There's Something In The Way [Map21 remake]

[A.o.D.]

tl;dr:  here's the idgames link:  https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/g-i/intheway  (boom compatible source port required)

 

So one day I was listening to Nirvana's podcast interview with MountPain27 and the conversation meandered to where they got their names from.  Now, Nirvana is named after the band and not the map, but they still talked about flawed maps and that inspired me to take a crack at redoing Map 21 "Nirvana" by Sandy Petersen.

 

It's a bad, ugly, broken map.  You can soft lock, it's got linedefs that point to the wrong sectors, and it looks like it was put together in a day or so.  Which it probably was.  Sandy was working under a terrible time crunch and the tools he had available were garbage compared to what we had today.  I'm not here to drag Sandy; the guy moved mountains getting Doom II out the door.

 

So I decided to remake Nirvana; I know I'm not the first, but I am the most recent.  Before I started this is what I decided to do:  Retain the core gameplay concepts.  Keep the flow of the map.  Keep it recognizable without directly copying the original.  So here's what I ended up with:

 

1.  Kept the theme of central health location and resource starvation.

2.  General map flowchart is nearly identical.

3.  Replaced the gross joke of the original with an all new gross joke.

4.  Made sure to include a Sandy Arrow.

5.  Plenty of hitscan.

6.  One Archvile, waiting to make friends.

7.  Same general texture selection.

8.  Some light bullet hell gameplay.

 

Have some screenshots:

Map start:  Same but different

 

Yeah I blew up the visplane budget for some lighting effects.  You're using a Boom port, right?

 

This room got sundered.  Don't sweat it, you won't be in here for more than a couple of minutes.

 

Skeleboys say:  "No gliding."  They also say: "AAAAAAAAAAAAA"

 

There's always a way out.

 

See?  It looks very much like Nirvana.  You can't smell the team spirit any more.  We're all old now.

 

If you made it this far, here's the link again:  https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/g-i/intheway

 

You'll need a Boom compatible source port to play this.  It works in GZDoom, but one of the map's features doesn't work correctly due to how GZDoom handles collisions and Pain Elementals/Lost Souls.  The map supports Single Player and Co-Op modes.  Difficulties are enabled.

 

[LadyMistDragon]

You know, I sort of wanted to see what you would do with the indoor cavern at the end but the dreary combat would seem to show there are only so many ways to polish a turd. On the other hand, the map feels as coherent as it can be and there was nothing that could be called butt-ugly.

lmd_intheway.zip

[A.o.D.]

Is that supposed to be the whole demo?  It cuts out after your death in the steps room with the Sandy Arrow.

 

ALso, it was hilarious watching you not-die repeatedly in the cube room.  I kept going "SURELY they're going to die now" and it kept not happening.

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Yes, I stopped there.

[erkyp3rky]

a good remake of nirvana, the last room gave me a lot of trouble!

[A.o.D.]

GZDoom breaks the pain elemental cages.  They're supposed to act as Lost Soul turrets, but something in the GZDoom engine prevents the lost souls from spawning.  Also the Spectres are a much greater threat in software rendering.  That's not to say that you're wrong for using GZDoom, just understand that wasn't the target engine.

[erkyp3rky]

Just now, A.o.D. said:

GZDoom breaks the pain elemental cages.  They're supposed to act as Lost Soul turrets, but something in the GZDoom engine prevents the lost souls from spawning.  Also the Spectres are a much greater threat in software rendering.  That's not to say that you're wrong for using GZDoom, just understand that wasn't the target engine.

aw man, thats an honest shame. that wouldve been pretty cool to see! though the fact gzdoom broke the cages is a mercy because that final room kicked my ass to the moon.... maybe it was for the better

[ARMCoder]

Tough map in UV. You have to run around a lot in the nukage area to evade the enemy fire, pick up the keys and get out alive. The radsuits are scarce and somewhat hidden, and this is a thing that makes the room even more difficult (the original Nirvana was generous on Radsuits).

 

I found out that killing the lesser monsters (hitscanners, imps, spectres and knights) make the area semi-safe to navigate, the barons and revs are just ammunition sinks that aren't worth killing unless you're aiming for 100% kills. The lost souls are fine but don't seem to make a large difference in gameplay.

 

The platform that holds the Megasphere and is lowered by the remote switch barely gives the player time to pick up the sphere. I know this is intentional to push the limit of the player's reflexes, but IMO this feels old by now.

 

In general I think this map is a fair homage to the OG's Nirvana, it's fun and is well designed. A thing that I missed but that's probably not a map's fault is the chance to use rockets liberally (Nirvana is the 21st map of the campaign and at that point I usually have amassed a ton of rockets. IIRC I never tried to pistol-start the original Nirvana).

[A.o.D.]

7 hours ago, ARMCoder said:

Tough map in UV. You have to run around a lot in the nukage area to evade the enemy fire, pick up the keys and get out alive. The radsuits are scarce and somewhat hidden, and this is a thing that makes the room even more difficult (the original Nirvana was generous on Radsuits).

 

I found out that killing the lesser monsters (hitscanners, imps, spectres and knights) make the area semi-safe to navigate, the barons and revs are just ammunition sinks that aren't worth killing unless you're aiming for 100% kills. The lost souls are fine but don't seem to make a large difference in gameplay.

 

The platform that holds the Megasphere and is lowered by the remote switch barely gives the player time to pick up the sphere. I know this is intentional to push the limit of the player's reflexes, but IMO this feels old by now.

 

In general I think this map is a fair homage to the OG's Nirvana, it's fun and is well designed. A thing that I missed but that's probably not a map's fault is the chance to use rockets liberally (Nirvana is the 21st map of the campaign and at that point I usually have amassed a ton of rockets. IIRC I never tried to pistol-start the original Nirvana).

 

Obviously you can play the map however you want, but as I was making it I thought that the obvious play once a player had a grasp on what was being thrown at them was to mostly save the rockets for the final room where you can clear out the fodder to give yourself plenty of breathing room to dodge the higher threat stuff (as you discovered on your own).  In my playtesting I found that once the flyers and hitscanners were dealt with, the final room was a mostly casual affair. 

 

Obviously as a stand alone map it has to be balanced for pistol start.  The thought of someone actually trying to play it as a part of the original iwad never entered my head.  In any event, thanks for the feedback!

[Delisk]

 

You can fell the old vibe, just different enough to be unique... to bad I do not remember how to get the megasphere!

[A.o.D.]

There is no wrong way to play Doom.