Monsieur E

Blocked Out

Map21: Gateway To Infinity

People I talk with about Doom probably know I don't particularly like Scythe and its general idea of "quick unassuming simple doom maps". So it's kinda funny I riffed on a Scythe map, m13, for my contribution to Blocked Out. Maybe riff is a bit too generous but I recall watching the DoD episode on Scythe randomly around the time of this map's development and being quite intrigued by the dark trench that starts the map off, under a gloomy red sky as Agony Rhapsody played. 

I had a different, much more ambitious idea for Blocked Out but that didn't manifest well and with the deadline approaching, I decided to make a different map which was more scaled down which led to this. I was pretty straightforward with what I wanted with this map, a foreboding base that hides away the rumored gateway to infinity. I also wanted the gameplay to be freeform and not restricted to linear fights even if there are clear "setpieces", I think the fact you can rush past most of these makes the map feel more kinetic. The finale is obviously the standout part of the map, a blank expanse that nonetheless beckons you towards an ominous dark monolith but not before you deal with a ruthless posse. Iirc that fight used to be harder but tony found it exceptionally obnoxious and got me to tone it down, he still doesn't like it but I mostly wanted it to be bait for people to go secret hunting and since I could do it fairly consistently, I kept it as is.

Lastly, I liked the secret itself, it was inspired by Zzul Bases (and broadly the map too since Zzul Bases is the standard which I learn from when trying to make my easy maps, generally about not being restrictive with heavier enemies, opportunities for the player to two-shot cyberdemons, secrets that tend to be more substantial and stuff of that sort).

Also since I'm using status update, I'd like to clarify that my status is a meme referring to some review which called Resurgence being hard "elitist gameplay". 

More of these wad retrospectives, this time the one I did for tsmt. 

Map 34: Tony's Revenge

I wanted to make a tony styled map with the core ideas and tropes he enjoys: BFG spam, especially against rev crowds. So, I decided to draw his avatar and have that be the battleground, I drew it mostly by hand without tracing since I felt that'd be nicer. I wanted the invulnerability rush to the switch at the start to get cyber infighting to help against the overwhelming rev hoard to be the map's "core idea" if that makes sense and the rest to be mostly cleanup.

The random platforms aren't really anything special, just copied them from the ones I drew for Oku's Rehearsal as a more interesting progression check since I want a player to have the option to just run for the exit rather than be forced to do cleanup under a timer, I've tried to stray away from my very linear fight to fight design philosophy timer centric I did for basically all of my old maps which will hopefully be more diminished in my Rusty Drill map and future maps. (like I did a nomo for my collab map for hrs (m28) and some of my timers are awful LOL)

TSMT is really good too in general, go play it. Tony really out did himself in output while managing to make each map feels different from the other while still adhering to his core ethos of making (mostly) unapologetically bfg spammy speedmaps. 

My 10 Line Massacre Maps:

They're awful, don't play them. Except revenant bonanza mostly coz I like the visuals of that. But in my defense, they were like my third maps :p 

Random Thoughts on my 60mm maps.

Map33: Oku's Rehearsal
I wanted to make an Oku's map, and the rehearsal part is intended to refer to its low difficulty and simplistic, as in it can be seen as a "rehearsal" for other "Oku's" maps (play frog and toad, axolotl, and capybara; their Oku's maps are very cool). I'd probably improve the platforming if I wanted to make it a serious map as right now, I'd say it feels a bit awkward and not that satisfying to perform. Decently proud of the aesthetics, the metal platforms cast in a large void paired with Waiting To Romero To Play makes for a mysterious and uneasy vibe.

Map34: Automaton
Cyberdemon BFG fights are fun :). Funnily enough I tried to make it so the exit switch trigger is only in the center of the switch so you can't just go for the exit right away, but fortunately, it's still pressable from afar so hurray for UV-speed :p. And yeah the stuck cyberdemon is intentional if anybody is wondering.