Tom's Halls: A Doom Alpha Community Project (MUSICIANS WANTED!)

[Faceman2000]

I played through this tonight - @nicolas monti, this was great. I’m jealous of how fast you can churn out a map haha! I’ll save the bulk of my feedback for now since Cacodemon187 is going to give this another pass, but there were a couple edits I wanted to request. The biggest one is the

Spoiler

Baron teleport trap. It’s extremely dickish with zero warning. It’s such a huge difficulty spike from anything else in the map that it feels out of place and there’s really no way to survive it if you don’t know it’s coming. One Baron teleporting in front of you there is plenty obstacle without two more teleporting in directly behind you.

The other is the narrow hallway stair hallways where you obtain the chaingun in E2M7 - the ceiling should be raised a little bit. I understand this is how Tom designed it, but it feels really clunky running around with your head bouncing off the ceiling.

 

Monti, Caco187, great work both of you. This is a really nice addition.

 

@Cacodemon187, when you make your edits to this level, would you mind building in a secret exit as well? I think this map will fit perfectly in E3M6’s slot based on its size, difficulty, and theming.

 

@Plerb, thank you for those songs! I have no notes. You really expanded on them while keeping them recognizable. You even managed to make un36 not annoying, which is impressive! I’ve currently placed in as the intermission song in the very rough build I’ve put together but if anyone would like either song attached to their map please let me know!

 

@taufan99, how’s your map coming? It’s been a while since we’ve had an update.

[Plerb]

I was personally thinking un39 should be the intermission music, as John Romero himself said it'd be a cool intermission screen (and I do too). I feel like that works better than my un36 cover.

[Cacodemon187]

1 hour ago, Faceman2000 said:

Cacodemon187, when you make your edits to this level, would you mind building in a secret exit as well? I think this map will fit perfectly in E3M6’s slot based on its size, difficulty, and theming.

Will do!

I agree about both points you made on the map. I do have a couple ideas on how to tweak them for the better, which I'll save for when I get to editing it a couple weeks down the line.

[realjohnmadden]

Is SHAWNMAP taken? If not, I'll probably take it. Seems like it'd be a pretty funny map to do.

[Faceman2000]

5 minutes ago, realjohnmadden said:

Is SHAWNMAP taken? If not, I'll probably take it. Seems like it'd be a pretty funny map to do.

Nope, it is available! With this slot, you’ve got a ton of freedom: obviously the staircase needs to remain, but otherwise you get to build a DTWiD-ish map around it. Do you know which episode you’d like to make the map for?

 

Also, something fun: I wonder if SHAWNMAP is the infamous staircase Sandy references here when telling how he got hired:

”I spent a few days putting together a level, and what the artists had done, apparently, was they'd done a stairway.”

 

It could also be the staircase that Years’ map is based around.

[realjohnmadden]

It could probably go in Episode 2. A corrupted military base with demons everywhere could work well - some of it being Hellish and the rest being a rotten techbase.

 

I might also end up claiming UnusedMap2 and integrating it into SHAWNMAP - but, if anyone else wants to claim it then they can have it. For now, I'll just do SHAWNMAP.

Edited December 19, 2023 by realjohnmadden

[Faceman2000]

Alright, well then with that, E3 (the Deimos episode) is full! Excited to see what you come up with!

 

@HEXWALKER, I’m not sure which slots you were designing for: if either of your two maps were Deimos-themed, let me know and we can go ahead from there. Thanks!

Edited December 19, 2023 by Faceman2000

[HEXWALKER]

Neither of my maps are Deimos-themed. I am still working (slowly) on my slots however, progress should pick up after Snow Wave concludes. 

[Plerb]

Suggestion for the initial post: It should list what the current music tracks are for each map and which ones still need a track.

I think Observatory can use my un36 cover.

[realjohnmadden]

Working on my map - should I include a secret exit?

Spoiler

[realjohnmadden]

I have it in a playable state - should be completable, but I have yet to test it.

Right now, yellow key has no purpose and I need to fill out some rooms and add more to the layout of the map (secrets, an actual way to get the Soulsphere/Berserk, etc), and I might also redo the throne room since it's out of place.

Goes over E2M2 for now.

SHAWNMAP.zip

 

 

Spoiler

 

[Plerb]

2 hours ago, realjohnmadden said:

should I include a secret exit?

Cacodemon187 and nicolas monti's map was already declared to be the Deimos episode's secret exit map.

[realjohnmadden]

I'm making my map for Episode 2, if it's not clear. Episode 3 is already full, anyway.

[Plerb]

In this project, Episode 2 is Hell and Episode 3 is Deimos, as it was for much of Doom's development. It's fine to keep making it in an E2 slot though as it'll easily be changed later.

Edited December 20, 2023 by Plerb

[Individualised]

OP should probably be cleaned up. The various maplists are not complete and do not show many untaken slots.

[realjohnmadden]

11 hours ago, Plerb said:

In this project, Episode 2 is Hell and Episode 3 is Deimos, as it was for much of Doom's development. It's fine to keep making it in an E2 slot though as it'll easily be changed later.

Fully aware of that - the idea is a starship was sucked into Hell and taken over. It could still work at the tail end of E1, or somewhere at the start of E3.

[Plerb]

11 hours ago, realjohnmadden said:

Fully aware of that - the idea is a starship was sucked into Hell and taken over. It could still work at the tail end of E1, or somewhere at the start of E3.

Ohhh, I was under the impression your map was a Deimos map. Sorry for the misunderstanding!

Maybe it could be E2's secret map, as it'd be quite different from the rest of the episode.

[realjohnmadden]

It be done.

SHAWNMAP / Hell's Den (E2M9, secret level)

Difficulties, co-op spawns, deathmatch weapons and spawns, etc are all implemented, and no VPOs.

MIDI: On the Hunt (E1M6, E3M6 of Doom)

 

Screenies:

Spoiler

 

SHAWNMAP.zip

[uhbooh]

After reading about the dev history of Doom I felt bad for Tom Hall. Love to see Doom Bible and beta projects like these, looking forward to playing it!

[Faceman2000]

I edited the OP once again to try and better clarify where the project stands - @Individualised, let me know if you think it's better now. I was a bit unsure how to communicate the status as people claim maps to build off of rather than specific slots, but I think I've found a good balance now. @HEXWALKER, let me know which episodes you'd like me to assign your maps to so I can get that updated as well.

 

@Plerb, I also made note of the music traps different maps are currently using. Music choice at this stage is still pretty tentative as if we get more contributions they will take precedence over the tracks borrowed from other projects, but since we have so few contributed by now (plus so few maps that have claimed a specific track) I don't think it will cause issues later.

 

@realjohnmadden, I played through your map tonight and it's a great start! It really captures the feel of the classic levels in my opinion. You'll notice in the first post I assigned it to Deimos - thematically I really think it fits best here. You noted earlier that I'd said Deimos was full already, but that was including your map. Here are my notes:

Spoiler

Sector 53 seems to be missing floor lamps.

The Plasma Gun secret on top of the crates should be swapped for a Chaingun - it's not very hard to get to and you really don't need a Plasma Gun that early in this level.

There's a backpack with the yellow key and then another beyond the yellow key door - seems redundant to have both, especially when they're effectively part of the same secret.

There's several rooms where the monsters are looking the wrong way. I think it works fine in a couple of them but in the blue key room it just neutralizes any threat the monsters pose while making them seem really dumb.

The secret Rocket Launcher room could use some stairs going to make it feel a little less flat, and an ambush after picking up the RL would be fun.

Spoiler

For example, just something simple like this would make the room feel a little more interesting to me.

The throne room has a couple of oddities: firstly, the sound-blocking lines surrounding the door make it so the monsters will stand there ignoring you while you shoot their buddies next to them. The soundblocking lines should be removed there. The Caco/Pinky sitting in the throne look awkward as they are sitting in it backward - rotating them so they're facing the player and the door would look better and play better. Finally, the stash of weapons behind the throne itself is overkill - I'd just leave the chainsaw and health.

Replace the Imp in sector 156 with a Baron or two. Replace the Green Armor with a Plasma Gun since I've suggested removing all the other PGs in the map.

The initials (I'm assuming they're yours) within Sector 57 feel out of place to me.

Finally, a couple rooms could use some prettying up. The starting room could use some lighting contrast to distract from how brown it is - I'd suggest drawing a line between vertices 31 and 32 to split the room and then lowering the ceiling over the player's head to ~128 and darkening the new sector up a bit. The shotgun room is a pretty plain box - setting the shotgun on top of a computer and adding some inset computes in the walls could help there. The room with the Imp cage to one side also feels very plain, empty, and square currently.

I know I through a lot of notes at you but I don't want any of them to take away from the fact that I really quite enjoyed your map - most of what I put are essentially nitpicks, but I really think they will help strengthen your level. The combat is good, the visuals are nice, and it really feels like it fits in nicely alongside the id maps from the time. Great work!

 

Finally, I decided to add the map that would become E1M3 to my plate - I'm reworking it into a Hell map. I've come up with some ways to play with the progression a fair bit since it's so close to final. Here's some screenies:

Spoiler

Okay, those areas are still rather recognizable, but I haven't done much texturing on the rest of the map yet haha. I'm excited to share it with you all when I'm done!

[realjohnmadden]

2 hours ago, Faceman2000 said:

[snippity snip]

Sure. Did the changes, moved it to E3M2, and made it so the computer room in the middle of the maze flashes less.

SHAWNMAP.zip

Spoiler

Edited December 24, 2023 by realjohnmadden

[Plerb]

It's been almost 2 weeks since I claimed my maps, so I'll share their current status. I've been chipping away at my Doom Bible sketch + COMM6 + id Software floor plan map almost every day. The rough layout has been done for a while, and I'm just polishing it at this point. It should hopefully be done before the end of the year. The Alpha E2M2 map is on the back burner until I finish my other one, but I did do some work on it as well. There might be a mix of materials in the former crate maze, but I've mostly replaced them with vine-covered walls for now.

[Plerb]

My Doom Bible sketch map is done! This one is on the shorter side if you know where you're going (it only uses 2 keys), but it may be the most difficult one I've submitted so far, at least on UV. As usual @Melodic Spaceship helped test it. It uses the E3M3 music from DTWID.

dbible_plerb.zip

Edited December 28, 2023 by Plerb

[Faceman2000]

@realjohnmadden Looks good! Thank you for making those edits. Unless anything major is found I think this map is good to go!

 

@Plerb, I played through your map a couple times. It’s a lot of fun! Just a couple notes:

Spoiler

• I got softlocked in the secret behind the lights - the door is only set to be opened once but it can be closed multiple times.
• The Pandemonium references felt a bit too strong to me. The light hallway is fine: Tom reused geometry between maps after all, but the combination of it with the room with the skulls behind grates together just felt a little too reminiscent of E3M3 to me. This is isn’t a huge sticking point for me so if you’re set on how that room is styled that’s fine.
• The opening rooms don’t look hellish at all. I know this is an attempt to preserve the original texturing, but added a little more hell to it either by swapping the ceiling or walls or just using some more decoration would really help the initial impression from the level.
• This next point is a hard one to describe and quantify, and as such is more of a thought/suggestion than anything. The map’s texturing is extremely eclectic. This is a good thing for the most part - Sandy’s hell maps were too - but he was working with a much smaller set of textures than we have here which means things can get even more eclectic now. To illustrate, consider E3M3, one of Sandy’s more weird hell maps. Even though the theming is very varied, the level itself really only has a couple themes for the most part - SLAD, cement, wood, tech, and flesh. So even though the theming is eclectic relative to each other, there’s only a handful. In your map, every area looks good, but there’s so many different themes that it feels disjointed to me. Now, again, this is just me - I showed the map to my brother and he liked how disjointed it looked, for example - so if you’re happy with it as-is, that’s fine. I just wanted to throw it out there.

I was able to some work done over the holiday weekend, so 0.5 E1M10’s layout/texturing is largely done. Hopefully I can have it up this week. My take on an E2 Andakhupa will take a little longer.

 

With most of the map slots filled and the end starting to be visible, I’m also going to reach out to a couple musicians to see if we can get a few more tracks for this project. We’re getting close!

Edited January 3, 2024 by Faceman2000

[HEXWALKER]

Hello, sorry for the radio silence! It has been a rough and busy holiday season, and I am gearing up for a trip in a few weeks, so again, sorry for that.

On 12/23/2023 at 9:59 PM, Faceman2000 said:

@HEXWALKER, let me know which episodes you'd like me to assign your maps to so I can get that updated as well.

I am honestly not quite sure yet! I will try to let you know soon. I am doing some updates to another map of mine, as well as helping out with a map on the 30 Sectors project, and I am going to nail these out as soon as those are out of the way, which really shouldn't be too much of a problem now. Once more progress gets done on my maps for this, then their placement will probably be a bit more clear to me, if that makes sense.

 

Once again I'd like to apologize for taking my sweet time replying, and I should have something for you very soon. :)

[Plerb]

@Faceman2000 Thanks for the feedback! I'll fix the softlock and make the opening room more hellish. I wasn't intending to make it look that much like E3M3 other than the light hallway, but then again I played that map more than any other for inspiration :P. I might change the skulls in the cage to an SP_ texture. I think the map's overall texturing is fine as-is.

 

Some thoughts about the remaining map slots:

• Considering E1 and E2 still don't have boss maps assigned and the alpha E1M8 and MAP10 seem like the best choices for that, I'm wondering @HEXWALKER if you plan on making either of your maps boss maps.
• I doubt enough could be done with the alpha E2M4 to justify having it in the roster. Every other alpha map has at least a couple features that were changed or removed in the final, but (bear in mind I'm just going off of memory) this one only has a lack of enemies, slightly different texturing, and doesn't have the starting and ending rooms. Even the keys and keydoors are in their final positions. It'd be basically indistinguishable from a map that was just directly based off of the final E2M4.
• COMM5 should only be used with another slot instead of being used on it's own.
• The early Doom 2 MAP01 could be added to the roster, specifically as E2M9. Outside of maybe a couple Doom 2 textures, it easily could've been a Doom 1 map. Even if there's a Doom 2 follow-up to this project, it could still work if it's different enough.

 

I still need to get around to making the revised version of my un41 cover.

[Cacodemon187]

Started working on my and @nicolas monti's map yesterday! Just doing visual tweaks first, most notably bringing back the bright red walls on the outdoor sections, giving the final storage arena a hellish makeover, and reverting most of Monti's visual changes on the sections from the original unfinished draft I submitted. Not to offend you, Nicolas, I just think some of the changes make the map look unevenly messier and don't fit the style of the map as a whole, plus there were some tiny details that I really liked that I'd like to keep.

I'll attach the current revision of the map below, so you and @Faceman2000 can check out some of the changes. If there is anything you'd like to change please do let me know! I'll try to keep working on this consistently throughout january.

 

05-E1M11-caco187-monti.zip

[nicolas monti]

5 hours ago, Cacodemon187 said:

Started working on my and @nicolas monti's map yesterday! Just doing visual tweaks first, most notably bringing back the bright red walls on the outdoor sections, giving the final storage arena a hellish makeover, and reverting most of Monti's visual changes on the sections from the original unfinished draft I submitted. Not to offend you, Nicolas, I just think some of the changes make the map look unevenly messier and don't fit the style of the map as a whole, plus there were some tiny details that I really liked that I'd like to keep.

I'll attach the current revision of the map below, so you and @Faceman2000 can check out some of the changes. If there is anything you'd like to change please do let me know! I'll try to keep working on this consistently throughout january.

 

05-E1M11-caco187-monti.zip

 

No problem man, just downloaded it and really liked it, the perfect blend, the red part looks better now to my sensible eyes lol, the connection of the South East part into the right starting door3 was clever, the final room was like a final Petersen intervention on Tom Hall, the spine mid texture there looks great.

[Xeebleton]

very minor fixes/additions

extramap_doodlesgdxRev5-GPedit.zip

[Xeebleton]

less minor fixes/additions

 

extramap_doodlesgdxRev5-GPedit.zip