"Indigo Coast" a single level WAD for DOOM II

[.danielcss]

 

 

Indigo Coast is a Single level DOOM II WAD designed for ZDoom, built and planned out by myself (.daniel) over the course of roughly almost 2 years (procrastination included). Assets are almost completely vanilla, with some textures stitched together by myself or taken from Hexen II, skybox taken from Mek's Box O' Skies; the midi featured in the level was made by Dial-Up for Murder (check out their music, very cool stuff.)

The map got off to a pretty slow start around December of 2022 and finalized on April of this year. Initially planned out as a boom compatible map, the level itself is a pretty chill experience overall, with a large emphasis on atmosphere (visual and auditory!), some exploration here and there rewarded by optional paths and overall just having as good a time as possible. More story stuff and other information can be found in the text file included with the wad.

Be warned, as there is some backtracking involved throughout the map. Not as daunting if you plan on just running through the map playing it normally but when going for 100% completion it does become a bit frequent.
This map was tested on GZDOOM and ZDOOM. It will surely work on Zandronum but it will definitely not work on any Boom-based sourceport.
Allows for:
-Freelook
-Jumping and Crouching
Though the map does not offer any additional advantages nor does it punish the player for playing with either freelook or jump/crouching enabled.

 

Special thanks to pretty much anyone who downloads and gives the wad a shot! At the time of posting this I'm working on a follow-up to the WAD, with one level already finished. Hopefully anyone who plays and enjoys this map looks forward to that, and maybe people who don't enjoy this WAD will find a thing or two to like in the second one.

 

DOWNLOADS:

 

MODDB: https://www.moddb.com/mods/indigo-coast

IDGAMES: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/g-i/indigo

MEDIAFIRE: https://www.mediafire.com/file/6s94hpoez7wqxxi/INDIGO_V1.2.zip/file

SCREENSHOTS:

Spoiler

 

thanks for reading :)

 

 

Edited May 5, 2024 by .danielcss
updated downloads

[LadyMistDragon]

 

[Delisk]

 

[Async Unicorn]

A very nice map, I enjoyed it, reminds of old ZDoom wads from the 00s, made me nostalgic for that reason...

Though, it has a little flaw, you can get softlocked if you allow monsters from the ending fight to wander outside the arena and then you go there (which I did, cause I thought it would be easier to deal with them on more cramped area)

Still, you did a great job, hope you'll make more maps in this exploration style, =)

 

Edited May 3, 2024 by Vanilla+Unicorn

[.danielcss]

31 minutes ago, Vanilla+Unicorn said:

A very nice map, I enjoyed it, reminds of old ZDoom wads from the 00s, made me nostalgic for that reason...

Though, it has a little flaw, you can get softlocked if you allow monsters from the ending fight to wander outside the arena and then you go there.

Still, such a wonderful map, hope you'll make more maps in this exploration style, =)

 

Thank you very much for the kind words! It was definitely inspired in certain ways by wads from the early 2000's, and I was inspired by more recent wads for the gameplay style. 
I didn't know that softlock was possible, thanks for notifying me! I'll likely release a patch soon that fixes it and any other bugs that may be found

[apichatpong]

Yes, very nice map indeed ! very approachable on HMP (generous on ammo and health, for instance the big arena fight has lot of rooms for mistakes for the player and, once again, on HMP is not that hard), cool atmosphere : good job !

Just one thing, in the end, while I activated the elevator I realised I missed some secrets, jumped back to re-explore the map and found myself stucked there because the elevator just after the yellow bars don't lower when you want to come back to the first parts of the map and, then, the elevator to the last teleporter is, at first, locked on high position... after some wandering, I found it lowered again - don't know how it was done - but unable to go high again.

Maybe it's voluntary, maybe I missed something, either way it's not that big a deal !

[.danielcss]

On 5/3/2024 at 6:37 AM, apichatpong said:

Just one thing, in the end, while I activated the elevator I realised I missed some secrets, jumped back to re-explore the map and found myself stucked there because the elevator just after the yellow bars don't lower when you want to come back to the first parts of the map and, then, the elevator to the last teleporter is, at first, locked on high position... after some wandering, I found it lowered again - don't know how it was done - but unable to go high again.

I see, thanks for letting me know - I'll fix the Yellow skull key elevator, don't know how I missed that. As for the last elevator, I'm not really sure how that could've happened but I will look into it. Thanks for playing !

[.danielcss]

I added a ModDB download link, where the mod will be updated a bit more frequently to fix any bugs found.

[JadedFanatic]

There's another softlock by the exit, after the Red Skull key. If you somehow jam it, you can't get back up without using noclip.

 

Beyond that though, wow. I didn't expect this much to be possible with GZDOOM even with how friendly to modding it is, either in the level scope or detail. Honestly, this was an amazing map.

[.danielcss]

1 minute ago, JadedFanatic said:

There's another softlock by the exit, after the Red Skull key. If you somehow jam it, you can't get back up without using noclip.

 

I am aware, I've fixed it in the moddb release, now you have to press use on the lift for it to lower and if you get stuck you can still make it lower so you can go up as needed; I'll update the mediafire link too to be the fixed version as well and probably update the idgames link afterwards.
 

And thank you very much for the kind words, I really do appreciate it!

[Laocoön]

I've been telling myself that once I am done with my big projects I will spend more playing other people's maps and participate in the community more. I'm not quite done, but I thought I'd give this a spin in between maps and I am glad I did. As you say in the description, there is a fair bit of backtracking, but I think this map is perfectly balanced in terms of how much running around one has to do to find secrets and to make progress. I was quite confused about where to go several times, but never got properly lost.

 

I didn't actually find all the secrets, to be honest. I had five of them at the exit and reckoned that the missing ones might be far back, so I gave up. Still, the ones I did find were clever and satisfying to find.

 

The design ethos is good too: a very consistent and well-done combination of ancient ruins and modern-but-worn architecture. It is not super detailed, but detailed where it matters.

 

I enjoyed this a lot, in other words, and I only have a couple of very minor criticisms:

 

1. Don't do yourself down in the text file.

2. The midi is pretty, but very short and the repetition of that guitar squeal gets VERY annoying after being lost in corridors for a while. Ideally, there would be more musical variation. Seeing as you use a lot of advanced effects, why not use the custom music changer? The big fight, for example, could do with a more energetic musical backing! 

3. Except for the big fight, the wad is very easy. I didn't die once on UV. There are not many moments where you are pincered or caught or under much pressure at all. There could be more active use the environment to usher the player into trouble - but the focus here is on mood and exploration, and those aspects are very well done!  

[.danielcss]

4 hours ago, Laocoön said:

I've been telling myself that once I am done with my big projects I will spend more playing other people's maps and participate in the community more. I'm not quite done, but I thought I'd give this a spin in between maps and I am glad I did. As you say in the description, there is a fair bit of backtracking, but I think this map is perfectly balanced in terms of how much running around one has to do to find secrets and to make progress. I was quite confused about where to go several times, but never got properly lost.

 

I didn't actually find all the secrets, to be honest. I had five of them at the exit and reckoned that the missing ones might be far back, so I gave up. Still, the ones I did find were clever and satisfying to find.

 

The design ethos is good too: a very consistent and well-done combination of ancient ruins and modern-but-worn architecture. It is not super detailed, but detailed where it matters.

Thank you very much for the kind words and I'm glad you decided to give this map a shot. I know making progress can get confusing at times for this map; I had actually implemented a little cutscene (just a brief camera switch before returning to gameplay)  after for some of the more important backtracking parts (flipping a switch to get the blue skull key, opening the door to the red room) to help orient the player a little. I didn't implement this correctly tho as the cutscene is interrupted as soon as the player moves, which is a guarantee, so these cutscenes are often just cancelled out. I am working on fixing these or adding another way to know where to go.

 

I tried to not make the secrets too obtuse but still not very easy to find.

 

And thank you for your words regarding the design! For reference I used photos of real ruins, catacombs, sewer systems and the likes. Not to make it look realistic but to make it believable enough that it's feasible to find something like this in the real world. I chose to limit myself a bit as for the detail and texture work, as I wanted to give this map the vibe of a mid 90's-early 2000's doom WAD.
 

4 hours ago, Laocoön said:

1. Don't do yourself down in the text file.

2. The midi is pretty, but very short and the repetition of that guitar squeal gets VERY annoying after being lost in corridors for a while. Ideally, there would be more musical variation. Seeing as you use a lot of advanced effects, why not use the custom music changer? The big fight, for example, could do with a more energetic musical backing! 

3. Except for the big fight, the wad is very easy. I didn't die once on UV. There are not many moments where you are pincered or caught or under much pressure at all. There could be more active use the environment to usher the player into trouble - but the focus here is on mood and exploration, and those aspects are very well done!  

 

Also thank you for the criticisms, they're perfectly valid.

1. I don't tend to do that, though it was just out of feeling nervous over posting my first (standalone) wad in 4 years.

2. I get that, it does get rather grating. I had originally planned to include no music and to opt for just ambient sounds throughout the map (water dripping or pouring down, wind howling, sound of waves crashing on the shore, etc.) but decided to include a midi at the last minute. If you wish you can turn of the midi and just play through it with no music, that is how I playtested it throughout almost all of its development. In a future update I may add the custom music changer or change the midi.

3. The wad is rather easy, I've yet to learn how to strike a good enough balance of enemies and items in such a way that it becomes an interesting challenge. I spent most of my time working on making the map look and feel nice to explore, though for the follow-up to this wad I'm working on striking a balance between exploration and challenge.

 

Overall, thank you very much for all the kind words and the criticism, I will take it all into account for future updates/development, etc. Thanks for playing!

[Korsuv]

Hey buddy, tested your wad; 
Globally I liked it for various reasons:
- quite easy (I tried the wad "Cannibal" just before, it was near to impossible to me, and I'm not a try harder, so I appreciate this fluidity of playing) - Of course, it really depends of the person, some players don't like when it's too easy (cf below), but me I prefer appreciate when it's - globally - easy, with some stressful and intense path anyway. Despite the easy, I died twice ;) (the room where waves appears and once in the deadly well, but this one was a stupid move from me. Anyway, that's part of the gameplay!
- You made a great work on some mechanisms and details, the video, the lights, and I appreciated it. It's more gzDoom stuffs.
- I like how you design some differents atmospheres
- I liked the tone you used, you tried to give some atmosphere to the wad (like when you click and you got some video, it's original - well, I am not experimented with wads)
- Laocoön point the music was quite repetitive, but I think it fit in fact, it's just because the wad is long, that's all.

Anyway, here some things I think you could improve: 
- For one level, it is too big, you should separate it into several levels. Especially since you have several atmospheres inside, so it would be “enough” to cut them out. I put quotes because it would still be a lot of work.
- A little too labyrinthine, It takes a little time to get to grips with the passages. I made lot of go & back to just searching wich were the next step.
- I missed some melee weapons, like chainsaw or a berserk kit. In this optics

More closely, here with images some feedbacks more detailed on some passages:  

My stats for this wad: 43 minuts of playing (that's too much for one map)
And just 42% secrets


spoiler; In the last part, I was surprise that part was not considered as a secret


Really like the way how it open; I didn't know that gzdoom was allowing that! Will study your wad probably!


I don't know, but be going through this secret passage sound like mandatory to get the red card; If you need to go through there, why is it a secret then? Or maybe red card is not mandatory at all maybe? Also, it's not repeatable, I go a second time in this room, and haven't be able to reuse the teleporter. had to IDCLIP ;-(((


Quite frustrating that it was impossible to shot monsters accross some open windows like this one.


The same as previsously, I felt into this place, had to IDCLIP to escape, no way to go back

That's pretty cool, I like to see when the mod maker put some efforts to imagine the different cases with personalized print.


At the start of the map, you got a pinky, but he's stick on his stairs (probably missing some space). free kill by fist, even without berserk. you should remove him, he just suffer that way :D



Say hi to this lovely buddy, and I don't want to hurt him despite the big riffle pointing to him on the screenshot!

[.danielcss]

Thanks for playing and for the feedback! I do acknowledge the map is a bit large (though I didn't account for it much since, after playing through it so many times it just felt shorter and shorter to me). Though I did think about separating it into multiple levels at times, I just kept going since I didn't exactly know where I could end the level logically, so I made it into one map.

 

7 hours ago, Korsuv said:

- spoiler; In the last part, I was surprise that part was not considered as a secret

- I don't know, but be going through this secret passage sound like mandatory to get the red card; If you need to go through there, why is it a secret then? Or maybe red card is not mandatory at all maybe? Also, it's not repeatable, I go a second time in this room, and haven't be able to reuse the teleporter. had to IDCLIP ;-(((

- Quite frustrating that it was impossible to shot monsters accross some open windows like this one.

- The same as previsously, I felt into this place, had to IDCLIP to escape, no way to go back

- At the start of the map, you got a pinky, but he's stick on his stairs (probably missing some space). free kill by fist, even without berserk. you should remove him, he just suffer that way :D

 

Going point for point through the images you provided;

 

-I forgot to mark it as a secret. It was a secret early on but as I changed the environment around and redesigned the room some times, I forgot to re-set the secret flag afterwards and left it that way.

 

- The red card is actually not mandatory, it's an optional path! You can play through the whole map without getting the red card and it won't really negatively affect your run. The only things you'd be missing out on is a weapon, two more encounters and getting to the final section a little faster.

 

-For the open space parts I opted against letting you shoot at demons across the windows, initially because I found that if you happen to alert the demons, the moment you get the key you need to go outside, there's a chance the demons would be waiting for you right there to ambush you. I'll probably remove this later tho, so that you can shoot them from windows.

 

-That's a mistake on my part, I forgot to set the "Platform" action for that lift and I will fix it, thanks!

 

-The floor probably isn't large enough for him to traverse or be able to go down/up. Though in this case I'll probably leave it that way.

 

Thank you again for the criticism, it's always appreciated and helpful.

[.danielcss]

Updated the wad fixing some of the bugs mentioned. Namely:

- Elevator leading to the big fight causing a softlock

- Exit elevator behaving weirdly

- Added a secret trigger

- Fixed the red card secret so that you don't get trapped anymore

- You can now shoot at enemies outside

- Fixed the camera changes for parts where it wasn't outright obvious where you gotta go

- Added enemies

[princetontiger]

Really awesome map! I have a soft spot for the time period between 2000-2005, and this map really feels like something from that era.

Edited May 6, 2024 by princetontiger

[MisterLivers]

looks fun, ill try it on UV

[MisterLivers]

I played this WAD, super fun WAD that takes some time to complete, I like the lighting, the gameplay and walking up to the exit was awesome! but there is a softlock at the exit so i did have to no clip but overall I had fun!