Golachab.wad - A Boom-compatible single-player level - Now on /idgames archive!

[Cynical]

EDIT: /idgames archive download link: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=17373

Golachab is a challenging single-player Doom 2 level (with difficulty levels supported for those who want a casual playthrough), intended for Boom compatible ports (tested in PrBoom+ complevel 9). The main inspiration was the fight up the hillside after the blue-key door in "Hillside Siege" from Alien Vendetta, and the start was inspired by some of the fast starts in Surge and some of Joshy's maps from Speed of Doom's second episode. Even though I've been screwing around with level editors for various FPS games for a decade now (mostly Unreal and Doom), this is the first time I've ever made something I felt was good enough to actually finish and publicly release; hopefully it's more enjoyable than most first maps!

I owe a huge thanks to my playtesters. Without these people, both from Doomworld and from other places on the internet, this would not have been nearly as good:
Demon of the Well: Without his advice on how to tweak the fights and how to set up the red key trap, this likely would have not ended up being fun to play. His finding of lots of little texture bugs and advice on placing decorations also helped the map's visuals greatly. Also, he gets credit for getting me into Doom in the first place back in 2004.

Joshy: If this map's visuals can be talked about as "aesthetics" instead of "assthetics", it's because he pretty much taught me how to do texturing and architecture in Doom that doesn't look entirely awful. In addition, the entire ending scenario was inspired by his comments.

Antipathy: His magical coward powers were a huge help in finding and eliminating exploits in fights all over the map.

Mike Lowell: His comments were quite helpful for tweaking "Hey, Not Too Rough" difficulty.

Resources taken from other sources:
The fire texture in the first large cave room was taken from Deus Vult II, by Huy Pham.

The red sky was taken from CC4-tex.wad

The song "In the Arms of Death" was taken from vgmusic.com. It is originally from the Guilty Gear XX Korean OST.

Anyways, download, enjoy, and let me know what you think! I'm definitely going to wait a few days to see what's said here before uploading it to the /idgames archive, in case there's anything that obviously needs fixing.

[AtTheGates]

i give out 10/10 for using the testament theme from the korean ggxx#r ost already before i even got past the first room :)

edit: aaaaand... i'm stuck after the first door. can't get to the red or blue key and don't know where else to go. (using zdoom btw)

[Memfis]

Sector 285 shouldn't be tagged I think (makes sounds together with the lift). Also don't use W1 teleport lines in monster closets, they lose their effect if a monster fails to teleport due to the destination being blocked. And 112 as a main brightness level in a big area like that cave is too dark I think, too tempting to just use gamma correction 4 instead of trying to see something. Actually I found the whole map too dark, I guess your monitor is much brighter.

[Walter confetti]

looks really cool!

[Cynical]

AtTheGates said:

i give out 10/10 for using the testament theme from the korean ggxx#r ost already before i even got past the first room :)

edit: aaaaand... i'm stuck after the first door. can't get to the red or blue key and don't know where else to go. (using zdoom btw)

Look out the window on the bottom floor, and shoot the switch on the other side of that narrow hallway. That'll lower the red key for you. I can't make that not a shoot switch, since otherwise you can pacifist to that point, and the monsters in the teleporter closets won't wake up.

I just gave it a quick iddqd run in GZDoom, and everything worked correctly. There was a small visual artifact near the red key that's not there in PrBoom, but it was very minor.

Sector 285 shouldn't be tagged I think (makes sounds together with the lift). Also don't use W1 teleport lines in monster closets, they lose their effect if a monster fails to teleport due to the destination being blocked. And 112 as a main brightness level in a big area like that cave is too dark I think, too tempting to just use gamma correction 4 instead of trying to see something. Actually I found the whole map too dark, I guess your monitor is much brighter.

Sector 285 is a part of the lift; is there a way to make it move with sector 587 without making a second noise?

Thanks for catching those w1 monster-closet teleporter lines. I thought I had fixed all of those :\

On the brightness, it looks fine on my monitor? It's supposed to be dark and oppressive, but visibility isn't ever much of a problem on my screen (in the Revenant tunnel, if a Revenant is clear on the other end of it, it can be tough to see, but you can solve that by just getting closer to it; not like you don't know where he is, anyways...). I do have gamma set to 0.0, so that shouldn't be causing it to be too bright on my screen. Dunno what to tell you on that one; no one else I ran it by had any problems with the brightness.

EDIT: Just ran it in GLBoom +, and yeah, thing visibility is a bit worse in the large cave. Try running software, or bump gamma up to 1.0 if you want to stick with GL. I've been testing in software (I prefer that look over the modern "smoothed and no distance fog" GL look), and didn't notice that GL was darker in the dark areas.

DOUBLE EDIT: First post updated with a link to a version that has those W1 monster teleport lines fixed. http://www.mediafire.com/download/1bq8fpfbe8asfzc/Golactelefix.wad

[Memfis]

Cynical said:

Sector 285 is a part of the lift

Not sure what you mean. It doesn't move when you press the switch since the surrounding sectors have either same or higher floor level. So it makes a sound without actually moving, which is why I suggested removing the tag.

I was actually playing in software with no gamma correction. It's not like I couldn't see anything at all but I thought the low visibility made the fights annoying. I just don't like darkness I guess.

[Cynical]

Memfis said:

Not sure what you mean. It doesn't move when you press the switch since the surrounding sectors have either same or higher floor level. So it makes a sound without actually moving, which is why I suggested removing the tag.

Huh, I guess I'm retarded; I could have sworn it was moving with the rest of the lift, although now that you explain it, you're right, it's definitely not. I have no idea how I hadn't noticed that.

I'll untag 285 when I get home tonight.

[Cynical]

I've made a "bright" version with most of the light levels raised just a touch (the two scrolling faces hallways were left dark, since there's no fights in them anyways). IMO, it impacts the atmosphere pretty negatively, but maybe that's just me? More opinions on "bright vs dark version" would be appreciated.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/mfe4wvdj3gvj66h/Golabrite.wad

[Ribbiks]

hihi, interesting map, some neat encounters. I have some advices for future maps that you can choose to ignore if you wish :)

- many rooms involved exiting via balcony (RSK room, RL room) where it's still possible to have enemies below you, leading to infinity tall annoyances. Most prominent if you rush from ssg --> rsk and try to exit via this :p
- I'd complain about the ammo placement in the BFG room (big cell packs causing ammo wastage, going from 600->560->600 on each pickup), but I suppose there was such a plethora it didn't really matter
- I'd recommend putting block-monster lines around perches where monsters live, with RL or PR it's not uncommon to push enemies off or get them stuck somewhere. Most prominent case of that in this one was the cyb platform.
- the amount of bitty stuff along the walls that you could get caught on was mildly annoying, but not overly offensive.

I don't really have an opinion on the bright/dark thing, playing in GL it's usually the case that with gamma 0-4 any map can be coaxed into acceptable brightness.

[Cynical]

Thanks for the comments!

On the block monsters lines on the platforms, should I make the edge of the platform itself block monsters, or should the block line be drawn slightly inside of the platforms? That latter would be difficult to do in the case of those Revenant columns in the first big cave room, since those guys are jam-packed on there, heh.

The "speedrun to the RK, infinity tallness sucks when you try to jump out the window" issue is known. In an earlier build, you could open that door from both sides, but it meant that you could cheese the first battle too easily by just using that door to chokepoint everything off; sadly, I don't know of any other way of fixing that exploit.

[Demon of the Well]

Hey, good work, looks even better than before. About the infinity-tallness issue Ribbiks mentioned and that we talked about before, there's a solution so simple I don't know why I didn't think of it before...why not just add another small opening off of the top level of the red key building that the player can drop out of? It could be as simple as a small aperture on the northern face, or perhaps one farther north along the western face (or perhaps both). It would be easy to do and wouldn't require you to change the look of the exterior much, and would allow more freedom to drop down in most styles of play, with the possible exception of a purely pacifistic run.

[Ribbiks]

Cynical said:

On the block monsters lines on the platforms, should I make the edge of the platform itself block monsters, or should the block line be drawn slightly inside of the platforms?

the edge of the platform itself will do just fine :)

[Cynical]

Demon of the Well said:

Hey, good work, looks even better than before. About the infinity-tallness issue Ribbiks mentioned and that we talked about before, there's a solution so simple I don't know why I didn't think of it before...why not just add another small opening off of the top level of the red key building that the player can drop out of? It could be as simple as a small aperture on the northern face, or perhaps one farther north along the western face (or perhaps both). It would be easy to do and wouldn't require you to change the look of the exterior much, and would allow more freedom to drop down in most styles of play, with the possible exception of a purely pacifistic run.

Done! Also, block monster lines added on the wooden Mancubi platforms, on the Revenant pillars, and on the Cyberdemon ledge.

This is a "dark" version; I really like the atmosphere more in this version than in the "bright" version.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/93s72hh7q456741/Golachab_Public_2.wad

[Cynical]

Now on /idgames archive: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?id=17373

I feel unreasonably giddy about having something I made there!

[Demonologist]

Well, I really had to wait for the right moment to play this map. Had issues with it for some time, and today I just sat down and finished it in a single go without much trouble (Monday evening, who would've thought...). I must say, while it starts out harsh it gets easier towards the end. Strong debut, you're clearly capable of producing some hectic gameplay situations. Nice work, I'm interested in seeing more from you.