My First Map, In the Depths of Hellfire, is Finished

[LuVo]

Hello Everyone!
My Map, In the Depths of Hellfire, is finally finished.
This is my First Map Ever, and i have learned alot about mapping in this time. i am really proud of the outcome!

Some Information:

• The IWAD is Doom 2, in UDMF Format
• This PWAD was tested in GZDoom, Zandronum and Odamex, but it seems to be not working in Odamex...
• The PWAD starts at MAP01

How it is Intended to be Played:

• I Played it with Freelook enabled, so i recommend playing it like that
• I Played it with Jumping Enabled, although it doesn't give any advantage, nor is it really
  necessary to play with it, but you can.
• No specific compatibility settings are necessary
• Software/Hardware Rendering depends on how you like to play it

 

Personal Note:
As already mentioned, this is my First ever map, and i am really proud of the outcome. However, i don't see it like a full "game" but more like a preview/demo. my plan for the future with this map is to make a full episode out of it! Please, do not take it too harshly, because i have never mapped anything, anywhere before. You are fully allowed to critique me, give me feedback, or to just say something nice here!
 

Special Thanks goes out to the Community, for helping me with certain problems i couldn't figure out myself!

Greetings from Germany, LuVo!

DOWNLOAD HERE: Hellfire.wad
Have Fun playing it!

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by LuVo

[Delisk]

There is a few things you should fix on this map

• On your teleporters, the activation lines are facing the wrong way making them not behave the way they should, you enter them nothing happens and get teleported when you leave. The one with the red key is properly set.
• You have quite a few misaligned textures, auto align is your friend here.
• Some textures do not work well when not completely displayed, like computer screen or the skis panel, they just look silly when cut midway

On the positive side you do have a competent combat flow.

 

 

[LuVo]

29 minutes ago, Delisk said:

There is a few things you should fix on this map

• On your teleporters, the activation lines are facing the wrong way making them not behave the way they should, you enter them nothing happens and get teleported when you leave. The one with the red key is properly set.
• You have quite a few misaligned textures, auto align is your friend here.
• Some textures do not work well when not completely displayed, like computer screen or the skis panel, they just look silly when cut midway

On the positive side you do have a competent combat flow.

 

 

I wrote a comment on your video! 

Thanks for your suggestions with the textures and teleporters, will fix them either as a update, or in my next map!

 

[Bri0che]

Yeah, Delisk took me the words, I was about to review and tell you how you made surprisingly a good combat flow ! This is very rare for a first map to know how well to balance a map that way and this is 99% of the time what really miss beginners maps to me, because architecture is just a question of getting started with the ressources you have at your disposition, plus gameplay is more important to me.

Anyway... It's a nice No°1 map.

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Gameplay :  

This is your strong point by far as already said ; good, simple, sufficient monsters/equipments placement, no unnecessary powerup that completely fuck the difficulty, no unfair bullshit with 100 Cyberdemons and 1 BFG or ridiculous 10 zombiemen and 1 pistol like I did for my first map........

 

Level Design :

Peoples would say this is linear, first this is your first level so we don't care, and second it's not even really a defect by itself, not at all to me in fact, it can become one if it break the dynamism, but your map don't break it, because you use transitions (portals, doors...) that make us constantly discovering new zones with new monsters to fight. Linearity is seen as a negative point in video games by now, but I don't agree. It depend on the game genre : linearity is better for pur fast action games like Doom (see they somewhat kept this linearity in Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal because they knew it), non-linearity/open-world is better for adventure oriented games like... Idk, Far Cry for exemple. Doom with 131312 ways to go, mazes where to find switches, keyhunt, etc. bore me more than good corridors with short ranged combats, or big sectors to deal with. Won't say non-linearity is absolutely to exclude from Doom, because if you can render it intuitive, it's ok. Anyway, sorry for disgress from the subject. 

In conclusion, your Level Design in term of aesthetic do the job, may I say he's beyond the average level for a first map (excluding the mistakes Delisk already mentioned like misalignment and wrong use of textures), though a little bit too much squarish at some points, I think you should focus on this.

 

I should mention a final thing you should avoid by all cost : Don't make unescapable pits. This is the Worst thing ever in Doom, even if it is intentional unless you have a good reason to make one. You absolutely can make pits yeah, but with a way to go out. Peoples, I include myself, will really hate you if you do so xd haha jk you do what you want

 

I made a video btw (please don't juge my aim, my cat was bothering me the whole time :S) : 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Briøche

[NaliSeed]

4 hours ago, Delisk said:

There is a few things you should fix on this map

• On your teleporters, the activation lines are facing the wrong way making them not behave the way they should, you enter them nothing happens and get teleported when you leave. The one with the red key is properly set.
• You have quite a few misaligned textures, auto align is your friend here.
• Some textures do not work well when not completely displayed, like computer screen or the skis panel, they just look silly when cut midway

On the positive side you do have a competent combat flow.

 

 

The hell is Isabelle doing in Doom? 😂

[Delisk]

9 hours ago, NaliSeed said:

The hell is Isabelle doing in Doom? 😂

 

https://www.moddb.com/games/doom-ii/addons/isabelle

 

[Proxy-MIDI]

Ja, that was a good first map ! Even if there were no secrets and some weird textures choices, this was okay. By the way, I freaking liked the last area with the cyberdemons and the spiderdemons. Too bad there weren't fences to reach the exit before to take down all of these monsters. 

 

Good stuff ! 

[LuVo]

1 hour ago, R0rque. said:

Ja, that was a good first map ! Even if there were no secrets and some weird textures choices, this was okay. By the way, I freaking liked the last area with the cyberdemons and the spiderdemons. Too bad there weren't fences to reach the exit before to take down all of these monsters. 

 

Good stuff ! 

Thank you alot for playing my map! yeah, i haven't thought about that, but this is actually a good idea!
Great to hear that you liked the final room, this is actually the one i put the most time in, atleast into the "bridge", with the stairs and stuff, i am actually really proud of that area, but this was also one of the most time costing :D
Greetings from Germany, LuVo!

[LuVo]

15 hours ago, Briøche said:

Yeah, Delisk took me the words, I was about to review and tell you how you made surprisingly a good combat flow ! This is very rare for a first map to know how well to balance a map that way and this is 99% of the time what really miss beginners maps to me, because architecture is just a question of getting started with the ressources you have at your disposition, plus gameplay is more important to me.

Anyway... It's a nice No°1 map.

 

_____________________________________________________________

 

Gameplay :  

This is your strong point by far as already said ; good, simple, sufficient monsters/equipments placement, no unnecessary powerup that completely fuck the difficulty, no unfair bullshit with 100 Cyberdemons and 1 BFG or ridiculous 10 zombiemen and 1 pistol like I did for my first map........

 

Level Design :

Peoples would say this is linear, first this is your first level so we don't care, and second it's not even really a defect by itself, not at all to me in fact, it can become one if it break the dynamism, but your map don't break it, because you use transitions (portals, doors...) that make us constantly discovering new zones with new monsters to fight. Linearity is seen as a negative point in video games by now, but I don't agree. It depend on the game genre : linearity is better for pur fast action games like Doom (see they somewhat kept this linearity in Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal because they knew it), non-linearity/open-world is better for adventure oriented games like... Idk, Far Cry for exemple. Doom with 131312 ways to go, mazes where to find switches, keyhunt, etc. bore me more than good corridors with short ranged combats, or big sectors to deal with. Won't say non-linearity is absolutely to exclude from Doom, because if you can render it intuitive, it's ok. Anyway, sorry for disgress from the subject. 

In conclusion, your Level Design in term of aesthetic do the job, may I say he's beyond the average level for a first map (excluding the mistakes Delisk already mentioned like misalignment and wrong use of textures), though a little bit too much squarish at some points, I think you should focus on this.

 

I should mention a final thing you should avoid by all cost : Don't make unescapable pits. This is the Worst thing ever in Doom, even if it is intentional unless you have a good reason to make one. You absolutely can make pits yeah, but with a way to go out. Peoples, I include myself, will really hate you if you do so xd haha jk you do what you want

 

I made a video btw (please don't juge my aim, my cat was bothering me the whole time :S) : 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for playing my map! yeah absolutely, i tried my best with the balancing of the guns, and the demons. in the final room, i originally planned to put 4 revenants, 4 cyberdemos, a heck lot of soldiers and pinkys etc, but this would have been too much. i tested it, but quickly saw that this was actually not possible, atleast not unless you skip many of them

what you said about the pits, i totally agree. i hate them too, but i tried to do this like in E1M1 (forgot which one it was...) of Doom1, thought this would be a "cool" looking gimmick
I believe, in some of my videos on my youtube channel where i play my map, you can actually see me falling into the pit quite often :D

Greetings from Germany, LuVo! Have a good one, and again, thank you for playing my map!

Edited January 7, 2023 by LuVo

[JohnnyRockets]

Hi Luvo,

 

I'm a rookie reviewer but loved this map!

 

It was super fun and I found it challenging on even "baby" level (I always play on this level!).

 

I loved the flow the the level, it was very good and was clear what to do next.  

 

The massive amount of enemies in some areas made it fun and challenging, forcing me to be a bit more skillful and picky with what weapons I used.

 

The last area was very cool and thankfully if I waited some of the enemies killed each other!  (whew!)  ;)

 

Keep up the good work and I look forward to your next map!

 

 

Johnny

[LuVo]

18 hours ago, JohnnyRockets said:

Hi Luvo,

 

I'm a rookie reviewer but loved this map!

 

It was super fun and I found it challenging on even "baby" level (I always play on this level!).

 

I loved the flow the the level, it was very good and was clear what to do next.  

 

The massive amount of enemies in some areas made it fun and challenging, forcing me to be a bit more skillful and picky with what weapons I used.

 

The last area was very cool and thankfully if I waited some of the enemies killed each other!  (whew!)  ;)

 

Keep up the good work and I look forward to your next map!

 

 

Johnny

Thank You a lot!! really nice to hear that you enjoyed it! Greetings from Germany, LuVo!

[dmnwizard]

LuVo, I played Hellfire.wad and i just got positive opinions about it. Here is a video with my gameplay, and in the description, you will see what I have to say. Thanks for creating Hellfire, and I hope to soon play the new maps of your episode for Doom II!

 

 

[Votterbin]

Checked it out after seeing dmnwizard post here and I think you have some serious mapmaking potential. Fun gameplay and combat, but you have a case of square roomitis. Excited to see more from you in the future!

 

 

[FireWarden1000]

I completed Hellfire.wad with LZDoom, and brutalv21.13.1 Brutal Doom Community Expansion mod, excellent DOOM2 map, 90/100. The main downside of the map would be the enemy placement of the map. I noticed most of the enemies destroyed each other before I started exploring the areas in the map. Large, and open map design with excellent implementation of teleporters. The level was action packed, and will provide the player with plenty of room to move around in the map. My recommendations, spread out the enemy placement in the map instead of placing enemies in the same area to reduce the chances of enemies attacking each other. Set enemy behavior to ambush, and the enemies will only attack the player if the player is in the view range of the enemy. This will reduce the number of enemies attacking the player at the same time.

[LuVo]

On 3/12/2023 at 5:15 AM, FireWarden1000 said:

I completed Hellfire.wad with LZDoom, and brutalv21.13.1 Brutal Doom Community Expansion mod, excellent DOOM2 map, 90/100. The main downside of the map would be the enemy placement of the map. I noticed most of the enemies destroyed each other before I started exploring the areas in the map. Large, and open map design with excellent implementation of teleporters. The level was action packed, and will provide the player with plenty of room to move around in the map. My recommendations, spread out the enemy placement in the map instead of placing enemies in the same area to reduce the chances of enemies attacking each other. Set enemy behavior to ambush, and the enemies will only attack the player if the player is in the view range of the enemy. This will reduce the number of enemies attacking the player at the same time.

Hey man, sorry for the late reply! Yeah, i have seen this too, sometimes a enemy shoots the one in front. this is definetly something i will try to make better when i start working on part 2. I am really happy about your positive review, 90/100 for my first ever map is really amazing! Also, thanks for playing my map, great to hear you enjoyed it!

About the Ambush enemy behaviour, thank you a lot for this tip, i did not know about that! i will definetly try that in part 2!
Greetings from Germany, LuVo!

[LuVo]

On 2/15/2023 at 8:26 PM, Votterbin said:

Checked it out after seeing dmnwizard post here and I think you have some serious mapmaking potential. Fun gameplay and combat, but you have a case of square roomitis. Excited to see more from you in the future!

 

 

Hey Man, sorry for the late reply...
Thanks for playing my map! Yeah, you are right about that.
I really enjoyed Mapping this one, i am really proud of the outcome, really nice to hear that my mapping has serious potential, because this is really my first map ever!
Greetings from Germany, LuVo!

[Geniraul]

This is for sure one of the best first maps I have ever played, well done! I just tried it out and enjoyed the level a lot, it is simple and offers a reach choice of textures to appreciate, which fit one another and harmonize together rather greatly. The map does feel somewhat linear to me, but at the same time it feels consistent and leaves an impression of progressing while diving deeper and deeper into each section. Very good level, looking forward to your further releases!

Edited March 15, 2023 by Geniraul

[LuVo]

On 3/15/2023 at 9:38 PM, Geniraul said:

This is for sure one of the best first maps I have ever played, well done! I just tried it out and enjoyed the level a lot, it is simple and offers a reach choice of textures to appreciate, which fit one another and harmonize together rather greatly. The map does feel somewhat linear to me, but at the same time it feels consistent and leaves an impression of progressing while diving deeper and deeper into each section. Very good level, looking forward to your further releases!

sorry for the really late reply, i havent been really active lately!
thank you for playing my map, good to hear you enjoyed it alot, and thanks for the compliments!
have a great one, LuVo!