First WAD - 90MINMAP

[Allie]

Hello, world! My first .WAD for you all to play and review, if you want.

While working on a larger project I ran into some trouble figuring out how to add custom textures and flats. Getting frustrated, I decided to set aside time to learn the process, and in the meanwhile decompress and make some smaller DOOM maps. I settled on only giving myself 90 minutes* per map for a constraint challenge, and this is the result roughly 14 hours later. I have made no progress on my editing problems.

It's for (Ultimate) DOOM and it replaces Episode 1. It's got a good emphasis on combat, not level design. You'll be running a lot.

Download the zip here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/h5zy72ua0jz7o9j/90MINMAP.zip

Images: (Click to see a larger version)

^Clockwise: E1M7, E1M3, E1M2, and E1M1^

*I did allow myself about 3 minutes extra "fixing" time in case I ran into any major game problems. Read the .txt for more info.

Is MOSTLY compatible with vanilla DOOM, however E1M9 has a render error that bricks vanilla. I've left the map in because I can't for the life of me figure out how to fix it and I'm welcome to anyone opening it up and sleuthing around.
Please enjoy if you decide to play it, and I'm always open to criticism!

UPDATES: E1M7 has a secret which you can become trapped in. It's shown in one of the screenshots, so if you get trapped have your noclip cheat ready.
E1M8 CAN visplane overflow for vanilla in a certain spot, but this has only occurred once in my dozens of playtests.

[Walter confetti]

some screenshot will be appreciated IMO just for knowing where i'm getting intro... Anyway i'll check this map out when i'll come back at home

[hex11]

~ oldschool seal of approval ~



~ certified old school ~

Well this was fun. I only got to E1M7 so far (have to quit for now) but the fights were nice, even if some weren't mandatory (like in E1M3 you can just exit after getting blue key - but I stayed for the blue armor). I died many times before figuring out good strategy in E1M2 (and finding the chainsaw...) Level design is very good, in an interesting without being over-polished sort of way. In other words, it's very old school. I think there's a bug in E1M1 because sometimes the door behind the blue bars doesn't open unless you walk around a bit to activate some linedef? Anyway I managed to exit somehow...

[joe-ilya]

E1M1 was good, I got bored with shooting barons and cacos in close quarters with the shotgun on E1M2, so I immedietly quit it.

[AD_79]

joe-ilya said:

E1M1 was good, I got bored with shooting barons and cacos in close quarters with the shotgun on E1M2, so I immedietly quit it.

Well aren't you Mr. Impatient. Just run past them, if you're able to.

[Allie]

hex11 said:

...(like in E1M3 you can just exit after getting blue key - but I stayed for the blue armor). I died many times before figuring out good strategy in E1M2 (and finding the chainsaw...)

I think there's a bug in E1M1 because sometimes the door behind the blue bars doesn't open unless you walk around a bit to activate some linedef?

Thank you for the review! E1M3 is meant to be an "optional" level – you can either run around grabbing some supplies and exit very quickly, or get into a big fight to snatch some tasty secrets (hint: double-check everything before you leave). I guess E1M2 might be overkill for a second level, though.

In E1M1 the blue-bars door does not allow you to open it in some places. This is because the raised bars are stopping you from opening the door (due to how DOOM calculates what you can and cannot "use" at any given time.) If you can't open it on the first try, just strafe back and forth while spamming the "use" key, you'll find a sweet spot. Time constraints stopped me from fixing this.

joe-ilya said:

E1M1 was good, I got bored with shooting barons and cacos in close quarters with the shotgun on E1M2, so I immedietly quit it.

The map swarms you from the moment you step off the starting area, but you actually have plenty of room and supplies. Hints: focus on the smaller guys first, who block your movement and go down easy. Try to get the cacos and barons to infight to make your life easier. There's a secret near the start. The right room has a trick which will separate the monsters from you if you figure it out.

Thank you for playing!

[joe-ilya]

I can't get past the map, even after trying 10 times using your strategies and mine. Green armor will hopefully balance the map.

I'm going to play the other maps later.

[scifista42]

E1M1 pulled out the surprise element very well, I didn't expect such a start in E1M1 of Doom. The map was fun, and I liked it (for a speedmap). E1M2 was OK, but I was disappointed by the symmetry and necessity to skip fighting. E1M3 was trivial if the player decided not to fire at all. E1M4 was best to be rushed through, and I felt the same about the rest of maps, no longer impressed.

I've noticed many errorneous texture transitions (misalignments), and this problem persisted through all maps, but OK. I've seen tutti-frutti bugs that happen when you vertically tile textures that aren't 128 units tall. Some maps also relied on infinitely tall actors, otherwise it was possible to fall into pits with monsters (E1M9). Too many secret sectors were not actual secrets, I think each actual secret should have exactly one secret-flagged sector and that's it. Some maps were a little too dark, but that's very minor problem.

Not bad for a beginner's effort. Next time try to make maps with less skippable fights. Motivate the player to fight the monsters via a reasonable weapon / ammo / space / monster HP balance. Try to punish the player (by losing health) for rushing forward too fast and carelessly, but also for staying in place.

[hex11]

Well I finished playing...

[spoiler="and died a lot along the way!"]
E1M7 - looking across the pillar room at the blinking blue key on the other side. Checks automap. "Well this looks pretty easy, unless I'm missing something." 5 seconds later I'm a grease stain on the ceiling and there's rockets flying around!?! Second attempt... "I'm gonna need them big guns!" Opening interting-looking wall panel gives different kind of secret than I was hoping for "Oh shit, I found the barons!" After Predator (the movie) chaingun scene, I try going up lift to investigate but get stuck up there (had no noclip out). Avoided crusher this time, but not cyber rocket while trying to find way to big guns. Third attempt: just waited for cyber to kill his friends, grabbed the keys, and ran to exit.

E1M8 - pretty spooky build-up with all the desolate halls full of guns. "THere's enough ammo here to take on anything!" Quickly found out how wrong I was... Ended up dying many times while trying to figure out layout of arena and how to open the doors. That stuck spider blocking one door was a neat way to keep player relatively motionless and become target for cyber rockets. Somehow got stuck in the red key place too, or distracted by the barons. Anyway I managed to finish after that.
[/spoiler]I didn't find secret E1M9 exit though, but maybe that's just as well since it sounds like it crashes vanilla engine.

[Allie]

hex11 said:

Well I finished playing...

Spoiler

And died a lot along the way!

E1M7 - looking across the pillar room at the blinking blue key on the other side. Checks automap. "Well this looks pretty easy, unless I'm missing something." 5 seconds later I'm a grease stain on the ceiling and there's rockets flying around!?! Second attempt... "I'm gonna need them big guns!" Opening interting-looking wall panel gives different kind of secret than I was hoping for "Oh shit, I found the barons!" After Predator (the movie) chaingun scene, I try going up lift to investigate but get stuck up there (had no noclip out). Avoided crusher this time, but not cyber rocket while trying to find way to big guns. Third attempt: just waited for cyber to kill his friends, grabbed the keys, and ran to exit.

E1M8 - pretty spooky build-up with all the desolate halls full of guns. "There's enough ammo here to take on anything!" Quickly found out how wrong I was... Ended up dying many times while trying to figure out layout of arena and how to open the doors. That stuck spider blocking one door was a neat way to keep player relatively motionless and become target for cyber rockets. Somehow got stuck in the red key place too, or distracted by the barons. Anyway I managed to finish after that.

I didn't find secret E1M9 exit though, but maybe that's just as well since it sounds like it crashes vanilla engine.

Oh dear, that E1M7 bug with the secret is something I never even found out. Guess that's the price you pay when testing a map you know everything about. I'll edit the OP with a note for that. I should have also changed the crusher type to not be permanent (only give you a "quick squeeze")

Red key place in E1M8 requires some tricky jumping to get out of, but it's pretty cheap; It definitely should have been easier to get out of there.

scifista42 said:
/Very good review in the spoiler/

Spoiler

E1M1 pulled out the surprise element very well, I didn't expect such a start in E1M1 of Doom. The map was fun, and I liked it (for a speedmap). E1M2 was OK, but I was disappointed by the symmetry and necessity to skip fighting. E1M3 was trivial if the player decided not to fire at all. E1M4 was best to be rushed through, and I felt the same about the rest of maps, no longer impressed.

I've noticed many errorneous texture transitions (misalignments), and this problem persisted through all maps, but OK. I've seen tutti-frutti bugs that happen when you vertically tile textures that aren't 128 units tall. Some maps also relied on infinitely tall actors, otherwise it was possible to fall into pits with monsters (E1M9). Too many secret sectors were not actual secrets, I think each actual secret should have exactly one secret-flagged sector and that's it. Some maps were a little too dark, but that's very minor problem.

Not bad for a beginner's effort. Next time try to make maps with less skippable fights. Motivate the player to fight the monsters via a reasonable weapon / ammo / space / monster HP balance. Try to punish the player (by losing health) for rushing forward too fast and carelessly, but also for staying in place.

Your points are very accurate and I've taken note of them all. E1M1 was the first map made, and also the only one where I wasn't trying to figure out a way to make the map "interesting" at all. My obsession with speed and unnecessary combat seems to really show here. E1M9's layout is intentional, but that "step here and you die" trial-and-error level design is inexcusable. A better way to design that arena would have been to close it off and have monsters teleport in. Thank you for taking the time to review it regardless!

I'm writing down key points from these reviews to learn from. I'll probably list them all later as a memento for me.

[hex11]

Actually I really enjoyed that crusher. It was like the high point of the map for me. Maybe that sounds strange, but I like to be surprised sometimes. I was literally like "LOL wtf just happened?" I mean, especially when you're given a computer map and feel overconfident because nothing could possibly go wrong...

No, your maps are pretty much good as-is, except for maybe being able to get stuck (in an unintended, non-trap situation like the lift) and of course game engine hard crash (if that's actually what happens in E1M9). Even getting stuck in red key area of E1M8 didn't bother me, because it felt like a trap. Next time I knew to be more careful when grabbing it...

[Job]

First wad? Awesome. I really enjoyed it. Although the pacing isn't canon, it almost feels like a snapshot of Doom in one episode. Your design has all the right elements without feeling like it's being forced. A lot of mappers, myself included, can visualize what they want in recapturing that original Doom feeling, but the end result falls short of our expectations. This, however, did not. Keep mapping.

[Reisal]

Has anyone figured out why E1M9 crashes vanilla faithful ports yet? Render error?

[Allie]

Job, thanks for the wonderful review! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I have no plans to stop, but to hopefully improve.

Glaice said:

Has anyone figured out why E1M9 crashes vanilla faithful ports yet? Render error?

It's most likely a render error. I will probably end up just redoing the arena if I ever decide to expand into the other episodes for this WAD, but I guess I'll elaborate on it here:

E1M9 will load and take you to the starting area just fine. The render problem occurs when teleporting into the main arena. It will specifically brick vanilla when looking (using the exit as a 12o'clock) roughly 1-2 o'clock into the arena, or the lower lefthand corner if you're opening it in a software/looking at the map. It seems specifically to hang up on a particular linedef, vertex, or sector, because I can clip and look at the arena from other views that don't render that area and not crash.

I'm questioning whether it's a visplane overflow, though, as I've only received that error once during my testing (and promptly removed a dozen sectors to ensure the number rendered couldn't exceed the holy 128) and all other tests have been a full crash with no error report. However I've redrawn quite a few sectors in that area and nothing seems to work.

Limit-removing ports render the arena fine.

[Foxpup]

It is indeed a visplane overflow, and vanilla Doom does give exactly that error message, so I'm not sure where the confusion comes in.

Remember that visplanes are not sectors (you can get a visplane overflow with as few as two sectors). For one thing, floors and ceiling are separate visplanes, so right away the number of visplanes can be up to double the number of sectors. Furthermore, visplanes will be split by architecture, eg, if you have a table in the centre of a room, the floor on the left and right of it (as seen by the player) will be separate visplanes, even if they're the same sector. The ceiling, on the other hand, will be one unbroken visplane (even though it spans multiple sectors) as long those sectors have identical ceiling properties.

You should use Visplane Explorer to get an idea of where visplane overflows are likely to occur and what changes to your geometry will affect it.

[Allie]

Vanilla would never spit out the visplane error for me (aside from one instance) so that's where the confusion came from. Crashes with no error reports left behind.

That explanation is very helpful however! I thought visplanes were both the floor and the ceiling planes at once, rather than those two being rendered as separate entities. This would explain the issue, as when floors are factored in the arena definitely goes over the limit. Thank you!

[Caleb13]

Hmm, another oldschool mapset this week? Yes, please! Overally, I didn't find the mapset very difficult on UV. I actually died once in Map01, but that happened due to my hubris, not because the map was hard ("I have only 35 health, but I got this, I can take the demons and spectres with shotgun in this dark corridor"). I progressed more carefully after that. In E1M9, I successfully coaxed almost all barons to infight the cyber, which left me with some 90 rockets and 300 cells. Thanks to that, the rest of the maps were a total breeze and my health never dropped below 70 in them.

Oh, ane here are some flaws I noticed along the way in Zdoom 2.8pre-1042:

E1M1: A bit more ammo could be nice. I wanted to exit with 100% kills and I was left with 5 bullets only after I killed all the monsters. The imps in the starting room walls drained me the most. It wasn't a big problem though, I simply used baron/caco infighting to conserve ammo in E1M2.

E1M3: sector 28 shouldn't be secret.

E1M4: there are two soulspheres in sector 48.

E1M5: sector 39 shouldn't be secret.

E1M6: if I enter the map, immediately jump into the BFG pit and then use linedef 80, the map becomes broken and large HOMs appear:



E1M9: make sector 15 secret instead of 14 (it is hard to step into sector 14 on some ports).

[Allie]

Caleb13 said:
-Review under the spoiler-

Spoiler

Hmm, another oldschool mapset this week? Yes, please! Overally, I didn't find the mapset very difficult on UV. I actually died once in Map01, but that happened due to my hubris, not because the map was hard ("I have only 35 health, but I got this, I can take the demons and spectres with shotgun in this dark corridor"). I progressed more carefully after that. In E1M9, I successfully coaxed almost all barons to infight the cyber, which left me with some 90 rockets and 300 cells. Thanks to that, the rest of the maps were a total breeze and my health never dropped below 70 in them.

Oh, ane here are some flaws I noticed along the way in Zdoom 2.8pre-1042:

E1M1: A bit more ammo could be nice. I wanted to exit with 100% kills and I was left with 5 bullets only after I killed all the monsters. The imps in the starting room walls drained me the most. It wasn't a big problem though, I simply used baron/caco infighting to conserve ammo in E1M2.

E1M3: sector 28 shouldn't be secret.

E1M4: there are two soulspheres in sector 48.

E1M5: sector 39 shouldn't be secret.

E1M6: if I enter the map, immediately jump into the BFG pit and then use linedef 80, the map becomes broken and large HOMs appear:

http://imgur.com/v17pP4u

E1M9: make sector 15 secret instead of 14 (it is hard to step into sector 14 on some ports).

Thanks for the playing and the info, Caleb! First off, E1M4's double soulspheres are intentional. You're running around four spiders, so the ability to instantly get to 200 health no matter what was something I wanted to put in. I double-stack soulspheres in E1M9's secret as well.

The HOM bug in E1M6 is interesting. I've never been able to make that occur for me, and I'll have to mess around with it! And good job on E1M9, I usually can't maneuver well enough with the monsters to get the cyber infighting. Most importantly though thank you for the sectors which shouldn't be secret. I'm still learning, and their numbers actually help me a lot. Again, thank you for playing!

[NinjaLiquidator]

Hello, I tried it and I have 1 error and 2 warnings -

- when in E1M9 I am under invulnerability powerup and I fall into pit with blue key and barons, I kill all of them with BFG and what now? Unescapable pit. I would give some elevator from it to make it safe. And the other symetric pit is same.
- acid in E1M5 is too hardcore, I would give damage only -2 to 5 percent (the weakest) instead -10 to 20. Then you die on way back, or be hurt minimally like -60 health. Thats too much.
- maybe you are too much marking things as "secrets" - even if they dont look much secret to me :D

I have nothing more to say, its OK for speed maps. I hope you will try some full-time maps. Btw trap in E1M4 with that Spiderdemons cage was nice.