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Louigi Verona

Ocean base: a wad with two ways of winning

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Hey everyone!

I would like to present you with a wad I made. It is a base in the middle of the ocean and the cool thing about this level is that it was specifically designed to allow you to beat it in two ways:

1. Shoot and kill.
2. Reach the exit without firing a single shot.

I find both ways to be enjoyable.

Design-wise, it is a very minimalistic-looking wad, but at the same time I think it is a location to remember.

http://www.disc-shelf.com/var_files/new_ocean.wad



Tell me what you think!

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Oh wow, 9 years.

I can't seem to download your wad, it keeps throwing up a network error. Would you be able to upload to Mediafire or Dropbox please? :)

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Possibility of using multiple strategies to beat a map is nothing unusual, all maps allow it in some way - and those that don't allow it, those mostly suck. This map was, indeed, aesthetically barebones (blocky rooms, misaligned textures, monochromatically textured huge walls) and with very inefficient monster placement (hordes cluttering at certain places, bypassable enemies without threat, the part with repetitive imp closets gradually opening being the most offensive), specially inefficient teleporter ambushes (damn it takes a long time before all monsters teleport). It terms of giving challenge to the player - which a good map should - this map fulfilled its purpose only on the most basic level, which didn't make it satisfactory to play. The map felt oversized (a lot more than needed = bad), there was also overly long backtracking without additional combat involved, and the secret area was easier to find than the exit. On the positive side, the map was playable, and a few details looked OK as opposed to ugly - but honestly, this was under-average, sorry. Put work to the aspects I've pointed out, and you would be able to do much better than this, next time you make a map.

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scifista42, thanks for your review. I do not remember misaligned textures, I actually put a lot of time in aligning them. But this is an old map that I decided to re-work. It was worse before.

I am grateful for feedback, since I have not shown my maps to anyone and feedback is necessary. I do have maps that I consider to be much better designed and with better gameplay. So I consider your criticism to be very valid.

But I like the atmospheric quality of this map ;)

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scifista42 said:

Possibility of using multiple strategies to beat a map is nothing unusual, all maps allow it in some way - and those that don't allow it, those mostly suck. This map was, indeed, aesthetically barebones (blocky rooms, misaligned textures, monochromatically textured huge walls) and with very inefficient monster placement (hordes cluttering at certain places, bypassable enemies without threat, the part with repetitive imp closets gradually opening being the most offensive), specially inefficient teleporter ambushes (damn it takes a long time before all monsters teleport). It terms of giving challenge to the player - which a good map should - this map fulfilled its purpose only on the most basic level, which didn't make it satisfactory to play. The map felt oversized (a lot more than needed = bad), there was also overly long backtracking without additional combat involved, and the secret area was easier to find than the exit. On the positive side, the map was playable, and a few details looked OK as opposed to ugly - but honestly, this was under-average, sorry. Put work to the aspects I've pointed out, and you would be able to do much better than this, next time you make a map.



scifista42, take a look at map titled new_base here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l036skvx49nwhzi/AACIXCzvsgkQxeJBNG4fjOWoa?dl=0

This is a better effort. I believe it does have lots of space for improvement, but I think it is a much better map than the one presented here.

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I liked ocean base, mostly becasue it has this '94-95 feeling to it. I didn't like the other level tho - it was dark, boring and confusing.

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The map "new_base" had more elaborate layout than "new_ocean", but IMO, the quality of playability was on the same level, or even worse level, due to annoyances such as way too much darkness (very uncomfortable for navigation), cramped areas, flatness, repetitive simple tasks, cheap monster swarms, nothing exciting.

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I'm just gonna put my hand up and say that I liked Ocean base: I might try that little idea sometime myself. :)

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Louigi Verona said:

scifista42, thanks for your review. I do not remember misaligned textures, I actually put a lot of time in aligning them. But this is an old map that I decided to re-work. It was worse before.


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^ Yes, that was the main one that sticked in my mind. That, and vertical tiling of STARTAN (see the very first door).

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On ocean base, I liked the idea of being able to run past as many enemies as you could without firing a shot, for if you did, you would alert monster teles. That was pretty interesting. There are a lot of bugs in the wad, however. I fell of the platform to the yellow door and without the yellow key, I got stuck. Also, getting the blue key, the door behind me closed and I had to noclip through.

Overall, it felt like a newbie map, of course. The detailing was horrid(understandably) with blocky rooms, etc. Monster placement was ok. It was incredibly easy to run past most enemies, but then it got a tad difficult at the end to not fire. The monster teleports were not punishing at all, either.

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