Straight to Hell - Single level PWAD for Doom 2

[Agentbromsnor]

It's been a while since I posted a WAD, and since I don't have the patience to make a full mega-WAD, I'm just going to share this one level that I've been working on for a few months.

I intended this WAD to be a complete modern story based add-on for Doom 2, but since my spare time got shorter and shorter the design got to a halt. The whole idea behind this was to give more of a background on the marine VS hell scenario, without foiling the gameplay. The way I did this is by making the player able to "listen" to what static NPC marines have to say by running into them (essentially a simple onscreen print message).

This WAD does have a few jumping (and crouching) parts, so its not an oldschool WAD where jumping would be considered cheating.

What this WAD includes:
- OpenGL lights
- Coloured sector lights
- 3D floors
- Slopes (lots of them!)
- Custom music (two songs, composed by myself and TheMetal4all)
- Custom title cards

(yeah I know its lame to have custom titlecards for a single level, but I had already made it so I thought I should at least include it).

Download link: http://www.sendspace.com/file/n0d1y7

Right now I'm going to get very busy with school, so for me this is the perfect time to release it.

Even though I don't have time to work on a full mega-WAD in this style, I do hope that this at least somewhat inspires people.

Let me know what you think of it, critisism, anything! :D

[Agentbromsnor]

Also, here's a screenshot: http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/9851/sthscrn.jpg

:)

[K3K]

Agentbromsnor said:

Also, here's a screenshot: http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/9851/sthscrn.jpg

:)

From the looks of the picture, it looks really intresting! When I get home, I'll download it and give some critique :P

[Agentbromsnor]

TB171 said:

From the looks of the picture, it looks really intresting! When I get home, I'll download it and give some critique :P

Hehe thanks.

I'm also curious to read if I left any bugs in the map. I played this damn map at least 5 times every mapping session, so it wouldn't surprise me if I overlooked something really stupid. :P

[Acid]

Was a decent map, though it lacked any sort of difficulty to the extent that I was more impaired by my computer's inabilty to render GL smoothly than fighting monsters.

[K3K]

Okay here's my review!

Difficulty 3.5/5: I liked the difficulty being based on strict health and very small amount of ammo so you have to be carefull and not aimlessly blow ammo away like a dumbass. The lack of monsters in the map add up to the suspense, but kinda make boring. Oh, and at the end with the caco demons after then earthquake effect, I had no ammo left and I died a bunch of times trying to chainsaw dem cacos :\

Level Design 5/5: I really liked the level design! Especially the beggining with the jumping puzzle and not to mention the nice looking 3D bridge to get into the base. And I liked how the plot revolved around the NPC marines (Which were really cool by the way) talking about the hole that formed. The part where the Arch-viles surrond you (but don't attack you, only look at you) was a nifty effect, but it made it impossible to get 100% kills, next time you try something like that, try to do it without the monsters being counted as "enemies". And good work with the ZDoom effects ;)

Replayability: 2/5: As good as the map is, I don't know if I would play this a lot like AV or Scythe, but then again this is only ONE level. But the fact that the replayability score is low, doesn't mean that it's a bad thing, just that the map was so short and all. Next time try to make the map a bit longer with more monsters


Bugs: 1. When you go into the first 'hell hole' in one of the little ponds of slime, I noticed a HOM effect even with OpenGL mode on with Skulltag.

2. The archviles make it impossible to get 100% kills but I already discusses this above :P

Overall Rating 4/5

Keep on maping, I like the way you took advantage of the ZDoom ACS and Slopes and the notable 3D bridge, and I would like to see more maps like this from you :P

[Memfis]

Cool map! Here is a little error I noticed, probably wrong sector color: pic

[Pottus]

It's pretty good design but I would say your slopes don't look so great at all. Next time when your doing slopes tessellate them so the seams align correctly which you did do in some areas but it doesn't do justice to the walls which is in view most of the time.

[Agentbromsnor]

Pottus said:

It's pretty good design but I would say your slopes don't look so great at all. Next time when your doing slopes tessellate them so the seams align correctly which you did do in some areas but it doesn't do justice to the walls which is in view most of the time.

I'm kinda lazy when it came to slopes, so I just sloped everything and pasted the rock texture to every seam that was still visible.

Thanks for the comment, I think I'm gonna put more effort into it next time (whenever that may be).

[Agentbromsnor]

Memfis said:

Cool map! Here is a little error I noticed, probably wrong sector color: pic

I think I remember spotting that before. Strange to see its still there...

[Agentbromsnor]

TB171 said:

Okay here's my review!

Difficulty 3.5/5: I liked the difficulty being based on strict health and very small amount of ammo so you have to be carefull and not aimlessly blow ammo away like a dumbass. The lack of monsters in the map add up to the suspense, but kinda make boring. Oh, and at the end with the caco demons after then earthquake effect, I had no ammo left and I died a bunch of times trying to chainsaw dem cacos :\

Level Design 5/5: I really liked the level design! Especially the beggining with the jumping puzzle and not to mention the nice looking 3D bridge to get into the base. And I liked how the plot revolved around the NPC marines (Which were really cool by the way) talking about the hole that formed. The part where the Arch-viles surrond you (but don't attack you, only look at you) was a nifty effect, but it made it impossible to get 100% kills, next time you try something like that, try to do it without the monsters being counted as "enemies". And good work with the ZDoom effects ;)

Replayability: 2/5: As good as the map is, I don't know if I would play this a lot like AV or Scythe, but then again this is only ONE level. But the fact that the replayability score is low, doesn't mean that it's a bad thing, just that the map was so short and all. Next time try to make the map a bit longer with more monsters


Bugs: 1. When you go into the first 'hell hole' in one of the little ponds of slime, I noticed a HOM effect even with OpenGL mode on with Skulltag.

2. The archviles make it impossible to get 100% kills but I already discusses this above :P

Overall Rating 4/5

Keep on maping, I like the way you took advantage of the ZDoom ACS and Slopes and the notable 3D bridge, and I would like to see more maps like this from you :P

Hmm. When I tested this I got through the level chaingunning the last caco's and pain elemental, but maybe I should add a backback in that last area just to be sure?

I'm aware that its impossible to get 100% kills, but I couldn't find any other way to create that effect, and I suck at scripting so... :C

That HOM effect in the first Hell-part is a really strange bug, and I'm starting to think that it has something to do with the sourceport and / or video options. Sometimes I see the 'hole' (its right underneath the sloped rocks on the right side, right?) and sometimes I don't. Lately I haven't seen it though, and I even have a ATI card (GZDoom accursed enemy).

Thanks for the detailed review! I really appreciate it, because I did put quite some time into making this.

I hope I can upload it to the archive as well.

[zZaRDoZz]

Note: I played this on low difficulty for the purpose of speed.

Being someone who's lost a lot of friends to holes, I empathized with the plot-plight of the marines instantly. Slopes were nice to see even if the texture alignment kept them from being of high quality. The overall level layout and pacing was really good. I had that oh-shit! moment with the Arch-viles too. Loved the screen shaking and map ending, even the billboard sign. 4.5 /5

[Agentbromsnor]

zZaRDoZz said:

Note: I played this on low difficulty for the purpose of speed.

Being someone who's lost a lot of friends to holes, I empathized with the plot-plight of the marines instantly. Slopes were nice to see even if the texture alignment kept them from being of high quality. The overall level layout and pacing was really good. I had that oh-shit! moment with the Arch-viles too. Loved the screen shaking and map ending, even the billboard sign. 4.5 /5

Thanks for the comment! Those holes was a kind of abstract thing I started creating in the level, haha. So I thought I would try and connect it to the "story"-line.

[Gez]

You should have used 3D middle textures on the handrails in the sector around 900, 400. That way you can pass below the bridge or jump over the hedge, but they still have collision.

[Agentbromsnor]

Gez said:

You should have used 3D middle textures on the handrails in the sector around 900, 400. That way you can pass below the bridge or jump over the hedge, but they still have collision.

3D middle textures? To be honest I never even heard of that before, haha.

[Agentbromsnor]

I would also like to know what you guys think of the music. I composed the first track myself, and the second track was made by a friend.

[Gez]

They're certainly serviceable tunes. :) Some sections of D_RUNNIN (for lack of an actual song title) sounded like they would fit well in Heretic with just a few tweaks. Maybe it could have had bolder variations? Anyway, it was nice enough and fitted well the surreal ambiance at the beginning. Not much else to say.

STRAIGHT (to Hell I suppose?) was quite cool too, it sounded like it was out of a classic megawad. Like, if you told me it was from MM2 or Requiem, I wouldn't have doubted it.

[Agentbromsnor]

Gez said:

They're certainly serviceable tunes. :) Some sections of D_RUNNIN (for lack of an actual song title) sounded like they would fit well in Heretic with just a few tweaks. Maybe it could have had bolder variations? Anyway, it was nice enough and fitted well the surreal ambiance at the beginning. Not much else to say.

STRAIGHT (to Hell I suppose?) was quite cool too, it sounded like it was out of a classic megawad. Like, if you told me it was from MM2 or Requiem, I wouldn't have doubted it.

The first song is still called D_RUNNIN because I copied it out of the Doom WAD before changing the file. :) And yes, the other track is called Straight to Hell, but XWE changed it to STRAIGHT.

Thanks! Good to know that they both were well suited.

[Agentbromsnor]

I'm sorry to bump my old topic, but I tried adding Straight to Hell to idGames and I'm not sure if that worked or not.
Can somebody confirm this for me? I'm not an IT guy and I know little about FTP servers and such, so a little help is appreciated.

[Gez]

It doesn't seem to have worked. I don't see it in /newstuff or /incoming.

I see this in the REJECTS file:

Thu Aug 30 15:28:03 PDT 2012 Rejected sth.rar because: not zipped
Thu Aug 30 15:28:03 PDT 2012 Rejected sth.txt because: not zipped

Try again, but using a zip instead of a rar.

[Agentbromsnor]

Gez said:

It doesn't seem to have worked. I don't see it in /newstuff or /incoming.

I see this in the REJECTS file:


Try again, but using a zip instead of a rar.

I've put it in /incoming with a Zip-file and the text-file. Should that be alright?

Thanks for your help.

[Agentbromsnor]

Can somebody please confirm if it uploaded right this time?

[Gez]

Looks like it did. ;)

[Agentbromsnor]

Woo! My first WAD on idGames! :D

[Agentbromsnor]

VylePhinder said:

Very short, but very good. Expanding on this, may prove to be quite a good level-set, if you were so inclined.

Is this your first map? Judging by the quality of this map, I would say, certainly not, but you kind of sound like it is.

Either way it's good, and if it's your first, then I would say that you should definitely keep wadding, because you could prove to be one of the best mappers of the future.

Thanks for the reply! No, its not my first map. Straight to Hell was my third or fourth map. I haven't uploaded the maps I made before STH to idGames or something though, because they were mostly basic Doom Builder experiments.

I was going to make it STH into a megawad (hence why it has its own titlepicture, music and stuff), but I kinda ran into time constraints so I thought I would put my effort into making one fun map, instead of a whole bunch of shitty ones. :)

Thanks alot for the feedback. I'm working on a TC sort of WAD which is going to be a prototype for a bigger game idea that I have. You can find it here: http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/61478-hallway-new-project-of-mine-in-need-of-ideas/

Edit: looks like you deleted your post?