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Forli

OSCILLATION, a 9 map boom wad [On Idgames]

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Using ZDoom, playing continuous. I've only gotten through the first three maps, but these are outstanding! I'm bad at judging gameplay because I save way too often, but beautiful design, great detailing, and most of all, they're freaking fun! There are some hard fights, but they're not slaughtermaps, or huge slogs. Three piddly things so far.

 

MAP01 - missing DOORTRAK texture inside the Red Key door.

 

MAP02 - one big slime trail, sector 1510 standing near the grey crate looking west through the doorway. Barely noticeable in the dark. Also, only time I got lost. I forgot where the Yellow Key switch was.

 

MAP03 - I'm not sure it's possible to score the secret Soul Sphere. Ran and couldn't get there. Tried SR40 all the way, got closer, kept getting hung up on the stairs. And good thing the Imps kept hitting the AVs in the Blue Key room so they couldn't focus on me. Yay Cell Packs. And again on the Bridge of Death before the exit. Nothing like draining your Plasma Gun against a swarm of Cacos while avoiding Imp fireballs. The delayed HKs surprised me. Nice.

 

Now to sleep, wake up, and play the rest of this. Please keep adding maps to this until you get 32.

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At the moment I went to the map 08. I recorded the demo, but accidentally pressed F10, went to the menu, then GZDoom gave me a black screen ... and ... in general, 2 hours of gameplay flew to nowhere ... It would have been cool recording :(

 

So. What I see is very cool. The gameplay on the later levels is overly difficult (and it's good), especially where traps with arch-viles. Tomorrow I will complete the passage and talk more ...

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@EffinghamHuffnagel I don't know how I could possibly miss that missing texture on map 1 after all the times I playtested it :S. It took me awhile to see the bleeding texture on map 2, that was a good catch.

I was counting on the automap to remind the player where the yellow switch is but maybe it is a bit too small. The secret on map 3 is not very difficult to get, what route where you taking? you are supposed to jump to the platform with the green torches to go on a straight line.

 

@StormCatcher.77 Well that sucks, I would have really liked to watch that :(. I can't wait to hear your toughts on the wad.

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These maps were a lot of fun. I played through 1-9 over the course of the evening yesterday and came back to beat 9 today. Here's a set of FDAs and a max demo for 9 if you are so inclined.

 

The variety in encounters and the different approaches the maps demanded were nice. I appreciated the inclusion of some punchy, aggression supporting maps like map03 alongside the longer maps with more exploration and incidental encounters. I think you have the map order and difficulty gradient in a decent place too - things kept progressively ramping up in difficulty smoothly but at a brisk pace. Map08 served as a nice breather after the rather tricky map07 and before the arduous journey that was map09. 

 

The set piece encounters were decent and while there were a few classic standbys - holding the breach on bridges and big blobs of enemies with intermingled viles slowly encroaching on the player's space - there a lot of unique and inventive encounters too and those are what really elevated the set in my opinion. Keeping the lights on in map06, the platforming segment, and nukage swamp in map09 - all pretty unique and engaging. Far and away the best of the bunch were the set pieces that relied on vile turrets, the stand out for me being the ring of viles in map07 and dealing with the vanishing cover.

 

Nothing seemed to break on me or malfunction in any noticeable way except an imp and zombieman stuck together when you open the door over the bridge on map01. There were a couple of dodgy cyberdemon placements that stood out though: The cyberdemon at the top of the stairs in the west wing of Map07 is pretty much useless. There's too much cover with the bars and central pillars for him to be able to target the player and for the same reason it's rather dangerous to try approaching him due to splash damage. I found the best strategy was just to completely ignore him while cleaning the rest of the room out and then plinking away with plasma from the a position of near total safety on the ground floor Likewise the cyberdemon guarding the yellow skull switch in map09 doesn't seem to be up to much as the doorway severely limits the angles he can cover and there's no other incentive to go in there until much later on.

 

Anyway, lovely maps. Keep up the good work.

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See I told you I would play these! ...Well, three of them at least, for now. Pretty fun, accessible stuff; died once in map 3 due to rustiness/stupidity, even though it's not really a hard fight. Also, really liked the beginning of map 2, what with having to juggle between sniping snipers or rocketing spiders whilst trying not to die. Anyway, hope this video helps or something. 

 

The sector cattails are just delightful, and I hope the reclusive Trashcan Imp makes an appearance later.

 

(Also, I play with smooth doom and GZDoom)

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Today I finished the passage, and I must say this time was spent to the benefit. I put my impressions into the review form for iddqd.ru. I represent translation of it:

 

Spoiler

The player begins his journey, penetrating the abandoned technobase, builded in a rock massif. Visually, the performance makes you remember the first part of Half-Life, but the gameplay returns everything to its place. If in the beginning we came across only with zombies, the most dangerous of which successfully occupied heights, then at the end of the level we will meet with groups of mixed types of opponents, forcing the player to maneuver, then hide and fire from the shelter.
 
According to the first impressions, the detailing is at a high level, but at the same time quite ordinary. However, if a player descends to the second level, it becomes clear that this project can surprise with its design. Underground location in the form of a huge warehouse, the boundaries of which break off into a black void immediately attracts attention. A very successful application of black is a feature in the visual style that is often found in this project. The gameplay progresses in terms of difficulty. Now in labyrinths of a warehouse it is necessary to be cautious and to study space. It is very useful for retreat.

 

With each new level, the architecture looks more and more monumental, and individual map locations become recognizable. New locations do not repeat the visual decisions of the previous ones. The project, which in the beginning is seen as a study of a gloomy industrial complex, suddenly abruptly replaces the merge into a bright "medieval" that makes one remember Plutonia. Not only visually, but also in difficulty, with characteristic traps and powerful opponents. The absence of a double-barreled shotgun up to this point forces you to be extremely cautious.

 

In the middle of the campaign, the feeling of the gameplay is no longer the same as in the beginning. The complexity increases from level to level in a geometric progression. The author very successfully combines a rich palette of brown shades and a dark blue sky, creating very deep and atmospheric images, but does not stop there and changes the situation to confusing massifs of dark rocks and temples from marble slabs. The closer to the finale, the more abstract and laconically aggressive architecture becomes, and the layout and gameplay resembles classic slothers. Among the cold metal of "Metal Monarchs" and the green lights that cut through the darkness in "Amageddon at Midnight", the player more often has to rely on luck than on his skills. However, all the tests the player can overcome honestly and this is a good experience.

 

Each map contains a characteristic arenas, deceiving the player with its emptiness. It's not always the way to get out of them is just to survive, although it will not be easy. A wide variety of gameplay situations, will require care and just luck, as for example in a warehouse with periodically switched off lighting and a continuously increasing number of opponents. The author knows how to make a player nervous, and really successfully uses arch-wiles for this. Having been trapped with the latter from the player will require exceptional accuracy and reaction speed, because procrastination is guaranteed to be fatal. Each new trap is unpredictable, which introduces novelty into the gameplay and highlights this project against the backdrop of many others.

 

If something looks strange, then it's the googl'o'translator's fault ... :)

 

In my collection:

 

Blue_5_5.png - Visuals (5 / 5)
Blue_4_5.png - Detailing (4 / 5)
Blue_5_5.png - Gameplay (5 / 5)
Blue_4_5.png - Atmosphere (4 / 5)
Orange_5_5.png - Difficulty (5 / 5)

Green_5_5.png - Overall Rating (5 / 5)

 

And I also found one small bug of texturing.

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I updated the link in the op with a version that fixes the issues mentioned so far.

 

@koren Thank you for the demos and the comments, I was a bit unsure about the archvile setpieces so I'm glad you liked them. You are probably right about those 2 cybers, I already had my doubts about them actually, I was considering changing the one on map 7 for 3 revenants and the one on map 9 for 2 arachnotrons, but I'm not sure if it's ok to change that sort of thing after releasing it even if it's a beta.

I have to say you played really well on those demos, I'm just glad I at least managed to get one death =P.

 

@Octavarium Thank you for the video!. I'm afraid I only know how to do custom monsters with decorate and this was meant to be boom compatible so there aren't any, I was planning to learn dehacked after finishing this so hopefully the trashimps will be able to make their triumphant return for my next project. Also I need to come clear about the cattails, I stole the idea from bloodstain map 14.

 

@StormCatcher.77 That was an interesting read. And those are some pretty high ratings! , glad that you enjoyed it. The problem in that image is not the wrong texture, that wall was supposed to go all the way to the pillar, thank you for mentioning it I fixed it on the new version.

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koren is a damn maniac so don't feel bad about not killing him. I'm only partway through but I'm impressed with this mapset. 1 and 2 felt kind of "classic doom/dungeon crawler" to me which isn't my preference but 3 and 4 really cook. I've enjoyed all the setpiece fights very much, especially the arena that keeps getting partitioned off after either key in map04. Really cute and creative, and keeps you on your toes without being too strenuous.

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Part 2: 4 - 6 (and a small hunk of 7)

 

 

Come witness the frustration of Octavarium as he sucks ass through Oscillation, dying to his own stupidity multiple times over. Will he ever learn to be good at this game? Probably not!

 

...Something I have noticed is the lighting is a little odd; some places have gradients and effects and whatnot, while other (sometimes large) spaces have no/little difference in the light levels. Aside from that one big room in map 6, I understand the need for the mostly uniform lighting there. Not a big deal at all of course, just something that stuck out.

 

...No Garbage Imp?!?! :C ...though I guess he wouldn't really fit the theme so

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@whisper Glad that you have been enjoying it so far, hope that you also play and like the rest

 

@Octavarium You didn't really do all that bad, it was just one specific fight on map 6 that seemed to give you trouble. I have been putting lightning gradients depending on if I felt like it would make each place look better, but maybe that was wrong and I should have had them everywhere.

 

So I have 2 question for anyone that can answer them:

 

-Does anyone know a boom compatible way to remove the text at the end of map 6 and making the wad end after map 9? So far the methods I've found only work for zdoom.

 

-A lot of wads seem to have multiplayer with "player starts only", is placing the starts for players 2 to 4 actually all it takes to do this? And how worthwhile is it to do it?

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Technically yes, but if you want to make a truly multiplayer-friendly wad, you'll have to do a bit more. I think it's worth doing because the multiplayer community is quite big, and some people play nothing but multiplayer, so they'll probably never experience your levels otherwise. If you want to spend some time on coop-compatibility, here are a few things to consider:

 

- If you make a trap that closes something behind the player, make sure that the area can be accessed from the outside in case the player dies to that trap. In general, think of all the possible ways the map might get stuck if someone dies in a "bad" spot and see what you can do to prevent that from happening. For example, in Doom 2 Map08 if you screw up the run to the exit, a teleporter appears so that other players can still reach the last room.

- If the player is supposed to get the shotgun\chaingun from an enemy, in multiplayer there should be another shotgun\chaingun somewhere so that other players will be able to get it too. Weapons that are placed by the mapper (i. e. not dropped by enemies) normally don't disappear and can be picked up by every player, so just one is enough.

- Always place additional radiation suits for multiplayer. There are never enough of these. Additional health and especially ammo is very welcome too.

- Since multiple marines are a lot stronger than one, you might want to give them more stuff to fight. A really lazy way to do it is to simply put some cyberdemons here and there. That alone can change quite a lot, but of course something a little more sophisticated would be better.

- Try to avoid small lifts and long tight corridors. These can be a real pain in the ass when you have many players trying to get through.

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Oh man, so that's what you do except speedmapping. Brilliant. I'll play these this week. 

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@Memfis  Well, I was thinking that if all it took was adding the players starts I might as well do it, but it seems like it's more complicated than that, most of the things you mention seem simple enough, but I have a lot of traps in this wad that lock the entrance to a room with the player inside as well as some timed fights, it will probably be better to not have multiplayer at all than having it broken.

 

 I suppose I'll keep those tips in mind for the next thing I make, but they seem a bit difficult to make work with certain types of set pieces, in particular I don't know how I could make a timed fight work when players can approach in the middle of it :S.

 

@NaZa I hope you enjoy it!, I will really appreciate if you share your thoughts on the maps afterwards.

 

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The typical solution is to open a teleporter nearby that takes other players inside of the room. The timed fights can be weird, yeah, but we are used to some stuff not working 100% right in multiplayer and usually we are happy just to be able to play a wad together, even if there are some problems present. So you don't need to worry about that stuff TOO much. As long as the level doesn't get stuck, it's good enough.

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@Memfis How about walkover linedefs that open closed rooms when approached from the outside? That way I wouldn't need to add extra stuff that would look weird in single player. I think I could manage to make this wad work for multiplayer by adding ways to open locked doors like that, some stuff would work a bit wrong but at least the maps would be beatable.

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Yeah, that can work too. It will make some fights significantly easier since the players will be able to easily retreat, but that's much better than getting stuck of course.

 

A more complicated solution would be to use voodoo doll scrollers that open teleporters only in multiplayer (should be doable by placing some multiplayer-only objects) but I'm not sure if that's worth your time.

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14 hours ago, Memfis said:

The typical solution is to open a teleporter nearby that takes other players inside of the room. The timed fights can be weird, yeah, but we are used to some stuff not working 100% right in multiplayer and usually we are happy just to be able to play a wad together, even if there are some problems present. So you don't need to worry about that stuff TOO much. As long as the level doesn't get stuck, it's good enough.

I agree with Memfis. Put a little effort in making this beauty a bit more MP-friendly. Me and/or my companions get often stuck cause me and/or my companions dying in some sealed of room (mostly me ofcourse).

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I updated the link in the op again, with a version that should allow for cooperative multiplayer and make it impossible to get stuck being unable to beat a map, I can't test multiplayer so I'm just going to hope that it works :S.

 

I also replaced those 2 cyberdemons that were mentioned before.

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Hello. I don't normally play maps like this but people seem to dig these so I figured I'd give em a go. I played the first 3 maps so far but I noticed some things I want to point out.

 

Comments:

Map01:

At the end with the two switches.. each guarded by 1 chaingunner. After I hit the switch nothing forces me away from where the switch is. I can kill everything safely by sniping it from where the switch is. Not sure what the difficulty is you are aiming for but imo this part would be more engaging if I was forced down from the switches by some other monster. Or just simply pressured a bit more where the switch is located. This part was by far the weakest part of this map imo in comparison to everything thing else. I liked the rest of the map.

 

Map02:

Biiiiiiig time cheese at the final fight. I happened to move and avoid a blind rev rocket after jumping down back into the initial area (from raised soulsphere) and noticed a bunch of stuff heading my way. I simply just jumped back down where the blue key switch is located and waited for everything to get close. Easy rocket spam. I suggest triggering this fight after hitting the yk switch and locking the player in to that initial area. Would make that area pretty great I think.

 

Map03:

No issues really. Maybe move the spawns of the cacos around at the final bridge fight so the player cant simply sit behind them like I did.

 

Edit:

Map03: Or maybe give less cells in the blue key area and force rockets or something on the bridge fight. Could be fun.

 

Whatev like I said I don't normally play maps like these so take anything I say with a grain of salt. Enjoyed them otherwise.

 

fdas (created with prboom+ 2.5.1.5 cl9 with Oscillation_V3.wad):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ib0ci0g211mvje/Oscillation_v3_fdas.zip?dl=0

Edited by Killer5

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Hello. Here are more fdas.

 

Map04:

The ysk fight. This fight seems incredibly underwhelming. Especially when compared to the final fight with the lifts that lower more and more monsters. Could use more viles here or something. You will see me go out of my way just to circle strafe around without any worry of dying.

 

Switch prior to bsk. I simply ran out removing any threat from this encounter. Should probably lock the player in if you don't want them doing what I did in the fda.

 

PE at the start. This is somewhat of a pet peeve of mine. There are powerups on the ground around a PE at the start and even more powerups if you were to kill the zombies around the area with the PE. Lost souls get jammed up when flying over powerups. I suggest placing the powerups differently in order to avoid this and make the PE more effective. Otherwise I would normally suggest using a different type of monster.

 

Map05:

Nothing really comes to mind regarding this map.

 

Map06:

Void area prior to final fight with 3 cybs. I was really enjoying myself here.. until I realized that all of my careful movement was negated by having impassible lines preventing me from falling into the abyss. This is obviously a taste thing and I'm super weird in that I really like pits (especially inescapable stuff). I think being able to fall here would be incredible.

 

3 cyb fight. So I originally thought that the hitscan was supposed to pull the cybs to the edges so they shoot kinda erratically before I noticed that the cybs just chill outside of the ring. The cybs just kinda chilled out and didn't really do much up against the walls after they got shot (at least I think that is what happened). Still a cool idea though.

 

Edit:

I forgot to mention that, although I really enjoyed the area with the light switches, I never really felt like I had to use them because there was nothing that I needed to really avoid when moving around (like.. obstacle wise). Maybe put some obnoxious 32 unit things around this area to make the darkness a bit more threatening.

 

I still enjoyed playing. Once again take anything I say with a grain of salt.

 

fdas (created with prboom+ 2.5.1.5 cl9 with Oscillation_V3.wad):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7y6bjz8em1txp97/Oscillation_v3_fdas_04-06.zip?dl=0

Edited by Killer5

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I don't have much time so I'll only say one thing for now: I really liked the area in MAP04 where enemies started dropping from the waterfalls! Neat!

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Another thing about MAP04: I liked the room with with the squashing walls and enemy teleporters. On the one hand the walls give a nice protection from the projectiles but on the other hand you get enemies teleport right in your face in that tiny space where you run for cover.

 

Third thing about MAP04: The exit fight ending with Spider Mastermind was tough but a great pleasure. Sure it's old to see these timed phases of monsters but it was a nice variation to lower them like that plus it was a perfect combination of enemies to make them fight each other while trying to survive by killing the ones nearest to you.

 

And this was just one level. You have neat ideas in other maps too. But listing them would take time that I don't have now and I've only played till MAP05. You have a very distinct style that I have not encountered before and I like it. Only thing I haven't liked so far is the Heretic/Hexen like gray and brown textures which are not my favorite but it's a matter of taste and you use those textures correctly so can't really complain :)

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Also I join the others who requested small modifications to make this multiplayer friendly. I mainly play DooM in coop with my friends. Occasionally though when I'm looking for new maps I might play the whole WAD by myself if it's so good that it's hard to stop testing (like in this case).

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@Memfis Neat! I can't wait to see how I messed this up :)

 

@Killer5 Thank you for the fdas and comments, criticism of specifics parts is really useful to become better at mapping and it's nice to receive feedback from different types of players.

I didn't want to lock the player all the times, and on fights that are not supposed to be particularly difficult I didn't feel the need to stop the player from retreating and taking things slowly if they want to. I agree that on the last fight on map 2 retreating maybe a bit too easy and effective and that the last fight on map 1 is bit underwhelming. On the light switch fight on map 6 a was afraid of the gimmick getting annoying if I took it too far, also I think the darkness is slightly more relevant on zdoom (which is where I tested while making it).

At this point I don't really want to make changes to the maps unless something is broken, I'd rather take all of this as lessons for next time.

 

@SP_FACE1 I'm glad you enjoyed all of that. I already tried to make it a bit multiplayer friendly on the latest version, I'm not sure how well it will work.

Edited by Forli

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I'm only on map 5 of this but already loving it.  I can't say I was the biggest fan of map 1 but by map 2 onward the pace picked up and I was very happy with the increased pressure.  Difficulty isn't way out there, definitely not too easy, detailing is proper.  It's nice to have a strong believable space and so far you've accomplished this.  I look forward to seeing more maps from you!

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So I played through the whole thing in 3 player coop without ammo respawn. We didn't get stuck anywhere so seems like you did a good job on that. Balance-wise we found Map09 way too tight on ammo: one player had to basically do all the job because there wasn't enough stuff for others. Some other levels were a bit low on ammunition too but in a good way I think (perfectly manageable as long as you fight wisely). Overall I believe we had plenty of fun so thanks for spending your time on multiplayer compatibility!

 

Btw we found a cute exploit on Map09. :) In the eastern area you can jump on this ledge, trigger the trap, get back to safety and then fight the HKs\PEs from above.

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