StoneFrog

This is really general, but I love it when a cramped encounter forces you to run/strafe into other areas to get some space between yourself and the enemies. It can be a fun "oh crap" moment if you're running from something and fall into a pit and have to fight your way out of a smaller encounter, for example. MAP17: Mountain Doom from Plutonia 2 has a lot of this. Actually, I think most of Gusta's maps on the WAD do. Exploring and getting more glimpses of the map whilst under pressure can feel a lot more exciting than levels with very clearly separated encounters.

Vaults of Zin

Jimmy- I've been lurking on DW for like ten years now and always loved your music. I've been working on some Heretic maps for a while now but the last Heretic PWAD I played was Curse of D'Sparil, I think...so glad to have some new content. Looks great!

Growing up? Level design was like my punk rock. I didn't have many friends, and from an early age I was on message boards connecting with others over different interests. I always had cruddy computers so I tended to favor older games, and I just gravitated towards designing levels for anything I really liked. It was the place where I felt most comfortable. And along the way, this really niche hobby is actually what exposed me to the world. Learning about mods, modders, going through all those ripped textures and sounds and music while learning about other games...it taught me a lot about (maybe kitsch) culture and other people. In-game worlds would cause me to imagine what the real world was like outside my boring little town. The real world would cause me to imagine things I could make in games. My dad was a painter, and when I was little his landscapes and photographs used to inspire me so much. But I never cared for visual art, too static; and I never had the attention span to write full-featured stories. Level design was the medium where I could learn new things, respond to what others were creating, and combine the influences and things I liked about others' work into my own. Imagining new enemies and encounters and stories (told overtly or not) has always just been so fun. I loved modding for Half-Life and Sven Co-op, another game engine where the barrier to entry was pretty low and you could have some really fantastical settings as well as some really realistic ones. To this day nothing else quite hits that spot with me. Sometimes I wish it were more mainstream (I almost never talk about modding to people I meet IRL because it's just so hard to explain the various things to them) but on the other hand, again, it's a wonderful global online community. Also, Doom modding in particular makes me feel this sort of late 90s/early 00s magic from my childhood. Again it's something about the age of the technology, the simplicity, the MIDI covers of Gen X music, the pixel art...that's just the sort of medium and level of fidelity that most indie games had when I was growing up. 2.5D and 2D worlds that aren't quite real but try their hardest to be creative with what they have, to evoke a rough and almost abstract sense of place. (I was also really into Adventure Game Studio and RPGMaker.) I've had ups and downs in my life. Sometimes I'm more outgoing. Sometimes I'm more of a thrillseeker. Sometimes I'll take a break from actually playing games. It never lasts, but god damn, I'll never get tired of seeing how other people create their own stuff. In a way it's like a hive mind/collective consciousness thing. We all love the same thing and sometimes the things we create can be so similar. Other times they can be so different. And modding for old games is great because you can undo a few lindefs/brushes and radically reinvent your level at the speed of your imagination. I'll echo what others say here in that it's really relaxing. Put on your favorite rock and roll playlist, draw some lines, undo/redo, and just marvel when you open up a sector or raise a floor and it completely changes the feel of the level. Suddenly, you're off to your next idea. The only other art form that comes remotely close to this speed for me is poetry. That might sound weird, but the creative process is very similar. I love Doomworld and I've never even officially released anything LOL.

I've been making maps since my dad bought me Civilization III, and I probably won't stop with Doom anytime soon. I like drawing and photography, which feel related sometimes. But I also write poetry and started learning electric bass because I love music. Hbu?

Feels, man. My kid self never would have thought it possible that there'd be a brief time in college where I actually believed I was "popular." Sharing a class and going to the same DIY punk shows? It was so nice to have people recognize me. I always took it for granted and would sneak off with just the one or two people I really cared about, but the universe doesn't discriminate. A lot of those people have disappeared, either died from illness or settled down with an SO or just completely changed. I wish I accepted more people unconditionally. Although where's the fun in that? Something something esteem, don't give yourself away too freely. Sometimes I feel bad that my dad had me so late in life (he was in his 40's when I was born), because what I gained in maturity I lost in terms of my patience/naivete for most of the people in my age group. Just couldn't ever relate to what they were going through. I was always too existential and nerdy. And I still am now, even though I've gotten better at seeming confident. So old guard Doomworlders, how the hell do you make friends after college? I'm 26 and still can't figure it out.

This is so amazing. I'm not on the forum as much as I used to but this is so bizarre and nostalgic and great. I love the QFG series and I love fan projects like this with the ripped art, the vibrant colors, the sound design, the mix of influences, it's great. Echoing Mere_Duke, it's like some kind of second childhood.

I always wondered about this. I used to play on ZDoom and mainly use Doom Retro now. But wow, Boom makes me nostalgic. Were there any high-quality MegaWADs back then that made good use of all the features like scrolling, deep water, colormaps, etc.? It's content that I crave.

Love the sky in that picture Breezeep.

I'm playing Blood. I think it's my favorite Build engine game, I can't believe a game where half the arsenal is for setting enemies on fire/blowing them up feels so perfectly balanced.

Ooh I dig it. Are you making something for Heretic? (I haven't been on DW in ages.)

I said the same thing when I first got Windows 7...I wanted to change everything back to XP’s Tahoma.

I really liked the fact it exposed me to lots of great music from previous generations, in MIDI form. But that was mainly unintentional and came from fan creations.