Moonsong, a practice map

[SaladBadger]

In the past I've made a few maps for doom, some of which have been released in various projects, but they all suffered various flaws: boxy, highly linear, weren't detailed in a sane manner, and didn't really flow interestingly. I've realized as of late that despite having a decent technical knowledge of how maps are made, I don't actually have a good feel for design them. This map was intended to try to break my fear of making interesting shaped rooms, rather than more "realistic" boxy rooms, as well as a sort of test bed to play around with some other layout ideas. Ultimately I made it a point to try to make interesting shaped rooms, give a feel for the flow and layout of the map by incorporating windows and the like, and try to provide multiple goals for an area.

The map ended up being longer than I wanted for a practice map, but I think I'm pretty pleased with it. It's not too difficult, but I'm still trying to learn my way around monster placement.

Images (of old version, but mostly representative of the final version):

Spoiler

The moon is awfully big, isn't it... This doesn't feel right


The base has darkened, and is now full of monsters


Computer room lets you rise the stairs to get out of the left wing of the base. The lift is out of service


Water treatment has been studied at this base. You'll have to dive into the tunnels, some monster tried to bury one of the access key cards


Brought the key up the lift near one of the processing rooms. Chaingunners infest maintenance tunnels


The right wing of the base deals with security and power generation. This pathway brings you to each of these


Someone put the security keycard on a convenient focal point in the generator room, but you'll have to fight around to get to it


Floor view of the generator room. Revenants have gotten into maintenance tunnels also. Watch out for them.


Well, this doesn't look right. Is this related to the odd moon...?

Download here (old version for demos) (it is compatible with any port, tested in choco and ZD. ZD has a mapinfo present to define a tall sky and make it end after the first map. EE also has a EMAPINFO which sets the tall sky.

I would love feedback on this map, I'm still trying to get up to speed with some level of sane design. I'll probably use this thread for any future maps that fit this bill of design practice.

[40oz]

Looks really cool insanity bringer!

[kuchitsu]

Cool level, I like the dark atmoshpere. Now it just needs an appropriate music track. Here is a demo I recorded.

Some stuff I noticed:
- the red key trap can be triggered when the key is still on that pillar
- surprisingly generous amounts of rockets/plasma in the later parts
- demons in sector 67 are maybe too trivial to deal with by simply moving back

[SaladBadger]

kuchitsu said:

Some stuff I noticed:
- the red key trap can be triggered when the key is still on that pillar

huh I thought that was just a zd anomaly. probably should have tested it a bit harder when doing the choco tests. I'll shrink the trigger lines some

kuchitsu said:

- surprisingly generous amounts of rockets/plasma in the later parts

Yeah, I'm noticing that myself. I figured I'd give big weapons later on since I started rolling out big monsters, but I think I went overboard with the weapons. Still trying to learn the ropes when it comes to balancing out this stuff...

kuchitsu said:

- demons in sector 67 are maybe too trivial to deal with by simply moving back

I need to rethink that area, I feel. I built that whole area with the intention of drawing you to the right, with the demons being out of view, but that ended up not working out too well. the emphasis ended up on the left. ah well.

I wasn't really sure what to do about music, if I end up putting this on idgames I'll probably seek out a track somewhere.

The overall difficulty seems less than I had intended, so I'll focus on trying to get things nicer off with later maps. I'm not the best player, so the map did have its challenge, but overall I feel it was easier than expected.

[plums]

Another FDA. https://www.doomworld.com/vb/attachment.php?postid=1619885

Fun, pretty easy, good construction. I like the opening area looking right out into the moon. I thought when I finally got outside I'd have to fight a cyberdemon or something given the space and ammo available, so it was a bit of an anticlimactic ending in that regard. That's ok though.

Was wondering if this was going to be the soundtrack.

[SaladBadger]

Thanks for the FDAs, they're giving a good idea of where the gameplay works and where it doesn't. It seems I overestimated just how much firepower would be needed to take on the more powerful demons. Something I'll have to keep in mind for later maps.

Also, I did want to have a cyberdemon as the final fight, in a really messed up final arena with some teleporters here and there, as part of a sort of general surreal feel I had wanted the map to have, but I ended up not being able to pull it off and by the time I was finishing off that area I felt the map had grown too long and a cyberdemon would have been too much. In retrospect, I probably should have tried something.

[kuchitsu]

Yeah, I think the outdoor area would be a good place for a grand final fight of some kind. Doesn't even need to be challenging, just satisfying with a horde of bastards to take down.

[baja blast rd.]

FDA: http://www.mediafire.com/download/6ov5uhx1l89ov61/moonsong_rdwpa_fda.lmp

Just changed my mouse surface and it's not very good and my wrist hurts now. :D

Anyway, way too much ammo :). But it played smoothly. You could run around and blast stuff quite efficiently, no random pace-stoppers. I was expecting a cyberdemon too!

[SaladBadger]

Looking at the FDAs and seeing all your reactions, I might make an updated version of this. I was intending for this to be mostly final (the only additional change would be the addition of the EMAPINFO lump), but I think I'll do a further update. I'll probably tweak the ammo counts some, change when you get weapons, maybe adjust the encounters some, and add a true finale. I still have a key to use, the trouble is going to be thinking of an arena where you can't just (trivially) walk through it. I'm not sure I'd go with my original "cyberdemon with teleporters" idea since it seems like it could go wrongly for the player easily, but I'll try a few things. I'd love to be able to capture at least some of that surreal atmosphere I originally intended

[SaladBadger]

Testing a new version of Moonsong with a final battle and some gameplay tweaks

Wad here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/69608548/moonsongn.wad (SEE OP FOR NEWEST LINK)
different url since I'm not sure I want to make this the final version yet. at the very least its still lacking the EMAPINFO

And for fun, a map image:


Looks like a mutated demon bird of some sort.

Anyways, I ended up using a cyberdemon, in a fairly simple fight. the fight setup is a bit odd though and I'm not sure I like it. it might be too easy to get stuck in

Late edit: I trashed the cyberdemon. It didn't test well and frankly it felt forced. The version I'm uploading to idgames will not have it, and there are some tweaks to the final areas (removal of one chaingunner and rev to ease things, and imps repositioned to make it a tad easier to autoaim at the crate guys)