Behemoth - Standalone Boom Map (/idgames)

[Scotty]

 

Behemoth is a single Boom (cl9) map that I originally created for Nova III but have decided to release standalone instead. The map offers varied gameplay styles and a moderate difficulty curve especially if you find your way into the optional secret areas, where some large fights are to be found. Most of the 666 enemy count is optional! HMP is implemented and takes the nastiest edges off while still keeping a challenge. The only change i have made for easy mode is adding a BFG for the big secret fight.

 

Hopefully there is something for everyone with this map. Build time is many, many hours over the course of the 14 months or so. When i started this map i was still very green so i feel this map represents a lot of my learning and progression as a mapper over this time.

 

Tested in GZDoom and PRBoom+ v2.5.1.3

 

Thanks to rdwpa and an_mutt for testing the map and providing useful feedback (at various points in its inception) and to Mechadon for his awesome Box O' Skies, which i have raided here.

 

Known bugs:

When playing under software mode there are a couple of minor glitches, ie some odd sector bleeding and a small HOM. I don't know what has caused this to be honest (nodes perhaps?), if anyone has any suggestions i'd be very grateful.

 

I hope you have as much fun playing this as i have had building it.

 

More screens:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

DOWNLOAD IT HERE!!!

Edited March 16, 2018 by Scotty

[bonnie]

the frickin download doesn't work you frickin tease!!!

 

heck man why you gotta do me like that ;~;

 

edit yay it works :D

[Scotty]

Had to make a quick ninja edit and clearly failed at it... try again :)

[bonnie]

holy heck man finished in 51 minutes (not including all the times i died ;~;) with 97% kills and 71% secrets on UV, i missed 21 badbois and 2 secrets, and i saved 4 times :c

 

i frickin liked it man it was really awesome, i liked how everything is interconnected and the landscape changes over time to interconnect it even more, and i especially liked how right at the beginning you start getting sent all over the level instead of having linear progression or various paths to choose, it just takes you into all sorts of different sections of the level right away so that you can clear it out a little bit and also get to know the level ya know

 

i dont play with secret notifications on, so i didn't know what was secret and what wasn't, but things that i was pretty sure were secret were pretty cool and intuitive with how you access em and stuff but at the same time i don't know for sure but it felt like things i thought were secrets were necessary to complete the level but i dunno man

 

minor gripes and issues: https://prnt.sc/f923sf this is just small stuff but is that supposed to look like that aw jeez

https://prnt.sc/f92pbh pls make this rounded it looks weird :(

https://prnt.sc/f92ppd remove this little spot immediately i fell in that spot so many times and now i have a great rage building in my heart

 

my actual gripes: 1. the locked doors NEED to be marked better. i had no idea where the yellow key door was because i never saw the tiny little block above the door, which happened to be right next to the frickin key itself gosh darnit man

2. i thought i was gonna get to fight in the starting area, but it was just a tease ;~; (unless you do in a secret)

3. there's no way out of the final area back to the main area...? maybe? i dunno i couldn't find one :(

4. the ending fight sucked really bad, like it was just boring and cheap and not fun and also the spidermastermind can just be killed from the teleporter before going in it without her being able to see ya so yea :c  the arena was kinda neat though

 

other than that a vvvvv good level. i kinda wanted to do a map for nova but after seeing this one and some of the others, i now know i have no fucking chance of being accepted into that since they want "good" mappers but i am just bonnie

9/10

 

edit: do you not appreciate my words i'm sorry man ;~;

Edited May 18, 2017 by bonnie

[Scotty]

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

You don't need any secrets to exit the level really, there's enough ammo etc without getting any of them (i tested this several times), although of course the secrets help out in places. It would have been interesting to know which ones you found (obviously you got the red key), but it doesn't matter either way. I will consider some of your issues. The Mastermind is there to stop the final area being too cheeseable really, it serves a purpose. I do expect fights like that to split opinion and that's why it was made to be optional.

 

Don't be put off from creating a Nova map, people will help you and offer you advice if a map has problems. My recommendation just make something small (maybe under 120 monsters is a simple goal), do the layout and fights first, and then you can work on it pretty easily, and it'll be easy to modify the map if some areas need work. Then once that is all in place, make it look pretty. I can't stress enough how much easier it is to work on smaller maps especially when it comes to playtesting.

[bonnie]

11 minutes ago, Scotty said:

It would have been interesting to know which ones you found (obviously you got the red key), but it doesn't matter either way. I will consider some of your issues. The Mastermind is there to stop the final area being too cheeseable really, it serves a purpose. I do expect fights like that to split opinion and that's why it was made to be optional.

wait what are you saying that whole end part with the blocks and the million imps and the spidermastermind was a secret finale what the heck

 

i didn't figure out the red key for a while, anyways. i just did the little shortcut jump from those side pillars near the fountain with the rockets in it near the red key door up to the place with the archvile, which i assume is an intentional shortcut but i don't frickin know man :(

 

also sorry i didn't record an fda, i don't really like doin them because then i don't get to enjoy the map on my own without feeling bad about having an hour long demo ;~;

[Octavarium]

 

Fun map even though I played like absolute ass, died several times. Lot of neat little details sprinkled around, those are more fun to find than actual secrets to me nowadays.

 

I might suggest changing the music though, but that's probably just me. I kept expecting it to build into a melancholy, awesome, threatening wall of sound but it never did :(

[Killer5]

Hello. I played your wad recently. It was pretty fun. Nothing really glaring to point out except for one thing.

 

Notice the yellow box in the picture i have linked. If I sit there on the steps I can easily bait all of the monsters into that little blood corral (the corral is also located in the yellow box). This makes the finale trivial. I can also kill all cacos from this spot.

 

Played on uv.

Edited May 22, 2017 by Killer5

[Scotty]

Thanks for the videos, very useful and i'll fix those bugs and breakages i can see there.

 

Yeah that final fight.. erg it was never supposed to be Sunderously difficult in the first place, but it definitely seems likely people are finding it anticlimactic. I did experiment with lowering those rocky platforms during the fights but it felt like it offered too much ground space... i guess more work is needed.

[loveless]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/146488741?t=2h28m56s  

  

Here's my VOD from playing it a few nights ago on stream, I enjoyed it quite a bit!  Asides from the spot in the final room that Killer5 pointed out there was only one thing I had a problem with.  The lift up to the short run before you get YSK has a sound propagation issue.  If you shoot anything while standing within the small stair set that the revenant to the right is in the hallway monsters wake up.  This can potentially lock the player in at YSK(unless they're using a zdoom port and turn off infinite height).  

  

Otherwise, I felt like this map was pretty solid.  I wasn't a fan in the beginning and I did speak my thoughts on combat a bit on a few things I disliked.  After some time it really grew on me and by the end I was definitely a fan.  I look forward to anything else in the future you make!

[Scotty]

Updated to final release candidate version, get it here.

 

• Final secret fight overhauled and improved significantly
• Skill levels fully implemented
• New graphics added titlepic, intermission etc
• 'ending' map added
• General minor tweaks and goodies

If there are no major dramas with the wad i'll get it onto idgames in a week or so.

[Scotty]

I finally got my shit together and got this on the archives. Here.

 

What happened to being able to add images to file pages and why are all wad authors set to "guest" now?

[yakfak]

congrats on releasing something cool! the screenshot is really striking, gonna download this :3