Lorenz0

Still unnamed, but it's gonna be a 10 or so level wad, made with Ancient Aliens textures exclusively. This is the 5th completed map.

Thanks for playing Scattered Ashes, I appreciate it. I definitely went a bit low key with this wad in comparison to other stuff I've made. It never gets nearly as intense as in In Flames (which was actually the toughest map I ever made). I was working within the limitations of NaNoWADMo, so I tried not to get too ambitious, and decided to play it safe with many maps, as you noticed. I focused mainly on making the levels look and feel diverse from each other. Anyway, thanks again for playing, I'll probably hit you up with a more serious project of mine, once I finish making it.

Rightfully so. I'm just saying that it's not a major mistake if it's not reoccuring within a wad. I tolerate stuff like this, and it's not a big deal for me. But anyway, I'm not trying to argue against your criticism, it's very fair.

The reason why I didn't make the blood damaging in map09 is because I have it encoded in my brain that blood shouldn't be ever damaging. Idk why, but I think that way, and never make the blood damaging in my maps. And I wanted to use that texture in this map, because it fit really well color-wise, while nukage not so much. But I agree that I should have made it damaging anyway, though in my defense I'll say at least that I think most players choose to fight on the bridges on their own, just because it's more interesting. I don't know many people who would choose to cheese big parts of a map if it meant making the combat less engaging. Btw the ending wasn't open just like that, a wall lowered once all monsters spawned in.

I agree with basically everything you said in this vid. I also think it's one of the best maps in the set, that went a little downhill in the 2nd half combat wise, but about the resources; there may be a bit too many, but not everyone relies on infighting in the way you do. If you don't even try to cause any (and I know many people don't) then you have just enough ammo. Also I think you had so much infighting in the first fight, because you activated the spawn-in trap early on. But anyway great video, thanks for playing :)

Dark Encounters

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on my maps, now I definitely see where the gameplay feels lackluster, like in the first half of map04, or here in 06. I kinda took advantage of the fact that this is a speedmapping project, and implemented a few abstract concepts I wouldn't ever do in a more serious project, and some of them fell a bit flat. Anyway, I appreciate your commentary, and I'm excited to see how you'll feel about the last few levels.

So I played it, and wasn't that impressed. I really like the visual gimmick, but that's about it. The encounters were often really tedious, especially in cases where you open a door, and have to shoot through numerous enemies to even get to the room you opened. That actually describes most fights in this wad, and that's not a good thing. Just standing in front of a door and shooting feels really grindy and unsatisfying. Encounters like these are just a boring mess: A good idea would be just to create bigger rooms, and make the enemies appear once you're inside them, not right when you open the door. One more thing I liked was that some areas were more unique than just a square room with monsters. Like the place with circular stairs, or the ledge with imps, where the radsuit was (but idk why it was there, since you don't need it). The very first room in the set has incorrect ceiling textures here: This switch shouldn't be repeatable: So to sum up, this just feels like a very amateurish map, that at least looks interesting.

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One that's varied. When it comes to megawads I'd like its maps to have a lot of variety in terms of length, visuals, flow and encounters. Being repetetive is the worst possible thing. Eviternity comes to my mind first when I think about variety, since every episode so strongly contrasts each other, and makes the maps very memorable (And probably because I played it like yesterday). Megawads are long by definition, so it's not good if many maps take ages to beat. After I beat a long map, I like to have a break in a way of a shorter and more linear level. Again referencing Eviternity - going from a gargantuant map32 to a compact map16 was fucking perfect for me. Going from map19 to map20 is a different story though. This way of thinking is probably the reason why I didn't enjoy Struggle nearly as much - most levels were either long or complex layout-wise. Or both. It wasn't easy to binge-play this wad, so I'd have probably given up halfway through, had I not been playing it on co-op with someone else. The visual style also wasn't varied enough for me, so that's another reason. If I take a look at something like Stardate, I feel like it would be insufferable as a megawad for the reasons described above. Keeping it to a length of an episode was a very good decision on Ribbiks' part. This is also probably why I'm so worried about The Age of Hell. Bridgeburner likes to make grandiose stuff a lot, but if he'll do it with every map in the wad, I'm not gonna have a great time. Also because it's all gonna be one colour. So basically I think that a good megawad is one in which all levels can be considered great not only on their own, but judging by how well they work in relation to maps before and after it.

Hey, I know ZDoom maps are not really your thing, but would you be interested in playing Scattered Ashes? Jumping/Crouching/Freelook not required, so I'm hoping you'll give this a shot.

My best map is in a project I'm currently working on, and not gonna release anytime soon, but if we're talking about the ones I released, then it's probably one from Scattered Ashes: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/s-u/scat I can't clearly assess which one is the best, but I'd say that MAP07 is definitely the funniest, and I love the idea of it.

I never feel like my work is good enough, but that's precisely my drive to get better. The only way I improve is by making a map after map, constantly, which resulted in a huge improvement in my mapping skills. When I look back at levels I made a year ago, I'm reminded of how shit I was, and even when I look back at levels I made a few months ago, I think ''I could have done better''. Making so many maps one after another made it easy for me to notice how I improve over time, and I will continue to do so, until I create something cacoward worthy. I set myself a high bar, but there's no doubt in my mind that I will able to achieve it by steadily getting better over the next few years. That's what drives me to be a mapper, and to feel good about my projects, even if they're not up to par with wads made by others.