"Bloodbath: Hell's Deepest" - 7 relatively-difficult hell-themed maps (Boom CP) [/idgames]

[KeaganDunn]

Doom doesn’t always have to be realistic techbase buildings filled with nothing but hitscanners. :P Introducing seven Boom-compatible Doom II maps (MAP01-06, MAP31) consisting of mostly abstract, hell-themed environments, constructed with only the stock textures. There are technically 8 maps, with MAP07 being a credits map following end screen text. The maps are not really cohesive or follow any sort of plot, instead are arranged by difficulty. The difficulty is comparable to E3 of Scythe and its sequel, but quite a few elements are inspired by some of Ribbiks’ works, such as Stardate 20x7.

 

 

While continuous play is supported a little, I recommend playing each map on pistol-start for the intended experience. There are death exits requiring MAP04 and MAP06 to be pistol-started (due to having heavy weaponry in the preceding maps).

Maps are designed around UV, and later tuned up a bit on that difficulty. Make use of the difficulty settings if you have to!

 

There are some notable changes/gimmicks in the gameplay here:
There are no zombies present in the maps, nor are there any medikits or stimpacks. Powerups are present, and health bonuses are actually 24, 16, or 8 stacked on top of each other depending on your difficulty. Armor bonuses are always worth 5. Make use of these changes, and make your way through Hell's deepest, reddest reaches. Oh, and be ready for anything they want to try on you...

 

Tested in GZDoom v4.5.0 (primary) and GLBoom+ (secondary). Also tested in DoomRetro, but items won’t teleport in for some reason, most of which are crucial for survival.

 

 

If you’re looking for only a map or two to play, here’s some suggestions:

MAP01 – A snappy opener that’s not too hard, but doesn’t go too easy on the player.
MAP04 – If you like compact layouts requiring berserk and adequate movement, this one’s for you.
MAP06 – A beastly S.O.B. that sort of pays homage to God Machine and other magnum opuses. Encounter-based key-gathering in any order, in the form of semi-slaughter setpieces, all leading up to an explosive finale. MAP07 follows immediately after this one as a credits map, with a text screen in between.
MAP31 – If you’re looking for something a little…different, try this one. Strongly recommend (G)ZDoom for the best experience.

 

 

PLAY INFO:

IWAD – Doom II
Maps – MAP01-MAP07, MAP31

Map format - Boom (-complevel 9, I think)
Included – Maps, music, DeHackEd, MUSINFO, MAPINFO
Single-player – Designed for and primary purpose
Coop & DM – Player starts and multiplayer-only things are present, but untested and not designed for
Tools used – Ultimate Doom Builder, SLADE, Doom Writer, MidiEditor
Play Time – Most of the maps shouldn’t take long…they are about your average Doom 2/TNT level with the only exception being MAP06. Blind UV playthroughs so far have been around 20 minutes for most of the maps.

 

More information is available in a README file, including music info, credits, and map commentary. Feedback and criticism (and frustrated rants) are greatly appreciated!

 

IDGAMES DOWNLOAD -> https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/bloodbhd

 

Spoiler

 

v1.1 --- Minor visual fixes, altered some ammo balancing (mainly in MAP06)
RC1 --- Fixed a lot of visual errors in all the maps, rebalanced ammo in MAP04 and 05, touched up the environments, added a progression-stopping MAP32 after completing MAP31, fixed alleged softlocks in MAP06 in PrBoom (had to change the ending a bit for this), and more. Unless there are more possible softlocks/exploits/errors to be found, I feel this is ready for an idgames release.

RC2 --- Few visual and potential softlock fixes

 

 

SCREENSHOTS ---

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

@BoxY@Clippy @Biodegradable @Reelvonic @Nootsy-Nootsy @AvadaKedavraWithQuadDamage @Terminus  You all were involved in playtesting the demo maps (thanks, by the way) – so I thought I’d redirect you to the full version now if you’re interested at all. There have been quite a few changes to MAP01 and MAP03, the ones you tried, anyways. Enjoy!

Edited April 7, 2021 by Dunn & Dunn
/idgames release!

[Terminus]

Congrats on the release! I'm glad my playthrough could help.

If you'd like I can definitely add this to my current playtesting list, continuing from Map03.

[KeaganDunn]

Just now, Terminus said:

Congrats on the release! I'm glad my playthrough could help.

If you'd like I can definitely add this to my current playtesting list, continuing from Map03.

02, 04, 05, 06, and 31 are actually the new ones. Go ahead!

[Hitboi]

Thank you for adding me as a playtester! I want to share a playthrough but I don't have a YT channel, so I'm going to release some demos, I will upload them to YT if I created a channel.

[KeaganDunn]

16 minutes ago, AvadaKedavraWithQuadDamage said:

Thank you for adding me as a playtester! I want to share a playthrough but I don't have a YT channel, so I'm going to release some demos, I will upload them to YT if I created a channel.

Good deal! Probably be best not to try UV-fast... :P

Edited January 31, 2021 by Dunn & Dunn

[Soulless]

Hey Dunn, terrific set of old school hellish maps! well, "Against the spirits" had maybe slightly better visuals, or atmosphere at least,

but overrall felt cohesive. I wasnt expecting such hell to be honest, I found myself saving more than I wanted. Super tight ammo balance had me in trouble so much, challenging last maps,it got me hooked for a day. Great work!

Edited September 25, 2021 by Soulless

[KeaganDunn]

4 minutes ago, Soulless said:

Hey Dunn, terrific set of old school hellish maps! well, "Against the spirits" had maybe slightly better visuals, or atmosphere at least,

but overrall felt cohesive. I wasnt expecting such hell to be honest, I found myself saving more than I wanted, challenging last maps, got me hooked for a day. Great work!

Thank you so much, @Soulless! I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it and that it was challenging for you even at the end.

 

MAP06, especially. That one can be taken on in so many ways I didn't bother trying every single possible route you could do. I've had only one another person playtest this thing for me (live on a private Discord stream) so there wasn't too much to go off of. There was so much balancing to be done with MAP06, depending on the route you could take, and with the total length of the map trying to do all that for every difficulty and every route is beyond me.

I got your PM as soon as I was about to ask if you tried MAP31. Let me know when you do...but mark everything you say about it as "spoilers" or something. :)

I probably spent as much time on "Against the Spirits" as every other map combined. :P 

 

Glad to hear you had fun with this one. I am looking forward to Clippy's playthrough...as well as other people's...

 

[Clippy]

At first I was playing this under the thought that it was like a traditional map, that enough resources would be there to kill the monsters, I guess not. But changing my midframe to bew to just run and crash to the exit made it more fun, just wish I knew the premise going in

 

 

[KeaganDunn]

@Clippy I'll be leaving my thoughts in the comments section of the video so I don't clog up the replies here.

 

I said in my map commentary, "the map is called Merciless Allotment, all the health is in the form of items in this WAD, and there is only 1 item in this map. Make of that what you will."

Edited February 1, 2021 by Dunn & Dunn

[KeaganDunn]

v1.1

I went ahead and fixed some things up a little while ago but was going to wait. Nothing major, actually, just a few visual fixes and some changes in ammo management in MAP06.

The original post is a little more engaging now. :P

[Clippy]

https://youtu.be/1xFrhecGbAY

[Clippy]

 

 

[Clippy]

You told me map 5 was going to be more traditional but it was the craziest one yet lol. I know you said you can kill all monsters but this requires knowing all the secret switches and buttons and where to get all the ammo. This was chaos my friend. The start especially, seemed to only be one specific way to approach it, taking the fun out of giving he player choices - not being able to kill things and just enough ammo with no room for mistakes. Sure it's challenging but I'm not sure how much of an audience this specific type of challenge has. Your maps are well crafted and detailed as always but it's not satisfying for me anyway to just run around like a crazy person and I don't feel a great sense of accomplishment when I can't get full kills .... or even most kills - It's awesome to try sometime unique and out of the box but I found it overall mostly frustrating and unfulfilling personally

 

Video is almost done processing

 

 

[KeaganDunn]

I've waited a little while and have updated the maps over time. The first release candidate is here! Download is in the original post, with the patch notes.

 

Still looking for feedback on the WAD! Any criticisms, suggestions, or frustrated rants are welcome before this is uploaded to idgames.

 

Oh, and @Clippy has bailed out on MAP06 and MAP31, so don't bother him. :P

 

[KeaganDunn]

Sorry for bumping the thread yet again, but this mapset is now available on idgames! https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/bloodbhd

 

Thanks @Clippy, @Soulless, @Phobos Anomaly, @Terminus, and others for your playtesting and feedback! Whether you liked it or not. :)

Kinda wish I got this published sooner - I released a 2-map demo for this thing on New Year's Eve, and finished making the maps somewhere in January. Where is time going???

 

John @Suitepee will soon be playing this set, too, as part of the requests he received. Be there.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I got a lot of maps in the works - I'm really just making what I want right now. Examples that are being worked on are: Easy OTEX maps, extreme luck-based platforming/combat-puzzle bullshit...and simplistic, chaotic, but fun maps...

 

See you next time.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Dunn & Dunn

[Clippy]

Congrats buddy. I feel bad for getting frustrated with your maps earlier, boy did they kick my ass. You came a Loooong way from First Blood in a short amount of time. Impressive unique creative maps man sorry I bitched about them haha - keep up the good work

[Terminus]

You're most certainly welcome. This is a fun pack indeed and I can recommend it to anyone who hasn't tried it yet and is looking for a spicy challenge.

Congrats on the release!

[LadyMistDragon]

I really love a Hell aesthetic with thought and care put into it, and this most certainly does in spades. The secrets were all pretty easy to find, which isn't a bad thing at all. Turning secret hunting into switch pulling and inspection for some awfully obscure cues isn't really how I like to spend my time, especially when it's obvious said mapper doesn't really know how to provide decent hints.

 

I must say that I'm surprised you got into Doom mapping so soon after 'discovering it' but either way, you have some strong talent. I especially like some of the nice touches, like being shoved through a chute at the beginning of at least a few maps, the way the outside window gets blocked off of one room when you hit a switch that reveals a backpack in the same hall,  and that little dark hallway containing the Imps in the middle and Hell Knights on the sides, which seemed a strange secret, but I guess that was a showcase of sorts.

 

I ended up taking a different path than I had originally, which turned out to be a serious mistake without the plasma rifle. Turns out I was hoping for something as easy as the text file seemed to indicate for the first map and I was wrong. I ended up finishing it in the end, though certainly not without a few deaths.

 

[KeaganDunn]

11 minutes ago, LadyMistDragon said:

-snipped-

 

Thank you so much! If you're confused at all, that's normal. It's abstract and so is my mind when mapping. XD

Quote

I ended up taking a different path than I had originally, which turned out to be a serious mistake without the plasma rifle.

MAP01 and MAP05 were the first two maps I made for the WAD - admittedly they are pretty strict in how you approach them, which I've improved on since. I initially made the set in December/January/February.

 

I can't tell from your comment if you only did the first map or played through the whole set - either way, I appreciate the feedback, and good luck on the rest of the maps if you haven't done them already. :)

 

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by Dunn & Dunn

[LadyMistDragon]

Oh I was just talking about the first map. I don't think I've got the time for the whole set at the moment, especially Map 06 and 31. At a certain point, I have to keep up with the rest of the /newstuff since I'm doing that section of the Wadazine now

 

Map 02 was pretty nice though, even if I didn't figure out how to telefrag the Cyberdemons until I'd finished the rest of the map. I never found out how to access the Super Shotgun secret though.

 

Map 03, Gehenna's Gate had some seriously nasty traps. There was that outdoor one with Manicubi and ammo boxes in the corners facing the indoor area. The very last one was absolutely terrible, naturally. It reminded me of a similar thing Danlex did in Map 02 of the 12 Days of Doomas speedmap collection. Yet, I spent a dozen times with that(there were many other enemies that got in the way there, to be fair), whereas I somehow managed to die only twice, even though it felt like I was firing blindly. Curious breaks from the hell theme with some of the texture choices too.

[Outrageous Videos]

Great maps for only using vanilla textures :D

Map06 was a real grand finale with awesome setpieces like sunder or late sunlust

I look forward to any future work you do