Midnight Isle - 8 Very Detailed Maps [Boom] v1.9 (4 Maps are Available)

[Dubium]

 

Summary

Hello, good people!

Midnight Isle is a set of 8 Boom-compatible maps, created by myself (with @Nefelibeta as a guest mapper). It focuses on difficult combat puzzle gameplay and very detailed environments (using 32in24-15tex for resources). Some fights are a little bit gimmicky and might need a specific strategy. You have been warned. The maps are mainly designed to be played from pistol start on UV, but please consider playing it on HMP or HNTR instead if you find it too difficult (They are implemented to support more casual players)

 

By the way, this is also my first doom wad which I released by myself (in  the sense that it's not a part of someone else's community project). I hope you like it.

 

Disclaimer: So far, there are only 4 maps available, as this wad is still a work in progress. More maps later.

 

Thank you to my main playtesters: @Maribo @sandwedge @Thelokk @Toastd @Jinxie

 

Download 

 

midnight_isle_v1.9.zip

 

If you encounter any bugs/issues or just want to give me some feedback, please let me know. Thank you!

 

Map List

Spoiler

• MAP01: Out of the Blue
• MAP02: Cold-Hearted
• MAP03: Withered Hardware

• MAP04: (coming soon)

• MAP05: (coming soon)

• MAP06: (coming soon)

• MAP07: (coming soon)

• MAP31: Erosion Encounter (by @Nefelibeta)

 

Screenshots

 

 

MAP01: Out of the Blue

 

 

MAP02: Cold-Hearted

 

 

MAP03: Withered Hardware

 

More Screenshots

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

(This last one is by @Nefelibeta)

 

Play Info

Spoiler

Singleplayer only
IWAD: Doom 2
Format: Boom (-complevel 9)
Source Ports Tested: DSDA-Doom, GZDoom
Jump/Crouch: Disabled
Freelook: Not recommended

 

Credits

Spoiler

• Music

- Menu: "Atlantis" (Banjo Tooie)
- MAP01: "Peaceful Days" (Chrono Trigger)
- MAP02: "Mario's Rainbow Castle" (Mario Party)
- MAP03: "Two Rivers" (Seiken Densetsu)
- MAP31: "The Day of Defeat" (Psychedelic Eyeball)
- Intermission: "Fairy Fountain" (Zelda: Ocarina of Time)

 

• Textures
The textures used here are mainly from 32in24-15tex, which is an expansion of cc4-tex. The laser and the grass textures were taken from Sunlust and Valiant, whose authors are unknown (But please let me know if you know them).

 

>> 32in24-15tex
- esselfortium

 

>> cc4-tex
- NIGHTMARE
- Espi
- Eriance Fredrik Johansson
- Janitor
- DaGGER
- Ola Bjorling Vader
- XDelusion
- esselfortium
- RottKing
- Nuxius
- Afterglow
- AgentSpork
- Enjay
- Huy Phạm
- SargeBaldy
- Tormentor667
- The GothicDM Team
- The Requiem Team
- The Eternal Doom Team
- id Software
- Raven Software
- Rogue Entertainment

 

• Sound Effect
The old plasma firing sound is replaced by a new one, taken from Sunlust, whose author is unknown
(But please let me know if you know them)

 

Updates

Spoiler

v1.1

-  Fixed the cheese where players can cheese the AV-Imp fight in MAP01

 

v1.2 

- Floor in MAP03 is now less bumpy

 

v1.3

- Rebalanced MAP31 on HNTR difficulty and other minor fixes 

 

v1.4 

- Fixed the issue where cells get stuck in the PE spam fight in MAP03 on GZDoom (thanks, sandwedge)

 

v1.5 

- Fixed the cheese where players can activate the switch and start the fight before the door closes in the U-shaped room in MAP03 (thanks, CittyKat112)

 

v1.6 

- (thanks, hashmap)

 

v1.7 

- The double AVs fight at the beginning of MAP31 is now easier

- Removed unnecessary trigger lindefs in MAP03

 

v1.8 

- Fixed a new way to cheese the final fight in MAP02... Again...

- Rebalanced ammo in MAP01 a little bit 

 

v1.9

- Rebalanced a fight on HMP/HNTR and fixed an awkward oversight in which 2 teleport destinations are missing in MAP31

 

Side Note: Some people on Discord mistakenly think this is a wad for NanoWADMo. Well, it is not. It was a pure coincidence that this wad was released on October 31st

Edited December 12, 2022 by Dubium
Changed the format to a .zip file

[Firedust]

Screenshots look beautiful!

[RonnieJamesDiner]

Holy smokes, this is looking incredible so far!

[cannonball]

All I can say is that the screenshots expertly crafted and I suspect the combat will leave me a quivering wreck once I finally download this.

Congrats on getting this through the door.

[Dubium]

44 minutes ago, Firedust said:

Screenshots look beautiful!

 

10 minutes ago, RonnieJamesDiner said:

Holy smokes, this is looking incredible so far!

 

Thank you! I'm happy knowing the style works for you

 

2 minutes ago, cannonball said:

All I can say is that the screenshots expertly crafted and I suspect the combat will leave me a quivering wreck once I finally download this.

Congrats on getting this through the door.

 

The combat is pretty difficult, but you can always play on HMP or HNTR. I must admit, some fights are a little bit gimmicky and might need specific strategies (I probably should have mentioned this in OP). Anyway, good luck

[Death Bear]

Looks fantastic! Congrats! Look forward to playing this!

[Biodegradable]

Congratulations on your first big solo release, Dubium!

Edited November 1, 2022 by Biodegradable

[Thelokk]

Absolutely fantastic work, the detailing is out of this world and the fights are challenging, but never unfair. Truly channels that whimsical take on carnage of the best bits of Sunlust. Just like Nefelibeta's own wad, as far as I'm concerned this is Cacoward material. 

 

Took you a long time, but the wait was worth it!

Edited November 1, 2022 by Thelokk

[horselessheadsman]

I must admit, I never thought I would be listening to peaceful village music during furious running battles with imps, revenants, and archviles.

Real purty', though.

[nobleflame]

This looks excellent. Will play it when the whole thing is completed. 

[pcorf]

Looks great. The revenants would be proud of your constructions so they can home missiles at doomguy.

[Dubium]

On 11/1/2022 at 9:28 AM, Death Bear said:

Looks fantastic! Congrats! Look forward to playing this!

 

8 hours ago, nobleflame said:

This looks excellent. Will play it when the whole thing is completed. 

 

6 hours ago, pcorf said:

Looks great. The revenants would be proud of your constructions so they can home missiles at doomguy.

 

Thanks, I appreciate it. I hope you folks will enjoy the gameplay as well. Good luck.

 

On 11/1/2022 at 12:08 PM, Biodegradable said:

Congratulations on your first big solo release, Dubium!

 

Thanks Bio. Man, this makes me remember that you are the first person in the community who playtested my map. That was probably almost a year ago xD

 

12 hours ago, horselessheadsman said:

I must admit, I never thought I would be listening to peaceful village music during furious running battles with imps, revenants, and archviles.

Real purty', though.

 

I played Ribbiks' hard wads like Sunlust, Stardate, and Magnolia. Many of the maps have peaceful music. They grew on me. I'm aware some people find it weird listening to peaceful (or even happy) music when playing a hard map. But again, it's all about taste, I suppose

[Dubium]

Version 1.2 is out

I made a change that nobody asked for. But I think it is necessary, so I did it anyway.

 

Spoiler

Basically, MAP03 is less bumpy now. One of Romero's level design rules is to always change floor height when changing floor textures. I tend to follow this rule as well. If there is no height difference at all, those flats will end up looking like a carpet on top of each other. Obviously, this doesn't always look bad, but I still try to avoid the habit.

 

However, we are all aware that creating height differences can make the floor bumpy. It might force players to move funnily up and down because of it. In this wad, the height differences between flats are mostly just 1 pixel, so it doesn't affect the gameplay. But there are some areas whose differences are greater than just 1 pixel and most of them are located in MAP03.

 

I personally don't mind about bumpiness (and neither my playtesters), but I realize other people might not like it. Therefore, I made this change. It basically reduced the height differences between flats in certain areas, making them less bumpy. Now they mostly have only 1-pixel differences. I hope this is enough.

 

(Please let me know if you encounter any bugs or issues. Especially in MAP03, as I didn't have time to playtest it again after making the change)

 

TLDR: Basically, MAP03 is less bumpy now

Edited November 9, 2022 by Dubium

[Nefelibeta]

On 11/1/2022 at 11:16 PM, Thelokk said:

Truly channels that whimsical take on carnage of the best bits of Sunlust.

What a coincidence. :P

 

But yeah, very very good stuff in this wad. Pretty happy that I can contribute something to this as well. The map is fun and totally not excruciating, I swear!

[CittyKat112]

Really liking this so far, currently stuck on MAP31. It's a good map, but it's kinda hard to understand where you're supposed to go and near constant use of arch-viles gets a bit tiring after awhile, but it's fine... Anyway.

I noticed a small misalignment here:

Spoiler

After pressing this key you can cheese the fight by running back to the corridor shown in the third screenshot:

Spoiler

I didn't try to beat the first three maps yet and only played them for a small bit, but I will check them out later.

[Dubium]

8 hours ago, CittyKat112 said:

Really liking this so far, currently stuck on MAP31. It's a good map, but it's kinda hard to understand where you're supposed to go and near constant use of arch-viles gets a bit tiring after awhile, but it's fine...

 

MAP31 is pretty obscure in terms of progression. I can promise you that the first 3 maps are not like that. Do you remember where or when you ended up not knowing where to go, exactly?

[CittyKat112]

6 hours ago, Dubium said:

 

MAP31 is pretty obscure in terms of progression. I can promise you that the first 3 maps are not like that. Do you remember where or when you ended up not knowing where to go, exactly?

Oh yeah, I played MAP01 for a bit before trying out MAP31. I saved when I got the blue key and went to the switch that starts the first slaughter fight in the map. After that I started idcleving to see the rest of the maps...

I can't find my way to the yellow key in MAP31.

[Dubium]

3 hours ago, CittyKat112 said:

Oh yeah, I played MAP01 for a bit before trying out MAP31. I saved when I got the blue key and went to the switch that starts the first slaughter fight in the map. After that I started idcleving to see the rest of the maps...

I can't find my way to the yellow key in MAP31.

 

You can find a lift (the one with support textures, press it) that takes you to a new area leading to the yellow key. It is located near the building with AVs and cyberdemons (look at the screenshots). I hope this helps

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited November 5, 2022 by Dubium

[CittyKat112]

2 hours ago, Dubium said:

 

You can find a lift (the one with support textures, press it) that takes you to a new area leading to the yellow key. It is located near the building with AVs and cyberdemons (look at the screenshots). I hope this helps

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Thank you!

[MikeyScoots]

Excuse me, did you just say this is your FIRST doom map release?! This is some seriously good stuff right here boss! 

[Dubium]

1 hour ago, MikeyScoots said:

Excuse me, did you just say this is your FIRST doom map release?! This is some seriously good stuff right here boss! 

 

To clarify, I already made around 8 maps for several community projects before this. However, this is the first wad that I released by myself in the sense that it's not a part of someone else's community project. I should have made it clearer

Anyway, thanks.

[CittyKat112]

Beat the rest of the maps today. It was pretty fun! I only found 1 secret in MAP01 and MAP03 and 5 secrets in MAP02 (I know that there's a teleport that will lead me to the last secret, but I don't know how to get to that teleport).
Didn't encounter any bugs or misaligned textures. I found one cheese strat though - you can cheese the first fight in the BFG room in MAP03 by pressing the switches early so you can leave the room and start door fighting. 

Screenshots: https://imgbox.com/g/c8FjhhGFRR

[Dubium]

12 hours ago, CittyKat112 said:

Beat the rest of the maps today. It was pretty fun! I only found 1 secret in MAP01 and MAP03 and 5 secrets in MAP02 (I know that there's a teleport that will lead me to the last secret, but I don't know how to get to that teleport).
Didn't encounter any bugs or misaligned textures. I found one cheese strat though - you can cheese the first fight in the BFG room in MAP03 by pressing the switches early so you can leave the room and start door fighting. 

Screenshots: https://imgbox.com/g/c8FjhhGFRR

 

You can reveal the teleporter by pressing a tiny switch located behind the building where you get the blue key. It takes you to the soul sphere in the middle. Alternatively, you can just AV jump to the sphere, but it will be less rewarding considering you will have to take some damage first

 

The cheese in MAP03 is not intended. It will be fixed soon. Thank you for reporting it

[hashmap]

Just finished map01 on HMP, really enjoyable - how to get the secret skull key was really good.

[Dubium]

15 hours ago, hashmap said:

Just finished map01 on HMP, really enjoyable - how to get the secret skull key was really good.

 

Thank you. It is pretty darn difficult to get the blue skull key. I wanted to make it easier but I could not think of another way. Out of curiosity, did you manage to find it by yourself?

[hashmap]

26 minutes ago, Dubium said:

 

Thank you. It is pretty darn difficult to get the blue skull key. I wanted to make it easier but I could not think of another way. Out of curiosity, did you manage to find it by yourself?

 

I did aye

 

Spoiler

 

I found the shootable switch after mopping up the starting enemies, took me a minute to cotton on to the fact it lowered a switch to act as a lift. I decided to wait until all the other fights to try and work out the rest as I wasn't seeing it (what to do) after that first sequence.

 

It ended up being the 2 health viles on top of that structure which eventually made me realise I can probably get up there.

 

 

Finished map02 this morning, again enjoyed it a lot. I was pushed for time so clipped up to the switch for the secret fight, unironically found the teleporter for it when I was exiting lol.

 

You can cheese the AV-Pinky fight, not sure if you've seen it? You can hide in a corner where you get the skull key and I just hosed down the pinkys from there.

[Dubium]

16 minutes ago, hashmap said:

You can cheese the AV-Pinky fight, not sure if you've seen it? You can hide in a corner where you get the skull key and I just hosed down the pinkys from there.

 

Huh, how did you do it? In earlier versions, I'm aware players can cheese the fight by entering the cove and standing on the ice platform where the red key is. But I have implemented a mechanism to prevent that by raising the ice hills to block the access to the cove.

 

Unless those hills were not raised during your playthrough due to an issue in a voodoo doll closet... Or maybe you are talking about a different spot? If that is the case, would you please send a screenshot of this "corner" so I can see where it is, exactly?

Edited November 8, 2022 by Dubium

[hashmap]

2 hours ago, Dubium said:

 

Huh, how did you do it? In earlier versions, I'm aware players can cheese the fight by entering the cove and standing on the ice platform where the red key is. But I have implemented a mechanism to prevent that by raising the ice hills to block the access to the cove.

 

Unless those hills were not raised during your playthrough due to an issue in a voodoo doll closet... Or maybe you are talking about a different spot? If that is the case, would you please send a screenshot of this "corner" so I can see where it is, exactly?

 

 

[hashmap]

On 11/6/2022 at 2:58 PM, CittyKat112 said:

Beat the rest of the maps today. It was pretty fun! I only found 1 secret in MAP01 and MAP03 and 5 secrets in MAP02 (I know that there's a teleport that will lead me to the last secret, but I don't know how to get to that teleport).
Didn't encounter any bugs or misaligned textures. I found one cheese strat though - you can cheese the first fight in the BFG room in MAP03 by pressing the switches early so you can leave the room and start door fighting. 

Screenshots: https://imgbox.com/g/c8FjhhGFRR

 

Spoiler

 

Map03 The invuln is a shootable switch in the corner of the room mate

 

 

Edited November 8, 2022 by hashmap
spoiler tag

[CittyKat112]

@hashmap thanks!

Also I gotta say that MAP31 is my least favorite map in the wad. Fights that are already quite challenging are made worse by needless arch-vile spam and some of the fights felt like RNG. But hey, maybe that's because I'm not a great player. But... The first three maps in the set feel like I would be able to beat them in one go with some practice and MAP31 feels like I'll have to grind and get lucky in some places to beat it without saves.