My First Maps

[riderr3]

I like to look on amateur maps to know how not to do maps.

[OliveTree]

Suitepee said:

I might playtest this sometime. Looks quirky enough.

That would be pretty helpful actually, thanks in advance

[OliveTree]

riderr3 said:

I like to look on amateur maps to know how not to do maps.

That sounds sort of reasonable I guess? Idk if I'll try that but if You do it, you can always use my maps lol

[OliveTree]

TheNerdTurtle2 said:

To be blunt it was bad. Besides all the obvious reasons

... "obvious reasons?"

Sorry to bring back an old post but what exactly are the "obvious reasons?"

I thought everything you said after that were the obvious reasons.

[Quagsire]

Here's some advice to help you improve.

Think about the audience you wanna aim out to. There are several different audiences, including the horror fans, the slaughter map fans, and the design fans (people who like detailed maps).

Anyways, think out a level design or better yet- draw a design on graph paper. Then copy that design onto a Doom level editor (DeepSea, GZDoom Bulder, etc). Afterwards when you get the room shells done, add the interior and detailing.

[OliveTree]

Sgt Ender said:

Here's some advice to help you improve.

Think about the audience you wanna aim out to. There are several different audiences, including the horror fans, the slaughter map fans, and the design fans (people who like detailed maps)

lol I certainly didn't have a genre in mind or a demographic to appeal to. I sort of made the game exclusively tailor made for what I was curious in....I guess a balance of both are required.

Sgt Ender said:

Anyways, think out a level design or better yet- draw a design on graph paper. Then copy that design onto a Doom level editor (DeepSea, GZDoom Bulder, etc). Afterwards when you get the room shells done, add the interior and detailing.

This might be hard to believe, given how weird my level's pacing is, but I actually DO sketch out all my levels before I plug them into DoomBuilder.

[OliveTree]

I made another update. The first post has been updated with a new link.

-A title screen
-A menu header
-Most of the maps were changed slightly, little cosmetic touches and some extra/less health in different bits to even out the difficulty.
-Added lost souls to MAP111 (elevator shaft)
-I tweaked ALL of the levels so that you shouldn't ever need to jump. Jumping doesn't break anything, but to play the game right you'll only ever need to duck.
-Various changes to make the levels feel "right"
-May or may not have added two more levels after MAP21 and even if I did you should certainly without a doubt NOT use the console to access them, even though they don't exist....

[t3hPoundcake]

"You need to enable crouching for this level"


I'm out.


This isn't a cacoward winner or anything but if these are the first things you made when opening the editor, at least you understand how to use it. You were using doors, moving sectors/floors, switches, enemies, weapons, pain sectors, you used varying textures. I feel like you just made these just to make them though. When it comes to making Doom maps there's 2 things I've learned:

- You have to have 100% passion and confidence for your project

- And it's going to take you a long ass time to complete one map


There's not really such thing as a bad map, because it's entirely subjective, but a map can have bad gameplay, and unfortunately that's where your maps fall for me. Fighting cacos with a shotgun on map 1, when they are the only enemies? Meh. Another tip, if you have to literally use text to tell the players how they have to play the map, it's going to make the player feel claustrophobic and it takes away from the magic that is hunting and pecking in Doom. People like exploring, while killing demons, and telling your player what to do takes away from that. People have one goal when they play Doom: Kill demons and find the exit. If either of those are taken away by telling the player how to play the map loses like 50% of its potential. You never want to take control over the player in any way, it makes you feel less powerful. Your map scale is actually decent, if there were more side passages and a bit less linear gameplay the maps could actually be decent little fun short maps. Work on monster placement and progression, nobody likes fighting cacos with a shotgun, on map one, let alone 4 of them. Keep in mind that certain guns are good for certain enemies, if you gave the player the chaingun on map 1, throw in some shotgunners or chaingunners. You gave them a shotgun early on, so throw some imps in there. Save the cacos for a trap or further on like map 3 or 4. I don't like when I'm given multiple weapons so easily also. I would put the chaingun as maybe a secret area, and make the player have to kill a shotgunner to get the shotgun. People like challenging maps, so by limiting the arsenal and using hitscan enemies you can make even the first map of a wad a nice challenge. "Oh you want the shotgun? Well you gotta kill some shotgunners first!" and that way if they find the chaingun secret, they get this sense of relief like "Finally I can take out these hitscanners more easily". You've got a long ways to go before you're an amazing mapper but hopefully what everyone is telling you in here will get you there quicker.


If you make another map or set of maps I'd like to test them to see what you've improved on.

[OliveTree]

t3hPoundcake said:

"You need to enable crouching for this level"


I'm out.

Haha yeah. I put that sign there, partially, because because I wanted the player to be totally certain if they are allowed to crouch or jump or not. It always bothers me when WADs don't have anything in the readme or made totally obvious in the gameplay as to whether I'm supposed to jump or not...and I feel like I'm cheating if I do. Putting a sign up was supposed to make it inherently obvious that YES you can crouch and NO you can't jump. But maybe it comes off differently.

Fighting cacos with a shotgun on map 1, when they are the only enemies? Meh.....Work on monster placement and progression, nobody likes fighting cacos with a shotgun, on map one, let alone 4 of them.

I think I got a comment about that before but kind of didn't think about it at the time. The as-of-this-post updated link above includes a TON of newer updates to some of the gameplay, including a different weapons/enemy thing in the first level.

Actually, the monster/weapons you kill/obtain was altered mostly across ALL maps along with some extra tweaks like removing the spider mastermind in MAP02 and balancing stuff like that. I don't think it's perfect, but I think it's a lot more fun now.

Your map scale is actually decent, if there were more side passages and a bit less linear gameplay the maps could actually be decent little fun short maps

I'm kind of weird in that I sort of prefer guided linear experiences as opposed to DooM's sort of free-roaming key collected maze vibe. Don't get me wrong, I still really like DooM's level design, and I like it BECAUSE of the free-roaming get-lost-in-a-level key collecting maze vibe...but if I was the one making DooM it probably wouldn't have been a free-roaming monster-closeted get-lost-in-a-level key collecting maze game. Instead I kind of prefer short guided set-piece style games that feel more like challenges than they do ADVENTURES (which is what I'd describe DooM's level design being like--little adventures)

So when I made my own levels I kind of made short sweet set-piece guided challenges without a ton of exploration being required at all. If I ever make a map trying to replicate the style of classic DooM than I'll make some free-roaming monster-closeted get-lost-in-a-level sprawling-corridors key collecting levels....but that wasn't really the goal of this particular mod.

You've got a long ways to go before you're an amazing mapper but hopefully what everyone is telling you in here will get you there quicker.

I didn't write any responses here to most of it, but I really did try to take most of what you and others wrote in consideration for this most recent update! Especially some of the specific advice you gave about things like which weapons are good for which enemies and such, and some other peoples advice about things like space to run and cover.

Tell me what you think!

[Hellbent]

When's the movie start?

Spoiler

also, where's Michael Douglas?

[OliveTree]

...California?

[Sayok6]

It's abstract, like the Sky May Be, but it's a botched version, to be honest.

[OliveTree]

Forgive me if thia sounds rude, but I think the sky may be was already a botched version of the sky may be

[Sayok6]

The sky may be is a botched version of Zardoz.

[Trupiak]

No scenery or anything, it was just boring,, i saw that you were trying to make something cool with the custom textures, like, on the beginning the bathroom and refreshments, right ? I thought you'd really make bathroom stalls or something but it's just 2 empty rooms with supplies

[OliveTree]

Lol I agree with your point mostly, but the bathrooms and refreshments bit was actually supposed to be a joke.

[OliveTree]

Some new changes including a proper final boss type setpeice in map20 and some new levels after that.

Use the first posts updated link

[OliveTree]

There's another new level in the link above. The next update after this one will have the level "Parallels" be updated a little bit among other things. Stay tuned.

[OliveTree]

Yet another update, I'm gonna take a break for now I think. There is a proper final boss level in map29 and most of the maps between 24-28 were updated cosmetically a bit. After this I'll probably make a map30 which wraps up the general plot whatever whatever and never touch this project ever again hopefully.

Oh and some small updates to "Parallels" are here as well, not much but idk check it out

[OliveTree]

Hooray, final version is out! Version 11, check the link above. 30 levels, so that's a full campaign of weirdness.

[Ed_Deth]

I just played though to the end. It did look like someones first attempt at mapping. The fact is though you have made it and it works. Good job. It's a great start. I did get stuck on map 10 also, when I returned to the elevator i didn't notice the door to the right of the switch and pressed the switch again and missed the door. Also noticed a texture alignment on one of your custom textures on the last map. Thanks and keep it up.

[Misty]

I really liked concept of this wad. Only thing I missed here - more context,for example why player decided to go against the game logic.
I played this in zandronum and found some HOM in various places,but it doesn`t break anything(later I`ll add screenshots where I find them).
Maps could be more colourful,not so black or blue.

[OliveTree]

I made another update, finally lol

I added a TITLEMAP as well as a revised opening to MAP01. The link is still above but here it is here as well

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1aZFlgtpHHOaE4xUE1Gc3Ztd2c

[SuperSimsam]

When I boot up the WAD in both GZDOOM and Zandronum, I get an error. Here is the error in text form, as an image would be kinda useless.
{
Execution could not continue.

Script error, "MWMC.wad:MAPINFO" line 129:
MAP22: Unknown top level keyword
}

Looking in SLADE, that line in the MAPINFO looks like this:
{
map MAP22 " "
}

I'm thinking that it has something to do with how the map doesn't have a name at all. Please look into this, I wanna try out your new maps.

[OliveTree]

Very strange... Are you sure your using the latest version of GZDoom?

The game ran fine before, but I had toyed a little with the mapinfo with some other stuff and it might have uPset the natural balance of the universe or something :/

I tinkered with some stuff in map22 just now, and it should work fine now. Here's the current copy of the game:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1aZFlgtpHHOaE4xUE1Gc3Ztd2c

Please tell me if there are still issues or bugs, or if it doesn't load still. Hope you enjoy the new levels!

Edited May 21, 2018 by EtherBot

[SuperSimsam]

It works! Thanks for the quick fix, I'll play them now. Might come back later and write about the levels a bit.

[OliveTree]

No problem. I hope you enjoy the later maps, I worked hard on them :D

[OliveTree]

On 6/19/2016 at 7:10 PM, SuperSimsam said:

EDIT: Also, how did you edit the text screen? Yano, the one that happens on MAP07?

this is incredibly late, sorry about that. I made a "MAPINFO" file, they're easy enough

 

https://zdoom.org/wiki/MAPINFO

 

https://zdoom.org/files/examples/mapinfo-doom2.txt

 

Intermissions happen at the end of clusters so mess with the levels individually to shorten or lengthen clusters (so your intermission can happen at the specific level you want), or at least thats what i did maybe theres a more efficient way to do this, who knows