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.

I'm the same way. I usually burn out around MAP20.

It's definitely not dying in terms of revenue - but I think there's fewer and fewer jobs. Most of the actual editing and compositing is actually done by freelancers. You find yourself caring more and more about a career path and what it "embodies" about you, the more you put in all this time researching and interviewing and selling yourself. It's kind of a double-edged sword and it can hurt you. I just really thought I could fall into steady, predictable yet engaging office work semi-related to my interests and degree. Who knew the bare minimum required so much luck and work? Guess that's millennial life tho.

There was a guy making DaggerXL, in the years before Daggerfall Unity, and it looked really promising. I used to post on the old forum. I'm excited for Tamriel Rebuilt (Morrowind) so, who knows? Maybe by the time TES VI has come out I'll be too busy trying to recreate Morrowind in Daggerfall...

Fun fact about me: I won my dad the Pick 4 lottery when I was 2 or 3 years old. "8212" in New Jersey, you can look it up somewhere. :\ that's rough man. I'm currently underemployed, and wondering if it's worth it to persevere and break into my desired field (book publishing) or if, like, "publishing" isn't even an industry anymore so much as it's a vanity field where a few incredibly lucky and privileged people can afford to work, under superficial prestige of furthering knowledge. I'm passionate about that too, but apparently it doesn't matter. Half the people with actual jobs (and even some of the ones with just internships) not only have Bachelor's degrees, but had an extra $6,000 to spend on the NYU/Columbia publishing courses. I was incredibly lucky after graduation. I took an internship writing copy for a small website, and they kept me on for about 2.5 years before running out of money. I don't think I'll be able to replicate that luck again. Sometimes I just think about getting a job at Best Buy or Micro Center. At least they probably like Doom.

Gigantic PL/PL2 styled map I started years ago. I want to get it done so badly but I keep forgetting my plans for keys, doors, etc.

Not working full time currently, so it's very stressful being cooped up all day. But three big changes I've made are: Eating healthier. I try to have at least one vegetarian meal a day. It forces me to be a bit creative when I'm out shopping, and also lets me try new things. Going on "artist dates." From The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, she discusses spending a day (ideally away from tech) to go off, explore, see something you've been wanting to see, and just break from the routine of the week. It also serves the purpose of "refilling" your pool of inspiration for creative work. I usually go for a hike in the nature preserve behind my house. Observing, but not analyzing my motives. I guess this is like the mindfulness meditation other posters mentioned in this thread. For a long time I thought I was driven by "emotions" or "recognition" or something, and it was awful thinking of myself as doing everything I do for inherently "wrong" reasons. I've since accepted that I have different motivations for everything that I do, and that it's natural, because we're humans and we live in the world. If I write them out in my journal I can often separate the good and bad motivations pretty intuitively, which has renewed my faith that I do have a "gut instinct" after all.

Nothing right now. Trying to decide if I want to play Morrowind or Oblivion, I keep both constantly modded and installed on my secondary HD. :P I used to be very purist about RPG mechanics and so I hated Oblivion. Morrowind's clunky, and took time to grow on me, but it reached me at the right age. Now I just don't care anymore. Skyrim is still boring, right?

I watched "The Player" from 1992. I'm not a film person but it's kind of funny in the way Coen Bros. films are. The opening shot is 8 minutes long or so, the film seems to have a lot going for it in the visuals department. The title transition honestly made me think it was older - like from the early 80's. It's such a pretty film.

I used to spend summer and winter breaks doing all my modding, even through college. I majored in English Lit so my workload wasn't bad, but I just never could really get into the zone with mapping while living with roommates. After I graduated I spent 2.5 years working, just nonstop, and I thought that was what I was "supposed" to do. I'm just really bad at multitasking and figured I was growing up. I do have two other serious hobbies - creative writing and electric bass. I got laid off in September and I'm realizing I don't have many "grown up" goals other than financial independence. In fact I'm realizing I'm still very, very protective of my free time. I got back into Doom mapping recently after my dad passed away, because I just had to do something I enjoyed instead of killing myself with the corporate world again. I love this community so much. Back to OP's question though I usually go out and be "social" once a week. That leaves lots of time for projects and stuff. Lol are you me? I'm only 25 but I've never finished a map...ever. I used to think I had to keep up with trends and feedback and stuff. Now I feel like I just shouldn't give a crap anymore. And just do it for fun.

When I was younger I used to really wish I could live among those fictional worlds and maps, whether it was Doom or D&D or Half-Life. I'm also a big sci fi/fantasy world and can relate to that feeling of having a purpose but wanting to remain a pariah, a loner. Likewise I feel the Doom community and the desire to share creations with complete strangers brings a kind of acceptance that's harder to find in the real world - you do your own thing, others play it, you go back off to playing on your own... In a way it saddens me that I don't feel that pull as strongly anymore, even though I guess I'm happier in the other areas of my life now.