IRON - new short vanilla map - 10 minutes playtime - play it on your coffee break :)

[Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)]

Hi Doomworld, I made a new map :)

It's a very classic map in terms of gameplay, it has 116 monsters on UV and takes around 10 minutes to beat. There is some nonlinearity despite relatively short length - you can take different paths. All difficulties implemented, UV is recommended for most players, the map is easier than my previous map (for those who have played it).

The map is vanilla compatible (tested in Choco, Crispy and GZDoom).

IWAD is Doom2, MAP01

Custom resources:

- OTEX by ukiro (yes, the map works in vanilla Doom, I used subset of OTEX, all textures are included)

- music: Siege Mentality by NeilJohnRips from Ultimate MIDI Pack

 

I'd love to see some playthrough videos and/or demos!

 

Get it here: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/g-i/iron

 

Some screenshots:

Edited November 10, 2023 by Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)
updated download link to point to idgames

[Synami]

That sky is fucking beautiful, checking this out in an instant !

 

Edit: All kills, items and secrets, done in 13:49.
 

Spoiler

Architecture is pretty nice, but I still don't have too fond of a feeling for OTEX usage. Maybe that's just me. I'm not sure how I feel about the combat, since on one hand some of the traps play nice, but on another the first half offers around half of the enemies in the map which can easily be dealt with via shotgun and/or chaingun, specifically the elevated imps which I don't see much use in their existence. The cacodemon in the lava kind of sucks towards blind players, as they'll absolutely have the rocket launcher equipped for the mancubus and arachnotron, but once the player knows that it isn't too big of an issue. The secret(s) felt very rewarding, a good audio and visual cue to a pretty big segment which I cherish. It's a nice map!

 

 

Edited November 3, 2023 by Synami
Actually checked out the map :^)

[Firedust]

Oganesson when

[SleepyVelvet]

Very clean and minimalistic map.  Thanks for the level, a nice refreshing breeze.

 

fda: noisy_iron.zip

Edited November 3, 2023 by NoisyVelvet

[Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)]

Thanks for feedback @Synami !

Thanks for the demo @NoisyVelvet , very fun to watch!

Glad you both found the secret(s), I think I finally got it right as in my previous maps my secrets were too obscure and nobody could find them :)

[Pomps]

Great map! :D Loved it

[Zahid]

great map lover the looks structure and sky gameplay is not good as its too easy with unnecessary and excessive health and ammo  even on uv

prboom first attempt demo cl2 uv took 1 bad luck death and 11 min

popi9.zip

 

[Clippy]

Advanced screening :

 

 

 

 

I never did get that blueberry which apparently wasn't a secret? 

 

Anywho decent map

 

 

Edited November 3, 2023 by Clippy

[Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)]

Thanks @TheNonDrinkingLeprechaun, glad you liked the map!

Thanks @Zahid for the demo!

Thanks @Clippy for the video!

I probably exaggerated with making the map too easy :) Regarding that blue door area - there were monsters in there but they all went for a walk on the terrace outside and got shot there :D I agree some more should teleport once player reaches that area though.

[Clippy]

I still found it pretty amusing how it worked out that one imp by himself having a lonely party 

 

That's how I'm going to choose to believe it happened 😄

 

Good times 

 

🐢

[discpaul]

A very nice map whose main quality is the choices of different paths! This provides stimulating replayability.

Although the map is quite small, its open design gives possibilities so you never get bored!

I'm also happy to have discovered the secrets...once all the enemies are killed!^^

Below is a fun moment with me meeting an unfriendly group quite early in the map.

 

 

 

[Noiser]

Nice mood! The dark lighting fits very well with the sky texture

[LadyMistDragon]

Verrrry nice! Neil John's midi is the perfect complement to this as well!

 

 

Edited November 3, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[AshtralFiend]

Cool map! Nice architecture and combat! Easy to navigate.

Keep Up!

 

 

[bioshockfan90]

Well, no video for you but I did review it over on my Tumblr if you're interested to go have a look. Took me around 12 and a half minutes to get all secrets and kills on HNTR. I did get a bit turned around, but I'm kinda notorious for that in general so I wouldn't worry about it being confusing. Fun stuff here! Room for leniency in case you get zapped by an archie or two, which I'm always a fan of. Combat maybe wasn't like super orchestrated or anything, but for a roamer it's got all it needs to succeed. Thumbs up + additional thumbs up for vanilla mapping in 2023. :)

[Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)]

Thanks @discpaul and @Noiser for positive feedback!

Thanks @LadyMistDragon and @AshtralFiend for the videos! So much fun to watch! It's great to see different people having different playstyles and taking different paths! I'm very happy you liked the map!

Thanks @bioshockfan90 for your review and kind words!

This is all very motivating to keep mapping :)

[Aeddes666]

 

Edited November 3, 2023 by Aeddes666

[DrRock]

Enjoyable experience with a fair difficulty to it. It's fairly easygoing but the ambushes do balance that out. Got too panick-y towards the end of my first attempt and paid for it.

 

ZDoom 2.8.1 demo:

iron.zip

[Riclo500]

Very cool big man, was nice to play through
 

 

[Roofi]

Played on DOOM2.EXE

 

Really sharp-looking vanilla-compatible tech-base with a sort of brutalist architecture. The focus on architecture rather than detail makes for a truly spacious layout that's a pleasure to navigate. Well done !

 

Vanilla OTEX reminds me of 1000 lines 2 and 3, two amazing megawads. :)

 

About the bugs, I managed to get a VPO after releasing the first arch-viles from their triangular-shaped closet. Check at 12:23 of the video, I clearly show it.

 

 

Edited November 4, 2023 by Roofi

[Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)]

Thanks @Aeddes666 and @Riclo500 for your videos!

 

Thanks @DrRock for the demo! (you were so close to finishing the map on your first attempt :P)

 

Thanks @Roofi for the video and bug report! Very useful! I tested the map in chocorenderlimits for VPOs and I couldn't get more than 124 visplanes, but after your video I was able to reproduce the problem you encountered - when blue door is open and triangular wall lowered I can now get up to 132 visplanes in the spot when you got the crash. I admit that most of my gameplay testing was in crispy as it's just more comfortable for me to play with its enhancements and I probably introduced a few small changes AFTER testing in chocorenderlimits. Is it possible that doing a change in a completely unrelated area and rebuilding the nodes caused the visplanes to increase? Anyway, I will need to have a think of the best way of fixing this. I don't want to simplify the architecture, so I will probably need to just put something which obscures the view from that particular spot. Thanks for the report!

 

I'm really happy to get so many recorded playthroughs, I watched them all and enjoyed them all!

[Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)]

I did a small update of the map:

- fixed visplane overflow in vanilla Doom in one place (thanks @Roofi for spotting that)

- made a few monsters teleport to an area that can be empty in some circumstances (thanks @Clippy )

 

I updated the file the link in OP points to so if you re-download you will get a new version. Still, the change is very minor so unless you plan to play in vanilla Doom it may not be worth re-downloading if you already downloaded.

[Biodegradable]

 

Late to the party, I know, but I was busy! ;^P

[Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)]

Haha, thanks @Biodegradable for your video, great fun to watch, as always!

You're not late - it's actually perfect timing as you played the updated version of the map :) I made a small fix to the map yesterday and you managed to grab the new version :)

Regarding friends of the caco at 13:30 of the video - no idea why they didn't teleport :D They teleported much later - you fight them at 13:57. It actually ended up interesting as they blocked your path back but it wasn't intended :D No idea what happened but I like in Doom that it's unpredictable sometimes :)

Yes, I should've made the megasphere harder to find or at least put something less powerful in that secret. In my previous map nobody found any of the secrets so I decided this time I will make them easier - and I probably exaggerated the other way :D

[Thil]

Very fun map, a well-balanced difficulty with a clever level design that allows several paths!

[TheCyberDruid]

Cool map :) Difficulty is spot on (and the difficulty levels are well implemented).

[The BMFG]

just finished this map on uv, really good shit dude. 10/10

[Jacek Nowak (jacnowak)]

Thanks @Thil , @TheCyberDruid & @The BMFG for feedback, glad you liked the map!

[URROVA]

Nice map! I think i wold be very slow because i beaten a 10 minute map in 30 minutes... Nice use of non linearity, thats something i have to study someday.

[princetontiger]

Nice work!