John Romero makes first new Doom map in 21 years

[Deleted_Account]

Just played this and I was blown away by it. Romero is legend! I like the layout of the map and the hell leaking through the cracks, well done! And the final battle with the barons was great. Can't wait to see what else he is going to come up with.

[Beed28]

The map is phenomenal, should I say, even though I'm not a huge fan of large amounts of damaging floors nor large number of hitscan monsters.

[Traysandor]

That was a really fun, but tough romp through the depths of E1... A place I haven't visited since that ill-fated experiment with Nightmare difficulty...

I died several times before finally clearing it in one go on UV.

And personally.... I'd love to see more of what Romero has still cooked up in that noggin of his.

[Buckshot]

The map made me feel very debilitated and very confused... alot of looking around and backtracking/searching. It followed no sane logic or traditional approach in design and layout.

Honestly, I felt pretty screwed from the start.. constantly spinning around and watching every angle, as baddies just came from every direction and even directions you'd thought you already cleared once or twice.

It was a giant mashup of every little bit of Romero's prior designs in DOOM, yet it added alot of stuff that somehow made it feel like new material with new inspirations (the cracked floors oozing lava, the twisty windy halls, circular ceiling openinings, tunnels and lookouts)

It also felt remarkably fresh, and full of suprises.

[T-Rex]

This is a really awesome finale that really blows the original E1M8 out of the water (no offense to Sandy Petersen). The style felt a lot like what Romero has done in his official maps, but with slightly more details. Challenging and fun at the same. It would awesome if he would make more maps (like possibly an E2 or E3 map done in his style).

To John Romero, I have one thing to say. You truly are the Father of Doom!

[RottingZombie]

Thanks Romero for the badass level. It happened to release during my yearly playthrough's of Doom 1/2, so hell yea.

I loved the bruiser brother fight, and thank you for not putting cyberdemons in those huge portals, lord knows we fight enough of them in modern maps.

I had to run through from e1m1 to have some ammo, as you made me your bitch when i tried to pistol start on HMP.

Since the level is more detailed and doesn't fit in with the rest of the episode difficulty-wise, I beg of you to recreate the whole episode :).

Also taking this moment to thank you for your part in my favorite game. Doom has gotten me through some tough times, and it remains fun in the face of all the crappy modern FPS games. The music and action always cheer me up.

Also, this level has more monster-closets than all of Doom 3 combined.

[T-Rex]

RottingZombie said:

I loved the bruiser brother fight, and thank you for not putting cyberdemons in those huge portals, lord knows we fight enough of them in modern maps.

Of course, being an E1 map, and with him staying faithful to the style and monster placement, cyberdemons are out of the map. Funny, since looking at his E4 (obviously), and Doom 2 maps, if you look them up through a level editor, you'll notice that he has saw fit to have at least one cyberdemon in each of his maps, some of which are tagged to appear only in multiplayer.

[madbringer]

Half-way through playing this map I had an epiphany. Here I am, hungover, boxers and greasy shirt on, playing through A NEW MAP FROM ONE OF THE ORIGINAL MASTERMINDS BEHIND DOOM. And it's actually fucking good. I cried a bit. Then I come here and read that John is planning to make more and this was just a "warm-up".

I can't handle this. I just can't. I'm 5 years old again, unpacking diskettes, nervously anticipating, curiously exploring, amazed by this strange new game I'm playing. Suddenly the world is a beautiful place, full of vibrant colors, demons, zombies, and satanic imagery. 2016 is gonna b gud.

[Red-XIII]

What a great map!

While it's true that it doesn't fit the original difficulty Episode 1, it definitely felt nostalgic, and you can actually feel the doom1 style with all those sergents, well hidden secrets, tech textures and so on. The first part, yellow key part, and the baron fight are definitely, IMO, the highlights of the map.

Also, this looks super fun and challenging to speedrun it, both in UV and NM, can't wait to see what will happen! But, in this case, the emotions felt while playing it for the first time are the best!

Thank you John Romero!

[volumetricsteve]

Holy shit...well...I picked a bad time to try to get into mapping if Romero is going to be kicking ass all over the place like this. :)

Oh how we've missed you.

[NightFright]

I finished the level yesterday and it is quite enjoyable. Considering the amount of detail, it is a remarkable effort, especially if you take into account that Romero wasn't into Doom mapping for over 20 years.

What I liked most about the map was its non-linear design, general complexity and its wealth of secrets. Took me a while to find that blue keycard, but after that I made fast progress.
I may be mistaken, but it's apparently possible to get stuck in the big slime pool if you go there too early - I went there first (before finding any keycard) and couldn't figure out how to get out of there again without cheating.

Other than that, a superb replacement for E1M8 that brings the fight against the Barons of Hell to a new level. If there was a whole episode like that, I would absolutely not complain.

[Fonze]

Which big lava pool are you talking about? The one with the Invul up top and the early RL just to the right of the starting position? If so, there's a switch in the corner for a lift right there at the switch.

[NightFright]

Ah, I meant slime pool, sorry. It's the one with many columns in the center and some lava cracks at the bottom. I think I wasn't supposed to go there before getting the blue keycard. There is a way to get back out of the pool with a tiny lift, but it's leading to a short corridor that turns out to be a dead end. Maybe I just wasn't able to find another way out of the area. Don't even remember how I got there in the first place. xD

It's basically the area depicted on the last image of Linguica's first post.

[Voros]

Just played it.

Reminds me of a destroyed UAC base slowly being consumed with each area.

And the ending? It felt like the Barons just came out of two Hell portals, rather than two boxes.

But I loved only one thing about the map: the hazardous cracks. Just feels so real with those.

[DooM_RO]

And now every retard on the internet asks "does it work with Brutal Doom"?

[Voros]

This thread is starting to become a spoiler thread for Romero's "warming-up" map XD

@Doom_RO, what do you mean?

[Marnetmar]

Voros said:

@Doom_RO, what do you mean?

Dude. This isn't that hard.

[Romero]

The reason why I start the map out with the crazy first room and hell cracks is to bring the player's ammo and health down and keep it that way for most of the map. If you start with a pistol it takes a few times to figure out the strategy of surviving that room.

I'm going to be recording a devs play video talking about the design of the map and why I did all the things you see in it. I know there are a lot of things that could be better, some texture alignment adjustments, and weak points. It's definitely not perfect but it's a warm up. I haven't touched a map editor for a 3D game since 1996.

[antares031]

Romero said:

......I'm going to be recording a devs play video talking about the design of the map and why I did all the things you see in it. I know there are a lot of things that could be better, some texture alignment adjustments, and weak points. It's definitely not perfect but it's a warm up. I haven't touched a map editor for a 3D game since 1996.

That sounds great! I enjoyed the "Devs Play" videos recorded by Double Fine TV on Youtube. And watching another Devs Play featuring your latest level is gonna be fantastic. If this level is just a warm up, I can't wait to see some more levels done by the father of Classic Doom. Whether it's a single player level or multi player level, I'm looking forward to play more levels. Yes, Welcome back! :)

[Gez]

Are you going to make more Doom maps in the future? I'd like to see you try making a Heretic map as well. :)

[Romero]

I can't promise what kind of maps I'll be making. I've never made a Heretic map. I'm warming up to making all the maps for my new FPS. All of them.

[esselfortium]

Romero said:

I'm warming up to making all the maps for my new FPS. All of them.

Awesome. Really looking forward to seeing that!

[Captain Ventris]

Gez said:

I'd like to see you try making a Heretic map as well. :)

To clarify Mr. Romero, we'd like to see you do absolutely anything you wanna do anywhere, anyway you wanna, as we have for the past 22 years. :P

[NightFright]

We needz moar! Pliez gief!

[LogicDeLuxe]

Romero said:

I'm going to be recording a devs play video talking about the design of the map and why I did all the things you see in it.

I'm looking forward to it.
Would you also talk what you think about Doom Builder vs. id's own DoomEd? I'm sure it felt very different. Do you feel comfortable mapping with a 3rd-party editor?
What do you think about all the zdoom enhancements like 3d-floors, slopes and scripting possibilities? Are you planning to make a zdoom map, too?

[Linguica]

One thing I like about the first room is that it sets a tone while being basically consequence-free. Since it's Doom, and it's a single-level WAD, there is really no downside to dying in the first twenty seconds, and structuring the start of a level in such a way as to take multiple tries to figure out how to gain a foothold 1) primes the player to remember the level as being really hard, even if the difficulty gets much more manageable later, and 2) gives a quick jolt to the part of the brain that rejoices in conquering a difficult challenge, even though the challenge really isn't so bad and you have infinite free tries.

Of course this doesn't mean that it's a good idea for *every* map to start with a high-valence damagefest, since you still need the player's goodwill to convince them to push through it. Luckily player goodwill is one thing Romero can pretty much count on.

[blod]

Well I'm warmed up, now give me really hot stuff please!

[Jon]

Good fun map. Works best on a port that does z-height checking for sprite collision. Quite a few situations in crispy are painful because you're blocked by an imp off-screen on the other side of a window ledge etc.

[LkMax]

So if doing new Doom maps is a warm up for a new game, one can only expect good level design from said new game. =P

[HavoX]

Thanks for the update, John, and good luck on your new FPS!