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David_Dweedle

Prob I am having when making maps..

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For some reason my Maps continue to be Progression style.. What I mean is I cant seem to make Areas that are revisitable.. know what I mean? it starting to bug me.. am I just going thru a phase or what? its really bugging me..

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I don't think regular Doom levels you can do that with...I know somehow with ZDoom and all that hub stuff you can.

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Oh, you make linear maps? Just play some non-linear maps, like Blackrock by Vader, that is a good example of revisit-able areas and non-linearity.

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Sometimes it's just hard. What you could try is to avoid thinking about exactly how the player is going to progress through an area while making that area. Try building large, complex areas and structures, and then afterwards start experimenting with monster placement and different player paths and see what sort of fun fights can be had there.

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Creaphis said:

Sometimes it's just hard. What you could try is to avoid thinking about exactly how the player is going to progress through an area while making that area. Try building large, complex areas and structures, and then afterwards start experimenting with monster placement and different player paths and see what sort of fun fights can be had there.


Yea.. I need to do this more often.. anyways im releaseing what ive made on PT2009 so I can start fresh.

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Try to build sections of your layout to loop around each other, so that the player returns to a previously-visited area when he reaches the end of a path. For example,

      ___________
_____|           |_____
     B     ^     B     |
     B           B   x |
_____B           B__   |
     |           |  |  |
     |___     ___|  |  |
         |   |______|  |
         |             |
         |_____________|
with ^ representing the player start, BBB representing a blue-key door, and x representing the blue key.

The player sees two locked doors, goes through the pathway in front of him and picks up the needed key, then continues forwards through the two blue key doors to the next section of the map. The blue key door on the right is just there for the sake of reconnecting to the previous area, with the blue key door on the left being conveniently placed right in front of where the player will be when he comes out the right-side door after getting the key.

Of course, that's just one basic example of it, and there's billions of ways you can do variants on this idea. Having upper and lower areas that have either balconies, walkways, or windows between each other for visual-only interconnections between them can also be extremely effective to making a map feel more like a convincing 3D space.

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esselfortium said:

Try to build sections of your layout to loop around each other, so that the player returns to a previously-visited area when he reaches the end of a path. For example,

      ___________
_____|           |_____
     B     ^     B     |
     B           B   x |
_____B           B__   |
     |           |  |  |
     |___     ___|  |  |
         |   |______|  |
         |             |
         |_____________|
with ^ representing the player start, BBB representing a blue-key door, and x representing the blue key.

The player sees two locked doors, goes through the pathway in front of him and picks up the needed key, then continues forwards through the two blue key doors to the next section of the map. The blue key door on the right is just there for the sake of reconnecting to the previous area, with the blue key door on the left being conveniently placed right in front of where the player will be when he comes out the right-side door after getting the key.

Of course, that's just one basic example of it, and there's billions of ways you can do variants on this idea. Having upper and lower areas that have either balconies, walkways, or windows between each other for visual-only interconnections between them can also be extremely effective to making a map feel more like a convincing 3D space.


I will try this.. Im gonna make a Proper Wad sometime next Week when I sort all the **** happening in RL at the mo. cheers.

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Also remember that any area of the map can be connected to any other area with the utilization of a teleport. Familiarize yourself with Tags like remote doors, remote lifts, sector raises lowering. Try creating rooms or structures that have a purpose for the player to return to them. A wall opens up, door opens, lift becomes accessable.

Experiment with heights as well. Once you start thinking vertically when design you can create some interesting gameplay scenarios.

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Creaphis said:

Try building large, complex areas and structures, and then afterwards start experimenting with monster placement and different player paths and see what sort of fun fights can be had there.

Or alternatively, build separate areas specifically designed for fun fights, and once you've got a bunch of good fights designed, connect those areas with hallways and other, less important rooms in interesting ways.

If you're having emphasis on gameplay, just building architecture without a thought given for the gameplay and then trying to build gameplay around that feels just backwards IMHO. :/ It should be the other way around, building architecture around gameplay.

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What sl4's referring to is referred by Valve as just that: loops, which I found out a while ago--and is an awesome concept, really. I've been trying to incorporate it more into my designs since I found out about it.

You don't want to overuse it either, of course. Having more than a few loops in a level would begin to make it look contrived, especially if they're really short, quick ones. Try to drag them out a bit and use them in moderation and they're the perfect touch.

And as he said, areas that you can only look at long before you get to reach them are a really cool effect, too.

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