Wood5Flat5 - A small single flat single texture map (Now on idgames Archive!)

[DoomGappy]

I started doing this yesterday and finally finished it today. It's a short map using only Wood5 and Flat5_1. It's pretty short and punchy, but mostly about the visuals I could pull from using only Wood5 as a texture. Please be sure to pay attention to the details!

Name: Wood5Flat5

Map Format: Boom

IWAD: Doom 2

Map(s): MAP01

Time to complete 5 to 10 minutes.

Difficulties: Yes

Tested on: GZDoom, DSDA, PrBoom+

Demos: No 

Download: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/v-z/w5f5

 

Old versions

• V1.1 for plums and Zahid's demos: w5f5-v1.1.wad.7z
• V 1.3 for Noisy's demo: w5f5-1.3.wad.7z

 

Screenshots:

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

Have fun playing!

Edited December 8, 2023 by DoomGappy

[Arrowhead]

Fun little map.

 

I think you did well with only the 1 flat and 1 texture you used. This feels like an introductory level in a larger map pack, in terms of its difficulty.

 

I don't want to spoil for anybody, so I'll 'spoiler' this next bit:

 

Spoiler

 

On my first go, I beat the level in just over 3 minutes - I was able to complete w/ only around half the monsters killed - that's a bit unusual; it kind of made some of the map feel a bit superfluous. On my second go, I went for 100%. This time I saw everything the map had to offer. Couple things I wanted to ask about - I think the supercharge as the reward for killing the cyber to be a little bit late. Once you've killed the cyber, you've pretty much eliminated most of the major threats in the map - making the supercharge not as relevant as it could be, IMO.

-The bit where the 2 hellknights and 2 cacos converge on you from different sides of the hallway was very cool.

-I generally liked the look of the map, and at first, I thought it would be difficult to navigate, as it uses only 1x1 - but that was never a problem. Kind of reminded me of the 'woodbase' levels of the 90s, in a way too.

 

 

Glad I gave it a quick go!

 

:)

[DoomGappy]

1 hour ago, Arrowhead said:

Fun little map.

 

I think you did well with only the 1 flat and 1 texture you used. This feels like an introductory level in a larger map pack, in terms of its difficulty.

 

I don't want to spoil for anybody, so I'll 'spoiler' this next bit:

 

  Hide contents

 

On my first go, I beat the level in just over 3 minutes - I was able to complete w/ only around half the monsters killed - that's a bit unusual; it kind of made some of the map feel a bit superfluous. On my second go, I went for 100%. This time I saw everything the map had to offer. Couple things I wanted to ask about - I think the supercharge as the reward for killing the cyber to be a little bit late. Once you've killed the cyber, you've pretty much eliminated most of the major threats in the map - making the supercharge not as relevant as it could be, IMO.

-The bit where the 2 hellknights and 2 cacos converge on you from different sides of the hallway was very cool.

-I generally liked the look of the map, and at first, I thought it would be difficult to navigate, as it uses only 1x1 - but that was never a problem. Kind of reminded me of the 'woodbase' levels of the 90s, in a way too.

 

 

Glad I gave it a quick go!

 

:)

 

Hey, Arrowhead! Thanks for playing. Yeah, I made that area optional. Some thoughts below in spoilers so everyone can enjoy the map.
 

Spoiler

I agree with you. I put the soulsphere there for the UV Difficulty. In HMP there is only one baron of hell in the cell, which I think is not that fun, really. Maybe I should make it more populated? In UV there is an arcvhille, and there is also a teleporter trick where he goes back to the area you came from which is filled with the corpses of Pinkies and shotgunners. I love these little gimmicks you can make by changing the placing of a teleporter destination or by putting it in one difficulty only, but these are mostly suited for small single maps only that can be replayed quickly.

 

Thanks for complimenting the looks of the map, it's what I spent most of my time on. I think Wood5 is one of the most versatile textures in Doom's library, there could easily be a miniwad using only this one and a flat. It was mostly a display wad with some combat in order to not make it completely empty. Still, it was really fun to make. I like how it turned out, especially the courtyard with the open sky area. I love wood and metal textures in general. 
 

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by jo2ukegappy

[plums]

Nice going! Here's an FDA for dsda-doom. (dsda-doom.exe -file yourwad.wad -playdemo thisdemo.lmp, in case you weren't sure.)

I get the exit (accidentally) and then reload my game to clear out the rest of the map. Might give HMP a peek later on to see what's different.

 

edit: oops I should include the file

https://user.fm/files/v2-40d2a7f71f6afbd052029ed872081f8f/w5f5_plums.lmp

 

While I don't quite recommend making an entire mapset out of this texture choice, you did quite well for the limits you placed on yourself, with lighting and height. I'm kinda sorta working on a thing involving very limited texture use, so it's nice to see stuff other people come up with in that regard.

Edited October 21, 2023 by plums

[DoomGappy]

15 minutes ago, plums said:

Nice going! Here's an FDA for dsda-doom. (dsda-doom.exe -file yourwad.wad -playdemo thisdemo.lmp, in case you weren't sure.)

I get the exit (accidentally) and then reload my game to clear out the rest of the map. Might give HMP a peek later on to see what's different.

 

While I don't quite recommend making an entire mapset out of this texture choice, you did quite well for the limits you placed on yourself, with lighting and height. I'm kinda sorta working on a thing involving very limited texture use, so it's nice to see stuff other people come up with in that regard.

Hello, plums! Did you mean to send a demo file? There is nothing attached yet. I was just thinking that I shlould learn how to record them for future projects. I eagerly await for your demo. 

 

Yeah, making mapsets from just one texture might be very repetitive. I think lunchlunch did it best with 10x10. It's a limited resource but still plenty of variety. Hope to see what you come up with on that end. 

Edited October 21, 2023 by jo2ukegappy

[plums]

yeah I just realized I forgot to include it, derp.

https://user.fm/files/v2-40d2a7f71f6afbd052029ed872081f8f/w5f5_plums.lmp

 

as far as limited texture maps go, Texture Extravaganza has a few good ones (and went largely unnoticed as a wad)

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by plums

[Zahid]

decent little map atmosphere is good and lighting is great not too dark and not extra bright

fights are easy and basic but making yellow key optional is something didnt make sense too me as map is already a small one 

heres my prboom cl9 uv demo my second attempt as i hit the red key unlabeled exit switch without discovering whole map so i restarted demo

popi9.zip

[DoomGappy]

I think there was a huge desync here. Embarassingly, I am not familiar with demos at all, and I've been changing the map a lot even since I posted it. I tend to post unfinished versions of things and then repolish them a lot. Could I ask you to send me the map version You have so I can try and replay it? Also, is there a basic guide on demos anywhere?

Edit: Now I get why wads have short names, mostly. Imagine writing a huge ass name for playing and recording demos. 

Edited October 21, 2023 by jo2ukegappy

[plums]

Yeah demos need to be played back on exactly the map they were recorded on. (the filename can change though) Honestly most people making non-speedrun playthroughs just put it on youtube/twitch etc., there are still a few holdouts like me that keep things difficult for people ;)

https://user.fm/files/v2-dc149c5e4563dc01c678b370bf9f7053/wood5flat5 - Jo2ukeGappy - Completed - V1.1.wad.7z

 

I don't really know of a basic demo guide that's current, it depends what you want to know I guess. Most guides are speedrun oriented. Some of the info in this thread might be helpful but a lot of it is not just speedrun-specific but dsdarchive.com focused as well, so you can ignore all the bits about naming conventions, including a textfile, etc.

 

Edited October 21, 2023 by plums

[DoomGappy]

7 minutes ago, plums said:

Yeah demos need to be played back on exactly the map they were recorded on. Honestly most people making non-speedrun playthroughs just put it on youtube/twitch etc., there are still a few holdouts like me that keep things difficult for people ;)

https://user.fm/files/v2-dc149c5e4563dc01c678b370bf9f7053/wood5flat5 - Jo2ukeGappy - Completed - V1.1.wad.7z

 

I don't really know of a basic demo guide that's current, it depends what you want to know I guess. Most guides are speedrun oriented. Some of the info in this thread might be helpful but a lot of it is not just speedrun-specific but dsdarchive.com focused as well.

 

Now it works just fine. I'm watching it. Demos are really cool, I want to be able to record them for maps because they are amazing technology, and, to my knowledge, there is nothing else like them in other games. Is there any info on how they came up with that feature? 

Edit: Oh, you already played it on v1.1, with the automap in the barons' closet. I put it there so people could see that there was more to the map. How'd you like that corridor? Was two pain elementals too cruel?

I watched this video and followed what he said, and it worked on DSDA-Doom here. I'll use it on my mapping thread as an example.
 

 

Edited October 22, 2023 by jo2ukegappy

[DoomGappy]

50 minutes ago, Zahid said:

decent little map atmosphere is good and lighting is great not too dark and not extra bright

fights are easy and basic but making yellow key optional is something didnt make sense too me as map is already a small one 

heres my prboom cl9 uv demo my second attempt as i hit the red key unlabeled exit switch without discovering whole map so i restarted demo

popi9.zip

Thanks for the demo, Zahid. On your playthrough there was a bug, I think. The archvile should have teleported back to the top of the stairs when he came out of the cage. I've fixed the yellow key being optional and now the last door needs all thre keeys to open. I'll reorganize it a little too. 

[S3M_XM]

It appears that the Archvile and the chaingunners go through a silent teleporter line on UV?

And I noticed I've went the first time I played this as I can exit the map early without going through the basement. Plus, you can press the exit switch as right before the monster closets open.

[DoomGappy]

1 hour ago, S3M_XM said:

It appears that the Archvile and the chaingunners go through a silent teleporter line on UV?

And I noticed I've went the first time I played this as I can exit the map early without going through the basement. Plus, you can press the exit switch as right before the monster closets open.

Yes. It didn't work with a normal teleporter for some reason, but with the silent it did. Though maybe I did something wrong on my end. I've fixed the final room and will update the map here shortly.

 

Edit: I was testing with the teleporter area being completely filled with Pinkies. There was no room for the monsters to go to. 

Edited October 22, 2023 by DoomGappy

[Biodegradable]

It's a cute experiment, though it feels a little dated. Those interactive slates or panels or whatever felt a little counter-intuitive. I'd suggest adding a button to that sort of thing in the future so it tells the player that you wish for them to interact with it.

 

 

[DoomGappy]

1 hour ago, Biodegradable said:

It's a cute experiment, though it feels a little dated. Those interactive slates or panels or whatever felt a little counter-intuitive. I'd suggest adding a button to that sort of thing in the future so it tells the player that you wish for them to interact with it.

 

 

 

Hey, Biodegradable!

 

Thanks for playing my map. I restricted myself to not use anything else other than wood5, so those wooden "switches" are what I came up with using that restriction.  The torches and candelabra are also part of that experiment. I just had an idea watching your playthrough of making a glowing light around them so that players can see them more easily and be curious. I've also updated the last room to require all three keys to be opened, as well as making the cell a bit more populated and changing the last room. Thanks for the video, I feel honored that you thought this had 90's vibes. 

Edit: Updated the map file with the last version which is much more fun.

Edited October 22, 2023 by DoomGappy

[Maribo]

13 hours ago, plums said:

I don't really know of a basic demo guide that's current, it depends what you want to know I guess. Most guides are speedrun oriented. Some of the info in this thread might be helpful but a lot of it is not just speedrun-specific but dsdarchive.com focused as well, so you can ignore all the bits about naming conventions, including a textfile, etc.

@DoomGappy pinging you because you might find this info useful:

 

Not really a guide but here's some info about demo files that might be helpful in regards to how people use them in this forum and for playtesting in DMs or some community project Discord servers:

There are a few ports that you can group together as being "demo-compatible", meaning that demos made in a stable release of one port will always play back as intended on the others, provided they support the compatibility level used. For simplicity's sake (there are some ports that have mixed compatibility, like being able to play back some compatibilities but not record them on their own), these are Chocolate, Crispy, PrBoom+, DSDA-Doom, and Woof. For instance, a complevel 2 Crispy demo will play back in DSDA-Doom, PrBoom+, and Woof, but a complevel 9 or 21 demo made in DSDA-Doom or Woof will not play back properly in Chocolate or Crispy.

 

Most of these ports listed (I think only Chocolate is the exception?) also print information into the footer section of the demo file to make playback easier, it will include info like the IWAD and PWAD file names, so in many cases you can simply run portname -playdemo xxx.lmp rather than also providing the -file parameter. (ie: here is an example of footer information in a demo I recorded recently: dsda-doom 0.26.2 -iwad "doom2.wad" -file "bythehour.wad") Or you can just drag and drop the demo file onto the executable, or you can associate .lmp files with the port executable and double click them, etc. Basically if someone posts a demo file made in one of these ports, you can play them back on any of the others (complevel willing, of course) without issue.

 

DSDA-Doom also has a separate demo format that one can use by providing the -dsdademo argument, which is a format that will allow use of some cheats and saves/loads. It's very useful for playtesting, but if you post a demo in this format, you really should mention the version that you recorded it in, because there is no guarantee that they will sync between different versions of the port.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Maribo

[plums]

9 minutes ago, Maribo said:

-dsdademo [...] if you post a demo in this format, you really should mention the version that you recorded it in, because there is no guarantee that they will sync between different versions of the port.

Oh didn't realize this, good to know!

[SleepyVelvet]

Cute little map.  Very dark, kinda wish there was more stark candelabra/lighting breaking up some hallways but maybe that's in vain.  I exited the map early because I didn't know the switch was exit.

 

FDA: noisy_w5f5-1.3.zip

[DoomGappy]

8 minutes ago, NoisyVelvet said:

Cute little map.  Very dark, kinda wish there was more stark candelabra/lighting breaking up some hallways but maybe that's in vain.  I exited the map early because I didn't know the switch was exit.

 

FDA: noisy_w5f5-1.3.zip

Hey, NoisyVelvet!

Thanks for the playthrough. That was a nice run, great hell knight punching abilities! I won't spoil it, but there is something to make up for all the dark areas in the other route. Thanks again for playing! 

[DoomGappy]

1 hour ago, Maribo said:

@DoomGappy pinging you because you might find this info useful:

 

Not really a guide but here's some info about demo files that might be helpful in regards to how people use them in this forum and for playtesting in DMs or some community project Discord servers:

There are a few ports that you can group together as being "demo-compatible", meaning that demos made in a stable release of one port will always play back as intended on the others, provided they support the compatibility level used. For simplicity's sake (there are some ports that have mixed compatibility, like being able to play back some compatibilities but not record them on their own), these are Chocolate, Crispy, PrBoom+, DSDA-Doom, and Woof. For instance, a complevel 2 Crispy demo will play back in DSDA-Doom, PrBoom+, and Woof, but a complevel 9 or 21 demo made in DSDA-Doom or Woof will not play back properly in Chocolate or Crispy.

 

Most of these ports listed (I think only Chocolate is the exception?) also print information into the footer section of the demo file to make playback easier, it will include info like the IWAD and PWAD file names, so in many cases you can simply run portname -playdemo xxx.lmp rather than also providing the -file parameter. (ie: here is an example of footer information in a demo I recorded recently: dsda-doom 0.26.2 -iwad "doom2.wad" -file "bythehour.wad") Or you can just drag and drop the demo file onto the executable, or you can associate .lmp files with the port executable and double click them, etc. Basically if someone posts a demo file made in one of these ports, you can play them back on any of the others (complevel willing, of course) without issue.

 

DSDA-Doom also has a separate demo format that one can use by providing the -dsdademo argument, which is a format that will allow use of some cheats and saves/loads. It's very useful for playtesting, but if you post a demo in this format, you really should mention the version that you recorded it in, because there is no guarantee that they will sync between different versions of the port.

 

Hello, Maribo! Thanks for the very important info. You may or may not be aware, but I'm writing a megathread for absolute mapping beginners here in the forums. I'd like to know if I could DM you for guidance and reviewing on the Demo part of the thread, as well as on the compatibility part. Would that be ok? Here is the thread:

 

 

[Maribo]

6 hours ago, DoomGappy said:

I'd like to know if I could DM you for guidance and reviewing on the Demo part of the thread, as well as on the compatibility part. Would that be ok?

Sure. I'm not an all-knowing authority on the intricacies of the demo format or compatibility differences, but I can probably provide decent enough insight on their general use and potential quirks.

[The Royal We]

Great map! 
Short, fun, delivers what it promises.
It reminded me of 50 Shades of Graytall:
https://doomwiki.org/wiki/50_Shades_of_Graytall
 

 

[plums]

23 hours ago, DoomGappy said:

Edit: Oh, you already played it on v1.1, with the automap in the barons' closet. I put it there so people could see that there was more to the map. How'd you like that corridor? Was two pain elementals too cruel?

 

Certainly wasn't too cruel, I didn't die after all! Though I did worse my second time when I knew it was coming, somehow.

 

23 hours ago, DoomGappy said:

Now it works just fine. I'm watching it. Demos are really cool, I want to be able to record them for maps because they are amazing technology, and, to my knowledge, there is nothing else like them in other games. Is there any info on how they came up with that feature?

 

There are some other older games that have demo-type features. Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 do, and probably other older Blizzard games as well. And emulators for old console games all let you record what you do in basically the same way.

 

One problem with demo recording like this is being able to play them back depends on you using the same (or a highly compatible) game version. This was a problem for early Doom demos as well, demos recorded on Doom 1.2 couldn't be played back in Doom 1.666, and neither of those worked in Doom 1.9, etc. This is where Doom is unlike other games in that thanks to the engine being open source and the efforts of source port authors, in that compatibility with old versions (and to some extent new versions, like MBF21) exists.

 

I don't know who decided to implement demos in Doom but Romero probably had a lot to do with it, since he liked to push the competitive side of things and was responsible for all the par times.

[DoomGappy]

3 hours ago, The Royal We said:

Great map! 
Short, fun, delivers what it promises.
It reminded me of 50 Shades of Graytall:
https://doomwiki.org/wiki/50_Shades_of_Graytall
 

 

 

Thank you for the playthrough, friend. Always appreciate the commentary. É isso aí e mais...

 

2 hours ago, plums said:

 

Certainly wasn't too cruel, I didn't die after all! Though I did worse my second time when I knew it was coming, somehow.

 

 

There are some other older games that have demo-type features. Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2 do, and probably other older Blizzard games as well. And emulators for old console games all let you record what you do in basically the same way.

 

One problem with demo recording like this is being able to play them back depends on you using the same (or a highly compatible) game version. This was a problem for early Doom demos as well, demos recorded on Doom 1.2 couldn't be played back in Doom 1.666, and neither of those worked in Doom 1.9, etc. This is where Doom is unlike other games in that thanks to the engine being open source and the efforts of source port authors, in that compatibility with old versions (and to some extent new versions, like MBF21) exists.

 

I don't know who decided to implement demos in Doom but Romero probably had a lot to do with it, since he liked to push the competitive side of things and was responsible for all the par times.

 

It's still an aspect of doom history that is shrouded in mystery for me, and also something I haven't seen tackled by any gaming youtubers or anything of the sort. It is also something that is mostly glossed over, even when people talk about Doom. It's amazing and wonderful that we still have ports focused on those features to this day. Thanks for the answer, plums. I didn't even know other games had that!

Edited October 23, 2023 by DoomGappy

[DoomGappy]

I think v 1.4 is final.

 

Narrator: it wasn't final. 

 

Spoilers below.
 

Spoiler

- Updated some enemy placements

- Moved the yellow key in UV so that players have to go to the extra area to pick it up.

- Balanced enemies for ITYTD and also redid the cell teleporter thing. 

- Fixed a softlock in UV thanks to @dmh094 pointing it to me.

- Made the ending part a bit more spicy on UV.

- Rebalanced weapons and ammo.

 

It was a really fun quick project! Thanks for all who played it and had fun. 

 

19 hours ago, Maribo said:

Sure. I'm not an all-knowing authority on the intricacies of the demo format or compatibility differences, but I can probably provide decent enough insight on their general use and potential quirks.

Thanks, Maribo! I'll contact you if I need help with demos. 

Edited October 23, 2023 by DoomGappy

[Degree23]

On 10/22/2023 at 11:48 AM, Biodegradable said:

Those interactive slates or panels or whatever felt a little counter-intuitive. I'd suggest adding a button to that sort of thing in the future so it tells the player that you wish for them to interact with it.

 

The only way to get out of the starting area is to interact with one, so especially on a map with a theme such as this one, it does signpost that these are things you are going to need to watch out for, which feels like fair game.

 

Nice map - I'd swap the positions of the Armor and MegaArmor though I think.

[Tangra]

7 minutes ago, Degree23 said:

 

The only way to get out of the starting area is to interact with one, so especially on a map with a theme such as this one, it does signpost that these are things you are going to need to watch out for, which feels like fair game.

 

You know what is even more of a fair game? Actual switches. I get that the idea is to use one flat and one texture only, but mandatory stuff, like switches and locked door markers (especially since most doors in this map don't look like doors) and exit signs, should be excluded from this rule in my opinion. 

[Degree23]

10 minutes ago, Tangra said:

You know what is even more of a fair game? Actual switches. I get that the idea is to use one flat and one texture only, but mandatory stuff, like switches and locked door markers (especially since most doors in this map don't look like doors) and exit signs, should be excluded from this rule in my opinion. 

 

You're playing a WAD that advertises itself as having an extremely restrictive ruleset. The doors took me a few seconds to work out, but the switch was instant since, as I already said, you can't even play the map without working out how the first one works. The OP even states you will need to clearly pay attention to the details. It's not going to be for everyone. That's more a matter for the player's personal taste rather than the design of the map itself.

[Tangra]

1 hour ago, Degree23 said:

 

You're playing a WAD that advertises itself as having an extremely restrictive ruleset. The doors took me a few seconds to work out, but the switch was instant since, as I already said, you can't even play the map without working out how the first one works. The OP even states you will need to clearly pay attention to the details. It's not going to be for everyone. That's more a matter for the player's personal taste rather than the design of the map itself.

 

It's not a matter of how hard it is to figure out, it's a question of whether leaving the doors, exits and switches unmarked, is a good design choice in general, regardless of the restrictions? Saying it's okay to do this, just because the map is small and simple, doesn't make sense. I say, the complexity doesn't matter - bad mapping tropes, are still bad, regardless of the type of map they are used in, simple or complex. And don't get me wrong, i don't have a problem with an author's creative freedom... the only reason, i even comment on the whole missing switches/markers thing, is because you're basically saying that this map cannot be criticized for it, which i strongly disagree with.

[DoomGappy]

19 minutes ago, Tangra said:

 

It's not a matter of how hard it is to figure out, it's a question of whether leaving the doors, exits and switches unmarked, is a good design choice in general, regardless of the restrictions? Saying it's okay to do this, just because the map is small and simple, doesn't make sense. I say, the complexity doesn't matter - bad mapping tropes, are still bad, regardless of the type of map they are used in, simple or complex. And don't get me wrong, i don't have a problem with an author's creative freedom... the only reason, i even comment on the whole missing switches/markers thing, is because you're basically saying that this map cannot be criticized for it, which i strongly disagree with.

 

Hey, there is no problem if you didn't like it. I actually wanted to really restrict myself to a single texture to see what I came up with. The doors are marked with torches, and since doom doesn't have a yellow fire torch, I used the candelabra to tag it. I know it could be confusing if the doors were completely unmarked, so I used them as makeshift waypoints. The last room also needs three keys, which is pretty much indicative of it being the last room, IMO. I think you are being a little too restrictive and trying to stick to the rules to the maximum. Rules are fine, IMO, but they can also be btoken if something else is used instead. I don't know if you played the last version, but there is a glowing light around the "switches" after Biodegradable's feedback. I like how it turned out from what I set out to make.  

Edited October 24, 2023 by DoomGappy