What's a map idea you ended up never pursuing or just gave up in general? Why did you

[Gougaru]

Why did you decide to trash the project? 

[fai1025]

So there's one of my never finished megawad projects called "City of the sky",  it was a very ambitious project, 30 maps set place amidst of an airship, it's start out as a "cacoward-grab" project made back in the days by naive me, I made like 7 poorly made UDMF levels with some 50 second shity midi with like single channel. Of course I grow up soon and realizing those map are real rubbish, and I ditched it. 

There's several time I attempt to finish it or "remaster" it, I attempt it three times already actually.

If it ever get finished, it'll definitely get a mordeth award because the project technically started at 2018, and I feel like I'm not gonna finish it till 20 whatever years later.

 

[PeterMoro]

A tech - prison break out. It got too over the top and too big and ridiculous. My maps tend to do that and I really have to focus on making them as small as I can. Part of the problem is that prisons are not really beautiful places and their design layouts are usually simple so the map ended up feeling very samey and predictable. I still have the wad and might work on it again one day but I think I'd rather just make something else.

[DavidN]

For some community project or other, I wanted to try to make a map that starts off looking very simple, but as you progress, walls gradually lower away to transform it into a bigger and more complex environment. I never got far because it turns out that when you start off pretending to be a bad map, what the player sees is a bad map.

[xScavengerWolfx]

Well this project i wanted to start never even left the brainstorming phase because it would've been too much of a hassle and figure out how i would wanted to present it to the community. 

 

The project i had in mind that i wanted to do was called "master levels for doom 2: Done right!". The gimmick was to get inspired mappers and playtester that like the Master levels (i know scary to say that) and make there own master level and have themes as well for each map.  Would've got some midi composers to write og midis for the project and custom title card and a credit screen as well...

 

But i ended up dumping the project because one i felt like it would've gone nowhere and no one would be interested, two it would've been 32 instead of 21, three i would've need help with getting them all placed together, music put in, have some dehacks for it all and finally some people would either never finish the map slot they wanted or just drop out.

 

That's why i never pitch the idea and just drop it way before it even began.

[Chezza]

A map that becomes upside down after you take a teleporter. Some liberties with custom assets would need to be taken but it's possible.

 

But then I saw a packet of cheetos and a potentially funny 2 minute youtube video appear in my feed so... yeah. I just don't have the time.

[Myeyesarebleached]

3 hours ago, PeterMoro said:

a right.

 

[PeterMoro]

35 minutes ago, Myeyesarebleached said:

 

Wot?

[Pechudin]

Oh, lots of concepts.

 

Crushers, I want to make a crusher-centric map but never seem to make it.

Boom pushers/pullers - I want to make a map with platforming and periodic pushers/pullers but never did make it.

[taufan99]

Not exactly a map idea, but more of a custom game idea. A couple of rail shooters, one based on Virtua Cop and another on House of the Dead, using the EDGE source port. Cue the good ole classic "lack of time" excuse.

 

I somewhat now have a plan of making a map based on both the PSX port and D64, based on personal mental state. *cough cough* Maybe, just maybe, I'll consider learning how to map once I'm done with my undergrad thesis.

[SilverMiner]

If I ever started drawing something and stopped cuz of the feeling of having reached a dead end, I'd return to my map after ages (or months in a better case. Time goes a little too fast y'know) and at least extend it or take a part of it to reuse. Recently I've found loads of 2017-2018 Boggy Region builds with like at least 2 forgotten maps and rejected ideas(probably cuz I wanted it to run in native DOS and cut out things to do proper Zdoom -> Boom/MBF2.04 transition)

 

Now I'm making a wad, one episode of which takes place in an Heretic world, and just there I will apply these maps. Then when I get it all together, I'll come up with a plot to tie it into a whole lol. And maybe do an exe mod again to make it playable as intended in DOS as the first BR was. Maybe MBF2.04 one this time. If I still have the desire, of course.

[yakfak]

i ditched the majority of my ideas \o/ yaaay

 

one recurring thing I attempt is a vanilla doom 1 map with no new textures, depicting an industrial base which used to be flooded just through mapping techniques and without VPOing anywhere. i know a bunch of flat combinations which suggest water damage by now lol but it never gets made all the way

[Wavy]

When I first got into mapping, I began work on a (admittedly pretty ambitious) MegaWAD with custom DeHackEd monsters and weapons. I put a lot of time into it and did quite a bit of DeHacking work, but it honestly didn't go anywhere. I've actually uploaded a few screenies on here but I was getting quite frustrated with it which gave me no motivation to continue it.

 

I started that 2 and a half years ago. I'm probably just gonna start from scratch hehe.

[Thelokk]

A Supercharged mapset. Always ends up either too slaughtery, or plastic looking in that OTEX sort of way. 

[Phobus]

The three that I’ve made repeated attempts at over the years, but never seen through, are as follows:

• ”Bug Hunt” - a MAP07 where you go around an open, non-linear techbase in search of Arachnotrons to kill them all and open the exit. The Arachnos are normally in some kind of turreted setup, and the rest of the level plays out normally, with hitscanners and the like keeping you busy on your search. This idea fails because it never quite holds my interest, and/or the wider project stalls and I end up binning everything.
•  Various Cyberdreams style encounters, or Cyberdemon arenas - I tend not to enjoy making these in isolation, but keep starting them anyway. A few have survived, like the first map Persephone vol. 2 (I think), which is a Tyson map dominated by a Cybie that you ultimately telefrag, or the one that keeps you on your toes in ph_quik1
• Puzzle encounters with Spiderdemon Masterminds are another thing I often start and don’t finish, as they’re an enemy I feel is underused, and I like the idea of the challenge of making them interesting, but rarely like the idea enough to follow through.

I’ve got a long history of deleted projects, abortive attempts at NaNoWADMo and stalled episodes and community project contributions, so there’s probably plenty of others, but the repeat offenders up there came to mind straight away. I’m not done with Doom, but I don’t make much time for it, either, and my ideas tend towards the ambitious, these days, so I’ll be lucky to finish much of anything. Adulthood is a fair obstacle to hobbyist pursuits…

[Kinetic]

rubiks cube.

 

I have a whole map that takes place on a rubiks cube. First you're in a room where you're on an invisible bridge that lowers and then you run into a cool tower. Then you drop into the main area, the rubik's cube, you start off with it solved, hit a switch that "scrambles" it, a bunch of stuff starts teleporting in (slaughter map), you can run off the side of the cube you're on and it takes you to the next side via silent teleporter, a weapon and ammo is on each side of the cube in the center square and triggers an ambush, and the map progresses through six phases on a timer and actually gets solved in the process. Basically I learned to solve a real rubik's cube to accurately portray steps in solving the cube. The map ended after the cube gets solved and you hit a button in the middle square of the side you came in on, which lowers and you battle cyberdemons in close quarters sunlust map15 final room style, and like after 20 seconds the map ends via voodoo.

 

There was also a secret room that was cool.

 

Why did I not release this map?

 

1. Gzdoom in Hexen format for a canceled solo megawad project, also the map ran horrible in gzdoom for me, too many lines and enemies. I map in boom now so.

2. Silent teleporter concept was neat, but could be abused, could lure enemies to one side of a side of the cube, then come in on the other side. Basically the combat was a clusterfuck and the silent teleporters didn't facilitate the smoothest combat, often you could teleport into a mob of enemies and get boned.

 

Maybe I will try to convert the map to boom one day and release it for funsies, I think the map looked hella cool and the gimmick was fresh, if maybe not the best for doom combat. I have some other maps from that old megawad with cool concepts and layouts and gimmicks that I wanna recycle into boom maps. I spent so many hours doing visuals on some old maps I never released, it's a shame :(.

 

Here are some pictures of cube map in UDB without any resources loaded.

 

Spoiler

 

And yea, I was gonna name the map Ribbiks' Cube :D.

Edited November 2, 2022 by KineticBeverage

[DannyMan]

I tried to make a map on the capitol building for HacX 2.0, didn't go anywhere because it was too complicated for me. Hopefully it would be achieved one day.

[Stupid Bunny]

I have a few abandoned projects/maps that I was fairly serious about at one point in time.

 

Commander Keen 3D: This is probably the most unfortunate of the lot, as I sunk countless hours into drawing the textures and sprites for this and don't see ever using them in a serious project, especially since they're a little rough now.  It was to be a Commander Keen-themed megawad, probably my first mistake as committing to 32 levels was way too much given that I had only released one map up to this point.  I replaced a sizeable proportion of the enemies, with some light dehackery, but in my greenness approached the project by replacing existing patches and monsters, rather than by adding my own textures and using (at the time) DECORATE and other such things.  It also occurred to me that Commander Keen running around at full speed blasting bad guys with shotguns, even the laser versions I eventually intended to make, just didn't feel right to me.  It could be made to work with some creativity and modifactions to the gameplay, I'm sure, but at some point I just lost interest in the vision I had and never got it back.

 

Spoiler

 

 

The PIXEL Project: This is one I could actually imagine coming back to one day, mostly because the ambition was relatively more modest and free-form and the graphics less demanding.  I made very little for this, one sprite worthy of the name, some chiptune-style sound effects and really short music loops, and a couple uninteresting textures.  

 

Spoiler

 

 

Cosmos: This was going to be a massive, slow-burn assault on a space station using ZDoom trickery that I was new to at the time, including music changes and autosaves as the player advanced through different parts of the station.  Actually one of my first maps, and again a victim of its own ambition.  The switch-operated health station is probably the most interesting bit.  (I reused the Cosmos textures in another, similar map years later, also unfinished but thankfully not abandoned).

 

Spoiler

 

 

Planet Danger: An attempt at a jokewad.  Abandoned because it wasn't funny.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Microcosm: A Doom 1 map that was going to start E1 style, and advance through all three episode styles (sorry E4) as the player progressed.  I'm not quite sure why I gave up on the idea, apart from that, like Cosmos, and actually like most of my maps before last year I envisioned it being really really big and therefore ran out of steam before fully finishing the E1 section.  It's for the best, though, because years later the map fragment would wind up in very capable hands and from its rather modest and unmemorable roots be transformed into this.

 

Spoiler

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by Stupid Bunny

[bofu]

A Go2it-style mashup of E1M1, E2M1, E3M1, E4M1, MAP01 from Doom2, MAP01 from Plutonia, and MAP01 from TNT. I actually have gotten very far on the architecture of this lecevl a few times, but I ran into the following issues;

 

• There just isn't enough in E3M1 to justify its inclusion.
• The whole map ends up being a series of disjointed rooms not really conducive to hectic gameplay.
• The whole thing ends up being too big for my tastes.

[Rykzeon]

8 hours ago, DavidN said:

For some community project or other, I wanted to try to make a map that starts off looking very simple, but as you progress, walls gradually lower away to transform it into a bigger and more complex environment. I never got far because it turns out that when you start off pretending to be a bad map, what the player sees is a bad map.

Reminds me of MAP26: Insanity (Going Down).



Well, I had a idea to substitute all the available textures in Doom I into something else for my project. Ended up abandoning it because its quite stupid idea.

[joepallai]

A level I call "Politics" where you need to keep the cyberdemon alive in order to kill the ghost monsters created earlier in the level.  It never gets past the idea stage for me.

[Doom_Dude]

• Combustion Station ~ Many years ago I started a map that was made using the schematic for an engine as a layout. It didn't turn out very well.
• Bombay Aircon ~ I had a short stint as a Deathmatch mapper. I made two DM maps called, Templecore and Lavapitt Temple in the early 2000's. Don't think they made it to the /id games... think they were on Planet Doom or one of those places. Anyhow the third map I never finished. Not sure where I was going with it but the name comes from the movie, Who's Harry Crumb starring John Candy. lol
• Thracia ~ It was going to be a large medieval / Greek city but I didn't get much done to it. It would've been something like that city map in Elderborn.
• Unhallowed ~ A Halloween themed castle styled map with orange textures that I started back in the Doom Legacy days.
• Alien Bunker ~ A chunk of Vilecore 2 got ripped out because I wanted to make it into it's own map. It was at the end of a map in a outside area. It was supposed to be an alien ship but it looked more like a bunker or something. Didn't get far with that. lol

2 hours ago, Phobus said:

”Bug Hunt” - a MAP07 where you go around an open, non-linear techbase in search of Arachnotrons to kill them all and open the exit. The Arachnos are normally in some kind of turreted setup, and the rest of the level plays out normally, with hitscanners and the like keeping you busy on your search. This idea fails because it never quite holds my interest, and/or the wider project stalls and I end up binning everything.

 

That reminds me of this Heretic 2 project I started several years ago I was calling Bug Hunters of Zanzikar. It was going to be about the player trying to find work with the guilds and your told to check in on the exterminators guild. You arrive to find the guild hall damaged, the guild master dead and the only members left is the cook and a guy that went mad and ran off into some ruins with the contract safe box. So the cook sends you after the guy. I made part of one map and then gave up and went back to Doom mapping.

[Captain POLAND]

This

[obake]

A remake of one of my old maps, set in a giant, colorful city. I couldn't get it to work.

[MemeMind]

A UDMF project based on flesh infested base environments in the first half, and full on inside of a super organism in the second half.

 

I started on it when I first discovered realm667, It was not good, every map introduced new monsters and weapons for no real reason. 

 

Later I restarted this idea with a more focused set of things from realm667 but it got corrupted.

 

Finally I decided to start with making all the custom assets. I made an interesting set of new monsters that would fit in the setting but would add new encounters, and some weapons that had some interesting ideas. I made map01 and then I couldent go on. I will definitely try to continue mapping but I just couldnt make map02.  

[TheHambourgeois]

I really want to make a scythe 1 style megawad for heretic but I have not ever been able to earnestly pursue it mostly due to time issues (also lets be honest, erik alm is a high target to hit)

[enigma101]

I planned on making a massive open arena that led into a castle and you'd have to fight through until a boss fight at the end of the level, I couldn't work out the design of the map so it didn't work. 

I also planned on making a map set in a city, similar to Broken Reality, but making all of my own custom textures took too much time and I ended up just leaving that to focus on other projects. 

[thelamp]

I planned on making a map based around the idea of creating a midi-version of marry me archie. Main problem is: I do not know how to make midis. I did start on the map, however, and I used a version of the song with the vocal track shoddily removed as a placeholder. The level would've been church/heaven themed, I was using OTEX and the textures from it that are used in the final episode of Eviternity. At some point I just lost interest in it, and it's really not that funny an idea for a jokewad anyway.

 

Load this with OTEX 1.1 if you wanna check it out: archiemm.rar (boom format)

[129thVisplane]

all of them lol, all my projects end when i realize i actually need decent maps for the funky graphics i made. except Shattered Dawn. somehow that one has been in intermittent development since 2018.

 

short listing of some projects i have lying abandoned and rotting on my drive:

Alpha Serpentis TC (2011), Shadows over Asaisweir/Hell on Icannar (2012), Edge of Space, Destination Aquarius, Chimera, Stricken, Hexencraft, Höllenstein, Network of Destruction, orange hell, orange hell II, orange hell 3: hyperorange, Demonwave, unnamed Heretic mod, unnamed mod using an edited quake palette, unnamed cyberspace thing that consists of 8 textures

 

detailed listing:

Spoiler

Alpha Serpentis TC (2011) -- a TC involving an alien invasion fought off by a metalhead gamer using a mechanical keyboard as a melee weapon. didn't quite go further than a few crusty textures and a test map.

Shadows over Asaisweir/Hell on Icannar (2012) -- an asteroid techbase complex gets taken over by a subdimension of hell ruled over by an edgy demon lord with a blade for an arm. a few maps were made for it, one of which got released but they were all of questionable quality.

Edge of Space -- Portal-esque puzzle thing set on a space station. i made some textures for it and then broke up with my bf at the time. worst mod ever

Destination Aquarius -- a down the line "sequel" to Duke3D and using an edited palette from it, this TC was to be set on several planets including Earth, a desert, and a desolate icy wasteland.

Chimera -- i had a dream about a fantasy game featuring a chimera-esque beastman protagonist. made some assets for it and then left it

Stricken -- Hexen/Strife combo featuring a rogue from a swamp village fighting off the Heresiarch's son. made some textures and a statusbar, implemented some weapons, got angry at doombuilder, left

Hexencraft -- i wanted to make a minecraft nether themed hexen mapset but you better believe that went nowhere

Höllenstein -- BJ Blazkowicz dies and finds out that Hitler now rules over hell. i proceed to discover that wolfenstein style maps are boring as fuck.

Network of Destruction -- you are an antivirus blasting away malware in a cyberspace network. got bored of that one

orange hell, orange hell II, orange hell 3: hyperorange -- eyeburningly orange projects in the style of Antaresia, except i couldnt bring myself to make maps, so i recycled the textures into shatterdawn

Demonwave -- synthwave doom that i made like 10 textures for

unnamed Heretic mod -- like orange hell but using the heretic palette. the only issue is 1; how the fuck do i map and 2; how tf do i map for heretic

unnamed mod using an edited quake palette -- the palette was fun but the converting everything to it was not and i got overwhelmed lol

unnamed cyberspace thing that consists of 8 textures -- yeah that never went anywhere either

 

Edited November 5, 2022 by 129thVisplane : extended listing

[user76828904]

Now I feel a bit better when I look to my unfinished maps folder.