Lunar Outpost 359: WiP Wad (Updated: 2/13/2021 Revamped older levels)

[Kyukon]

Lunar Outpost 359

 

Download Updated (2/13/2021):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0w2o0hhfvaebb8b/LunarOutpost359v10.1.wad?dl=0

 

Compatibility:  

Tested with Zandronum and gzdoom.  

• Important! Run as TnT for appropriate textures and music. 

This is a largely Vanilla Wad, but with a few zdoom features, such as turbo speed triggers for a few floors, and using flats as textures in a few places.  Expect to see some missing textures if not running in a zdoom compatible source port.

 

Maps Currently Included: MAP01 – MAP10

What to expect: 

• All maps are tuned around being able to UVMAX Single Segment Pistol Start.
• Sequence breaking is intentionally implemented and encouraged.
• Callbacks and references to certain areas or fights from the IWADs, as well as some nods to areas from the Metroid Prime series, adapted to fit a Doom experience.

 

Lower difficulties are also implemented.  No custom textures, enemies, or UI elements included. 

Freelook is never required but allowed for convenience.

Jumping and Crouching are Disabled.

Currently, completing Map10 loops you back around to Map01 to let you know it’s over.

 

Pictures:

 

 

 

 

Level Details: (Please note all difficulty and length descriptions are relative to the average difficulty of this wad, and not to any individual's skill level.)

Spoiler

----------Site A----------

 

Map01 Receiving: 

Description: This is where all personnel teleport into the Outpost.  It has been overrun with hostile presence and should be secured and recaptured.

Notes: This map has been redone, and tuned again thanks to feedback, and should hopefully be the final version of Map 01.  My first foray into teleporting enemies.  This map was somewhat inspired by TnT 01, and 04, System Control, and Power Control.

Length: Short

Difficulty: Medium

 

Map02 Shipping: 

Description: All non-organic items entering and leaving the Outpost are briefly processed here, before being shipped to other parts of the facility.

Notes: This is my oldest playable map, and only the 3rd completed map.  That being said, it's undergone multiple revisions to make it more visually appealing, in a classic sense.  Expect a linear map with engaging backtracking.  Classic callback on this map: E2M2's lowering box.

Length: Standard

Difficulty: Low

 

Map03 Communications: 

Description: The Facility is divided into two main sections.  The East Wing houses several large servers, with raised platforms for maintenance.  All engineers are advised to use standard Light Amplification Goggles when attending to Servers.  The West Wing employs daily operations including reception, record keeping, and long-distance communication.

Notes: My first experiment with a non-linear map, with an elevator inspired by Doom 2's, The Crusher.

Length: Standard

Difficulty: Medium

 

Map 04: Irradiated Barracks: 

Description: These Barracks have ceased all normal operations following the Meltdown of Power Facility 359-04-Class Nuclear.  Survivors should seek shelter in nearby Solar Farm, as it is rated for protection from Iodine and Cesium radiation.

Notes: I wanted to make an open concept, City Style map, but also to keep it short.  The more guns you get, the easier it becomes.

Length: Short

Difficulty: Hard

 

Map 05: Fallout Bunker: 

Description: Formerly Power Facility 359-05-Class Solar, is now being used as a shelter from the meltdown of 359-04.

Notes: I wanted to emulate that Shores of Hell feel on this map.

Length: Short

Difficulty: Low

 

Map06: Science Labs: 

Description: Biology Lab 359-06 used for the containment, and study of several lesser creatures captured in teleportation experiments.

Notes: My first high concept map, while it's a little bit clunky, I learned quite a bit, and am happy with how it turned out.

Length: Standard

Difficulty: Medium

 

Map07: The Forge: 

Description: Originally this site was used for a sizeable portion of the Moon's iron and steel output.  While the nearby mines have been long since depleted, this facility still houses the largest forges on the lunar surface and received large amounts of ore every day before being overrun.  After taking over the science labs, the demons quickly crippled the base's ability to produce weapons to stave off the invasion.

Notes: My first attempt at creating a heavy combat map with literally nowhere to hide, and this one really pushed me to try and get better with detailing.  While I still have a ways to go, it made me start thinking about how to make maps intricate.

Length: Medium

Difficulty: Hard

 

Map08: Sanitation:  

Description: Located next to a source of freshwater, this facility can be used to filter and repurpose even the most toxic of wastewater.  Now inhabited by demons, functions have ceased, but the equipment still looks serviceable.  Perhaps you can get it back online.

Notes: I wanted to do a sewer level, that doesn't drag on forever.  I tried experimenting with rising and lowering floors, to find out a little bit about how Doom manages this.  Apparently when you raise a floor, change its texture, and remove its effect, the floor gains the texture of the sector you are standing in, instead of the texture which it's rising to meet.  It's kind of abstract, and might even feel like some parts are just a little too small, but again getting the player in and out of a level before it wears off is my preference.

Length: Standard

Difficulty: Medium

 

Map09: The Damaged Cruiser: 

Description: The wreckage of a cruiser that had been docked next to the Lunar Base.  Demons launched an attack on the engines, rendering the vessel incapable of flight, before turning or eating the rest of the crew.

Notes: This is one of the larger levels, and it's somewhat inspired by Metroid Prime, albeit loosely.  I was thinking of the crashed frigate, as well as one of the secrets is a small nod to the save points of Metroid Prime, all done while trying to keep it still looking like classic Doom.  I wanted to make a high level of inter-connectivity based around a central setpiece that you can navigate around.  This one features an optional key skip, through a secret again.  I also wanted to mess with the idea of creating the illusion of a floor below another floor.

Length: Long

Difficulty: Hard

 

Map10: Meltdown: 

Description: The Nuclear Power Plant is being invaded by demons.  As your last stop before the road to Site B, hopefully, there's something you can use stashed away somewhere.

Notes: I had drawn out the floor plan for this level in my notebook on paper before mapping it out, which might explain some of the design choices.  I adapted a lot of the encounters and traps based around this geometry as that seems to work better for me than freeform mapping.  I really wanted to make a teleporter based hub that seemed intuitive as well as a few other things like the random scenery that just lowers.  220 or so seems to be the high end of monster count that I feel doesn't drone on, yet is still challenging, and I'd like to keep it that way.  Future maps will be smaller for a little while as this is the conclusion to Episode One of this wad.

Length: Long

Difficulty: Hard

 

 

Hi everyone, this started as my first uploaded wad.  I had made a few test wads to learn the basics beforehand.  The original purpose of this wad was to introduce my friends to classic Doom.  They got into Doom with Doom 2016, and were iffy about classic Doom, but were open to trying it if I would create some levels for them to play.  As such, I attempted to pay homage to some old school level design elements while still making my own maps. Since then, I have decided to create more maps as I organize them into this collection with some sense of cohesion.

 

The name comes from Wolf 359, the fourth closest star system to our own, after the Centauri systems, so it sounded like a neat place to have a base since I know there are plenty of WADs named after the Centauri stars.  I'm not really sure if there even are moons in this solar system, but I thought it'd be cool.  Since it's such a small star, it will outlast our sun by trillions of years, which is pretty awesome.  Back to the WAD,  I tried to cover most of the basic facilities I could think of to give some of that old school abstract and vague theme-ing.  

 

Playtesting Credits:

@Biodegradable

@Salmon

@Clippy

@HAK3180

@Suitepee

 

@Terminus

 

Changelog:

(2/13/2021): Older Maps received more detailing, and some combat reworks.  See this post for more details.

(1/29/2021): Map10 Added.  Map09 Balancing.

(1/5/2021): Map09 Added.

(12/6/2020): Map08 Added, some textures cleaned up on older maps.

(11/10/2020): Map01 Completely Redone, old maps rebalanced.

 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Kyukon

[mxrgan]

Is this compatible with prboom+? If so, which compatibility level?

 

EDIT: Scratch that, accidentally skipped over the compatibility thing.

Edited October 12, 2020 by BucketHoodie

[EndHack]

I've only gotten through the first two levels and its great so far, though it seems a bit hard for newcomers, but I am playing on HMP which probably won't be the difficulty level a new player would go for, but yeah so far only complaints is the boxes that didn't seem to have any indication that they could be lowered,

Spoiler

and the pure evil trap at the end of map02 after you kill the archvile,

besides those complaints I'm really liking it.

Edited October 13, 2020 by EndHack

[Biodegradable]

Hey this is a great set, man. It's varied, gritty yet slick, fun and challenging and you tinker around with the formula a fair bit between maps which made their progression interesting and unpredictable. I had a pretty good time overall and would love to see more from you in the near-future.

 

 

Let's see if I can summon a few more playtesters to check this one out:
@Clippy @Zolgia108 @TheNoob_Gamer @Horus @Soulless @ElPadrecitoCholo @Suitepee 
 Hello folks, I got a pretty nifty miniWAD here you can smash out in an hour if you're interested. It's pretty good!

Edited October 14, 2020 by Biodegradable

[Ezepov]

Nice wad

Spoiler

Problems with textures

 

gzdoom sky

 

prboom-plus

 

 

[mxrgan]

4 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

 Hello folks, I got a pretty nifty miniWAD here you can smash out in an hour if you're interested. It's pretty good!

Though you didnt tag me, Im gonna play through this for some of my lunch break and record it.

[Walter confetti]

A Final doom mapset? This is a thing you can't see everyday!

Anyway looks good and pretty classic, with heavy inspiration from original IWAD

[Kyukon]

Thanks for the responses so far!

I’ll take the time to address them in groups like this.

 

BucketHoodie: I haven’t tested with anything beyond zandronum and gzdoom as listed.  I will be testing future projects with more source ports, and will be aiming for higher levels of compatibility, as well as competence on my own part.  Thanks for going back and checking.  I edited the post to make this clearer up front.

 

EndHack: Thanks for trying out the maps so far!  The two easy difficulties have the most noticeable difficulty changes, many monsters are absent, or downgraded.  I realize Medium difficulty doesn’t have as many changes, and will keep this in mind in the future.  Map04 probably has the most noticeable changes as I removed 3 main monsters that consistently killed my friends and I on UV, from HMP.

 

Biodegradable: Thanks for the feedback, and glad you enjoyed!  I’ll look forward to the video, and thanks again for the shout outs, too.

 

Ezepov: Thanks for the info on the texture issues in other source ports.  This is a problem I want to address in future projects, and will want to make sure that I use Doom 2 instead of TnT next time, but am going to need to make sure that I pack any extra textures outside of base Doom 2 into the wad.  I just don’t know how to do that yet.  The game configuration in Doom Builder 2 was ZDoom (Doom in Doom Format), with tnt.wad loaded as the resource.

 

Walter confetti: Thanks for checking it out!  I’m interested in making more oldschool style maps, though must admit I will need to iron out some kinks here and there, some of which I’ve mentioned above.

[mxrgan]

I have recorded an over 1 hour video of gameplay up to MAP05 and here are my thoughts:

 

I loved the aesthetics. Gave me a few KDITD and even some TNT techbase vibes, and I loved the level design and structure.

 

One thing I didnt enjoy though was the difficulty. I enjoy fighting a bunch of monsters at once, but I never saw a ssg until the very last map I recorded before stopping. Adding in an ssg, even maybe as early as MAP02,

would have made dealing with big crowds just in my opinion, a little bit easier.

 

I also got very confused on MAP05, had no thought of where I had to go to get a red key card, so I sadly summoned one my self.

 

You also forgot to disable jumping and crouching in the MAPINFO lump. You can do that by typing in "nojump" and " nocrouch" respectively.

 

Also, Im a bit of a mapper my self and plan on uploading my first wad soon, so heres some tips for future mapping: 

1. I reccomend SLADE 3. It has a bunch more features than XWE and I believe it is still being updated. Get it here: http://slade.mancubus.net/index.php?page=about

2. I reccomend a better map editor like Ultimate Doom Builder, or Doom Builder X (Both are forks of DB2), which have more features and are being actively updated as of now. 

3. Watch a few tutorials on youtube. There are a bunch of of them for SLADE 3, UDB, and DB2. Some one channel I reccomend is Chubzdoomer, who makes a bunch of tutorials on mapping and modding. Theres also a few by Doomkid, which cover a few slade 3 things, and some level design philosophies.

Ill link both here: https://www.youtube.com/c/DoomKid and https://www.youtube.com/user/Chubzdoomer

 

Anyways, I hope this isnt too harsh for criticism. I also get a little pissy about these things in my video, which Ill upload soon. 

Edited October 14, 2020 by BucketHoodie

[pcorf]

On 10/13/2020 at 10:19 AM, Kyukon said:

The name comes from Wolf 359, second closest star system to our own, after the Centauri system,

 

Actually Barnard's star is the second closest star system to ours. A double brown dwarf system Luhman 16 is next but technically not stars and than Wolf 359 fourth. There is also a free floating Jupiter-like planet WISE 0855-0714 closer than Wolf 359.

 

1 Proxima Centauri (red dwarf that orbits Alpha Centauri A and B)

2 Alpha Centauri A and B (yellow sun-like stars)

3 Barnard's Star (red dwarf)

- Luhman 16 (2 Brown dwarfs)

- WISE 0855-0714 (Free floating planet, very cold, can only be detected in infrared)

4 Wolf 359 (red dwarf)

 

The Alpha Centauri system is in the southern hemisphere.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars_and_brown_dwarfs

Edited October 14, 2020 by pcorf

[Salmon]

I played through these maps on UV last night and tonight and had a very nice time.  Monster encounters were pretty solid, ammo and health amounts felt fair.  You seem to have a good sense about balance.  I played 1-2 continuous but switched over to pistol starts for 3 on.

 

Visually it's mostly techbases, sure, but I think you have a style of your own that you could develop further.  My only real complaint looks-wise was you often used the switch 2 texture for unflipped switches--this seems unusual since that texture usually means a switch is in its flipped state.

 

Map 01:  A nice opener.  Good use of vantage points, nice progression, a sense of height and space.  Kind of like if those stilt houses the Jetsons lived in got invaded by demons.

 

Map 02:  The early computer map feels maybe too generous since it basically tells you where the secrets are.  I see now you said to find the rocket launcher early... I got it last.  After I killed the archvile.  My fault, though!

 

Map 03:  I liked it but I actually got lost here.  I thought I was soft locked in the main right room.  I had to open it up in the editor to see what that switch in the back room did (the one that gives you access to the platforming--which was well done, enjoyable platform combat btw.)  See if anyone else gets lost or if it was just me being dumb, I guess.

 

Map 04:  This was the roughest map to pistol start and the first map where I died more than once (might have been my first death too? don't remember).  I suicided some to look for weapons.  The secret chainsaw at the beginning really helped, though.  I liked the concept but I often wanted more space to maneuver--I got caught on decorations a lot.  There were a few hilarious times when I just sailed right off into the nukage but those were my fault.

 

Map 05:  I liked it, I think you succeeded at what you were trying to do.  Early chainsaw was again very helpful for the pistol start.

 

Map 06:  Really strong atmosphere!  The eeriness of it reminded me of Crater from Evilution, a map I appreciate for its unsettling vibe.  Great build-up and some nice fights on the way back.  Not sure about the double archviles at the end.  It felt kinda cheap to me since there's little cover but I'd get more feedback there.

 

Map 07:  Honestly wonderful, really but it's the kind of map I'm partial to--wide open, lots of monsters, lots of pathways.  Balance here feels really good, especially since you're new.  I loved it.  The last fight?  Dunno about the lost souls but it's not bad.  I'm kinda torn on what you did with the exit so I'm curious to see what other people think.

 

Nice work!

[Kyukon]

BucketHoodie: Thanks for the additional feedback.  You’re probably right about the difficulty, at least for HMP.  This wad is a good idea of what to expect will be normal from me on the UV level, but you’ve helped me to see I need to pay more attention to balancing the medium difficulty. 

Thanks for the recommendations, as well.  I’ve followed them both for a while actually, but they’re good channels to send anyone to.  Wouldn’t have been able to make it this far without them. 

 

pcorf: Thanks for the correction!  I decided on the name mostly as an excuse to have a little bit of flavor text, but I appreciate the attention to detail, and will edit the part.

 

@Salmon: Thanks for the Map by Map notes!  Confession time, my discord server and I play tested these from pistol start quite extensively, and we died the most on Map 4, followed by Map 7.  I’ll keep the switch textures in mind, things like that just have to come through practice.

Spoiler

 

Map 02: Yeah, it was intended to make sure my buddies played at least 2 maps, so I gave them an early map to work with, but that’s a little quirk which won’t need to be in the next set.  Of the 10 who tried, 6 of them finished the whole wad, but everyone made it through at least map 3.

Map 03: I wanted to lock you in them until the switch was pushed, but definitely admit it was a little clunky.  The whole blue line on the ground was intended to guide you back to it, but it was probably a bit cryptic.

Map 04: I only watched 2 of my buddy’s clears of this one, and have only cleared it like 8 times myself for balancing.  Map 02 used to be a nightmare of decorations, especially on the west side, but they really helped me clean it up.  We started yelling moth lamp memes as everyone got stuck on lamps before eventually removing most of them.  This map probably could’ve used some pruning of its trees too.  Either way, I definitely took a bunch of dips into the nukage on accident too, haha!

Map 06: I was a little afraid to make it so dark, but I hadn’t played around with lighting too much, so I decided to leave it that way, and put some light amp off to the side.  Also, I’ll look forward to more reactions to this as well.  I want to experiment with evil ways to use just one or two arch-viles, because they kind of lose their magic when a whole room of them is coming after you, or when one’s just laughing behind everything.  Hopefully you found the supports on the bridge helpful?  That was their intention anyways, but that’s kind of an advanced thought I got from watching too much Decino over the past few years.

Map 07: Yeah, the lost souls are kinda dumb, I really only wanted to call homage to E2M8 on their presence since again it was most of my friend’s first experience with classic Doom, and had a little bit of nostalgia.  Yeah, the exit was a little bit silly, but that was almost purely made because I don’t know how to end level on Enemy death yet.  It also could have been better lit, too.

 

 

@Biodegradeable: Thanks for the video!

Spoiler

 

Map02: I had a chuckle at “That’s too easy!”

Map03: Only now do I realize that the west room could’ve been a little bit more open especially around its corners.  The bookcase room probably didn’t need to be a secret.  The shaft in the red key card room was marked due to how you can get to it as a shortcut, but you’re right, it probably didn’t need to be tagged, alternatively, it could’ve been raised, I suppose.

Map04: Sorry you got stuck, the visual cues are a bit obtuse.  Jumping with an action is definitely not intended, and the only “jumps” are flat sprints over short gaps.  Ideally, you'd walk out the Mancubus’ window to get to the teleporter.  Though, you’re the first person I’ve seen to find the red key before the teleporter, which I found interesting!    Also, the soul sphere is one of the three teleporters in the nukage.

Map05: Loved the reaction to the Baron Elevator! 

Map06: I was really hoping this one wouldn’t fall flat, glad to see it got to the point right as your curiosity had peaked. 

Map07:  Ah, I love the reaction to the switch in the blue key room, after you did the jumps.  Also interesting how you’re the first to go into the Lava side from the stairs, but that’s on me, and totally something I should’ve caught.  Still kind of a neat sequence break to see.  I hadn’t planned on making the Yellow door work from that side, so that was good to know.

 

Seriously though, Thanks again, you all gave me a chance to explain some of the thought process.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Kyukon

[Clippy]

 

[mxrgan]

7 hours ago, Kyukon said:

BucketHoodie: Thanks for the additional feedback.  You’re probably right about the difficulty, at least for HMP.  This wad is a good idea of what to expect will be normal from me on the UV level, but you’ve helped me to see I need to pay more attention to balancing the medium difficulty. 

Thanks for the recommendations, as well.  I’ve followed them both for a while actually, but they’re good channels to send anyone to.  Wouldn’t have been able to make it this far without them.

 

I reccomend editing monsters for most difficulties (at least UV, HMP, and HNTR). Even just tagging some mosters for this difficulty and some for that one from within the editor is good.

[Clippy]

Map 4 world record

 

 

[Kyukon]

Clippy:  Thanks for the whole play through video on the WAD!

Spoiler

 

Map01: I also did feel like I wanted to go outside after this map was done, but had to just cut it off and be done.

 

Map02: Watching this makes me glad I downgraded all the Barons in this level to hell knights, as that was a slog.  There also used to be a Baron where the computer map is, but he really killed the pacing.  The whole hallway around the red key room was also made to make dealing with the hell knights easier. 

 

Map03: Ah yeah, the entry door texture should’ve been cleaned.  The parkour was tested a bunch of times to minimize how annoying it was, glad to see it was worth.  Yeah, that hole is intended to be a way to sort of speed through the parkour room.  The final secret is the SSG, I nearly thought you’d find it a few times.  So far, it’s mostly only been discovered by accident.

 

Map04: I learned a fair amount when you nearly got to the red key, but missed it just by a hair, my fault, and I appreciate seeing the problems in the design.  It’s almost there, I just needed to make the red key more visible.  No point hiding it around the ledge.  It also seems the texture for the shed’s door isn’t very appealing to most.  There’s an SSG inside there, haha.  Thanks for the compliments on the combat!

Also, I laughed at the sequence break on the switches!  I don’t mind it at all, seeing the fun ways everyone’s been able to sequence break so far has been entertaining.  I’ve been watching KingDime and Zeromaster forever so no need to feel bad about sequence breaking, it’s fun.

 

Map05:   Yeah, trying to get the see through glass walls and rails (while making sure they can't be shot through) on this one was a bit tricky, glad it went off without a hook!  And yeah, the revenants were intended to stay in the exit area and not come out.

 

Map06: First of all thanks for the huge compliment!  Next, the high cell count was to make sure I could get through on Pistol start, so hopefully it was enjoyable to run around with the Plasma Rifle.  The silver stairs texture was the closest thing in my mind to metal shutters, but will note that.  Also, those pillars on the bridge are a little annoying, they only got added after I realized the Arch-Viles were a tad too hard without them.

 

Map07: I can see how the low ceiling in the blue key room could be a problem, I had to raise some ceilings on Map 3, and it’s probably the same case here.  And finally, yeah, this map is big only out of being the last level, so no worries there.  Thanks for sticking it out all the way through!

 

TL: DR; Thanks again not just for the compliments but especially for letting me know what was annoying!  That really helps for future ideas, as I'd like to make more miniWADs that can be done sub 2 hours.  And that Map04 speed run is great, hah!  Two of my friends found that too, but I decided to just leave it in, and let the player choose to break it or do it properly because of how much of an easter egg hunt this map ends up being after everything is dead. 

Edited October 14, 2020 by Kyukon

[mxrgan]

Umm, so I said fuck it on the 1 hour commentary thing, but I am still gonna make some no commentary episodes of each map.

[Clippy]

23 minutes ago, BucketHoodie said:

Umm, so I said fuck it on the 1 hour commentary thing, but I am still gonna make some no commentary episodes of each map.

 

It's touch being a professional commentator the whole time I often just ramble on incoherently or talk about fried chicken

[Clippy]

Hey @Kyukon Did they beat 12 seconds? I worked hard on that, not really but it's hard to get the right position to press. If you did care to fix it just redisgn them wider prolly. I like to break progresson on levels haha , up to the author to keep em in or not. Anyone who seriously decided  to skip the level like this is missing out on a good time anyway

 

But yeah that map 3 key man woooooooo that's more hidden than most of the secrets I put in my maps!!!

 

I watched @Biodegradable and laughed cause he got super fetched up here. 

 

It's interesting to see how everyone plays maps differently and it's good for the mapper to see if too many players get stuck in the same pitfalls. Speaking of falls me and bio also were confused by the dropzone in map 2 was it? It was just confusing but handy if you need there for playing /

 

As for going outside map 1, yah why not some kind of secret ala E1M1 to a megarmour or ... anything really

 

Just to get outside and take some fresh air

 

I really liked map 2 area around hell knights and the TNT logo area, combat was fun all sorts of baddies all over

 

Now I want to play map 6 again with pistol start

 

And I almost never replay maps

 

 

Edited October 14, 2020 by Clippy
I got ketchup on my keyboard

[mxrgan]

4 hours ago, Clippy said:

 

It's touch being a professional commentator the whole time I often just ramble on incoherently or talk about fried chicken

yes, that and the video was faaar to long for my computer to handle rendering. I plan on doing this with the NTMAI mod though. The build engine style and feel fits in a little nicely with this miniwad.

[mxrgan]

Finally made a video about this, I decided to try playing with the NTMAI gameplay mod.

[Kyukon]

Thanks for the video BucketHoodie!  I can also see what you mean, NTMAI makes map03's elevator room so much scarier!

I'm almost done editing a second draft of the WAD, and I've compiled a change log, that'll be posted with it too.  I know the end result is such a small project for the amount of months that's gone into it (I'd been working on this before I joined the forums), but I'd like to see it through to a finished and polished mini WAD, and appreciate all the feedback that's been given so far.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Kyukon

[mxrgan]

1 hour ago, Kyukon said:

I know the end result is such a small project for the amount of months that's gone into it (I'd been working on this before I joined the forums), but I'd like to see it through to a finished and polished mini WAD, and appreciate all the feedback that's been given so far.

Hey, you did a good job on the wad, at least youre also trying to improve it based off of some people's feedback. I appreciate it. If you ever release another map, miniwad, or even megawad, Ill make sure to play it.

[mmww]

Really enjoyed this! Lots of good ideas and nice design. Lots of monsters. I especially liked MAP06. I think it really works, and it offers some horror elements and atmosphere that I really liked. Great first wad!

[Kyukon]

Updated with a new link!  The old link will remain in the bottom of the post.

 

Thank you all so much for the feedback, and here's hoping for drawing the best out of this little project.

[ketmar]

as this mapset requires "tnt.wad", you can include GAMEINFO lump to allow gzdoom automatically detect it. just put one line:

IWAD = tnt.wad

there.

[Kyukon]

Thanks for the info!

Also, I've got some screenshots of this WAD as it was a work in progress to share if anyone was interested.

 

Map02 Starting Room:  Had to learn a fair bit about this map while testing it.  I learned a bit about leading the player forward on this map.  First, I made sure the switch on the little computer desk was facing the door that opens, but realize that it was probably too far off to always notice as a fresh player.  So, I learned that placing monsters that don't have a deaf tag on the other side of doors like that is a good idea to make sure to attract player attention that way.

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Map 03:  I drew out the path of this level in paint to help myself visualize it, and realize that it still might have been confusing, while you're locked in the room.  That led me to the eventual blue line on the floor that hopefully let you know what the switch in the back room does.  Later on, I thought it would be cool to have a vent shaft that lets you get into the action early on in this room.  I was honestly surprised by the amount of people who ended up looking up at awkward angles to fight the revenants, hell knights, and the baron.  I intended for them to be fought platform to platform, with your current platform giving you a good angle to shoot the next platform without being too awkward, but lessons were learned.  I'll have to find more interesting ways to try and encourage fight monsters on level ground, instead of aiming up like that.  

Spoiler

 

 

Map 04:  I spent pretty much all of my testing time on this map worried about the combat, and very little time worrying about the functionality, and that showed in the end.  One of my friends broke it by getting the bridge to raise through using its elevator function which exists in case you get stuck.  I fixed that for the first version that was posted here, but this map still had it's design flaws, which I think have been ironed out now.  I'm glad the imps and hell knights at the exit provided the experience I had hoped they would in most of the playthroughs.

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

Map05:  The hardest part about making this map was actually getting the Baron fight to work.  I really wanted it to be a neat little spectacle, and getting that glass to work took a lot of testing.  I later repeated that for the revenants in the exit.  I think I just like showing you monsters that won't attack you until a little later.

Spoiler

 

 

 

I'll make a separate post for 6 and 7 afterwards since there's way more of those two.

[Kyukon]

Map06:  This map started with just the concept of this elevator room, but as you can see in the early screenshots, the 2 Arch-viles were a feature I wanted from the beginning.  The main fight room nearly had Pain Elementals in it.  Imagine how much of a slog that would've been!  I made those little corner pieces to start for the switches for the door, but decided that didn't look very appealing at all, and took the blue light pillars from the hub room instead.  This level really ended up having loops inside of loops, which honestly turned out better than I expected.  It was a way to make you see rooms more than once, while also making some neat encounters.

Spoiler

 

 

 

Map07:  I did most of the shape drawing on this map before putting a majority of the monsters in this time.  I normally put them in as I go along, but maybe that's why this map was able to feel a lot more action-packed.  This map was also loosely inspired by some of the map shapes from the Blackrock Foundry in World of Warcraft, just to get a little bit of direction, before ultimately making it my own thing.  The blue key room was one of the last rooms that I ended up making, and it was definitely one of the higher monster counts I've thrown into a room yet.  I feel like this room accomplishes what I was trying to do in Map 03 much better than Map 03's vertical room did.

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Kyukon]

Made a few more final tweaks to this, including skybox fixes, some detailing, and trimming just a tiny bit of fat off the end.  The updated version is at the top of the first post. 

 

Thanks for the feedback from everyone who helped me get this far.

[Kyukon]

Map01 has been completely redone! 

 

I tried to keep it in the spirit of the original as my first completed map, but this time it's much more action-packed and without CONS1_1 spamming.

 

For now, that's the only one I think I'll completely redo, and I've decided to move forward with the creation of Map08 and more.