The Given - A large, monsterless, puzzle map (on /idgames)

[dobu gabu maru]

 

With hushed tones do the land-dwellers speak of the subterranean kingdom of Occula, home of the Unseen God. Legends tell of its lurid foods, crystal-top hills, and rivers of verdant water. But these tall tales also mention how the land is cursed, subject to a strange phenomenon where residents suddenly vanish; where they are mysteriously Taken. The denizens of Occula have sought tirelessly to appease the capricious nature of the Unseen God, adorning their houses with wood and marble to avoid Its silencing grasp. Perhaps the most well-known of these superstitious rituals—and the one that gives the land-dwellers pause when speaking of Occula—is the sad and brutal rite only known as The Given...

 

<<<Download here>>>

 

(Old Release Candidate 1)

 

Despite the map being limit-removing, you'll need to play in a port that supports extended nodes. Remember that you shouldn't have to "brute force" any of the puzzles—there's a clear solution to each one if you look hard enough. Look for the red torches if you feel lost.

Edited January 31, 2018 by dobu gabu maru

[Pinchy]

';,,;'

[dew]

One of the most ridiculous maps ever. So good we have people like you willing to go nuts with experiments.

[Demon of the Well]

'Grats on (pre)-release, witnessed firsthand what an undertaking this was to put together.

 

Will be interesting to see which puzzles folks like the most, and which they get hung up on the most. For me the fly in the ointment was evidently actually the easiest one of all!

 

Also, that music is gorgeous, @Eris Falling. Every time I hear something new from you it gets better.

[rehelekretep]

just do a megawad already ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

[Ermin]

this surprisingly lags more for me than my own mod. (gzdoom - maxsettings)

Edit: The vanilla textures ruin the medievil theme of the mod an makes it look rather weird.

Edited August 15, 2017 by Ermin

[Ribbiks]

potential bug:

 

Spoiler

 

[rehelekretep]

sr50 is cheating!

[Albertoni]

You had me at monsterless.

[Salt-Man Z]

Holy shit that screenshot

[rodster]

This is awesome! Very nice experience!

 

Spoiler

Not sure if this is really a bug: If you get 5 out of 6 switches, you can SR50 to the Tower.

 

Edit: Yeah, the music+map gives a very sweet medieval/adventure like atmosphere.

Edited August 16, 2017 by rodster

[Ribbiks]

re: above comment:

 

Spoiler

I did it with 4. It looks like you could do it with 3 even if you got the right ones? :D

 

 

looks like it took me just under an hour. though I spent the first 5-10 minutes just wandering around trying to get my bearings I think. This was great! After realizing how I was failing a couple areas (which I won't go into detail about, for obvious reasons :D) I resorted to busting out some pen and paper, heh.

 

Clever stuff, thanks for making it. I'll go try to find the 2 areas I missed now..

[Beginner]

Here's a demo if you're interested in watching people wander around.

Managed to solve all but one puzzle. Also, it turned out that it's possible to finish the map with just 4 out of 5 puzzles solved, not sure if it's intended or not. Beautiful scenery, though the drawback is that my framerate drops noticeably if I look in general direction of central part when being in the main part of the map. Puzzles made me scratch my head a little bit, but eventually I figured (almost) everything out.

[Yugiboy85]

The screenshot alone makes my computer drop frames...

In all seriousness, I tried this for about 15 minutes. Interesting stuff so far, I managed to solve only one puzzle so far but, I will get back to the map sometime this week I think. 

I thought the lag would be horrible BUT, it's manageable and the map plays pretty well. There are some frame drops of course, especially when you look at the map's center and you see about everything at once but even then, it's not so bad :D 

[Linguica]

FDAs of my first four, uh, attempts (prb+ 2.5.1.5, no special complevel). On the third one I got to the end in the Totally Intended Manner and then sorta gave up. Fourth one I went back and re-"solved" one and figured out two more. That's 5 of 6, the south one still stumps me.

 

given_fdas_linguica.zip

[Magnusblitz]

Yay on release! I don't want to think about how many hours it took just to lay the lines for this map, much less design the puzzle triggers and test everything.

 

My own experience while playtesting (so may be some differences):

 

1. Puzzle with gates raising one barrier and lowering another. No problem, solved this in a couple minutes (the first of which was spent hitting some barriers willy-nilly before I stopped and actually worked out the logical end).

 

2. Teleport maze. Gave me some trouble at first while I figured out the maze was mirrored from the example. Took me 25 minutes, though some of that was due to plotting it out on paper which probably wasn't needed.

 

3. Moving the colored platforms up and down. Easy for most of it but the last bit stumped me for awhile. Took a bit of trial and error. 25 minutes.

 

4. Staircase formed by candle stacks near cemetery. Biggest block here was finding the fourth step's triggers, they were hidden a bit off the side. 20 minutes.

 

5. Follow the arrow. First two were easy, bit of stumbling because I was looking for similar textures. 15 minutes.

 

6. Skullswitch islands. Admittedly did not realize this was a puzzle until after, but was able to straferun across 5/6 switches on the bridge (don't even think it needed SR50).

 

Final puzzle on top was pretty easy.

 

2 hours ago, Ermin said:

The vanilla textures ruin the medievil theme of the mod an makes it look rather weird.

I had the exact opposite reaction - I kept finding myself stopping and reminding myself it was all vanilla textures, because overall the combination of music, theme, removing the usual status bar, etc really made me feel like I was playing something other than Doom.

[Obsidian]

MY POOR LAPTOP

[Albertoni]

As beautiful as it is laggy. My single complaint would be that one switchhunt. All other puzzles were either obvious, or like the 4 pillars one, more or less obvious.

 

Sorry, no demo, I always forget those >_>

Edited August 16, 2017 by Albertoni

[Jimmy]

Is this worth streaming? It might be fun to solve some puzzles with the help of an audience. :P Then again me blundering around in the dark completely stumped for hours is another possibility.

 

Might do that tonight (i.e. in about 6-7 hours' time from this post).

 

Screenshot is totes ridic. You're some kind of monster, dobu.

[EmotionalFelineinaMadstate]

My computer can fry eggs now, thanks.

( NOTE: NOT ACTUALLY GONNA COOK EGGS ON COMPUTER )

[Albertoni]

1 hour ago, Jimmy said:

Is this worth streaming? It might be fun to solve some puzzles with the help of an audience. :P Then again me blundering around in the dark completely stumped for hours is another possibility.

 

Might do that tonight (i.e. in about 6-7 hours' time from this post).

 

Screenshot is totes ridic. You're some kind of monster, dobu.

One of the puzzles requires wallhumping or a GREAT eye. The others go from pretty easy to "mess around for 15 minutes then suddenly get it" to find and solve. Don't think it'll take more than a pair of hours, heh.

[ella guro]

just played through this - ending up completing 4 of the 6 puzzles. i have some quibbles about the puzzle design but otherwise this is EXTREMELY my shit and would love to see more of this. and of course the theme of the world itself/all the details were really great though sometimes i think the detail did undermine the puzzles because it was pretty hard to tell if something was just world design detail or a hint for the puzzles.

Edited August 16, 2017 by ella guro

[dobu gabu maru]

Thanks for all the feedback so far everyone.

 

9 hours ago, Demon of the Well said:

Also, that music is gorgeous[...]

Indeed—I'd argue that 50% of the atmosphere comes the way his wonderful composition works with the scenery. The map is undoubtedly better for having it.

 

3 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Is this worth streaming?

Yup, this should be fairly stream-friendly. Might take 1-2 hours to complete, mind you. Thanks again for the sprite edit too.

 

40 minutes ago, ella guro said:

i have some quibbles about the puzzle design but otherwise this is EXTREMELY my shit[...]

Glad you dug it. If you wouldn't mind, could you clarify some of your gripes with the puzzles in spoiler tags? I'm very curious as to what people think I've done right or wrong. Also I agree that the amount of detail can certainly obfuscate what the player is supposed to do, but for me it's an acceptable trade-off as I didn't want to demarcate the "puzzle zones". Prioritizing organic cohesion over clear conveyance is kinda bad game design, but I wanted above all else to create a world first and a "game" second.

[SleepyVelvet]

Great map.  my FDA took about 2 hours.  I think my eyes are bleeding.  Don't watch the demo unless you are weird; I'm supplying it anyways because why not.

 

I didn't realize the 6 puzzles gimmick even though it is obvious in hindsight.  I actually thought the west puzzle's stairs were triggered by the other puzzles, which I thought there were 5 of.  Even though there were 5 other puzzles coincidentally, I didn't know the south puzzle was a puzzle, and thought the center tower was just another main puzzle instead of the boss puzzle.  I only completed 4 puzzles and finished the map confused because hit the exit when I thought it was elsewhere to the west.  Nothing wrong here, these are just notes on how I played.

 

My favorite puzzle was the compass one in the north town, and it felt like an adventure mystery game or something like that.  My second favorite puzzle was the enclosed four-color platforming puzzle in the south-west.

[Archi]

It was ok.

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Alfonzo]

Novel! Striking! I like it. Finished in a little over 40 minutes elapsed...

 

Spoiler

...though with only three of the puzzles completed; the colour-coded platformer to the west, the arrow-guided switch hunt to the north and the colour gates to the east. They just so happened to be the exact triggers required to strafe over the bridge to the tower! It seemed to me an intentional option to allow for second forays into the Occula.

 

It looks like you had some fun cooking up an allegory, here. I wonder what connects the ruins of a city with those curiously coloured materials and other bits of symbolism? Very nice use of the stock textures to convey this story.

 

Also god dammit, Eris is pulling ahead in the musical sweepstakes. Stop making awesome stuff!

[Da Werecat]

30 minutes ago, Alfonzo said:

allegory

A human body one, I hope?

[ella guro]

1 hour ago, dobu gabu maru said:

Glad you dug it. If you wouldn't mind, could you clarify some of your gripes with the puzzles in spoiler tags? I'm very curious as to what people think I've done right or wrong. Also I agree that the amount of detail can certainly obfuscate what the player is supposed to do, but for me it's an acceptable trade-off as I didn't want to demarcate the "puzzle zones". Prioritizing organic cohesion over clear conveyance is kinda bad game design, but I wanted above all else to create a world first and a "game" second.

Spoiler

one is i guess i would say the candle puzzle didn't make a lot of sense to me. which platforms were activated by which candles was kind of random and trial and error to figure out, and the fact that candle areas had 2-4 candles (but only 2 you actually used) and some didn't activate the platforms at all didn't really make much sense from a puzzle context. like it just felt like a lot of unnecessary obfuscation that didn't add anything to the puzzle.

the teleporter maze and color gate puzzles were fine with me though. i particularly liked having to look at the map to figure out how to get into the teleporter maze - that was a nice touch and probably my favorite little thing. the castle platforms were fine other than Doom movement just being screwy and annoying. i didn't solve the other two so i don't know about that.

it's possible to have a detailed and textured world that also differentiates puzzle from the world in general in a way that's not like super duper obvious. there were just a lot of details that felt really unnecessary from a puzzle context because of how they obfuscated and didn't really add much to the world itself. like you can do something like make use of certain colors to always demarcate puzzles and light puzzles a little differently so you still get the fun of finding where the puzzle is in a complex world without the frustration of "is this part of the puzzle or just some random detail". i felt like i kept leaving possible puzzles/interactions behind in areas where i learned later that there aren't any puzzles, which is just kind of annoying. it kind of makes the world feel incomplete. like if you allow some interactions with some things it can be kind of a slippery slope between what you do and don't allow unless you put a lot of effort into differentiating things.

 

i mean puzzle design is super hard and kind of an iterative process and there were a lot of great ideas here (and i also just have super high standards in general), i just felt like they could be a little more focused because of there being a lot of great ideas here.

i would like to see more levels like this though. i'm kind of a puzzle person - played through all of The Witness and almost all of Stephen's Sausage Roll this past year. i've kind of grown bored of Doom combat scenarios because it's hard to make them feel interesting and new so stuff like this expands the world of Doom in ways i feel like is more relevant to my interests. i've always been interested in doing a wad with like a mix of different kinds of puzzle levels to see how many ideas you could get out of this stuff.

 

Edited August 16, 2017 by ella guro

[TheOrganGrinder]

Even that screenshot is just jaw-dropping.  I'm not in the market for something that has the potential to make my PC weep and keel over right now, but from someone who would otherwise love to play this, it looks amazing, thank you @dobu gabu maru.

[tourniquet]

Marvelous adventure that took me ~70 minutes though i spent a lot of time simply admiring the whole thing in it's reverent beauty. Looks like i've missed only one of the puzzles.

 

Spoiler

Couldn't figure out what to do with all those skull switches.

 

Certainly one of the most unique and different maps i've ever played. Cheers Dobu