Rebel Sky - a puzzle map for vanilla Doom 2 (Idgames Link)

[valkiriforce]

So hey, I finally got around to doing another "Metal Mansion"-type map chock full of difficult puzzles. This is a map I started three years ago in October 2014 but never got around to finishing it until recently. For those of you that enjoy Bob Evans' work, you might (hopefully) find something of enjoyment here. Lots of switches and gun triggers, hidden passages and whatnot. Please let me know if there's anything that needs fixing - feedback is greatly appreciated.

 

Also it uses an Eternal Doom music track and a sky I need help identifying - found it elsewhere online.

 

Released:

 

 

old version if you wanna watch Ribbiks' demo.

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2017 by valkiriforce

[Adahn]

Quick question are you supposed to use freelook/jumping in the map? I like the design of the map by the way, very nice.

[valkiriforce]

No, considering it was designed for vanilla Doom, there shouldn't be any jumping or crouching involved.

[Ribbiks]

hot damn this was fantastic.

 

If you have (a lot!) of time on your hands, here's my fda: https://www.mediafire.com/file/9maovvw0dc6724a/rebelsky_fda_cl-1_saves_rbk.lmp (note that I played with cl-1, implying boom behavior for certain things like pushing monsters off ledges, but I chose this setting for the convenient way it handles mid-demo saving). Man, that took like.. 3 hours heh. Reminds me of when I sat down and played through Bob Evans' Eternal Doom maps in a single sitting.

 

Basically I have no complaints. I loved how tight and brutal the opening areas were, with respect to both health and ammo, really gave a sense of progress and reward for pushing far enough into the puzzly entrails of the map and eventually becoming so stacked with goods that monsters stopped becoming a threat. Could probably argue that with all the secrets (most of which appear to be mandatory for progression anyway?) you end up with maybe a bit too many resources at your disposal. The bigger encounters later in the map were a bit trivialized by 200/200 + 600 cells. I also liked how the visual cues were sufficiently diverse: lots of shoot switches, lots of "spot the difference!", and I really enjoyed the "am I breaking this? oh wait no.." like in the BSK area. I still have no idea what triggered the path into the SW (YSK) portion of the map, lol. I'll probably be poking around in the editor when I look at this later (too tired now, didn't expect this map to take like 3 hrs into 1am for me :p). I'm also curious what that distant switch in the lost soul room does (which looks like you could access with a glide if you really wanted to?).

 

Anyways, great map! combines all the things I liked about Eternal Doom, with some clever new ideas as well.

[valkiriforce]

13 hours ago, Ribbiks said:

I'm also curious what that distant switch in the lost soul room does (which looks like you could access with a glide if you really wanted to?).

LOL, I'd totally forgotten about that switch - at the moment it doesn't do anything; I put it there originally as a shootable switch that opens the lower surrounding areas for the chaingunners, but I went for something else instead. Need to fix that pretty soon.

 

Thanks for making the demo - I finished watching the whole thing. It definitely helps to watch someone else play who doesn't already know all of the solutions. I liked how you found your way to the blue key earlier than expected, as I'd also forgotten to include some way out of the inner areas, but you managed to walk over the wall just fine and escape being trapped. I might do something about the megasphere area possibly since it does sort of disguise itself as a regular secret despite being a mandatory thing for the yellow key sequence. I also tend to have problems with resource management, since it can be hard to know which way a player will go or how much ammo will be burned out at which points in a level. I could probably make it a little tighter in the later areas.

 

Anyway, thanks for the feedback!

 

[EDIT] Updated download link with fixes.

Edited October 25, 2017 by valkiriforce

[Man Q. Bus]

I really enjoyed this. I ended up playing it with Chocolate Doom because it crashed when I saved it in DosBox. No problems other than that.

[anotak]

enjoyed this, got stuck in a few places for a bit, i think i may have accidentally done things out of order, as I got softlocked at one point. i gave up and had to open it in DBX to figure out the progression at the following points:

- i pulled the tag 55 switch, and then i wandered around for a very long time unsure what to do (i had the BSK only). i had to use the editor to find the door tagged 5, not sure if i missed something but it seemed kind of obtuse to find as i couldnt find any sort of indicator ingame that there was anything different about that wall and the rest of the progression had me searching every other part of the level for the solution.

- got stuck after i got the yellow key, wandered around for a very long time. apparently i didnt pull the switch that opens tag 54? (this comes up again later). anyway i found the switch in the editor for tag 26, which, i hadn't seen even though i had examined that area a good bit.

- i had to look in the editor on how to open the door tagged 43 because i spent forever wandering around, and i had thought i had already pulled that switch bc it starts with the lit-up texture. and since i had already been through the area earlier, i had forgotten what switches i had pulled.

- once i finally got the red key and came back with all 3 keys, i lowered the teleporter, used it, pulled the switch to lower tag 102, and faced into a HOM (as sector 54 hadn't lowered). so I had to open the editor to figure out how to lower tag 54... and it appeared i was softlocked, unless i missed something? so i ended up reloading a save and redoing all that, and then opening tag 54 before taking the teleporter. then everything worked fine

 

despite all that, i think this map is legitimately really cool. it's also, one of the hardest doom experiences i've possibly ever played? and i've played a lot of the wads typically thought of as really hard. i think it might be kryptonite to my particular playstyle or something. though i am a bit rusty.

i wouldnt mind maybe more hints at those parts, or maybe, more alternate paths for people who miss the main path. like i noticed on the editor that i beat the level without ever going to the outside area on the east end of the map with cacos and revs, that's cool, i like that stuff

[valkiriforce]

I see that softlock is my fault for updating with the removed green pillar to make that area a little easier to solve - the one that leads to the teleport with the shootable stained glass, since you wouldn't need to flip the tag 54 switch to lower that area. Gonna have to hammer that out and see if I can pull something that works together; thanks for the feedback, and glad you enjoyed it despite some shortcomings.

 

[EDIT] I've updated with some minor changes and also removed all the extra textures I didn't use.

Edited October 28, 2017 by valkiriforce

[gaspe]

I still have to finish this but it's a very well done Bob Evans inspired map. The music of Silures was a nice touch, along with the Eternal Doom sounds. I like also the choice of the textures, are those from Doom 64 right?

So far I picked the BK, then explored all that I could and got stuck before I managed to unlock the western area near the start, I'm about to getting the RK now I guess. I wasn't expecting to be this hard and it's also brutal with health and ammo in the first steps you make but I'm really having a blast with this level.

The only thing that I didn't understand is how you are supposed to get out from the southern garden with the BK? I managed to jump from there but it seems too unnatural to do.

Spoiler

 

[valkiriforce]

Thanks to Ribbiks' demo, I found it was possible to make that jump if the player is angled just right and aims for the right spot, so I decided to leave that in there instead of making an easy way out of the southern area. This wouldn't be a problem if you solve the area that opens that outdoor area, but if you manage to go straight for the blue key from one of the secrets it's kind of nice to have a scenario where it's possible to skip all of that. The only downside would be getting out by making that particular jump, which is something of a happy accident I thought to leave in there for that reason.

[Paul977]

I've the blue and red key so far in 40 mins of saves gameplay and, like happened in Reverie map 31, got stucked in getting the yellow key apparently. This is harder then Metal Mension with more brutal encounters and a low health in general (the graveyard battle was cruel). My only feedback so far is perhaps to add some more health in the first cyber area and in the cacos section that leads to the open area but I'm playing with saves and I don't have the big picture of the map, so far.

Very cool visuals with a fitting sky; congratulations on making an incredible complex map like this one

[Big Ol Billy]

Here's a n00bish and save scummy attempt: bob_rebelsky.zip. I'd guess it's... rather different... than Ribbiks and probably less useful. (Also recorded the same way, prBoom cl-1, but with the newer version of the map.)

 

I wanna go back and finish it (got the BK and RK and then couldn't figure out how to progress). There's a lot that I admire and a lot that's frustrating, and to a certain extent the two go hand in hand. There are a lot of great eureka moments when you finally figure something out after revisiting an area a dozen or so times. Combat and resource situation are pretty punishing, but that also makes those soulspheres that much sweeter. All in all, I kind of appreciated it more than I enjoyed it, but I'm probably not the target audience.

[Big Ol Billy]

Warmer feelings now that I've gone back and finished it. This map broke a lot of my personal "good map" rules, but once I got over that it was a brain-teasing blast. I had to cheat a couple of times to figure out what to do next, but every time I ended up blaming myself for missing something I should have caught, which is ultimately the sign of good puzzle design. Kinda like Ribbiks said somewhere else, I hope that this and The Given are making a new lane for eccentric old-school-inspired puzzlers. 

[valkiriforce]

Sorry I didn't get back sooner - I did watch the demo and to be honest it was one of the hardest demos I've ever had to sit through, but I was amazed at how long you persevered through multiple deaths and using the berserk fist throughout some choked points in the map. I definitely commend your ability to last as long as you did, and I'm glad to hear you were able to finish the map and enjoy it better.

 

[gaspe]

Finally I took some time to complete the map. I admit that I had to peek with the editor to understand how to access the south-western area with the four pillars and thus being able to go for the YK. I noticed the various visible and inaccessible areas at south of the bridge but I missed to open the door with tag 22, which is also funny since it's a very basic secret while I didn't have problems to solve the more complicated and subtle stuff. Gameplay was really well done and it's also challenging in its own devious ways, especially when you are still making your first steps in the possible routes. As you progress you start to become very well stacked, which happens in many (if not most) of the maps usually tbh, but anyway it seems that there are multiple possibilities on how to finish the map. This is plenty of cool ideas and tricks put on display, the southernmost changing room was my favourite. One of the best maps I have played in a while.

[valkiriforce]

By the way final link is here (already updated FP):