Haunted Mansion

[LanHikariDS]

(Map last updated on 7/31 11:42 PM) So, this is a one-map WAD I was working on for Doom II, that I'd originally intended to make as a thing for Halloween... two years ago. Some of you may remember a beta WAD I put out of this when I was having trouble with the bridge. Anyways, after many hiatuses, I finally bring you the completed map, and my first to post on the forums. It's been done and hosted for quite some time now, but I've been holding back on posting it here because I wanted to make a video to go with it, but never got around to it, and finally gave up. The WAD is intended for all game modes, however, the map changes DRASTICALLY with difficulties. The map CANNOT be completed on I'm Too Young To Die and Hey, Not Too Rough, as those difficulties are intended for Deathmatch. Here's the WAD: http://www.mediafire.com/download/9wrfe2k6n1qdiz5/Haunted+Mansion.wad I don't have any pictures, but if anyone would like to share, feel free. Also, feel free to give feedback and report any bugs so I can fix them.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, I nabbed one graphic from Doomguy2002, and a couple from Heretic/Hexen (I forget which one)

Also, I'd prepared a little Dungeons & Dragons-esque backstory and descriptions for certain areas, so from here on, here's those for each area, in the intended order in which you will encounter them. Therefore, everything further is meant to be read DURING your playthrough of the map.

INTRO:
You have been sent out to investigate an old abandoned mansion where nobody is supposed to live. There have been recent reports from passerby of odd noises coming from the mansion, and supposed incantations. We believe this may be related to the slew of kidnappings, all the people of which were claimed to have last been seen there. We're not sure what you'll find in there, so good luck, and may you come back alive.

FOYER:
As you enter the mansion, the door shuts behind you and refuses to open. You're greeted by monsters, the biggest of which seems to have come from some odd ritual, surrounded by the remains of humans, most of which mutilated beyond recognition. The few you can identify match the identities of some of the missing people. Within the Foyer, you see four doors, and a statue on the wall of a demonic face atop some stairs. The mouth of the statue is open, and you could probably fit your head in it's mouth.

BOILER ROOM:
You enter a dark boiler room, where it's really hot. The pipes look really old and look like you could easily break them.

BAR [SECRET]:
You find what looks like a hidden mini-bar, with an injured man behind the counter, who becomes frantic when he sees you. "D-Don't shoot!" He says, "You... You're not with them, are you? I got taken in here when I was walking in the woods, and they tried to use me for some weird ritual... I ran away, and hid out here until someone could stop this... There are other survivors, they're hiding out in the infirmary, but I sealed it off to keep them from getting to him, too. I can open it up for you, it's down by the Boiler room, and there should be enough supplies to patch up you and your friends 3 or 4 times each." He flips a switch under the bar counter. "Go, and find him, he should be able to patch you guys up. There's also a small storeroom in the East Courtyard, you can check it out, too, if you'd like"

LIBRARY:
You enter a library, and see scuff marks on the walls by a bookcase, as if it's been moved.

TELEPORTER ROOM:
You enter a room made of shabby wood with blood trails leading up to an odd panel, and the blood seems to be coming from the panel, with no other source in sight.

EXITING TELEPORTER:
As you exit the teleporter, you're in a place with an awful smell. You see a pillar of fire in front of you, and hear a voice chanting odd incantations. As you approach, the pillar lowers, revealing the largest creature you've ever seen, and a man behind it. The man hisses at the monster while pointing at you, and it attacks you.

ENDING:
You defeat the giant monstrosity and it's guards, to be taken back to the foyer with your friends. You run back and release the captives (If found). On your trip back to base, you reflect on what the hell you just went through. What was that thing you fought? What did the man hope to accomplish? How much therapy will you need after this? The answers seem to allude you, which only pisses you off more. You can't help but wonder if the man was trying to bring that thing to our world, and wonder about what chaos would ensue if he did... The only assuring thought is that you destroyed whatever that thing was, and there's no chance of anyone else trying to bring it to our world... right?
EDIT: I

[Reisal]

Why is only UV implemented and no other skills?

[LanHikariDS]

Glaice said:

Why is only UV implemented and no other skills?

You can still play it on Hurt Me Plenty and Nightmare. As I explained, I used the 'Easy' difficulties for the Deathmatch item arrangements, as I wanted Deathmatch and Singleplayer/Co-op to have different setups from each other. Besides, I made it with the intention to be a (At least somewhat) difficult map, so it would make sense to play it on a harder difficulty. Plus, the monster layouts don't really change between Medium' and 'Hard' difficulties, just the 'Easy' ones, as they include no monsters whatsoever.

[Merry Widow]

Thank you for finishing this!I will play tomorrow. :)

[LanHikariDS]

grouchbag said:

Thank you for finishing this!I will play tomorrow. :)

Oh, wow, I didn't know anyone was waiting on me to finish it. I hope you enjoy it.

[scifista42]

The wad contains all IWAD sounds and graphics (which is very wrong and you should remove them immediately, keep just your own map) + one map that looks like straight from 1994, with ugly texturing and lighting, visual glitches, unintuitive progression, cramped corridors, no challenge, weird broken ending, and everything bad. Sorry.

That said, here is my FDA of the map, recorded in PrBoom-plus -complevel 2.

[SavageCorona]

I get worried when a single level WAD with no custom assets is 10mb.

Well gee that was rather reminiscent of mid-90s shovelware WADs. Incredibly ugly misaligned textures, some in places that I thought impossible to fuck up, no lower unpegged properties applied to door tracks, pointless and dumb secrets which reward nothing and aren't hard to find, poorly designed layout and a damaging floor right in the middle which doesn't need to be there as well as the red locked door not being marked out at all as needing a red key. All this as well as a multitude of other problems that just give me a headache to think about trying to type out here since it was fairly exhausting and boring to play.

This is why I was worried about a 10mb single level WAD with no custom assets


This isn't allowed.

[Jaxxoon R]

Oh great I was tricked into illegally downloading Doom 2 again.

[SavageCorona]

Again? Nevermind

Plus you got some D!Zone tacked on there too.

[LanHikariDS]

scifista42 said:

The wad contains all IWAD sounds and graphics (which is very wrong and you should remove them immediately, keep just your own map) + one map that looks like straight from 1994, with ugly texturing and lighting, visual glitches, unintuitive progression, cramped corridors, no challenge, weird broken ending, and everything bad. Sorry.

That said, here is my FDA of the map, recorded in PrBoom-plus -complevel 2.

Whoops, sorry, I'll get to pulling those out right away. Also, how is the ending broken exactly? Also, what's FDA?

SavageCorona said:

the red locked door not being marked out at all as needing a red key.

That isn't a bug, it's intention. The door isn't meant to be opened with a red key, rather with a red trigger... Unless you mean the door you DO open with a red key not having any red graphics near it, again, that is intended

Jaxxoon R said:

Oh great I was tricked into illegally downloading Doom 2 again.

No maps from Doom II are on the WAD.

[Breezeep]

I'm kinda getting the feeling that there isn't really any proper doom wad making tutorials out there. I wish that there was a certain tutorial explaining to new mappers about what to do or what not to do when making your first wad.

[LanHikariDS]

Breezeep said:

I'm kinda getting the feeling that there isn't really any proper doom wad making tutorials out there. I wish that there was a certain tutorial explaining to new mappers about what to do or what not to do when making your first wad.

What issues did you have with it?

[scifista42]

LanHikariDS said:

Also, what's FDA?

First Attempt Demo. A recording of my playthrough of your map. Here is the easiest way for you to view it:

1. Install PrBoom-plus
2. Associate .lmp file suffix with PrBoom-plus
3. Put a .lmp demo into the same folder as the wad it was recorded on
4. Double click the .lmp demo and watch

For more information about demos, look here and here.

[LanHikariDS]

scifista42 said:

First Attempt Demo. A recording of my playthrough of your map. Here is the easiest way for you to view it:

1. Install PrBoom-plus
2. Associate .lmp file suffix with PrBoom-plus
3. Put a .lmp demo into the same folder as the wad it was recorded on
4. Double click the .lmp demo and watch

For more information about demos, look here and here.

Okay, thanks, I'll check it out.
EDIT: Saw it, and, perhaps I shouldn't have made that Super Shotgun so easy to find... I do have SOME (Like, 4 or 5, not many) custom graphics in the wad, but oddly, they didn't show up when watching the demo you did... Also, the barrels were to destroy themselves, but I guess I need to mess with that to get the timing right. I can't figure out why you didn't kill the final boss, you just did a little damage to it and killed yourself.

[LanHikariDS]

SavageCorona said:

Incredibly ugly misaligned textures, some in places that I thought impossible to fuck up, no lower unpegged properties applied to door tracks, pointless and dumb secrets which reward nothing and aren't hard to find, poorly designed layout and a damaging floor right in the middle which doesn't need to be there

I've gone back through and aligned the textures the best I could, as well as unpegged the moving areas accordingly. As far as the breaking pipes (I'm assuming that's what you mean by "secrets which reward nothing and aren't hard to find") and the ritual plate that hurts you, those are there for atmosphere, and the pipes are marked as secret so they blend in with the parts you can't break on the automap

[scifista42]

LanHikariDS said:

Also, how is the ending broken exactly?

As you can see in my FDA, I couldn't figure out how to fight the final boss, and I eventually died in an inescapable pit. Inescapable pits and unclear gameplay mechanics are both bad things in my view.

[mouldy]

LanHikariDS said:

the pipes are marked as secret so they blend in with the parts you can't break on the automap

you might be confusing sectors marked as secret and linedefs marked as secret. A secret sector is what you use to tell the player they found a secret, a secret linedef is to make a door look like a wall on the automap

[SavageCorona]

LanHikariDS said:

That isn't a bug, it's intention. The door isn't meant to be opened with a red key, rather with a red trigger... Unless you mean the door you DO open with a red key not having any red graphics near it, again, that is intended

Why would you intend bad conveyance? That's just being lazy and a bad level designer. You just need an 8 unit wide linedef next to the door with DOORRED to indicate that it needs a red key. 16 wide if you're using the skull key texture.

Here's a helpful tutorial I made that shamelessly rips off Rottking.

[LanHikariDS]

scifista42 said:

As you can see in my FDA, I couldn't figure out how to fight the final boss, and I eventually died in an inescapable pit. Inescapable pits and unclear gameplay mechanics are both bad things in my view.

Well, if you'd look back at your FDA, you did deal some damage to it, albeit seemingly unintentionally, and I guess you weren't paying much attention to the boss at that moment. However, you did use the Plasma Rifle from the beginning, which sadly doesn't get you through the first stage of the fight. I'd figured the ammo laying around would've been an indication on what you need.
EDIT: Speaking of, I went back to look at your FDA, and apparently it's broken. Now, it shows you dying against the first Knight, then restarting, only to run around the starting area, shooting the walls like an idiot, which I know you didn't do before. I don't know how it could've desynced, since I haven't changed the arrangement for that area, just texture offsets, an the ceiling height part of the Yellow switch room, which isn't even opened at that point.

mouldy said:

you might be confusing sectors marked as secret and linedefs marked as secret. A secret sector is what you use to tell the player they found a secret, a secret linedef is to make a door look like a wall on the automap

Well, the pipes are marked with secret linedefs, which is the only thing I can think of when he says 'pointless unrewarding secrets that aren't hard to find'. The only other thing I could think of that is unrewarding in itself would be the 'Bar' secret, which isn't rewarding on it's own, but it has it's own story point, and opens up previously locked areas, with some helpful goodies inside

SavageCorona said:

Why would you intend bad conveyance? That's just being lazy and a bad level designer. You just need an 8 unit wide linedef next to the door with DOORRED to indicate that it needs a red key. 16 wide if you're using the skull key texture.

Here's a helpful tutorial I made that shamelessly rips off Rottking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Ph9TgzW4Q

Well, It's not totally hidden from the player. The map is intended to be played alongside the story, and if you'd look at it, I did hint at it. Even then, if you can't figure it out from the story, It's given some significance as being one of the first things you see when you open the door, and it actually has a stairwell leading up to it, so it's meant to be accessible, so you'd assume it could be used, at which point the game outright tell you you need a red key to get in, if used. By Egoraptor's explanation of it, I'd say that's some damn good conveyance.

[SavageCorona]

You can't expect everyone to watch Egoraptor and then magically know that the game is telling you something through its design. The red door on E1M2 is one of the first things you see and it's still marked out as locked with a red key. You shouldn't have to go up to it to find that it's locked, then force them to back track, wasting the player's time. They should know at a glance that it's locked.

It's generally a bad idea to try and find excuses around criticism, mind.

[LanHikariDS]

SavageCorona said:

You can't expect everyone to watch Egoraptor and then magically know that the game is telling you something through its design. The red door on E1M2 is one of the first things you see and it's still marked out as locked with a red key. You shouldn't have to go up to it to find that it's locked, then force them to back track, wasting the player's time. They should know at a glance that it's locked.

It's generally a bad idea to try and find excuses around criticism, mind.

I don't expect that, I expect people to see that statue and be drawn to it, since it's kinda out there. I'm just trying to explain why I made the decisions I made, so you may have a better understanding of why it was done that way. Also, going back down a little stairway really isn't backtracking...

[CyberDemonEmpress]

It's OK... just really bland and doesn't feel much like a haunted mansion... Which something I would have really enjoyed as I like atmospheric maps. I do think you should properly mark your locked doors, this Doom.. Not the old Resident Evil games.. Other than that, in the basement (I guess) with the 2 Arachnotrons the one farthest from the player kept having his shots blocked by the pentagrams and hanging corpses making him easy to exploit.. Over all I've seen far worse.

[LanHikariDS]

CyberDemonEmpress said:

It's OK... just really bland and doesn't feel much like a haunted mansion... Which something I would have really enjoyed as I like atmospheric maps. I do think you should properly mark your locked doors, this Doom.. Not the old Resident Evil games.. Other than that, in the basement (I guess) with the 2 Arachnotrons the one farthest from the player kept having his shots blocked by the pentagrams and hanging corpses making him easy to exploit.. Over all I've seen far worse.

I'll agree with you that it doesn't feel like its title, but I couldn't think of anything else, which sucks, because I don't really like the generic title. Funny you'd mention it, because I was going for a classic Resident Evil feel, being somewhat cryptic with the map. As for the Arachnotron, I'll swap him out with something else.

[Foxpup]

Yeah... not sure I want my name on this.

[LanHikariDS]

Foxpup said:

Yeah... not sure I want my name on this.

Well, that's actually really depressing to hear...

[CyberDemonEmpress]

Just keep working at it, don't become discouraged please.

[LanHikariDS]

CyberDemonEmpress said:

Just keep working at it, don't become discouraged please.

Thanks. And, depressing as that may be, I've (barely) lived through worse. I'm not giving up on Doom maps anytime soon, they're too much fun to make. In fact, I just finished the 'faces' of a status bar redesign for another WAD I'm planning. I was considering adding it into this WAD, but its too out of place for the theme of this map, so I'll save it for my next project. While I may give up on this map, I've always got something bigger, better, and far more ambitious in mind.

EDIT: Say, has anyone tried this in Deathmatch?

[scifista42]

The map really isn't suitable for deathmatch. The layout is too disjointed, weapons are completely inconveniently placed, balance is off, navigation is anything but intuitive, and don't forget that the map is still the same ugly... IMO, there's no reason why somebody would want to play this map for enjoyment in deathmatch.

[Jaxxoon R]

The name Haunted Mansion makes me think of the ride at Disneyworldland and the Eddy Murphey movie based off of it.

[LanHikariDS]

scifista42 said:

The map really isn't suitable for deathmatch. The layout is too disjointed, weapons are completely inconveniently placed, balance is off, navigation is anything but intuitive, and don't forget that the map is still the same ugly... IMO, there's no reason why somebody would want to play this map for enjoyment in deathmatch.

Disjointed? How so?

Jaxxoon R said:

The name Haunted Mansion makes me think of the ride at Disneyworldland and the Eddy Murphey movie based off of it.

Never been to any Disney parks, so I wouldn't know