The 128 kb mapping extragavanza "challenge"*

[cambreaKer]

i'll make an episode 2 map

[DukeOfDoom]

I am interested too, and I can make an Episode 3 map.

[Walter confetti]

6 hours ago, Horus said:

Is this using stock textures only?

 

What Xyzzy wrote, you can add new stuff but it must be stay in the 128 kb limit.

 

@D1m3 I (or some other people good at Dehacked) will see to create some kind of small universal Dehacked patch, personally I was thinking about making a brand new series of monsters while planning the new version of the challenge...

Edited September 12, 2020 by Walter confetti

[maxresdefault]

Hi, I'm kinda new to the mapping but I wanted to do my own map for some time now. If you allow me, I wanted to do something not very complicated, so can I have a spot in the early Episode 1?

[Walter confetti]

Ok, you've got it

[SilverMiner]

On 9/11/2020 at 2:03 AM, Walter confetti said:

Make your work Boom compatible (complevel 9) and for Ultimate Doom IWAD (doom.wad).

Boom enthusiasts: "TRIGGERED"

[ThatWeNGuy]

I'm down, put me in episode 2.

[Walter confetti]

1 hour ago, SilverMiner said:

Boom enthusiasts: "TRIGGERED"

Why? I think is something unusual from the other mapsets... A boom megawad for ultimate doom is something really rare, I think...

[Chris Hansen]

@Walter confetti Which episode do you wanna assign me to? If you want me to choose then sign me up for episode 3.

[SilverMiner]

3 hours ago, Walter confetti said:

Why? I think is something unusual from the other mapsets... A boom megawad for ultimate doom is something really rare, I think...

I meant the challenge would attract some boom enthusiasts so I mean that boom megawad for ultimate doom is a cool thing

[Walter confetti]

2 hours ago, Chris Hansen said:

@Walter confetti Which episode do you wanna assign me to? If you want me to choose then sign me up for episode 3.

 

You've got it

 

@SilverMiner ok, I get it now... I always thought that the TRIGGERED meme it was for the thing that make piss off people...

Edited September 12, 2020 by Walter confetti

[Philnemba]

I'm interested so put me in Episode 4 

[NeedHealth]

On 9/11/2020 at 1:03 AM, Walter confetti said:

Ultimate Doom IWAD (doom.wad).

Don't you mean udoom.wad?

[EpicTyphlosion]

The 128kb mapping challenge? I called it!

 

I'll take a spot in episode 1.

[D1m3]

Map Name : The Smell of UAC Experiments
Map Slot : E1M1
Music : Beavis and Butt-Head(SNES) - Hooligan Rhapsody
Size : 126 kb
Format : Boom
Difficulty Settings : Yes,but only on monsters
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eo9r3jvogmw3edr/128kb.wad?dl=0

[Walter confetti]

Cool! I'll add it to the map list in OP! I'm curious to see with what you made!

 

Anyway, I'm thinking to remove the episode 5 slot, with leaving only four episodes... What do you think?

[Iacobus]

I'd like to take a spot on E4! I already have something cooking up but I gotta shave off 8kb, improve the lighting and work on the combat.

 

Spoiler

 

[BoxY]

Is it worth starting to work on proper entity placement on my map before the dehacked patch comes out, or is it likely that I'll just have to rebalance everything later?

[Fryuko]

It looks fun. I would like to join in with an episode 1 map. If there is still space for that. 

[Walter confetti]

Ok, you've got your slots now. Iacobus, your map looks really cool!

 

2 hours ago, BoxY said:

Is it worth starting to work on proper entity placement on my map before the dehacked patch comes out, or is it likely that I'll just have to rebalance everything later?

 

Better start to make item placement now, just for showing up what you got.

 

And @D1m3 I've played your map yesterday, is pretty solid even if little too boxy in layout, but the worst part is that this map doesn't have a more powerful weapon than the shotgun, or at least i didn't find it. I'd really like to have a chaingun at least, especially in the final fight.

Edited September 15, 2020 by Walter confetti

[D1m3]

V.1.1
-Moved chaingun to platform with blue card
-Replaced originally placed chaingun with rocket launcher
-Added 2 box of rockets to sector 46
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eo9r3jvogmw3edr/128kb.wad?dl=0

[maxresdefault]

I think I'm finally done with my map. Please let me know if you find any problems.
Name: Customs
Slot: E1M1
Music: Suspence by Bobby Prince
Difficulty settings are not yet implemented.

 

Let me know what you think about this map.

128.rar

[Pechudin]

@Walter confetti, wait I thought this was not a project where you'd need to take a slot, but instead just make as much as you can/want and then post the result?

 

Uhh ... which map slots are open then? My original idea was to make a whole E1 episode. Does the entire episode/multiple maps have to be 128 kB, or is each map supposed to be below 128 kB?

 

[Chris Hansen]

Is it okay that we provide feedback to the submitted levels? If yes, then I've got some for @D1m3's map (in the spoiler below). If not, then I'll delete it ofc.

 

Spoiler

This isn't a bad level, but I feel that there are room for improvement. My critique doesn't have to be implemented in the map, but could perhaps be used in future maps. At least that's my hope :) Take it or leave it.

• Filesize: This projects is a "test" to see what we can do with 128kb's. And I feel this map wastes that opportunity. That's mostly because of the midi track that uses a whopping 49kb's. That could have been used to vastly improve the map in general (more on that next). And honestly... that track isn't that good. But that's a subjective point of view, I guess :)
• Symmetry: This is a bit related to the above. The two hallways with crates in them surrounding the starting area are almost identical and offer very little in terms of gameplay. It just eats up valuable kilobytes. Okay, so it isn't much, but everything counts, right? :) If you wanna go down the symmetrical route you can follow Walter's advice of reusing the space to make the player feel he is playing a longer level that he actually is. These two hallways don't do that as you can take either one or ignore one completely. I would close one of them off and make the player use the left one access the outside area and have him return through the right one. The return path could open up as you pick up the blue key.
• Enemy placement: Is generally good, but also a bit obvious or predictive once you've cleared the first coople of rooms. The symmetrical aspect of the level has a built in trap: It sometimes makes the level designer place monsters the same way on a central axis. Meaning that once you met two Demons on either side of a door or two Imps on a lift in one area, chances are high that it's exactly the same on the other side of the map. I like the monsters coming at you once you start firing. That's good usage of the non-deaf monster tag. But the enemies lurking on both sides of a doorway gets predictable fast.
• Lighting: If you have lights on one wall that casts light into the room, the logical choice is that all lights should do that. Or at least blink or flicker if they're meant to appear as broken. Or turn on via a trigger if they aren't lit at the beginning of the level. You have some lights near the start between two doors that aren't lit and stays dark. Some lights are huge, but cast very little light. I generally like the darkness of the inside of the level but with a little effort those lights could add a lot of atmosphere if done right.
• Lifts and doors: There's a reason why some people stay away from using doors in their levels: They tend to cause the player to use them to their advantage to cheese fights. They are good at stopping the action to a hault. And Imp fireballs. And Demons. Doors stop everything and lets the player pick the monsters one by one with great ease. There's been some good discussions on that matter here on DW, maybe I can find them otherwise just search around and you can find it I think. The lifts? That was actually one of the things that annoyed me the most about this level! You take a lift down, go 20 yards, go up a lift again. Rinse repeat after having picked up the key. Except this time you have a tiny lift that only acts as an annoying speedbump. Again, it's those two hallways near the start that was the worst part of the level. If you want, I can edit the map and show you what I would have done instead :) There's also a small lift that goes into a room with some Demons. That was odd. I could hear the Demons down there and feared that taking the lift would send me right down their dirty, stinking mouths! I was almost right. Luckily for me they didnt have much space to move around in, so killing them was easy enough. More on monster placement later.
• Secrets: That 1 second time lift was super annoying. I had to look in the editor to discover it. It never crossed my mind that I would have to step onto the back of the switch to activate a ridicolously fast lift that took me 10+ tries to reach. Secrets shouldn't be discovered by accident. They can be tricky to find, sure, but not by accident. If you want the player to activate it by a WR effect then at least make sure that everyone playing the level will cross it at some point and then it's up to the player if he's paying enough attention to actually hear that he activated something. See Romero's E1M3 for the perfect example of how to do that!
• Damaging floors: I never foud the RL because I didn't dare thread into that slime in fear that I couldn't get back up. It might just be me that are out of the loop but to me it wasn't obvious that you could get out of that pool if you jumped in. That was a well hidden weapon that wasn't even a secret. That was very odd indeed. And am I right that the player cant get out of the last pool surrounding the cluster of shootable switches? I tried and tried... and died. That was annoying. But hey, who am I to speak. I've made inescapable pools before and let me tell you... it's not popular! :D
• Trigger effects: Also a super strange thing! I can see that you know your way around an editor and some of the more semi-advanced tricks like using a voodoo doll on a conveyor belt! Nice! But why are some of the teleporters in the big monster closet linked to triggers inside the map? Like lifts for example? I also feel that maybe there were a bit too many switches in the level of this size. Every room had a switch! Or two! Or 16! Yikes ;)

It's not always a level makes me wanna write so much about it. I'm guessing it's because I can see a lot of potential here. If you're curious to see what I mean exactly with some of the points then send me a PM and we can take it from there.

[Walter confetti]

52 minutes ago, maxresdefault said:

I think I'm finally done with my map. Please let me know if you find any problems.
Name: Customs
Slot: E1M1
Music: Suspence by Bobby Prince
Difficulty settings are not yet implemented.

 

Let me know what you think about this map.

128.rar

 

Added to the OP post and added a little dehacked monster i made this evening, is called "War Imp" and replaces the bloods and guts 2 thing. Info of this monster is on OP.

Sure, this map have really a lot of monsters! It's really knee-deep in the dead!

Anyway, returning serious: pretty good map, reminds me of something like "TimeOfDeath goes in 1994 and make a map", very hard but fun too!

The only things i'm not i found out are the CEIL1_1 ceilings and the door opener switch at the start inside the techbase.

 

37 minutes ago, Pechudin said:

@Walter confetti, wait I thought this was not a project where you'd need to take a slot, but instead just make as much as you can/want and then post the result?

 

Uhh ... which map slots are open then? My original idea was to make a whole E1 episode. Does the entire episode/multiple maps have to be 128 kB, or is each map supposed to be below 128 kB?

 

 

If you want to do entire episode, do it! But it will not be added to the main wad, sorry. It will be added as a standalone release / lost episode. File size limit is of 128 kb for each map, but..

 

Spoiler

If you can do a mapset of 16 kb maps, that will be freaking impressive lol

 

About map slots open are 4 levels on episode 1 and 3; 5 levels on episode 2 and 4. Both boss and secret maps are open.

 

13 minutes ago, Chris Hansen said:

Is it okay that we provide feedback to the submitted levels? If yes, then I've got some for @D1m3's map (in the spoiler below). If not, then I'll delete it ofc.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

This isn't a bad level, but I feel that there are room for improvement. My critique doesn't have to be implemented in the map, but could perhaps be used in future maps. At least that's my hope :) Take it or leave it.

• Filesize: This projects is a "test" to see what we can do with 128kb's. And I feel this map wastes that opportunity. That's mostly because of the midi track that uses a whopping 49kb's. That could have been used to vastly improve the map in general (more on that next). And honestly... that track isn't that good. But that's a subjective point of view, I guess :)
• Symmetry: This is a bit related to the above. The two hallways with crates in them surrounding the starting area are almost identical and offer very little in terms of gameplay. It just eats up valuable kilobytes. Okay, so it isn't much, but everything counts, right? :) If you wanna go down the symmetrical route you can follow Walter's advice of reusing the space to make the player feel he is playing a longer level that he actually is. These two hallways don't do that as you can take either one or ignore one completely. I would close one of them off and make the player use the left one access the outside area and have him return through the right one. The return path could open up as you pick up the blue key.
• Enemy placement: Is generally good, but also a bit obvious or predictive once you've cleared the first coople of rooms. The symmetrical aspect of the level has a built in trap: It sometimes makes the level designer place monsters the same way on a central axis. Meaning that once you met two Demons on either side of a door or two Imps on a lift in one area, chances are high that it's exactly the same on the other side of the map. I like the monsters coming at you once you start firing. That's good usage of the non-deaf monster tag. But the enemies lurking on both sides of a doorway gets predictable fast.
• Lighting: If you have lights on one wall that casts light into the room, the logical choice is that all lights should do that. Or at least blink or flicker if they're meant to appear as broken. Or turn on via a trigger if they aren't lit at the beginning of the level. You have some lights near the start between two doors that aren't lit and stays dark. Some lights are huge, but cast very little light. I generally like the darkness of the inside of the level but with a little effort those lights could add a lot of atmosphere if done right.
• Lifts and doors: There's a reason why some people stay away from using doors in their levels: They tend to cause the player to use them to their advantage to cheese fights. They are good at stopping the action to a hault. And Imp fireballs. And Demons. Doors stop everything and lets the player pick the monsters one by one with great ease. There's been some good discussions on that matter here on DW, maybe I can find them otherwise just search around and you can find it I think. The lifts? That was actually one of the things that annoyed me the most about this level! You take a lift down, go 20 yards, go up a lift again. Rinse repeat after having picked up the key. Except this time you have a tiny lift that only acts as an annoying speedbump. Again, it's those two hallways near the start that was the worst part of the level. If you want, I can edit the map and show you what I would have done instead :) There's also a small lift that goes into a room with some Demons. That was odd. I could hear the Demons down there and feared that taking the lift would send me right down their dirty, stinking mouths! I was almost right. Luckily for me they didnt have much space to move around in, so killing them was easy enough. More on monster placement later.
• Secrets: That 1 second time lift was super annoying. I had to look in the editor to discover it. It never crossed my mind that I would have to step onto the back of the switch to activate a ridicolously fast lift that took me 10+ tries to reach. Secrets shouldn't be discovered by accident. They can be tricky to find, sure, but not by accident. If you want the player to activate it by a WR effect then at least make sure that everyone playing the level will cross it at some point and then it's up to the player if he's paying enough attention to actually hear that he activated something. See Romero's E1M3 for the perfect example of how to do that!
• Damaging floors: I never foud the RL because I didn't dare thread into that slime in fear that I couldn't get back up. It might just be me that are out of the loop but to me it wasn't obvious that you could get out of that pool if you jumped in. That was a well hidden weapon that wasn't even a secret. That was very odd indeed. And am I right that the player cant get out of the last pool surrounding the cluster of shootable switches? I tried and tried... and died. That was annoying. But hey, who am I to speak. I've made inescapable pools before and let me tell you... it's not popular! :D
• Trigger effects: Also a super strange thing! I can see that you know your way around an editor and some of the more semi-advanced tricks like using a voodoo doll on a conveyor belt! Nice! But why are some of the teleporters in the big monster closet linked to triggers inside the map? Like lifts for example? I also feel that maybe there were a bit too many switches in the level of this size. Every room had a switch! Or two! Or 16! Yikes ;)

 

 

Sure! The more voices about the maps submitted, the better!

[Pechudin]

8 hours ago, Walter confetti said:

If you want to do entire episode, do it! But it will not be added to the main wad, sorry. It will be added as a standalone release / lost episode. File size limit is of 128 kb for each map, but..

 

  Reveal hidden contents

If you can do a mapset of 16 kb maps, that will be freaking impressive lol

 

About map slots open are 4 levels on episode 1 and 3; 5 levels on episode 2 and 4. Both boss and secret maps are open.

 

In that case I'll finish this episode, but for the main WAD I'd like to take an E2 slot. Any specific slot or do you assign them slots?

[Walter confetti]

I'll assign them later

[maxresdefault]

20 hours ago, Walter confetti said:

Sure, this map have really a lot of monsters! It's really knee-deep in the dead!

Anyway, returning serious: pretty good map, reminds me of something like "TimeOfDeath goes in 1994 and make a map", very hard but fun too!

The only things i'm not i found out are the CEIL1_1 ceilings and the door opener switch at the start inside the techbase.

I'm glad that you liked my map! I don't know if I would call it hard but maybe if you don't know what lies ahead then it would be a little harder. Not sure what the "TimeOfDeath goes in 1994 and make a map" means but I take it as a compliment, thanks.
You mean that these textures are missing? The map should be completable from start to finish so I hope you don't mean that the switches don't work. By the way, do you see any HOM? I can see them near the pillars at the start of the level when I'm playing with PrBoom but when it's GLBoom then they do not appear. Not sure what to do about that.

[Walter confetti]

I've played your map in Gzdoom, not on prboom yet

[Iacobus]

On 9/15/2020 at 5:22 PM, maxresdefault said:

Let me know what you think about this map.

128.rar

 

Needs more hitscanners...

 

 

 

 

Jokes aside, the map is pretty fun. As you said, once you know what's coming the difficulty drops considerably. I died in the blue key room the first time around and raged quit thinking it was too spammy. Came back to it later and beat it in the second attempt. My only criticisms are the linearity and the lack of variation in gameplay (trigger trap/kill monsters/recover health), but everything was well executed and fun to romp thorugh, and the map is short enough to not get repetitive. I have a raw footage of the third playthrough in case you want to watch it, I'll post as soon as it's ready.

 

 

Edited September 16, 2020 by Iacobus