Down the Drain - 32 vanilla maps - Final

[Nikku4211]

6 minutes ago, Benjogami said:

regrettable find for unsuspecting explorers.

Never punish the player for exploring.

 

This is an important piece of advice for game designers everywhere.

 

[P41R47]

2 hours ago, Benjogami said:

I'm also a bit surprised that these are called slaughtermaps!

ahh please, don't humillate us bad players.
We know we are bad and don't even try the god tier slaughter mapsets.
Sorry for defining this as slaughter maps, its a shame that we don't know the true meaning of the word :(

For us, tricky encounters with lots of monsters, the need to make them infight and ammo managements means pretty much slaughtermaps kind for us.

Plutonia's Go 2 It is still difficult for the average player, and its just one of the very first slaughter maps.
And your maps are above it, on some parts with the monsters density.

Map22 last area on HNTR has 17 revenants, 8 barons, 2 cybers, 2 pain elemental, 1 archvile and 1 mancubus.
And thanks the toilet god, the BFG is right there with enough ammo :)

Out of curiosity, what this maps would be called if they are not slaughter maps?
just hard AF?
heavy density monster puzzleish maps?
density puzzle maps for short?

[Blip]

Listening to a midi rendition of the second utena ending on stx vile stream felt extremely cursed, which is saying something because it already felt cursed from the get go.

 

I wanted to play it but now I have to (especially after discovering that these were slaughtermaps and made by you).

[ScrappyMcDoogerton]

I get the ghost monsters bug every time I start map 13 I don't know if it's intentional but it can be problematic. Also, great wad.

 

edit: Map 31 has the same issue only worse I could not complete map 31 due to not having enough rockets to kill all the ghost monsters.

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by ScrappyMcDoogerton
Ghost monsters

[msx2plus]

On 9/1/2021 at 1:51 PM, Nikku4211 said:

Never punish the player for exploring.

 

This is an important piece of advice for game designers everywhere.

 

agree most of the time, but there's a certain style of map that continually defies my expectations as an inhospitable alien landscape which i quite enjoy. not everything has to be fun, fair, or inviting. there's a certain texture to things that aren't, and that texture is not for everybody.

[Suitepee]

https://youtu.be/NpD-R-tlBnA = maps 1-13.

https://youtu.be/WXqQoZcnKE4 = maps 14-19. (and 31/32)

https://youtu.be/2RtEaZau5Ew = maps 20-30.

 

Played through on HMP as requested by @Benjogami for playtesting purposes. A pretty unique megawad this turned out to be, even if the "90's mapping tribute" effect kind of wore off in the Hell levels later on. I certainly expect this to be in contention for some kind of Cacoward or runner-up prize.

Edited September 7, 2021 by Suitepee

[loveless]

great midis, silly visuals, and whimsical gameplay with a splash of challenge.  very fun!

[Luleta]

playin on uv pistol starts and got to map15, im enjoying this a lot.

these busy vanilla chonky maps are the kind of stuff i aspire to make someday ^^

[Benjogami]

RC2 is available in the OP and will probably soon go to the archive if no serious issues pop up. Thanks all for the feedback and kind words!

 

Changelist:

Spoiler

 

[koren]

Played through all of these levels this weekend and had a blast. A good mix of oldschool, hell revealed style maps mixed with some more exotic and challenging encounter ideas. I could feel the strong influence of gggmork and ToD at places. I liked the aggressive use of hurtfloors, ghost monsters and extreme height variation. Cleared everything save for map31, where I kept dying 25+ minutes in because a set of archviles would decide to run away from me and open a door to wake up the barons/cyberdemons or vice versa. I'll keep trying at it because it's a very ToD-esque, zen experience. Stand-outs for me were maps 06, 10, 18, 19, 20, 23 and 26.

 

In terms of difficulty, map17 and map23 were thee hardest in the set for me by quite a margin. The lack of ammo at the start of 17 and the big vile cage made things slow to get off the ground and collecting the bfg and maintaining the cell stack to clear the cybies was not particularly FDA friendly (I took a peek in doombuilder to figure out what was going on after a few failed attempts, the only time I felt I had to in the entire set). Map23 was tricky because I really, really wanted the blue skull key to help deal with the cyberdemon reveal and my movement is absolutely terrible.

 

I can't think of any bugs or issues that arose during my playthrough with dsdadoom & software lighting.

 

Fantastic job overall. Easily in my top 5 for this extremely competitive year.

[Benjogami]

On 11/7/2021 at 2:18 PM, koren said:

Played through all of these levels this weekend and had a blast. [...]

Awesome, glad you enjoyed. I was just thinking about uploading this to the archive, but I might try to think of some tweaks for map17 first. I do think it's by far the toughest aside from 31, which I'm okay with, but maybe it'd be better if it was less... the way it is. :D

 

Thanks for the feedback!

[MidnightMage]

Wow! I loved the aggressive minimalism of this!

Wads like this are the exact niche of mapping I truly enjoy playing.

 

Aesthetically it was pretty abstract (which is a good thing) and it utilized stock textures really well, I mean the compblue waterfalls are the definition of doom cute.

My only regret here is that there weren't more levels to play.

[Saducimus]

Played thru the 1st 6 maps and I really like the lush atmosphere!

[Keyboard_Doomer]

Hello there,

 

we're going to play the first half of the wad for Thursday Night Survival today.

The session starts at 19:00 GMT/14:00 EST and you can expect it to be fairly active for 4+ hours.

 

Not relevant for the TNS session but a couple of notes for coop:

- MAP19, MAP20 and MAP22 have no coop starts

- MAP19 would benefit from some multiplayer radsuits so more than 1 player is actually able to survive/play

 

[Benjogami]

Amazing timing, as I just loaded up Doomworld to find the new idgames uploader, but then saw this. I made some fresh changes based on your feedback and will gladly wait for TNS to finish before uploading. Cheers!

[princetontiger]

I really like these maps.

 

They are crisp, clean, and totally oldschool. I've been immersing myself in 90s stuff lately, and this mapset does the period justice.

 

Thank you! 

[princetontiger]

I got stuck on MAP15... I see the secret exit (not open), and I got the red key... I then spent a bunch of time trying to figure out the door logic. I gave up.

 

Any tips?

[Benjogami]

There's not much logic to the doors; they open in rather arbitrary ways. For the normal exit, you need the red key plus 2 switches that are on the east side of the map, so I suppose it's just a matter of stumbling around until you've opened the necessary doors to access the switches (one switch is behind some HKs and spectres, the other some mancs).

[princetontiger]

I skipped around.. MAP31 is addicting. I enjoyed smashing through it.

[Keyboard_Doomer]

Thanks for joining us for TNS, hope you had fun.

 

2 things I'm not sure if you caught during the sessions:

MAP01 - it's possible to get stuck in the rooms with the keys since they can't be opened from inside

MAP16 - it's possible to get stuck in each of the 4 pointy sectors in the north if you move far enough into the narrow area

[Benjogami]

Yeah it was a lot of fun! Unfortunately I had a lot of stuff I had to do during the second session, but still had fun watching when I could.

 

Thanks for the bug reports, final version should be up soon.

[Grain of Salt]

On 9/1/2021 at 6:51 PM, Nikku4211 said:

Never punish the player for exploring.

 

This is an important piece of advice for game designers everywhere.

 

 

For every well-meaning(?) bit of over-generalizing advice like this, I can think of several examples of games that broke it in order to do something really cool. Like, surely you can think of tons of games where you can discover something super dangerous if you explore the right area, and it's a really fun scary moment.

 

The only universal advice for "game design" is ignore everyone who claims to have universal advice for game design. "Don't punish the player for exploring", "don't have unavoidable damage", "don't have overly confusing secrets", "don't have difficulty spikes"..... it's all bollocks.

[Nirvana]

4 hours ago, Grain of Salt said:

 

For every well-meaning(?) bit of over-generalizing advice like this, I can think of several examples of games that broke it in order to do something really cool. Like, surely you can think of tons of games where you can discover something super dangerous if you explore the right area, and it's a really fun scary moment.

 

The only universal advice for "game design" is ignore everyone who claims to have universal advice for game design. "Don't punish the player for exploring", "don't have unavoidable damage", "don't have overly confusing secrets", "don't have difficulty spikes"..... it's all bollocks.

I nearly responded to this comment in the exact same way. I can think part of the generalisation here comes from what specific players consider 'punishing' as well. Blight Town in Dark Souls punishes you for exploring the area by being a generally oppressive environment that kills you as you explore it, but it rewards you with

Spoiler

one of the best secret areas

in a video game. 

 

(spoiler tags really bork formatting huh)

Edited December 4, 2021 by Nirvana

[Benjogami]

Final version is up on idgames: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/megawads/drn

 

There were just a few final tweaks based on koren and TNS feedback (and whims of mine). Also, it's now split into DRN.wad and DRN_MUS.wad, so you can choose not to load the midis if you'd like to hear Doom 2 music instead---I think the maps align well with Doom 2's soundtrack.

[BoxY]

Grats on the final release, I think this was the only new megawad this year that actually held my attention all the way through. Highly recommended to anyone who slept on it so far.

[Grain of Salt]

2 hours ago, Benjogami said:

Also, it's now split into DRN.wad and DRN_MUS.wad

 

aw yeah, 90s competn style \o/

[NuMetalManiak]

This is like Demonfear meets Killing Adventure meets TimeOfDeath and it's a fun thing in it's own right. Though I wanna know where the playtester list is too for some reason NEVERMIND I FOUND IT.

Edited December 6, 2021 by NuMetalManiak
can't read for some reason

[pampoo79]

So, I've played through a couple of maps and they were alright. Seemed well balanced (UV). Geometry wise on the simple side but pleasing use of textures and lighting. The abstract style as someone else called it isn't really my cup of tea. The Midis were kind of nice but so cheesy, more like JRPG than Doom. I dont get the obsession with custom midis here, I'd prefer a well chosen vanilla one. Overall 6/10

 

I recorded all maps separately. I'll just upload this for once and I want a fucking bravery award for completing it

 

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by pampoo79

[Nikku4211]

On 12/3/2021 at 9:07 PM, Grain of Salt said:

For every well-meaning(?) bit of over-generalizing advice like this, I can think of several examples of games that broke it in order to do something really cool. Like, surely you can think of tons of games where you can discover something super dangerous if you explore the right area, and it's a really fun scary moment.

 

The only universal advice for "game design" is ignore everyone who claims to have universal advice for game design. "Don't punish the player for exploring", "don't have unavoidable damage", "don't have overly confusing secrets", "don't have difficulty spikes"..... it's all bollocks.

To be honest I got the same piece of advice myself years ago after making a Doom map, so yeah I don't really know everything for sure.

 

Though at the same time, this does feel like one of those 'learn the rules before you break them' kinds of things. There might be some okay ways to break this advice, there are certainly obvious dangers (like anything like lava or radioactive materials or blood or extremely tall pits) that no player would reasonably think of safely exploring.

 

The piece of advice probably comes from dangers that aren't obvious. I can't think of any off of the top of my head right now, because if I could, they'd probably fit the definition of an 'obvious danger'.

 

I don't remember what I said it in response to, since you literally replied to a post from over 3 whole months ago.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Nikku4211

[Valboom]

congrats on the release! I love this megawad❤️