hard copy/paste level

[gggmork]

http://www.sendspace.com/file/trrs9l

Most won't like it probably, but I think its fun/challenging. Quite hard nonlinear gameplay with simple copy/paste sywwetry. Its a 'doom2' file in doombuilder so probably works in any source port, but I use zdoom.

Starts with 2 viles loose on the ground level, so probably the best starting strategy is to mostly target them & pain elementals since they can't be resurrected.

Includes a zdoom v2.1.7 demo (beat w/o max kills in 5:55).

[ReFracture]

simple and entertaining. Cool.

[TimeOfDeath]

Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool too. I tried it a few times before watching the demo but kept dying. :)

[gggmork]

*rubs eyes in disbelief*
Someone played it?.. And they liked it?

[Dr. Zin]

Here's my view of the good and the bad.

The Bad:

Too much copypasta. It wasn't overly egregious in this map, but symmetry is highly overrated.

Could use more height variation.

Could use more detail in some parts, especially in regards to lighting. Also most of the ceilings were FLAT1, which didn't really fit with the brick theme. FLOOR5_4 or FLAT6 or FLAT5 or any of several others would have fit better. There also were a few points where short linedefs meant a texture wasn't tiling properly, which can be fixed with a quick use of the Auto-Align tool.

The Good:

The gameplay seems pretty good, in a Hell Revealed style. It isn't just a bunch of monsters thrown around the map randomly chasing the player, instead they seem to be more tactically positioned. There is also a definite progression to the map.

Architechturally interesting. The use of varied ceiling heights made the map feel more "real" as a place, rather than a flat abstraction.

The map sticks to a texture theme, in this case bricks. With the exception of the ceilings it is pretty coherent an asthetically pleasing.

I'd say my overall opinion is that this is a massive improvement over your first effort. While there are still rough areas to work on it has all the basics of a good map and just needs some polishing.

[ReFracture]

haha, I love your critique. Given the style of gameplay I didn't care much about the details. In most others, I'll care. But here, i'm too busy shootin' shit to care. :)

[gggmork]

Whoa, I didn't even know doombuilder had an auto-align feature. I usually choose textures that are composed of 16 pixel high/wide units just for that reason (the laziest way to have it not look like complete ass- thus I chose bricks). But the auto-align seems either extremely computationally intensive (recursive programming apparently) or perhaps buggy (two of the textures aligned fine in maybe 7 seconds, the last one hung up the computer each of several attempts).

As far as copy/paste- I don't really find pure symmetry or mirror-only symmetry all that interesting (like in a geometric plane, every area is the same as every other). But I like weird complex symmetry with rotations, slides, flips, even scale (a fractal is just scaling symmetry).

Well, ok, another reason is it allows quick creation of a wide array of combinational permutations (even of extremely detailed stuff if you desire as you only have to make a small area once) while being lazy. This level is just a low detail simple example with little height variation (if there was more the cybers probably wouldn't be able to follow you around as well) plus I got lazy and did a huge mirror flip of the whole thing just to quickly make it bigger.

I've made far more interesting looking irregularly symmetrical architecture that has lots of height variation and detail, but it usually negatively affects gameplay (monsters fail to pass over certain height steps or group in mass above/below a drop off, or you get snagged by the detail while running around, etc). Unfortunately you can't unread all this crappy text.

[Udderdude]

Heh, that was downright unplayable on skill 4.

[Belial]

Heh, that was quite fun on skill 4.

But the spider causes it's sector to fail lowering on -complevel 2.

[gggmork]

I had to google 'complevel' and didn't find much info. Maybe the spider is too near the wall? How do you usually play by the way belial (prboom, wasd keys, dosbox/dos)? Unless you already told me and I didn't listen in which case there's no sense in retelling me. I just saw your great hr13 & 14 demos again.

edit: i read that pinned complevel topic in the speedrun section. Does that mean compet-n doesn't really require dos, as you can just run prboom with complevel 2?

[Belial]

Raising the ceiling of the sector so the spider isn't stuck in it is enough to fix the problem.