My Custom Doom WAD, The Awakening.

[Enderkevin13]

Hi, I Recently Made Some Doom WADs, But I Wanna See Your Opinions On One Of Them Before I Post The Others.

Anyways, This One Is Called "The Awakening". It Is A Smaller Map, But It's A Boss Fight Map. It Has A Good Amount Of Weapons, And Enemies.

Anyways, The Map Can Be Downloaded Here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7cubn20x8xlpqdt/Awakening.wad?dl=1

[Walter confetti]

ok, but on what port works? Vanilla? Boom? Zdoom?

Also, some pictures of the map will be very welcome...

anyway, downloaded... i'll took a look soon to it...

EDIT: Ok played on gzdoom on my laptop, also is the intended source port for this map (or any zdoom related port), since it use a special thing action on the boss (or a mapinfo action). The level itself looks it came out 1994 wad era, but not in a bad way...

Layout is ok and fluid but the doors closes too fast for me, and why there's this texture choice here?



Personally, I will put another COMPTALL walls on the side, also put some new sector with a sky or some lights on the ceiling just for giving some height variations...

Spoiler

and set secret the sector with the plasma and the megasphere behind the bloodfalls

About the gameplay, it was ok but please change the invisble imps! That kind of monsters are pretty annoying!

Hope to be helpful!

[Enderkevin13]

Yeah, Sorry About That. I'm New To The Forums, And The Layout Is Weird To Me. XD
Also, It Was My Second WAD Made. XD

[taufan99]

(My first post here, yay!)

The level itself is not too bad for a beginner, it also has that old-school atmosphere I like, and after some playing, I enjoyed it, but there are some points I would like to tell you;

1. The texture choice is a little bit poor, you could put some more tech or hellish textures, instead of just brown textures.
2. The doors close too fast. Make them close slightly slower.
3. The secret is well-placed, but I would rather move it to the left, so the demon won't be able to see me when opening the second door. Also, I think you could put a stronger enemy, so it will be more challenging, like a cacodemon or an arachnotron.
4. Adding more enemies, more ammo, and at least one backpack won't hurt. My another suggestion; you should add another room with a spiderdemon and a bunch of arachnotrons in it to provide more challenge.

[DeathMetalAccountant]

If I had to make suggestions they would be

1) use real door textures for doors
2) use more than one light level and make it semi-realistic (e.g. this map is extremely bright but a "real" cavern lit only by those tech lights would have lighting that is darker overall and higher contrast between dark and light areas)

taufan99 said:

2. The doors close too fast. Make them close slightly slower.

Off topic perhaps, but HOW DO YOU DO THIS!? I've seen it suggested more times than I can count but never stumbled across a tutorial or anything.

[Fonze]

There is a delay option when you select door. It may be different for different ports. But what I use is door generic action, then put in a decent speed like 20-30, and a delay of I think 25 is what most maps use for the typical door). The augment boxes change funtions after you select an action.

[DeathMetalAccountant]

Fonze said:

There is a delay option when you select door. It may be different for different ports. But what I use is door generic action, then put in a decent speed like 20-30, and a delay of I think 25 is what most maps use for the typical door). The augment boxes change funtions after you select an action.

Ahhhh thank you. Until now I didn't realize there was a benefit to using the "ZDoom" option in Slade. Now I see it lets you do cool stuff like this. :)

[Fonze]

No bro ^^

How is slade btw? I've only used db2, so my knowledge is limited to what I've encountered there.

[DeathMetalAccountant]

It tends to crash, but only under predictable and avoidable circumstances. Overall I think it's terrific.

[Fonze]

Ah ok, sounds interesting, I will have to try it out some day.

To get back on topic: I've downloaded the map and will playtest it tonight. I like the 1993-4 look of it. Personally, I prefer to play maps that stay true to Doom the way the Id did it, with a couple creative twists in there. The Smothered Hope wad comes to mind. Anyway, I'll be back here in a few hours to post my thoughts on what you got.

[Fonze]

Alright, I gave it a couple run throughs and it's pretty fun.

Gameplay- the most important category for me
I liked the way that things played out, my first run I shot the chaingunners as youd prolly expect. I was suprised to see the invisible imps, but the chaingunners wound up killing 2 of the 3 (I think there were 3). I mopped them up, picked up the guns and chainsaw, then started inspecting that wall between the lights because it looked like it didn't belong. In the process, the two barons snuck up behind me. One went each way and I was quickly disposed of. On my second try I mopped up everyone in the main area, then opened the boss door...
I liked the placement of the demon in the boss room, it forced me to do something. I alerted the monsters and much like Tricks and Traps from Doom 2 the cyberdemon pissed off every baron in the room. After he killed them I got too cocky and ate a rocket head on (without armor those rockets are bad news lol). My third play through I skipped first enemies and ran to chaingun. Took out PE and chaingunners, and then something happened that maybe only I appreciate. You see, I'm a glutton for punishment in Doom, and I love those invisible imps. I couldn't find the last one for about 30 seconds between dodging baron shots to preserve those 2 for the cyberdemon. Others may not like invisible enemies because they can be very frustrating, but when used right I think they are awesome. I would be quite content to play through a map like this, but longer.

*Edit*
The placement of the lights (even though this would otherwise be in item placement) heavily affected gameplay for me. Being out so far from the wall, they often got in my way while dodging. That is ok, but when the cyberdemon came out my first intstinct was to use them as a very cheap (lame) cover. This goes especially for the two by the line of med kits. The two by the chaingunners were part of the reason I died, so I like those two lol.
*Edit End*

Enemy placement was great, perfect use of deaf pain elemental as well as demon in the boss area. Invisible enemies were clustered together and in front of chaingunners from the starting door. This is one time that I dig invisible enemies, because on your first run-through they are likely to be little problem (by first run through I mean taking things slow like you don't know what to to or where to go, rather than just running into what could be a nasty trap). Hell, I could've done with more enemies thrown in. The main room felt bare, which made me feel like a trap was eminent, which is also cool.

Item placement was iffy to me. I tend to frown on items placed clustered together in a robotic manner, like the starting shotgun with ammo and the health kits in main room. Space them out to add interest. Also, I like to work for my guns, especially the first one. As for amounts, I barely used any ammo and had tons of health left over, though at times I was glad that there was extra health.

Aesthetics... I'd like to start by saying I loved the fact that it looked like Doom. Having said that, this is where the map suffered the most to me. Item placement goes into this as well, but as I've already covered that I'll talk about the walls here. I loved that first weird wall that didn't belong by the chaingunners, because it got me distracted just long enough to be killed. I would love to see a secret behind it that was activated elsewhere to give explanation for it not belonging, but still being there. The doors confused me and I only found the boss door because I remembered the only other door. Certain situations could have doors that don't look like doors, but it's good to stay in theme. I had no problems with the amount of brown; if it makes a good theme and matches itself, it's fine by me. The other walls that were by the super shotgun, PE, and medkits that didn't belong should be changed. If you want to put in something special, sometimes with Doom you have to make it.

All in all, this is one man's oppinion, but I had FUN playing your map, and to me, that's what counts most. Couple of minor things you could work on, but overall I'd give it a 6/10, or better than average, as it currently stands (for your second wad this looks promising). I'm sure in the future this wad will be much better :)

*Edit*
You should prolly tell people here that it is to be run with Doom 2 IWad, since there is no .txt file included to let us know. I'd love to play your other maps, too.