Looking for input on a horror map I'm making

[Tracer]

I'm making a horror themed map and only have a few rooms done so far and was just looking for any kind of ideas or input that you think would make the map scarier.

Level Start


Stairs leading to second floor


Second floor hallway (going to add more doors later, caco in back)


Den


Den from other side


Using GZDoom and Doombuilder 2. Music is PSXMUSIC.WAD. (Very great for scary atmosphere)

[Tracer]

Just one more picture that let's you see outside the windows at the start of the level. The trees against the sky give a pretty creepy effect, in my opinion.

[Jaxxoon R]

I love creepy maps/mods, they're usually easy. Map itself, I'll say is kind of too much of a hallway, yeah? Maybe spice it up with some larger rooms and balconies, it's always good to look towards real-world mansions or other large, complex buildings when you need inspiration for 'realistic' DooM maps.

[Tracer]

Jaxxoon R said:

I love creepy maps/mods, they're usually easy. Map itself, I'll say is kind of too much of a hallway, yeah? Maybe spice it up with some larger rooms and balconies, it's always good to look towards real-world mansions or other large, complex buildings when you need inspiration for 'realistic' DooM maps.

Most definitely, dude! I'm nowhere near done with this. I was just looking for any tips from anybody who loves these maps and always thought "Man, this would be cool if...". I'm just idea searching. I'm definitely adding more rooms. Some as big as the "Den", other bigger, and I plan on having a grand ballroom filled with Hell Nobles.

[Tracer]

And I never even thought of balconies. That's a killer idea that I will definitely be implementing. Thanks.

[Xegethra]

Yeah it does look good. Lots of things can go into mansion maps. If you do outdoors, some sort of hedge/stone maze would go well >_>

[JCB]

Looks awesome to me! I had a similiar theme in a techbase, although its darkness and my reliance on brutal doom lighting received some negative feedback. I suppose if you do it right, everyone will enjoy it. I prefer BD myself, and find it hard to believe that DooMers prefer the same old shotgun/imp combination, instead of blowing legs and arms off Lol.

Good job so far I will keep checking your progress.

P.s That demon in the hallway looks great, but I can't help but wonder what a bright light at the end of the hallway would make it look like. An awesome silhouette i'm sure, but may be too bright for your theme.

[Tracer]

JCB said:

Looks awesome to me! I had a similiar theme in a techbase, although its darkness and my reliance on brutal doom lighting received some negative feedback. I suppose if you do it right, everyone will enjoy it. I prefer BD myself, and find it hard to believe that DooMers prefer the same old shotgun/imp combination, instead of blowing legs and arms off Lol.

Good job so far I will keep checking your progress.

P.s That demon in the hallway looks great, but I can't help but wonder what a bright light at the end of the hallway would make it look like. An awesome silhouette i'm sure, but may be too bright for your theme.

That is a good idea, my friend! I'll give it a shot and see how that feels. Thanks for the feedback! I had to start over on the upstairs area and am actually in the process of editing it right now. I'm going to add you so I can keep you posted on my progress.

I also agree with you about Brutal. I can't play normal doom now. Just isn't enough. haha

[JCB]

I totally agree! It's cool that you like that suggestion, I hope it works for your theme! Very good looking areas. I was ALMOST questioning the friendliness of this community for a while ;)

I remembered reading or hearing John Romero talk about the diminished lighting system in DooM, and setup a hallway similiar to yours, but at the other end I had a Door with super high brightness, so when the demon walks toward you, it's silhouetted as it moves in and out of the shadow sectors... looked amazing!

I had to brighten my map up for the non-BDers, haha. I added you back, i'll playtest or give feedback anytime you need it bro.

edit* And the pentagram on the floor with the candles is AWESOME! It reminds me of DooM 3 floor pentagrams. I won't ask you to reveal how you did it but i'm going to try it out myself sometime.

[Aliotroph?]

I'm not a fan of the lens flares, but I'm curious as to how you made them. Are they part of the candle sprites?

The light from the windows will look nicer if you don't extend the lit sectors all the way to the windows. The upper and lower parts of that wall would look nicer when they're as dark as the rest of the hall. That's what light from windows usually looks like.

A thunderstorm might be nice. You can use the Hexen ones in ZDoom. You'll have to supply the sound effect, but it does the lightning effect faithfully. Then you can have the map be really dark in places and have monsters illuminated by the lightning flash. Lightning works on indoor sectors if you give them the right type. It probably works well with the light transfer linedefs too. You could do some very sexy light with that.

The other comments about mansion maps are spot on. My nitpick here is this is the perfect map to use all those mansion textures that looked out of place in Doom 2. Those halls should be lavishly decorated.

[Xegethra]

JCB said:

edit* And the pentagram on the floor with the candles is AWESOME! It reminds me of DooM 3 floor pentagrams. I won't ask you to reveal how you did it but i'm going to try it out myself sometime.

Pentagrams are quite simple, it's all just sectors made to look like floor patterns. I do it with crosses sometimes, although I have done a pentagram.

But yeah, it looks pretty sweet.

[Aliotroph?]

Pentagrams don't look easy because five-sided shapes are hard to get right on a grid.

The sky is nice. I want to see more of that.