Help me playtest my newest map, UAC-M4! (Doom 2 + Limit removing)

[Koko Ricky]

UAC-M4 is the fourth in my series offering a personal vision of "Knee Deep in the Dead" as standalone maps. This is a remake of E1M4, with several design goals:

 

1) Maintain the general layout ideas of the original, but while experimenting heavily with expanding on its ideas.

2) Utilize tricks like vanilla bridges and transparent doors that can work in multiple ports, and is part of the gameplay as opposed to being a pure visual gimmick.

3) Make dramatic use of light and shadow to enhance atmosphere.

4) Marking all secrets as clearly as possible while still challenging the player to find them.

5) Creating something of a playground where puzzle elements aided by visual queues are juxtaposed with highly non-linear exploration.

6) Accommodating not only difficulty settings but also play styles, i.e. both casual and speedrun players.

7) Maintaining player interest with distinct environments and a strong aesthetic.

8) Providing quality combat from start to finish.

9) Strengthening the experience with high quality music from Visplane Overflow.

 

DOWNLOAD ALPHA 1:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/om8tet5c2epwlih/UAC-M4 - ALPHA.wad?dl=0

 

DOWNLOAD ALPHA 2:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v5p3sgovntp9hs9/UAC-M4 - ALPHA2.wad?dl=0

Edited May 16, 2020 by GoatLord

[Bidoof Slayer]

I'll give it a try ;)

[DOOMGABR[RU]]

I really liked the environments. Impressive work, playing is quite interesting. Soon I will write off the bugs that I discovered. Decent work, keep it up!
The music seems a little strange in the background, but it's a matter of taste.

[AngelFlash]

I really liked it, the lighting was fantastic and the puzzle solving was fun. I'll list some of the few issues I found (in no particular order), with additional pictures to accompany them.
 

1. The archvile here can be shot from where I'm standing and he'll never ever attack back. I killed him with my pistol.
2. These spectres can't walk onto the bridge. They don't stand a chance, unless there was a way to approach them from behind and I just stumbled upon an intentionally-designed advantageous path to them.
3. I don't take nukage damage when I'm standing underneath the bridge sectors. Second Pic.
4. This door doesn't open.

I stopped playing when I got softlocked in the acid pit with the door that didn't open. I only went down there because I had explored everything I possibly could have (or at least the stuff I found), including the blue key doors and a few secrets.

 

[Koko Ricky]

@AngelFlash, thanks for the notes. I've been working these issues. Here's an update:

 

1) The archvile that can be too easily killed has been replaced with a hell night.

2) The spectres have been hidden behind columns to ambush the player instead of being out in the open.

3) I don't know what to do about nukage not affecting the player when under a bridge. It seems I either have to have both floors damage, or neither. If there's a way around this I'd like to know about it!

4) That door does open, but I apparently didn't make the switch for it obvious enough, so I removed it and now the door opens by pressing it.

 

As to you having stopped playing because you couldn't get any further, there is a room that lowers all the walls in the circular C1/C2/C3/C4 hub, allowing for progression to the next area. However, its location is also apparently not very obvious, so I added some glowing arrows and an armor power-up next to its entrance, to entice the player and ensure they'll find it.

 

I'll update the .wad once I can get an answer on the nukage pit bridge issue.

[Fonze]

On 5/3/2020 at 12:40 PM, GoatLord said:

@AngelFlash, thanks for the notes. I've been working these issues. Here's an update:

 

1) The archvile that can be too easily killed has been replaced with a hell night.

2) The spectres have been hidden behind columns to ambush the player instead of being out in the open.

3) I don't know what to do about nukage not affecting the player when under a bridge. It seems I either have to have both floors damage, or neither. If there's a way around this I'd like to know about it!

4) That door does open, but I apparently didn't make the switch for it obvious enough, so I removed it and now the door opens by pressing it.

 

As to you having stopped playing because you couldn't get any further, there is a room that lowers all the walls in the circular C1/C2/C3/C4 hub, allowing for progression to the next area. However, its location is also apparently not very obvious, so I added some glowing arrows and an armor power-up next to its entrance, to entice the player and ensure they'll find it.

 

I'll update the .wad once I can get an answer on the nukage pit bridge issue.

 

For a suggestion on the nukeage pit/bridge: try making the sector that rises a thin outline of its intended shape, for example:

 

If you were to make the thin sectors of this type of shape the "physical" aspect of your bridge, the player could run atop them while its raised and be damaged by the larger square sectors in the middle of the shape when the bridge is lowered. (possibly even into the ground if you wish to hide the flat) As for the shaping of the bridge, if you leave the inside sidedefs of the bridge untextured, the engine will render it as a solid-looking floor and the player won't be able to see the trickery going on. Hope this helps :)

Edited May 5, 2020 by Fonze

[Koko Ricky]

I'm a bot confused by your suggestion, could you elaborate?

Edited May 5, 2020 by GoatLord

[Fonze]

First I'll note that this is a solution for a simple platform, but that's the foundation of 3d floors anyway so hopefully you can adapt this to the exact thing you are doing. The only downside of this is that ground-based monsters cannot path over it, but then again typically you'd want to keep monsters away from 3d bridges anyway.

 

Basically the doomguy doesn't need a solid floor to run on; you can use thin lines (sectors tho) to hold him up. So the part of the floor that is the bridge that will raise and lower doesnt have to be a flat, uninterrupted surface, it can be like a grid of thin sectors... the spaces between being small enough for the doomguy to not fall through but large enough to not impact the potential for the damaging floor to work. When these thin sectors are raised they will act as a "regular" raised platform, however you can also then lower them into the floor, which will expose those middle squares (the damaging floor) to be used. Thus the middle squares stay stationary (and the sectors can also be joined for simplicity) while only the grid-like thin sectors of the bridge raise and lower. Here is a gif of it in action as I used it, you can adapt this to your needs:

 

https://i.imgur.com/TdQQA0h.gifv

 

Again note that leaving the sides of these untextured will cause the engine to render them as flat, uninterrupted surfaces :)

[Koko Ricky]

That doesn't look like a bridge, the walls go all the way down to floor level. It also doesn't raise/lower instantly.

Edited May 5, 2020 by GoatLord

[Fonze]

As I said this is the foundation for that; you would have to adapt it. Simply use midtextures for the aesthetic (you are talking about vanilla-styled faux 3d bridges, right?) and use instapop actions instead of slowly moving ones. The line design in terms of splitting the "bridge area" up into 2 sectors was my main point. The alternative is to use a (change effect) type of action, which can be wonky at times to work with.

[Koko Ricky]

I'm having trouble picturing how to do this.

[SleepyVelvet]

I have an FDA sitting around.  Here!

noisy_UAC-M4-ALPHA.zip

 

I fell in a nukage pit and couldn't find my way out in time.

[Fonze]

I'm sorry GoatLord I'm at work and unable to provide a more in-depth explanation for this, but you would have to turn the rising platform (of whatever shape you draw) into a self-referencing sector, (make sure you draw another sector to enclose it) then apply midtextures to give it the appearance of something being there. You may want to look up some examples of these, but these can be used to create invisible floors, such as those required for a faux-3d bridge. There are some tutorials for making these as well which you can find here by searching for: self referencing sector. I see at least one quick tutorial by Scotty in the floating torches thread, hopefully that'll be helpful to you, or maybe you'll be able to find others. Basically you make it so both sidedefs of the lines of the self referencing sector have the inside sector's number as their indexes.

 

For actions you would use the instapop stuff, which would be floor lower to highest floor to insta-raise and floor raise to lowest floor to insta-lower, as the two most common examples. Basically any action which is supposed to operate the other direction from what you make it do will instead work instantly, so you could also use raise to lowest ceiling to insta-lower as well; it all depends on what you need based on the architecture around the bridge and your control sectors. Not having to use specifically the (change texture/effect) actions also allows more freedom in the number of actions you can choose to use to suit your needs. You will also probably need dummy/control sectors for these. If the area you want the bridge to be is a bit complicated then you could try making a quick test map to get the concept down without fear of borking anything else you got going on.

[Koko Ricky]

@NoisyVelvet, how do I play that back?

[SleepyVelvet]

On 5/5/2020 at 7:09 PM, GoatLord said:

@NoisyVelvet, how do I play that back?

It's a standard vanilla demo .lmp format.  Any Chocolate/Crispy/Prboom, etc can play it back with the right command line parameters, usually "-playdemo noisy_UAC-M4-ALPHA.lmp".  It won't play back in zdoom derivative ports though.

 

In my playthrough, I didn't get too far into it though.  I'm just supplying my playthrough up to where I died, for data's sake.  Consume with discretion :)

[Koko Ricky]

Check out the latest version here, with a number of small improvements, particularly to the flow of the map to make it easier to navigate.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v5p3sgovntp9hs9/UAC-M4 - ALPHA2.wad?dl=0

 

I simply could not get the bridge to only damage the player when on ground level. @Fonze's suggestion was interesting but the bridge doesn't look good when created in that fashion and the floor texture is still visible on ground level as its doesn't change to the acid texture. Given this, I've left that bridge as is, and while I don't like that it gives the player hot spots where the floor won't damage them, I can't think of any other solution.