Return of Crap (Riki's Doom levels)

[riki]

Hi Doomworld, Riki here, and after exploring the world and pulling myself together, I've returned to classic Doom.

You may know me for Map 30 Plus and The Overcoming. I think a lot of folks either really love or really hate my stuff. So I don't know what I'm doing right or wrong, but I'm going my own way and definitely avoiding stuff like missing textures, places where the player can get stuck, surprise Cyberdemons, etc., and I'm trying to make my levels challenging but not frustrating.

Now that I uploaded my first Doom level in years, I'm still trying to figure out what makes a good Doom level. KDiZD looks good but is not exactly balanced (Z1M5 is much easier than Z1M3 wtf). Greytale's 1994 levels look psychedelic but are very clever. Memento Mori is my inspiration.

My levels (SP/coop unless otherwise noted):

Map30 Plus (Doom II + ZDoom, MAP30, Icon of Sin remake)
The Overcoming (Doom II + ZDoom, MAP01, pistol-packing action)
Doubts Even Here (Doom II + limit-removing, MAP01, 2048x2048 practice map, I was disappointed with its "flatness")
Ill Manor Not yet released; preview available
... ????

I'm going to crank out more levels than ever before, working with different things. Let me know what's good and bad about my work so far. Not that I actually care what other people think half of the time.

[Memfis]

Played doubts, cute map but some silly monster placement, like that arachnotron is just a camping exercise and a PE in the exit room is totally helpless since you can just get close to him and prevent lost souls from appearing. I don't mind flatness when it's done in style.

[scifista42]

Doubts Even Here - seems way too simple, linear and flat for today's design, and the difficulty is really non-challenging, but if I overlook that, nice map. I liked the detailing style and amount of it, and how the level felt as a compact, closed, meaningful place - even though a generic base, still it's got some unique meaning. I wish the secrets were better marked, so that I wouldn't have to cheat to get them - there should always be some kind of hint, for us players who like to search for secrets but not bump every random wall.

The Overcoming was a subpar work, full of uninteresting corridors and quite ugly coloured lighting, which I felt was used inappropriately. It was surprisingly similar in structure as your recent effort. You had probably thought that the earthquake, E1M1 homages and cramped computer maze will make the wad cool, but trust me - this is not what makes the good Doom design, and those moments were like "meh" in the better case.

Map30 Plus was good only if someone likes to be challenged in a punishing, unfair and tediously protracted way (the timed actions), which gets inspired by MAP30 and takes it a step further. I didn't really like it, thing placement was giving an impression of a joke map or something very crappy.

Despite some negative things I said, of course that I encourage you to make levels, I'd like to see them. Just experiment with various elements how to spice up design and gameplay to be entertaining, even for a player who has already seen a lot in his Dooming career. That means, interesting combat situations, increased challenge, nice texture combinations and shapes, less straightforward / more liberal flow etc. Welcome back to the mapping scene. ;)

[Pure Hellspawn]

scifista42 said:
Doubts Even Here - seems way too simple, linear and flat for today's design, and the difficulty is really non-challenging, but if I overlook that, nice map. I liked the detailing style and amount of it, and how the level felt as a compact, closed, meaningful place - even though a generic base, still it's got some unique meaning. I wish the secrets were better marked, so that I wouldn't have to cheat to get them - there should always be some kind of hint, for us players who like to search for secrets but not bump every random wall.

The Overcoming was a subpar work, full of uninteresting corridors and quite ugly coloured lighting, which I felt was used inappropriately. It was surprisingly similar in structure as your recent effort. You had probably thought that the earthquake, E1M1 homages and cramped computer maze will make the wad cool, but trust me - this is not what makes the good Doom design, and those moments were like "meh" in the better case.

Map30 Plus was good only if someone likes to be challenged in a punishing, unfair and tediously protracted way (the timed actions), which gets inspired by MAP30 and takes it a step further. I didn't really like it, thing placement was giving an impression of a joke map or something very crappy.

Despite some negative things I said, of course that I encourage you to make levels, I'd like to see them. Just experiment with various elements how to spice up design and gameplay to be entertaining, even for a player who has already seen a lot in his Dooming career. That means, interesting combat situations, increased challenge, nice texture combinations and shapes, less straightforward / more liberal flow etc. Welcome back to the mapping scene. ;)

Doomworld is WELL known for it's use of constructive criticism, which I find to be a very good thing. There's only one kind of map that is hated...

[riki]

Thanks for the input. I started keeping a list of tips and action items that should help guide me in making future levels as well as improving the levels. I'll try to keep things relatively Bauhaus, though.

Of course, if you would like to port my levels to other games or specific ports (Strife would be interesting), put them in wadpaks, optimize them, expand on them, or even put your own spin on them, you are certainly free to do so too.

I'm interested on how my levels play in multiplayer too. I'll check social media to see if my friends could help me out with that, but let me know how well or badly they play in multiplayer.

And I will keep this thread updated as I go along.

[subject_119]

Last one was fun to play and not ugly, yes it's flat but as the fights aren't boring (exceptions for the PE and Arachnotron which are really useless ans lame) it's not bad :)

[riki]

I have posted a preview of my next level on my tumblr.

It will be a castle-themed level, but nothing like the stuff from '94. There's almost nothing "techbase" about that level, since I believe some of you folks want me to take on a different style.

[Jaxxoon R]

The Overcoming was nice, I guess. I personally liked the lighting in a couple rooms. That earthquake was weird, though. Not a fan of the pistol.

Doubts Even Here was pretty fun, albeit simple. It was also kind of weird how it went from cave, to BLU walls, to Entryway walls.

Map30 Plus is everything wrong with Icon of Sin made even worse.

[riki]

Jaxxoon R said:

Doubts Even Here was pretty fun, albeit simple. It was also kind of weird how it went from cave, to BLU walls, to Entryway walls.

I probably should avoid Blake Stone-isms like these in my future levels and go with more consistent aesthetic themes. (Each level in Blake Stone was usually a mishmash of differently-themed rooms put together; the consistent brick-and-steel-walled E1M0 was the exception rather than the rule)