Interesting ideas for monster traps...?

[Kyka]

Yeah, so I am currently making a "Tricks and Traps" styled map (pics in the "post your pictures" thread... all those pics are still very WIP tho) and I wanted to throw this thread open for a discussion about interesting/original, well, tricks and traps. Aything from monster closets to mazes is fair game here.

Some great examples of unique encounters that I have seen include:
-The Cyberdemon/baron room from the original 'tricks and traps' level... pretty boring now, but revolutionary at the time it came out.
-players picking up an invisibility sphere before facing off against cyberdemons (from scythe 1 I am pretty sure)
-the vanilla P.E trap where the P.E's can't shoot anything until a crusher crushes a room full of Lost Souls.(from Plutonia?)
-the archvile maze from the original Plutonia.
-Monsters teleporting around a room in a circular route, thereby making them move really quickly. (particularly nasty if done with archviles or cyberdemons.)
-A crate jumping area

So yeah, just throwing things open for ideas about what would make good tricks and traps, anything from 'classic' vanilla style through to huge fancy scripted fights.

I should mention that I am hoping people might allow me to use a couple of potential ideas in this thread for the level I am making. Full credit will be given of course.

Thanks people :).

[Mithran Denizen]

You could always use some kind of REJECT table tomfoolery to prevent a horde of monsters from attacking until a certain condition. That never gets old.

[hervoheebo]

Some standard fare:

-Teleporter maze, if you want to be extra evil place the teleport destination inside barrels or a voodoo doll

-Fake floors (illusio-pit style, though if you go that route the HOM when inside the trap may look unprofessional. Shallow pits only have the floor bleeding over)

-A pool of water that looks like you can climb back from easily, but is actually deep water. The only way out leads through a dark room full of spectres.

-A maze, with random switches thorough. Some open doors to powerups etc. while others lower the maze walls revealing monsters

-Rising water or some other liquid (can be any flat really) though the vanilla functions are rather limiting.

[purist]

Okay, how about some of my favourites...

Using shootable walls with monsters behind so if the player misses a monster he has a bunch more to contend with.

Using projectile monsters in an area with mainly damaging flats and "islands" of safe ground. Keeps the player moving.

Monster clostes within monster closets.

Trap the player in a caged room surrounded my monsters.

Have door or lift textures open a monster closet directly behind the player.

A fight in a room with pillars with cover. After the fight a switch lowers the pillars on top of which are more mosters.

Monsters on fast lowering lifts which are triggered when the player walks near them.

Lights out! Always a classic :-)

[Megalyth]

I always found the fake exit in Doom e2m6 to be pretty dastardly. Similar traps to that could be something like walking down a hallway and having the entire hallway lower into some kind of pit. I think there was something like that in map12 of Doom2. Also, picking up a key or item closes the doors and traps you in a room with teleporting monsters. There's a ton of variations on the old-style traps.

KiiiYiiiKiiiA said:

-A crate jumping area

What map is that from?

[Guest]

Megalyth said:

What map is that from?

Map 07 of my Mea Culpa project. The map itself is completely finished except for difficulty settings now.

If you are interested, there are more screenies here, about halfway down the page. :)

[Megamur]

I believe it was Hell to Pay that had an infuriating-yet-clever trap, with a small, empty room with a door attached to it. The trick was that the door was actually a switch--pressing on it caused all the walls in the room except for the door to lift up and let monsters in, creating a great fake-out.

Another one was from, I believe, Memento Mori, where you hit a switch, and the switch is actually a tiny lift; the "switch" slides down, revealing a porthole that lets you see a small compartment with a Revenant inside it. It runs towards you, over a teleporter line, and appears in the room behind you, misdirecting your attention.

Some others I came up with:

-A monster closet pops open in a hallway, but nothing is inside it, except maybe a small item. Going to pick it up causes another monster closet to open in the wall behind you, on the opposite side of the hall.

-Putting Spectres in small, cramped passageways or seemingly-empty monster closets, but having them facing away from you, so you run into their backs by accident when you attempt to enter.

-Being locked in a slowly-descending elevator as enemies teleport onto it, and you have to stay alive until it reaches the bottom.

-(for source ports) You wander through an empty room and head into an adjacent one to pick up an item. When you head back into the empty room, you notice a small item off to the side that you seemed to have missed. (Unbeknownst to the player, it was silently teleported into the room when they left.) When you move to pick up said item, an inactive enemy (that was also silently teleported in) ambushes you from around the previously-empty corner.

-(for source ports) A whole bunch of monster closets open up, but nothing is inside them. You head off and do something else. When you come back, inactive monsters have silently been teleported into the now-full monster closets while you were gone.

-(for source ports) You hit a passthru switch. When you turn around, dozens of inactive monsters have silently been teleported in while you were facing the wall; they have their backs to you so you don't notice them until you turn around, hopefully giving the player a jolt.

-A completely innocuous, totally optional health bonus sits in a corner. Moving to pick it up teleports you into a trap room.

-Optional monster closets: Just having totally random trap trigger lines in hallways and rooms. If you walk through the hall normally, nothing happens; if you hug the left wall tightly, you'll trip the trigger line. A player could pass through an area repeatedly and never know a trap was there, then hopefully get a fright when they accidentally step on the trigger spot.

Some of these, I've actually seen in action. Some are just ideas I've theorized.

[schmerr]

I know this is probably overused but i don't care.

You have a dark room (say about 80 or 90 light level), then you have a door, behind it, a spectre (you know, the semi-invisible pinky demon).

My favorite monster trap.

[Reisal]

The good old multi-spot teleport traps in my Uncertain Doom map and the en-masse teleporter triggers in my Edgy level with less than average health to deal with the flood of monsters, which are mostly projectile and hitscanners.

One more is a key grab which closes bars behind the player and forced to do close quarters combat with a pair of knights and a baron in a 300x164 area, but that's not it! There are three switches, one in each monster closet..Two will open the bars and the last one will activate a fatal silent crusher. This is in my Unnamed Base map I made back in 2003.

[Megamur]

Does anyone actually like "hit the wrong switch and die instantly" traps? They just seem like a quick trip to Annoying Your Players Land.

[elic]

-The unkillable Archviles who constantly resurrect dead Chaingunners from Plutionia MAP15 were pretty interesting and can lead to some unique level layouts.

-I think it's a cool effect to have an invisible platform with enemies which lowers from a hole in the ceiling with the fake floor/ceiling effect.

[Lüt]

One I used over 15 years ago:

Player teleports to large open field with a small nukage stream spanning the center. Across the field is a platform with the blue key. On the platform is a single imp. Shoot at the imp, and you awaken a horde of 250+ monsters that warp into the field - the nukage stream is actually a sound channel leading to two large monster-warp pits.

Megamur said:

Does anyone actually like "hit the wrong switch and die instantly" traps?

If so, let them speak and be banned >:(=

[magicsofa]

I'm not sure if this can be done in vanilla (I think so) but you could have a room where the floor is sectioned off into many sectors, and when the player walks on them they lower into damaging slime/lava. The more they run around, the less safe ground there is :P (the platforms could even lower when the player leaves each one, so they can stand there as long as they can survive enemies)

Mr. Chris said:

One more is a key grab which closes bars behind the player and forced to do close quarters combat with a pair of knights and a baron in a 300x164 area, but that's not it! There are three switches, one in each monster closet..Two will open the bars and the last one will activate a fatal silent crusher. This is in my Unnamed Base map I made back in 2003.

Make sure you don't do anything like this

[Megamur]

magicsofa said:

I'm not sure if this can be done in vanilla (I think so) but you could have a room where the floor is sectioned off into many sectors, and when the player walks on them they lower into damaging slime/lava. The more they run around, the less safe ground there is :P (the platforms could even lower when the player leaves each one, so they can stand there as long as they can survive enemies)

Interesting idea. I suppose it'd be possible in vanilla, as long as the sectors are arranged in such a way so that they're always adjacent to a damaging floor sector.

I like this topic. I hope people will consider these ideas.