I believe I have created the largest and densest maze possible in Doom

[jpsplat]

3 hours ago, LateToDOOM2020 said:

@jpsplat Did you make it so the player cant get to the top of the tower? I killed 3 of the spiders but when I try to get to the top I die almost instantly. I would think its  archviles but I die before even catching on fire.

 

So it turns out on any source port other than GZDoom, the raised sections are death traps. I think you just get eviscerated by every hit scanner on the map, although I am not sure. I fixed this by adding an invulnerability sphere near every required raised section. Check out the newest edit on the original post for version 2.1, I also added hints that make it apparent where the key detours begin as well as a couple teleporters that will take the player out of the biggest dead ends and put them back on the main route.

 

8 hours ago, DaAndroid614 said:

For shits and giggles, I decided to try and see if I couldn't make something even more absurd by generating a maze with this program and feeding that into PNG2WAD, so I did some quick math to figure out how big it would need to be to fill the UDB level grid (around 80x the widht/height, making it 6400x the area), made a maze, added entrance/exits in MSPAINT, and fed it into PNG2WAD... and it generated an empty wad file. So if someone wants to one-up the map that started this thread, try starting somewhere between 200x200 and 4096x4096.

I will admit I didn't find Doom's biggest possible maze but rather the biggest maze I could put into PNG2WAD without it crashing. If someone wanted to make a bigger maze, they could break up a larger PNG into 4 smaller PNGs, feed them into PNG2WAD one at a time, and then stitch them together in doom builder.
I found that my original maze could be copied and pasted about 3 times before running out of linedefs (65536). So i made 4 mazes that were about %25 smaller than the original and combined them in Doom Builder to create crazyMaze XL. However this map only ended up with 47110 linedefs which means my math was off and a larger maze is possible still.

 

You can try crazyMaze XL here, although I admit to not really playtesting it. There are no keys either, just a regular ol maze to the end.

crazyMaze XL.zip

 

This is crazyMaze XL superimposed over the original map, you can see how it is 4 smaller mazes combined into one.

 

[thestarrover]

@jpsplat

Thanks for the updates! This level gets better and better! :)

[LateToDOOM2020]

That maze looks like a nightmare!

@jpsplat What you said makes sense about the hit scanners. I guess I will just have to kill every monster on the map then!

I Think it would be cool to have a maze the size similar to the original but with more towers and small pockets of open areas with some buildings etc..  All difficult to get to yet rewarding.

@thestarrover Agreed I hope to see more cool maze maps😁

[Kyka]

Day 7, maybe 8. Who knows? 

 

 Still making good progress. Still enjoying this little nightmare. What else to say? Very little.

 

First death here too. Ran into a Cyber, Almost killed it. (4 wall BFG's - shooting into a wall next to you, popping out to 'view' the cyber.) Must have been nearly dead. But in retreating from it, I took a wrong turn and ended up in a dead end. Tried killing it, but no room to dodge and no room to fight.

 

And you know what is even better? I hadn't saved in the last hour and a half of playing when it killed me. I lost sooooo much progress. 

 

That was the point that nearly broke my will to finish this. I didn't want to have to do all that again. But the next day I did, and then some more too.

 

Getting there!!!

 

(Realised I forgot to take a screen of the current progress, and have recorded more since, so I don't have a freezeframe of the progress here. Overwriting my saves like a boss!!!)

Edited December 2, 2022 by Kyka

[Korozive]

I hate even small mazes in a map. This would turn me into a serial killer.

[jpsplat]

On 12/2/2022 at 8:22 AM, Kyka said:

Day 7, maybe 8. Who knows? 

 

 Still making good progress. Still enjoying this little nightmare. What else to say? Very little.

 

First death here too. Ran into a Cyber, Almost killed it. (4 wall BFG's - shooting into a wall next to you, popping out to 'view' the cyber.) Must have been nearly dead. But in retreating from it, I took a wrong turn and ended up in a dead end. Tried killing it, but no room to dodge and no room to fight.

 

And you know what is even better? I hadn't saved in the last hour and a half of playing when it killed me. I lost sooooo much progress. 

 

That was the point that nearly broke my will to finish this. I didn't want to have to do all that again. But the next day I did, and then some more too.

 

Getting there!!!

 

(Realised I forgot to take a screen of the current progress, and have recorded more since, so I don't have a freezeframe of the progress here. Overwriting my saves like a boss!!!)

god speed you crazy demon, i will reward this effort by posting the solution map upon your completion!

[Kyka]

1 hour ago, jpsplat said:

god speed you crazy demon, i will reward this effort by posting the solution map upon your completion!

 

Thank you sir! :) To be fair, others have finished this faster, sooner and smarter than I have, and congrats to anyone who has completed this behemoth.

 

But I am pleased with how much I persevered.

 

And now onwards to the second last installment of... whatever this series is called.

 

 

Almost there! I found an automap. With 90% of the map done, I found an automap. lol.

 

I died again to a cyberdemon. 

 

I found the exit with two of the keys. A little more exploring and I will have all three keys.

 

One final little section and then retrace my way to the exit!!

 

Woohoo. :)

 

Edited December 3, 2022 by Kyka

[thestarrover]

1 hour ago, Kyka said:

 

Thank you sir! :) To be fair, others have finished this faster, sooner and smarter than I have, and congrats to anyone who has completed this behemoth.

 

But I am pleased with how much I persevered.

 

And now onwards to the second last installment of... whatever this series is called.

 

 

Almost there! I found an automap. With 90% of the map done, I found an automap. lol.

 

I died again to a cyberdemon. 

 

I found the exit with two of the keys. A little more exploring and I will have all three keys.

 

One final little section and then retrace my way to the exit!!

 

Woohoo. :)

 

Congratulations!

I got lost today and I couldn't find the right way anymore. It took me three hours to find it again. 3 deaths. This map is a real nightmare but i'm having so much fun!

[Murdoch]

It's official. @Kyka is a masochist.

[Kyka]

7 hours ago, Murdoch said:

It's official. @Kyka is a masochist.

 

When it comes to gaming challenges, yes definitely. Thank you. :)

 

8 hours ago, thestarrover said:

Congratulations!

I got lost today and I couldn't find the right way anymore. It took me three hours to find it again. 3 deaths. This map is a real nightmare but i'm having so much fun!

 I wonder if it was the same place I got lost and took hours to find my way back? Well done on finding your way back. That took serious perseverance.

[thestarrover]

10 hours ago, Kyka said:

 

When it comes to gaming challenges, yes definitely. Thank you. :)

 

 I wonder if it was the same place I got lost and took hours to find my way back? Well done on finding your way back. That took serious perseverance.

Yes, I think it was the same area. I went around in circles and I found only dead ends. I really wasted a lot of time getting out of it. :)

[janiform]

Great idea for a project! For a real challenge, you could play this with fraggle's miniwad: 

[Kyka]

IT"S DONE!!!!!!!!!

 

 

That little white dot is me at the exit, three keys in hand.

 

 

(As a minor note, the key doors do not open fron the other side, so it is in theory possible to get stuck in there in the hypothetical situation where you had a blue and a red key, opened both of those doors, went in, and let the blue door close behind you, you would be trapped between the blue and yellow door, stuck. Unable to open the yellow door to exit, and unable to reopen the blue door to get back out. I guess you could just stay there forever, getting hit in the head by the red door every dozen seconds or so for all eternity!)

 (Editor's note: Still more fun than any Terrywad.)

 

In total, 2 deaths, both to cyberdemons, and 17:47:55 total time, though around thee hours more than this if you count the time taken to 'recover' the ground lost from those deaths.

 

So yeah. That is one of the toughest, longest UV-max runs I have ever done.

 

Really enjoyed this one. Glad it is done, but also a little sorry to be finished such a singular Dooming experience.

 

Well that's a wrap. UV-max done. Thanks everyone who was a part of this crazy run, and thanks @jpsplat for such an epic concept.

 

Wait... What's this???

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well fuck.

 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Kyka

[powerkraut]

That is painful, congratulations Kyka

[Kyka]

@powerkraut Thank you. In truth, I knew I had missed at least one, as I heard it through the walls at one point, a long way from anywhere that a monster should be. But three? Damn.

 

I was having a slight anxiety attack at even the thought of having to go find those three monsters to fully complete the UV-max.

 

I might do it. But at this stage I won't, ngl.

[jpsplat]

4 hours ago, Kyka said:

Well that's a wrap. UV-max done. Thanks everyone who was a part of this crazy run, and thanks @jpsplat for such an epic concept.

 

Bravo!!! You win!! Thank you so much a-for-to playing my game (in mario voice)

As promised, here's the solution map for everyone to use. Pink is main route, color route correspond to color key. This will also be the same maze I use on all versions of this wad and future versions.

Spoiler

The next version will have fixed doors, and other interesting areas to explore. I'm gonna wait a bit as other people might still be making their way through 2.1 at the moment (including myself lol) as every update requires the player to start over.

Edited December 5, 2022 by jpsplat

[thestarrover]

@Kyka

Well done! Truly a wonderful job! :)

[thestarrover]

2 hours ago, jpsplat said:

The next version will have fixed doors, and other interesting areas to explore. I'm gonna wait a bit as other people might still be making their way through 2.1 at the moment (including myself lol) as every update requires the player to start over.

I'm still playing the first unedited release and still have a long way to go! XD Unfortunately I don't have much time to play.

So in the new version will the maze  be a little different? Will the gameplay be the same?

Anyway thanks a lot for this amazing level! :)

[Lucius Wooding]

2 hours ago, jpsplat said:

Bravo

 

I'd probably put the map in spoiler tags just to be sure, but it's cool you're still adding more interesting gameplay to this. 

[jpsplat]

1 hour ago, thestarrover said:

I'm still playing the first unedited release and still have a long way to go! XD Unfortunately I don't have much time to play.

So in the new version will the maze  be a little different? Will the gameplay be the same?

Anyway thanks a lot for this amazing level! :)

 Yer welcome :) I intend to keep the maze basically the same so you can come at new versions of it with experience from older versions. Personally I can make my way to the top right corner/first staircase pretty quick from many playtests, i would like other players to do that as well.

 

I'll explain some rough ideas for the maze level (which I may or may not have the time or ability to implement):
* intentional monster/weapon/item placement with increasing difficulty and firepower as the maze progresses

* hints hints hints and more hints. I've been experimenting with making sections of the main path a lift that drops down a bit after hitting switches which would temporarily reveal the way to go.

* occasional intermittent rooms that are wider than most of the hallways (overlapping some dead ends probably) which would contain

traditional doom level elements to break up maze wandering monotony

* sections that teleport you to the top of the walls where you have to scramble to another teleporter before you get blasted.

* more raised sections like a big tower with windows in it would be cool too

 

[thestarrover]

20 hours ago, jpsplat said:

I'll explain some rough ideas for the maze level (which I may or may not have the time or ability to implement):
* intentional monster/weapon/item placement with increasing difficulty and firepower as the maze progresses

* hints hints hints and more hints. I've been experimenting with making sections of the main path a lift that drops down a bit after hitting switches which would temporarily reveal the way to go.

* occasional intermittent rooms that are wider than most of the hallways (overlapping some dead ends probably) which would contain

traditional doom level elements to break up maze wandering monotony

* sections that teleport you to the top of the walls where you have to scramble to another teleporter before you get blasted.

* more raised sections like a big tower with windows in it would be cool too

In those rooms, in different sections of the maze, you could hide the keys. A little "quest" could be a good addition and distraction from the maze.

You could place the exit at the top of the high tower. A sort of epic final of your long journey.

You could make a new, custom intermission screen with an image of the maze now in ruins ( or in flame or whatever ) and the "CrazyMaze: IT'S DONE!” (or “IT IS FALLEN APART”) which replaces the original map name.

 

Okay okay. I stop here! When I find something I like so much (movies, songs and games), my imagination and fantasy run wild and I can't stop them. XD

 

Bear in mind that I know absolutely nothing about how to make a map, so all these things may not be implementable or, even worse, make the level unplayable. Take these suggestions for what they are: simple ideas! :)

[Kyka]

On 12/6/2022 at 6:30 AM, thestarrover said:

@Kyka

Well done! Truly a wonderful job! :)

 

Thank you so much! I wish you every success on your own playthrough. It has been really a lot of fun for me, though I am something of a masochist.

 

On 12/6/2022 at 8:26 AM, jpsplat said:

 Yer welcome :) I intend to keep the maze basically the same so you can come at new versions of it with experience from older versions. Personally I can make my way to the top right corner/first staircase pretty quick from many playtests, i would like other players to do that as well.

 

I'll explain some rough ideas for the maze level (which I may or may not have the time or ability to implement):
* intentional monster/weapon/item placement with increasing difficulty and firepower as the maze progresses

* hints hints hints and more hints. I've been experimenting with making sections of the main path a lift that drops down a bit after hitting switches which would temporarily reveal the way to go.

* occasional intermittent rooms that are wider than most of the hallways (overlapping some dead ends probably) which would contain

traditional doom level elements to break up maze wandering monotony

* sections that teleport you to the top of the walls where you have to scramble to another teleporter before you get blasted.

* more raised sections like a big tower with windows in it would be cool too

 

 

These are some wonderful ideas. I really liked the idea that you never got to see the maze from above, because that really messes up the automap, showing you places that you haven't been yet. You will have to handle that carefully I think, because once you have seen an area, it is marked on the automap as if you had been there even if you haven't.

 

I have this grandiose vision for this map, with different areas, caverns, hellish sections, techbase areas, all done while keeping the pathing and such functionally identical to the original version. Some areas would descend into the bowels of the earth, some areas would enter courtyards or entire base outposts, all while folliwing the same paths.

 

Great concepts though. Good luck.

 

I haven't played any of the newer versions because I am burned out from the OG!

[philcul]

On 12/5/2022 at 5:25 PM, Kyka said:

IT"S DONE!!!!!!!!!

 

 

I honestly do not have any intention to ever play this but I have to say that following your journey through your posts was something I really enjoyed! :)

[Kyka]

7 hours ago, AdNauseam said:

 

I honestly do not have any intention to ever play this but I have to say that following your journey through your posts was something I really enjoyed! :)

 

Thank you for the comment! Appreciated, and really glad that I was able to make the journey at least somewhat engaging for others.

 

haha 20 hours of wandering around identical marble corridors doesn't make for compelling viewing, even though I enjoyed the challenge. :)

[Kyka]

 

I was curious as to where I had left those last three monsters. So with the help of the IDDT cheat, I found them. (Even then it took a while lol. This map is huge.) Obviously the three red dots are where the monsters are. All in little dead ends, out-of-the-way pockets, of course.

 

Which makes sense.

 

And no I ain't going back to kill them.

 

They survived the Doomslayer. Good for them. I will leave them alive as a warning to other hellspawn.

 

[NaliSeed]

Wow, six pages already? 😳

[phoo]

An improvement would be to fill the maze full of pain elementals and archviles :)

[Kyka]

26 minutes ago, phoo said:

An improvement would be to fill the maze full of pain elementals and archviles :)

 

 

[thestarrover]

23 hours. Blue and yellow keys found. Two Cyberdemons killed and I found the computer map. Now I have to backtrack to find the red key. Mamma mia! XD

[Kyka]

11 hours ago, thestarrover said:

23 hours. Blue and yellow keys found. Two Cyberdemons killed and I found the computer map. Now I have to backtrack to find the red key. Mamma mia! XD

 

Well done. Keep going. :) IF you like I'll post a screen with where the red key is. Almost there.