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schmerr

This is my first serious map, HALP D:

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The one trap you have so far is cool. I like how the player is punished for backing off from the green armor trap by having to take on a HK with a SG in a very narrow hallway. I could have died to that, but reacted quickly enough in the hallway. This setup could be stronger, though. I'd make the HK non-deaf so he follows the player into the room, and I'd use the same line triggers for the HK cubby and the imps/demons, probably halfway between the armor and the door, so the player can't cheese the setup so easily on repeat playthroughs.

Visually the map is a complete mess at the moment. A lot of textures need aligning, like the Tekgreen and various upper/lower sidedefs that are used for windows and to lower the ceiling near doors. There are a few unrecognized textures. It's useful sometimes to think of your map as being made of materials, so see the door right behind the start where there's a Brown96 slab of wall with a gray FLAT19 bottom? Looks a bit rough. Would either replace it with a brown bottom or a texture that can look like a panel or lining. The transition from FLAT19 to CEIL4_3 in the main room is sudden, too, maybe change the ceiling height where that happens. Very abrupt changes in theme, like the marble/lava just a few rooms away. Lighting exists, so that's a good thing.

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From the screens alone it looks oldschool but competent. I'm sold, will leave proper feedback when at my PC!

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Heyo, played your map. The first thing I'm going to note is that the more complete a map is, generally the more feedback you'll get. As for what's here, it's alright; I like that you use a diverse amount of textures, though some might argue it's too erratic (like that open-air GSTONE section). I also like that you're using light variation, but I think you have way too many blinking lights--in the first room alone there's 3 sectors blinking at different rates. I personally think you need to use it more sparringly, so as not to blind the player. It's also possible to jump off the ledge in the first room, grab the blue key, and get stuck... might need to raise that barrier. Lastly, you might want to expand some corridors lengthwise and heightwise. It's fine for the Hell Knight trap, but other areas feel a bit cramped.

Keep at it!

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I think the detailing was nice, but the map itself lacks some consistency which it doesn't make much sense as a whole. I know that the IWAD's level doesn't make much sense if you compare with real life stuff, but it's not really what I want to mean. For me, I normally like levels in Doom to be abstract, but the whole thing should have some more consisteny. (IDK how to say that, sorry >.<)

With some more interesting interconnections the experience will improve a lot. For example. more windows that connects doors, less doors, some more texturing standardization (not so many different textures each rooms), less square rooms.

Something that will help you to make those changes is to be aware of how you are positioning the monsters and control players pacing (moments of high pressure or low pressure) and enconters (position snipers, ambushes, roamers) and its battle flow. (where you want to player stay when fighting the monsters in the encounter, will you want him to hide, will you want him to run away, etc).

BTW, the green armor trap was nicely done: First that it is kinda unexpected, since Green Armor isn't very much used as bait and second that you force the player to fight the monsters in the tiny area, discouraging him to run away with the baron + other monsters at the exit.

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I didn't like the blinking lights, they're both unnecessary and seizure-inducing, not cool. There were missing textures whichever IWAD I've tried, I'm under an impression that you've used additional resources (possibly from Doom.wad IWAD) which you didn't tell us about or include into the wad. You also didn't tell us that this wad requires a ZDoom based port, as I believe I saw flats used on walls, which classic engines don't support, and there are also zdoomisms such as S1/SR/W1/WR/G1/GR lines used with tag 0 to affect the sector on the linedef's back side, which doesn't work in classic ports and needs referring to the target sector with a unique (non-zero) tag. The initial gameplay seemed good. Unfortunately, the map is incomplete, making it impossible to give feedback on the important things, which are level design and gameplay. Some areas were too cramped (uncomfortable movement and combat), and as others have noted, many areas were too inconsistent in theme, seemingly at random, similar to crappy old wads. Aesthetic of individual isolated areas is good, though.

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