stochastic

Here is my final submission for Map 21. I made several quality of life changes from my last submission - major changes include: removing damaging blood floors, removing bottomless pits, and adding an additional tech/flesh area in the flesh tunnels. Additional playtesting would be much-appreciated! STO_30Sec_MAP21.zip Map Title: The Shrine of Mad Laughter Map Slot: Map 21 (previously Map 27) MIDI Used: "Baron's Province" by James "Jimmy" Paddock Map Author: stochastic Difficulties Implemented: All Tested With: PrBoom-Plus 2.5.1.4, dsda-doom 0.26.2, GZDoom 4.6.1 Screenshots: Here's that newly-added room:

Absolutely! Your map is too good to not see the light of day, so I'm happy to try my best with it. :) And definitely! Not gonna add much to the layout besides what you had in mind; and I'm gonna stay faithful to the theme/textures so there's as little clashing as possible. I'll work on it this weekend and message you my progress some time next week! Much appreciated! Definitely love this style and wanted an excuse to work more with it, haha. Your assets you've created for the project look great, btw. Thanks for taking the initiative to really tie the project together!

I have a lot free time this month, so I think I'll give it a go - the screenshot looks awesome! Hopefully I can give the map a worthy ending :)

Definitely understandable - thanks for choosing to still release the completed/claimed maps. I will have my other submission ready by the end of the year.

@lubba127 I just played through your map - what an absolutely delightful experience. Between the awe-inspiring visuals, the well-orchestrated fights, and the jaunty MIDI, this is one of the most memorable maps I've played. You knocked the heavenly city theme out of the park. Well done!

Thank you for the kind words and for replaying it! Glad it was more enjoyable this time around :) I also couldn't help myself and added some more enhancements to various areas. Mainly added some background cliffs/extra details here and there. Probably should stop tinkering and just call it done haha. Updated the submission in the original post!

Just posted an updated submission after @Dewzan's playtest and critiques to my map, The Black Lodge. Major changes are: The blood library has been completely revamped to prevent any softlocks Nerfed several encounters by removing some enemies, namely removing roaming archviles Made fake walls in blood labyrinth translucent Removed several cyberdemons Reworked some fights in the blood labyrinth Blood floor is no longer damaging Added more health powerups in big arena fight The difficulty of the map is still pretty high, however, these changes will hopefully provide less hostile experience to first-time players. There could still probably stand to be some additional nerfing, but I wanted to push these changes out the door quickly so more folks hopefully feel like testing it out as well. Updated post with submission file: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2693981

@Dewzan Just played through your map UV-Max, and I gotta say, that's the most fun I've had playing Doom in a while. Aside from the awesome gimmick, your map is full of really well-orchestrated encounters - I'd say it's just about the best vehicle (pun intended) for easing into and becoming more comfortable with slaughter-lite/slaughter gameplay. Tough, but fair fights throughout, with each lap upping the ante and keeping things fresh (I like the subtle light decrease from lap to lap). I found ammo a bit tight at some points in Laps 1 and 2, but I may not have been utilizing in-fighting as well as I should. Great map and well done!

@AnArchaicApparatus I just finished up with your map. Wow, what an experience. I have to say I'm not a connoisseur of puzzle maps - I appreciate them for their technical wizardry, their ingenuity, and novelty, but I don't find myself going out of my way to play them. Having said that... between the desolate, claustrophobia-inducing corridors, the moody lighting, and the droning MIDI, I was absolutely entranced by your map. Highlights for me were of course the atmosphere, the surrealist, abstract texture usage, and the main puzzle section I call "the four trials". Each of those puzzles was unique, not overly complicated, but challenging enough to really make you think the solution through (with the blue tech one causing me to belly laugh when I figured it out). My least favorite aspect of the map was some of the later fights. In UV, I don't think either of the final encounters are survivable without foreknowledge, and ammo/health are pretty tight. Still, it didn't really hamper my enjoyment of the map overall because 1. I took your advice and saved quite a bit and 2. there was cleverness to the fights that, after several attempts, revealed themselves as neat combat puzzles. That aside, I had a great time losing myself in your map for the better part of 30 minutes - definitely a unique entry, and one I won't soon forget. Well done!

@Surreily I just played through your map on UV and I really enjoyed it! Really dug the whole aesthetic - the focus on blue, with the tech, metal, wood, and naturalistic textures along with the abstract structures, winding geometry, and water-logged caverns is really unique. Midi choice is just perfect for it as well. The map is well-balanced, with enough ammo and health to get by, but not so much that it insults the player's abilities :) Progression is fairly straight-forward, with a few nods of exploration in the cave sections. If I had to give a critique, I'd say the weakest part of the map is the combat/enemy encounters. Nothing bad or frustrating, but most of it consisted of incidental combat with lots of hitscanners and mid-tier Doom 2 enemies in the big open area lobbing projectiles from afar, which actually proved to be the most difficult aspect of the map for me. Though I didn't mind this at all, I would have liked to see the more centerpiece fights have some more bite. The keygrab fights, namely the blue key arena and red key cavern crawl felt a little toothless, and could probably benefit from more intentional monster placement/traps. Also, a very minor point, but the impassable linedef on the yellow key ledge preventing you from jumping down felt a bit jarring to me. I REALLY wanted to parkour down back to the watery pathway haha. But all in all, I had a great time playing your map. The atmosphere, aesthetics, and the danger from all directions made this a really memorable one for me. Also, superb reuse of sectors - I forgot I was playing a 30 sector map! Well done!

Cheers, Walter. Thanks for playing through it and for your kind words. I'm glad you enjoyed it! I generally like utilizing tougher sections, but for this project I really don't want anything in my map to feel like a chore, so I'm down to add more health wherever to keep the player from ever getting frustrated. And I see what you mean with the DSDA-Doom issue.. I've never had that happen before. But after some troubleshooting, I discovered that it only loads textures from the first wad loaded. So if my wad is supplied before howt.wad for the -file flag cmd line arguments, it won't load the howt textures, and vice versa. Let me know if I can help resolve it - although my knowledge around texture lumps is pretty limited.

Thanks for playing through it, Dewzan! I definitely appreciate it, as well as your honest feedback. I think all your criticisms are completely legitimate and exactly what I need to hear in order for me to improve on gameplay/combat. That in mind, before the due date I'll work on modifying the encounters to be less hostile to first time players in the following ways: Removing the softlock possibilities you mentioned, namely by having the blood library fill only to the point of the escape passage floor, and then ensuring the switch that lowers the invisible bridge can always be pressed Removing or replacing some of the AVs with different enemies, namely in the big arena fight and "Black Lodge" (blood labrynth) sections Reducing number of cyberdemons overall Removing fake walls in Black Lodge. Normally I would never use fake walls or place enemies behind them, but I guess in this case I got too caught up in the theme. The blood walls are meant to emulate curtains, so going through the fake wall portion is like passing through the opening of the curtain. Doesn't lead to very fun gameplay, though I realize :) Removing some enemies in general, particularly toward the beginning of the map before you acquire the rocket launcher or plasma gun. Removing floor damage from blood floors that the player is expected to traverse over. I'd love if you'd be open to playing it again after I've made these changes, because I really appreciate your feedback. I'll get to work!

Alright, after extensive cleanup (basically cut the sector count in half!) I'm posting the "final" submission of my map, The Black Lodge, pending external playtesting so feel free to give it a shot! Please let me know what you think. This was quite an undertaking for me - I was completely new to mapping when I started this map, and I've done quite a bit of mapping since this map, so I'm sure parts of it show my inexperience. That being said, I'm overall happy with how it turned out and I'm excited for others to try it out :) Here's the original post that I'll edit to include the submission file: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2693981 Also, added some additional enhancements - a major one being this creepy flesh cathedral that closes the map. Enjoy!

A slot in episode 3, preferably. I recently submitted a hellish void for the 30 sectors project so I've got lots of ideas for that theme still flowing. If not, episode 2, then 1. I'd really be happy just contributing :)

Hey there. If a map slot opens up, I'd love to claim it!