[map release] No Rockets For You

[wildweasel]

http://www.box.net/shared/6t2rp3pt2m

Here's a Boom-compatible map I just finished making. Single player or co-op compatible, no new textures or additional resources. Tell me whatcha think.

[chronoteeth]

the theme bounces around a lil' bit, but its a solid map through and through.

[Phobus]

Its pretty good I couldn't work out how to get into the fourth secret secret, and the yellow key door teleport didn't do anything for me, but otherwise it all seemed in order. Here's a more detailed breakdown:

The Good:

-Music choice was nice
-Detailing was ample, although perhaps not spectacular
-Texture alignment and choices were generally good. Few little issues here and there, but thats forgiveable
-Health balance was good, with the secrets that I did find taking the edge off of the difficulty on UV
-Ammo was plentiful, which is pretty much a standard for Doom maps
-Nice use of height variation, multiple paths and small puzzles to help keep things interesting
-The staircase with all the zombiemen was pretty cool
-You had secrets. I like secrets as long as they're optional and not all obvious (which you pulled off well!)
-It was fun to play for a quick blast through (about 5 or so minutes for me I believe)
-Overall the level looked good and played well. There's better maps, yes, but there are far more that are worse

The Bad:

-Plasma gun didn't really seem necessary at all
-There was a distinct lack of traps, although the height variation and reasonable layout did help to keep fights interesting
-The secret in the BROWNGRN corridor/stairwell bit was completely transparant, except for on the map.
-The room after the aforementioned corridor had no way to get stuck amongst the monsters, meaning you had to clear the room from the corridor, which felt a bit slow compared to the rest of the map
-The shotgunners on that tall staircase were stuck in the steps at points due to being placed directly on the line between the two.
-The cave section felt a bit weak compared to the techbase areas
-I'm sure barrels are affected by crushers really, as I've run all manner of vanilla wads in ZDoom and had the barrels explode when expected

So overall, good job. Could use a few traps, but was otherwise good for a first map. Nice work

EDIT: Just checked in the map editor. The secret I missed is just well hidden. However, the yellow key room teleporter that didn't go anywhere actually doesn't go anywhere. It's tagged for tag 25, which doesn't exist.

[Ixnatifual]

It suffers a bit from the "room, corridor, room, corridor, room" syndrome, and I'd have liked more height variation in individual areas (most height variation is found in the area transitions here, except for the first room). But otherwise I agree with previous comments. Not bad for a first map at all. I found a place where the doortrak texture wasn't lower unpegged. I believe it was the door leading into the Plasma Gun room. I'd have no issue with the Plasma Gun or the Super Shotgun being removed. I played through it on HMP which I found very easy. Managed to find one of the secrets although I wasn't really looking for them much. I thought the many computer screen setups were quite clever.

[Xaser]

Hehe, not bad at all! The computers were interesing -- all the detailing was, I must admit -- and it played very well. I do have a couple of things to point out, but one's been mentioned and the other's very minor anyway.

It suffers a bit from the "room, corridor, room, corridor, room" syndrome...

This is true, though this kind of thing is easiily remedied by having rooms interconnect more -- use windows to link rooms together visually, or have a single room with multiple height levels you return to multiple times. These kind of things help the map feel more connected as a whole.

One more trick is to learn to use the Secret and Hidden linedef flags to control the automap display a bit. A couple of secret areas (the shotgun in the 2nd room, for instance) were completely given away by lack of Secret flag and the window outside the start should probably have the outside walls flagged as "Hidden" so the illusion isn't ruined. Doom's E1 did this kind of stuff well.

That's about it. Keep it up, I say! You're progressing very well.

[Enjay]

I liked it. I didn't think that the theme was particularly inconsistent, nor did I think that it was too room-corridor-room. It's quite "old school" in style but the various areas were done entertainingly enough and there was a bit of choice over what order to do things in.

My gripes... the narrow staircase - there was a hell knight at the top of it and I kept getting caught on the sides of the restricted corridor when trying to avoid its attacks. In fact, that's where I took most of my damage.

Near the exit, there is a yellow key door and inside it is... a non functioning teleport? Is that correct?

[wildweasel]

I liked it. I didn't think that the theme was particularly inconsistent, nor did I think that it was too room-corridor-room. It's quite "old school" in style but the various areas were done entertainingly enough and there was a bit of choice over what order to do things in.

My gripes... the narrow staircase - there was a hell knight at the top of it and I kept getting caught on the sides of the restricted corridor when trying to avoid its attacks. In fact, that's where I took most of my damage.

Yeah, that staircase was kind of thrown together, I mainly just put it there to look cool and it is a bit too narrow...thankfully, I relented on my first choice, which was to leave the hell knight at the bottom of those two staircases.

Near the exit, there is a yellow key door and inside it is... a non functioning teleport? Is that correct?

Yeah, that's a mistake. I pasted that section from an older unfinished map of mine, and forgot to change/remove that portion.

[Pisstepank]

I finished it and its a very nice map ! and nice music choice !
i hope im gonna see more maps by you !

[wildweasel]

Just realized I forgot to credit the source of my MIDI music: the song is Star.MID and I found it bundled with a BeOS application called BeTheme. Unaware of the author, nor why the MIDI was included in a theming program...

[Matt]

Nice! A bit on the easy side but still pretty fun.

Some comments...

• I like the overall detail level... keeps it feeling Doom-like without looking dated on the one end, or on the other creating all sorts of little things like getting stuck on a piece of wire while creeping along a wall.
• Was the starting chaingun really necessary, given there's a chaingun guy so early on where it is so easy to avoid his attack?
• I never took any damage from the knight, but that might be related to having found the first secret. Staying in the stairwell there while slowly wearing the enemy away wasn't exactly the funnest part of the map though.
• Keep the non-functioning teleports and the plasma gun, they're great little touches of verisimilitude.
• That said, the plasma gun could've been a revenant teleporter trap.

Gotta try this with one of your mods (or HD ) later...


EDIT: Just tried with HD. The demon/stairwell area is a lot more intense when the demons can actually run down there to get you. Lots of subtle LOS things that make the fights challenging but not unmanageabl--OH GOD THERE'S SO MANY OF THEM ::no time to reload, frantic switch to empty weapon, dead:: Was nice to see the chaingun be useful for once though.

EDIT2: Just tried with Diaz. The balance is almost perfect - if the demons were able to run down the corridor it might well get rid of the almost.