Filtration Plant - (GZDoom, Stand-alone Map)

[Emperor S P O O N]

Filtration Plant is a stand-alone map utilizing GZDoom and the UDMF format to create an atmosphere that compliments the fast-paced nature of the level.

I made this level in my spare time when I wasn't working on stuff irl or on an upcoming project with the working title of "Spectre". You can find videos of my progress on it from my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf6qnVQ8sNrff25R1IYXwrQ

In any case, here are some screenshots of the level itself:
 

Spoiler

Some things to note before diving into this level:

- This will only run with GZDoom.
- You will need the Doom 2 IWAD for this level.
- Jumping, Crouching, and Freelook will be allowed.
- Dynamic lights are aplenty here, almost a necessity, so if you're having performance issues I'd suggest to turn dynamic lights off and turn the brightness up.
- Difficulty is hard to judge with this one. I think it sits comfortably close to Doom 2, yet it can fall near Plutonia in some areas.

That's about it, I think. You'll find the link to the IdGames Archive here:
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/filtplnt

Let me know if you liked this level. I really do appreciate the feedback.

Edited December 14, 2020 by King S P O O N

[HQDefault]

Have a video

 

 

 

Quite enjoyed this one. I think the difficulty was a bit inconsistent having a few random spikes in the middle and end of the map, and I'm not a fan of how similar large chunks of corridors look. But outside of that, not a bad level. I'm interested to see how you improve from here.

[Emperor S P O O N]

Thank you for your feedback. I really do appreciate it a lot.
Just to clear some things up a bit:
- The blue key switch opened up the wall blocking the way to the exit teleporter at the boss arena. It also allowed the script for the boss fight to occur, so you could have just gone into the room, cleared it out, and then hit the switch to start the boss fight. But I'm surprised you made it that far like the way you did.
- The room with the BFG was not necessary to progression, no, but it made things a bit easier. I put it out of the way for that reason so that players who would notice the bars that caged off that door near the starting area would connect the dots to that other door connecting to the BFG. Far fetched, I know, but I didn't want it to be too obvious either.
- If you went on after the intermission, there was an end screen of sorts. I'd suggest reading it, it has some interesting things for you to read.

That's about it for now. I'm kinda putting my other project, "Spectre", on hiatus for a while to focus on other things. I might be starting a CP sometime soon next year, so keep an eye out for my username on any community projects in the future.

[Biodegradable]

Posting my playtest video to help give this map some traction.

 

 

Edited December 15, 2020 by Biodegradable

[Emperor S P O O N]

Oh, wow, that's an old version of the map before I released it. That still has the old music I made for it. The music, as you could tell, was a bit off for the pacing of the map, so I had to change it to something more fitting and less grating on the ears. I believe you'll also notice Brutal Doom may work with this map, although I didn't make the map with Brutal Doom in mind, so if you're having issues that may be why.

[DavidN]

Another one for the pile :) I liked this one, it felt big without being too difficult to find your way around thanks to how you connected the rooms together in loops (I just had a couple of issues finding switches). And I felt the challenge level was good (with a small spike in the middle and then at the end), but I prefer easier maps. Looking forward to Spectre when you get back to it!

 

 

 

[MattFright]

Hey, i might be a bit too late on this because UMDF maps with lots of dynamic lights and vanilla textures give me very strong "first map" vibes, but after watching @DavidN's playthrough (or at least the first half of it) i got really interested, so i gave it a shot. Before i give my thoughts i want to give the positives since i can be a bit harsh on my critiques due to usually only addressing what needs to be improved: the aesthetics here are AMAZING. You've managed to make a pretty utilitarian looking map that doesn't look boring in the slightest nor feels too symmetrical or too boring to run through, you've done an amazing use of dynamic lights, great use of texturing (aside from a few i'll talk about later), and despite some of the key switching getting pretty easy to get lost in (i got lost in the same spots as David did in his video), the architecture is memorable enough that wherever you go you find landmarks to help you get back on track quickly enough. Overall a gorgeous looking map. Now onto the actual review:

 

Spoiler

For one, i figured it was far too easy on regular UV, so i played it on UV-fast instead (which granted me a few deaths at the start but after that it was pretty chill, and even helped making the stealth monsters stay visible, more on that later). The ammo for the most part was fine, pretty decent balancing of bullets and rockets forcing you to switch weapons from time to time, being always full on shells can sometimes be a nice thing i guess, though i really have a problem with just how much energy you give the player. You first get 2 energy cell packs without any energy weapon, then you get an absolute metric ton of it after getting the BFG, and for some reason you only get the plasma rifle after getting the BFG rendering it pretty much useless, all of this only gets amplified at the final fight where you can easily just spam the BFG and get an easy win despite the bosses, especially so with the secret.

Onto the encounters themselves, let's start with the elephant in the room: PLEASE avoid using stealth monsters. They're cheap, lazy, unfun to fight against and add nothing of value to any given encounter. I was lucky to fight them with fast monsters (funnily enough) so i was able to see them at all times, but people playing the map as it was probably intended would not have fun fighting them at all. And an even more important issue is that the encounters are all just... extremely forgettable. All of them consist of: enter room, see monsters, run away/peek and shoot, move on. Only exception to this is the last fight, though even then i only didn't run to lure enemies to a safer area because i could easily kill everything with the BFG and realistically endless cells.

And here's a few visual nitpicks: David pointed it out on his video but i want to add something that he didn't, that being that the bridge's switch is so easy to miss because it's in a perfectly symmetrical machine (doesn't make you go "i wonder what's on the other side!" since you expect for it to be all the same), surrounded by far more interesting surroundings, in a place that you're not bound to run into (it'd be far better to place it facing the ramp you enter that room through). As for the doors: You've got a pretty good design for most doors, but those stretched doors... I feel like you're far, FAR better off doing some more creative usage of textures through linedef cutouts to create a "new" door texture through the use of several other textures. Here's an edit of one of those doors as an example:

 

See! Now it might not look exactly as you previously wanted it to be, as it is of course just an example i quickly set up, but this is to show just how decent of a huge door you can make that doesn't look awful and stretched, just by doing a few linedef cuts so you can set different textures and different offsets for each one like this, here's how it looks in the editor in case my explanation was convoluted:

 

I only did one side of it for the sake of not wasting time, obviously, but hopefully that helps! It was honestly my biggest nitpick visually anyways since you completely nailed it visually.

 

In short: Really beautiful solid job of a map, a great showcase of your skills with GZDoom's features and your level design capabilities, though the encounters and weapon progression could use a bit more effort.

 

I'm glad i saw David's video on this map because i had a lot of fun and now i can keep an eye on an projects you may come to release in the future :)

[Caleb13]

Nicely done, the level design and atmosphere is great. However, the map has low overall difficulty - I played on UV, but I don't think my health ever dropped below 80%. Not even the final fight was very hard, because it's easy to provoke monster infighting. And I'm saying that even though I didn't find the BFG.