Jark

2024 is a time of uncertainty for me, as I finally leave academia and enter the wide world of work (or at least, potential work as the game industry isn't doing too well currently), regardless, I remain optimistic for the future. Here are a few things I'd like to do in 2024: Co-author a map / project with someone I'd love to bounce back and forth over Doom, direct collaboration is also something I intend to improve on. Try mapping for a new gameplay type When I started making maps back in 2019, I didn't think I would ever defer from making single-player experiences, though I have found great pleasure in the multiplayer scene with projects such as VesperDM and Culling Strike; As such, I look forward to trying new avenues I previously would have not considered. 2023 was a difficult year for me, fortunately I have found myself on a path of recovery, and I am eternally grateful for this community and the good it has done me over the years. Generally speaking, as long as I am in a position to continue contributing to the community in one form or another, I will be content. Cheers and Happy New Year!

Greetings, I would like to claim the 'shotgun and plasma rifle slot' - quick question, is pistol / fist excluded from 2 weapon rule? I noticed berserk has its own weapon ID.

Map Name: forFun005 Author: Jark Music: None Resources: None (Doom 2) Format: Vanilla Comments: One in a series of 'sketches' that I spontaneously made and as quickly dropped / forgot. One thing I wanted to practice with this map was lighting specifically, and what I could get away with in Vanilla in terms of said lighting. Screenshots: Download: forFun005.zip

Greetings folks, My gratitude to the club for selecting Plutonia Revisited Community Project 2 to be played which, by happenstance, contains another of my maps - Map 22: Trickster's Lair. It is evident this map is more divisive than that of my entry in Solar Stuggle, perhaps due to this contribution being a bit more of an acquired taste in terms of malice and ill intent. As some have mentioned, I do partake in a bit of schadenfreude and enjoy a good trap (or several (or many many traps)) however, not without reason - it was more or less my interpretation of the Plutonia format, particularly to the degree for how cruel the map would be in general for being placed at slot 22. An issue I see voiced commonly and therefore take into consideration for future reference, is the fact that the map is simply too drawn out for the type of gameplay expected of the player. Something I did not factor in is the map's placement within the project and the relation to the surrounding maps, people aren't just playing my map solely by itself - they are playing a full megawad, and can be quite mentally exhausted when faced with a 30 minute gotcha fest. Another point is that past the initial chaos, the pace never quite picks up to the same point again - that and some traps lack oomph, I lament not adding more chaingunners to the spotlight stockpile trap. Overall I'm quite pleased with the map for the traps I made, general execution of the Plutonia aesthetic and somewhat challenging fights with minimal monster usage. For those interested, I go into more specifics in this postmortem I wrote back in March about the map, which also contains all map versions for each incremented save I did, totalling to 54 different increments! Download: https://www.mediafire.com/file/arj81rq6in2ag87/TrickstersLair-Versions-Postmortem.zip/file

Just letting folks here know that in about half an hour, as of this message, Thursday Night Survival is continuing the wad, map 16 onwards.

Greetings, I had a look through the final / most recent version of the project and all appears to be in order, no immediate map crashes in PrBoom+ when loading into all maps and the textures are now in a single wad (good work with that by the way, as I understand it was a bit of a pain). All that remains now for an official release is to put the PLAYPAL/COLOURMAP into the main wad and possibly the reverb wad stuff? Though I'm not quite sure how necessary the latter is - particularly as it appears to only work in ZDoom ports when this project targets Boom. Whether or not Walter you wish to upload to IDGames is up to you, as I understand it may get rejected for iwad duplicates so it may be more trouble than it is worth - even so, I would like to see an official release for this project as I believe it to be of good standard and would be a shame to go to waste, maybe an official post or new thread here on Doomworld?

I recall giving my father a Doom 2 level to test that involved mandatory commander keen killing to unlock a door, he had no idea how to progress as he had never played Map 32, nor knew the interaction the keens had with tag 666 or that you could even kill them - when I told him he said "That doesn't make any sense!", something to consider, who is your audience? Is the map / wad for a specific niche of players or does it need to be as accessible as possible? Playtest often, get other people to play your maps, though as much as I want to say I can think of most things a player will try to do / navigate, playtesting always proves me wrong.

Thank you and the team for your continued work on UDB, it is a spiffing piece of software. Radial drawing has been surprisingly useful as I would before make a shape then rearrange it but this cuts out a step as well as making measuring easier for certain structures. Classic rendering is also quite handy for those of us working on maps for ports other than ZDoom. Can't say I've tried out the orbit feature, though in a 3D modelling software such as Maya which I use, such a feature is a necessity so perhaps I ought to give it a go. Configurable Toasts are a very nice QoL addition and although it was only recent, the ability to change the textured automap in automap mode without setting flags in sectors is very nice. I don't know how UDB can keep getting better but you continue to impress, I cannot understate my gratitude for tool creators in the community - making all of our lives less frustrating and more efficient!

Greetings folks, My gratitude for your decision to play Solar Struggle this month and in turn, a map of mine - E2M6: Transport Nexus. Some quick tidbits: - This map was largely inspired by Aliens TC, which I had played just before enrolling in Solar Struggle - Originally there were monsters in the lead up to the first elevator, but this didn't work well for gameplay as you could just camp the starting room or have loads of space in the tunnels - I then preferred it empty for the atmosphere which led me to pick "Arch-vile on Line 2" by the talented @Bucket from the Mid the way ID did pack, quite suitable I found and a lovely midi - The Cacodemons who teleport away after lowering the section of track are placed into a monster closet to be reused in the rail crossing fight, so whomever you don't kill there and then will come back to haunt you, same with the baron who hops on the main elevator when you first go down - The end fight originally didn't have teleporters so you could just lob rockets down the stairs and be done with it, which was about as exciting as watching paint dry, but I'd argue watching the paint was more fun In the link provided I have compiled all existing versions of the map from conception to completion (I would recommend opening in an editor as player start locations might be sub-optimal) along with a post-mortem, a more in depth commentary about the map though be rest assured, short. The purpose being for those interested in the map and want to look into it further - an experimental sort of thing as this is only my second time doing it. https://www.mediafire.com/file/w6m26sjjlc0o3gp/TransportNexus-Versions-Postmortem.zip/file

My apologies folks, I had a 20% damage floor (end level) that the player was supposed to be suspended above to cause unkillable bug at 1% for low health player but as I tested in GZDoom, I neglected the fact that ZDoom pushes the player up if the teleported floor was lower than surrounding sectors which are player size - in other words, test in the designated port folks. I'm in your ho-ho-homeV2.zip Fixes issue.

Map Name: I'm in your ho-ho-home (Temp map slot 1, texture resource not included) Author: Jark Music: horror.mid (first result on google, much effort) Sky: Default Format: Boom Difficulty Settings: No Gimmicks: - 8 Former humans - 1 BFG Build time: 1 hour Comment: Wouldn't be out of place in a shovelware collection, time is a funny thing. Also a return of a beloved character! Download: I'm in your ho-ho-home.zip

Good job getting it to the finish line! Lots of neat Doom 1 DM maps here.

How goes the process @Walter confetti?

Map Name: Collider Version: Alpha 2 Author: @Jark Music: None (as of yet, thinking if there were any it would be ambient) Map Slot (Warp to): 31 Sky: Used one from resource Format: UDMF Difficulty settings: Not yet Build Time: Nearly two months Notes: Certainly not finished. The most complicated map I have made so far, as I started to learn ACS for the spawn script for this project, it allowed me to do things far more complicated and ambitious then previously thought - I tend to dabble more in Vanilla and boom than UDMF as of late, so it was interesting to see what sort of settings I could create using advanced features. Did I create a functional particle collider in Doom? Perhaps... What if I said that the set up of moving and colliding particles with an outcome was much easier to script than the moving control panel you use to control it? Nevertheless, this map has taught me an awful lot in the process of making it. (Dynamic lights are a must dear friends, apologies for those with lower spec PCs) Download (resource separate): https://www.mediafire.com/file/7383ba7617h4uw4/colliderALPHA3.wad/file DM me if you wish to receive a Level guide.