Sid's 2-hour Speedmap Pile!

[Obsidian]

Speedmaps!

Tomb of Absalom.

Pic.

Sorrow Everlasting.

Pic.

Reanimator.

Pic.

Never See The Light.

Pic.

The Black Art Well.

Pic.

The Drowned Entity.

Pic.

This is the storing place for a so far unnamed set of Boom speedmaps. I won't be making a megawad's worth this time around though, don't worry. :P

Original post:

I felt like I was a bit out of practice when it came to speedmapping, so I thought I might as well get off me arse and make a 2 hour map. And so I did! Runs on Doom II.

Click here.

As 2-hour maps go I quite like this one. Feel free to leave feedback.

[scifista42]

FDA. Not bad, but the end was dickish. I felt like the map lacked chaingunners (or at least imps) in critical spots behind the first corner, in the first monster-less pit with a moving floor, and later in the map. Killing the spectres was tedious for little reason, I'd remove them and make some imps teleport in when you approach the place in the middle. 3/5 for layout, 4/5 for visuals, 2/5 for gameplay, overally 3/5. :)

[Obsidian]

scifista42 said:

Not bad, but the end was dickish.

Did it rustle your jimmies? Valid points though, I'll bear them in mind. Thanks for giving it a go. :)

[durian]

A fun diversion - I liked the trigger system. The last trap was fine I thought - if anything, not dickish enough, since it's a doddle to bypass (still, a nice 'gah - run to the exit!' moment).

[Hoodie]

Well alright, died like 17 times.

[Obsidian]

Hoodie said:

Well alright, died like 17 times.

I hope that's a good thing.

[baja blast rd.]

I died three times, all in my first playthrough, with ample saving. The second playthrough I actually got to the end with neither saves nor deaths, with only 90% kills though (guess what I skipped :D).

It was pretty tense even after I knew what to expect and had a strategy mapped out. I'm impressed that this took you only two hours to build. What was your work session like? Did you have the various puzzles thought out ahead of time?

Seconding scifista, I'd get rid of the spectres; their threat level, near nil, doesn't justify the annoyance of having to deal with them.

The two archy encounters made me wish Doom had an even stronger version of the arch-vile. The first fight (with the non-"dormant" one) was a good strategic challenge in itself, having to wait until inflamed to get good aim with the shotgun, but it kind of deflated the exit arch-vile from its special status as level end-boss to be anticipated in dread. So I'm conflicted. If I thought up another challenge, I'd replace it.

The Mancubus on the rising and falling platform made me chuckle for some reason, the way he was waddling around, up and down and up and down, but that isn't really a criticism, because Mancubi are pretty funny to begin with.

[Obsidian]

rdwpa said:

It was pretty tense even after I knew what to expect and had a strategy mapped out. I'm impressed that this took you only two hours to build. What was your work session like? Did you have the various puzzles thought out ahead of time?

To be honest I made up pretty much all of it on the go. The only bit that I'm not keen on is the room with the Imps and the Cacodemon, but then again I was running out of time at that point. I'll rework that bit if the mood takes me.

And speaking of, updated the OP with a new map!

[durian]

The only thing I wasn't sure about was the first AV - it wasn't especially threatening behind the bars, and was a little tedious to plink with the SG.

New map?

[Obsidian]

You posted while I was editing it. Naughty naughty! :P

Ahem.

Sorrow Everlasting is a map I made while listening to the theme of The Sorrow from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Much like the Sorrow battle, I wanted to have a haunting feeling to the map, a sensation of always being watched. Soo yeah, it's another all-Archvile map. Whoopsie. :)

[durian]

Heh. The new map is interesting - more of a puzzle map. My only gripe would be the barrel trip-wire - why!?! Everything up to final encounter is pretty straightforward though, once it's been figured out. The final encounter itself is fiendish, and seemed to be a test of luck as much as skill, but you can get a way with it since the map is so short, so getting back to retry doesn't take any time. Nice atmosphere.

Was I supposed to be able to walk through these bars?

Spoiler

Oh! And I liked the forced choice between soulsphere and megaarmor.

[scifista42]

Sorrow Everlasting FDA. As with the previous map, I've recorded my FDA in PrBoom-plus -complevel 2 (vanilla), but you've used Boom translucent lines here! Not sure if I didn't break anything in the end by using a wrong -complevel.

I'm not against cruelty and genuine fear about my life in the game, but I really dislike random unwarranted deaths that I couldn't avoid without preknowledge. The barrel surprise was pretty terrible IMO, and the final unsafe archvile encounter too, as I didn't know what to expect from that area and how it is even structured. The crushers and previous archvile encounters were okay, except maybe the one that happened when the floor raised - again, without preknowledge, I wouldn't possibly even look in the right direction, not to say explore the area and find cover. Visually the map was good, coherent and atmospheric (unsettling), I liked that. 3/5 for layout, 4/5 for visuals, 4/5 for the good parts of the experimental gameplay, but 0/5 for unwarranted deaths, so it's another average map in my view. :)

[Jimmy]

Obsidian said:

Did it rustle your jimmies?

ha

[TMD]

Look at you making these speedmaps on a non coordinated event.

You loose cannon, you.

[EffinghamHuffnagel]

Using ZDoom.

---
Tomb of Absolom - Teleport landing spot missing under Mancubus so Hell Knights never teleport in.
---
Sorrow Everlasting - Can't finish it. Both AVs ended up in the North area. The teleports from there go to the NW ring of barrels. The teleports from there go back to the North area. Endless loop. Can't kill both AVs with one barrel ring explosion and 50 bullets. And knowing there's a BFG you can't get is just evil. Need too much luck to finish map.

Line 290 - bars not tagged impassable.

Choice of Armor or Soul Sphere - not much of a choice. The column drops so quickly there's no way to get across the top of it to get to the Armor. I suppose if you used an AV jump (before it teleports), but that's luck again. Maybe using run plus mouse-run you could clear the distance. Column should probably be taller or drop slower.

[Obsidian]

I think you might have old versions of the maps, I already fixed the passable bars and the non-teleporting Hell Knights. Also I managed to beat Sorrow Everlasting without the problem you mentioned and I was able to straferun across the gap to get the armor.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but.... :D

[EffinghamHuffnagel]

Obsidian said:

I think you might have old versions of the maps

Considering the maps were re-posted 55 minutes ago, I guess you're right. ;)

I'll try them again.

Edit: This time neither of the AVs ended up in the north area so I had a safe spot to stand and wait for one of them to teleport into the NE set of barrels to kill him. Then the same for the other one. That was a lot more fun. As long as you save before jumping into the barrel area (in case both AVs end up in the north area), the map is enjoyable. Still couldn't clear the space to get the armor, but I guess that's just my weak SR-fu.

[Obsidian]

New map!

Reanimator is a map that I think I pulled off fairly well. You may have noticed(if you got that far) that killing the Arch-Viles in Sorrow Everlasting caused the exit to open. With these maps I've decided to do a little tweaking with DeHackEd: no monster altering, just a few things here and there. Having said that, this next map is just evil. :P You'll find out the reason behind the name soon enough.

[scifista42]

Obsidian said:

You may have noticed(if you got that far) that killing the Arch-Viles in Sorrow Everlasting caused the exit to open.

Wait. I've checked the wad's DEHACKED and it says that frame 279 now has a KeenDie codepointer (=not NULL anymore). That's only possible in Boom's BEX format. So did I really wrongfully assume that these maps are vanilla? In PrBoom-plus, are they intended for -complevel 2, or -complevel 9?

[durian]

Obsidian said:

New map!

Reanimator

Yeah this is pretty cruel. I enjoyed it though, sort of - it's definitely teetering on the brink for me between fun and frustrating (perhaps this is due to the dehacked work - I felt like I was taking a lot of damage, but that could just be my imagination), but still it was a nice challenge to beat. I'm not sure if it's intended, but the rad suit and AV is totally skippable, since one can initially avoid the zerk and save it to replenish any health lost from going underwater. The best tactic seemed to be to move as fast as possible, and to skip monsters where possible - in the end I was in and out in 1 minute 10, having killed 61%. The SSG platform looks like it might be bumpable, didn't test though.

[Obsidian]

scifista42 said:

Wait. I've checked the wad's DEHACKED and it says that frame 279 now has a KeenDie codepointer (=not NULL anymore). That's only possible in Boom's BEX format. So did I really wrongfully assume that these maps are vanilla? In PrBoom-plus, are they intended for -complevel 2, or -complevel 9?

Ah yes, I probably should have mentioned that these are for Boom. I'll put it in the OP.

[Obsidian]

FuzzBallFox is streaming the maps over here if anyone wants to watch. Should be fun to see how many pelts I can fetch from him. :P No he's not. Bollocks.

[scifista42]

Reanimator FDA. Interesting map, but frustrating again, due to all the initial dying and trial and error - this time I had a better potential chance to avoid the death, at least. There were HOMs behind the underwater waterfalls (!). I give 4/5 stars, though.

[Obsidian]

scifista42 said:

There were HOMs behind the underwater waterfalls (!).

Wait, what? Those underwater waterfalls are there specifically to avoid that. :/ Any way I can fix that?

[scifista42]

Specifically, the back sides (inner sides) of the waterfall couple are causing a HOM in PrBoom-plus.

EDIT: Try setting the waterfall as a lower back texture there.

EDIT2: I did it, and it worked. No HOMs anymore.

[Obsidian]

Huh, thanks! Not entirely sure how it works, I'd be interested to know how you came by that solution. Map has been updated accordingly. :)

[scifista42]

Obsidian said:

Huh, thanks! Not entirely sure how it works, I'd be interested to know how you came by that solution.

Obviously: The linedef action "242 : Create Fake Ceiling and Floor" creates a 2nd floor plane and a 2nd ceiling plane inside each affected sector. These planes act exactly like standard floor and ceiling planes. Regarding their edges (upper / lower linedefs around them), they will "fakely" raise / lower appropriately to the fake floor and ceiling's height. This way, new lower and upper textures may uncover, and it's a problem if they have a missing texture, like with normal missing textures. Normally, a floor plane will fill any missing lower texture below its edge (imagine an illusio pit), and the same applies for the ceiling plane and upper texture. Same here. And do you know what happens when you're under a normal floor with missing lower textures on its edges (like in WOW.wad)? You can see a HOM. Same here. :)

It's exactly like a missing lower texture on a side of a lift that will uncover when the lift moves, or when a floor raises up from ground level. The lower texture is needed.

A carefully placed middle texture might be used to hide the missing lower texture. But keep in mind that in case of fake floors, the middle texture might change its vertical position. This apparently works slightly differently in ZDoom and PrBoom-plus, shamely, specially if you use lower unpegged flag.

[Obsidian]

New map! Never See The Light is a somewhat easier map than the others, but I still like how it turned out. Not so keen on the hunting for an hour afterwards for a good MIDI though, bah.

[scifista42]

Obsidian said:

New map! Never See The Light is a somewhat easier map than the others, but I still like how it turned out. Not so keen on the hunting for an hour afterwards for a good MIDI though, bah.

FDA. Yes, this map wasn't dickish. It was incredibly slow paced, though, the fights were simple and rather tedious, camp-y more than anything. Pinkies and all monsters with higher HP than them seemed to be present for the sole purpose of prolonging the experience, with absolutely minimum threat. On the other hand, I admit that the unsettling atmosphere was well done again, and the map looked good and well unified in theme. 4/5 for the efficiently compact layout, 4/5 for visuals and atmosphere, 1/5 for gameplay and the slow pace, overally again 3/5.

[Obsidian]

1/5 seems kind of harsh, but oh well. :/

Anyhoo, new map! The Black Art Well was kind of tricky to make at first, but I got into my groove soon enough. I'll find a better MIDI for it at some point.