Vyre

I'd like to participate! I'd be aiming to create an episode of 7-8 maps instead of a megawad though, as I'm a little swamped with work. This would be my first actual foray into Doom mapping, so I'm excited :)

dwil_sigil_vyre.zip Category 1, died on M4 with 40/76 kills ~20 minutes in. Awesome mapset, loads of fun :D

Oh damn, losing all that work really sucks D: Ahh I missed that one. You could perhaps consider adding it as a non-secret for the beefier enemies later on. #1 did confuse me a little lol. I thought the lowering mechanism was broken.

FDA (recorded with GZDoom 4.1.1) I finished with 97% kills in ~17 mins on my first playthrough. Quick thoughts: The layout is a bit too linear IMO and adding more branching paths, extra rooms, or interconnecting the rooms would be a nice improvement. The red and blue key doors should be marked as needing the key/color-coded. The absence of the SSG is annoying, especially in the latter half when you're forced to shotgun/chaingun mancubi and hell knights, which gets tedious quickly. It would make the combat more enjoyable. Ammo balance is a bit all over the place. The player has too many shells in the first half of the map, then once you reach the yellow key area you run low on ammo. I had to skip the last two barons because of that. You could remove 1 or 2 of the green armors as they're unnecessary. Most of the battles are too easy because the areas are very wide open and the player can simply back out of the area or bottleneck them at an entrance. Many are also placed behind barriers so they're sitting ducks for the player. The first half of the map is also only trash monsters, which pose little threat and it gets boring if it's just hordes of them. Adding a few more dangerous enemies like in the later areas would spice up the combat. The standout battle here was the room with the four-switch pillar and the monsters teleporting in, which was pretty fun. I also liked the surprise archvile that teleports into the arachnotron corridor. A new, fitting soundtrack instead of D_RUNNIN would improve the atmosphere of your map. I liked the library room, but I'm a huge sucker for libraries in Doom maps :p I also liked the way the secrets are accessed; they're quite creative. Regarding the visuals: Overall it looks pretty good and you have a good grasp on lighting, although some rooms have uniform brightness and detract from the rest of the map. Generally the map is on the brighter side. Ceiling height variation and more ceiling textures would add more depth to the rooms and be more aesthetically pleasing. A few odd texturing choices, like the use of CEIL1_3 for the bottom of doors/doorways. There are many texture misalignments. A few oddities: 1 2 (not sure if 2 is intentional). Bugs: You can hit just 2 out of 4 switches on the pillar in the teleporting monster room and still go to the next room. Overall it's a pretty solid effort for your second map, I had fun playing through it :)

Yakfak makes some really cool, bizarre maps. Also check out his Zekhmet project (WIP) featuring contributions from talented mappers like Dobu Gabu Maru and Benjogami.

Comment out line 48 (#include "deco/variants.txt") as well as the monster decorate files. That seems to work for me.

Just thought I'd mention that in GZDoom 4.0.0, the flamethrower leaves a brief afterimage of the tesla coil sprite whenever it touches a wall (pic). It works fine in PrBoom+.

Doomworld Handle: @Vyre Skill Level: I play most wads on UV with pistol starts, usually saveless. I may drop to HMP if a particular wad is really kicking my ass (Stardate I'm looking at you). Preferred Difficulty Level(s): UV/HMP Maximum Number of Maps in a Set: Anything goes. Minimum Number of Maps in a Set: Anything goes. Preferred Genres: Experimental, surreal/abstract, puzzle, standard run-and-gun Genres you don't like: Heavy slaughtermaps Preferred Source Ports: PrBoom+, Eternity, GZDoom Source Ports Refused: N/A Demos or written comments: I prefer giving written feedback but can record demos if needed (no voiceover). Mapping Experience: I have no public releases under my belt but I have a few months' experience making limit-removing maps for my own amusement. Notes: I'm currently a bit busy so I may take a little while to playtest your wad, but I guarantee feedback in a reasonable amount of time.

Hi! First time entering this contest. I attempted a category 1 (blind) run. I died on MAP15 on UV to a rocket that caught me by surprise. (Total time elapsed 1:04:23 and 7/10 monsters killed.) The demo was recorded with GZDoom g4.0.0. I was really hoping to survive this set and got super antsy halfway through as a result lol. Overall the maps were short and sweet, if spartan in detail, and I liked the use of the custom monsters. MAP12 was a personal favorite. IEscimitar_vyre_demo.zip

Looks sweet! Eager to play it, the pics look cool :)

Here's an FDA if you're interested. I died ~40 minutes in, on my first visit to the Kingdom of Roots. Fell off a wooden platform and broke my neck in the murky bog. I quit after that, though I may try again later with Wayfarer's Tome. You nailed the atmosphere and the levels' non-linear, exploratory designs and architecture were fantastic, as was (most) of the expanded bestiary. I gave up cause I'm just generally not a fan of Heretic's combat - it feels rather grindy and the on-the-fly inventory management is a bit much for me. A few gripes: 1) I felt like there was too little ammo which combined with the fact that enemies spawn every time you return to an area (which was often since I kept running around looking for switches) was kinda off-putting and dissuaded me from going back and exploring further. 2) The stalkers, dear lord the stalkers. Probably my least favorite monsters from Hexen. They kept popping up in the middle of fights, jumpscaring me and blocking the path. Gah. 3) The aforementioned doors got me confused too :p Still, you've done an awesome job and it's insane considering the timespan this was built in. It's just not for me :) But really cool nonetheless. I'm glad people are making more maps for Heretic now. fda_faithless_vyre.zip

Neat little map, had fun playing it. I'm also looking forward to more of these :) Worked in gzdoom 4.0.0 with no issues.

Make sure the IWADs are named 'doomu.wad' (for Ultimate Doom) and 'doom2.wad' and place them in the folder with the eBoot, like this. Place any PWADs in the pwads folder. When running it, once you pick an IWAD it should let you choose up to 4 PWADs to run. This works fine on my PSP E1000, just tested it. If that still doesn't work, make sure your IWADs aren't damaged. Compare the MD5 checksums using MD5summer and the official checksums from the wiki for Ultimate Doom and Doom 2. If it's not the same, your IWAD is borked. Redownload the game(s) from Steam or wherever you got it and try again.

@m8f made a neat little mod that allows you to automatically pistol start maps. Works great for me. Link: IDCLEVer Starter

I'd be glad to help playtest it as well, the screenshots are great :D