Dobu's Mapping Exam for Newbies (finish designing this map!)

[dobu gabu maru]

I made a little incomplete Doom 2 map that new/amateur mappers can finish if they feel up for it! You’ll see that I’ve designed the starting room, exit room, and red key room, each of them with no things pre-placed (other than the starting position and RK). You can change the position of the rooms around, but you cannot alter the height they are at, nor can you change any of their tags, linedef properties, or sector specialties. Your goal is to connect them to each other via the untextured linedefs you'll commonly find past doors. Here are a few more rules to make this interesting:

- No scripting or supplemental features—stick to limit-removing or Boom compatibility.
- You must use damaging sectors somewhere
- There have to be two teleporters on the map that lead to each other somewhere.
- There can only be one other lift on the map.
- There can only be two other monster closets on the map.
- What map would be complete without a cool archvile fight? Include only one archvile fight somewhere on the map. Bonus points if he isn't in the red key fight.
- The rocket launcher must be somwhere on the map.
- Lastly, one room has to be visibly corrupted by Hell (so use some hellish textures!)

As long as you fulfill all of the conditions above, I’ll play through your map and provide feedback on what I liked/didn’t like. Hopefully this is a way to get aspiring mappers to think about layout a tad differently!

DOWNLOAD HERE

[baja blast rd.]

[dobu gabu maru]

[vadrig4r]

Even just as an exercise for others this is a really nice looking map, anywhere I can download other maps you've made Dobu?

[Suitepee]

Guess I'll try to pass this exam sometime.

[Super Mighty G]

[tourniquet]

dobu gabu maru said:

- There can only be one other lift on the map.

Why do you hate lifts so much? :p

[40oz]

Mutiny is full of unfinished maps like this one.

[Royal_Sir]

Welp, let's see if I can match the style of this map for the rest of it.

Hang on....

[gaspe]

It sounds interesting, I'll see if I can make something for this.

[dobu gabu maru]

vadrig4r said:

anywhere I can download other maps you've made Dobu?

I'll throw up a post in the WADmaker's Discography Thread that will link you to all my work—thanks for taking an interest!

tourniquet said:

Why do you hate lifts so much? :p

They're stupid.

Spoiler

I'm hoping to push people into seeing height variation as an organic and natural part of the design process, and lifts & teleporters are kinda lazy ways to get the player point A to point B. I was thinking about adding 1-2 more areas to drive that point home, but didn't want to make the map too long.

[Royal_Sir]

MY WIP so far:



So much progress has been made.

[Deadwing]

This is what I've done so far lol

Don't expect anything close of your level of detailing :P
I might finish it on next week:

[Octavarium]

What exactly do you mean by "cannot alter... linedef properties"? Basically, I guess I'm asking if the three starting rooms can be further detailed/retextured/rekajiggered around some as long as I don't change the heights, tags or sector specialties.

Edit: Ok, so how about if I could change not the heights of the entire room, but just certain little parts of them? :D

[wallabra]

I was thinking of joining, but you know? I prefer doing maps standalone-ish and doing them all myself, which means you lost another subscriber map.

[dobu gabu maru]

Octavarium said:

What exactly do you mean by "cannot alter... linedef properties"? Basically, I guess I'm asking if the three starting rooms can be further detailed/retextured/rekajiggered around some as long as I don't change the heights, tags or sector specialties.

Edit: Ok, so how about if I could change not the heights of the entire room, but just certain little parts of them? :D

Uh I'd prefer the rooms to remain untouched as they're supposed to be a springboard for level design, but if you're adamant about retexturing/adding details, feel free to do so. You cannot change the heights of the room—they're found at specific heights to get players to connect them in interesting ways, instead of just making flat boxes between rooms. It isn't much of a challenge if you can just do whatever you like!

[gaspe]

dobu gabu maru said:

- There can only be two other monster closets on the map.

*stupid question alert*

But does this counts also sectors outside the map from where the monsters teleport?

[dobu gabu maru]

gaspe said:

But does this counts also sectors outside the map from where the monsters teleport?

Oooh that's a tricky question. I'm probably going to say yes just because teleporting monsters serve the same purpose (ambush), though there are exceptions, like re-stocking a pillar where an enemy dwells and teleporting a monster in a trap behind the player to flank him/her. Basically, don't use teleporting monsters as encounters, but rather supplements to the existing encounters.

[Deadwing]

Okay, here's my try. It took me around 12 hours to build (distributed in 4 days, I guess), which is a lot for a short map (to me). I think I've fulfilled your conditions. Some things didn't work the way I expected, since I didn't plan how I would build it on paper before starting Doom Builder, but this was fun nonetheless.

Detailing is simple, though this is the way I like xD, but the contrast between the areas are visible (it isn't a bad thing to me, though). I hope the result isn't bad, though I wanna a FDA :P

Download here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/2orlm22ajm9reau/DGMExam-deadwing.rar

[dobu gabu maru]

Deadwing said:

though I wanna a FDA

Your wish is my command! Played on -cl9... I can't recommend watching it though, as it's just me dying over and over until I quit and simply play it in Zdoom. I'm really sloppy when I play Doom, and since I'm not accustomed to PrBoom it just exacerbates the problem, as you can see by each of my deaths. This is also the perfect example of why I don't make FDAs :P

Anyway, I liked it! This is the perfect kind of map to come out of this project, as there's a lot of nonlinearity and some really harsh monster placement. I still think there could stand to be a bit more health, as any stray hits you take are almost permanent for the duration of the map, but I like how tense it made the map feel. Only rule I think you broke was the teleporter one (you have 4 teles on the map), but I can tell it was a mere misunderstanding so I'll let it slide. Don't really have any suggestions or pointers to give; I think it's clear you have a solid understanding of Doom as it is. Cool stuff!

[Deadwing]

dobu gabu maru said:

Your wish is my command! Played on -cl9... I can't recommend watching it though, as it's just me dying over and over until I quit and simply play it in Zdoom. I'm really sloppy when I play Doom, and since I'm not accustomed to PrBoom it just exacerbates the problem, as you can see by each of my deaths. This is also the perfect example of why I don't make FDAs :P

Anyway, I liked it! This is the perfect kind of map to come out of this project, as there's a lot of nonlinearity and some really harsh monster placement. I still think there could stand to be a bit more health, as any stray hits you take are almost permanent for the duration of the map, but I like how tense it made the map feel. Only rule I think you broke was the teleporter one (you have 4 teles on the map), but I can tell it was a mere misunderstanding so I'll let it slide. Don't really have any suggestions or pointers to give; I think it's clear you have a solid understanding of Doom as it is. Cool stuff!

That's amazing, thanks! The map certainly needs some balancing hahaha I think it is way harder when it is a standalone map instead of a sequencial wad D: Some fixing on health + less harsh monster usage would do a lot to make things flow better.

Anyway, thanks for the review!