NEW levels for Brutal Doom

[Quineotio]

UPDATE 01/02/16: I've finished a new level and updated the previous level. The following wad contains both those levels with the new one first.

MoonB.wad http://crutherfordmusic.com/news/MoonB.wad

Screenshots http://imgur.com/a/ImPHS

The first level will be level 3 or 4 in a larger wad for Brutal Doom, and is set in a remote storage facility. The gameplay concentrates on hard fighting and ambushes. This is best played with ZDoom. I would love any general feedback, but also specifically comments on difficulty.

The second level has been significantly updated with your feedback in mind, and now has more details and different textures, but has also been re-balanced so it should flow differently. I expect it will be significantly harder now, but I will be including difficulty levels in the final release.

I'm aiming for a new level each month, with updates to previous levels based on the feedback you guys give me. I'm also hoping to have custom music in the next release. All the feedback you give me helps. Suitepee's stream of my level was particularly informative, even though he didn't enjoy it.

I hope you have fun :)

[Unterspahgenzich]

Finished in 23 minutes

60% secrets (I jumped to get to one, not sure if I was meant to)
70% kills
23% items

This was a hell of a lot of fun to play. Like you said in the OP; this map is just constant, non stop action with loads of enemies to kill. This map has given me some of my most memorable sequences in all of my Doom years; like being chased by the cacos through the tower and being ambushed by the hell knights after being lured towards the cell charge packs. This is just pure fun and I reckon this might be a map I regularly play to relieve stress. I've only got two gripes:

1. there are so many doors you can't open. Why do I need to use a switch to open the doors? If I can't open them at all, then why is there a door there? Realism?

2. I sorta felt lost after collecting the red key. I found the blue doors early on as they were in sight and easily seen; whereas when I was trying to find the red door there was a minute or two were the action stopped.

I didn't notice any misaligned textures or the like but I'm not an expert WAD critic so I don't really know where I should be looking.

Overall this is a ton of fun and it'll be interesting to see how the rest of the levels turn out. I was kinda shocked you threw all the weapons and monsters at us in the first level. What's the plan for MAP02? Good work!

[Doomkid]

This map looks like a sweet blend of oldschool and new school. I'm on my phone but once home will have to give this one a blast :)

[Quineotio]

Heyo AwesomeO-789 :) Thanks for playing my level, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

This level won't be the first one in the WAD. It'll probably come around 5 or 6 (out of 10). The BFG will probably be the only weapon you don't already have by that point.

The not being able to open doors thing was an experiment - a rule I made myself when I started making the level. You can't open ANY doors in the level by clicking on them. Yes it kinda was a realism thing, but part of it was just seeing how it'd feel. It makes opening doors feel more significant I think - they're more of a barrier. Also, by taking control of opening doors away from the player I had more control over the flow of the level.

I agree with the red key thing. I couldn't figure a way to make that part flow better. I tried to make the level fun enough to replay, so I guess the second time through you'll know where it is :P I'll make a change where I open up a different path earlier to make it a bit easier to find.

Thanks for the feedback!

PS I should add that there is a Commander Keen hidden in the level that you need to kill...

PPS RE jumping, I don't jump when I play the level (except to jump kick enemies), but it's ok if you want to. I factored it into the level design, so I don't think you can get anywhere you aren't supposed to by jumping.

[Chezza]

Played until I died at the end, managed to kill 403 of the bastards. Final Ambush got me though. So as a person who is both a big fan of Brutal Doom and also making a dedicated wad for it, I took an interest in trying your mod.

Here is my feedback!

- There were several doors I wasn't sure if I should of tried to open or not (I do the same thing in my maps actually)

- The way you had the starting imps jump down to gradually attack you was a clever use of Brutal doom mechanics

- Several parts of the map actually looks like fun for mutilplayer deathmatch

- The textures are incredibly repetitive but somehow you pulled most of it off, even with such an ugly color. However I still encourage you to add a bit more variety

- There are little bits of adjustments needed such as door height and some texture offsets but nothing serious

The layout of your map was pretty damn awesome. There doesn't seem to be any recognizable theme other than big brown vats full of Cacodemons but in turn you have given us a really cool combat level. I could learn a few things from this map and will set it aside to investigate it further. The map was fun and nicely balanced (challenging for me but likely easy for a veteran Slaughter map player) and I have to give you a thumbs up for it.

[Quineotio]

Hello Chezza, thanks for playing my map :)

When I release the full mod I'll probably include multiplayer versions of all the levels. I'll need to tweak a bunch of stuff to get it to flow properly, but I'll keep the general layout.

The imps jumping down works really well on v19 of Brutal DOOM, but not so well on v20 - they just don't jump as much. I tried to compensate by adding teleporters and it works ok, but I miss the old jump behaviour.

Also, the demons run different speeds depending on what version you use. I made the level using mainly V20, which has really fast demons, making the level really intense. v20b has slower demons again. I'll tweak the levels to work best with whatever version of BD is most current when the mod is released. I kinda hope the demons get faster again...

Thanks for your feedback :)

[Doomkid]

This map is pretty darn awesome. I enjoy the visuals for the most part, that nice classic vibe. There was perhaps a bit too much brown - It would have been nice to see a little change (mainly to help differentiate areas, I got lost a few times) but I want to be clear that the map does look really nice aside from that.

The layout itself is great, you spend a lot of time winding around. Space was definitely used really well here, and the ammo and health balance is spot on - Not too hard, but not too easy.

I did notice a few of the BIGDOOR1 textures looked weird. Half the time they were aligned properly, but the other half they seemed to but cut down the middle. It's really minor and doesn't affect the gameplay at all, but I just figured I'd point it out :)

Custom music and maybe a custom sky would be welcome, but that stuff is of course not mandatory - It just helps to give your map a distinct look/vibe.

Really fine work, well crafted map - Keep it up!

EDIT: Just want to ask, have you played NRFTL? Some parts of the map reminded me of it a bit, and that's definitely a good thing.

[Suitepee]

Quineotio said:

I really like the changes in gameplay in Brutal Doom, but I feel that in order to take full advantage of it you need to design levels around it, taking into account the faster movement and more powerful weapons. I'm working on an episode specifically for Brutal Doom and have finished the first level.

Attention Brutal Doom fanpeople! THIS is what I want to hear from more of you. Stop just slapping Brutal on other people's wads all the time and start making your own B-Doom specific wads!

I might play this sometime on stream.

[Quineotio]

Doomkid said:

This map is pretty darn awesome. I enjoy the visuals for the most part, that nice classic vibe. There was perhaps a bit too much brown - It would have been nice to see a little change (mainly to help differentiate areas, I got lost a few times) but I want to be clear that the map does look really nice aside from that.

The layout itself is great, you spend a lot of time winding around. Space was definitely used really well here, and the ammo and health balance is spot on - Not too hard, but not too easy.

I did notice a few of the BIGDOOR1 textures looked weird. Half the time they were aligned properly, but the other half they seemed to but cut down the middle. It's really minor and doesn't affect the gameplay at all, but I just figured I'd point it out :)

Custom music and maybe a custom sky would be welcome, but that stuff is of course not mandatory - It just helps to give your map a distinct look/vibe.

Really fine work, well crafted map - Keep it up!

EDIT: Just want to ask, have you played NRFTL? Some parts of the map reminded me of it a bit, and that's definitely a good thing.

Thanks for the feedback :)

I guess I'll need to do some de-browning :P

The door textures all look ok to me. I'm wondering if I've done something weird to make it not display correctly for other people. I'm not very experienced with the technical stuff - I just make stuff in doom builder and hope it works. Would you mind taking a screenshot so I could see what you mean?

I'm writing some music for it and will include it when I upload the next version. As for custom sky, I'm planning to stick to the old-school doom2 textures and features (for the most part) for this episode. I like working with restrictions.

I've never played NRFTL. Is there a way to get it without buying an Xbox?

[Quineotio]

Suitepee said:

I might play this sometime on stream.

If you do let me know, I'd love to watch!

[Doomkid]

Here's those door screenshots, the top shows it looking correct, and the bottom shows the weird doors, which are only a few throughout the map:

Quineotio said:

I've never played NRFTL. Is there a way to get it without buying an Xbox?

There are legal ways of obtaining it for PC, the filename is NERVE.WAD :)

[Quineotio]

Doomkid said:

Here's those door screenshots, the top shows it looking correct, and the bottom shows the weird doors, which are only a few throughout the map:

Thanks for those screenshots. Those doors look horrible. Do you know what causes that? Looks like the texture is cropped. They don't show up like that when I play.

I got nerve.wad, I'll give it a play, thanks :)

[Quineotio]

I've finished another level and updated the OP :)

[Unterspahgenzich]

Cool! I'll play this tomorrow when I get home. Very excited, had a blast the first time around!

[Doomkid]

Quineotio said:

Thanks for those screenshots. Those doors look horrible. Do you know what causes that? Looks like the texture is cropped. They don't show up like that when I play.

Oddly enough, the map John Romero recently released features the same bug! I think it must be an issue with Zandronum (?) because I'm seeing this a lot in maps released within the last 3 months, and my default testing port is Zandronum. It never happens on maps I make though - Honestly, I haven't got a clue what causes it.

Will be sure to try your new map out soon!

[Suitepee]

I'll playtest the updated version on my 8th playtesting stream, which will be sometime in February.

[Quineotio]

Doomkid said:

Oddly enough, the map John Romero recently released features the same bug! I think it must be an issue with Zandronum (?) because I'm seeing this a lot in maps released within the last 3 months, and my default testing port is Zandronum. It never happens on maps I make though - Honestly, I haven't got a clue what causes it.

Will be sure to try your new map out soon!

How odd. Glad it's not a bug in my map, because I tried playing on a couple of different ports and couldn't get the error. I normally play with ZDoom because I think the lighting looks the best and I like the old-school look.