*2020 HAKAWARDS* I'm Also Looking to Play and Record Your Maps 2 *CLOSED*

[HAK3180]

The previous thread is now closed. This is the same thing. The only difference is that the table of contents will now be an external link to a Google spreadsheet.

 

My General Guidelines 

I’m only interested in Doom wads, that is, Doom, Doom 2, TNT, or Plutonia.

 

I prefer (but do not require) simple/old school. I’d rather not freelook (I’ve usually not had a problem even when it is recommended), use new weapons, or fight lots of new monsters. I do not even bind crouch to a key, and I generally don't play wads that require jumping.

 

If you specify an exclusive or preferred port, I will probably use it. Generally, I use Crispy, PrBoom+, GlBoom+, GZDoom, and sometimes Retro.

YOU  MUST give some direction regarding compatibility, or I will simply ignore your request.

 

I would prefer you give me a rough length and difficulty level so I can plan accordingly. My soft maximum length is about three hours per map. Anything longer than one hour may result in multiple videos.

 

I will offer some commentary throughout the video.

 

I intend to do FDAs, but I will probably save sometimes and it’s also possible (unlikely) that you will get a SDA or TDA.

 

Even if I play your entire megawad, you do not have to credit me as a playtester.

 

If you quote a post that contains a video, please remove the video from the quote.

 

I will most likely not react or respond to your post requesting a video. I will invulnerability your post when I have downloaded the files and am ready to play it. This means any last minute updates must be in a new post or PM, but it may still be too late. If I do not invulnerability your request post, I may have overlooked it or I may be ignoring it because it does not provide adequate information to play.

 

So please, post links to your maps!

 

INDEFINITE HIATUS

I am no longer taking requests but will "catch up" and continue to post videos until near the end of the month. I am going to take some time to work on my megawad and am planning to take at least a year off.

 

 

Table of Contents

Edited February 26, 2021 by HAK3180

[nicolas monti]

Mass extinction WIP

Map08: Tournaisian

Map09: Visean

Map10: Serpukhovian

 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/ycxky8mf12eep6g/tournais-vise-serpukhov.wad

 

E2 this time, very fond of map08, I hope no critical bugs show up, as always your criticism is very helpful my friend!

[Bauul]

Congrats on the new thread!

 

I recently updated an older map of mine. I don't think you played the original version, but either way, if you're interested in trying a nice little medium length city map, I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts on this:

 

 

[Shawny]

I wanted to wait a bit, for more maps to come out, but I really have no feedback about map02 in my demo set.

And I would really like to know someone else´s opinion.

You did me a great favour by testing and commenting on my first released map, so I would like to hear your thoughts on map02.

(Ofc you can play map01, but that is was a single release that is just part of the set.)

 

[HAK3180]

@Bauul, I did not record a video, but I definitely played it; how could I forget the snake? But I'm thinking I may not have ever finished it. Either way, I'll be happy to (re)play and record.

 

@Shawny, After a very quick glance, I'd advise you to make some shorter maps if you're going to do a full megawad. People seem to be prejudiced against megawads from the start, and over 500 enemies within the first two maps may not bode well. But I'd be happy to give it a go.

 

In any case, I probably won't have either of these up until Tuesday. Friday afternoon (UTC-400) is about the worst time to make a request for prompt service, as I often don't record Saturday-Monday.

[Fonze]

Hey, idk that this will be at all up your alley but I just released a limit removing, ultimate doom map; if you have time to play it I'm always happy to hear feedback. That said, if this map isn't for you don't feel the need to press on; if that's the case move on to something else you have fun doing :)

 

It will play in any limit removing port, such as crispy; I tested it in PrBoom+ under -complevel 3.

 

 

 

[HAK3180]

2 hours ago, Fonze said:

[Driven]

Yeah, it looked like something I might enjoy. I'll take her for a spin. YOLO Nightmare FDA then?

[HAK3180]

@RonnieJamesDiner

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

Very fun. You have to be strategic. You have to demonstrate a little bit of parkour. You have to shoot; you can’t just run. (Well, you probably could...)  The monsters are well placed and the obstacles are well planned.

[HAK3180]

@RonnieJamesDiner

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

It’s almost like Hunted got a facelift. It’s a game of ammo use and quick movement. It’s terrifying even though there’s really only one trap.

[PeterMoro]

Congratulations on the new thread man! You are a great Doom reviewer, probably because you are a mapper yourself as well and you understand the 'nuts and bolts', as well as what makes a map fun and interesting. You are a good Doom Player, too. I often watch your videos and enjoy the commentary. You notice a lot of details and always explain why something is good or bad or stupid. Also you are not too loud or immature. Complete opposite of the "(loud voice) Whaaaaats uuuuup duuuudes" style of reviewer, for example.

Looking forward to your future play throughs and workin' hard on finishing my latest map ; )

cheers HAK!

[RonnieJamesDiner]

@HAK3180 Glad you had some fun on those two! And I was definitely glad there was commentary for these ones :P

 

I appreciate the kind words. And well done on map08, that run looked pretty silky smooth! I died a little inside when the Archvile resurrected that Sergeant... making it 11 enemies technically. Damn it! Good to know that I need to block that off, though.

 

Thanks for the playthroughs, as always. Sucks that your other thread had a heart attack and died, but at least things should be relatively simple to maintain and update with a spreadsheet.

 

Cheers!  

[Shawny]

9 hours ago, HAK3180 said:

After a very quick glance, I'd advise you to make some shorter maps if you're going to do a full megawad. People seem to be prejudiced against megawads from the start, and over 500 enemies within the first two maps may not bode well. But I'd be happy to give it a go.

Hey @HAK3180.

Making maps for GZdoom, that people don´t like much either is not the best idea, I admit. This is just a demo and the maps are not in their final slots so I hope you are right about the prejudice. Much worse alternative woud be (for me) that I just make/made bad, boring maps. Anyways, looking forward to your opinion.

[Casketkrusher]

Hi @HAK3180

 

I've actually made some maps like 10 years ago, I reused some of them for my mappack Condemned (highly updated), I was too embarassed to share these but I've played through them and they are OK. These we're actually my first maps. Very shitty though. Maybe you can play through them, I think it are 5 short maps. Difficulty is easy as hell so you def want to play these on Ultra-Violence, or in this wad a walk through the park lol. This time I didn't used the superior PS1 graphics but vanilla Doom 2 (Still don't get it why people prefer those lame non colored sectors though). Map 04 is my favorite maybe gonna remake that one. My intention with these to keep them like what it is, I'm not going to update these with the vanilla Doom stuff. 

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yi8oi2nel3dyt3x/DOOM 2 [The Wasted Episodes].wad?dl=0

 

gzdoom tested with default controls no jumping or crouching. Maybe you like these I don't know.

 

Cheers!

Edited August 3, 2019 by Casketkrusher

[HAK3180]

@Casketkrusher

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

(Note: the following was actually my original FDA final writeup; my experience in the video above was somewhat different)

This map has nothing terrible, but to me it was a case of a lot of little things adding up to annoyance. It started with a pretty tight ammo situation early. It also has a very linear progression without really even hints of exploration. Then when you do get to explore, the exit is right in front of you anyway. I only found a shotgun and chaingun until very late, so it was grindy on the meatier monsters. All these things are easily changible and somewhat minor, but together they bring the map down considerably, I’m afraid.

 

Bottom line: not really a fun map despite no major mistakes.

[Casketkrusher]

42 minutes ago, HAK3180 said:

Doomworld forum topic

 

(Note: the following was actually my original FDA final writeup; my experience in the video above was somewhat different)

This map has nothing terrible, but to me it was a case of a lot of little things adding up to annoyance. It started with a pretty tight ammo situation early. It also has a very linear progression without really even hints of exploration. Then when you do get to explore, the exit is right in front of you anyway. I only found a shotgun and chaingun until very late, so it was grindy on the meatier monsters. All these things are easily changible and somewhat minor, but together they bring the map down considerably, I’m afraid.

 

Bottom line: not really a fun map despite no major mistakes.

Thanks for playing again, its actually meant as a whole playthrough with all previous maps. So yeah, tight ammo. So you get more ammo and better weapons in previous maps. This ones going to have a secret exit to a secret level as well. The one where the lift lowers with the button (that opens a new path where the rocket launcer was), also there's going to be more paths that lead to random areas, not necesarlly secrets. The teleporter which lead to that slow ass lift was just a shortcut, for the button after the blue door. Also didn't you noticed a different texture behind the crusher? Some secret was lurking out there with some nice goodies, it was dying to be find by you lol If you remember in my city map the secrets where a little easy so I made them a bit more harder to find, otherwise what's the poing of it being a secret? This is one of the maps (read my prevous post on this thread) that I reworked. So this ones a rather oldie. I'm not so much into the fancy map making, I like the simplistic arttsyle of the PS1 and vanilla doom versions a lot more than all the detailed shit, I mean its nice but not my thing. So its one of those things if you like it, hey you made my day. If not yeah I can understand why. But as you've seen this time buttons/switches say something so you weren't confused with what they did. Rather than that I want to keep it my own style, I obvoiusly can change everything that everybody brings up but what's the point in that? I'm now at the point if I should continue making maps for this wad and if you like to see more because I have some new shit in the works Also gonna take some stuff in account what you and others says could be improved.

 

Cheers!

Edited August 3, 2019 by Casketkrusher

[HAK3180]

@nicolas monti

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

Monti seems to have the mapping talent to get away with doing more of these, but as it is, this is the end of the episode. I’m excited to see what the next episode holds, even while I’d be happy to see this style play out longer, and that style is somewhat randomized geometry to make a connected space with lots of sight lines and interesting movement. This one saw you develop a stash of rockets, which was a little bit ominous, but the overall balance was very good in terms of difficulty and supplies.

 

Bottom line: I'd say this first episode was a success: classic Doom with a character

[HAK3180]

@Milkman

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

The beginning is pretty rough, but the whole map is very active. You spend a lot of time moving with no space of guaranteed safety. I thought the 8 mancubi were a little tedious to deal with, but they were a potential threat up until the time to deal with them.

 

Bottom Line: Not such a bad Dead Simple-style map

[HAK3180]

@Steve D

 

idgames download page

 

This one perhaps feels a little too sterile in its layout. It’s not too symmetric and it’s not like a bunch of boxes, but it feels a little bit too safe. But that’s mostly an aesthetic complaint because the gameplay does not suffer. It’s a series of small-medium rooms connected by hallways of different sizes and filled with monsters who are coming for you. A couple moments unleash some major hordes, and the last couple big fights are in a large, open area. The ratio of hitscanners to meleeers to projectilers seems just right.

 

Bottom line: fast paced nonstop action

[00_Zombie_00]

Hi, could you play my second map?
The second map, you can play, selecting the episode "inferno city"

This is the wad : 

 

[HAK3180]

@Capellan (About 25:40 – 36:00 is me hunting the secret exit. I do eventually find it.)

 

Doomworld forum topic

I thought this one had similarities to M3 and M5, very atmospheric, but it seems a bit toned down in difficulty. The monsters themselves don’t seem as threatening. It’s the supply management that makes your job hard in this one, which is not my favorite thing, but it’s not insufferable here. As usual, a good layout with interconnections and engaging combat. I also kinda like the fact that the only secret you’re looking for is the secret exit.

 

Bottom line: Basically more of the same, which is good. Perhaps a few too many barons for the supplies given.

[HAK3180]

@GhostPlayer

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

I should start by saying I did not find any secrets. I don’t know what was in them or how obvious they were, but a map simply cannot expect the player to fight through so many bulky monsters without a rocket launcher of plasma gun. It’s not too hard; it’s just too boring. My other issue with this map is its progression. The switches are almost never in view of what they do, so you spend a lot of time guessing what’s next. That’s not a huge deal, but it takes away from the elegance of the map because the layout is strong and the detailing is good. I wouldn’t change the appearance or geometry at all except for perhaps the locations of switches.

 

Bottom line: People are not going to play more than a couple of these maps without better weaponry.

[Capellan]

46 minutes ago, HAK3180 said:

@Capellan (About 25:40 – 36:00 is me hunting the secret exit. I do eventually find it.)

 

Heh.  One of my playtester's feedback was "I like that this is the easiest secret in the whole episode!" :)

[GhostPlayer]

54 minutes ago, HAK3180 said:

I should start by saying I did not find any secrets. I don’t know what was in them or how obvious they were, but a map simply cannot expect the player to fight through so many bulky monsters without a rocket launcher of plasma gun. It’s not too hard; it’s just too boring. My other issue with this map is its progression. The switches are almost never in view of what they do, so you spend a lot of time guessing what’s next. That’s not a huge deal, but it takes away from the elegance of the map because the layout is strong and the detailing is good. I wouldn’t change the appearance or geometry at all except for perhaps the locations of switches.

 

Bottom line: People are not going to play more than a couple of these maps without better weaponry.

 

 

 

* I made it easier to reach weapons, and I'm balancing this.

 

I have a hard time balancing these types of maps >.<

[Capellan]

@HAK3180

Watched the video now.  Amused at the "I'll look for the secret exit now, but I won't spend too long on it", followed by 12 minutes of humping and shooting walls.  I skipped a lot of that, so if you spotted any fresh texture issues in there (other than the gstone in the teleport area and the sp_hot near the exit), please let me know.

 

Also amused that for all this is "easier", you died a lot more often :) 

 

The secret exit sign is done with lots of small sectors to manipulate the existing E-X-I-T letters into new forms.  The "C" for instance is an "E" with recessed black sector where the middle bar of the E would normally be.

 

... and what was that strange colour on the walls when you finally dropped down? :)

 

[beast]

Hi @HAK3180, Please add my map to your play queue.

Edit: some nice recordings were posted in the map thread, please feel free to skip this request or push it to a backlog for a rainy day, Thanks.

 

Edited August 6, 2019 by beast
add note

[HAK3180]

10 hours ago, Capellan said:

Amused at the "I'll look for the secret exit now, but I won't spend too long on it", followed by 12 minutes of humping and shooting walls.

12 minutes (or less than 10) isn't that long for me to spend in a Doom map. I've spent much more time powering through huge maps confused by the necessary progression. The secret wasn't that hard; I just wasn't looking in the right area most of the time. I oddly neglected "fully to explore" the right area, if you know what I mean.

 

11 hours ago, Capellan said:

Also amused that for all this is "easier", you died a lot more often :)

No, I definitely found it easier. That has to do with a lot more than number of deaths.

 

Honestly, for better or worse, I basically haven't noticed the lack of brown at all, but I'm certainly not someone who would have said "shooters are brown" either. Now, I also haven't really noticed the lack of imps, and I think that indicates a good use of the remaining bestiary. I suppose the same could be said of the texturing then. 

[HAK3180]

@Bauul

Doomworld forum topic

 

 

The map seems bigger than it is, but there’s still a lot of real estate. You make your way, rather methodically from the beginning to the point where you first see a locked door, and that’s the first point where the map isn’t linear, but even while it is, there’s enough going on visually that the progression is not at all boring. I didn’t particularly love the weaponry; I felt a few more monsters and a few more rockets, maybe even some plasma, would have gone a long way. Maps without bigger guns are fine, but this one got just a touch long for that. The map’s use of emptiness is very interesting. On the one hand I appreciate how it wasn’t spammed with fodder or endless traps, and the point of a somewhat lonely and empty atmosphere is well taken, it almost seemed like a waste of space and detailing that such long stretches of the map were so sparsely populated. Visually, it’s rather good with a high level of detailing that was not overdone, though I could understand someone’s objections to monotony, particularly the amount of brown used.

 

Bottom line: It’s an interesting map, not really what I expected, smooth and adventurous.

[HAK3180]

@Shawny

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

 

 

If I can say Shawny has a style based on two maps, it’s well-connected grand feeling adventures with an almost cinematic sense of place. I like being able to explore yet never being totally lost, even if temporarily. This one looks very good with mostly stock textures, I think. You get the plasma gun right away, a feature I like, but I do think the amount of cells relegate the sense of danger throughout, especially the non-trap fighting.

 

This mapper should consider teaming up with @PeterMoro

 

Bottom line: a fun, medium sized epic tech base

[HAK3180]

@Fonze

 

Doomworld forum topic

 

 

 

The whole map is fairly tight in terms of space, but you get to explore quite a bit; it seems a lot of the map is optional and I didn’t even find a secret. Still, the progression was not hard to figure out with the blue and yellow doors right next to each other. I like the little puzzles here and there and the ways the map blocks itself off and/or opens itself up. At least one fight itself seemed to be a puzzle, and I didn't really understand it, but I don't mind the idea. Detailing is sharp and appropriate.

 

Bottom line: tough and eccentric but well thought out

[PeterMoro]

1 hour ago, HAK3180 said:

 

This mapper should consider teaming up with @PeterMoro

 

 

I'd be honoured. I just watched the review - this mapper has some serious mappin' skillz!