Imperfect Hatred - Post your 6 hour maps!

[zodiac]

One of my favorite stories in DOOM lore is the creation of E4M2 Perfect Hatred. On the day before the deadline id was scrambling to put the finishing touches on Ultimate DOOM. They knew it was good, with pulse-pounding maps like Hell Beneath and Against Thee Wickedly.

But there was nothing for the second slot, or at least nothing that met Romero's quality standards. The deadline was fast approaching, and they had to deliver the maps. They needed a pinch hitter, and Romero was it. Working furiously at the editor from midnight 'til the break of dawn he built room after room, cramming tricks and monsters into the map until it even he broke a sweat on it. Map and test, map and test. No room for breaks.

With hours left Romero added the finishing touches, a devious secret exit and the difficulty settings. With that the map was done, and so was Ultimate DOOM.



Having run into mapper's block working on Delos I decided to try the same. My idea was simple - try to map up a "Romero Special" and see how far I could go.

I finished, barely.

I had to make hard tradeoffs. The secrets suffered. But it was a different way of mapping, and it gave me perspective to keep moving the others forward.



Mulling it over, I thought it might help some of you. If your new like me, I guarantee you'll learn a lot. If you've been around a while, it's a shot of inspiration, a chance to see what you can do fast. I saw Khorus did a whole megawad of this, and playing it now the results are pretty awesome!

If enough people are in, we might even get a community megawad out of this :)

So without further ado, I present to you my Imperfect Hatred: The Well. The demons have warped into the middle of a UAC base, corrupting the water supply and twisting half of it into a hellish castle before the marines can respond. Now you're on the front lines!

Runs with E2M1 of Ultimate Doom on a limit-removing port.


Got crits? Tear this map a new one! I made it to learn and get better.


Romero Special Format

+ 6 hours to make the map start to finish.
+ Any theme you want - just make it as cool as possible!
+ DOOM or DOOMII format.
+ Limits removed, but no port-only tricks (slopes, scripting)
+ Push the envelope: 2 hour grace period for difficulty and secrets. Romero always pushed the envelope ;)
...

[molten_]

This is one of my favorite things to do if I'm suffering a creative block; For some reason I always produce my best work when under time constraints. Programming (Using the term loosely), art, level design ... you name it.

I might give this a shot tomorrow if I can find time :)

[Phobus]

I've got a big range of maps (mostly ZDoom-compatible) that were made in 6 hours or less. When I'm not at work I'll go through what I've made and see what fits the description. I won't be able to map for this idea in the next two weeks or so though, much as I like it.

[printz]

How would you schedule your free precious time to use 6 continuous hours for Doom mapping?

[molten_]

Uh yeah lol, I must have skipped over the 6 hour part. I was more thinking 1 hour. If I have time this weekend I might.

[Xaser]

I'm actually tempted to try this just to see if I can get it done (I think even my most recent 32in24 entry took longer than 6 hours to do). I'll probably "cheat" by designing a concept before actually starting the 6-hour mark, but to be fair, I won't write down anything.

[spaztacus]

I'm going to try this tonight!!! Will try to post results tonight or tomorrow.

[esselfortium]

We should combine projects and see if we can make 30,000 levels in 6 hours.

[C30N9]

esselfortium said:

We should combine projects and see if we can make 30,000 levels in 6 hours.

Over 20 years will be wasted.

EDIT: Oh wait, misread your post. :P I thought every level should be done in 6 hours.

[Walter confetti]

played your map with chocorenderlimits and i found it nice, maybe too 1994 for today standards but wtf that's what people want... or almost is the kind of stuff i like to play... nice map whatever

[hex11]

The problem is, I would probably end up with something like this (everything locked on 64 grid):
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pc80cb

[zodiac]

Yeah, time can be an issue - I basically killed Saturday to do it.

In the interest of fairness I'll say you can work in chunks with a total of 6 hours. Not quite the Romero experience, but we have day jobs dammit!

As far my design goes, what would you change? A snap judgement's fine, good parts/bad parts - I'm still trying to work up to the level you guys are at!


@esselfortium: ha, as if! We'd need a Slige batch file to make it in time ;).

@walter: Almost? What exactly do you like? =P

[Dragonsbrethren]

I had a free afternoon today and gave this a go:



http://dkk.slickproductions.org/files/doommaps/db_6hour.zip

I forgot to mention it in the text file, but I didn't use DB2's 3D mode at all, for a little added authenticity. Completely forgot what mapping without it was like.

Six hours goes by a lot faster than you'd think! I honestly expected to have this thing thrown together in two hours; ended up having to cut the entire section after the blue door to get it finished in time. I think it's still comparable to Perfect Hatred in terms of size, though.

[Walter confetti]

zodiac said:

@walter: Almost? What exactly do you like? =P

Actually, the best in maps for me are the twisted human\hell base, as actually i build them in that way....

Whatever, talking of your map is maybe too 1994-ish... but it's a cool map, and thinking this is your first map is a really good work....

[spaztacus]

http://www.mediafire.com/?hz11qvu24e1vkmg

I present Blood Castle!!!!. Just hit the 6 hour mark. Was not too pleased with the last area, had to rush :)

Doom 2, Map 01


Have fun

[Dragonsbrethren]

Updated my map. It took me less than a minute, so I don't think I broke the rules, heh. I put block monster flags in the cave leading to the blue key so the Lost Souls can't get out of there into the main section of the map. I also took advantage of the update to fix two missing upper textures.

[zodiac]

@spaztacus, dragonsbretheren: Awesome, just played both maps. Funny how all three of us ended up with something so different.

I actually liked the last area of Blood Castle, the arachnotrons were a blast to fight and I was hanging on by a thread for a second (1% health! =O) Architecturally it was simpler, but the rest had some damn good architecture for only 6 hours.

In 6th Hour I think the best part was the dark hall before the blue key. The specters managed to get me first time out, the hall was just wide enough for them to get past me on the sides! The return trip was an added bonus.