Phobus

Thanks @Doomkid and @TheMagicMushroomMan - maybe I’ll finally break through to “household name” status with the next release… or the one after (or eventually). I’m not going anywhere!

I’ve been slowly going through the original Doom on Xbox One using the Bethesda port over the last few days. It feels quite fresh and challenging using the controller, even though I know the maps like the back of my hand. I think I’ve largely gotten used to it, though, and aside from a scare in E1M1 whilst I got to grips with the controls and retro physics and blockmap, I’ve not really been in any danger of dying despite playing on UV. Halfway through E2 I’d say I’m feeling pretty comfortable, now.

I know I shouldn’t - given we, as a community, have an embarrassment of riches where great maps are concerned - but I’m always gutted to get nowhere near these sorts of topics and lists.

It’s easy to forget how much time and effort I put into that back then. I’m glad it’s finding an audience at last!

It's not pretty, but I've made a map: Hit the Bricks (Google Drive link) Music is a MIDI of "Machine Gun Majesty" by Soilwork. Not sure who did the cover, but I got it off of MidiMelody.ru if you need some sort of source to cite! Build time was in the 1hr 10 minute zone in the end, not counting testing or picking out a MIDI, so hopefully that's acceptable! I've implemented difficulty settings (just by altering the armour and power ups there are in the map) as well as a really lazy SSG Deathmatch and an untested co-op that should be pretty harsh. Map isn't too difficult, IMO. EDIT: Just updated now (17:28 GMT +1) to fix a few little fuck ups in the target source port (GZDoom handles "Not Cooperative" flags to also mean they're flagged "Multiplayer-Only" implicitly, apparently, so I had a few SSGs and a chaingun lying around that I didn't want the single player to get to) and move a wall a bit to avoid a texture cut-off that I was reminded of. Always test in the target port!

Thanks for the video of The Slough of Merriment, @smeghammer! Looks like ammo was a challenge without that secret...

Heh - me again. This is the power of uploading tons of stuff for years on end. Number 3 on the main list is an absolute slog on UV. Hell Revealed and the like were what I was playing at the time, with a dash of HeXen style hub backtracking. Good luck to any brave enough to take that on. Maybe consider swapping the music for something more suitable for a huge map, than the very heavy couple of minutes I got from Tom_D that should've just been boss music or something!

I just had a go at running this with the unity port of Doom II (I bought it and the original Doom through the XBox store so I can use them for split-screen multiplayer - plus they were only £2 each!) and the port crashes when trying to load it, so I suspect there would be some work there. Obviously I'd be happy to work with whoever necessary to sort that out (and get multiplayer stuff in there properly), but I'm sure there's plenty of other WADs way higher up the priority listing!

Agreed on the overall design, but I don’t remember even basic stuff like vertical alignment around windows or ceiling beams, plus some of these scrolling door “tracks” were brickwork and other textures that don’t have a good explanation. I’m not saying he didn’t necessarily know, but he did definitely not do it! I can believe that for sure. Those were outrageously tough to get any purchase on even continuous with a ~90% success rate on secret finding. I’ll get back to it, although probably after Khorus’ Speedy Shit.

Just finished Mini-level MegaWAD on continuous UV, much like I said I would. Wasn't super keen on MAP30, as it's an IOS, but it wasn't too bad to get out of the way. Rest of the set isn't super polished (none of the door tracks are flagged lower unpegged, for example) but it's so violent and fun that I don't care. Still vying for one of my favourite megaWADs. Also a fair example of how I can enjoy slaughter near the end - in small maps with plenty of ammo. No idea how beatable it is on pistol starts, but it'd be way harder than what I experienced. Just as good as I'd hoped it would be, all in all, which makes me very happy!

Thanks for the play @smeghammer - the MAP02 from that little pack is the main one. Basically just a big Christmas card, whilst the intro map was something small and mean I'd thought of and wanted to add to get the player started.

Here’s me at the finish line of the GE Classics London to Brighton Classic Car Run (I was in the Sports, Kit and Replica category, which was open to all ages). Fantastic day out and so many cool cars to see!

This thread is serving as a reminder of why Justice - Infernal Mechanics never made it anywhere near a Persephone volume. I do miss the days of such joyous experimentation with ZDoom features, though. The crouching section with the Munchkins is probably the best bit, although the moveable crate was the most satisfying thing to get working.

After my latest post decrying modern megaWADs and saying how I’m not super into Doom at the moment, I decided to check a few options out. So I played the first four levels of Insertion, which is in Compendium. Nothing special so far, and I suspect it’ll not excite me much, so I then had the idea to check out some of the favourites I keep talking about but don’t actually remember. Four levels into Khorus’ Speedy Shit and I appreciate the polish, but am finding the tight ammo a little draining, so... I revisited Mini-level MegaWAD, which I played once years and years ago and loved. My “I’ll just check out a few maps” play through ended up being about 18 maps long! It’s not polished, and it’s hilariously cruel at points, but it’s like... jalapeño poppers or something. The maps are spicy, but moreish. Knowing the maps are short means I’m happy to keep coming back for another try, and the creativity of the setups and high speed of the general play has been great. Even the very obviously slaughter map secret levels haven’t dampened my enthusiasm. This will be the continuous play through I finish next for sure. Loving it!

Explanations: Favourite Soundtrack: ZDCMP2 has a great main track, but also the rest of the music is very enjoyable and isn't MIDIs, which is nice in itself. I was tempted to put in 25yoe, as I picked it out myself, but there's some properly crap MIDIs in there. Favourite of All Time: ZDCMP1 because it's just a little more digestible than ZDCMP2 and captures whimsy from my favourite period of ZDoom mapping that ZDCMP2 just doesn't quite manage, what with it's additional polish and story. Favourite Ending: ZDCMP2 has a great boss sequence and fraught escape, but even better is if you've made it through NG+ twice, as you get an amusing joke ending after the escape (I think... I've never checked it out myself, but I was involved with the idea) Haven't Played But Want To: There's a couple of options here, and my main reason for this is that I actually don't care much for Doom at the moment and am happy playing other games. Rowdy Rudy 2 gets the nod as Doomkid has a strong track record and has a similar idea about the joys of Doom at lower difficulties to me. You Love, Everyone Hates: I don't think I feel strongly enough in favour of any project that isn't also well-liked to have an answer here. I reckon plenty of things I like aren't popular enough, and the main influences for most mappers aren't from the WADs I wish they were, but that's not the same as everybody hating what I love. You Hate, Everyone Loves: I could chuck a list here that goes on a long time, but basically the endless glut of Scythe 2 and Alien Vendetta-inspired megaWADs is tedious for me. I lose interest way before MAP30 and can usually point to an escalation in mass of monsters that I don't have patience for, coupled with everything being trapped or a set piece. It's very popular on here, and I just am not interested. Fondest Memory: Community Chest 3 - not the mapset itself, which I revisited not long ago and found to be a slog, but the sheer excitement of my first proper community project contribution. The anticipation of the release, the anxiousness of looking into the comments and the joy of getting a couple of positive posts from some notable names was a roller coaster that got me into community projects for a good 10 years or so, before the ubiquity of them and frequency of maps that put me off of actually playing them made participation seem pointless. Always Come Back To: ZDCMP1, for the same reasons it's my favourite. It's basically the apex of the era I loved most, tied as it was to my discovery of everything ZDoom and how new and exciting it was at the time. Guilty Pleasure: Yakworld - there's a fair few old maps I liked at the time (the 90s) and still enjoy now. This is easily the one with the most personality.

I'm still working my way through the Expert Parks from RCT2 Wacky Worlds at the moment. The South American park wasn't much of a challenge, as not-very-limited space and easy finance aren't much of an obstacle to pulling in guests. The North American "extreme rides only" Hawaiian island park was the hardest so far, as it's easy to fluff the start and then struggle for money for a couple of years. Once you get underway properly it's easy though, as the guest objective is so low. The European theme park was a joke, as you can just delete most of the scenery, flat rides and pathing right off the bat to clear the loan and get the roller coasters and transport ride up and running. Then you just build a load of flat rides and chuck in a roller coaster to get the value back up. Nailed it in less than two years. Currently on the Australasia one, which they seem to think is a challenge, but buying just enough land to link the small amusement park to the more interesting Seaworld-style setup and clearing a load of unnecessary pathing from the latter to drop the loan has let me push up entrance fees and make plenty of money from shops whilst also making it halfway to the object guest count in 1/5th of the available time, all whilst clearing the loan. I agree with Chris Sawyer - once you get over the customised theming, it becomes readily apparent that these scenarios were designed as art first, rather than playable challenges. Building modestly-scaled rides well and keeping advertising going, combined with clearing unnecessary paths and scenery (where that makes money) seems to be all you need to do to succeed comfortably here. You often get so much time to do the objectives that you can have fun for the last year or two, building ambitious rides and messing around with the scenery basically unfettered.

I just want to chip in and say that I'm really happy to see The Villa of Pain here - a great WAD from back in the day and one of the first custom levels I played for Doom II.

The first map of Tiny Pack 1 is a contemporary remake of LEDGES, which is probably the most obscure thing one could do in 2009. Saying that, Coils of the Twisted Tale riffs on a couple of maps made by my brother and dad in DEU back in the mid-late 90s (as well as a load of my own scrawls from around that time) when none of us really knew what we were doing, so that's even more obscure. Mini-Level MegaWAD by Wim Vanrie, the Nebula 95 series by lupinx-kassman and Khorus' Speedy Shit aren't that obscure, but they're probably my main influences in making megaWADs these days, with hints of more famous authors and their work.

I consider myself more of a mapper than anything else, so I’ll approach this topic from that angle. I think a good secret exit in a regular map is a series of secrets and puzzles woven through the map. My E3M6 in Doom The Way id Did is probably the best example of this, as some of the secrets in that map are just secrets and others chain together to open up an extra area and get you a key for the locked door in there. MAP15 of Scourge, my first release, also follows this line of thinking, but is a bit more primitive, whilst MAP15 of 25 Years on Earth dedicated every secret to the secret exit, with a chain of five secrets that build up to block off the undesirable normal exit and give you the key to unlock the secret one. MAP31 from the same megaWAD has a secret exit primarily built around the 30 second door sector special, so is the exception to the rule in that it’s more about speed running and knowing in advance, although I did add an alternative way of getting there in the One Year Late Edition. I think even the released Virus episode I made adhered to the rule of multiple secrets unlocking the exit, but I’d have to check it out again to be sure. As for what secret levels should be... I’m more of the school of thought that they should be a reward, rather than a hidden challenge. Now, the reward may be a gimmick that’s hopefully fun, or it could be a secret weapon (the BFG9000 as a reward for continuous players in 25yoe MAP32, and even the early plasma rifle in MAP31 are the main examples), but also a “different” theme or style of map - even a guest map - can be cool. Hiding a Doom-themed map in Virus, or Twisted Joke in my first volume of Persephone, were good examples of how a fun change of theme can be a reward, as was the upbeat holiday-themed 25yoe MAP31. A more advanced map made after everything else in Scourge was less good, although at least an improvement on an hour-long attempt at a magnum opus, which was what was there in the original release before I separated that map out into its own thing (Warpzone). So, in short - a chain of secrets leading to a significant reward, ideally both the map itself being a fun theme and also some kind of boon for continuous play.

I associate rapidly animated avatars with childishness. Otherwise they’re just an image that makes it quicker and easier to identify a poster and decide whether or not to read what they’ve said.

As I was pretty vocal about when I released 25yoe, I like KISS. Particularly after seeing them live. They do a decent range of rock and have some genuinely enduring songs. They seem to be being hit with the Nickelback stick here, which is a new one on me. Then again, I’ve seen them live as well and can pick out plenty of songs I like. I have no regrets about putting Detroit Rock City or I Was Made For Loving You in 25yoe 😝 AC/DC are a bit less of a thing for me, as I find them quite hard to engage with, particularly when confronted with an album (even a Best Of), but the well-known ones are alright. Most bands from the 70s that went on a long time (both of the ones mentioned here, plus bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, for example) got much better in the 80s, in my opinion, but I’m slowly feeling my way back into musical history and hearing stuff I like from the 70s. The sort of thing that shows up on trucking or driving compilation CDs seems to be a good place to start, and then you can explore some back catalogues for less well known good stuff.

I suppose the interesting thing will be to see when activity levels stop feeling like they’re building, or even begin to decline. With the popularity of various Discord groups dedicated to mapping and Doom, as well as this forum being quite busy and various social media platforms (I include Reddit here) having, I assume, plenty going on, we’re clearly not there yet. Will we notice if ever it does start to die down? With the sheer momentum and weight of historic activity behind this community, is that even possible? I’m pretty happy embarking on a two year project, comfortable in the knowledge that there’s still going to be a community to release it to when I’m done, which in itself says a lot.

I finished The Darkening Episode 2 last night. The first two maps are pretty rough, as they’re low on health and armour. I ended up replaying MAP01 knowing where me secret, missable armour was to get myself through it with a decent bit of health leftover so I could survive the hitscan onslaught of MAP02. After that it’s really good. Great Quake II flavoured tech bases with nice custom textures, nods at continuity and visual story telling and a comfortable difficulty on UV, with plenty of clever vanilla mapping tricks and an episode length that didn’t wear out it’s welcome. Very, very recommended. One or two of the non-secret important items seem to require SR50 or something else that I couldn’t readily do in GZDoom, but I survived anyway.

I had mentally composed a response to a post in this thread, but I saw the warning point coming a mile off and decided not to bother. Maybe the moderation is working. Anyway, I find it pretty weird that one would get so attached to people on here. After 16 years of Doom community time, I can point to users I liked and plenty I don’t/didn’t, but it’s the place itself that has value. Even ignoring all of the history, it’s a good place to find more stuff to play and share things that I’ve made. What profile pictures and made up names are in those threads or behind the WADs is just background noise, really. It seems like most users only hang around a few years before drifting away, and that seems pretty normal. There’s a lot more to life than a few forums and Discords for one game franchise. Sometimes people come back eventually anyway, such is the longevity of the community. Embrace the change. Feel free to drop out yourself for a month or five. I do it fairly often and it’s never been a big deal. It’s all still here to come back to!

I’m hoping the demand lasts into next year, as I’m working on something vanilla myself!