Breakout (5 map WAD)

[Nimiauredhel]

Breakout is a 5 map single-player WAD. It's also my first! Since I'm new to the WAD scene I'm not sure in what other terms to describe it. I only know for sure that absolutely none of it is a slaughtermap 😁

I made the maps at a rate of roughly one a week, and they should be relatively short to finish casually. The whole set seems to take roughly an hour to play through. I did implement difficuly levels, but since I'm not a particularly confident Doom player it may still lean on the easier side for some.

I'd love to get as much feedback as possible!

 

Tested with recent versions of ZDoom and GZDoom. I was initially going for vanilla for some reason, but at some point I just really wanted those floors to go down fast, so switched over to ZDoom actions. Then I started messing with SLADE and MAPINFO which is why this has level selection and two short intermission texts.
IWAD is Doom II, jumping/crouching are disabled.

 

Latest version -

Breakout20210408.zip

 

Screenshots

Spoiler

 

 

Edited April 27, 2021 by Nimiauredhel
edited topic title

[Biodegradable]

 

[Nimiauredhel]

@Biodegradable

Well that was enlightening! And fun to watch.

I guess that entrance in map 3 needs to stand out more. Seeing you miss it so many times made me realize just how much it blends in. I'll also take your note about the key textures into account.

 

Spoiler

The way you went across the lava in map 4 was actually sort of unintended. I was trying to make a harder skip there with a rocket jump, but apparently just running across works too, oops.

The 'official' way to go across starts with shooting a switch that's on the other side - I guess it also needs to stand out more.

 

I had no idea about the poor spider, too.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Nimiauredhel

[Nimiauredhel]

New version with some much needed improvements (in OP). Hopefully fixed everything that seemed like an obvious issue in @Biodegradable's playthrough. I'm sure no one will complain about those elevators being slow anymore 😁

 

Also, it doesn't disable freelook anymore. I realized that while it's not my preference at the moment, it doesn't break the maps in any way and making people deal with it is just dickish

Edited March 22, 2021 by Nimiauredhel

[The Kingslayer]

Man, these are sweet! They don't strike me as beginner levels at all. I thought that Cursed Canyon was especially creative.

[Nimiauredhel]

Thank you! To be fair I do work in game dev, but not level design. So I have prior interest in the subject and this is my non commercial outlet for the kind of stuff I don't usually get to do.

[Nimiauredhel]

New version!

Maps 1 & 4 got a nice little overhaul to make some areas flow better and make more sense visually.

Made sure that yet another room in map 3 will be harder to miss by trapping an imp inside it behind some bars.

Some minor visual fixes in other maps, and removed some accidental "extra" secrets.

One lingering issue with this WAD is that secrets are often too easy to find and don't feel like secrets at all. I don't intend to fix it since it would mess to much with the existing layouts, and I'd rather just take this lesson to future maps.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Nimiauredhel

[Noyemi K]

I'm a ways into Map02 and I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. The escape sequence in Map01 is clever and intense, and getting to throw a little bit of the crap back at the firing squad harassing you outside at the end felt pretty good. In terms of encounters, there's a pleasingly vanilla Doom feel to some of them.

[Clank117]

Hey, I played through these levels a few days ago and just wanted to come here and say that I had fun and really enjoyed them! They definitely have that vanilla Doom 2 charm that I actually prefer. The architecture really is a strong point in these levels. It's very creative! There's only a couple things to note. There's some misaligned textures throughout the wad, but that's really just nitpicky and not super important. 

 

I also wanted to talk about this area with the baron in Map 2:

Spoiler

 

You can run through the fencing on the right side, and it just makes fighting the baron a bit annoying when trying to strafe. Also, the baron can shoot straight through that entire wall (rather than just the opening). Not sure if that was intentional, but again, just a minor annoyance when fighting it. Keep up the good work, man! Looking forward to seeing more from you.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Clank117

[Nimiauredhel]

4 hours ago, Clank117 said:

Hey... 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Thank you! Yeah these are known issues and I have another update or two in me before I move on so they'll be fixed pretty soon.

[Nimiauredhel]

Pretty big update including lots of small visual fixes, some reworked areas, bug fixes (the baron can't hit you through that wall anymore), and difficulty adjustments.

Also removed one megaskip and a related death pit that I thought were cool at the time but eh I was probably just tired. They were replaced with something equally useless but harmless.

Edited April 2, 2021 by Nimiauredhel

[DavidN]

Here's my contribution, for the record :)

 

 

 

This is a pretty good mapset that starts off really strongly visually, I love the computer room in the thumbnail! And you've got some nice ideas about how to surprise the player and keep them on their toes as well. As far as weaknesses go, I would definitely think about signalling where to go next to the player to avoid the possibility of becoming lost.

[Suitepee]

https://youtu.be/W23qr9Bc3Fs

 

Playthrough starts at around 1:03:45.

[Nimiauredhel]

10 hours ago, Suitepee said:

https://youtu.be/W23qr9Bc3Fs

 

Playthrough starts at around 1:03:45.

 

Thank you for playing! There are definitely a lot of things I could improve about this WAD. I've generally moved on from it at this point, but will probably do a small round of fixes at some point to address some frustrating bits.

And yeah the sky nukage is on purpose, though I can see why you'd think it wasn't.