Gwangi's Palace - Beta Doom 2 Map - testers wanted

[Impie]

I just added my first completed Doom 2 map to my site. It's been tested in ZDoom, but not the other ports (I have Chocolate Doom and no clue how to run pwads with it...). This is a medium-sized outdoor map in a vaguely Doom 1 style.

Get Gwangi's Palace here.

Your investigation of demon sightings in Mexico has led you to Forbidden Valley, where ancient beasts roam wild and free, totally isolated from human civilization. With his dying breath a wounded gypsy spoke of a demon horde nested in the lair of Gwangi the Evil One -- a foul behemoth that was slain long ago, but whose aura still taints the heart of the Valley. Suspecting that the demons have opened a new gateway there, you travel to Gwangi's former lair to purge it of evil once and for all.

Anyone care to give it a test-drive and share their thoughts?

[Obsidian]

It could probably use some more ammo around the first Cacodemons, unless you really like punching their teeth in. Design is pretty cool though, and the bit with the red key appearing in the pool was a nice touch.

[Walter confetti]

looks cool from the shots...

[scifista42]

It's a nice map, pleasant to play. I like the compact layout and those somewhat oldschool-Doom aesthetics, with a garish texture selection here and there, but overally it doesn't look ugly, but pretty cool. Even the music adds to an oldschool-Doom feel, which has its own charm that appeals me if done right, and I think you did it very right.

The overall conception is simple, therefore navigation is easy and the game is fun (flows well). But you also add some ideas with switch-activated events which keep things interesting. The hell twist at the end was surprisingly appropriate, in my view, and well done.

I don't complain about ammo balance, in fact I've found it just the right. Difficulty-wise the map was quite easy, but not at all boring! I only died because of playing badly and paying not enough attention, as I usually do.

One thing that seems weird to me is the unmarked teleporter made of W1 (one-use only) teleport lines, leading to the area before you grab the blue key. Pinkies can use the teleport as well and "waste" the teleport actions. I'd rather see a proper working teleporter, or something else.

Good job on this map. Please keep making more! :)

[Guest]

This was pretty good.

[Keyboard_Doomer]

I'll just chime in and add that the WAD will work with anything. Including original Doom2 EXE.

EDIT: Actually Chocolate Doom crashes for me unless I run the map with -nomusic, which is weird considering I went through the whole map in Doom2.exe v1.9 and music worked.

[PRIMEVAL]

Will check it out eventually, but I want to say nice reference to Valley of Gwangi x)

[Memfis]

I liked it a lot, similar to what I want to learn to make. The only annoyance was the use of two solid hanging bodies in the circular area: in classic ports you can't walk below them.

[Walter confetti]

Pretty cool map, the only thing that need to be changed is putting some nukage liquid near the green slime fall, also the red skull door doesn't work for some reason... played with zandrodum...

[Impie]

Thanks for replying everybody!

walter confalonieri said:

Pretty cool map, the only thing that need to be changed is putting some nukage liquid near the green slime fall, also the red skull door doesn't work for some reason... played with zandrodum...

You mean the red door itself? or the red door switch?

Also the nukage is supposed to be water, but I'm getting the hang of XWE and should be able to replace it. Plutonia has a waterfall texture if I remember right...

Memfis said:

I liked it a lot, similar to what I want to learn to make. The only annoyance was the use of two solid hanging bodies in the circular area: in classic ports you can't walk below them.

Is it only the full bodies that do that? Or is it any hanging corpse at all? I can't remember.

PRIMEVAL said:

Will check it out eventually, but I want to say nice reference to Valley of Gwangi x)

Thanks man! I actually made an original game based on the movie, too, if you're curious.

scifista42 said:

One thing that seems weird to me is the unmarked teleporter made of W1 (one-use only) teleport lines, leading to the area before you grab the blue key. Pinkies can use the teleport as well and "waste" the teleport actions. I'd rather see a proper working teleporter, or something else.

Thanks for the detailed feedback! The teleport trap issue sounds weird: the demons shouldn't be able to use those tripwires, since they block monsters. They should only be able to use the one at the cage entrance.

[PRIMEVAL]

That Valley of Gwangi game is friggin awesome! Simple but fun.

[Cupboard]

It was pretty good, I didn't mind the tight ammo situation. I thought mobility was kind of restricted in certain areas however. Like the walkway just above the red door, it feels narrow and jagged, had a few headaches trying to make my way around there, considering it takes multiple trips through that sector in order to progress.

[Memfis]

Impie said:

Is it only the full bodies that do that? Or is it any hanging corpse at all? I can't remember.

That happens with the bodies that have "(blocking)" in their name but also with these six ones: http://i.imgur.com/eMrOfBV.png Doom Builder doesn't mention that they are blocking.

[Impie]

Memfis said:

That happens with the bodies that have "(blocking)" in their name but also with these six ones: http://i.imgur.com/eMrOfBV.png Doom Builder doesn't mention that they are blocking.

Ah yeah, it says all the hanging bodies have "complete blocking" whether or not they specify "blocking" after the name. Never understood that.

New version is up.

- Replaced slimefall texture with waterfall
- Made the "scratching post" area catwalk a little wider
- Replaced green brick texture with brown cobblestone
- Dropped another handful of shells someplace
EDIT: - Replaced the two blocking bodies on the scratching post, too

[Impie]

Well I tried using Filezilla to upload to idgames, but while it said the files successfully transferred, I didn't get an email confirmation, so...I dunno if that means they didn't go through after all or what. It seemed intuitive enough but I'm a newborn babe where FTP's are concerned.

If they didn't transfer, it's just as well, since I realized there were errors in the readme file that I just fixed.