Lakeside - An Egyptian Themed Map

[ArchRevival]

I'm back with something fresh. A single, large, mostly outdoor Egyptian themed map, with custom music and textures. This is the first map I've made with custom textures, and the 4th Doom map I've made so far.

 

Map Format: Boom

 

Game: Doom II

 

More info in the text file.

lakeside.zip

[Insaneprophet]

WOW!!! Beautiful and impressive! I could go for an entire megawad of this! Or I could go for this but so labrintine that it takes hours to explore. I couldnt stop myself from wanting to pull out a camera like a fucking tourist. The gameplay itself is a slow burn, it could just as easily have triple the ammount of enemies, but a walk in the park works well in this map. I only found one secret before the end but then found one more on replay. Thank you sooo much for sharing this!

[Endless]

The ambience of this WAD is delightfully fantastic. I love the simplistic yet gorgeous detailing, and the texture work is so gracious that I felt like an explorer. Absolutely gorgeous little piece of Doom. Love this. The gameplay is also pretty simple and fast, which is a big plus in my book. Great job.

[RED77]

That's a beautiful map. very on the easy side

[Delisk]

 

[Major Arlene]

This was a sweet little jaunt and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Great texture work that pairs well with the grand architecture and the gameplay was chill enough to allow players to enjoy the scenery. Good work!

[Zahid]

Very beautiful map progression is good, visuals are sunning, esp like the bright lighting, soothing for eyes and goes with theme....

although combats are pretty basic and naïve 

fda demo with 100% kills 33% secrets on uv skill...

prboom+ 2.6 cl9 popi9.zip

[JJBoren]

Pretty neat looking map. Combat was on the easier side (I think) but still engaging.

[Paragon_of_Laziness]

Very nice looking map, reminds me of Team Fortress 2's Lakeside

[Astro X]

Wow, you've improved so much @ArchRevival, good to see that!

[maxmanium]

Fun map! Egyptian theme is always a blast IMO. Just an FYI, I was able to item-bump the mega-armor secret.

[Subatomic]

This looks phenomenal! Will definitely check this out and play it soon!

[MTrop]

I enjoyed it! Loved the calm vibe it has with its grandiose architecture. A tad easy, but I think it fits its presentation.

 

Good stuff.

[cannonball]

Considering this is your 4th map that you have ever made, consider me impressed.

Visually it is a little inconsistent, where there are some quite stunning visual and excellent shadow-casting, whilst others look a little bland, however that isn't much to worry about and a little fleshing out of some areas should be easy to do.

It is fair to say that on the whole, the doom community reacts positively to Egyptian-themed maps and I think here the setting really lifts the map, alongside the mid choice. Overall this was pretty darn good and hopefully gets the feedback it deserves.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

A super fun and very well detailed! This map was a constant stream of joy and wonder to explore! I love the attention to realistic lighting from the sun and I love the nice detailing in the architecture! I seriously recommend people play this! :D

[TheDanMarine]

you are a fantastic level designer (I see a lot of great stuff like the window showing the bars lowering after getting the blue key, or the bars themselves looping back into prominent areas from earlier. I also enjoy how every revenant encounter has a central pillar you're meant to abuse), and a fantastic artist in your own right in ways that everyone else has already said. there's some stuff I gotta mention though:

 

point 1 is that I somehow picked up the SSG and chaingun without even realizing it, I think locations of new weapons need to stick out a bit considering how important they are. 

 

point 2 is that some of these enemy encounters are kind of awkward. I'm not sure how to vocalize it, but you put some weird combinations in odd places. chaingunner + mancubus on a high up ledge is.. not what I'm used to. if you're on the side of the chaingunner, you either kill him instantly or don't notice him and die. if you're on the side of the mancubus, the chaingunner infights with him and draws his fire away until one of them dies. so it's either too easy, or you (probably) die. also the archvile fight, being near a giant door to a mostly empty room makes for this really weird game of ring around the rosy where you keep having to bait him to the other side so you can keep using the door itself for cover. 

 

aside from that though this is fantastic. my biggest weakness is visuals and I'm gonna study this one like a masterclass painting to hopefully learn from it. 

[Egg Boy]

Fun little map. Missed the rocket launcher so ended up having to skip the final vile. No real problems besides the Cyberdemon fight which felt a bit obligatory and dull for my tastes. Surprised no one is mentioning this map lifts 1 or 2 areas directly from Team Fortress 2, particularly the maps Egypt and Lakeside. Haven't really played TF2 in a few years, but I recognized it right away.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Egg Boy

[DRON12261]

Insanely nice map, seems like a simple places och detailing, but so well matched by texturing, the balance of combat and atmosphere. Only one problem. which would be worth correcting, at the very end of the map, the final battle of the pyramid completely ran out of ammo, and had to leave a couple of mobs unkillable unfortunately. It's not that I as something mowed constantly, etc., almost every shot I shot at the level hit the target, but I have not found any secrets.

And more screenshots (as well, if I were the author would add at least 2 or 3 more of what some screenshots, there is something to show and thus sell the map to a passing user):
 

Spoiler

 

[Zalewa]

I have an itch for Egyptian themed levels that needs to be satisfied from time to time and I only wish we had more of them, because this one has scratched it only a little. The landscapes are impressive and the shadowplay is attentive, which make the map an interactive, pretty painting. The one thing is that at times I thought it could use some more color variety (see: https://i.imgur.com/ep0k5Tm.png) -- Egypt had colors -- but I get that it is the visual design preference to keep everything in the color of the sand, and well, okay, let it be like that.

 

Now, apart from the visuals, the level remains unsatisfactory in the terms of gameplay and a variety of issues build up to that.

 

Fights are mostly straight-forward with enemies coming from you from a single direction. There's no need to manage multiple angles during fights. There are large, rectangular rooms with just a few enemies in them. Even the limited ammunition is not a problem because it's so easy to skip the fights. I didn't find the rocket launcher either.

 

Then there's the Skyrim-like layout, in one case literally where the section circles on itself and there's a hidden door opening to the beginning. Looking at the screenshots I expected a journey of exploration, but got a railroad to the level exit. The are some areas that are reused, but only to backtrack. When you wrote that the level is "large" and "outdoors" I expected something else and my expectations were subverted immediately after I booted the level and noticed the monster count. "Large" is not something you expect when you see that there are 100 monsters. It's medium, at most.

 

This level succeeds at visuals, but a wholesome Doom level must succeed in playing Doom too. I see the potential, and succeeding at visuals is not a small feat, but this is just not there yet.

 

Screenshot gallery: https://imgur.com/a/ORwovZp

[Biodegradable]

This map is very striking visually, though I found the combat a little bit toothless for the most part. Then again, maybe that's because I've been traumatised by way too many vicious WADs in my short Dooming career hehe. You hid the rocket launcher a little too well and I had to leg it with the last encounter and bolt for the exit. It's a cute map with great visuals, something to chill out with and turn your brain off a little.

 

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by Biodegradable

[Casketkrusher]

Very nice! Looks good! I love a good egyptian theme !

[Zalewa]

4 minutes ago, Casketkrusher said:

I love a good egyptian theme !

You don't say, bro :D

[Lobo]

Loved it. I like lower enemy numbers: kind of sick of Slaughter wads.

Goes really well with this too: https://www.moddb.com/mods/edge-classic-add-ons/addons/mod-for-epic2-edge-classic-edition

 

[ArchRevival]

9 hours ago, Zalewa said:

I have an itch for Egyptian themed levels that needs to be satisfied from time to time and I only wish we had more of them, because this one has scratched it only a little. The landscapes are impressive and the shadowplay is attentive, which make the map an interactive, pretty painting. The one thing is that at times I thought it could use some more color variety (see: https://i.imgur.com/ep0k5Tm.png) -- Egypt had colors -- but I get that it is the visual design preference to keep everything in the color of the sand, and well, okay, let it be like that.

 

Now, apart from the visuals, the level remains unsatisfactory in the terms of gameplay and a variety of issues build up to that.

 

Fights are mostly straight-forward with enemies coming from you from a single direction. There's no need to manage multiple angles during fights. There are large, rectangular rooms with just a few enemies in them. Even the limited ammunition is not a problem because it's so easy to skip the fights. I didn't find the rocket launcher either.

 

Then there's the Skyrim-like layout, in one case literally where the section circles on itself and there's a hidden door opening to the beginning. Looking at the screenshots I expected a journey of exploration, but got a railroad to the level exit. The are some areas that are reused, but only to backtrack. When you wrote that the level is "large" and "outdoors" I expected something else and my expectations were subverted immediately after I booted the level and noticed the monster count. "Large" is not something you expect when you see that there are 100 monsters. It's medium, at most.

 

This level succeeds at visuals, but a wholesome Doom level must succeed in playing Doom too. I see the potential, and succeeding at visuals is not a small feat, but this is just not there yet.

 

Screenshot gallery: https://imgur.com/a/ORwovZp

Thanks for the feedback!

[Aeddes666]

Very good egypt ambience, straightforward fights, enough ammo/health, fair fights against Archviles.
Great map!

 

Edited April 24, 2023 by Aeddes666

[Arwel]

Nice map, visuals and atmosphere are standouts here!

As for the issues, definitely not enough ammo on UV!

Especially if you skip rocketlauncher like many of us.

[retrogamer97]

 playthrough

[Wo0p]

Hey! This wad was pretty cool. A bit spacious considering the low number of enemies though. But maybe that's because I played on ultra casual mode :D (HMP). Good sense of exploration and discovery though and also despite its size not confusing at all. Great stuff man :)

Here's a GZDoom demo of me playing through it if you're interested:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tUq0iLM18meigjyBAhxxHxmbI_U4xVFt/view?usp=share_link

[Sinnesloeschen]

That was really nice. I was getting some "serious" vibes here. ;)

 

Clean and easy-to-read layout, but still with some neat details. The custom textures are well made and mesh nicely with Doom Assets. Good times.

 

Just like Wo0p i felt it could maybe use some more goons in HMP pleb mode (Didn't try UV), but that's just a minor detail, nothing that brings the map down or anything.

[CeeJay]

That was refreshing, haven't played anything new in awhile. Really nice visuals and the gameplay side of things was okay. A bit too much ammo and I found rockets but no rocket launcher, what's up with that? Did I just miss it.

 

EDIT: Spectres are best used when placed in dark lit areas. Having them out in the open just makes them too easy too see, which defeats the whole purpose of them.

Edited April 25, 2023 by CeeJay