DEIMOSBUNKER.WAD: A newbie's first attempt at a wad. (original)

[IHave10Shells]

My first wad ever. I decided to update this post because it's old and had some pretty useless information and terrible screenshots.

 

Vanilla Map? (can be run with OG .exe): Yes

 

Compatibility: Tested with Crispy DooM, PrBoom Plus and GZDooM. Will run with either doom 1 complevels.

 

Known Bugs: On DOS and Chocolate Doom, certain textures are tutti-fruttied.

 

Download:

DEIMOSBUNKERFINAL.zip

 

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

Edited February 29 by IHave10Shells : updated the post to be less cringe.

[Stupid Bunny]

Hi, welcome to Doomworld and congrats on your first map!

 

First, a friendly reminder that new wads should go here (you don't have to repost this, the mods can move it if they decide to)

 

Tested on UV in Crispy, freelook enabled

 

This is pretty good for a first map, though with a few characteristics that many first maps share. Texturing is good clean techbase moving into good grimy hell at the end--although that sky texture at the beginning is not how a sky window should be done. There should be a small outside area surrounded by a sector where the ceiling is at floor height, both with F_SKY1 as the ceiling texture. 

 

Also, you should lower-unpeg your door tracks. I suppose it's not absolutely necessary but it's kind of a Best Practice and, at least to me, looks strange when the tracks move up and down with the door.

 

Gameplay is decent, improving a bit towards the end, but very easy even on UV. This is mostly because, in almost all cases, the monsters are entirely coming from a doorway in front of the player, making it very easy to pick them off one by one with the shotgun while effortlessly dodging their attacks. Because the doorways are so narrow the monsters rarely even have a chance to come out, and most of the time the best strategy is to sit outside the door and cheese them in this way.  There are a lot of ways to fix this, including wider doorways, branching and/or circular layouts allowing monsters to outflank the player, and traps that open or teleport somewhere behind the player to add some pressure from behind. Monsters in turrets, windows, or ledges can help with this too; on which note the level is also a bit flat, although I barely noticed because you've got enough variation in floor and ceiling heights and enough wall decorations to disguise it a bit.

 

I only found about half of the secrets marked, the rest must be pretty well hidden! I'll note that the plasma rifle secret, and one adjacent to it, have multiple sectors marked as Secret inside them, which is unnecessary. Since this wasn't a problem in the other secrets, I'm guessing it was just an oversight.

 

Overall it's a strong first effort, and you clearly have a good grasp of texturing and architectural principles that can only get better with practice. I'd suggest for your next map trying for a more interconnected or branching layout, or if you'd prefer a more linear progression (not necessarily a bad thing) then add some variety in the encounters and traps.

[Bri0che]

I was about to tell everything @Stupid Bunny already said, so...

 

I often share this video since it helped me a lot and give advises that are easy to follow as a beginner in general, and it can be applied to level design itself, not just in Doom, so check it bellow. Good job, and keep practicing ! 

 

 

 

[IHave10Shells]

Hello @Stupid Bunny

 

Thanks for playing my wad :)

 

Yeah, I will say, my map is very cramped and easy. I originally planned to make this some sort of lab, but then I remade it into a bunker-esque design since I did not like the original maps look.

 

The low difficulty is primarily due to this design. I did not make traps since I could not make them without screwing up the map (since I am still a beginner at this stuff.) Also, the weird looking window at the beginning is just due to my laziness (happens a lot of the time.). 

 

Thanks for your feedback! 

Edited March 1 by IHave10Shells : ugh, idiotic old me not knowing what "quoting" is...

[FireWarden1000]

I completed DeimosBunkerV10.wad with DOSBox, this is a basic DOOM map, 58/100. The map consists of square shaped rooms that are connected with a door. Not much else going on with the level, and each room is filled with random enemies. Fight the enemies in a room, restock on ammo, and proceed to the next room. The map will probably run on a Gameboy Advance, but that is not what I am looking in a DOOM map. You know all of the basics of a DOOM map based on the map that you made, but the level feels very randomized in design. My recommendations, complete more DOOM maps that DOOM map developers have made to increase your understanding of DOOM maps. Go ahead and search around the Doomworld Forums or the Mod DB website for DOOM wads.

[Clippy]

congrats on first map - we all start somewhere - you seem to have the basics down and a love for secrets like me - I wonder where the other half were lol - I paired it with voxel doom cause voxels cool -

 

 

[Azafran]

I played your map with vanilla DOS Doom, and it works well except for some tutti frutti effect on textures. Here is a video of the blind playthrough:

 

 

[IHave10Shells]

11 hours ago, Azafran said:

I played your map with vanilla DOS Doom, and it works well except for some tutti frutti effect on textures. Here is a video of the blind playthrough:

 

 

Yeah my map shows the tutti-frutti effect on dos and chocolate doom.

 

Thanks for playing my wad! (and testing it on pure dos!).

[IHave10Shells]

On 3/13/2023 at 2:39 AM, Clippy said:

congrats on first map - we all start somewhere - you seem to have the basics down and a love for secrets like me - I wonder where the other half were lol - I paired it with voxel doom cause voxels cool -

 

 

 

 

Thanks for playing my wad :)

Yeah, I think I kinda messed up with the secrets part, there are only 4 secrets, but the map shows 8 :/ (good job finding all the secrets!). I will fix this later. About the design, I thought that small room, cramped enemy placement = difficult level design but I really should have placed the monsters and items more thoughtfully. I put the 4th secret (the one with the chaingun.) because i was going to make another map, which was going to be full of enemies and therefore getting the chaingun would help but then I got busy with irl stuff and forgot about this wad (and this doomworld account). When I remembered that this account existed, I got lazy and just posted this one level instead.

 

Thanks for the feedback! I will definitely try to make the next wad more open and more varied with traps and stuff (if I ever do make a new wad, i'm so lazy lol)