The Prison (A very weird map of mine)

[Uberskunk]

This is an odd map. A relative, whom plays all of my doom maps, commented that she never found Doom to be scary, or really any other shooter. I had to agree but the idea of making a creepy map seemed like a fun challenge. Originally this was going to be a "shores of hell" style map, mixing man-made and hellish concepts but then I went in a bit of a different direction with that idea, and ended up with this map here, The Prison. It's inspired in part by the Silent Hill games and utilizes a lot of weird tricks and gimmicks. So much so that it might not even function as exactly desired in certain source ports. I'll explain that more but first, some screenshots:








The PWAD: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3lmg9q86e27qd0q/The%20Prison.wad?dl=0

The PWAD requires TNT as a resource, and piggybacks on Map 06 of that WAD. This was tested with ZDoom and ideally should be played with that. It'll work with others but some of the visual effects might be adversely affected, one reason I didn't share it before; it's not the most compatible map out there. It's meant to be played mostly Vanilla style but Actors Indefinitely Tall should be OFF. There are probably some misaligned textures but I tried to clean up the mainly visible ones. Probably the easiest way to play it would be to throw it into Doom Builder.

This level could be considered a celebration of doom bugs, many of which were utilized to create some of the effects. It's intentionally light on combat except in certain spots and is light on supplies, the level wouldn't work quite as well if supplies were plentiful. It's also intentionally low on details, notable as my maps tend to be very high on small details.

Basically the upshot here is that this is a weird map and I've known doom fans to be finicky about odd maps so I'm just copping to that now so at least you're aware that I'M AWARE that the gameplay here is odd along with everything else about it. Think of this as more of a fun little pet project of mine, not a serious contender for some kind of IWAD project.

That said be on the lookout for occult-inspired effects and secrets. There's probably a lot to criticize but if you're forgiving of it, it could possibly be a fun little map to explore. Let me know what you think, and thanks for looking.

[Walter confetti]

what is a piggysback?

[Uberskunk]

walter confalonieri said:

what is a piggysback?

That's just a term I use to say that the level mimics a certain map in terms of position, in this case "Open Season" from TNT. Although the level that gets played is mine, the map name, music, sky, and par time are taken from the Open Season map. There's surely a way for me to change all that but I'm not an advanced enough nerd to know how yet. I could probably look it up but I tend to be a more hands-on learner and get easily overwhelmed from reading a set of directions.

[Walter confetti]

Uberskunk said:

That's just a term I use to say that the level mimics a certain map in terms of position, in this case "Open Season" from TNT. Although the level that gets played is mine, the map name, music, sky, and par time are taken from the Open Season map. There's surely a way for me to change all that but I'm not an advanced enough nerd to know how yet. I could probably look it up but I tend to be a more hands-on learner and get easily overwhelmed from reading a set of directions.

Thanks!

At first i was thinking it was a mod that needs to be played with this map... btw looks really cool, downloaded and i'll play this soon...

[Fonze]

Looks interesting; Idk when I'll be able to, but I'll try this map out when I get time :)

[Uberskunk]

@Fonze & Walter

Thanks for giving it a look guys.

[Use]

Whoa almost missed this one. Your description sums it up well it's a really spooky oppressive place. A Doom level hasn't made me jump in a while (when it does it's usually 2 archviles popping out at you), but this one did, on a couple occasions. Some of these special effects I hadn't seen before, so kudos on that level of creativity too, I don't want to spoil anything so I'll leave it at that. Awesome work.

[joe-ilya]

Got stuck behind this chair, I had to jump.

I also had some trouble thinking how to get out of the green marble room that traps you in, so I crawled out of the ventage and then idclipped outside.

But overall I found this somewhat enjoyable and scary, I just don't like when you have to backtrack through a big set of winding hallways just to open a keyed door, you could simply teleport me to the door and the trap.
I liked all the tricks you played on me, they were unexpected and original.
Only found 2 secrets out of 7, and I wasn't even lazy looking for them. (not a complaint)

[Uberskunk]

Use3D said:

Whoa almost missed this one. Your description sums it up well it's a really spooky oppressive place. A Doom level hasn't made me jump in a while (when it does it's usually 2 archviles popping out at you), but this one did, on a couple occasions. Some of these special effects I hadn't seen before, so kudos on that level of creativity too, I don't want to spoil anything so I'll leave it at that. Awesome work.

Thanks a ton for looking, I sort of figured I wasn't going to hear anything about this one. I know it's an odd level but it was fun to make, I'm glad you enjoyed the effects.

Got stuck behind this chair, I had to jump.

I also had some trouble thinking how to get out of the green marble room that traps you in, so I crawled out of the ventage and then idclipped outside.

Thanks for letting me know about that chair, Joe. You know, now that you mention it, I think that might have happened to me too ages ago. I thought I fixed it but maybe I didn't save or something. I'll get that fixed. As per the marble pillar area, I HAVE had a previous issue with that being confusing. The hint is the clips in the room. Thanks for your input though, and thanks a lot for trying it out.

[Jaska]

Nice map, I liked it. Good atmosphere. One surprise made me think how that is done. Very cool. Found only 2 sectrets. It made me also feel like I would maybe try to make a prison map myself too.

[gaspe]

Fantastic map! Great job on the atmosphere and the tricks, it was all quite unsettling.

[Albertoni]

Pretty damn good. I think raising monsters instead of monster closets would have worked better for when you can't see the area, though.

Also, there are two unreachable secrets in the chaingun tunnel.

[fveitsi]

not bad. i only found one secret. :(

[InfernalManiac]

Very interesting map, good job!

[Walter confetti]

Pretty map with a big 90s feel, lots of cool tricks.

I found myself locked in the green stone room with the lighting marbfac4 pillars and I had to idclip for exiting from there... Also not a huge fan of the STEPx textured furniture (and even one corridor at the start!)

[Albertoni]

walter confalonieri said:

I found myself locked in the green stone room with the lighting marbfac4 pillars and I had to idclip for exiting from there...

That was the most 90s thing of the map. The solution is... Punch things. One thing in particular will let you leave.

[Uberskunk]

@Jaska, InfernalManiac, Gaspe, walter:

Thanks for the compliments, and thanks a ton for giving it a look.

@Albertoni: I never imagined people would find that room as confusing as they do. Thanks for warning me about the secrets, I've since fixed them, though I don't recall if I replaced the current file with the fixed one.

I appreciate everyone who's given it a try so far, thanks guys.