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SkillZilla

Home near hell ( Single map WAD )

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Hello guys!

 

I am new in the forums and decided to make a DOOM II WAD.

I made the map using GZdoombuilder. Tested with zDoom and GZdoom. I used DOOM II WAD and doom1 texturepack

 

 

Thank you Cheshire Sphinx for merging doom I textures into it.

 

So I made this Map for around 3 weeks, around 60 to 80 hours of work. This is indeed my first map ever and most of the time was consumed in learning how gzdoombuilder works. I really enjoyed making this map and I am already getting some feedback, which is great, thank you to everyone who gives me feedback.

 

HNH 1.1 released - 01.09.2017

 

Updated:

Added Super Shotgun on early level - to make the level more fun and less time consuming ( due popular demand )

Made some secrets more easily noticeable

Added switches on confusing lift sector

Added switch to the mirror room to kill secret monsters ( to not rub people in wrong way )

Fixed minor alignments on some places, fixed major distracting decorations on outdoors.

Replaced nearly all stealth monsters into normal monsters except on sectors where they are intented to be.  ( replaced ALL stealth minigunners ) 

Replaced 4 minigunner "puzzle" to 2 minigunners and 2 shotgunners ( 4 minigunners can be accessed on "hard" difficutly)

Fixed the RED DOOR level breaking bug

Changed BFG location

Removed 200 plasma ammunition from "easy" bfg secret, replaced with 80

Added few shells, medkits over the map

Deleted few chain gunners on outdoors sector

 

HNH 1.2 released - 01.09.2017

Updated:

Added a way to kill ALL monsters ( even in scary room )

Fixed teleporter from scary room

 

HnH 1.3.zip

 

 

Screenshot_Doom_20170803_162305.png

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Screenshot_Doom_20170825_203736.png

Screenshot_Doom_20170825_203747.png

Screenshot_Doom_20170825_203812.png

Screenshot_Doom_20170825_203828.png

Screenshot_Doom_20170825_203915.png

 

 

 

 

HnH.zip

Edited by SkillZilla : Update

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I recommend use recoloured doom textures, if you desperately need Doom 1 textures. Besides that, I'll talk about your map. 

I disliked invisible monsters, I don't see the point of them. Your map isn't spooky for that. 
Ammo and health distribution felt weird for me.
Path blocking decorations was annoying too. You should put them somewhere else or change them in non blocking ones.
Lots of misalingments(zdoom in udmf is quite painful for that).
Was exit switch in sector toilet intentional or not?

Also, read this and edit your post, so people will know what to expect in your map.

 

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Heya, SkillZilla,

 

Welcome to Doomworld, first let's take care of that merging: HnH10.wad.zip

 

So the way I did this was with SLADE: I copied the files from the doom 1 texture pack (that was included in the zip) and opened up your map, went to 'Graphics' and simply pasted it all and saved. Since the textures themselves (called patches by the engine) and the texture definition file (a big text file that defines every texture in the game) are included in the doom 1 texture pack, it's pretty much a drop in replacement. If you didn't already have a TEXTURE lump, you'd have to make your own (which can be done by selecting every texture image in the wad and right clicking -> Graphic -> add to patch table or texture. Adding them to TEXTURE should have slade generate a patch table automatically (I think).

 

There's some nuance and stuff about how all this works, which I'm not going to go into right now because it's not important to what we're doing here.

 

So, on to the map:

 

I'm going off a couple assumptions here.

1) this is a first map or near enough to it.

2) you've spent some time developing it (it shows!)

 

I could be entirely wrong in those assumptions, but they color everything that follows, so keep that in mind if you're secretly John Romero or something. :)

 

Right away we start with an interesting puzzle, an armor is sitting on top of a computer station thing between an acid flow and water outlet. Presumably it’s meant to symbolize some kind of processing utility, but already you’ve shown a good handle on the engine and how to make good looking outdoor areas for it.

 

You’ve also set up that there are going to be some puzzles in this little adventure and done it in a safe way that teaches. Good job on this. Seriously, it’s a highly undervalued thing that you should set expectations early and follow them through which I think you did quite well throughout the map all things considered.

 

You’ve also set up that we’re using unconventional. . . .er, conventions. The marbface door isn’t really used as a door texture, so you’re again teaching the player to expect this. It works since there’s no way to proceed without using it- it’s also a highlighted feature and hard to miss or mistake for something else. The only detractor from what’s so far been a cool experience is the skybox which looks really out of place. You can fix this with the use of the MAPINFO lump-- as well as changing the name of the map, this also lets you use a custom sky texture. There’s probably ways to make the skybox look nicer, but I’m not entirely sure how, so I can’t comment on that.

 

Also, I didn’t find out how to get to that secret with the blood falls- it may be obvious but it’s completely alien to me. . . .I had to cheat to see it.

 

We get into the gore room with the soul sphere and you do two things: contrast in texture sets, indicating that you’ll be mixing up themes and sets, and some weak enemies to plink at us. Easy to take down, starting a good pace. . . .you also lay out a very cool ‘mirror world’ secret with the soul sphere that I didn’t find through playing, but cheated to get into on my second pass to write this post. I don’t know what I missed, but if it’s near the area, it really needs to be telegraphed better as the SS is kind of super critical for getting through the map (more on that in a minute).

 

Something you do pretty well I noticed is ambushes-- such as the one with the brown T_LITE textures overhead and the 64x64 monster closets (the area where you can get the chainsaw). Your ambushes tend to scale well until you start introducing the stealth monsters. . . .then it just becomes a clusterfuck and genuinely unfun. Chaingunners are awesome enemies in moderation, but they become infuriating when they’re stealth monsters and you don’t have a quick and effective means of putting them down.

 

The acid room with the four corners gunners is a good example of a ‘good’ ambush in my eyes-- however you leave the player with an ‘out’ through the door and a puzzle to figure out while being shot at; kill the gunners to proceed and not die in the process. Good luck! I don’t know if it scales down, but this was the first encounter I had that irritated me a little. Four of them pounding on my already limited health and armor is kind of harsh but by leaving an easy out with the door, you also reduce the scare of the trap. I’d suggest a couple shotgunners at each corner and 2 chaingunners on the opposite corners and then have bars come down when the platforms containing those enemies lower. Maybe add some light to those corners, too, so it’s a little more obvious what you’re supposed to do to escape.

 

Around this time you also establish our first ‘loop’, from getting the blue key to accessing the door (with another good ambush to liven things up) and give us branching paths (again, good). Getting the chaingun was kind of a nightmare due to the type of enemies you fight (I think you can guess which ones).

 

In the brick and wood ‘hell’ room I noticed your tendency to try and fit the door texture to the door rather than to make the door adhere to the texture. Sometimes this can work, and if you add a couple vertexes to the door, you can adjust the texture width to fit better on either side (like the cyberdemon themed door).

 

You’re also good at showing off a nice mix of theming here that still feels right with the rest of the map, it’s abrupt but it doesn’t feel out of place. “This area is more affected by the demons. Look, there are stronger ones here.” is pretty cool storytelling imo.

 

The ‘soul hall’. Dude. You genuinely made me exclaim ‘holy shit, that’s cool.’ out loud. Right before I got to the end of it whereupon I went ‘holy shit’ and tried to run away. You set that up exceedingly well and executed it nearly flawlessly, I think. I have to wonder if getting rid of the block you teleport on to wouldn’t make it feel more disorienting as you’re just instantly thrown into something and falling, you can use the sector special ‘actor hits floor’ to make sure the teleport out triggers correctly. Either way, that was master class and I love it.

 

BFG area feels kind of strange and disjointed. I get what you’re going for, but I think some border textures (like Support3) between the green wall and computer texture would help break up what feels like a splattering of textures. Something you do well in the brick and wood room is you keep a consistent color scheme- red and brown- this room just feels really slap dash and nonsensical. The architecture is fine, but it feels out of place after the previous room. Also, the lava doesn’t hurt if you fall into it.

 

The white door leading to the outdoor area is once again unaligned. Don’t be shy with letting those door textures breathe!

 

The fight to the ‘forest’ area was a bit rough on me-- the arch viles combined with the other monsters present (which I won’t spoil) make combat nearly impossible to effectively conduct since the player won’t get to the grey pillar area or anywhere near it before they and their companions get to them. I think substituting them for a couple barons or something would balance that out quite nicely. As it is, there’s very little to no cover for incoming fire, so you need to be able to maneuver which the AV’s won’t let you do. See the problem?

 

So my closing thoughts are this:

 

Hitscanners are dangerous enemies and this became a constant irritation with me; stealth chaingunners? They’re just really fucking obnoxious. I don’t think there’s /necessarily/ anything wrong with stealth demons and stuff, but some of the monsters you used are just really disproportionately dangerous for what they are. In a map already so tight on health (and sometimes ammo), this just feels unfair and completely unfun. (personal opinion!) I think the map overall could benefit from a few more stimpacks littered around, maybe a couple medkits near/at the end of ambush sites (like the chaingun room).

 

I don’t know if you used any ACS or ZDOOM specific features, aside from ‘textures everywhere’ (I saw that brain lava texture!) but there’s no reason this map couldn’t have those textures replaced with appropriate flats and simply released as a vanilla compatible map, I don’t think. Not sure that matters to you, but it might open the floor to more comments.

 

There are some areas with lifts and the like that aren't clearly telegraphed as something you should be able to interact with. The 'lift' in the brown room near the marb face with barrels is an example. Putting a switch somewhere near it will fix that, or making the side wall of the lift SUPPORT3. Remember, Doom has a quarter century of visual language to draw from. Use that to make your map more accessible/understandable to the player, like good writing, you should disappear from the experience, allowing them to get lost in it. You don't have to remake the wheel to communicate things to players. :)

 

I genuinely enjoyed playing through this map, you show a lot of potential and some creative ideas that’ll be made better with time, practice and feedback. You’re going to develop a deft hand, I think, and for one would love to play what you come up with in the future.

 

Thanks for posting this!

 

Here’s a link to an imgur gallery I made of the trouble spots mentioned in this post. Most of them are commented, but if you have questions just post and I’ll reply.

 

-Chesh

 

Imgur Gallery: http://imgur.com/a/oss0B

All about the Mapinfo lump: https://zdoom.org/wiki/MAPINFO/Map_definition

 

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Haven't played the whole map yet due to some other business.

 

The first few minutes in, there are a lot big monsters. To be honest, I would recommend offering the player a Super Shotgun to make the map less a chore. Because they are all in a open area, I don't really see the difficulty here. Not having the SSG is just super time consuming to deal with everything.

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18 hours ago, Cheshire Sphinx said:

  

 

Hey Chesh!

 

Thank you very much for such detailed feedback! You assumed right, it was my first map ever in doom 2 and I made this map for around 3 weeks. I already upaded the wad, thanks again for making it work with doom 1 textures. I deleted some painful enemies and changed the stealth gunners to just gunners, and reduced the amount of them, for new players. 

Spoiler


To answer one question about the "hell" room where you get just shotgun ( minor secret actually ) It's on the first area, you just have to explore the acid waterfall and it will teleport you there... And in the sphere room, the secret room is on the left. when you go in, so really close, just requires some sniffing around... There's also a wolfenstein secret in plasmagun room, and much more. Around 10 secrets. 

 

3

 

I really enjoyed your detailed feedback and It helps me to grow and build even cooler levels. The reason why the last BFG room may have felt out of place, is because I am going to move to other country, and I just wanted to "wrap things up" and finish the WAD before I lose it, so I would say it's around 95% done, I could tim it up more and stuff, but It's fine. I will just continue with other maps soon.

 

Again I would like to thank you for playing my map and I am happy that you had fun with it!

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18 hours ago, GarrettChan said:

Haven't played the whole map yet due to some other business.

 

The first few minutes in, there are a lot big monsters. To be honest, I would recommend offering the player a Super Shotgun to make the map less a chore. Because they are all in a open area, I don't really see the difficulty here. Not having the SSG is just super time consuming to deal with everything.

3

Thanks for playing my map! There are various secrets in the map and I did not include SSG in the beginning by purpose. I wanted to create a map that is not a cakewalk, by only using SSG. Doom offers other weapons too, and In my opinion, as a map-maker, It will ruin the level design. If I include SSG then the player will only use that ( I did i doom 2) because it's Overpowered. So I would have to include more enemies, and tougher enemies which will make balancing harder. I hope you understand and still can have fun with the map.

 

Thank you very much for the feedback though!

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18 hours ago, Myst.Haruko said:

I recommend use recoloured doom textures, if you desperately need Doom 1 textures. Besides that, I'll talk about your map. 

I disliked invisible monsters, I don't see the point of them. Your map isn't spooky for that. 
Ammo and health distribution felt weird for me.
Path blocking decorations was annoying too. You should put them somewhere else or change them in non blocking ones.
Lots of misalingments(zdoom in udmf is quite painful for that).
Was exit switch in sector toilet intentional or not?

Also, read this and edit your post, so people will know what to expect in your map.

 

Thank you for linking the "read this first" and thank you for playing my map!

 

I fixed the invisible monsters ( stealthgunners ) by now for new players, thank you for pointing that out. And I actually agree.

On the ammo and health, you have to look around and give a moment to try to find the secrets perhaps, a lot of stuff is hidden there. I placed a lot of ammonition and healthpacks through the level, but I do not place them in front of the player, but behind corners and stuff so it would look more "realistic"

On blocking decorations, could you please tell me where are the "annoying" ones. I did delete some outside the "forest" on later level. 

The exit switch in the sector toilet is intentional.

 

Thank you very much for your feedback! I hope you had some fun with it.

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23 minutes ago, SkillZilla said:

Thanks for playing my map! There are various secrets in the map and I did not include SSG in the beginning by purpose. I wanted to create a map that is not a cakewalk, by only using SSG. Doom offers other weapons too, and In my opinion, as a map-maker, It will ruin the level design. If I include SSG then the player will only use that ( I did i doom 2) because it's Overpowered. So I would have to include more enemies, and tougher enemies which will make balancing harder. I hope you understand and still can have fun with the map.

 

Thank you very much for the feedback though!

You are probably the 10000th person to make this argument, and it's quite wrong. Here is a previous thread if you want counter-opinions. 

 

First off, I have to inform you that the section of your map prior to acquiring the chaingun is what would be considered a cakewalk. A total cakewalk. I took like 6 damage. But I also had to fight a harmless baron with the single shotgun and snipe a pain elemental around a corner. Quite the opposite of riveting action. Tedious stuff. If I had the SSG, I might have just ran straight into the room, but when a mapper makes me fight stuff like this with a single shotgun I'll just camp while contemplating how long it's going to take for me to quit and start playing something more fun. Sounds harsh, but that's the truth. 

 

If you want to withhold decent armament that's your prerogative, but at least make sure the meaty monsters you use are threatening, in that case. Thousands of maps over the history of Doom mapping have balanced things well for the SSG, so I'd recommend playing and studying more. It can be done, easily. Also this map has stealth chaingunners so there's a certain irony in talking about 'balancing'.  

 

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23 minutes ago, rdwpa said:

You are probably the 10000th person to make this argument, and it's quite wrong. Here is a previous thread if you want counter-opinions. 

 

First off, I have to inform you that the section of your map prior to acquiring the chaingun is what would be considered a cakewalk. A total cakewalk. I took like 6 damage. But I also had to fight a harmless baron with the single shotgun and snipe a pain elemental around a corner. Quite the opposite of riveting action. Tedious stuff. If I had the SSG, I might have just ran straight into the room, but when a mapper makes me fight stuff like this with a single shotgun I'll just camp while contemplating how long it's going to take for me to quit and start playing something more fun. Sounds harsh, but that's the truth. 

 

If you want to withhold decent armament that's your prerogative, but at least make sure the meaty monsters you use are threatening, in that case. Thousands of maps over the history of Doom mapping have balanced things well for the SSG, so I'd recommend playing and studying more. It can be done, easily. Also this map has stealth chaingunners so there's a certain irony in talking about 'balancing'.  

 

Hi, Thank you for playing my map!

 

Thanks for this minor feedback about SSG, in the future I might look into it more about how to balance it better, but since it is my very first map I think that the placement of SSG at the end is fine, as there is possible to obtain a rocket launcher before meeting stealthgunners and pain elemental through secret.  I hope you had at least some fun with the map. Perhaps I can make the future maps better in every aspect by gathering all the feedback and working towards that. 

 

However I am not going to change the location of SSG on this map. I updated the stealth chaingunners part, but other than that I will keep it that way for now. Personally I would like to get more detailed, or better feedback rather than "your map is so easy I only lost 6hp" and "SSG is not op".

 

Thank you again for looking into this map through.

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Nice home, I have to say.

 

My opinion/questions.

1. I don't know what's up with the Soulsphere secret. It seems there's no way to access those kills behind the transparent wall?

2. It seems that you like to hit a trigger and raise the platform the player is standing on. Although it's not a problem, it's just a little bit unconventional.

3. You think SSG is OP... but you just put a BFG and 2 bulk cell packs in a very easy to access secret.

4. What's up with the hallway with sorrow faces texture. All the triggers are one time trigger (including the teleporters), and the monsters can't come out, and the player will be stuck after the third entry.

5. Red Door is broken, and there are quite some HOM effects around that area.

6. Make the first Baron a Hell Knight.

Edited by GarrettChan

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19 minutes ago, GarrettChan said:

Nice home, I have to say.

 

My opinion/questions.

1. I don't know what's up with the Soulsphere secret. It seems there's no way to access those kills behind the transparent wall?

2. It seems that you like to hit a trigger and raise the platform the player is standing on. Although it's not a problem, it's just a little bit unconventional.

3. You think SSG is OP... but you just put a BFG and 2 bulk cell packs in a very easy to access secret.

4. What's up with the hallway with sorrow faces texture. At the triggers are one time trigger (including the teleporters), and the monsters can't come out, and the player will be stuck after the third entry.

5. Red Door is broken, and there are quite some HOM effects around that area.

6. Make the first Baron a Hell Knight.

2

Thanks on the home!

 

To answer your questions.

 

1. There is no way to access those "kills" behind the transparent wall, as they are decorative monsters, sorry if you aimed for 100% kills.

2. Some triggers/lifts may be unconventional as I am kind of new to all this map making, and learnt on the go...

3. the unbalanced BFG may be because I rushed the ending so that's my fault yeah...

4. -

5. Sorry

6. I tought about that, thanks It may prevent the "spongyness" from that area, good tip!

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Try not to put inaccessible monsters, or you'll rub so many players the wrong way and lose a lot of potential players to your map(s).

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Fixed many major problems, feel free to check it out once more if you are interested or enjoy your first time on the map!

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On 25.8.2017 at 11:34 PM, GarrettChan said:

Try not to put inaccessible monsters, or you'll rub so many players the wrong way and lose a lot of potential players to your map(s)

 

Great suggestion! Fixed this problem!

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