[REL] Withering Graves (Final Release)

[quakis]

Small level (roughly 10 mins) taking place within an old graveyard and mausoleum. Pay respects to the dead by laying them back to rest once more and tend to its grounds by clearing out all vermin making their new home here.

 

Bulk of this level had been finished early last year, started as an effort to practise gameplay design, but has since been gathering dust with the intent to create additional levels to accompany it - that never happened and other projects eventually took priority. Whether I continue this particular project later or move onto something else Doom related is still up in the air. Rather than it being forgotten again I'm releasing it as a singular level and would appreciate any feedback - I'll update the level where necessary during this open-beta phase.

 

DOOM2, MAP01, Limit-Removing engine required

Final Release; Download Withering Graves

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by quakis

[Walter confetti]

GRAY2 as a tombstone texture is a interesting choice...

[Dopaminecloud]

It is. The darker lines look like writing. I'll be checking this out.

[Veinen]

I quite liked this. Aesthetically this is really good in my opinion; good theme and a good representation of the theme +  elegant detailing. For whatever reason I got some AV-era "old school" vibes out of this style heh. Gameplay is pretty easy but I didn't really mind much. I liked the recurring teleport traps in the yard, although I think you could have put a few more dangerous monsters among the ones that teleport in after the player picks the RSK to make it more of a climax of the map. I liked the trap setup when you enter the caves and the Pinkies spawn behind, pushing the player further into the caves.

 

Edit: Oh, and you also picked a good name for the map, it's what piqued my interest in the first place.

 

Here's my FDA, recorded with glboom+ -cl2.

withering_graves_FDA.zip

[paymentplan]

Hi, quakis, nice map! Just gave it a try. Something broke on me in the final room, maybe it was since I was playing on cl-9. I tried to leave to go see how to find the armor and ammo secret out in the graveyard but this caused me to get trapped in the final mausoleum. The door wouldn't open, the gate stayed down in front of the exit switch, and the switch in the revenant coffin didn't do anything.

 

I enjoyed the map for a lot of the same reasons as Veinen. Great attention to detail and adherence to the theme. I think the gameplay is just right for a MAP01. I loved the cacos coming out of the sides of the main mausoleum or whatever it was. When I saw that part in front of the cacos lower I jumped in, thinking it was a juicy secret. Nope! Just face to face with a caco, haha.

 

This meant though, that I didn't grab the red skull key on the first go-round. It might be nice to also trigger some kind of shortcut to get back up there. 

 

My last gripe is purely for speedrunning, so feel free to ignore it: the turret imps in the caves overlooking the graveyard are really tedious and time consuming to kill. 

 

Overall this is a really impressive map. Glad you chose to release it, and I hope to see many more from you!

wither-fda.zip

[SFoZ911]

Played it on Zdoom, UV, compat-strict. 

100%kills

1/2 secrets.

 

It's definitely a well constructed map. I like the theme, I don't get to see too many graveyards and mausoleums in Doom and it was rather refreshing. I thought the texturing and architecture was overall good, making a stock-textured map look good can be a challenge but you made through it pretty well and doom 2 skies worked pretty well too. The design kinda reminded me of Tormentor667 Stronghold kinda style and there was also emphasis on good lighting and little details like the graves and paths outside. 

 

Gameplay-wise, I say it serviceable. Nothing too exciting except for reusing the yard area for more fights later on. I'm not sure what kind of difficulty you aimed for but in my experience, UV was super easy. Still, it was fun to run through and there more than enough space to move around and dodge even in the indoor areas which is a great thing and important to have in your map.

 

Overall I think the map had great aesthetics and quality but kinda lakes in the gameplay department, at least for me.

 

Also vehicles in Doom is my favorite thing ever. OH GOD I LOVE THOSE THINGS!

 

[paymentplan]

1 hour ago, Sky said:

Also vehicles in Doom is my favorite thing ever. OH GOD I LOVE THOSE THINGS!

 

1

Oh dang, I loved that truck too! Forgot to comment on it, but it's great.

[quakis]

Updated the level because of two big concerns. No changes to gameplay, still feeling out the general opinion for now. Hopefully I didn't break something else during my tweaks...

• Added shortcut teleporter incase players drop down before snatching the RSK
• Fixed broken triggers noted by paymentplan

Thanks for the comments and FDAs thus far, a few things to comment on myself;

 

2 hours ago, paymentplan said:

Hi, quakis, nice map! Just gave it a try. Something broke on me in the final room, maybe it was since I was playing on cl-9. I tried to leave to go see how to find the armor and ammo secret out in the graveyard but this caused me to get trapped in the final mausoleum. The door wouldn't open, the gate stayed down in front of the exit switch, and the switch in the revenant coffin didn't do anything.

I messed up the triggers by having too many linedefs with the same action because of the way I constructed the area. Somehow never came across it in the few dozen or so tests, usually because I only used the middle path, never walking near the coffins after activating the switch - this is why testing is important. Thanks for pointing this one out, fixed in RC2 since it was pretty important.

 

2 hours ago, paymentplan said:

 I loved the cacos coming out of the sides of the main mausoleum or whatever it was. When I saw that part in front of the cacos lower I jumped in, thinking it was a juicy secret. Nope! Just face to face with a caco, haha.

 

This meant though, that I didn't grab the red skull key on the first go-round. It might be nice to also trigger some kind of shortcut to get back up there.

Had a feeling there should have been a shortcut. Added one in the recent updated in the same Caco cupboard you mentioned. Hopefully the little stairs around it will tempt players take a peek later if they drop down prematurely.

 

2 hours ago, Sky said:

I'm not sure what kind of difficulty you aimed for but in my experience, UV was super easy.

Mostly aimed for a simple romp one could expect from a MAP01 except with a little bite here and there. Though honestly I do have problems trying to balance out difficulty, half of me afraid my choices might be more tedious than challenging. It's an area I want to improve on since combative gameplay tends to feel lacking in many of my releases.

[quakis]

Decided to release this as final now. Made a few minor visual tweaks and slightly bumped up the final yard fight for UV. It should feel as intended difficulty wise now. Assuming no one reports any other major problems I'll upload this to /idgames later in the week. First post updated with new download link. Cheers guys.

[SleepyVelvet]

fda complevel 9

 

good map.

 

damn, rewatching the demo, i see i missed the secret switch

Edited April 10, 2017 by NoisyVelvet : complevel and spoiler

[Demonologist]

Like Veinen, I've been mainly attracted by the title, and upon seeing the OP it has become clear that I shouldn't think too long. Graveyards in games are my weakness, after all.

Nice usage of the stock textures here, the place looks really nice, and there are some creative combos I personally wouldn't even think about, but they work in a rather amusing way. Good work on that.
And yes, have yet another FDA if you like.

wither_dem_FDA.zip