MAP04 "Valley of Demons" [UDMF], MAP06: "Rumble in the Jungle" [UDMF] AND MAP08 "Trouble In Tiny Temple" [UDMF]

Valley of Demons

Map slot: 04

IWAD: Doom 2
Source Port: GzDoom
Difficulty: UV and HMP
Music: "Desk Lamp" by Stuart Rynn
Textures: Otex 1.1

Download:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10bQ0LF60TAF6tNY95tsw-3YKaAOB-Z3M/view?usp=sharing

I have been working on a new project, and since the release of it is probably at least a year away, I have decided to release one of the maps to get some early feedback.

So please, tell me everything that is off with this map. I always want to improve my mapping.

Edit: I have received some feedback on Discord: It seems that I forgot to remove a trigger for an unused script, now the game will complain about it but it shouldn't affect anything.
Also I should probably tone down the difficulty a little bit in the release version.

Just played it in Ultra-Violence killing every monsters and obteining 5 secrets. The aestethics are so good! Especially with the midi! I found the combat really entertaining, a little challenging but i really enjoyed some of the mean traps like the one with the revenant and the archvile and the fight with a lot fo imps, pain elemental, and the stationary archvile. I really like the level design honestly. I have not found all the secrets but they look really cool, they're not too cryptic nor too easy.

I have made few little changes to this map based on the feedback I have received:

-I added additional health, armor and ammo pickups so the map should be little bit gentler

-I removed the trigger for an unused script

-I made small adjustments to the switch puzzle, hopefully it's now easier to understand

Im still going to try to get through the first version. Ive been hanging one hell of a blast getting slaughtered by and slaughtering demons in this map. I just havnt been able to put it all together in one run to make an exit. Will prolly check out the revision too but only after i conquer the first. 😃

Neat Map!
Intense and Good Looking
4/5

55 minutes ago, BerserkerNoir said:

Neat Map!
Intense and Good Looking
4/5

Thanks for the video. I made couple of quick improvements to the map after having watched it.

Finally beat the first version of this puppy. I kind of feel like a cheated a little because i didnt remember waht map slot it was and i kinda got a kick out of the renamed original maps so i just started continuous play though the levels till i finally reached yours. That left me pretty much fully armed at the start and diffused quite a bit of the difficulty on such a hot start. Oh well, it was still a roller coaster. Ended up finding every secret but only after sniffing out the computer map. Really coulda used that crusher earlier but again oh well. The second part of the switch puzzle took some of my untapped brain power, who knew i had any. I was playing on lzdoom default comp lvl and there were quite a few missing textures around the base of and up top around the outside of the castley little area that has the map in it. I am going to download and play the revised version, if nothing else so that i can get an actual pistol start completion out of it. Anywho, your maps continue to supply a beautiful and fun play and you remain one of my favorite mappers. Thanks for making and sharing this. 😃

God damn, what a crazy map! Very good looking and aesthetically nice too.
 

2 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

 

Thanks for the playthrough. Combat-wise I'm going easy on the player in this map (I made this simple map a while ago) and I'm aiming to amp things up gradually in this project.

Though I suppose I can add a little bit more teeth to the map....

MAP06: "Rumble in the Jungle"

Map slot: 06

IWAD: Doom 2
Source Port: GzDoom
Difficulty: UV only for now
Music: "Rave On" from Killer 7, midi from vgmusic.com
Textures: Otex 1.1

Download:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wuIgjXT_Y2tl4KDG_Ox9QIeTRX3nkRYT/view?usp=sharing

Seeing how useful the feedback for the MAP04 has been, I have decided to release a beta version of MAP06. Unlike the previous map, this one is almost entirely focused on combat and the map is intended to have some teeth in it (the map is also shorter).

I thought it would be useful to get some feedback on the combat, so that I don't end up making an entire megawad full of lackluster combat.

Edit: Also sorry about the file size. Slade decided that it hates my guts today, so I just included all Otex textures.

I just tried out Rumble in the Jungle on UV. Haven't gotten past the first big fight yet but the fast pace and frantic feeling is really cool. I like it a lot!

Played through Rumble In The Jungle and found the combat in the 2 main set pieces pretty damn engaging and fun. The first one took a bunch of tries and a little thinking and patience. The second big fight wasnt exactly hard but did take a bunch of tries and made me prioritze some things and work out a stratagy. Oh yeah I almost forgot about the trap inside the yellow door with the blue key, that was a little spicy, I liked it. Being as the level is unfinished beta there is ALOT of room to add a ton of incedental combat and some beautiful areas that remain mostly if not completely empty. The fight inside the blue door was rather tame but I feel sometimes its good to mix up easier stuff into the mix. Npe for the few minor errors, the room that lets out all the pinkies with spider up on a ledge needs reworking. There are stairs to get up to the spiders but right in front of them is a pretty redundant seeming lift that the spiders kept activating and getting stuck on rendering them ineffective. Out in the large outside arena past the red door there was a big section of floor missing a texture off to the left of the arena, kind of near the perched Vile. And lastly there is another little spot of floor missing a texture inside the secret yellow skull room, just left of the entrance. So yeah I dont know if youve figured it out yet but Ive really liked all of your levels and think this map has a TON of potetial to become one of your best. Cant wait till it becomes a more finished product and I get to replay it again. 😃

Thanks for the feedback, though I can't see any missing textures at my end.

I wonder if its a source port issue. I play on lzdoom and have run across this before with the missing floor textures but you're the first one to say you dont see it... the world may never know.

Can't find anything to fix in lzdoom either.

Valley of Demons was very good. I really dig big, exploration heavy maps with interesting and memorible visuals. When it comes to architecture, it was a really great map. Fights felt clever and interesting, even though they were pretty easy for me. But honestly, I enjoy this kind of difficulty, not every map should be crazy hard, it easier to appreciate its beauty that way. And it's not like the weren't any threats, some good traps and monster placement. Snipers were placed well and applied decent preasure. I really liked that trap when you dropped down to meet an archvile and revenant, because even though I expected an ambush, I did not expect THAT, and it was really cool, I like unpredictable stuff. 

About secrects:

Also, one issue that I found: on Valley of Demons there was a missing texture for me:
 

About MAP06: "Rumble in the Jungle":

Even though a shorter map, I still really liked the visual design, architecture and feeling of exploration still was there, everything just looks really good. Fights are  good too, harder than previous map. First big fight with archvile in the middle and a lot of revenenants I've done by manipulating revenants to the one side before lowering on the plaform, then killing the archvile, and let the rest infight, while focusing on pain elementals. I've learned to do it pretty consistently. The one with revenants and chaingunners coming out of fireblu teleporters killed me, because I didn't expect an archvile to appear later, there was a long pause so I thought that was it and relaxed. That's unexpected, so it's a good trap. The fight with mancubi you can just cheese. Just use the switch before grabbing the key, run to the elevator and gun them down from above. The fight with cyber is epic, but you have a lot of space to move, so it's not the hardest of that kind. Considering this map has a secret exit, I assume it's at the middle of the wad, so this fight fits as an ending to this map well, no need to make it harder. I like it when the cyber kills the archviles, so, considering there was a space to manevur, I forced him to kill them for me, same with almost everyone else. Somehow, even though I rely on infighting a lot, I was still low on ammo and finished cyber with a shotgun. But I almost never used berserk, so that's maybe the reason why I was low on ammo, cyber also barely took any damage from the enemies somehow. The secret wasn't hard to find for me, but I don't think it should be more hidden. You don't want people to miss a secret map, probably. 

MAP08: "Trouble In Tiny Temple"

Map slot: 08

IWAD: Doom 2
Source Port: GzDoom
Difficulty: UV and HMP
Music: "Adagio for Strings" from Rise of the Triad
Textures: Otex 1.1

I made three levels for this project during this year's NaNoWADMo and I have decided to publish MAP08 early. I thought a brief and concise map would be good for pacing since the next fours maps will have at least 400 monsters in each of them. Other than that I don't have much else to say about this map.
 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mxigUounMNoVojA_kuEkd1XoqQ-1jeIx/view?usp=sharing

MAP31: "Weeping Souls" [ABANDONED]

Map slot: 31

IWAD: Doom 2
Source Port: GzDoom
Difficulty: All
Music: "Briefing" from Descent 2

Textures: Otex 1.1

This was meant to be the first secret level of this wad, conceptually this started as a homage to Doom 64. However, I have decided to replace this with another map and I have decided to release this since it's almost done. Maybe someone will get some enjoyment out of this.
The map should be 100%:able, unless there are bugs I have missed. Some secret might be annoying to find since I never came up with a more elegant way to access them (there are few hidden switches).

I highly recommend playing this map with hardware accelerated rendering. The map works with software rendering but it looks really damn odd. 

Also, I'd be interested in hearing if someone manages to break the scripting in the final encounter.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K-m2v3VmjOvFMXgYyKEp9KFnWnxKrQf0/view?usp=sharing