hell revealed inspired, non-linear zdoom level

[gggmork]

Made in Doom Builder for zdoom.
Replaces map01.
It is a constant chaotic onslaught from all directions with gameplay in mind, requiring skill (not much opportunity to simply strafe circle/infight everyone to death or pick off enemies one by one from a safe location). It is quite fun for speed (and possibly max) and has a lot of replay value I think due to the completely non-linear layout and difficulty. It's pretty damn hard but not absolutely unrealistically hard.

Updated link:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/oah7cc

[gggmork]

I've play tested it extensively and improved the gameplay, so if anyone downloaded it already (yeah right) sorry but please download the 'NotUnnamedV2' instead of 'NotUnnamed' (updated the link above). It's smoother and less impossible now with more health and other changes but I still have yet to beat it.

Also I hope its pretty obvious but this is the general idea since figuring stuff out can be annoying:
There are 3 keys that each require 2 switches to access.
For example, there is a red colored imp area with the red key at the top, but getting the key requires flipping 2 switches that are also in red colored areas to make it obvious which switch goes to what. Each of these switches warps an arch vile on the approximate opposite side of the map (which is why speedrunning is so hard as you'll end up with 6 arch viles at once eventually). Each time you get a key a spider mastermind is released into the center of that imp area (when the current enemies clear out of the way of the warp anyway).
(then it is exactly the same for the yellow and blue keys, each color coded to make it obvious).

Near the very end all the reverents that appear in the corners will lower to the floor (both to make max kills less tedious and as an extra challenge at that time). Also some areas have linedefs that make the side walls open making more of the map accessible. However, these are also triggered when you flip the key switches so its not necessary to run around trying to find the side walls to open as they will eventually open anyway.

[hardcore_gamer]

I really hope this is your first level. It has many big open rooms with nothing in them other then shitload of monsters. I don't get it how one can play the level without using cheat codes with the manucubi, arcvile, barons and cybes and whatnot blasting you to bits.
The textures are ugly as well.

This screen is taken from the level


Do more things then just adding in some box rooms with monsters. Make corridors, rooms that look new or exiting compared to the rest of the map. And use textures that fit the the textures used around them. AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T EVER PUT SO MANY MONSTERS IN SUCH A SMALL AMOUNT OF SPACE AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF THE MAP OR PEOPLE WILL JUST STOP PLAYING THE WAD AFTER THE FIRST 15 SECONDS!!!

Just continue mapping and you will get better. :)

[Dr. Zin]

Well, this plays like a typical first attempt at an HR style map. Namely, you have the "Metric Assloads of Monsters" part down, but you need to work on placement and acutally designing fights rather than just overwhelming the player with monsters on every flat surface. Texture uage could use some work too, there needs to be a theme, not just slapping random textures around. Oh, and don't use copy-paste for architechture. It is OK at some times for details, but pasting big chunks everywhere is very boring.

That said, I have seen far worse first maps.

[gggmork]

All well, thanks for the feedback.

[Ralphis]

gggmork said:

All well, thanks for the feedback.

Seeing as how you are going for an HR style wad, do not listen to Hardcore Gamer on how many enemies you need in a map. I would advise mostly to ignore almost all of his comments.

Do listen to Dr. Zin who has pretty much given you all the correct advice thus far.

[additup]

I liked your placement of the BFG up on top of the stairstep structures with the imps, and the windows behind them that the player could jump through into the rooms next door. It's also neat how the level opens up around you as you move through it.

[Belial]

I haven't played the updated version but I'd say there's nothing wrong with the gameplay in the original, other than the problems caused by confusing and repetitive map design.

[hardcore_gamer]

Ralphis said:

Seeing as how you are going for an HR style wad, do not listen to Hardcore Gamer on how many enemies you need in a map. I would advise mostly to ignore almost all of his comments.

Ok then, i guess big box rooms and getting blasted at the start do to bad monster placement is ok then. Hell Revealed has good monster
placement. This map does not.

Ok, i am not trying to stomp on the authors efforts, he asked for feedback so i gave him some. Why should she he ignore what i have to say
simply because you tell him to do so?

[Dutch Doomer]

Hardcore Gamer you make me laugh with your comment.

I kept dying on this map with my half assed playing skills, not too bad for an first map I've seen worse like my own first maps :)

[Guest DILDOMASTER666]

This map overall looks like fucking shit. If it's your first WAD, well, by those standards it's not really as bad as it could be, but seriously though. Come on. Don't be a colorblind idiot like Sandy Petersen.

Gameplay wise, it had some potential... But alas, a little stale. I felt kind of like I was playing a SLIGE map in that regard.

[gggmork]

Well here is a demo nobody wants to watch for the wad nobody likes that will only work on a version of zdoom nobody has (zdoom 2.1.7). This is still the furthest I got after playing all day since I have no life, but at least I got all the keys. I could probably do it a lot easier if I went as slow as I wanted but that would be boring so I never play that way. I feel like I'm playing fast/good then look at the demo and am like, damn, I suck. But luckily I can blame myself being a keyboarder.
I still think this level is very fun with replay value; people like doom 2 for different reasons I reckon, hence the differing opinions on what's good. I'm on the neurotic gameplay-only side and don't really care about immersion in a world... or being an interior decorator; the textures can all be greyscale and the 'enemies' can all be ovals and it would be practically just as fun to me provided enough visual information is left to not subtract from gameplay. Also I think open maps are best (ex. refueling base) since monsters move/shoot slightly randomly and the more space they have to interact the less similar each replay of the level will be.
I can see how you can play it for a minute then lose interest, especially with the mentality that maps are so plentiful that they should only be bothered playing through once before moving onto something else. I actually prefer the copy/paste irregular symmetry but I guess I'm weird. Usually I make detailed architecture and copy/paste that, but this time it was enemy/item pasting. I guess in this sucky map it helps to know that the imp stair areas are red on the top, blue in the middle and yellow on the bottom. Also the switches are in close pairs so yellow will be close to the 2nd yellow. And I know that those red/blue/yellow line textures look shit but they provide the player with the information of which switches still need switching or where to go which is all that matters to me (just look at the top left of each imp area and if the key is still not accessible you still need to flip that color of switch). And it's like my 10th map, ha ha.
Anyway here is my shit demo for NotUnnamedv2 (zdoom v 2.1.7):
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8gd1qv

[additup]

I love to see wad authors play through their maps, it lets me see how they intended things to work, what strategies they had in mind when designing everything. Your justification for the style of your level is really interesting, too. I wish you'd slowed down right towards the end, taken your time, picked the bastards off one by one. You survived an enormous amount of fire. keyboarding ftw, I converted to always-mouse-look only in the last couple weeks at the insistence of a buddy.

[Jodwin]

Haven't played the whole map yet, but so far it's been pretty fun. Doesn't look that great, but it isn't ugly either.

[the iron hitman]

It's not unrealistically hard..no. It's damn mega-super-keyboard-smashing-ultra-major-violently hard. But linear levels are nice to see and for some reason I love playing them from time to time. So it's a 4/5 from me =)

[Craigs]

Beats the shit out of my first attempt. Mine was a shitty 2 minutes long rip off of Map01 of Icarus. Oh, and I didn't have a clue as to how to make a wad at the time and ended up modifying the original Doom 2 iwad. Fortunately, I never released it. If I had, I'd have gotten into a shit load of trouble.

Well, anyway you're doing pretty good so far. This wad won't be winning any cacowards any time soon, but you just might in due time. You're also doing a pretty good job of taking negative criticism as well. I know a lot of veteran doom mappers who would have launched themselves into a two page rant at Hardcore gamer for his comment.

[BoldEnglishman]

gggmork said:

And it's like my 10th map, ha ha.

Craigs, your title fits you well :P

[gggmork]

Ergh! After lots of attempts I finally pretty much 'beat' it... almost... except with only about 30 seconds left until the end, the one stupid cyberdemon left tagged me- pathetic.

(demo of NOTUNNAMEDv2.wad run, for zdoom 2.1.7):
http://www.sendspace.com/file/77sg5o

Would have maybe been 18:30ish if I beat it.

[additup]

You got extremely close that time.

Are you still trying for it, or have you set it aside for the time being?

[gggmork]

I still try occasionally and want to beat it, but mostly set it aside. It's admittedly just a copy-paste-athon using the 'hell revealed' meme in the title to attract disproportionate attention to itself, but at least bothering to record a demo wasn't entirely pointless since you watched :) People mostly just seem interested in seeing screenshots from unfinished maps that 'look good' here, and talk about 'projects' they have in the works as if using doom builder requires any sort of programming knowledge. Plus a moderator deleted my extremely hilarious joke :| All well, I'll come back and piss everyone off with another copy-paste creation eventually simply because I have no life or friends in the real world and there's only so much other life wasting pointless activity to choose from.

[Jodwin]

Finished it a while back. Could have used a little variation in between the copypasted areas at least for monster placement. Also a little more ammo in the end. It was a massacre, what else can I say?

[gggmork]

Cool. Too bad zdoom doesn't have an 'instant 180 degree turn' key. I'd make it the '5' key since I use the number pad. Or at least make the keyboard based turning speed customizable instead of relatively slow (I hate using the mouse in games like this). I didn't do much playtesting for the end since I hardly ever got far enough to test it.. I should try to go find a demo to watch for 'playground' (map 32 I think) in hell revealed 2 (mostly only the maps made by the team leader Jonas Feragen in that wad were good imo) Map 15: the path 2 was great.

[Belial]

gggmork said:

(I hate using the mouse in games like this)

You should really reconsider if you enjoy playing slaughter maps.

gggmork said:

I should try to go find a demo to watch for 'playground' (map 32 I think) in hell revealed 2

Heh

[Liberation]

Crazy stuff but kinda of fun, Nice one!

[gggmork]

Thanks for the link; that was fun to watch. It was kinda a let down though. I only briefly played 'playground' myself but since it was new to me I had no route/strategy formed at all, and it initially appeared quite insane with ground viles and monsters everywhere. The actual gameplay looks a lot easier and more monotonous than it first appeared though. If you know the map by heart it seems easy to kill off all the ground viles at once and a lot of monsters are tediously picked off as they stand stuck on pedestals, or all killed in mass with the plentiful bfg ammo right when they first appear.

Also I have little experience with the fast parameter but it almost looks easier WITH it on this level at least perhaps (probably only for projectile shooter monsters, not gunmen.). The reason it looks easier is first infighting is maxed out when everyone constantly shoots and second almost every rocket shot at a vile will hit because they're almost constantly paused motionless in their attack position. Cybers also stay relatively fixed in one place as they constantly shoot.

Anyway, with keyboarding its still fun to compete against myself even though its too much of a disadvantage to compete with mousers probably. Its also a pain in the ass to play dos versions required in speed runs, and type out the whole path and parameters in dosbox (which itself is only questionably acceptable) every time a demo is recorded for me, so not really worth the hassle.

[additup]

Can you not use batch files when recording speedruns?

[gggmork]

I don't even know how to use batch files, but guess I could google it.

[additup]

Right-click on your desktop, "Create New>Text File". Rename it "wadname.bat". Right click on it, and click "Edit". Type in the cmd line parameters you want to use (eg, c:\doom\zdoom.exe -file wadname.wad -warp 01 -skill 3 -record wadname), and save the document. Then double-click on it whenever you want to record.

[gggmork]

Cool, thanks! For zdoom demos, that's about the same speed/easyness for me since I normally used to just press 3 buttons in a row (don't even have to move the mouse): 1)windows key (brings up start menu), 2)'r' (run), 3) enter (since windows just remembers the last entry I put in there, and I tend to only use one entry for quite awhile before changing it.)
But I'd guess it would greatly speed up the process of recording a dosbox demo since maybe you can just type the short name of the batch file only.

[additup]

I just tried that, and yeah, it works in exactly that way with the batch file I use to view my level's demo.