Gothic Box

Blissful agony. A+.

My cheeks are aching from the whooping UV is giving me so far only 2 maps in. Absolutely jaw-dropping set, this could win a Cacoward purely with the visuals and architecture alone.

Wasn't expecting this on a Monday. Quite a lovely set of maps as usual, with the earlier levels having less bite than I expected yet still delivering with some very interesting setups. MAP06 is currently handing my ass to me. I also find it quite interesting how non-orthogonal everything is.

I really liked this map.

Great visually consistent "vanilla plus" style detailing + magnificent fight design and nonlinearity - I discovered after the fact that this was vanilla. Combat kinda has a liminal feel to it.

@Yumheart nice and chaotic with surprisingly good visuals, still has character despite the time constraint.

Loom of the Thread Necromancer

Music: "Incan-tation" by Jimmy

Build time: ~2 hours

LoomOfTheThreadNecro.zip

Pillar Saints (RC1)

A short (~8 min) Tyson-y frolic in nukage. The challenge is on the harder side but should be rather manageable; difficulty settings are also included. Made over 3 days with mostly IWAD textures, the MIDI is "Entrenched" by Jimmy Paddock. As this started life as a shitpost there's a mandatory AVJ.

PillarSaints_RC1.zip

^{tbh this has like zero relation to those Byzantine-era ascetics lol}

Found some graffiti on a secluded hilltop park bench while hiking with a friend last month. I think I'll go back in the spring and give the classic peace love & weed a new coat of paint.

Also ran into multiple herds of deer on that same hike

It's out!

Pistol started the whole thing on UV in DSDA-Doom 0.25.6 over the course of the afternoon and I have some quibbles:

MAP06: Untagged sectors raising (Raith pointed this out already, it's quite weird, and I'm pretty sure Fletcher's already on it)
MAP07: Secret berserk in sector 163 isn't flagged for UV, linedef 295 is missing a texture
MAP09 (me, all my fault): Floating shells, can grab rocket launcher without triggering linedefs
MAP12: Some floating things, linedef 1063 has slime trail
MAP13: Linedefs 496-498 have bleeding textures
MAP14: Things in sector 2 block access to medikit
MAP15: Secret exit doesn't go to MAP31 (note: some intertext cuts off)

MAP19: Despair is misspelled but that might be intentional
MAP24: Missing r in "Another"
MAP27: Sectors 74 & 75 teleport monsters in before fully lowering, becoming stuck
MAP29: Literally a fully fledged boom map that softlocks in -cl2 but it's so so so good, I think it just needs a warning like 31 and 33

Personal favorites: 05, 06 (I'm biased), 07, 11, 15, 20, 25, 28, 29, 31

Love me some gradients :]

Quite relaxing having this on loop, really helps me focus

Starting to develop the layout and visual motifs for my submission. No fights yet but ideas have been bouncing around in my head like a Windows screensaver.

Checks all the boxes for a good map. Fights are well designed and difficulty hovers around that good middle ground. For a second map you definitely know what you're doing.

My brain repressed the memories of my old maps for a reason, I see

@FletcherHonoroma and I would like to sign up.

In 2012 when I was but a wee lass looking for free games my MacBook could run I came across a Blogspot page while googling. It had with links to ZDoom and most IWADs as well as a selection of PWADs, most notably Congestion 1024. Shortly afterwards I found Doomworld and was introduced to Brutal Doom through Robbaz on YT. Doom 2016 helped me even further down the rabbit hole. Doom's also one of the main things that got me into oldschool shooters in general.

What really piqued my interest though was the dreamy, almost timeless atmosphere Doom is so good at conveying - like a neverending early evening. I feel the track Legion of the Lost from TNT gives those vibes exactly.

Back on my bullshit and playing the pain that is Escape From Tarkov. The latest patch reworked armor and recoil and also added vaulting and shoulder-swapping. It's apparently very good but I've been burned by this game too many times over the last 6 years and I'm rather pessimistic about the cheating problem.

Also the servers are so overloaded you have to sit in a matching screen for who knows how long every time you queue.

UDMF can be a trap for new mappers. There are so many mediocre UDMF maps that consist of square and under-detailed rooms but have 3D floors, slopes, ACS scripting, and other ZDoom doodads galore that the author clearly spent loads of time learning and working on. I fell into that trap during a now-cancelled community project some years back, when I dedicated so much of my focus towards these features that everything else suffered as a result.

- Finish/salvage most of my incomplete maps from the last couple of years

- Participate in more community projects

- Quit making variations on the same theme; one can only make so many cramped techbases surrounded by darkness and murky water (I'm really bad about this, like really bad)

After mapping off and on for nearly a decade I feel like I finally hit my stride in 2023, and I plan to keep that momentum in 2024. Now if you'll excuse me I'm gonna go have an existential crisis regarding the passage of time (How is Swim With The Whales nearly 11? How is Going Down turning 10? How are Sunlust and Valiant almost 9? Ancient Aliens released in 2016, and 2016 was only 4 years ago, right? ...right?)

5 hours ago, Pechudin said:

I'll bite though; can't recall the last time I used CEMENT textures (but I would not say they are useless).

How dare you disparage the cult of our beloved CEMENT9

@Yop Here's RC1 of @FletcherHonoroma and I's collaboration. Only considering it a RC just in case of bugs or tweaking.

[Another Fine Mesa MAP24]

["umbra's warm bosom" by msx2plus from Time Tripper]

[No custom textures]

[1K1K_MAP24_FletcherAndChicken_RC1.zip] 

LOL NVM HERE'S RC2: 1K1K_MAP24_FletcherAndChicken_RC2.zip

- fixed broken blue key teleport

- more health

Absolutely delightful. Love your teleporter use, especially right before the blue key. Haven't finished the final fight yet but so far it's impressively chaotic. Funnily enough, this is exactly the type of map I like to make ^{curse you ribbiks}

4 hours ago, Yop said:

I want to ideally see something of MAP24 soon... ...as in 2 weeks. I'm being more lenient as it is a collab but I still want to see something.

MAP24 can be finished within 2 weeks for certain. IIRC all that needs doing bar detailing is reworking the mikoveyor fight and implementing the finale.

On 10/22/2023 at 5:11 AM, ViolentBeetle said:

Speaking of round 2, I think I have grossly overestimated my own ability to work during the autumn, so I think I will extend the deadline quite a lot.

I have over 500 downloads for resource archive, but not many submissions. If you are working on a map or plan to work, please check in.

Plan to, I've been occupied with 1k1k + some other projects as well as life stuff, but I've got plenty of ideas bouncing around in my head.

1 hour ago, SoBad said:

I'm surprised you would think that's unintended given the nature of the map, haha. 

It didn't work for me the 2nd time I did the fight and I couldn't figure it out when looking in UDB/Slade, that's why