spot for 26 despite it's flaws, I would love to see your revision for MAP20 though.

 

But onto the topic at hand, I shall try your new maps out at some point as they look pretty fun.

[Dr. Zin]

13 hours ago, RED77 said:

That was a biiiig map. Not to hard. but a lot of fun to explore. Only got 7 secrets.

Yeah, I was personally always more of a fan of exploration than heavy combat. When I ran through the map I found about nine secrets - I've forgotten where the rest are without looking through an editor!

 

11 hours ago, Dusty_Rhodes said:

I didn't enjoy the beginning very much as the low ammo and dark areas make picking off the imps with the pistol a bit annoying. Once we get past the warehouse and into the caves is where the worst part of the level is. It's all one light level and is very mono - textured (with the beautiful ASHWALL too heh). This section winds and winds until you suddenly get to the end of it. However, that is where the map really gets good. The atmosphere has been building the whole time and the tense crawl through the detailed tech base just builds the anticipation for the bigger fights. Also with minimal texture usage, the visuals are surprisingly developed and the rooms all look quite distinct and detailed. I did get lost a little bit, but I think that's more because of the size and complexity of the layout, not because of samey - ness.

There's actually a shotgun in the starting area, sitting atop one of the crates. The idea was putting a little pressure on the player with the imps while they are looking for the SG. Thinking about it now, it would have been more interesting to make the shotgun visible from the start but make the player jump from crate to crate dodging imps to get to it. I agree that the ASHWALL caves are the weak point of the level. At the time I thought having players fight specters in situations where you basically can only track them by sound was cool rather than tedious (as seen in a couple of my other maps), and looking at it now the whole section is filler. If I were to revise the level I would tear out that whole section and replace it with a more open cavern area.

 

As for the architectural design, I remember using a couple strategies to keep things fresh. The first was putting little insets in walls with contrasting textures, as combining textures this way makes areas look distinct while staying cohesive. It also lets you stretch a limited texture set, though you do end up using a lot more segs. The other main design trick was having areas that the player can see but not access, it makes a room feel bigger and again gives it distinctness. Finally, I tried to avoid repeating architectural motifs excessively.

 

11 hours ago, Not Jabba said:

I was always a fan of "Geist Halls," so it's really cool to see you releasing what looks like a spiritual sequel to it.

Geist Halls was one of my first maps (in fact, the first SP map I ever released), and as such it's rather crude and surprising to me that anything works in that map at all. I guess even blind hogs find an acorn every once in a while. The development of that map is somewhat interesting in itself, the claustrophobic red key area was actually intended to be it's own map but it ended up getting incorporated into Geist Halls. Also, the yellow key area with the crate warehouse and elevator to a landing pad was actually inspired by an even earlier unreleased (and now lost) map, and that motif would reappear in DAC7.wad. You can see the evolution of my style during that period if you play (in order) Geist Halls, uplink.wad, Duplex (dac7.wad) (which was put together in about a month for a Christmas compilation) and finally Nuclear Bunker. Around the time I was working on Nuclear Bunker I started work on my first Community Chest 3 map (MAP20) where I began trying to expand my style, being inspired by watching UVmax demos of mapsets like Hell Revealed 2; the results were mixed at best. But again, talking about the CC3 maps is a discussion of it's own...

 

I actually have a couple post-CC3 maps sitting around that are finished, originally intended to be the start of a megawad. Again, an instance of too much ambition and too little free time. I may try to complete a short episode including them someday (they are much smaller than Nuclear Bunker).

 

4 hours ago, Kor said:

Pretty good level.  Seemed about as a detailed as a lot of levels today are.  I enjoyed it.

Thanks, I was heavily inspired by maps like IC2004 back in the day.

 

26 minutes ago, Salahmander2 said:

Those two maps got panned?! That's a surprise, I absolutely loved MAP20 and I do have a soft spot for 26 despite it's flaws, I would love to see your revision for MAP20 though.

When it came out MAP20 was cited by many people as one of the worst maps of CC3! If I were to revise it, I would cut out some big chunks, expand a couple others, and rearrange the order of several of the segments. I'd also rebalance some of the fights to make them less static. A note that may be of interest on MAP26: it was put together in about a month at the end of the project when several people couldn't complete their maps, I and a couple others put together maps on short notice for those empty slots so CC3 wouldn't have filler maps like CC1 and CC2 did.

 

15 hours ago, Dusty_Rhodes said:

If it means anything, I'd love to see some new maps from you as I quite enjoy the entire Community Chest series, warts and all :)

 

As said above, I actually have a couple post-CC3 maps ready and waiting for the right project. I also have several uncompleted maps I'd like to eventually finish and release, including what would have been MAP04 and MAP05 of the project that Nuclear Bunker was supposed to be a part of. Also, I just signed up for a map slot on Devious Deviance...

[RichardDS90]

Just now, Dr. Zin said:

When it came out MAP20 was cited by many people as one of the worst maps of CC3! If I were to revise it, I would cut out some big chunks, expand a couple others, and rearrange the order of several of the segments. I'd also rebalance some of the fights to make them less static. A note that may be of interest on MAP26: it was put together in about a month at the end of the project when several people couldn't complete their maps, I and a couple others put together maps on short notice for those empty slots so CC3 wouldn't have filler maps like CC1 and CC2 did.

If you did revise it, certainly wouldn't be the same without both the mountain climb and the music, both make the map for me.

 

If anything, I'd consider Atlantis Rising to be the weakest, what with it's narrow jumps and whatnot.

 

It certainly explains why MAP26 felt somewhat odd in the final third, though I'd rather that than the fillers 1 and 2 had, especially Gene Bird's maps.

[Dr. Zin]

Oh, the climb out of the crater at the end of CC3 MAP20 was the part I was most proud of on that map! Most of the changes I would make are earlier in the map: I'd have the player start in the tall room where the cacos come in through the windows, and I'd probably have it connect directly to the big square empty tech room, outright eliminating the blood cavern area (which was terrible) and nearby green outdoor section. I'd then expand the two side branches from the big square room, and also probably revamp the final fight area. Perhaps it could be interesting at some point to make a thread where mappers look at older maps that they aren't satisfied with and revamp them.

[RichardDS90]

4 minutes ago, Dr. Zin said:

Perhaps it could be interesting at some point to make a thread where mappers look at older maps that they aren't satisfied with and revamp them.

You should totally do it! It'd be awesome to see remasters/revamps on older maps. Heck, I'd love to see CC1 get that treatment!

[LadyMistDragon]

Hah, this sure takes me back! 2007 was the year when I played a custom wad for the first time even though I'd been playing Doom for a decade by then. The ASHWALL mines were about as atrociously ugly as one could expect. But I really liked the sort of real-space simulation, without stuffing detail into every corner to where you can't even move around! The secret marking did get a little laughably cliched admittedly. Although it's certainly better than people these days who think they need to make secrets as difficult to find as possible!

 

Here's an FDA below if you know how to playback demos. Mostly just took my time, though you'll see after a certain point there seemed little left to explore.

lmd_nukebunker.zip

Edited July 25, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Dr. Zin]

On 7/24/2022 at 1:02 PM, Salahmander2 said:

You should totally do it! It'd be awesome to see remasters/revamps on older maps. Heck, I'd love to see CC1 get that treatment!

Cool to see interest in 'refurbishing' older work, I'll put a thread up in a month or so, once I've got the Devious Deviance map done.

 

10 hours ago, LadyMistDragon said:

Hah, this sure takes me back! 2007 was the year when I played a custom wad for the first time even though I'd been playing Doom for a decade by then. The ASHWALL mines were about as atrociously ugly as one could expect. But I really liked the sort of real-space simulation, without stuffing detail into every corner to where you can't even move around! The secret marking did get a little laughably cliched admittedly. Although it's certainly better than people these days who think they need to make secrets as difficult to find as possible!

 

Here's an FDA below if you know how to playback demos. Mostly just took my time, though you'll see after a certain point there seemed little left to explore.

lmd_nukebunker.zip

Demos are always appreciated, even if I was shouting "No, don't go back to the starting area!" after you flipped the switch in the water pump room. It definitely put into perspective how easy this map is, given you started meleeing monsters as a matter of course about halfway through.

[Dynamo]

Welcome back! I did very recently replay CC2 and CC3 and the maps did indeed have issues despite some good ideas. Glad to see you decided to release this one, screenshots look great and nostalgic, and once I return home next month I'll be interested to see how much it has improved over the CC maps, and I hope you do plan on finishing up those other maps or maybe start something entirely new :)

[phoo]

Awesome! I'll have to check this out