Doom editing & UX design

[VeinCrawler]

Hey guys. Here's a strange question. Didn't really know where to fit this in on the forum. But anyways, here it is: Unfortunately, I can only design Doom levels in my spare time. For a living, I'm working as a User Experience designer. In a nutshell that means I make products easy and fun to use. At work we're organising inspirational talks by colleagues during lunch breaks, about stuff that is something totally different than our jobs, but which can still inspire, or convey a certain message.

 

As it is known I design Doom levels, and many colleagues relate to Doom as a sweet childhood memory, I've been asked whether it would be interesting to put a talk together about User Experience design and Doom editing. About what I learned from Doom editing to use in my job, or vice versa, how being a UX designer influences the levels I make.

 

I'm drafting the talk still, so I'm wondering if there are people in the community here that work in design, have ideas about this, and would like to share some thoughts.

 

Looking forward to some input! And if this topic is totally misplaced, or if this is not interesting here at all, no biggie. Just askin'.

[ukiro]

I'm not in UX per se, but I find I can apply skills from my work in Doom to other work all the time. Level design IS user experience design, it's not even an analogy or a metaphor.

 

You have (in most cases) no voiceover, text signs, arrows or cinematic sequences, instead having to make the world inherently interpretable by virtue of its design alone. Design is function is experience. 

[VeinCrawler]

Interesting point. The world you're creating indeed needs to intuitively understood. Yet often this relies on things previously learned.

 

Take the PLAT1 elevator flat. First time players wouldn't intuitively understand this as an elevator. But while John Romero still needed to use this is context, using additional other textures around to create the elevator feeling, or having it go up or down automatically by crossing a line, in current times we can use that very knowledge to our advantage. Cliches in that sense, are our friends.

 

Funny to see how such cliches stick and become unwritten Rules of Usability in Doom editing: PLAT1 is always an elevator. An Exit door is never used without an exit behind it, etc. Nobody explicitly taught us those things, but we still work by the rules.

[Linguica]

Nice idea for a thread. In the past I've thought about writing something about the hidden "vocabulary" that Doom levels teach the player, but I don't really have the knowledge or, uh, vocabulary to do it justice. Things like the PLAT1 texture like you mention, and also stuff like:

• DOORTRAK on the inside of door frames - obviously it was designed for that purpose, but nothing about the Doom engine *requires* it - it's just something everyone has basically agreed to abide by.
• Teleporters are almost always 64x64 squares with the appropriate flat - again, nothing about the game requires this, but we've all learned that that's what a teleporter looks like.
• Secret doors - in general it's considered bad form to make a secret door be totally indistinguishable from the stuff around it (as opposed to, say, Wolf3D) and they usually have a variant of the surrounding texture, or a slight misalignment, or a single candle placed in front of them, or what have you.
• Traps - if you see a powerful item sitting conspicuously in the middle of an otherwise empty room, you can feel pretty confident that something bad is likely to happen when you grab it.

[VeinCrawler]

9 hours ago, Linguica said:

• Traps - if you see a powerful item sitting conspicuously in the middle of an otherwise empty room, you can feel pretty confident that something bad is likely to happen when you grab it.

And then again, sometimes most suspense is created by not following these rules: surprise when it is unexpected, or just let you stand on edge without anything happen (immediately).

[riderr3]

I think DOORTRAK textures in hellish maps does not match. I used SUPPORT3 and WOOD8 for this.

And there is some kind of mystery about silver locked doors (DOOR3) . Many Doom and Doom 2 levels have them in starting areas.

Also the famous Plutonia starting/ending pad, that is Casali bros. gimmick.

Edited April 19, 2017 by riderr3

[Jayextee]

18 hours ago, VeinCrawler said:

Take the PLAT1 elevator flat. First time players wouldn't intuitively understand this as an elevator. But while John Romero still needed to use this is context, using additional other textures around to create the elevator feeling, or having it go up or down automatically by crossing a line, in current times we can use that very knowledge to our advantage.

 

One of the first times this texture is seen in E1M2, Romero attached it to a walkover line thus making its action appear to the player automatic, showing them how it works and building an association. E1 has a lot of smart stuff like this, showing a player how things work (such as the imp on the raised area near the nukage in E1M1 being a great 'invisible tutorial' on the autoaim).

[schwerpunk]

Seems there are various categories for an archetypal Doom map emerging in this discussion. Two interesting categories as I see them:

 

1) Jump-in maps - rely on previous Doom experience,  tropes mentioned above (teleporters, elevators, etc).

2) Experiential maps - maps that train the "user" in how to successfully interact with them. These would typically involve a novel or non-traditional element. Although they can also train users about traditional Doom mapping tropes.

 

Example of 1) you spawn, and there's a shotgun and an imp. Shooting the imp triggers more monsters to pour in. Proceeding, your knowledge of Doom's weapon and monster mechanics helps you complete the level successfully.

 

Example of 2) you spawn, and there's a wide dark pool in front of you. Crossing over it, you take some damage, but it's okay because there's a small health pack on the other side. Proceeding, you'll have to navigate the map, using health as a resource to pass over similar pools until you complete the level successfully.

 

I admit there is some bleed-over between these two. I think the core difference is that the former expects you to intuit certain rules, whereas the latter will attempt to "train" you via an example of new rules, before presenting them to you in a dangerous situation.

[Bauul]

I wonder if the inherent design rules of Doom maps are so rigorously followed even after all these years because the game (at least in vanilla-ish formats) lacks much ability to talk directly to the player.  The only message the game ever tells you about navigation is "You need a [color] key to open this door", and that's it.

 

In Quake and later, there were loads: hit a switch and "A door has opened somewhere" for example.  You could use simple words to direct the player.  In Doom, everything has to be communicated via the environment: iconography, layout etc.  The only formalized way to tell the player to go from A to B other than them merely exploring is the use of the keys.  Everything else has to be inferred from the level layout and the textures used.

 

Communication purely through the use of the environment is a whole discipline in itself in the world of architecture.  A fascinating example of this taken to the extreme is the ongoing conversion around how to inform people 10,000 years in the future (who likely don't speak our language) not to go digging in a radioactive dump site.  Slate has good article on it.

[VeinCrawler]

8 hours ago, Bauul said:

Communication purely through the use of the environment is a whole discipline in itself in the world of architecture.  A fascinating example of this taken to the extreme is the ongoing conversion around how to inform people 10,000 years in the future (who likely don't speak our language) not to go digging in a radioactive dump site.  Slate has good article on it.

 

And it's these limitations/challenges that I love! Very nice reference, and thanks for the article. Reminds me of the Voyager Golden Record.

[Linguica]

21 hours ago, schwerpunk said:

2) Experiential maps - maps that train the "user" in how to successfully interact with them. These would typically involve a novel or non-traditional element. Although they can also train users about traditional Doom mapping tropes.

The first level that comes to mind in this mold is Grove: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/g-i/grove