Undeleted Scenes

[Julian]

Russell has finally released Null Space at duellist.net. Given the quality of the deleted scene he released a couple of months ago, there is no need for us to tell you this single player level, consisting in a 'large wood and stone structure frozen in the void', is a must download.

[stphrz]

Precise, letter perfect architecture. Good gameplay. Great new textures and flats. Excellent work! Where's the lighting though?

[mystic]

Fannytastic. Like the rest of Russells work this is as near perfect as can be. Thanks for reminding me Im not quite 'there' yet Russell.

[Erik]

Awesome layout and architecture. Gameplay is a bit easy and dull for me to like it 100% though. Still, great work.

[inferno_45]

OMG! OMG! it's here! This is the best early christmas present! waahh!!

[Lutz]

This map is utterly mind-bending in many ways. Normally, saying that "the author used a whopping 20 textures and maybe 4 light levels" would be an insult, but somehow Russell pulled it off. And even with those (tight) constraints, it has a spirit/look/zeitgeist unlike any other level I have played in quite some time. Sure, I don't suppose a little color would hurt, nor would some more dramatic lighting, but still -- play this level, and ponder it's thematic genious.

[Guest Virgil_]

Downloading now.. I have no doubt at all that this'll be good, considering all of Russel's other wads I played.

All that newstuff, too. I downloaded all of it just a couple of days ago. The Brotherhood of Ruins is AWESOME and so are the other SP levels. Equinox / Ruinbros has some excellent graphics and sound. Maybe I'll use some of them in future... :)

Virgil

[Swedish Fish]

I didn't get my playtesting comments to you Russell! Your email addy bounced when I tried to send you comments a little more then a week ago. I got no response to a follow up letter that supposedly didn't bounce..

:~(

[Guest MrMGA]

Like Virgil said, there is a lot of very good Newstuff lately and Null Space is right up there with the best of them. Thank you Russell!
P.S. Who said Null Space was too easy? I'm getting my ass kicked on HMP.

[Searcher]

With this kind of talent for making wads. Makes me wonder why I would ever bother to make my own. Great Job!
Magnificent!

[Enjay]

Absolutely superb.

Thoroughly enjoyed every minute. (All 36 of them first time through - and still 2 bad guys living, and 1 secret unfound according to Zdoom.)

Architecture is very Russell (a very good thing IMO), and at the same time very original. Many, many interesting effects combined with good solid map work and careful attention to alignment etc all come together making one great looking wad. I really like the minimalist approach to the lighting too. IMO it really compliments the surreal sort of theme of the map and I think huge areas of ++16 lighting would detract from it.

I also liked the way it was mazey, allowing a number of different routes around the map without simply getting confusing or making me feel lost.

The big battle at the end was very well done. A few different strategies possible there. The bosscube style switches looked great and added another dimension to the fight. The way I did it, I hardly had time to breathe for about 5 minutes.

I like the end. Fitting, and very in keeping with the rest of the map.

Too easy? Nah, doesn't feel that way when you run round a corner on low health, straight into a bunch of medium to tough enemies, about face, take a turn and run into more, down a third passageway, same again, and again....Aieeeeeeee! Time to reload and take it slowly.

Big thanks Russell. This is one to keep on my HD in my favourite wads directory, unzipped and ready to roll whenever I feel the need.

[Opulent]

so many fantastic wads released relatively recently... there has never been a better time to be a Doomer.
that is one heck of a great review Enjay; if people don't download this thing after all that praise from respected authors, they won't download anything.
Cheers, Russell, what a triumph.

[Guest RIP]

Very nice map!

[Russell]

erm, well i don't know quiet where to start...

thanks for the compliments guys, this wad was a real texturing marathon, glad it wasn't a waste of time

there are a number of points i meant to mention in the text file but simply forgot and seeing as most of them have been brought up here i'll post my comments here;

Lighting

Yes i agree, the lighting is a bit uniform.This all stemmed from the external (void) light level. I initially tried having a setting of 192, but this made the external wood textures look too bright for the atmosphere i was trying to create, so i settled for 176. From this point the internal lighting could only go dimmer, but i didn't want to make the level too dim or people would start reaching for gamma correction (which in my opinion tends to kill any atmosphere you might try to set up with lighting). And some textures just look crap if you go too dark, so i was left with a very narrow range of light levels i was willing to use. I think most of the level is set at 160. I'm trying to experiment more with lighting atm, hopefully my next level (set in a research base) will have more varied lighting. Always room for improvement....:)

Colour

After finishing the architecture i took a couple of weeks break and them came back to look at the level and my initial thoughts were 'it could do with more colour'. It does look a bit bland but i feel this is counter balanced by the variation in each room. Although most of the rooms use similar textures and architecture, i made each room slightly different so that the level didn't look boring (there was very little copying and pasting). I could have added more colour, but this level was running along a theme and i didn't want to mess with it too much. Also i'd spent too much time on this map and wanted to move onto other things so i decided enough was enough.

Difficulty

Initial playtesting showed that what i thought was a challanging level turned out to be a 'walk in the park' for the playtesters. Difficulty was increased to level that the testers found challanging, without it being impossible for them to finish. Heh, i must point out that i'm a crap player and with it's current difficulty i can't finish this map in UV on a single run (although i can on HMP). A good reason to get playtesters i guess :)

Secrets

I meant to say that all the secrets are in the southern section of the complex. There are 4 main secrets, allowing access to the soul sphere, chainsaw, rocket launcher and blue armour. There are 2 secondary secrets (archnatron alcove and beserk). Therefore, there sould be six areas marked as secrets (if i remember correctly).

phew!

anyway, that was supposed to be in the text file, but i forgot in the rush to finish it :)

there was some other stuff too, but until someone mentions something that jogs my memory i'll have to leave it at that. Besides, this post has gone on long enough.

[Russell]

:( yes that does suck.

My emails been completely crap for the past few weeks. I've had huge ammounts of both incomming and outgoing mail just disappear. I had to send some emails out 3 or 4 times before the intended recipient actually received it. I've changed servers and hopefully everythings okay now.

If you want to send me your comments again i'd love to see them. It's a bit late for this level now (obviously), but any feedback is welcome and can only help me improve my designing in the long run.

[Guest MrMGA]

I'm not a level designer, I'm purely a player. And only a Single Player. I've played hundreds of levels since 1996 or so. One of my biggest complaints about wads is that authors frequently go overboard on lighting effects. They should be used sparingly, to enhance the attmosphere in certain places. I have no complaints about the lighting in Null Space.

[Rez]

I'm glad to see this map is being well-received. It was a joy to test as well!

[Guest Kurt]

Russel this is a sweet map. Thanks for your efforts.

[kristus]

Yes very sexy design.. but the gameplay isn'
t my cup of tea though.

[NiGHTMARE]

Russell, just get your lighting better than the lighting in reOL's latest level (which looks like it should be in a map made in 1994, not a ZDoom enhanced map with slopes, etc) and we'll all be happy :)