Realm 667's DooMJA-VU Competition Map: Celestial Site

[D.Scratch]

Hello all, i've uploaded my map for the Realm667's Competition, i would like to everybody play it and give some feedback :)

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?file=levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/csite.zip

Screenshots:

http://imgur.com/XccSTEx,cGeX9p0,bcNBiEP,w5r0nH4,HZ87SUX,SA95tHa#0

Sorry about my english.

D.Scratch

[Merry Widow]

Your English is fine,don't worry.I played your map,and I liked it very much.The graphics are great,the gameplay is challenging and fun.One of the best maps I've played.Hope to see more stuff like this from you,so best of luck! :)

[scifista42]

The /idgames reviews sound convincingly very good. I'm going to play the map. But would you add some screenshots to your post? It would greatly help you to get people interested / excited.

[scifista42]

This was a large, nonlinear and elaborate map for ZDoom based engines, excessive amount of work was put into it, though I'd say that with a partial success. I've left a comment on /idgames, going to post it here too.

"Awe-inspiring usage of detail and textures, but the gameplay is too monotonous and one-sided. Too cramped areas that impede player's movement, monsters have way too much health (making them overpowered) and combat consists of peekaboo shot-and-pop style, again and again for too long time. Also, due to horrendous random ambushes, the challenge is harsh and sometimes unfair, while tedious for the rest of time. 3/5, and I'd rate lower if it wasn't for the great visual aspect."

You're very skilled at detailing and using effects, and you have great potential, but better put more thought into making the gameplay fun. The layout was a completely orthogonal maze of doors and corridors, nothing interesting aside from aesthetics and dickish, unfun close-quarter teleport ambushes. Feel free to utilize unique and inspirative shapes in your layout, balance out the gameplay for a much better run-and-gun comfort, and explore more interesting combat scenarios and ways how the monsters can threaten the player, instead of just popping from behind a corner or ridiculously suddenly overwhelming the player from all sides at close range.

Also consider the fact that gunfire-activated 2-sided linedefs will activate even if you shoot through or over/under them. Your map featured at least one shootable switch that could have been activated by shooting a wall under it.

[Mithran Denizen]

I like the evil-infested space station theme, and I like seeing maps with plenty of effort put into them. You clearly spent some time working on this, so for that I commend you. Seeing the baron / cyberdemon mashup monster is another plus for me, though honestly I don't think it's put to the best use in some of the cramped rooms in this level.

Speaking of cramped rooms, this map has way too many fiddly little hallways and tiny areas for my taste. At the same time, it also feels rather pointlessly overwrought. The two problems seem to reinforce each other, as well.

A lot of the detailing and architectural clutter seems to get in the way, more than it actually adds to the atmosphere or serves a purpose. Though Scifista may disagree, to me, the overall aesthetics of this map are not a point in its favor at all. There are some great looking areas, but the majority of the map looks 'meh' at best. So much of it is just architecturally boring, primarily comprised of ugly silver walls with random textures inset, bordered, and generally thrown all over to various effect.

In a somewhat related note, this sort of million-sector detailing looks really goofy to me:



I think visuals like that are better executed via voxels, models, or even sprites, but to each their own. On the topic of decorative things, those office chairs from the doom alpha are extremely annoying because of the way they block you; if people want to put these in maps (in already cramped rooms, of course), why not make them non-blocking, or at least make them easily pushable (the chairs have wheels, after all)?

The teleport traps that activate instantly as you gun down the last member of a group feel jarring and contrived. There's one such ambush right at the start, and at least one more midway through the map; both threw my suspension of disbelief in the toilet, and I don't like having to fish it out and dry it off multiple times per map.

Pacing and gameplay could use some more attention. Especially on UV, it's just a complete slog. There are way to many of those silly grey imp things that take way too long to kill. There's also not nearly enough ammo, nor is there room to utilize movement to any real extent. Well before the map was over, I resorted to simply MDK'ing enemies. HMP is more bearable (a bunch of the annoying grey things are replaced with normal imps), but the balance still seems off.

The Spider boss was very anticlimactic. The structure of the room makes it basically a non-threat compared to everything else in the map, yet putting it out of its misery is still tedious, given its whopping 12000 health.

Having three (maybe more? I didn't find every secret) of the machete weapon hidden throughout the map seems pointless, and made me feel like I wasted my time. Even more so given that the machete is essentially useless against most of the monsters in this level.

The little cutscenes are mildly annoying because they seem to last forever, yet because 80% of the rooms and hallways in this map look essentially the same, they don't really give very good direction, either. I spent several minutes walking around the level looking for a required door opened by one of those remote switches.

Onto doors; there are way too many of them everywhere, in my opinion. It feels kind of Wolf3D-esque, and it slows down gameplay that is already cumbersome to begin with. It couldn't hurt to open up some of those corridors, and really let the interconnectedness and flow of the layout shine more.

Minor bug: It's possible to become wedged in the workings of this maintenance lift thingy while it's in motion. I had to noclip to free myself from it:



Overall, there's not a lot for me to love here, but I appreciate the effort, and I'd love to see more maps from you.