========================================================================================== DUMP3 Map Thoughts by DavidN ========================================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP01 - Check-In by unRyker ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'll start off by saying that I'm only really going to give in-depth constructive comments to maps that don't appear to be from absolute veteran mappers - basically if your map looks like Quake 2 I'm going to skip over it a bit :) So this one's definitely made by a mapper who's been around a while and it looks great. I've got to comment on the way that it kept surprising over and over - you have the "fake exit" trap down to an art, and I was so paranoid by the time I got to that last zombieman that this was obviously not going to be the exit switch I thought it was! Good amount of optional areas, too. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP02 - Pissboy by Anonymous ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Short but sweet! You've put a lot of detail into a small map, I like the variety in your use of light and dark areas and details like the window into the exit area. The map's too short to really have any issues with balance or weapons, except that I think you gave out the super shotgun much too freely :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP03 - Simplicity is Golden by Demo_The_Man ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Going down the fast way :) Nice use of varied heights in the room with the imps beyond the bridge, and with the detail all around and in the courtyard. The only thing that feels a bit lacking is the long straight bridge that you go over from the start, which could have done with some spicing up (though it's a challenge with 3D floors). I find reversing the SW2->SW1 switches is kind of disconcerting, because it's usually very clear what you've switched and what you haven't. You got me with the double trick at the exit - nice little unexpected ambush. This map is really small but it all feels right, and could be right at home as a section of a larger level in early Doom 1 :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP04 - Invitation to Destruction by Gardevoir ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I like the setting - that, combined with the choice of music and the ring of barrels with the demons, really sells it as the alternative take on E1M8 that you were undoubtedly going for :) And the raised platform, lighting and cracked ground all contribute to a nice ominous atmosphere. You've made good use of 'panel' decorations, some varied scenery, and the balance of ammo at the end felt good - you had enough to get by without just spamming rockets everywhere. A good, interesting boss level! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP05 - Solitary by CJacobs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I want to point out something that I think is an underused design principle here - having a route to get a key and then being led naturally back to the hub again without having to backtrack. That was a nice touch. I initially ducked under the broken door thinking that that was the route I was meant to take, though. Opening up after the red door was good and there are some nice details like the corners being cut off blocks and the walled-in doors, but other areas feel samey afterwards - the other red doors hold very similar environments to where you come in to the level. Having said that, the fusion between the plain walls of the prison and the rocky tunnels was good. The jump up the debris to the platform in the second cave area is unnecessarily fiddly, you can drop off between the "stairs"! Door surprise! And that's the other good thing you can do when you lead a player back to an area they've already been :) After that, the blue door has a bit more variety, a security room setup that we haven't seen before. Good little secret behind the desk :) Am I mug enough to pick up that plasma gun? Yes. I usually get annoyed by maps overwhelming the player with too many big enemies - this one actually goes the opposite direction and provides you with a bit too much cannon fodder, I think. There are teleporting-in waves, but they come slowly enough that they're easy to deal with. Okay, but having said that: Not every map has to end with a Cyberdemon!! He was fearsome in Tower of Babel because of his unexpected appearance, people hadn't seen anything like him before - but he's very easy to deal with in a large room like this with the weaponry available. The end was really the only part of the map that stood out as cliche to me, though, and it's definitely headed in the right direction - it was good, imaginative, and just wanted a bit more detailing and avoiding the occasional rooms of nothing in the form of the padded cells. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP06 - Ruins & Lava by VBob ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ominous skybox to start off with! And lots of red - it's kind of hard on the eyes after a while. I like the decorative touches here and there, like the sunken flaming torches to form fire pits, and the flowing lava. I crouched down the flowing lava river, into a large arena where cacodemons appeared, ran away from the into a teleporter which led me to an alternative arena fight, defeated the Arch-vile, successfully dodged the absolute battalion that came my way, have picked up the key and now the music's changed. Oh dear. I think I may have messed up the intended order of this map a bit. Corridor switch surprise - nasty! ;) I've got back on track now, but it took a bit of backtracking through areas I'd already been to remember that there was a red door I couldn't open before - this could have been more organic. I never found all the skull switches, but it was nice feeling that there was something running through the level that was building up to a big reward. Very nice boss room! Having to dodge among the pillars and make your way over to where the spider is lording it over the room, then telefragging her and having to go back along the top... did it remind you of that game called Assault that they used to play on Gladiators? No? Just me, then. That was a great end to the map, which was otherwise very competent but a bit samey visually. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP07 - Bloodsport Canyon by Hoodoo456 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yes! One Must Fall power plant! Interesting little intentionally cramped map, manages to squeeze a couple of different challenges into an area the size of a stamp. Stomp. Stomp. Stomp. Oh god why is there a Cyberdemon here. Oh, I could just exit - that's fine. Okay, that worked well enough - a couple of different routes, some varied scenery, some traps, everything a Doom level needs in a little snow-globe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP08 - Nuclear Control Facilities by Titan314 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nice advice at the start! Good scenery, too - from waking up on the table in the dark room to the expansive cylinders and walkways in the slime factory section, and the pipes on the ceiling... Oh, that's a hilarious and unfair surprise - the "monster at the top of a column" trick but the columns are liquid! Good placement of the super shotgun secret, but I stumbled into it because I was exploring the new route after getting the blue key. To make that more of a secret, it would be good to provide a more obviously safe route forward after the key, to discourage just jumping off into the slime :) It bears repeating - nice detail on the circular room after the teleport! I don't think I'm exactly going to die of surprise from the fact there was an ambush for that red skull :) But it was well executed, with the earthquake and everything! I think the escalation of enemies here is really good - starting with the former humans, and enclosing the more powerful ones in, then slowly introducing the Manacubussesseses and barons. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP09 - Mountain Temple by Project_Ile ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I liked this! Outdoor maps usually bring back bad memories of the city levels from Doom 2 for me, a vast expanse of wandering around not knowing what you're doing, but this one was nicely compartmentalized and had clear progression. The enemy balance went up and down - at first I thought I had loads of ammo, then I chose to just run away from the Hell Knight-fest near the yellow key and still found myself low on supplies (but not health) - I never found the rocket launcher so was reduced to chainsawing arachnotrons by the end. Nice re-use of the red bars to form a staircase to cross to the next level up. You can make outdoor areas more interesting in ZDoom by playing about with some ramps and making the whole thing look less blocky, but this wasn't bad as it was (I would have possibly raised the water level a lot, though - there's not a whole lot of need for a fall that far that exposes tall straight cliffs). Lethal water is a bit weird as well, if justified in the map in that it looks a lot more pleasant than a vast expanse of red lava... and the instant-kill lava in the cracks near the blue skull was just nasty and out of place. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP10 - Overflow by SpudTheRubbish ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pretty good beginner map! It plays it a bit safe, though, and doesn't do a whole lot of environmental movement and so on... you had a go at a trap with the yellow key, which was a step in the right direction. The map design is pretty flat overall and could have been made more interesting with some platforms, stairs, split-level rooms and so on - sectors that don't take up the full height of a room. It would also be nice to have a better indication of which doors can be opened and which can't (and while on the subject, you can set doors into the wall a bit in their own alcove so that they don't look unnaturally flush with the wall). I kind of ran out of things to do after I got the yellow key, and it was just a short uneventful walk back to the door and then to the exit - you could have taken the chance to spring an additional surprise there, some more monsters being released from closets or teleporting in or something - or just to make the yellow key ambush the end of the level, and place the yellow door at the opposite end of the room. But overall, competently made and I'd love to see what more you can do with ZDoom in the future :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP11 - Venture into the Bouncy Castle by Beed28 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hah! I just stood there watching it for so long. Okay, this is fun. Now what? Oh, another imp clued me in. And... oh. I see. It's all going to be like that. The trampolines are fun :) Feels like one of the Rise of the Triad levels. Not sure how well this idea works in the dingy corridors, though - I feel a bit sick now. At least it throws the Arachnotron's aim off comically. Sliding doors and 3D floors in this bouncy hellscape! An impressive technical achievement. Actually this whole map is very competently put together and would be great even without the gimmick! Oh no, suspicious generosity behind the yellow door. Megasphere - you know that can't be good. Bloody Cyberdemons! I've never seen one jumping around like this before. My eyes will never be the same after this map, for multiple reasons. And that's the end. My verdict is a bit conflicted - it's an innovative, fun map. Please don't make any more like it ever again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP12 - The Crater by Combatxtreme and Plutonic Overkill ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This obviously isn't a beginner map, but I just had to mention the flyby at the start! You wankers - that was excellent :) Just a note as I played through, though - great detail and atmosphere at the start (felt very Duke Nukem 3D with the interactions and scripting) but then it really tapers off at the end, climaxing in a sort of nothing arena with some easily dodged cyberdemons. The talent displayed at the start is great, though - I imagine this was a victim of running out of time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP13 - The Fun Lab by TerminusEst13 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Again, definitely one by an experienced mapper :) Great use of varied out-of-bounds scenery throughout and different environments, some giving an impression of a crumbling real space (like the broken roads). I found I was a bit short of ammo around the corridors after the yellow door, and was chainsawing Knights to get by. Oh... piss off with your six million Pain Elementals! In retrospect I should probably have just run away from all that. Oh GOD no. Oh, it's over. Good :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP14 - Durex Waste Disposal by Minimum Payne ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Experienced mapper alert :) I got a bit stuck on this one because the switch that you need to find to raise the giant structure in the middle is hidden behind something I'd say qualifies as a secret. But the fights were good, the rooms varied, and it felt like a second level at the end with the passageway to hell. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP15 - The Corporate Ladder by Kinsie ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I love the Megadrive music already :) The "Hump" billboard is honestly a great joke. And SatanCorp. I think I used to work here - this should be fun. "If you miss your quarterly targets I will eat you alive". Yes, this is definitely the place. Obviously another experienced one, but this one stands out because of all the great texture work that went into it, really transforming it into a different experience that's somewhere between Duke Nukem 3D and the Stanley Parable. The sense of humour throughout is great. To be continued?! Well, I'd seriously play a full episode/game of this - a Doom game where hell wasn't unleashed by a Martian experiment, but by the CEOs of a megacorporation :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP16 - Regressive Experience by Dukka ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another experienced mapper! What stood out to me about this one is how well it re-used space that the player had been through before, introducing new sections or monsters (or re-using old ones with that Archvile!) The descending arena at the end worked well. The only thing that stood out badly was the surprisingly plain COMPWALL room near the start, which felt strangely lacking in detail compared to the rest of the map. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP17 - Baby's First Map by Bobman23 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The door you start facing is misaligned! Pay attention to this throughout the map, as it's one of the things that can make a map look cheap right off the bat - the lights at the top of the stairs leading down from the start, and some other textures on walls don't match up. Make sure your door frames are sized appropriately so that the doors sit on the floor and between the walls - or scale the textures to suit. Or draw your own :) Okay, when you have a door leading off into a cupboard next to the corridor, that's not a secret ;) The similar one later on is much better, getting the player to spot a seam on the wall where the colours don't match to get the plasma gun. You've set up some traps well, though - by this point I'm used to a monster closet opening when I get an obvious key, but the way you did it for the red key was nice, the way the floor clicked down. It felt like I'd wandered on to a trigger rather than the monsters just suddenly being revealed. Providing an alternative route with the pile of Revenants is good, and by that time in the map you seem to be sticking with the Doombuilder defaults a bit less, making more interesting rooms. The arena fight at the end is OK - the reveal with the rising platform is good and the second wave was a surprise! - but the pile of Knights/Barons at the start is dull because it soaks up time, it's too easy to dodge them in such a wide space. I think you've got the basics down, and with the things you've learned beginning to show as the map progresses, I think you'd do great if you continued to make maps! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP18 - Research Facility by DeathGod5309 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Straight in with the plasma gun! Steady on there. There's some scene-setting, though, with the basic helipad and the level entrance door which we normally don't get to see the outside of in Doom :) This map is actually a lot more complex than I first imagined it to be - the helipad outside is fairly simple with some jagged rocks, but inside the base the detail in the lighting and the varied walls and floors is really good. It stops the place from being too samey and makes it easier to find your way around. After dying a lot, I chose to restart and save the plasma gun for a bit later on, once past the first room! That helped a lot... throughout, I felt there wasn't quite enough ammo to deal with the hordes coming my way, but it could be due to the impressive number of optional areas. Nice nested ambushes in the "X" room - from a simple one with shotgunners behind a pillar to expanding the whole room. And why did I think I'd got the yellow key safely? ;) You gave a very precisely calculated amount of time before the monsters started teleporting in, followed by the demons pouring in from behind. Hey, an Archvile with placement that's actually all right - up high on a ledge with hiding places to avoid its attack! Bonus points from me :) I like the tease of the barred window into the heavily secured armoury, as well. double archvile fight in the library oh god oh god This map feels like you were taking every idea that came to you and expanding the map with it, giving a chance for every kind of environment - which is great! I love this about the DUMP philosophy, creating and expanding, and prefer this to more rehearsed maps. Outside again! Let's go down that end of the lava river for a secret? No, it's a massive hell-cave! And it hurts my eyes a bit - being a bit more toned down with the lighting would help here with the massive amounts of black and yellow around, even given the theme of the area. Definitely battered and bruised (and multiple resurrect-cheated) now... I failed to pick up the nearby rocket launcher at the other end of the river before passing the point of no return. Oops, here's another trick - expanding and adding enemies to previously known areas! Great :) Through the red door in the first room and... nothing terrible happened when I picked up the BFG? This has to be a trick. I don't like it. Now I've got through the bars on the last door from the first room (by the way, you can open the door behind them from beside the bars before you've got rid of them - although you can't do through it) and this is very definitely the final arena! I like that even though the final battle involves four Cyberdemons, it isn't a mindless fight - it's about clearing a path up to the switches. With that done, the exit is revealed and I finally escape. Thanks for a fun and varied map :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP19 - Among Us by HumansAmongUs ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nice use of varied heights - the tower at the start was interesting (I was convinced it had to be using 3D floors until I checked on the map). The giant room with the bridges feels very expansive, but take care not to overdo it - the very large vertical distances throughout can leave you with a lot of space that's difficult to fill with detail, making it look blank. The largest example of this, apart from the large outdoor cliffs, was the library with the huge staircases. After jumping from roof to roof in the outdoor area with the yellow skull door, it was weird that there were invisible walls on the sloped part of the larger shed building, but overall the level structure is interesting with several routes through it. At times it's a little obvious that it's a set of vast outdoor areas connected by little tunnels - and remember to align your textures horizontally (cave with the Revenants)! I think the "outie" decorative doors look a bit weird and could do with a border. The berserk was the world's most obvious trap, but I went right down into it anyway :) The music is uncharacteristically calm for Doom, but I'm typing this with a huge headache and the third US election debate is tonight, so I can't say it's unwelcome. The secret at the very start was a bit obvious, but it was nice coming back to the area later on and seeing it from a new perspective. The level started off with a good balance but it wasn't very challenging by the end - the plasma rifle was particularly over the top in how much you can just cut through the rest of the enemies with it! But I enjoyed this - it was the first map I played on this collection and it made me look forward to more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP20 - The Darkness Beyond by KarolineDianne ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sigh. This is going to be a scary map, isn't it. All right, let's press on. Spectacular use of atmosphere throughout - entering through dark corridors, the obvious door at the end of the corridor that's stuck and twitching, the cracks and the noise coming from the teleporter and the descent into madder hellish architecture... the choice of music really helps, too. It's quite easy to sprint through this by going straight forward (as I was in a hurry to get out of the creepiness the first time), but I'm glad I went back to it as there's more to it - some classic Doom scenarios spiced up by the dark atmosphere. And it was only during my second run that I realized the door to the boss room is meant to be locked!! That's a mistake :) The red door's doortrack is pegged wrongly. Beyond the red door, some visual cue to enter the lava would probably be good (or force the player in somehow?) Lava is usually something to be avoided, so it's possible not to discover it really is meant to be the way forward. And then just after getting the yellow key, it's a bit mean to make the fall an instant death rather than teleporting the player to safety like in all the other bottomless drops on the level. Oh, good, a Cyberdemon to finish. But this map has an amazing oppressiveness and dread as you press forward into the darkness and fog - that was really nicely done. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP21 - Base Stimpack by Charcola ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Welcome back to Doom mapping! Interesting decision at the start, where you go into the obvious secret and then have to choose between the two weapons, the other one being unexpectedly blocked off. If I hadn't chosen the chaingun I don't know how I'd have made it through this map, though. The map design is very flat and the Baron room is uninteresting - he's just hanging around facing the other way with some rockets scattered about! But it improves once you go beyond the red door, it seems you had got back into the swing of more interesting spaces again by then :) Like I mentioned in another reaction, I'd recommend against swapping the SW2->SW1 textures without good reason, because it makes it far less obvious what you've activated and what you haven't. Oh come on, a Cyberdemon when I'm armed with a twig and the contents of my packed lunch? Not touching that! Beautifully executed delayed trap with the switches in the blue area :) The first is an obvious trap that appears to just give you ammunition... then the real trap begins :) At this point the level suddenly becomes a lot more interesting, with more varied scenery, a complex series of buttons and switches to get to the Super Shotgun secret... ...and I take back what I said about the Cyberdemon :) What a great moment of dread, to have him suddenly gone and looking around to find him! I'm beginning to see what the map's drawing out now! That's creative. Vast array of rockets on the ground can only mean one thing... and yes, there he is. All the rockets and most of the plasma later, the map's over... ...but that's a nice gesture, giving the automap at the end so you can go back and see what you've missed. I like the little room that's opened up at the start, but you can get stuck behind the yellow key pedestal. That was good! It started off basic but noticeably improved as you went. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP22 - Crunk Refinery by BobBarker ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Expert map! But this is something a bit different, which is nice - it's decorated a bit differently from most maps with the new variants on the classic textures. The yellow door doesn't need a yellow key! I'll close that up anyway and find it before I go through there... (A while of wandering around later...) I think I was wrong and this was intentional - the yellow key trim indicates the door where you get the yellow key, not the one where you use it? That seems like an objectively bad choice. The end is also a bit of an anticlimax - just wandering over to the red door which isn't even very significant, and pulling the switch to exit - but the map is otherwise great. I love the little messages everywhere, giving a sense of progress in a large sprawling map. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP23 - 0-Pipe Gear by Toooooasty ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Okay, this would be one of those Quake 2 maps I was talking about :) Great use of moving sectors and architecture for the various machinery, it looks great and varied throughout and the icy boss room was a nice change of scenery. I had a problem with a multitude of imps spawning on top of each other on the top of the barrier to the east of the conveyor room (I think), and I thought the jump from the first tall room to get on to the girders and make your way into the room with the pool was too awkward - but it's possible I did it wrong and didn't notice the intended solution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP24 - Escape from Argent Prison by Lance Charleson ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Interesting start... I'm not entirely sure what I did to escape the cage? I thought I was going to have to wake the enemies up and get them to accidentally open it in the crossfire or something, but is it pushing on the back side of the blue panel with the switch? Getting the blue key right off the bat is a bit unusual, the blue doors might as well not be there at all. The scenery's good, though - the pillars and walls of the prison itself, and the way the open skybox frames it all, and you use fog well and lead the player through a couple of different challenges. Having the super shotgun right in front of your eyes and not being able to pick it up is an unnecessary tease :) The pink demons in the sunken floor in the third section are a bit easy because there's no way for them to climb up to you! The tower looks really great and imposing, looming in the fog outside the prison - but you have to turn around and go back to see it! Getting the player to face some structures like that naturally would make sure the effort isn't wasted :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP25 - Live Fire Exorcise by Sgt. Shivers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ That title is either a misspelling or a mighty pun :) I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes! That definitely immersed me! It's a clever way of putting the Portal puzzle approach into Doom, making it about trying to get line-of-sight to switches and working out your most efficient route to get through the room before the door closes. I was impressed that you included the escape (although there was a lack of health) - and the pile of monsters at the end was an unimaginative conclusion to an otherwise very innovative level :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP26 - Attack First by Simpletonn ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nice dark start :) And the vent secret is interesting in that you can poke your head into a later room and make it easier for yourself when you get there. This is another map where I'd recommend setting the doors back into frames so that they're not flush with the walls and appearing to slide into the ceiling. It would also be good to have a reason why we can't open the last door in the hub. The route around to the red key is a little... tiny - you could had done more with that dark computer corridor :) Make sure to align your textures horizontally, too, as some of them were cut off. The next couple of rooms are good as you get more ambitious with a split-level room and the bridges over the rails. I'm not a huge fan of invisible walls - if the player wants to drop down and electrocute themselves it should be on them ;) The third secret is just an alcove in the outdoor area that doesn't do anything! Was that a mistake? But you're getting into more advanced stuff now, with the teleporting Revenant. This is a good starting map, it falls into some traps but it's well put together :) Overall most of the rooms are a bit too big and empty for their own good and could have done with some tightening and decoration to spruce them up - you have a go at it with the crates and the cylinders in one room near the end, which stood out as good. And there's a bit of backtracking when you get the last key, which you could have made more interesting by adding more enemies as the player makes their way back - or provided an alternative route to get out that circles you around back to the hub. Either of those would have given the plasma gun you get at the end more reason to exist :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP27 - Hitler's Prison by Luigi2600 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Starting off being shot from all sides! The skybox is interesting, makes it look strangely oppressive. You can shoot through the glass/force field, is that intentional? The blue door has no indication that it's a blue door visually - this isn't a huge problem in such a small map but it's a nicety that the player will be used to. The man himself doesn't seem to... do much and isn't counted as an enemy? But I got an "invalid ACS module" error on level start, so that might have something to do with it. I think you've got the starting basics covered here - laying a playable map out, using doors, and the technique of breaking large expanses of wall up with other textures. In your next map, try adding things like moving lifts, more use of multi-level rooms, and so on! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP28 - Tomb of Hectikhamen by Action Max ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Great use of textures from the start, although they bring back terrible flashbacks of Hexen II! The traps are creative and notable for being near-weaponless, the only time heavy use of firepower is required being the fight with the barons on the tightrope with the rocket launcher. I felt you could have done more with the Spiderdemon room, it seemed like the Revenant up there was a bit of an afterthought. There's a missing texture on the lower left of the crusher above the Spiderdemon, only obvious when the crusher is down. And while it's short and not very detailed, the strength of this map is its willingness to experiment with something different. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP29 - The Weed Number by Abysswalker ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'm the only person in the western world who hasn't played Dark Souls, so the meaning of the quote is lost on me - I wonder what that means? Oh. Okay, I think I can guess now. The first room is full of sudden traps and unexpected teleportation, though you ease back on it a bit later on (which is nice). The rooms are distinct and have enough character to them - jumping puzzles in Doom are always a bit awkward but the pillar jumping works well enough. One of the Zombiemen on the curved stairs is trapped in the wall. Oh, come off it with your double Archvile fight! I don't have the ammunition for that. The room behind the red door is nice - but you can walk through the bars of the Baron's cage! I would also probably have removed the cramped little space to the right of the door where the top platform doesn't meet the wall. The super shotgun is well placed, it feels like a reward as well as a great boost going into the fight with the Baron. You could have put in some more monsters on the route back from the red door to the yellow one. Hopping about in the slime now... the Megasphere is appreciated but it's really a bit much! The viney walls around where you get the bonus ammunition in the slime river are a bit thin between the alcoves, they look like they're made of paper. Nice trap leading to the end :) I was looking around for where the ambush was going to come from and I didn't expect the way that it played out! The map crashes at the end but I think it's really crashing at the start of going back to the hub (GZDOOM g2.1.1). This was a decent map :) The balance was off in places but it had a good variety of challenges, not staying on the same thing for too long. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP30 - This is Serious Now by Deathzor ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What's the weather like today? It's FIREBLU. You keep things moving along nicely so far, but the rooms are all big and plain - some decoration or shrinking them down would help, I feel. The library feels about right. The moment when you step out the door to the outside again and realize the expanse of the level is good - I would perhaps have liked that to be more dramatic! Get your first glimpse from an upstairs balcony somewhere... There are a few too many big enemies for the arsenal available just now (around the end of the first walkway entering the tower), I've been plugging away at Knights for a while... ...and Barons in the later building! Fortunately the Super Shotgun comes to the rescue here. It's about here that I noticed how much this map lets you see areas you've been in before or areas you'll visit later, from different vantage points - that helps a lot with the flow of the map and making it feel like a cohesive whole. The caves section later on has a teleport to escape the lava but it doesn't work! The elevator at the end of that doesn't look like a texture that you can activate, either - that would be better realized as a switch, I think. After playing the rest of this level, I think my thoughts can be summed up better in one paragraph... while it's impressive that you managed to put such a long level together in the time constraints, I think the length ends up working against the map. It's a level with slightly too much of everything - too many meat walls at the start, too many demons charging at you in corridors to be lazily chainsawed through, and too many encounters that teleport enemies in and add 50 or so to the monster count. I'm pretty sure the count had doubled from an already fairly high figure by the time I'd finished the level, and it fatigues the player, moving the goalposts of finishing the level further and further away. The Archvile after the final boss was just insulting ;) The amount of detailing also suffered a bit due to the vast expanse of the map, with a lot of plain-looking flat rooms among a few nice ones. I definitely appreciate the amount of effort that went into this one, though! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP31 - Not Another Tech Base by ArchXeno ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "I don't like this map, but at least it exists". That's the spirit ;) And this has been good so far - I definitely love techbase maps and this one has been nonstop shooting so far. Teleporting in a bunch of enemies was pretty much the exact opposite of what I wanted that conspicuous switch to do! You have a HOM on the lower texture of the step down to the door between the silver corridor and the lower tan room... and I think if in the outside area beyond the red door, you had the trim above the door go all the way around, it would look a lot less cut off. GREAT scare with the green armour! As you intended, I approached cautiously knowing that that big demon door would open as soon as I grabbed it, only for the floor to drop away :) I think you're being too hard with yourself on that comment on the map, everything's pretty solid here. One standout thing that didn't make sense was the switch that dropped the platform in the room miles away near the start of the map, I only realized that that was what it did after retracing my steps and trying everywhere else. You had another good surprise with the room closing off and becoming an arena suddenly! I think that there were generally too many tough enemies for the arsenal that you were provided to deal with them (especially the abundance of Archviles), but it's possible that I'm just wimpier than you at Doom. Woo-hoo, a Cyberdemon end. The Revenants on the ledges make it a little more interesting, though - I had thought I'd get the BFG prize after I downed all of those, but the reward never came! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP32 - Hydraulic Plant by SpiritOfDecay ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Always check for the chainsaw at the start! I didn't take notes as I went through this one because it's pretty short, but it's a nice small map that's had some care put into it - I liked the secrets within secrets. Detailing is good, the large room could probably have done with a bit more. And I fell foul of the invisible wall while trying to jump over the edge of the water pit to avoid the Revenants' fireballs - I'd say just let the player fall in and provide a teleport back up! Design-wise, the map is pretty obviously a straight shot from start to finish (with just one bend preventing it from being entirely a straight line) - not necessarily a bad thing for an E1M1 if you're going for that, but adding a few more non-secret side areas would improve the feel of it a lot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP33 - Janus by SoundOfDoomDoors ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Super power metal music - I don't know the exact song but it sounds very Helloweeny :) I love that already! (Being faced with a Manacubus with a pistol, less so). I got the idea that you had to run instead of fight until you got the weapons you needed, though, which was a nice change. There's a very weird-looking mispegged texture on the wall with the window in the crusher room where you get the chaingun! I don't have anywhere near the firepower (or skill) to deal with these double Archviles! The hexagonal cutouts in the tech room with the blood waterfall look great, but it looks weird that the same pattern wasn't applied to the moving platform next to it as well. There is absolutely no way that's the exit. Oh, it was. So... where were the rest of the 666 enemies? Interesting map that I thought was going to be longer (in the end I think it was just about right), with a lot of imaginative secrets. Some of the balance felt a little off, namely running out of ammo in the large arena room and then introducing a couple of Archviles. But I would have had a better time if I'd picked up that Berserk at the start instead of saving it for later and then no longer being able to get back to it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP34 - Gamma Station Entrance by SMG_Marine ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Very inspiring message at the start :) The detailing is interesting here - the inner part of the first room is really good but the outer wall of it is really plain! There feels like there's something missing there. It keeps on improving as you go through the map. I'm not sure why I'm noticing this in particular here, but there's good use of diagonals here, breaking up the 90-degree routes that even some very advanced mappers tend to stick to. This was another map that seemed to end too early, when there was more left to explore! But perhaps that's good, having some optional areas and reason to go back to it. The design of the rooms kept on improving throughout, and it felt like the first episode of something, especially as you stuck with the humanoid enemies. I would definitely play an episode of this! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP35 - Realm of the Sempiternal Archvile ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let me look up "sempiternal" in the dictionary. Great reveal of a strange and amazing place! What a sky. And there he is... you know, maybe I just won't move from here. Oh, okay then. The unusual design of the map continues and I'm impressed with how it transforms around you all the time! I'm really not sure I have the firepower to deal with what you're throwing at me, here. PISS OFF WITH YOUR ARCHVILE In the red room with all the water, you can jump from the Mancubus's platform on to the blue platform at the opposite side of the square. I'm not sure if this was intentional but I was honestly stuck otherwise. I love the way that you use the sky as walls and doors and lifts - it's so wrong but it fits in really well with the theme of the map. Another Archvile?! Yes, why not, I'll just deal with that with my wood-cutting tools and this pencil. I've gone on a lot longer than I usually do for maps made by experts, but this map did so many things that were unexpected I couldn't help but note them. The way you use everything is really clever, with the map offset by the absurd level of difficulty... either there's nowhere near enough firepower to deal with everything that comes your way, or I'm just terrible at Doom (and despite my frustration, I wouldn't dismiss the latter option). I resorted to IDKFA at the end because I was facing three Arch-Viles and a spiderdemon with a chainsaw, having wasted all my ammo on the boss (who misleadingly flinches in pain even though he says he can't be hurt at the start - I thought I'd done something to let me hurt him, but it seems he was still invulnerable). Great map for expert players or those looking for a punishment ;) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP36 - Judgement Day by Stale_Meat ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Straight into the action! And my god, 1370?! Well. That was absolutely nuts (dot wad) from start to finish. Definitely not a map for my personal tastes, but expansive and keeps the onslaught coming through multiple environments :) And some very creative scenery like the hellish mouth flesh door (which has a HOM under one of the eyes on the left hand side that I think is also preventing the Cacodemon in the window from escaping). You can also fall down the side of the fortress near the end of the Hell section and get stuck between the wall and the jagged cracks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP37 - Complex Alive by Roxas ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Small and (dead) simple, but I needed that after the above two maps which were like the Doom equivalent of 70-minute black metal songs. The aesthetic reminds me of somewhere between Pac-Man, Tron and the Metal Gear Solid VR Missions, and it was nice to have it transform slightly throughout the arena's runtime. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP38 - DUMP TD by Arctangent ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ An absolutely spectacular piece of ZDoom ACS/Decorate/etc programming! Having the spider mastermind as the "core" works really well despite it not being your first intention, due to its ability to defend itself and the way that the AI targets it. A note to Sgt Shivers/Terminus - I wasn't a fan of the preview picture on the portal for this one, including the interface looked tacky to me but I'm not sure how else I could get across how unique this map is. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP39 - Dumping Ground by TotalInjury ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The very start is a bit default-y - the wood ceiling is out of place! You need to align your textures horizontally and vertically to make them look like a coherent wall and not a series of slabs - hit A while pointing at a wall in Doombuilder's 3D mode to do it horizontally, and the arrow keys to adjust them up and down. It's good to have sections of a room at different heights, though. Once you get away from the default walls and pass through the tall grey door into the dark corridors it looks better - and nice trap opening up on the left! Watch your texture alignment, the switch up on the top bit is split down the middle. The "poison" sign secret needs a blue card - was that intentional? Outdoor area, nice! The "poison" wall leading to it should possibly have just been a standard door. Going the other way, the big green room is a bit plain and could really have done with something in the middle (computer banks, a recessed area, some columns like in E1M1 Hangar, etc) The computery bit afterwards is good, having more detail and interaction. (Though I can't work out what to do with that giant pillar I can move down a bit.) Good use of monster closets on the way back! I didn't expect that, it's good and prevents the return journey being just walking. Oh - that poison door is actually a way forward! Don't do that ;) That should be a clearly indicated blue door. I'm not sure how you did it, but your lines are a bit weird on the outside area with the blue key - I can see the sky through a gap next to the rocket launcher. Good, appropriately placed secret in the corner of this room! Something's wrong in the arena (but great use of dropping the floor to make a room different). The revealed monsters seem reluctant to fight, the barons couldn't see me at all when I dropped in and I had to shoot to get their attention. Once you've hit the switch and raised the floor again, you can drop through the ground right next to the pillar and end up trapped. The manacubi platform also didn't activate and I had to noclip through the likeliest-looking wall to continue. I've got to praise your use of an Archvile - in an arena with columns where you can get appropriate cover from it! One idea is that you could have added some demons to the equation to make the player have to deal with them blocking the route. (Shortly afterwards) Please do not add any more monsters to this equation The mancubus here is stuck in the wall and there are minor HOMs around the chamber that opened to reveal him. Okay, noclipping to get out of there again and we're at the red door. In general, knights are preferred to barons because the latter were balanced as a boss and act as too much of a meat shield. That map was okay! It was strangely buggy in a way that I haven't really seen from other maps :) But perhaps it was a result of you experimenting with new things. In general they worked well - there are some odd design decisions and the layout is a little square at times, but there are definitely the seeds of good maps here :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP40 - Mercury Rain by Jimmy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Great map! Obviously another expert one - the layout and design reminded me of Quake, and you have multiple areas with different scenery that flow smoothly into each other. I think that the level of challenge was exactly right, apart from a couple of moments like dumping the player into a room with six Revenants and no cover. And nice poison mechanic! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP41 - Masterpiece by IdiotBitz ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The start's nice - like you've just entered a base and been faced with an imp finishing a meal! I like the look of the cave - a couple of improvements I could suggest are to leave the door open when the switch is pulled, and to make the pillars you have to jump across about twice as big as they are to prevent frustratedly looping around after you miss a jump. There's also something a bit weird with the big teleported, that you have to be in the middle of it for it to activate instead of just stepping on. A knight would probably have been better than a baron here, to stop it being such a damage sink. The Megasphere is too much of a health boost all at once - I would spread that out among more health bonuses elsewhere. Hmm, and now I see why that health boost was there. I don't feel I have anywhere near enough firepower for this - the Pain Elemental overran the place with lost souls before I could deal with it. Are you really meant to strafejump from the top of the lava fountain to the chaingunners? I couldn't find a more intuitive way. The Cyberdemon arena looks good, but the fight is just unloading everything you have at it and ducking back to avoid the rockets - it's boring! This map started off well but it looked like you might have been running out of ideas by the end... some more creative environments like that cave would have been good :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP42 - Tunnel Crates Rule! by Stale_Meat ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nonlinearity is a great and interesting thing for maps to have, but this one could actually do with reining the player in a bit. In my playthrough, I found myself hopelessly short of ammo very early on because I chose the left path instead of the one in front of me because I missed the big cache of ammunition. There are also a few nooks and crannies with switches that are vital but easy to miss - it would help to have a better indication of what these switches are doing, because by using switches instead of keys you lose the guidance of the map telling you where your next objective is. The detailing and personality of the rooms towards the start (and the south and the east of the map) are noticeably better than most of the corridors surrounding the main area, which are a bit plain and boxy - it's an impressively sprawling map, but it feels a bit like that sprawling was at the expense of putting ideas into the space. I couldn't work out how to open the door to the final area at all, even after exploring the entire map with the IDBEHOLDA cheat... by that point I had too much map to go back and explore to have a hope of finding what I had missed! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP43 - Cloverhouse by Icept ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nice start! I can see where you began carving out a default room with Doombuilder but then you got inspired and made a decent outdoor arena with some good detailing and out-of-bounds scenery. I think you got a bit copy-and-paste happy in terms of architecture, but the contents of the rooms are varied enough and it's good to have a leaf of the clover that's entirely different with the broken-off platforms. I like the scripted bit after you come back and get the red key :) This is short but solidly put together. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP44 - Generic UAC Outpost by Anonymous ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Classic chainsaw secret :) But it took a while for it to register as one for me. Relatedly, the automap powerup is fantastically hidden. I liked this map, it seemed to have the right balance of being a real place rendered in a Doom style. You can recognize places like the front entrance and the kitchen without it having to go into too much detail about them. The rooms each have their own personality to them and a unique style. Nice preview of the Archvile when the blue key comes down :) Oh, I knew damn well you were going to do that at the exit. Now go and get your eggs, you earned them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP45 - Felt by Floatrand ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ominous start! Then the music changes tone :) Really nice aesthetics, the water combined with the wood - this looks unlike any other map I've yet seen here! This is a really great, different map with a lot of detail and challenges packed in - being able to choose either the blue or yellow key routes after the red key is a nice touch. I would have liked more health to balance the vast number of monsters leaping out of cupboards and bookcases, but as I've mentioned before, I'm far from the best Doom player in the world. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP46 - Panic Room by Comet1338 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nice music choice! And a generous starting secret - the drop into a suddenly more detailed room after the vents is great. This is an interesting combination between an arena and a more traditional exploration map... there are bits and pieces of exploration through the keyed doors, but everything eventually turns you back to the main room to face more enemies. I think that the hordes suffer a bit from "big pile of identical monsters" syndrome and can feel plain for that - the plasma gun seems generous and overpowered at the start but once you start unleashing the monsters you become very grateful for it very quickly. I'm not sure about the inclusion of two Cyberdemons in such a small map, either, although it's more interesting to have had them here than in a larger arena. The decoration is great throughout, with a large variety of tech textures that work coherently together! The secrets are good as well and provide a good helping hand for sharp-eyed players. Also, thanks a bunch for the super shotgun right at the end when we can't use it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP47 - Simple Chaos by Willyku0123 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Welcome back to Doom mapping! The first couple of rooms look great, though the nature of the enemy placement in the main room meant that they tended to form a single line charging towards me and were very easy to pick off. Super shotgun is given out early! Though I found myself hurting for ammunition for all weapons quickly as well. This eased off as the map progressed, though. Overall it's really well made and great to look at - just a couple of oddities, such as using red key trim for the switch that gives you the red key (not a huge problem as I switched it by experiment anyway because it looked like it was intended to remove the red bars, but the visual prompting goes against everything else in Doom) and the odd square of water at the end which could have been better done with some more scenery or a horizon line. Other than that, the detailing and scenery were fantastic throughout - the nine year gap hasn't slowed you down! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP48 - Eviscerated by Nag ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Oh... piss off, how is this your first map? Thanks for showing us all up :) Great arena map with varied enough scenery not to really feel like one, with creative use of textures throughout (like the digestive tract side area and the creepy eyes watching you from the walls). I'll repeat my refrain of wanting more health, apparently due to my not being all that amazing at Doom. I said that I would comment and give more guidance to beginner maps, but honestly I don't even know what to say to this. Go away, make more maps and become the best mapper in the world very quickly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP49 - The Mine to Hell by InsanityBringer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ As others have noted, the teleported to this level doesn't work! That's unfortunate because this deserves just as much attention as the others. The mine looks pretty good, making good use of the rocky outdoor textures to vary the rooms and not make it look the same throughout. You could have used slopes to give a more natural feel to the rocky landscape, but if you're going for a classic Doom flat look then that's OK too. Some of the monster piles feel just a little too big (cacodemons in particular, where you can pick them off in narrow corridors and never be in danger). Some of them could have been saved for monster closets/teleporting in on the return trip from some of the limbs of the mine, to prevent a lot of uninterrupted walking. Suspicious generosity behind the red door... and oh blimey, here's the Cyberdemon. I know you haven't read me saying any of this to the maps before, but - not every map has to end with a Cyberdemon! This arena is... okay for it, with pillars to hide behind and not a massive amount of room to circle-strafe, but there are much more creative ways for a map to climax. Nice effect when it finally goes down, though. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP50 - Sandcastley Sandcastling Sandcastles by PinchySkree ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Great aesthetic! American desert - not an environment that I've seen in Doom before. Exploration throughout the vast outside landscape pays off. This is a weird thing, but... the bars on the south side of the castle look like HOMs from a distance even though they aren't. I think it's to do with the angle at which you can see the rest of the level peeking through, not constant as you pass in front of them. This has a nice semi-open-worldish feel. Once you get to the castle with the long pool of water, if you go back to the ground level it would be nice if there were a shortcut back as it's a bit of a slog to retrace your steps, but to be fair it's my own damn fault for falling off. Inside the castle the difficulty ramps up a bit, which is nice! A bit of a shock being absolutely surrounded by enemies after the water, but then it gets reasonable again. You use several textures that look like switches on things that aren't... (or are they activated by being next to them and don't change texture?) This whole thing reminds me of the first Tomb Raider games, especially that path to the soulsphere! Ran out of ammo for the spiderdemon outside, punched it and ran to the boat! Great and uniquely styled map :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP51 - There is no map 51 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP52 - Broken Shit by ZachBrowder ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gloomy and atmospheric, not broken at all here :) The rooms are interesting and the one with all the toggling platforms makes the demons' movement more difficult to predict. I don't have a lot to say about this one, other than that it's a nice map to have chosen for starting a session of map thoughts - really nicely decorated, and a gentle enough challenge. The only thing that I felt fell short was the boss fight - the giant Mancubus doesn't get the chance to be effective in the room you've given him. My rockets pushed him to the floor, where he just uselessly fired rockets at one of the pipes between him and me while I plasmaed him to finish him off. But you get masses of credit for including a boss that wasn't a Cyberdemon - that's a surprising rarity! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP53 - Weapons Research Lab by Vennobennu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Okay, let's slaughter some vampires! The floor dropping out at the very start is a nice surprise, opening up the player to a lot more than they expected! You use tough monsters early on (seeing a Revenant when armed with a pistol is a daunting prospect) but you use them well so that the player isn't overwhelmed, and can use the environment to their advantage. The starting arena is interesting and I can see you experimenting with various different types of environments as you build rooms out, which is great! The powerups are placed a little strangely, such as the invincibility behind the barons in the caves, which you're likely to encounter after its usefulness has passed. I wouldn't give out the Megasphere so freely, instead separate its bonuses into smaller health and armour pickups throughout the map. Throughout, I found myself suffering a pretty severe shortage of ammunition, so a few more boxes of shells or ammo wouldn't go amiss either. The slow doors leading to the large room come off as irritating, I don't think you'd lose much by just making those go at the normal speed! The map design is good and varied although a little boxy in places (like the big room I just mentioned). The openable bit at the teleporter leading you to the other side was an inspired secret :) Well, this switch might as well be labelled "ASKING FOR IT". Great boss fight at the end! I was so sure that a Cyberdemon was going to be plonked in like seems to have happened a thousand times on this map pack, but instead you made it a gradually escalating challenge that relied on your ability to manage the monsters before another pack of them were set free. And an appropriate arena to include Archviles in with the pillars to hide behind. That finished the map on a high note! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP54 - Winter in Summer by TehRealSalt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lost Vikings :) This map looks really good, thanks to using some extended textures and a good sense of detail. When the first door opens the enemies are bottlenecked by the corridor and it's just a slugging match with the pistol - if they were delayed until you got to a more open space that would have made it more challenging. And it's interesting (I'm not sure if good or not!) that the chaingun opens the doors when it's picked up rather than walked over - if you have full ammunition, then you're left with two inexplicably unopenable doors. Like I said, the rest of the map looks great, though - everything feels good. The ice rink set-piece is unusual - I don't think the imps liked my skating. And... I think I've broken it! The music stopping and emerging in total darkness, and then nothing happens. I tried it twice. It's a shame because it looks like it would have been good if it had worked! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP55 - The UAC Ocean Base by leodoom85 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Oh, UAC - where would we be without your dubious safety record and fondness for experiments that open up passageways to hell. I love the atmosphere here, helped by the music choice but mostly achieved through some great use of architecture and outdoor scenery - it really feels like a different place from most other maps! This is thoroughly enjoyable :) The switch messages give it a fun personality, it isn't overpopulated with monsters, the surprise Archviles were appropriately placed... if I have a complaint it's that it would be nice to have a bit more prompting as to what a switch did, in such an expansive map. The hell arena at the end felt a lot more generic (yet another sodding Cyberdemon) but that's the only low point of a really creative and well put together map. My favourite so far! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP56 - Hot Water Music by Protester ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Looks nice, obviously an experienced mapper :) A bug if you fall off the first time - the platform that you take to the high ledge where you're meant to jump to get the red key is a trigger once only! Bugger me - now THAT's an ambush! That was the most shocking thing I've seen in this pack by far, completely transforming the map in an instant. Spectacularly done :) No back wall on the lift that starts you off on the path to the yellow skull key. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP57 - Lambda Base by FloatRand ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Another fantastically detailed map in a more traditional Doom setting than your previous one, but made unique by all the non-standard texturing! It felt kind of ridiculously tough to me, but I was sort of cutting my losses from shortly after the start and running around waking everybody up in the hope that they'd all get rid of each other in a massive infight. I loved the aesthetic, though, of the bright yellow electronics standing out against the dark corroding base. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP58 - Inferno Odyssey by Anonymous ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Always check behind you for the chainsaw :) Nice use of textures for the chandelier! The rest of the second room is too big and dull, though, and the routes have long "arms" without much reward that you have to backtrack down to get back to where you started. I think this room needs completely rethought to give the player more interesting routes to the switches that they're aiming for. In fact, everything seems a bit too big for its own good here - the giant room with the coloured doors, the big box with the stairs just before the red key... the exception is the chapel, which is remarkable for having furniture and arches! If you could make the rest of the map look like anything approaching that, and try to replace the long blank stretches of running through corridors with something more interesting, this would feel a lot better... The weather today is... chessboard! I don't think the sky is meant to look like that... and you can make the outdoor walls in the graveyard look a lot better by horizontally aligning them ("A" while facing the wall in Doombuilder) - it avoids repeated textures like that. You've got missing textures on the stairs to the BFG plinth (and I don't know what I did to deserve it! It should be much more of a hidden reward, I feel) It looks like you've got the basic of mapmaking, though - doors, switches, and even traps like the red key room! For your next map, I would tighten up the spaces a bit (or a lot), think about how to make them look and play in an interesting way, and try to balance the weapons you're giving out with the monsters the player has to use them on - the BFG here was given out too freely and too late in the map for it to be useful. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP59 - Infested Installation by Flipy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Welcome to Doom mapping! Great start with the view of the building. The interior is pretty good too - you've got some good decoration. The dark grey metallic room on the east side could have done with some more interesting texturing, but the layout of the room itself was good - you have a good sense of how to make a room interesting with multiple levels, I think. The route back from the east side could have done with a few more challenges, it's great that you made a different route back instead of having the player retrace his exact steps but it still felt empty. I like the way you alternate between base and hell environments - a secret cult underneath the building! The super shotgun was well placed on the altar before a fight, and the way that you opened the room up was interesting. I would possibly have made the left switch room more distinct from the right, they feel a little samey and symmetrical as-is. I also appreciate that you separate the enemies between humanlike and demonlike across the environments, though it has the effect of making the human sections very easy. Perhaps it would help to place some enemies so that they can attack you from the side or behind - anywhere that they're not obvious and easy to pick off when you enter a room :) The BFG was given out too freely (although I appreciate it because I hate Pain Elementals) - I would swap the BFG and the plasma rifle so that you have to work for the super-weapon. Great final room (the human side could have done with a bit more texture love, though) and fantastic beginner's map! I'd love to see more from you :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP60 - The Duality by NeuralStunner ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Up until the red door the rooms are interesting-ish, but a bit boxy, with the red key room being the best. The cave is a welcome break from the base scenery by that point, but I was expecting it to be even more interesting - I was anticipating an ambush that never came! Interesting teleporter...? Oh my god it's Silent Hill :D Or Silent Hill if it had a respectable castle aesthetic going on. I'm going to enjoy this. Nice detail with the doors making different noises. I really love exploring all these environments and seeing how they change. And we're at the exiiiioooh no we're not. Bloody Archviles! I'd normally say two is overkill, but I actually managed to get through this fight without dying, so... I don't know. I ran away from the knights in the second round after getting the key. The plasma gun was far too generous, the map is easily completable without it - I would probably have put that in a very guarded secret! This is a great concept and I'd love to see more levels like it :) Maybe adding some more interaction between the two dimensions, with actions in one affecting the other... and I was actually expecting the hell dimension to be even more oppressive. Make the player dread going there but have to do it out of necessity :) I was also very surprised at how generous a portion of the map was behind secrets... the entire lower cave section and about half the dark world, with over 100 monsters left unaccounted for when you go for a normal exit. I'm not sure whether this is good or bad, honestly, but it was... unusual. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP61 - Municipal Well by Flotilla ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The premise of this level is almost identical to a map that I failed to finish for this collection called "Transformtress". In hindsight I'm glad I didn't get far with my own map because this is executed much better than mine :) The escalation is great, first appearing to be an exploration map with a slight lack of detail but gradually connecting all the areas into the central cylinder before finally opening up to reveal the true arena. And the challenges for each switch around the outside are unique - being suddenly stuck in a sub-area with imps raining fireballs down on you, or desperately trying to navigate a maze while Cacodemons are drifting towards you. Great concept and well realized! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP62 - Dropoff by CharlieTheGnarly ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ooh, Super Metroid. Great music for an underground base, though the action doesn't really match it - it sounds more suitable for a dark atmospheric map! The level design is a bit boxy, in the most literal sense - you overrely on crate mazes in the two main rooms. The corridors are actually a lot better, with varied light and dark sections and different textures. Nice unexpected switch effects on the doors between the north room and one of the crate rooms! A basic map but a solid start! Could be an introduction to an episode if you wanted to continue in the same vein :) Try to make your rooms less like boxes with a single feature, experiment with split levels and making your architecture more interesting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP63 - Dimensional Accelerator by Untitled ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Black! Very black. Let's go for "creative idea" for now. Yes, that was interesting in some regards :) The scenery looked good and I liked the secrets, though as I've said before I'm not a great fan of arena maps, and this map is a long string of them. For that reason, I was glad that you didn't lock the doors and you left it up to the player's wits to use the invisiblity and lure the monsters away from the passages to the next area. The high point was the fight against the Spider Mastermind, with you having to run around to make sure you kept your cover up - that was a creative use of scenery that made the fight much less dull than the boss fights can tend to be! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP64 - Urban Hell by ChrisR91 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Again, welcome to Doom mapping! Nice foggy hellish setting, and getting an objective is interesting - let's make a start. Nice use of texturing and sectoring to create the city! The landscape is interesting, though the insides of the buildings can feel a bit sparse - particularly the first one you enter from the starting area, to the right of the lorry dock. The fog and atmosphere is nice, but this suffers a bit from the same problem that city maps in Doom always have - a lack of a sense of direction or clue as to what to do next! It feels a bit empty sometimes - but I should stress that I far prefer this to maps that feel too full. The reliance on human enemies in the buildings can make them a bit too easy. You have some great moments, though, like the dark corridor with the silhouette of the Arch-Vile looming out of it! Hah, and a cutscene to end :) Your mapping skills are stellar especially for a learner! And this map played well enough, but it felt like it was staying below its potential in gameplay... would it be weird if I said that it reminded me of Syphon Filter on the PS1? I think an open-environment map like this could work great with that kind of gameplay, giving the player marked objectives that evolve as the level goes on. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP65 - Electron by FloatRand ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Steady on mate, you've already done two great maps for this pack :) Well, here's a third... Yes, I'll just deal with that Archvile with my pistol and a fruit-knife. Why not. (But then I saw what you were going for! That's a nice little set-piece, having to run away and get tooled up before you open up the door again.) This is a bit beyond my skill level, to be honest, what with the constant monster hordes and Archviles - but your sense of decoration is fantastic and I especially love the blue lights that pulse in sequence. It's like playing Doom in a nightclub. You have an aesthetic and you're not afraid to use it! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP66 - Caco-lover by Everennui ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nice tactic on the music :) I like the visuals - it's a little bit of a different take on a base map with the multi-tiered hallway. And there's also the completely underappreciated "just reach over the barrier and press the switch" solution! Here come the Cacodemons! With a lack of health and firepower this is going to be tricky. Oh, bugger off, Archvile. Either I've done something very wrong or this is very unfair! It's a great and interesting map, but feels unbalanced for a single player against the onslaught - knowing from the intro text that it was intended for co-operative play makes it make a bit more sense. The south room with the brick structure in the middle feels a bit weird and plain compared to the rest of the map. The yellow door near the start is an open-once-only! This is a mapbreaker if you escape via the vent. The messaging around which keys go to which doors is a bit inconsistent - there are coloured stripes around some doors and switches but not others. You made me work to get on to that platform! It took me a couple of tries to work out what the switch did. Bit of a meat-shield corridor after that - the last Mancubus is stuck in the back wall. Where the flaming hell is the blue key? One check of the editor later... wow, that's good but I feel it could have been better hinted. Maybe by making the door to the vent blue as well so that you're forced to find it and can't escape until you do. NICE collapsing bridge! Echoes of Contra :) This was a great-looking and well programmed map but I found it a very frustrating one to play, both in terms of unfair enemies and a confusing layout. I think a couple of tweaks to both, to guide the player better and give them a more... realistic challenge, would do wonders for it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP67 - Brown Mesa by Cheeki ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Happy first complete map! Nice surprise with the monsters spilling out in an apparently deserted room :) I like the clear Episode 1 influence throughout - you emulate its style well and this looks like it could have been an id map despite being your first! Nice secret outside, but glass panes would have looked better than inexplicable invisible walls to prevent the player going outside the obvious way. I was surprised there wasn't anything at the end of the path. Good yellow key trap :) There's a HOM on the south side of the enclosure once it opens. Very slightly misaligned teleporter pad in the maze secret. The maze feels like it goes on a bit too long - switching to a different style (computery more open maze, like in E1M2?) halfway through would have broken it up a bit. I like how it loops back seamlessly to put you back at the beginning with the biosuits without you realizing it. The baron defending the switch a bit later on just soaks up time with the curved corridor providing an easy retreat - releasing a couple of demons would keep the tension going :) Knights are preferred over barons most of the time for being less of a meat shield. A couple of hidden doors (now visible to me with the automap) really feel like they should be counted as secrets (chaingun and blue armour specifically). I would avoid reversing the switch textures without good reason, because it can make it unclear what's been switched and what hasn't. And we're out :) Nice scenery and sense of escape at the end! I found the lack of a trap in the red key room unsettling, and the last fight once you open the red door was nothing to speak of. Nevertheless, this was a great first map, with just a couple of annoyances mentioned above - aesthetically it was great, and it felt gentle to just about right for me. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP68 - Bloody Hell by Wivicer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Vampire-smashing is go again! The very start is a bit of a plain box, but the scenery improves once you're inside with the multi-level ceiling, very much like the Hangar in E1M1 - interesting use of sectors for the sloped door! Nice suddenly bigger room. It could have had a bit more in it, a couple of flying enemies in addition to the chaingunners - and the lift up/down to the slime is too slow! The split door leading to it is great, but the texture you used doesn't look like a door. You could have customized your own with one of the existing door textures :) The decoration is pretty good throughout, actually - nice use of elements to break long walls up and so on. I like the look of the water room beyond the red door - and the horizontal broken door is a nice touch :) It would be nice to have a visual reason why some of the doors can't be opened, even if it's a message saying "This door is operated by a switch". That looks dangerous. I suppose I'm in hell now! This area starts off a little plainer but soon ramps up - the temple looks great and I like the multi-tiered lava environment. This was a nice gentle and well-decorated map, it felt like the start of an episode. At times it felt a bit too empty (but again, I prefer erring on this side to having an outdoor environment with a million monsters coming at you) and there could have been more secrets to reward curious players going down the lava tunnels, for example. But I definitely enjoyed this one :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP69 - A Night at the Opera by Temin_Dump ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hah. Okay :) Brilliant scare right at the start with the mirror! This is a nice concept :) Ever played the opera house level from Tomb Raider 2? The keys standing out against the black and white world feel a bit Wizard of Oz, or maybe Rocky Horror. And... the curtain has risen D: That's a scene I want to stay away from! I was rocket-jumped to the seats by a Revenant! I'm not sure if I was meant to get there, but I appreciate the back sides of the doors being unlocked either way. Got the megasphere, made it to the basement, earthquake and... scene? Confusing but fun map, great idea :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP70 - An Online Virtual Reality Used By Hackers - ShadowHog ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I wonder what other id games you're a fan of :) I was immediately eviscerated by the turbodogs! Those things are tough - and frightening when they leap out at 100mph and capable of doing so much damage so quickly. This map is really impressive architecturally, cramming the layout of a Quake level into Doom and including the 3D lifts, the long drops into caves, and so on - there are a couple of the better of Quake-styled traps as well like the dark fight with the hell knights. It can't have been easy to wrap your head around it, filling the positive space with 3D floors. The keycards don't register with the doors and I noclipped through them! [Edited to add: This was due to loading Smoothdoom, which replaces the keys] The plasma gun feels unnecessary given that it's at the very end of the... oh no. Oh, it's Oremor Nhoj. This, again, is an impressively faithful recreation of one of the rubbishest boss fights in FPS history ;) And you really went the extra mile by redoing the entire interface and sounds! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP71 - BTFS by Gageat ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fantastic space-themed map :) Escalates well, without being too simple or too hard, and great detailing - I especially liked the lighting in the vents. The way you used locked doors to route the player around to where they needed to go next was great as well. I liked the change of scenery with the teleport to the infested ship. One minute until...? WHO DESIGNED THIS Good boss fight, though :) I appreciated the Archvile with the transparent pillar, so you could see what it was doing! The route back to the helm was a bit uneventful, even with the injection of another Archvile into the bridge. But otherwise this was great! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP72 - The Runaround by LogicalFallacy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nice concept for a map, slowly climbing up the central chamber to give a sense of progression! I would possibly have made that even more grandiose, open to the sky and even taller to give it more significance. I think it would also have been good if the chambers were attached instead of separate, so that there was a physical sensation of climbing as well. The arenas outside the central chamber are OK but a bit boxy and plain in places, especially the three or four basically repeated L-shaped rooms. Suspicious generosity... and yes, there's the boss :) It isn't a bad map but kind of plain - more flavour and more interesting challenges for the player would make this idea shine :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ MAP73 - Attack from Within by Mumblemumble ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I actually started this map a few times at the end of a run of maps before deciding that I wasn't ready to make that sort of commitment ;) The enemy count and the start makes it seem very daunting - though I enjoyed the challenge of holding one or both doors closed to fend off the invasion while I got my bearings. Five Nights at Flynn Taggart's? This is an okay slaughtermap although it felt like it could have been more interesting in places (perhaps my opinion is coloured by my being a bit fatigued by this point, after 71 other maps!) There's an overreliance on crates - one room full of them would have been okay but they feature quite heavily in other ones as well, particularly the annoying corridor where hell's creatures have set up a sort of slalom driving test course on the way out. The frequent giving out of megaspheres and blue armour seems like a brute-force way to balance the map, as if admitting that you have to give the player an excess of resources to just keep plugging away at the overwhelming opposition. I liked some of the details like the locked shipping container in the crate room, and the map definitely started and ended on high notes, with a memorable starting room and an arena that was a bit different to finish off with. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SECRET1 - SILVERSATELLITE by DudeDesigns ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG Turn that racket down! Well, it definitely shows that it was made within an hour but what's there works well enough. Three tiny little arena challenges and then some demons only visible when shot as a boss - it could have been more challenging if they were spread around the room (with an introduction that they're there somehow) and not in a tiny box and easily picked off. It doesn't matter in a tiny map like this, but using the key colour strips on doors where you get the key rather than doors that require the key is unnecessarily confusing! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SECRET2 - Knee-Deep in the DUMP by MJ79 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This music is doing weird things to my brain! Was Megalovania always this similar to At Doom's Gate? I've no idea any more. So welcome to Doom mapping - it's great that this project can encourage more people to try it out :) It looks like you've been experimenting here and everything works the way it should, so here are some tips to improve things: Try to avoid changing floor and ceiling textures without also changing the sector height (e.g. stairs, or differences in the ceiling) - it stops the map from having floors and ceilings that weirdly blend into each other. You can set doors into the walls a little to prevent them being flush with the walls and taking up the whole of the floor-to-ceiling height of the room (use three thin sectors side by side - open up an early id map to take a look at how it's done there - you do this with the "secret" door) Vary the size of your rooms a lot more - the map here was meant to be claustrophobic, but being deliberately claustrophobic doesn't necessarily equate to being a good map :) You could have some hints of larger rooms even if they're inaccessible, get the player to squeeze through vents, and so on... make the map more varied than a series of interconnected rooms that are all about the same size and shape. Hide your secrets - a door leading to a room isn't a secret ;) Use a section of wall that's a bit different from the others, or has the trim in the wrong place... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SECRET3 - The Best Map by TerminusEst13 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hah :) Funny little scenario (and accidentally a minimalist version of MAP63 Dimensional Accelerator!) - I liked the flustered switch messages. I know I got through it once but subsequent attempts just left me dying around the skull switch - perhaps just blind luck of the random number generator. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SECRET4 - Box Simple by Redead-ITA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have no idea what to say about this map. It looks like Dead Simple just after having been delivered from IKEA with the packaging left on. I suspect it was intentionally a bit rubbish, but the ping-pong path in the centre areas are dull, as is the literal copy and paste of the second half of the map! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SECRET5 - Escape Plan by Anonymous ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Help. This map plays by no rules! Also the music has restarted and has gone mental and I'm scared. I can't give any advice to this map, it's completely indescribable. Well, maybe a bit - the possibility of a more adventure-style Doom game is an interesting one, but I would hope that a real map would be hinted a bit better than this! You have to search a corpse with no indication that it's a possibility, and you can dead-end yourself with the Cyberdemon without realizing it - I initially thought that it was something immensely clever like having to make his rockets hit the panel to open it. And then... crushing ceiling that you escape by just going to bed? I don't know any more. I need a drink. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SECRET6 - Real is Shit by Deviluke Roy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The first couple of rooms of this are nice and set up a good atmosphere, but then it's let down by every area being absolutely massive! The walk to the blue key and back is ludicrous, as is the red key corridor and the size of the arena that you find a bit later with a couple of marines in it... to improve this map, I would probably entirely replace the red and blue paths with smaller routes with more interesting scenery - some corners to hide behind, more use of vertical space - and cut out about seven eighths of the dead space that the map has currently. The use of the railgun is also a bit cheap!