The Deflowering [ZDOOM PrBoom+ Eternity]

[Touchdown]

PREMISE:
After making his escape from the overrun civilization, the marine must traverse the demon infested wilderness in hope of reaching a nearby UAC base. The journey is bound to be dangerous as deadly traps await on every turn.

INFO:
This is the third map from a six-map set currently on hiatus. It's my first level after ~15 years and the first one I actually release to the public (yay?). Before it, I have only finished one map (which is unfortunately lost) and made a bunch of failed experiments. I came back to DB to make this set in July 2014 but ran out of free time to spend on it. I might continue at some point, I might not.

Huge thanks to Mechadon who has helped me understand the wizardry of modern DOOM mapping and provided feedback on the map!

DIFFICULTY:
The Deflowering is about an interesting journey, not razor sharp challenge. It's meant for veterans but you don't need to be a DOOM master to beat it on UV.

Balance is up for a discussion as I can no longer judge it properly. There are difficulty levels but I'm not sure how well they stack up against each other. The main difference is the amount of enemies. An extra Medkit here and there on HNTR.

TECH:
This map is designed to be played under original DOOM conditions: no jumping, no crouching, infinitely tall actors, etc. Mouselook will not break anything so use it, if you wish.

In ZDOOM set compatibility to BOOM (strict) and Light Sector Mode to DOOM.

I highly recommend ZDOOM as BOOM has some undesired effects (such as audible instant floors).

Tested in GZDOOM and PrBoom+. Should work in Eternity as well.

It's possible you might be able squeeze through some trees in BOOM. Not sure. If you find a spot like that then it's not intended, so let me know about it.

Made with stock DOOM II resources only.
_____________________________

That's all. Hope you enjoy it.

DOWNLOAD [new version: 27.03.2015]

SHOTS:

Spoiler

[scifista42]

Very impressive! The semi-realistic depiction of nature through lots of detail and green/brown colours both looks awesome/unique and sets up a good "ruleset" that tells the player what to expect from this game you've prepared for him. I also liked the quick introduction to weapons through exploration (and rewarding exploration in general), and I liked the half-organized half-wild enemy encounters. Here is a failed FDA that I recorded in PrBoom-plus -complevel 9. I have yet to play through the rest of the map, but I can already tell you: Great job!

[Merry Widow]

More than impressive.I played only a part of it,stopped to let you know that this is a great map.Very attractive,good gameplay.If you have any more maps,please share them with us if you want to.Good luck on future maps as well. :)

[General Rainbow Bacon]

What they said. Great looking/playing wad. More please.

[Average]

Silly noob question time. What happens if I don't set ZDoom to Boom (Strict)? Does it break the map?

Also, bonus query, I know that ZDoom lets mappers force things on players like no jumping and the like. Can't it allow mappers to set things like Boom (Strict) too? If not, would that be a valid feature request?

Anyway, looking forward to trying out the map after I've done the dishes. :)

[Never_Again]

Great title. I bet a lot of thought and effort went into it.
May I suggest a few map titles to match?
- "Doomguy's first time"
- "The Creampie Dungeon"
- "Revenant Raep"
- "No Rest for the Licked"

[mouldy]

Had a run through this map, very stylistic. I've seen a few forest type maps and they all seem to approach it in their own way, this one has a weird mixture of organic realism and expressionist aesthetics. Sorry if that sounds arty farty. I think its the way you are in such an open forest space and at the same time being funneled down these narrow pathways that makes it feel like a surreal film-set almost. Its not a bad thing though, just interesting and a bit unsettling.

The gameplay is fine, although I could have used an SSG at some point. It certainly makes it interesting without it, but there were times later on in the map when I found myself having to chip away at a lot of beef with the little shotgun. Maybe thats just my bad ammo management.. The teleporting behind you trap got a bit old towards the end, but i guess thats down to the nature of the map being mostly thin corridors with no walls. Anyway, I had fun exploring this sinister world.

But yeah, that title is a bit weird. I take it you are aware of what most people mean when they talk about "deflowering"?

[Touchdown]

Thanks guys, I'm glad you like it. If you have any suggestions or complaints, lay them down. If I ever get around to finishing/making the remaining levels, I'll try to fix whatever is broken in this map.

scifista42, thanks for the demo. It's always interesting to see someone play your map without knowing what's gonna happen. Interestingly, Mechadon complained about an invisible wall that you tried to break through. I should make it more obvious, I think. The idea is that you came from that direction, that's why it's blocked off. I guess making the road fade into darkness might fix the issue. Right now it looks like every other path so it might be confusing.

Average, I don't think using other compatibility modes would break the map (except DOOM and DOOM strict). But this is what I used for testing. BOOM (strict) assures that you'll have infinitely tall actors, which is important for all the trees that are supposed to block your way. I haven't seen maps that would force a compatibility on the user. Someone with more ZDOOM experience might be able to answer that.

Never_Again, well said!

mouldy, initially it was supposed to be just tons of trees (because realism!) but I wanted it to be fun and interesting. That's why this map, despite being a forest, is almost entirely linear. Your impressions are mostly what I was aiming for, so mission accomplished, I guess.

I have intentionally refrained from giving the double barrel and instead prioritized early Plasma Rifle a bit (it was originally supposed to be even more of that with almost no shotgun ammo but it would have been boring). The problem with SSG is that it overshadows everything else and people rarely use plasma/rockets unless they really need to. But yeah, the tradeoff is that sometimes you just have to do some killing with the pump action.

I considered removing some of the traps near the end. Not sure. I didn't want the player to just shoot pop up targets in front of him/her.

Re: title. Honestly, you can see it however you want. If you think it's stupid or maybe trying to be oh so serious, etc, fine by me, really. Truth is the reason I called it that is not very exciting.

[Surreily]

I had a playthrough, and it reminds me of another map that I cannot quite remember the name of. The gameplay on offer here isn't really my cup of tea (I prefer having some time to think about each encounter before going in), but I did enjoy being surrounded by trees instead of being in the usual Doomy settings such as tech bases and hellish caverns. My favorite part was the descent into the much darker forest area. I also loved the 'shifting' building with the blue key. Great work!

[scifista42]

I like the title Deflowering.

I've tried to play the map in Zandronum, but it gave me this error while the map was loading:

This map has an incomplete BSP tree.
Linedef 21675 does not have a front sector side.
You need to fix these lines to play this map.

I suppose that you'd be able to fix it.

I haven't seen maps that would force a compatibility on the user.

2013 Cacoward winner Forsaken Overlook forces infinitely tall actors through MAPINFO Compatibility options. Disabling jumping/crouching via MAPINFO was done in many wads I've seen.

[scifista42]

I have just finished the map in ZDoom, and I have to say, excellent! I really liked all the pseudo-natural structures and forest paths, the incredibly realistic-looking railroad (reminded me of an actual railroad in a forest that I've been walking over), and the mysterious but very stylish brown railway station. Even though the gameplay consisted almost merely of horde teleport ambushes, I've enjoyed it, too!

[Touchdown]

Surreily, I'm glad you've mentioned the shapeshifting building. That was a lot of work. :) I'm particulary proud of how everything in the opening area changes accordingly, even the black "borders" of those rooms appear/disappear and change lighting. Fun fact: initially it was supposed to be a completely open, deathmatchy slugfest without any real progression. I decided to change it literally as I was about to move to a different section.

By the way, one of the inspirations for this map was Crouching Demon, Hidden Archvile from Deus Vult II.

scifista42, oh yeah, I get that error in GZDOOM as well. Don't know why I didn't fix it. As for the compatibility, I meant a WAD forcing one of the ZDOOM presets.

Also, again, glad you've enjoyed it. :) The railroad was a pain to make, especially the rail switch. I had to replicate some googled schematics to make it at least somewhat authentic. And of course the best thing you can do with something that took a lot of time is to block it so that nobody can appreciate it...

Gameplay was obviously tricky because the forest has no walls. There are tons of instant floors*, and silent teleporters (I'm really happy with how monsters occasionally come from behind the trees, that worked out surprisingly well). But I think it fits the setting. It's eventually meant as part of a mapset so ideally each map will have its own set of tricks.

*I absolutely hate it when people use instant floors everywhere and have enemies just appear in front of your eyes so I tried to make sure you never actually see them pop-in.

[NoXion]

Had a go on this map in Brutal Doom. Warning for anyone trying this; it's a lot harder than vanilla.

I think the placement of the very first imp you encounter was very good, because the bastard took me by complete surprise.

This is a very impressive map visually speaking. It really does feel like a forest, which is no mean feat in a game like Doom, even without the engine's original limitations.

I haven't finished this map, but I like it nonetheless. The only thing I didn't like about it were the what felt like near-constant teleport ambushes. At least there's plenty of health and armour lying around.