What makes a map an intro map?

Icarus had a "switch in your face" start and it worked great. (you sneaked into crate that is being transported to a spaceship)

untilitdies said:

I think Romero said it best; you should wait until you've made every other level to make your first level. You take all the best parts of your levels, and incorporate little bits and pieces into the first level to show them what they'll be getting more of later.

Although I think that is excellent advice, I don't think I've ever done that for a mapset before. I always make the first map first. Some day I'll be a good mapper.

If the first level shows all the best parts, what is there to look forward to?

^ Thankfully, it's entirely subjective for every player which parts of a given wad are the best, and sheer amount of content to play influences the view of quality as well, so that's what to look forward to: Some content to see, to play, to assess, and to be inspired by.

Also, even if the first map was the "objectively best" map of the wad, then if the map was really good, it would be likely that the subsequent maps won't be bad at all (even if "objectively worse") and therefore worth checking out. (And if the map was bad... Well, pass them.)

scifista42 said:

Would MAP01 of BTSX E2 count?

It's a great map, I have a soft spot for it, but it dragged on for too long in my opinion... as did the intro map of BtSX E1, both good maps, but not good intro maps.

Better examples (or atleast my favorite examples) of intro maps would be from Speed of Doom, Darkening E1, Requiem and Memento Mori... where it introduces the theme and what to expect... but also shows some restraint and doesn't quench your Doom fix or your complex architecture fix or whatever the selling point is, so that the player keeps on playing. Slaughter megawads are a bit different though. :P

I like berserk maps.

^ Yeah I'm a fan of berserk maps too, I'm still stuck on my intro map for my unnamed masterpiece :( It's so hard to be creative

joe-ilya said:

MAP01 of plutonia is a big and harsh map, so most of the arguments here are invalid.

Just because Plutonia did it different doesn't mean it's correct. Plutonia is a monotonously built WAD anyway so most people don't hold it in high regard.

Short, fast, light on enemy count, introduces something fresh for you to try out and help the map stand out from the other starting maps (Icarus presented its unique exits, TNT has that berserk pack in the starting room, Starter Pack has Imps crashing through a window). All of this helps the map replayability, and by extension the wad replayability.

rileymartin said:

Keep it short and simple. Also, don't blow your whole wad when it comes to monsters and weapons. Plutonia did that and, while it's objectively the best IWAD, there wasn't much in regards to enemy and difficulty progression. That's really more for longer episode or megawad type stuff.

There is no such thing as objectively best IWAD. And, subjectively, I got turned off Plutonia due to monotonous environment. TNT may have less consistent quality in it, but is more varied.

What about Map01 of Vela Pax? That is too short and has few monsters :D

Easy.

Short, with no more than 2 secrets, one OBVIOUS.
Introduction to 1 or 2 enemy types.
Access to one or two "updated" weapons.
Introduce a switch mecahnism so you know how they "work" moving forward.
Expel about 40% of the avialable ammo in the level (or conversely, be left with 60% of the available ammo)
Access to only ONE of powerup (armor)



And that's it.

Lots of good points have already been made and as others have stated it's all very subjective. That being said, a couple of my top preferences for a first level is that the level doesn't go up into the triple digits for the monster count, and also shouldn't take longer than about 5 minutes to complete. ( With the exception of the extra time it takes for secret/item hunting. )

Generally I like to see the monster count somewhere around 40-60 with at least 2 or 3 secrets. I don't like loading up the first map of a wad and seeing that I've got 200 monsters ahead of me. I prefer a quick and simple introduction to the wad to give me a taste of what's to come. If what's to come is 30 minute long drawn out slaughterfest maps then no thanks. I realize some people like this, and a standalone map with hundreds of monsters is alright if that's what you're going for. But in a wad with multiple maps there needs to be some pacing!

A 30-minute slaughterfest can be a pretty good intro to a mapset full of 2-hour slaughterfests!

rdwpa said:

A 30-minute slaughterfest can be a pretty good intro to a mapset full of 2-hour slaughterfests!

Oh god noooooooooo!

While the use of this in a user-created mapset that adds no new game mechanics is dubious, I find what makes good intro maps ( that is to say, the first map and the few following it, unless the first map is long ) is to make them straight-forward and to teach the essentials of the game to even an utter newbie to games, with as much of the teaching being done through level design over messages or tutorials as possible.

As an example, 1-1 of Super Mario Brothers. From the very beginning, you learn that you can jump and need to jump - because the very first obstacle in the game is a goomba that slowly walks towards you and will kill you if it touches you. Simple stuff, right? But of course, being Mario, the only way to eliminate it is to jump on it, and jumping over it is the only way to get past it without touching it at all. So even an utter newbie will quickly realize that it's utterly necessary to figure out how to jump, which is something you need to do throughout the entire game. Thing is, though, that's not the only thing taught in the first few screens - the familiar block formation you see in countless Mario fan-levels and tributes is arranged in such a way that an imprecise jump over or on the goomba is likely to bump the block containing the mushroom, which moves in the direction you're heading - unlike the goomba, which was moving in the opposite direction you were. That and its brighter colors make it so that it appears much better for a player than the goomba, and even if the player tries to avoid it the mushroom will likely bounce into the player, revealing itself to be a power up.

Bam. Within a single screen, the player learns how to jump, avoid or defeat enemies, what are power ups and what are enemies, and how to find power ups. And that's just if they aren't feeling explorative - they can also learn about breaking bricks and coins in the very same screen, as well.

There's tons of articles on this level in particular, since it does even more to teach a player through play, but it's not a lone case; if you've ever seen Egoraptor's Sequelitis episode on Mega Man X, he spends most of it gushing on how fantastic the intro stage in that game is at teaching the player about the game's basics. Also, Mario's other stage 1-1s tend to be just as excellent at teaching the player through play, as well. Hell, if you find any articles on the level design of juggernauts of classic gaming ( though this is hardly a trend that's completely vanished - it's just that teaching the player through messages and stuff have become so much more common place that it's harder to find examples ) you'll definitely see the first level be dissected for how good its first stage is, and perhaps how the stages afterwards expand on the concept presented by the first one.

All that said, it's pretty easy to assume with user-created levels that the player will already know a lot about the base game, so it's also easy to justify an intro map that doesn't do this unless it needs to ( see: it actually does add some new mechanic that's essential to progress ). Even with that, though, it's still a good idea to use that sort of thing to design your intro maps, as you might just teach a less experienced player an essential trick for the later levels - not to mention it makes for a pretty easy way to make something that doesn't blow all sense of progression immediately.